Chapter 32 Army Nurse

                                                      
                                                                    Chapter 32 Army Nurse

On the eighth of January I arrived to start work as an Army nurse in the RAANC. Being trained I had the rank of full lieutenant. We wore a grey cotton uniform, with a wide, white stiffly starched collar over a red cape in winter. The collar was held together at the neck with a silver badge. In summer the long sleeves of the starched uniform were rolled neatly to the elbow. We wore a stiff white voile veil.

    We sisters were looked on as poor army stock though, as we were undisciplined and untrained in military drill. One day a female army sergeant took some of us in hand to teach us how to salute properly and how to march. She gave up rather quickly though, and the session wasn’t repeated. If we stayed long enough we were sent to the school of army health at Healesville in Victoria for a short stint to learn army procedure.

    On my first day on the duty roster I was told to wander about the hospital and familiarize myself with the wards and general layout. One ward was not in use and had been closed for some time. A lot of spare furniture was stored there and the place was a bit of an obstacle course. I could hear something of a racket going on in that direction so I walked on up there and found a young man in hospital pyjamas with a bandage over his eyes. He was smacking into furniture with a white cane, obviously hemmed in and turning the air blue with his language.

       I took a deep breath, walked up to him, took him by the arm and introduced myself.

     “Hi, I’m new here and I think I’m lost, and that furniture is in danger of bruising. Should we go back to the ward together?” My action set our friendship in stone. 

    James turned out to be a sad case. Stationed with a northern unit, he had been hitching a ride home to spend his leave with family. He got a ride with a truck driver and went to sleep in the middle of the night. Unfortunately the driver also went to sleep and smashed into a tree. James opened his eyes just as the windscreen shattered. Fine splinters of glass penetrated both eyes, blinding him. He was brought to 1 Mil where a top eye specialist took charge of his case. 

    Each time he faced another surgical attempt to fix his eyes, he told the staff excitedly, "I'll be able to see tomorrow!" He told everybody.

    Despite constant warnings from his eye specialist that he may not get his sight back,  James was always convinced that he would... 'be able to see tomorrow'. I believe he is still  blind today.

    Although I was disappointed about being posted to Brisbane, one thing about the army nursing was that the cases were very different and I learnt a great deal. In 1968, as the Vietnam War was in full swing, 1 Mil in Brisbane was the first hospital they came to after being shipped home. 

    In my first week I was assigned the task of specialing a trainee helicopter pilot, admitted after his helicopter had crashed. I had never seen the under water drainage required by his condition of pleural effusion, or fluid in the chest cavity. His instructor was in the intensive care ward. also with multiple injuries, including compound fractures, and they had both inhaled fumes from the ruptured fuel tanks. Although they both seemed to be responding to treatment, sadly they both died suddenly from fat embolisms and inhaled petrochemical. 

    As they wheeled the body of the instructor pilot out of the intensive care ward, I held his wedding ring in my hand. On the inside of the band was inscribed, 'my love, my life, my husband.' Somewhere a wife was grieving.

 A policeman standing by told me curtly, “I’ll have that thank you, Sister.” I had been studying it so intently, he probably thought I was going to steal it. Mutely, I handed it over.
                                            
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    I just couldn’t help brushing my hand across the smooth white of a full body plaster on a young pilot one day. The weather was hot and he lay on top of his bed outside the ward on the verandaah where we’d wheeled his bed. He smiled cheerfully.

    “I can’t imagine being encased in this thing for months on end,” I said.

    Armed with a long knitting needle, he’d been trying to scratch his ribs. “It’s not forever; I’m lucky to be alive; the doc says I’ll make a full recovery... be good as new in the end.”

      His sketch pad and pencils lay near his hand, and I picked up some drawings and looked at them. “These are great.You must be an artist!” I said enthusiastically.

    He was a long-term patient and was an old friend by the time he was discharged.

    Young soldiers lying in a ditch in the jungle for days before being found, or brought to a casualty clearing station after stepping on a mine hidden under the leafy soil, presented challenging injuries, and often we discoverd invading bacteria later that had not yet been identified in Australia. Every exotic antibiotics the doctors could find were tried out sometimes in an effort to bring them back to good health.

    It wasn't just war injuries that we had to contend with though. Some of the worst cases were actually from car accidents, similar to the ones in any civvy-street hospital. Young soldiers like to party in their off duty time.

    Soldiers who didn’t want to be there, often suffered depression too, and I specialed one who never recovered from an overdose of prescription drugs. He had driven his car into the bush where he thought no one could find him, before swallowing the bottle full of pills.

      A few weeks after I joined up, one of my friends was posted to Vietnam, and I rang home telling my mother I wanted to go too. I almost caused her a nervous breakdown, I think

    Life in the army is unique, especially for an officer. Every afternoon when we returned from our day shift, we helped ourselves to a drink from the bar of the officers’ mess. One of the other sister's introduced me to tonic water, and that's what I had most afternoons. It was cheap and quenched the thirst. Our drinks were put on a tab and we settled up at the end of the month.

    Officers are not supposed to mix with O.R.s, (other ranks,) but at 1Mil there wasn't much talent amongst the male officers. In fact there were hardly any male officers there.They were either already married, or still-wet-behind-the-ears university students who had been drafted for the war. Consequently the female nursing officers often fraternised with the lower ranks. I had been in the army only a couple of weeks when one of the male medical assistants  asked me out on a date. I surprised myself by accepting.

    Unlike everyone else in the sisters’ quarters, I was in the unique position of having a bedroom with a back entrance which led down into the O.R.'s ranks. The room was at the far end of the wing, and under my window ran the one road through the hospital complex. Peter lived out, and after the first date I continued to date him, and when he arrived to pick me up he parked under my window. I would simply leave the room down the back stairs and step quietly into his car. We went out for months with no one being any wiser, especially the hospital matron and senior staff.

    Like most of the guys around the place, Peter was doing national service. But he was a little older than most of them, and a little more mature, as his call-up had come late, and he was naturally quiet and conservative. His two-year stint was due to finish in the April, 4 months after I started work there. One night we were at the drive-in picture theatre, and I was complaining about the army. Although I liked the work I didn't like the army system of detailed protocol. 
   
    I said with vehemence, "I would do anything to get out of the army!"

    "I know what you could do."

    "What? Whaat?"
   
    "You could marry me."

    Astounded, I drew in my breath sharply and exclaimed, "Are you sure?" (He's never let me forget that statement!)

    I followed Army procedure, announcing my engagement immediately by calling on the matron in her office, so that I didn’t get posted anywhere after that. A sister who had achieved the rank of Captain was relieving the matron of the hospital and she had been the one who had given me several little talks about not fraternising with the O.R.’s on the wards. Hearing my news, she did a bit of a doubletake, but composed herself rapidly. 

    Some weeks later the announcement came out in the army newspaper, referring to Peter as a former staffer, and I drew some flak some weeks later when I invited him, now a civilian, into the officers’ mess for a drink. It was considered poor taste, and no doubt it was, but it gave Peter immense pleasure.

    All the army sisters were great and threw an engagement party for me in the mess. Two of them were my bridesmaids. Peter and I were married in the Mitchelton Heights Methodist Church, but not before I suffered the usual bride's anxieties. Stress  seemed to be at an all-time high over the wedding arrangements and I had ghastly nightmares before the day finally arrived. 

    I designed my own dress and had it made by a dressmaker who was also a nightclub singer. She liked the design so much she told me she would make herself a dress just like it for singing when she had finished mine.

    Mum took care of all the wedding reception details and it went without saying that Dad, being a publican at the time, was amply placed to supply the alcohol. Pete’s parents were teetotalers and probably would have preferred a dry wedding, but I knew that was never going to happen. After Peter and I decided on the Pasadena Reception Lounge at Alderly, Mum and I had an interview with the manager, choosing the menu and color of the candles for the tables etc. Having worked on many wedding receptions while at Rowes Cafe, Mum revelled in that environment, and was adamant she wanted a hostess with a microphone during the speeches. She got one.

    My dress and long wedding veil billowed in the wind at two pm on 16th November. Contrary to popular belief that the bride is always late, I arrived at the church on time to be waved on around the block because my mother had not yet arrived. Bayside relatives had been engaged to escort her and they had got lost, being unfamiliar with the northern suburbs of Brisbane. After a circuit, our driver was waved to the curbside. My father and I heaved a big sigh of relief. Mum had arrived.

     After the ceremony Dad enjoyed himself and had nearly as much fun as Pete and I. Mum had arranged roasted ham, chicken and beef, and roast vegetables. Pete chose the sweets, collected the moulded ice cream fruit and flow from the factory, and the waitress brought the first two to Peter and I--four-leaf clovers for good luck. My godmother made the wedding cake and gave it to me as a gift, Peter had a close friend from the Army as best man and my younger brother Owen, as groomsman. Two of the sisters from the Army were my attendants.

    Laughing and deliriously happy, Peter and I left the reception at about 8 p.m. amid waves, shouts from the guests, and stones rattling in the hub caps. Confetti was still falling out of our hair when we arrived at the Sands Motel at the Gold Coast. It was the most luxurious weekend we had ever had and a wonderful start to the honeymoon.

    Money wasn't available for a long stay on the coast, so we headed south for Port Macquarie. I was an uncomfortable, whining newlywed as we travelled down through a New South Wales heat wave. The stifling, oppressive air was smoky from bushfires. Back then, few cars had air-conditioniing.  Finally we settled at the Mid-Pacific Motel, and nestled in for a week’s honeymoon.