Free Joyce's War by Joyce Ffoulkes Parry Page B

convoy was expected at any time. Today I slept until nearly midday whilst Mona rushed into town to the little Romanian dressmaker who alters and stitches for us these days and when she returned I had lunch ready on the balcony where it was lovely in the warm sun.
    Well it’s over now and tomorrow we start work again. I received some delightful snaps of my nephew Bruce last night and he thinks of me, Glyn says, as ‘a fine fellow on a camel’. He wants me to send him one and so I shall, bless him. I had quite made up my mind to send him a wooden one that I recently saw in a fascinating shop, the Sherif Pascha. It is 50 piastres but a lovely piece of work and I’d love to send it to the child. I believe they will send such things directly from the shop and that makes things easier for me. I must get something really nice for each of the others too as soon as I can manage it. But now I must fill my last water bag and crawl into bed and I fervently hope that I am not dragged out of it before morning.
    December 19th 1940
    I went to Hut 5, Minor Surgical and Polish wounded, which is lit only until 5pm. After that I was told to go to Hut 4 – eye cases – admitted the previous evening – 65 of them. The place was pandemonium when I arrived, with a fearful mixture of unshaven men, kits, sand, dressing things and nursing staff falling over each other in an effort to restore order. I’ve been there since, although it’s not final even now I fancy, and I like it very much. Thorn, who is in charge, is elderly but a great sport, never interferes or dodders, and works like a Trojan. Bennett, who has just come with the rest of her CCS to help us out, is also with us: an awfully nice girl and long may she stay.
    The orderlies are nothing short of stupid and incompetent and the sick berth attendants are not much better. I’ve quite made up my mind that very few men are any good at nursing, even of the most elementary variety. There is some sort of order established now and quite a number of patients are up and about and they help in the galley and round and about. They are a jolly crew generally speaking and I believe that they are much happier with us than if they were back in the desert. I expect it surprises them that they are being treated like ordinary human beings – indeed the attention, the food and the clothes are exactly the same as our own men receive. We are having the greatest fun picking up a few words of Italian. Those that we do know we work overtime, but they enjoy our efforts and we don’t mind at all.
    Bill is up in Alexandria on leave. They have been hectically busy in Helmieh, getting a lot of casualties that we missed through not having any room. Among the boys whom we knew on the ship is the one who has had his foot blown off, an Alun Griffiths, who is seriously ill from some war injury. He was from Harlech and such a nice lad and I do hope he’ll be alright. Bill doesn’t look at all well and I do hope she will pick up with these 14 days’ leave. She hopes to finish up at Luxor.
    I arranged to purchase another iron on my last half-day off. I wanted a French one similar to the one we got at Cairo, whilst they are still available. The struggle I had was unbelievable. I had priced one a few weeks ago and they told me 125pt. I was horrified and after telling them that I had got the same thing in Cairo for 80pt, I departed in high dudgeon. This time I tried a bigger shop, and they had the effrontery to ask for over 200pt for the same thing exactly. I told them exactly what I thought about it, and of them, and bounced out. A few shops further down they asked me 150pt and, although that was better, I said I’d wait and see. Nothing happened so I marched off back to the original place and this time they asked me to pay 140pt. I looked very grieved and told them that only three weeks ago they had told me 125pt. They agreed but said that everything had gone up twice since then. After a long discussion, he