CHAPTER 5

It turned out that the best way to keep one’s morale up was to call myself names. I awoke one morning to look at myself in a mirror only to find that I had a new silhouette. The nurse mentioned it when she was doing my dressings. She complained that my arse was beginning to disappear. I actually took this as a compliment, for I had always had trouble fitting into my GI trousers. I felt that despite the expert (?) Army tailoring I would from that day forward be able to fit into my uniforms without any alterations. All of a sudden and out of one clear blue sky someone walked in and yelled, “The war is over.” The radios were hopefully turned on for confirmation, and the roof blew off the building. The cripples who were staying crippled because of their fears of being sent back to the front as if by some miraculous touch of God suddenly found themselves healed. We true invalids tried to dance along with the mob, but wound up being satisfied by waving an arm or finger. Even I found enough strength to make some noise.
With the coming of peace in Europe the movement of the wounded to the “Zone of Interior” (a military term that meant the USA) was accelerated. Our hidden fears were replaced by anxieties to have our names, placed on that wonderful roster that made up the bill of lading for the next boat out of town. I was so confident that I would receive a “red ball” priority that I started giving away many of my treasures. The recipient of most of these jewels, which consisted of food delicacies that my folks had shipped to me, was a Salvation Army Major whom I had befriended during my stay. Any food over and beyond their ration was gold to the British, for despite the fact that the war was over it was to be a long time before they could relax their rationing in the manner that we sometimes ungrateful Americans did.
When the great day for our evacuation came we certainly all wanted to go, but medical and physical reasons had to produce disappointments. I had gambled on going, and won. I was given a top priority, and placed first on the list. The morning they brought the litters in “number one” came directly to my bedside. Oh the arguments that followed! Everyone knew that he had the proper solution for placing me onto my litter, and exactly how to make my plumbing connections. Each was positive that his method of bedding would cushion my body against future sores. It was exciting, and everyone had a good time. Frankly; who the hell gave a damn what shape he arrives home in; all we wanted to do was to say hello to Miss Liberty, and perhaps wave to her. Even the chaplain got into the act, but this time he was doing a better job, for he elected himself my own personal guardian angel. He accompanied me all the way to the train. He even found a few words of final instructions on my behalf to give to the train aides just before waving good-bye. It’s an ironic thing, but at that very moment one of my Air Force friends with big ears was calling at the hospital to visit with me. It wasn’t until years later that he told me of how he had hitched a ride from the air base where he was stationed only to miss seeing me by a matter of minutes.
The inside of the hospital train was a new scene to me, and I adopted a policy of silence and observation. I didn’t know too many of the boys anyhow. The chap in the bunk across from mine was an amputee who depressed me despite my having seen his type of case before. I could not bring myself to look in his direction. Aside from having meal times to break up our monotony, there was an excellent view of the British countryside. I may be hackneyed, but I could swear those train wheels were saying over and over “You’re going home.” Since the train was made up completely of hospital care loaded with patients we went directly to our destination, Glasgow, Scotland. Out of the train, into a waiting ambulance, and there I was in another transit hospital.
They rolled me into a ward that I thought to be a mile long though eventually it turned out to only have a capacity for seventy beds. Bedded down once again I found it a simple job to fall asleep. The next morning I asked the nurse who was doing my dressings why the ward had such a stench to it. Her reply was in a whisper as she explained that the GI in the bunk alongside of mine has been pulled out of a burning tank making that annoying odor the result of his burnt flesh. One sneaky look at his tarnished body, and back under the covers I reverted.
A day or two more passed while the barriers melted, and again the tongues loosened up. I was soon approached by a sad looking character who had received a slight shrapnel wound in his left arm. I wanted to be friendly and make conversation, but all he could do was to show me his broken arm and complain about it. In final desperation I told him that I thought that he was nothing but a big crybaby who didn’t appreciate his good fortune. I added that it would do his heart good to look at the poor chap in the next bed. He did, and then on the double he double-timed for the latrine where he nauseated.
That evening he tried to make amends for his juvenile actions. At suppertime we had our first ration of fresh cherries since I had left the states, and he offered his share to me. Perhaps it was a good thing that I ate those cherries, for the next day my attitude toward food was to change.
This hospital had a chaplain who only knew two things; one was who wants a cigar, and the other who wants to go home? His second question was always a sellout. The thunderous response he received to his questions made me wonder if he had chosen the right calling; for a hospital wasn’t quite the same as a football field. We didn’t have to wait too long before those who had been fortunate enough to be chosen found ourselves racked on the shelves of waiting “British meat wagons”. Racked is the right word for it as those spring less ambulances had rigid shelves in them; we were as just so much dead meat going onto the shelf of the nearest freezer.
Our destination was the American air base at Prestwick, Scotland. I felt certain that the ends would justify the means despite the bumpy roller coaster tunnel of fun ride. They had given me the top shelf, which gave me an advantage over the others in that I could see out of the windows.
Scotland didn’t look any different than any other part of the United Kingdom that I had been in the year before, but the windows afforded me the opportunity of avoiding a case of claustrophobia. We had covered about three-fourths of the distance to the base when I noticed that the ground was moving in the wrong direction; not backwards as the forward movement of our ambulance should have produced; but sideways, and up, and down. “It wasn’t too long before my head and stomach started traveling in similar directions. It’s not polite to throw up in front of people; it is even worse to nauseate upon them, and that was the problem I was soon facing. We had just arrived at the air base when I gave up the cause. There was more than an ambulance that had to be washed that day. What good was it to feel sorry? The die had been cast.
As I was carried into one of the wards I commented to one of the litter bearers, “You fellows seem to be living in luxury; this place has brick buildings. Before I had a chance to be interviewed by any of the medical personnel an enlisted man came to my bedside and insisted that I exchange all my monies for American money. I complied, but said “don’t you think seeing a doctor is more important.” He replied, “I ain’t paid to think.”
It wasn’t too long before the doctor did arrive though when he did I was positive that he was standing in an oblique position. He immediately stripped me, and started poking at my distended (blown-up) stomach. He shouted some orders, and in came a complicated network of hoses and bottles. As soon as everything was in position he started shoving a thin rubber “Levine tube” down my nose and into my stomach. It wasn’t as simple at that, but after a dozen or so tries we finally overcame my gaggings and managed to coordinate our efforts.
With that he hooked the Levine tube to the plumbing network, or Waganstein as it is called, which he then set into operation. It was really nothing more than an autonomous suction machine based on “Pascal’s laws”. Gradually I could see the distention in my stomach fall, and feel my nausea ease. I was damn glad when that was over and the tube was finally taken out.
Feeling cured once again I called for water; only to find myself served with half an ounce of the precious fluid. Complaining did no good, for the doctor had left strict orders for one half an ounce every half hour and no more. I hadn’t consumed more than two ounces when up went my belly, and the whole damn mess started all over again.
After being siphoned for the second time it was decided that I should go home by boat. I screamed bloody blue murder that I wasn’t taking any more stinking British ambulance rides. Everyone promptly assured me that there were plenty of American ambulances available, and the next morning the trip back was made with all promises kept. I found myself being shipped back to Glasgow, and back on the old ward, but with one exception. I was the only patient there. It was an eerie feeling, but I knew that they weren’t going to stop the machinery just to give me a private room.
The next morning we received replacements from our carnage factory in Germany. Since I was an older model it was decided that I should be transferred to a private but smaller room in another building. There was a case of what you would call luxury. A Pfc with his own private room, and oversees too. It was a good thing that I didn’t have my stripes on my pajamas, for the prisoner of war who was assigned to clean my room saluted every morning before starting his duties. I knew he was bewildered by what he thought to be such a young officer, but I never disillusioned him. I always returned his salutes.
The next day in came an enlisted man from Post Finance who told me I had to exchange American money for British currency. I was bewildered, but I complied.
Being young and sick at the same time always brought me loads of visitors though the remarks they would make outside my door would sometimes make me curious. I was especially bewildered when one GI said to another, “It’s amazing, but he’s staying alive by living off his body.” That didn’t sink in though I will admit that my constant heaving up made me acquire a strong dislike for food. They had another cure for people who didn’t take to food; intravenous feedings. I thought that when I had left Salisbury in South England I had seen the last of those damn needles, but it seemed that the doctors in Scotland knew how to use them also.
Another day, another intravenous bottle, and another ambulance ride: This time I find myself on a train heading for England, and to a transit hospital that served the hospital ships which landed at Southampton. I hadn’t had time to wash my face when the money changing started all over again: More intravenous feedings, a bottle of blood, and more cherries. They parked me in another private room. In walked a doctor from the Bronx who knew I was from New York City by the way I mispronounced nauseated. Besides this lesson in enunciation he gave me the standard pep talk that tells you of the guts and strength young people have, and how surprising it is when you learn of the things that the human body can endure.
He was telling his story to something that looked more like a dehydrated corpse than a young person, for I had a total sum of five tubes running into my body while he was speaking. The piping was becoming so complicated that one of the nurses slit her finger on a glass tube while she was trying to make an adjustment. Through all the bedlam I did manage to tell the Protestant chaplain to write a letter home to my folks telling them how well I was doing. It took quite a while after that for me to stop blushing at the letter’s contents, but I was certain that Jesus forgave the chaplain for his little white lies.