an
excerpt from...
Liberation
by William Stewart
CHAPTER 1
The tall corporal shivered as the late October breeze blew down the Solent from Southampton and played around his almost-black hair. His forage cap was threaded through the left epaulet of his battledress as he stood tall and strong at the rail of the great hospital ship, packed with wounded soldiers being evacuated from the battlefront, but he felt far from strong. The truth was, Hamish didn’t know how he felt, or where he was, or how he got there.
As the cold swept over his powerful frame he looked straight ahead, as he had done for days on the journey back from the battle zone in France. Inside he felt cold and dead. Looking at the huge building slowly coming into view, and the pier ahead, Hamish was puzzled. It should be familiar but it wasn’t. He had seen flashes of something like this in the recent weeks, of troopships, tents, bombs all mixed up with flashes of searing pain and screams, mixed up with cows grazing and horses pulling a plough. But these images, flashes, never stayed long enough for him to grasp hold of them and makes sense of them.
"Just look at that, you guys, aint she a sight for sore eyes!" a soldier said.
"Bloody glad to see this, I can tell you. Thought I’d had my chips many a time," another said.
"You can say that again. No more of that for us. Four years it’s been for me."
"Five, for me," another said. "France, India, Africa, Italy and back to France on ‘D’ Day."
"You know mates," another said, "when I saw that tower I could have blubbered like a kid. All that killing. And the noise, the screams, can’t sleep properly. Can you guys? Let’s give her a cheer. Hip, hip, hooray."
The cheers echoed around the decks. The ship’s siren sounded its coming, as it sailed up Southampton Water towards Netley pier, on Tuesday, 24th October 1944. Nurses and walking wounded, with arms in slings, or heads bandaged, leaned wearily on the rails, watching the magnificent hospital come clearer into view. On deck and below, the more seriously wounded or ill waited on stretchers, ready to be brought off and be piled into the ambulances standing on the roads adjacent to the pier.
Hamish heard all this, yet nothing registered. Neither the words nor the sounds made sense. He gazed at the building as if through the wrong end of a telescope. He could see only what was in front of him, nothing penetrated his understanding. All he could see was what he was looking directly at. Once again he shivered.
"You lot! Stop staring and get yourselves organised." The rasping voice of the Regimental Sergeant Major cut across the conversation of two nursing sisters, dressed in their grey dress, scarlet cape, and flowing white headdress, with its scarlet Queen Alexandra badge.
"See that big chap over there, Jenny. No, silly, not the RSM. There, on the rail. Him with the dark wavy hair? Handsome isn’t he?"
"Yes, I suppose he is. What of it?"
"It seems," Maggie continued, as the two Sisters walked slowly towards the exit point," that Big Boy, as they call him, Hamish is his real name, was a very promising orderly. Got to Corporal and in line for Sergeant. Everybody thought the world of him. Always ready to help out, and good with it. He was with a First Aid Post, up front, when they came under blistering fire." She broke off and addressed an orderly. "Watch that patient’s arm, man, you nearly trapped it against the side." Maggie was cross and showed it.
"Sorry, Sister," the orderly said politely, then swore under his breath at the interfering woman who didn’t appreciate what it was like to carry a load like the chap on the stretcher, and keep an eye on all parts of his anatomy.
Maggie chose to ignore the half-heard curse, and continued talking to Jenny. "Something happened and he’s never spoken a word from then till now. Has to be led everywhere like a child. The medics think it’s some schizo breakdown. I don’t know what will happen to him. He’s listed for D Block. That’s where the really bad mental cases go, isn’t it?"
"What a sad story!" Jenny’s face puckered, conveying her feelings. "I’ll make a point of going to see him, although I won’t be on D Block."
Both nurses looked at the majestic Royal Victoria Hospital, built during the Crimean War, of red brick, faced with Portland stone and Welsh granite. Its lawns swept down to the water, and its tall cupola-topped tower acted as a beacon to passing sailors. Wounded men, dressed in the hospital uniform of blue, with white shirt and red tie, walked the grounds or were pushed in chairs by the more able. The blue of the British patients contrasted with the more tailored khaki uniforms of the Americans, who now occupied the main hospital.
"I’ve never seen it before," Maggie said, somewhat in awe of the huge building, shading her eyes to see it more clearly. "Massive, isn’t it?"
"Takes over a thousand patients, then there’s the hutted hospital away up yonder, but you can’t see it from here. The main corridor’s a quarter of a mile long, you know, that gives you an idea of its size. And you know what!" Jenny sounded indignant. "The Yanks tear up and down the main corridor in their jeeps!"
"The Yanks have got that lovely old place?"
"Yes, at the beginning of this year. I suppose now we know why; they had massive casualties on ‘D’ Day. Mustn’t be too hard on them, Maggie."
"No, suppose not." Maggie said, with a sniff. "Is that a train?"
"It is, and a very busy line it is too, especially now. Casualties come from all over the country, especially those for convalescence."
"Corporal!" The ‘voice’ penetrated Hamish’s brain and he turned, but there was no "Yes, Sir" in response.
The RSM had his cap pulled down so far over his eyes, that he had to lift his head to see where he was going, giving an exaggerated impression of height. His stick of office rammed under his left armpit, and his stiff stance, all helped to create the appearance of an automaton.
He approached Hamish, who was standing with his hands hanging loosely by his sides, ready to blast him for not responding with the obligatory "Sir." He read the label attached to Hamish’s battle dress jacket, ‘Psychotic, for D Block.’ Getting close, so as not to be overheard, he hissed, "Lead-swinger, eh? Loony! They’ll sort you out there, you bloody coward. Go on, get in line and give a hand with the stretchers, of real men." The RSM, though a fair size, looked small standing beside Hamish.
Hamish obeyed, automatically, picked up the foot end of the stretcher and as he walked with it, down the gangplank and up to the waiting ambulance, he thought, as he had done hundreds of times lately of that letter. Something was there, as if in a thick fog. Try as he might, the answer refused to come. Whenever he thought, he felt acute pain somewhere in the region of his heart, a gripping pain that threatened to crush him. He knew it was a letter, but from whom? What were the contents?
"Corporal, over there! That’s the squad for D Block." The voice of the NCO in charge of the reception party once again broke into thoughts which intruded and caused him pain. Those who were able, carrying their kitbags and equipment, marched the half mile from the pier to what was known as the ‘loony bin.’ Some less fortunate, went in ambulances. As Hamish marched he tried to think, but thoughts flew around like hens frightened by a fox.
"You all right, mate?" a walking soldier inquired. Hamish looked at him but there was no response, no recognition that the words has been heard. "Suit yourself," the man sniffed. The column halted and the majority moved left. A handful were left to continue to D Block.
D Block, built in the same style, and completed a few years after the main building, was the army’s lunatic asylum. By civilian standards, D Block was well apportioned and staffed. As with all such institutions, a high brick wall surrounded the block, and all doors needed pass-keys to let people in or out. A substantial, grassed recreation area, with trees and shrubs made life a little more bearable for the patients.
"In my opinion," one Doctor said, "Prentice is suffering from battle-fatigue, with hysterical overlay."
"I think," said another, "he’s psychotic. His complete withdrawal suggests a total breakdown."
Opinions were divided, so they decided to do nothing, except give Hamish rest, coupled with directed work.
The wooden floors shone like glass, polished daily by the inmates. Hamish obviously enjoyed working and although he never did anything of his own volition, except visit the lavatory, he was no bother. He ate what was put in front of him, worked when he was told, went outside when he was told, and went to bed and got up when he was told.
Nothing made sense to the doctors and nurses, nor to him. "It’s as if he’s in suspended animation" one nurse observed. If that is what they thought, Hamish had no words to tell how he felt. No unformed words were there, no thoughts that formed themselves. What thoughts he had seemed to come from some deep pit, all covered in gunge. Nothing, nothing at all made sense, yet he never felt afraid. It was as if part of him had died, or like Sleeping Beauty, was waiting to be brought back to life.
***
When the second week ended, and there was no improvement, it was decided to give him a course of insulin therapy. This involved injecting high doses of insulin to cause a coma, leaving the patient in the coma for up to an hour at a time, several days a week, then injecting glucose to reverse the coma. Some patients responded to this after a few weeks of such therapy.
In Hamish’s case, it was no more successful than the ‘wait and see’ approach. He would sit, staring blankly into space, or looking at a fixed spot on the ground, until told to do something. He would do it until told to stop. They told him when to go to bed, when to get up, when to eat. They were puzzled.
True to her promise, Jenny did visit. "You don’t know me, Hamish, I’m Jenny Brookes, one of the Sisters from the hospital. I saw you on the boat. One of my friends told me about you, and I said I’d visit you. Can you tell me about yourself?"
Hamish stared at her slim, five-foot-six figure, with a hint of fair hair showing beneath her cap. Her height contrasted with his six feet four, and his massive build. Hamish seemed totally unaware of Jenny holding his hand, and she felt she might as well be talking to a statue. But she persisted.
"I can’t think why you keep going there," one of her colleagues commented. "Falling in love?"
"Don’t be ridiculous!" Jenny retorted, with a tinge of pink on her cheeks. "Just being charitable. He looks so... so forlorn and vulnerable..."
"Vulnerable! Huh! He’s pulling the wool over your eyes, as well as everybody else’s. You see, as soon as he’s discharged he’ll make a miraculous recovery. You mark my words."
Christmas, with its relaxed atmosphere, its bright cheeriness and all that goes with the Season of Goodwill, with visits from the Yanks, bringing food parcels, came and went. Jenny visited and sat with Hamish, pattering on about anything that came into her mind, and left feeling sad and disheartened. "Two months!" she said to the Sister in charge. "Two months and no improvement. What can it be? Is there any hope?"
"It seems that you’re too involved, you know. You’ll have to watch that. You’ll end up being hurt. I think he’s been damaged very badly, perhaps he never will recover."
Jenny walked back to the Sister’s Mess blinking back hot tears.
Hamish was brought before a medical board, and discharged from the army. They transferred him from Netley to Knowle, an asylum some twelve miles on Thursday, 4th January 1945. The decision made no impact on Hamish. He remained as impassive as he been since he arrived, and long before that.
Copyright © 1999 William Stewart