THE THEATRE PARTY

Dear Old Bill,

Have been lying awake for hours, so it seems. Have you ever noticed how you get bubbles in your think-tank when you cannot sleep? Well, that’s how it is with me tonight and I remember the note I owe you. The Sister is down at the other end of the ward, snugly tucked in her chair before the fire, and seems (Note, I say seems) snoozing, with a pleasant smile on her face, and this dim religious light has got into my veins, so here goes for my thinks and impressions since I have arrived in this hospital.

Some time ago, when I first came in, the Sister came round, and asked me all kinds of questions: Name, rank, regiment, and religion. This is about the fifth time this has happened since I left the Dardees, and I have always noticed they make a point of the religion part of it. She was nice and pretty, so said I was Church of England – not that it matters much of course, but just to please her – and then several others buzzed round, and eventually the doctor came along. He started by asking personal questions, but you couldn’t resent it. He’s a sport, and a bit of style, too. It is surprising the rigmarole some of these chaps can write up on your sheet just about a small bullet hole. Well, after I’d told this guy all my personal history, he just says, “Oh, Captain O___ will see you,” and takes up my board and writes “Porridge, cocoa, and eggs.” I thought this was all I was going to get, but found out these were wartime extras. You would have thought he would have shouted me a bottle of beer, or some invalid port, at least, after the dry time we’ve had. But then it’s a crime here at present to shout a pal. More wartime economy. Then away he went, the Sister tracking after him, like a lost calf following its mother.

Then one of the “Heads” come along – or so I guessed, for the Sister frowned and shished to lads who were playing cards, and each trying to do the other for his supply of fags. Silence: the lads tip-toed to their beds, and stood as if on parade. Sick men – that tickled me. He sails along to me, with a long-lost-pal air about him, and says, quite homelike (but in a real gussy voice), “Well, my lad, what’s the trouble?” I could see he meant business, so I up and shows him my leg. Takes a good look, screws his Charlie Chaplin little mow up and says, “Hum!” professional like, but it don’t tell you anything. He turns to the Sister with a sweet smile, and says: “Send him to the Theatre on Friday.”

Gee! That sounded good to me. After six months playing tiggy with the Turks, I saw a treat in store. But the chap next door to me gave me a horrible shock when he told me this meant he was going to operate. This was his little joke. That was on Tuesday. Well, Thursday arrived, and instead of giving one jolly good feed to buck one up for the coming event, they gave me a cup of milk and a wafer of bread and butter, and at bedtime some castor oil as a night-cap, which was most effective.

Next morning, after breakfast – I mean breakfast-time, because I didn’t get any, and I could have eaten a horse, or a tin of bully beef – two chaps in night-gowns came in with a stretcher on miniature bike wheels. I climbed on, and off we went to the “Theatre,” the old cart creaking and crackling as if it enjoyed the joke too. I felt pretty happy also, and was enjoying the ‘bus ride as much as the two “Lady Janes” pushing it. Besides, I got several “glad eyes” on the way. It would do your heart good to see some of the Peaches and Cream floating round the place, but mostly they don’t forget the label. Keep off the grass. Wow wow! Should you attempt to step over the border, you are threatened with “D” ward, where all naughty boys are sent.

Finally we arrived. A milk-white room, the walls, ceiling and all, shining as if dozens of tins of polish had been wasted on them. Would have loved to have rubbed my hand on them; it would be as good as feeling a block of ice, they looked so smooth. Then Charlie Chaplin came along, dressed like a barber prepared for a gas attack, and ordered me to jump off the stretcher. Fancy, jump! – another of his little jokes. Then suddenly the curtain went up, so to speak, and nurses, doctors, orderlies, etc., etc., appeared from nowhere, likewise attired for a gas attack. Once more I clambered on to the stretcher. Charlie’s pal sounded the depth of my heart, and clapped a funnel, or a kind of dog muzzle over my mouth, and says, silly like, “Close your eyes and go to sleep.” Sleep – and I was just getting interested and a smile from a young thing near by! Well, to please him I shut my eyes. Then he says, “Breathe,” as if I could help breathing. Some chaps do say silly things, and the smell – it was just like all the smells in a chemist’s shop run into one. “Take a big breath,” and when I did, oh, help! I thought I was going to burst; and the next ….. Gee! ___ Then I heard them whispering a long way away – felt someone pinch my eye – then I am off to sleep….

Started to dream. I was in a boat, gliding along, and without having to do any work, and so gentle. It started to rise up – up, until it got clean out of the water. But I couldn’t stand up or do anything. It grew wings, and up we went clean into the air, over the green trees, and the shanty. I could see the horses in the home paddock and the old mare trotting around, but they looked like ants, we were so high. After that we goes higher and higher, lovely feeling, when all of a sudden the boat changed to an aeroplane, and we dived. Gee! it took my breath away. Then it glided, and glided, and we were slipping down the rainbow. Then another drop and another, nearly back to earth again, but I couldn’t see any farm, or anything, only just had a sinking feeling, and I felt someone squeezing my hand and saying, “Barker, Barker,” or something. Thought it was Flo, but she never calls me Barker, just Jim. Didn’t like the tone. I knew she meant to be nice. But Barker, that’s what beat me, and why she was pinching my leg I couldn’t make out. Then she says, “Wake up. You are all right now.” But I was so glad she let me hold her hand.

The Sister told me afterwards that I had made violent love to her, and called her Flo, and heaps of things she couldn’t tell me. Suppose I thought she was Flo. She didn’t tell me if I swore. I was anxious about this – most chaps are – for we do let the language flow occasionally.

You would have loved to have seen me being trotted back to the ward. Gee! I must have looked a circus, with a basin tucked under my chin to catch the drips, etc. I didn’t think of that at the time, just wanted to go to sleep again and float about in the boat again. So I did, and awoke as sick as, well – as sick as you were when we went out snapper fishing off Sydney Heads in that old tug. And the smell – that, too, smelt just like the old bait we had kept for a week. You know how that smells.

The Sister then brought me a drink of something. She’s a dear, and will do anything for one, and off I goes again until next morning. Awoke with my leg burning like hell, and as hungry as a hunter. I looked down at my leg, and, bless me, if it didn’t look like a Liverpool tent the way they had it fixed up. They brought me a cup of milk as if I was a baby. No good to me; but the Sister promised a good square feed by-and-by, and kept this tale up for days. I was mad, so hungry. Well, after having slops and chicken broth that I am sure the chicken was only washed in, if it ever existed at all, and other things of a like nature, they gave me some junket. Now hospital junket is like no other junket in the world. It’s just a white, watery, slippery, tasteless kind of jippo, and in no wise resembles the junket your mother used to make for us to eat with stewed fruit in the good old days of 102 degrees in the shade. After this, bit of fish, some nameless kind, then chicken – an Australian hill-trotter more like it, and an old boy at that.

The day of days arrived today, and I had a good square meal, and it tasted as good as that first dinner we had together in Egypt at the Petrograd. Do you remember? This, no doubt, is the cause of my wakefulness tonight. Anyhow, you’ve got your letter, and all you wanted to know. It’s now 12 p.m., and I don’t want the Night Sister to catch me. So, Sieda!

PTE. VERNON LORIMER