CHAPTER 4

Every hospital has its volunteers; and it was in Merry England that I met my first. Being only nineteen years old naturally I drew the affections of more people. One of these volunteers was an English lady who felt I was neglecting my health, and that I should eat better foods. Three or four times a week she brought me fresh eggs from her back yard farm. I was the envy of the hoi polloi. Now in a military hospital the patients who are the most able-bodied must share the work. One such a servant of the people kept suggesting by his tardy deliveries of fresh drinking water that I should share my good fortune. I tenaciously held out deciding to keep my precious presents long enough until finally the gold digger was transferred to another ward.
Eggs may be healthy, but they are not miracle drugs. Soon I found that my heels, which had had large blisters on them the day that I was wounded, had broken into huge open sores. The count was now four surgical dressings with many surprises yet to come. They were doing a good job of keeping my mind off of my troubles until one day in rolled the eternal motion picture “Up in Mabel’s Room”. I tried to talk them out of showing it, but I was outvoted by a slight majority of fifty-to-one; that night I suffered.
The next morning as I was lying on my stomach as paraplegics do most of the time to protect their skins from breaking down into open bedsores; the fancy name for it is decubitus ulcers; I had the strange feeling that someone was playing with my buttocks. Quickly reaching down to see what was happening I found my hand being slapped down and heard these words from a delicately feminine mouth, “Get the hell away from there.” I was quite embarrassed, for I had no intention of playing with anything of hers. If I had played with some private part of her body I would have been a lot happier aside from being entertained. I soon found that it wasn’t her good name she was protecting, but the left cheek of my buttocks. She added to her admonishment with the stern words that I was forever and always to keep my hand away from that spot as I had become the proud owner of an ulcer, which was about six inches in diameter.
For weeks this new member of my sick family bothered me until one afternoon in walked the British version of our USS show. The fact that its members were not in uniform was entertainment in itself, my being stationed in England for thirty days before being shipped to the battle lines in France had prepared me for the British vocabulary which I was about to hear. All went well until the Master of Ceremonies introduced somebody’s fat grandmother as a beautiful young lady. Then all the cold shoulders appeared. I don’t know if our attitude had an adverse affect on Anglo-American relations, or whether we slowed down the war effort and lend lease. We very undiplomatically maintained our positions by pulling the bed sheets over our heads, and feigning sleep or death.
Suddenly the great day came. I was lying on my stomach making a deep study of “Male Call” the luscious cartoon published during the Second World War in the “Stars and Stripes” when in walked the Colonel and half a dozen underlings. Before I had a chance to say “Huh?” they started reading my Purple Heart Citation to me. My nurse, who had experienced a great many of these useless gestures, asked me if I would like to have it pinned on my bandage. “Certainly Lieutenant” was my reply, thinking all along that she was going to pin it on my chest dressing. I waited five minutes or so before I asked, “What are you waiting for?” Everyone started to laugh when I found out to my youthful dismay that Sue had pinned the medal to the dressing over my arse. Everyone disappeared laughing as he went. That day I received my first lesson about medals. A Purple Heart and the proper amount of money can get you into anywhere you would like to go.
I can never say that this story is a complaint about the people who worked in that hospital at that time, for it isn’t. They were all wonderful persons, and the treatment afforded me was only limited by the fact that they each only had two legs and two arms. The little things that they did outside the line of duty are especially endearing to me. The little night nurse who found time to take the ice cream powders that my folks had sent me from home and mix and freeze them, or the nurse and aide who would dance for our entertainment despite the fact that the nurses had but one day off out of every thirty are all people to whom I would like to say hello again. I would also like to thank them for all the wonderful things they did toward my morale and survival.
There it a paradox in this story, for I have a cousin whom I won’t call stupid, but then again neither would I call him bright, who found time to write a letter to me. His letter was of the type received by many a wounded GI. The contents were terribly plain. He told me of the wonderful time he was having in Hollywood at the servicemen’s club dancing with all the movie starlets, and that he had been in New York for a few weeks’ leave to paint the town. He went on to say that he had dropped over to my home to visit with my family, and they had told him of my misfortune. He concluded his note by saying that I should drop aim a line to tell him about it. I have yet to write that letter, but I’m certain he’d swallow any excuse that I may think of should he ever bother to visit or question me about it.