To War With The Bays: 21 - The Coast Road
...I will never forget the day I was wheeled on a stretcher into that ward. The 'ward' was a big marquee, and to me it looked like heaven. Bright, cheerful, flowers on the tables, and the sister was the nearest thing to an angel that one could imagine. Her name was Sister Furnival. How old she was I don't know. I was twenty-three and at that age anyone over thirty is old, but I would guess she was somewhere around forty. She was one of the most wonderful people I have ever met...
Having been badly wounded when a shell hit his tank during a battle in the North African desert, Jack Merewood is taken to a hospital 70 miles east of Cairo.
For earlier chapters of Jack's engrossing story please click on To War With The Bays in the menu on this page.
The coast road at last! We headed east. It was nearing daylight and soon ahead of us was a casualty clearing station. This was one of many temporary units set up to deal with wounded soldiers who would be on their way, eventually, to a permanent hospital.
This C.C.S. was a South African unit, and the men there were absolutely
marvellous. I asked one of them about the German in our ambulance. He told me not to worry about him. He had died during the night.
I'd had a piece of shrapnel - which I'd pulled out - stuck in my left cheek, just below my eye. Another piece had cut my right temple, and they put stitches in this. Yet another piece had gone in my left wrist and was sticking out of the other side; they took this out too. My right arm was also cut, but none of these things bothered me as much as my leg, which was very painful.
They bandaged me up, but didn't attempt to do anything with my leg. Later in the day I was on my way to another C.C.S. where the wounds were dressed, then another C.C.S., and another, and another, and five days after being wounded arrived at the railway station at Mersa Matruh in Egypt. From there I went by hospital train to a hospital near Ismalia, about seventy miles east of Cairo.
I will never forget the day I was wheeled on a stretcher into that ward. The 'ward' was a big marquee, and to me it looked like heaven. Bright, cheerful, flowers on the tables, and the sister was the nearest thing to an angel that one could imagine. Her name was Sister Furnival. How old she was I don't know. I was twenty-three and at that age anyone over thirty is old, but I would guess she was somewhere around forty. She was one of the most wonderful people I have ever met.
I was given a bath, then five days' growth of beard was shaved off by an old Arab with a cutthroat razor. I suppose there were about twenty beds in the ward. I was one of the first casualties to come in from the fighting, and I got on really well with everybody. Everyone was so kind and helpful. There were other sisters besides Sister Furnival, and all were marvellous.
I wasn't feeling too well, and after a couple of days' rest was taken to the X-ray department where they found I had some shrapnel in my thigh. On Thursday, 4 June, the surgeon told me they were going to operate next Monday, when my leg had settled down a bit. On Sunday they decided not to do the operation next day as my leg was 'unsettled'.
Things were pretty painful, and I had trouble sleeping. They took the stitches out of my head, my leg was dressed daily, but it was Thursday, 18 June, before they finally did the operation. I have those dates in my diary, but didn't write in it again until the 27th, when I did my best to bring it up to date.
They had taken two pieces of shrapnel out of my leg, one of them measuring well over an inch across, and a smaller piece, and they gave them to me as souvenirs. The small piece I lost, but I still have the other. And another piece too - left in my leg, which they must have overlooked.
I was very ill after the operation and had to have a blood transfusion. I then became delirious and came round to find what seemed like the rest of the army holding me down. My Commanding Officer wrote to my parents and told them I had been wounded and that a blood transfusion had saved my life. I couldn't eat. My legs were like matchsticks, and I thought I'd never be able to walk again.
The sister tried to tempt me. 'Is there anything at all you would like?' she asked.
'Yorkshire pudding,' I said.
She left, and it wasn't long before she came back with a plate with a cover on it. And underneath the cover? Yorkshire pudding! She had got it from the officers' mess. She brought me ice-cream, lemonade. . . . With this sort of care and understanding I slowly improved.
During the time in hospital I had lots of mail. Some days I had little interest in reading the letters, but as I got better it was marvellous to go through them all. One day I got a wonderful parcel from Cape Town, listed in my diary are some of the contents: '... tins of fruit, custard powder, milk, coffee, six tubes of 'Lifesavers', shaving stick, four books, 160 cigarettes, razor blades, cotton, needles, socks, comb, [a comb! only a small item but how I needed one]. What a parcel! How could I ever thank them?
