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Previous | Contents | Next By mid-May Cliff was in Palestine. They’d travelled there by train in goods vans and cattle trucks, a stop-and-start journey and a good deal of it at night while they tried to sleep. The following is from Cliff’s letters home to Dorothy. ~ Ian § The first part of the…
Previous | Contents | Next One patient in particular I can never forget. I spent two nights with him in that tent. He’d been in a tank that caught fire and every part of his body was burned. He was completely covered in bandages, with holes for mouth and nose, and he was fed by…
Previous | Contents | Next It was well attended, and everyone who could walk or crawl seemed to be there. One thing is certain: everyone prayed with great sincerity for deliverance. The tiny flake dipped in wine was of little sustenance to our physical being, but in my case at least it was a spiritual…
Previous | Contents | Next The rest of us weren’t too badly off, mostly leg and arm wounds as far as I can remember, though a man alongside me had three bullet holes through his lungs. Sgt. Dave Clarke, the only man I knew, was suffering from a blast injury to one leg, which was…
Previous | Contents | Next Cyrenaica, the Eastern region of Libya, had been an Italian colony since 1912 and a theatre of the war since 1940. Although the Allies had decisively beaten the Italians, they’d since been pushed back into Egypt by the Germans under General Rommel. Only the strategically important port of Tobruk remained…
Previous | Contents | Next He had a history with pain, and a strategy for coping with it — swear like hell and get on with things. His approach to illness was similar — to act “sullen and aggressive”, especially towards the nurses. And he hated to be thought a shirker. § One morning the…
Previous | Contents | Next Out of hospital Some of the following is in the first person, written by Cliff, the rest, in the third person, by me ~ Ian Sisters Whitten and Johnson must have known what was going on but didn’t take any notice. I was confined to bed, so the party centred around…
Previous | Contents There was sand in every direction, as far as the eye could see. He’d swap it any day for the sands of Whangaruru, and the sea, cool and refreshing. It was surprisingly windy, and he didn’t think he’d ever complain about rain again. They’d dug slit trenches as a precaution against air…
Previous | Contents | Next § We had a swim in the Ceylon Swimming Club bath yesterday and it was beautiful. The water was lukewarm, the baths surrounded by beautiful lawns and shaded places where you can sit and be served with anything you require. The white people don’t seem to work here. The black fellows…
Previous | Contents | Next Ten days later Cliff was back in Camp again. “My dear Dorothy,” he wrote. “Hello my dear, how are you now? To be frank with you, I’m as cheerful as a funeral. I miss you terribly, sweetheart. “Thank God that we can at least write to each other. “We had a…