'Stretcher-bearers': (!8) From Sicily to Italy - and back again, sick

A week after the ending of hostilities in Sicily battle casualties no longer arrived at our MDS, so we were given orders to take over a malaria hospital at Carlentini, some 30 miles from Syracuse. Here we received some 200 patients from an Indian division. The place was in a filthy condition, probably caused by the aftermath of battle, and there was a shortage of rations.
Soon the number of patients increased to 400 and we were very busy for a week The treatment itself was simple, a fixed course of mepacrine, quinine and plasmaquine.
"A" company was then sent to start a hospital at Acireale, on the east coast north of Catania. The commanding officer had commandeered a nunnery for this purpose and we spent a feverish 24 hours equipping it with beds before the first patients arrived. Then, the very next day, after admitting patients, we were ordered to close the place. When we asked our sergeant what on earth was the reason , he produced his stock answer for such occasions, which were quite frequent, "Nobody tells me what's going on around here."
We moved next day to Patti, spending one night on the road at Messina. Patti was well situated on the north coast of Sicily and we took two early morning bathes, but, after a heavy boosting dose of quinine, I began to feel ill.
One day the ADMS (Assistant Director, Medical Services), happened to be motoring through Patti in a beflagged staff car which received no salute from our men. The ADMS banished us next day to a lonely mountain area near Funari. Here we also incurred the wrath of our company commander who claimed that we had shown signs of restlessness when he had arrived ten minutes late to inspect us. For this bad behaviour we were all, except officers, sent out hill-climbing that evening "to toughen you," Some failed to complete the climb and Jos Thomas, in tackling a steep rock-face, was struck by stones dislodged by the man above him. He sustained a jagged cut on the head.
The next day I felt ill and had a restless night, breaking into sweating bouts. Next day I could eat nothing and even the smell of tea nauseated me. My urine had turned dark orange.
Rumour had it that we might be crossing over the Italy within a few days, so I lounged around half dead to the world and intensely irritated by the most harmless enquiries about my health. I moved away from the company and pitched my mosquito net by a lone olive tree.
Eventually I had to report sick. The MO said that I might be in the first stages of catarrhal jaundice, alias infective hepatitis, but was uncharacteristically in such a jocular mood, cracking jokes humorous to himself alone. I must have been in a bad way!
That same evening we were told to be ready for departure from Sicily the next morning.
I had barely strength to pack up my equipment, but decided against reporting sick again.
We reached our embarkation station at Messina about 3 p.m., after driving some 40 miles. A long wait followed while lorries lined up for invasion barges to ferry us across the Straits of Messina. 78 Division had not made the initial invasion of Italy, so we there was no danger.
It was roughly 5 p.m. when we were directed to another embarkation point farther along the shore. That move cost us literally to "miss the boat."
During the long wait I called in at a conveniently placed CCS, received some magnesium sulphate and lay down under a tree..
At 7 p.m. the last barge left for Italy, leaving our lorry and others stranded on the shore at Messina. Our party set about finding rations, which eventually materialised. We then dropped into the CCS and brewed our tea. Some of us still could not face anything to eat or drink, but I found a freshly disinfested mattress in the CCS and slumped down fully clothed to pass another feverish night.
At 6 a.m. the rest had breakfast, before an invasion barge ferried us over to the Italian mainland near Reggio. The entire crossing took just half an hour. I remembered to look out for Scylla and Charybdis, but did not see either.

Next morning I called at a mobile MI room, which was in fact one of the ambulances and an MO diagnosed catarrhal jaundice and told me to report again when we reached our final destination.
Next day I reported to a newly erected MDS tent where Dunderdale of 11 Field Ambulance HQ was already bedded down. He too had jaundice. We had not been there long before we were told to move into another tent and then a third. We were becoming a nuisance to one and all
In the early afternoon news came that the unit was moving again. We packed our kit once more and sat on it, ready to push it into an ambulance, but at 7 p.m. the move was cancelled. We erected sand-fly nets from the nearest trees and flopped into bed.
Next morning we could still face no food, but were on the move again and arrived at a large school in Barletta which Jerry had evacuated the night before without carrying out any demolition . Our unit converted this into a temporary hospital and our now growing "yellow brigade" was moved upstairs and we soon settled down comfortably on stretchers.
It was now that 11 Field Ambulance showed up well. The orderlies washed our floor. The MO arranged a fat free diet for us and fluids +++, procuring lemonade and barley water. Considering that the unit had only just crossed into Italy and had little time to organise in new surroundings, we had no reason to complain.
Two days later our field ambulance had to move up. By now our numbers with jaundice had increased.
Our colonel looked into our ward before leaving and promised that he would apply for our return if we wished to rejoin the unit. We were impressed by this kindness and all at that time expressed a desire to return.
That same afternoon ."X"..CCS took over from our unit and produced two meals. The only medical treatment offered was when a nursing sister asked whether anyone needed an "arseperin". To be fair, most of us wanted nothing.
The following evening another sister poked her head into our ward and enquired whether anyone would like an aperient. Apparently the treatment was aspirins every other night, with a few grains of calomel thrown in. If we could not be cured, our bowels at least would perform with clockwork regularity
An MO appeared and Thomas, now looking distinctly Chinese, asked, Oliver-wise, for more fluids and a fat-free diet. The MO said that there might be some lemonade in the cookhouse, but it did not appear. As a parting shot the MO told us to pack our kit and move over to tents across a meadow. He had just marked our medical cards which were fastened round our necks with the words "Evacuation Lying."
In the tents we came under the care of a relief section of 152 Field Ambulance. Despite a sudden downpour that partially flooded the tent, they gave us special beef tea and extra jam, before evacuating us to an empty school half a mile away.
Next morning we were taken back some 30 miles down the line to another CCS. This establishment was already overcrowded, so they placed us on stretchers in a corridor and gave us tea without milk (fat free) and our first white bread for several weeks. A friendly sister was interested in where we had been serving.
Next day we were wakened at 5 a.m. and told that we were going to be evacuated by air back to Sicily. Breakfast consisted of tea and two slices of bread and jam. By now, after fasting for days, I was becoming ravenous.
Lorries whisked us off to an aerodrome where a large Douglas plane was being prepared for us. We now numbered 24. We filed in, bag and baggage, taxied across the aerodrome and made a good take-off.

Observations made later in Sicily and later still. "Of course in wartime men suffering from sickness and disease are a thorough nuisance, unlike the wounded who deserve and usually receive first class attention. In the worst stages of the disease we became extremely irritable, but, as soon as recovery started, a great joie de vivre set in and with it an insatiable appetite.
What I have written above does not take into consideration that battle casualties must have been expected, so spaces had to be kept for them
Both malaria and infective hepatitis took a heavy toll. Even before the epidemic of summer, 1943, infective hepatitis in the Western Desert up to El Alamein, caused some 1,465 men to be hospitalised. More, the brunt fell most heavily on front-line troops, 221 officers and 1,244 men. The gravity of the situation' lay not so much in the numbers of men affected as in the length of time they were off duty'. 60% of these were in hospital between 11 and 20 days."
(The substance and analysis of the previous paragraph are drawn from an article in the British Medical Journal of June 7th, 1958. I am particularly grateful to Dr. J.S.Rivers, one of the three contributors of the article, for drawing my attention to it.)

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