'Stretcher-bearers': (5) Early exercises and an exam

For almost a year now the Field Ambulance unit to which I have been posted (223) has been working with feverish activity on anything we can be found to do. Its record is blameless, completely insignificant and similar to that of other units confined to the British Isles.
We have been constructing Britain's "Third Line of Defence" using steel rams, shaped like inverted golf bags with handles attached, to construct anti-tank traps. Four men to each ram, we have hammered large wooden stakes into the vertical side of tank traps. In theory German tanks will become stuck in them.
We leave camp every day about 6.30 a.m. and have a short break at about 10 a.m., when the Church of England and Church of Scotland mobile canteens serve refreshments, "char and wads". Since the Church of Scotland charges only one halfpenny for tea, but it is one penny for CEs, conversion to Presbyterianism is rife.
We have also "knocked and topped" sugar beet in Suffolk, detached as farm labourers. While the RAF has been fighting the Battle of Britain in the skies above, the army below has drilled, route-marched, manoeuvred and achieved remarkable fitness through instruction in PE, cross country running and games with other teams in the locality. (Epping).
Our colonel has captained the unit Rugby team. This has brought about changes in fortune, both desirable and undesirable.
During a practice in loading stretchers on to ambulances "by numbers" in the middle of the camp, the bugle sounded for lunch and we knocked off. The sergeant in charge however detailed me to look after four stretchers and a Thomas's splint. Accordingly I mounted duty over the objects, but on reflection concluded that nobody of sound mind would purloin items dumped in the middle of an army camp, so I doubled off to the cookhouse and snatched a hurried first course before returning to duty. The ruse discovered, I was marched capless under escort before our Rugbyphile C.O. He immediately declared "Case dismissed.". We had a fixture the following day.
Justice were restored when two heads collided during a tackle on the Rugby pitch. My cheek bone snapped. My mouth refused to open. The result was a fortnight in a hospital at Hitchen where Barts Hospital had taken over, since London was being regularly blitzed. Here I was, a complete fraud, wearing blue hospital uniform and a red tie, and gaining free admission to cinemas.
The surgical ward was filled with genuine war casualties and several airmen had sustained appalling facial burns.
In those days, surgeons did not address patients. Instead, they conferred with their medical retinue. The surgeon who had reset my fractured cheek bone (zygoma) told them, as I pricked up my ears, that he was not completely satisfied. All the same, I was perfectly happy and could now eat again.
As an army greenhorn, I had not yet mastered the art of "skiving" (swinging the lead) and was completely hoodwinked when the unit was invited to take part in a trial brigade cross-country run. At school in Wales our Rugby team had regular weekly cross- country training races, when I was lucky to come back among in the first ten, so I was mightily surprised to finish third for the unit. The explanation was simple. Those who found physical exertion taxing dropped out into a ditch some 200 yards from the start; others ran to earth in alocal hostelry a little further on.
Our Commanding Officer selected the first six for the brigade race. We found ourselves with 84 other runners in the middle of a ploughed field where a brigadier was standing holding a walking stick in both hands above his head.
"When I drop my stick you run like hell!", he bawled. He did not indicate in which direction, but that made no difference. Our best runner came in 33rd out of 90. I was a poor 46th, utterly worn out, suspecting that about half the field had already dropped out.
Worse was to follow when our unit moved north to Ripon. A new major joined us, passionately eager to transform us into a Commando unit. Anyone could have told him that we lacked the potential, but he must have prevailed upon the commanding officer because a notice was posted that volunteers were required to march ten miles in less than two hours wearing full marching order.
On the day fixed for this lunacy the men had separated into two sections; those opting for fatigues, which included washing up the cold skin and bone of a herring breakfast, and the rest choosing the march. Without any trouble the major had secured his squad. On parade we numbered 26. The major brought with him an officer friend.
There was no hurry to fill the leading ranks in the column of route three abreast and I found myself in the third row. However, there was some scrimmaging to win places at the rear of the column.
We set off at a jog-trot, imitating long-distance professional walkers, the major exhorting us to "Keep it up, chaps!"
That was all very well, but, as we drew out upon the A 5 (no motorways then and little traffic, owing to petrol rationing,) we noticed a steep gradient ahead. "Look down", roared the major, half turning round. This was reasonable advice. We peered down at our toe-caps and pretended not to notice the gradient.
We were all panting now and wondering when the idiot would call off the project. No such luck. Sweat poured down from under our steel helmets as we trudged on.
We had covered less than half the distance when I realised that the fortissimo tramping behind me, had died away. Too late, I guessed that the rear had voted with their feet. They would be hitch-hiking back.
Just 11 of the original 26 completed the march - in 1 hour 47 minutes. Caesar himself might have been pleased with this forced march, but I was resolved to leave the next voluntary enterprise to others.
The two officers immediately left for their hot baths. We "got fell out" and washed under cold water taps in the "abolutions".
(Postscript. Within a week the major disappeared. He may have become a true commando. More probably, our CO had him certified.)
After one dismal manoeuvre, during which we spent the night cooped up in a 30 cwt lorry until reveille at 4.15 a.m., I arrived back at camp to find a half-dead mouse sitting on my pile of blankets. It had gnawed its way through my palliasse. While I was wondering how to deal with it, one of the camp dogs rushed in and killed it.
Shortly afterwards I applied at the Orderly Room for training with a view to sitting the Nursing Orderly Class II examination. Passing this would mean an additional sixpence per day. The application was turned down summarily.
Two weeks later a notice appeared on daily orders that there would be training at Gipping Hospital (Ipswich General Hospital) for men requiring advancement to N.O.II. A few of us replied, but nothing happened.
Another two weeks later, when Captain. Peak was commenting on our ignorance during a stock lecture on "Bones" - we were force fed with "Bones" lectures which began to stick in our metaphorical gullets - I complained that we had applied for training. without success. He sympathised with our cause and, at the beginning of April, six of us left to train at Ipswich General Hospital.
The start of our "intensive" training was not auspicious. Two of us were detailed to report to Ward 8 where we were handed white gowns, given heavy sweepers and ordered to "bump" (sweep and polish ) the ward floor.
Fine feathers do not inevitably make fine birds and we feel pretty small. The patients are not used to orderlies. We amuse them. The nurses like having their heavy work done gratis, but we are neither doctors nor commissioned officers and therefore too menial to date.
One day two of us are told to take over duties in the theatre. We consider this promotion. At least it marks a change. Now, instead of bumping floors, we wash operating room walls.
Thomas, a builder's labourer before the war, mounts a step ladder and cleans from about 6 feet up as far as the operating room ceiling. I start lower down and bend double to clean the lower regions. Together we are fighting bacteria, millions of them, with ether soap and Dettol.
After the walls we clean lights, after lights operating room stools; after stools gloves , after gloves we sterilise instruments, and by that time we have thought of questions to ask the next surgeon.
Thomas had a thrill today. Stuart, the surgeon, had just opened his patient's abdominal wall when suddenly blood spurted out. He had to select a reliable assistant in this emergency and chose Thomas. Turning to him he said, "I say, old man, would you mind turning up my trousers?"
Stuart finished the operation like a paddler at the seaside.
Experience gained in the operating theatre was invaluable training for dealing with battle casualties to come. The secret was to concentrate on being a member, however insignificant, of a team, and to find something to do. In less than three weeks we were able to watch hernia operations, the removal of prostate glands, treatment for varicose veins, rectal abscesses and the amputation of a leg - without needing assistance ourselves.
We were recalled to Epping camp to sit the exam after being offered a meal of lukewarm stew on cold tin plates. Those of us who wished to pass the exam ate little.
The Sergeant Major, appeared and immediately conscripted some of us for the sports to be held the following day. Then we sat down at tables in the dining room while Major S. read through some of the questions to be answered in writing, giving the impression that he intended to push as many through as possible. Yes. We could have as much time as we wished to answer the paper. No. He did not want any detailed answers. Yes. All of us should pass.
Encouraged by these kindly exhortations, we began writing and soon Aneurin and Willis were audible as they cheated at the back table. This proved distracting, as also did the "B" company corporal, who was combining the post of invigilator with that of professional tipster.
After a short while men were called away for an oral examination and some practical bed making. I was in the middle of describing the circulatory system when QMS Quarter Master Sergeant Dicefore summoned me for the oral. Our only misunderstanding arose when perhaps he thought he might trick me into saying that a urinometer should be lodged under the tongue in the same fashion as in the clinical thermometer. He seemed surprised and a little put out that I had tested urine and hastily changed the subject when I was in the throes of describing how to test urine for sugar.
With regard to practical bed-making, by the time I reached Sgt. Jones, i/c beds, he was sick of the sight of them. My fever bed remained unmade.
We came second in the Sports Day relay.
Most of us passed the N.O. II examination. Gage and I celebrated the good news by being ordered to clean latrine seats and the buckets below then.
In the afternoon we scrubbed dixie lids with sand so that they could be put away polished.
Next morning we polished more buckets. In the afternoon we walked brazenly out of camp without being challenged, bought some apples and returned refreshed.
* * *
My father died suddenly in April, 1941. He was only 59, but as Head Postmaster at Cardiff had experienced a taxing time during the night bombing of that city, when he was involved in organising fire-fighting operations at the sorting office.
Some time before his death I had applied to be posted to another unit, being told that hospital ships needed men. The answer given was that these ships did not accept those physically classified as grade 1. I did not believe this. However, owing to my mother's situation, I decided to abandon further applications for the time being. In any case, our Field Ambulance might be moved abroad at any time.
My first true medical post required little initiative. There were no rival candidates for it. I was despatched to a private house at Little Beelings and made a first acquaintance with crabs, not the rock pool species, but body lice, tiny miniatures of remarkably crablike shape.
Treatment was basic and very simple. You half filled a bath with hot water and stirred in generous helpings of benzyl benzoate. You then asked the patient to take off all clothing, which you held between thumb and finger at arms length and then thrust into a disinfesting box which you heated to exterminate all living creatures.
There were men suffering from various other diseases in this small private house, known locally as the Skin Hospital. Most in the vicinity wisely gave it a wide berth. I was therefore surprised one day when "Chicky", chicken pox patient, told me that an officer had just called when I was on one of the wards. He had "seemed concerned " said Chicky, so I ran down the road after him and catching him up, saw that he was a bomb-disposal officer.
"Look here, old boy," he greeted me in blase fashion. "You know about that thousand pound bomb dropped on the barn here last night?" I nodded.
"Well, our fellows didn't put in a large enough charge for it and we can't get at it now because it's red hot. But tell the gentleman I saw this morning that we shall set it orf any time within the next 96 hours. Cheerio, Cheerio!"
I did look for the gentleman officer patient, without success. The bomb disposal officer successfully detonated the bomb next day. The explosion rocked the houses and broke some panes of glass, but the incident was not so worrying as was the raid two nights before. To mix metaphors, the "hot potato" turned out to be a damp squib, after all.

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