BANDS and BUNS and BABIES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 165, 21 August 1942, Page 12

BANDS and BUNS and BABIES

Home For Good And It's Good To Be Home HAD gone down to the wharf with grave misgivings. The arrival of a hospital ship would, I felt, be but one degree more bearable than the departure of a troopship, and I was not looking forward to making newspaper copy out of the raw stuff of human emotions, to witnessing with third-party disinterestedness the intimate reunions of mothers and sons, husbands and wives, fathers and children. But the sun was shining, and even from the wharf gates I could hear the laughter and chatter of the eager crowd. I presented my pass. "Next-of-kin to the’ left, friends and relations to the right," chanted the sentry, and I was ushered up between the barricades into the left-hand pen. The next-of-kin were a comparatively cheerful group. With eyes fixed on the liner which still swayed lazily in mid-stream, they calculated how long it would be before the ship tied up, wondered whether their men would be allowed off straight away, exulted in the fact that now they would have them home for good. Many of them had already been waiting on the wharf an hour or more, but all were too excited to notice fatigue. Small children, refusing to be overawed by the solemnity of the occasion, raced one another across the no-man’s land separating the next-of-kin from the _ relations-and-friends, and mothers, eyes fixed on the oncoming ship, didn’t even notice. The ship’s bow was now turned towards the wharf, and slowly she began to move. "I’m sure I’m going to cry," I overheard the girl beside me remark. More Preparations But now, as if to provide an alternative attraction and thus sidetrack any premature emotional outburst on the part of the spectators, things were happening on the quayside. A sergeant marched a squad of men up from the clearing hospital to the wharf and then back again, and finally arranged them individually in picturesque attitudes (standing at ease), the length of No-Man’s-Land. Then the sound of more marching feet and the band arrived to take up its position. Then came a truck with four loud-speakers projecting from the roof. And two press photographers. And three reporters. Determined to have my rights, I’ left the security of the next-of-kin pen and joined the gang of pressmen, outside. The ship was now near enough to the wharf for the rows of men and nurses crowded along the decks to be distinguished. A cheer went up. Handkerchiefs and flags were waved frantically, and there were shouts from the wharf of "Charlie!’"’, "Bob!", "David!". Along the deck several men would hear their names called, would peer between the fluttering handkerchiefs on the wharf,

Faces on both sides of the narrowing strip of water would be transfigured by the flash of recognition, shouts of "Joan" and "Margaret" would mingle with the "Bill’s" and "Dick’s." And now the band, refusing to subscribe to the upsurge of emotion, launched into "Colonel Bogey." "Home For Good" "Just like drawing an art union, only we’ve drawn lucky this time," a man in the crowd behind me yelled into his friend’s ear. "Yes, that’s him, standing up on that lifeboat. Yes, home for good, thank God!" The gangway was now in position. First to swarm up it was the young boy from the sound equipment truck, carrying a microphone and a long flex. Then as each man, embarking, came to the head of the gangway, the hospital orderly announced into the microphone his name and the name of his home town, so that relatives and friends would have no chance of missing the boys they had come to "meet. And at the sound of each name, a cheer was raised from the wharf. One by one they emerged from the shadow of the gangway. Some were sufficiently strong by now to carry their own kit-bag, same leaned heavily upon the arm of medical orderlies. Most were pale beneath the tan. Some had arms in slings and bandaged eyes. And those with crutches still found difficulty in handling them. But each man, as he stepped once more on to New Zealand soil, managed a broad smile and some sort of acknowledgment of the cheering that heralded him. It was only a few steps from the foot of the gangway to the arms of his waiting relatives. And now at last handkerchiefs were used for other purposes than waving, and relatives were often more in need of a strong supporting arm than the hero himself. "Oh, stow it, Mum!" I overheard one young corporal remark in a suspiciously husky voice to his clinging parent. ‘T’m ‘all right. And what are you going ‘to cool me for dinner?"

"Gunner " announced the hospital orderly via the loud speaker. And added sotto voce his inevitable accompaniment "Careful of your ’ead, laddie." Gunner Blank came down the gangway, looking expectantly into the distance. A young woman hurled herself upon him. They embraced, then wandered slowly down towards the clearing hospital, completely absorbed in each other. Then, when almost to the wharf gates, she turned and ran swiftly towards the next-of-kin enclosure, to return pushing a perambulator with one small baby. Gunner Blank looked at his son, seen now for the first time, then took the pram from his wife’s hands and pushed it down towards the hospital, speechless with the first thrill of paternity. But not all the men who disembarked that day had wives or parents waiting for them, for many of them had homes in other parts of New Zealand. They came down the gangway and strode the few yards to the clearing station unaccompanied except by the friendly glances and handclaps of other people’s relations. But their smiles were none the less cheerful, for they knew that perhaps in two days, probably in less, they would be in their own homes and among their own people. Meanwhile, the little groups of relatives and men had found their way to the lounge of the clearing station, for no matter How fit the soldier was by now, he was not to be allowed home before getting a final checkover from the medical authorities. So with the laughing, tearful groups of reunited, I passed into the lounge. Settling Down There is always something heartbreaking in the sight of a ship leaving or coming in to a wharf, and even the most impersonal observer cannot help being a little affected by it. But whereas the wharf, in spite of the playing of "Round the Marble Arch" and "Colonel Bogey," provided a more or less favourable atmosphere for the (Continued on next page)

HOME COMING (Continued trom previous page) inevitable onrush of emotion, the lounge was a cheerful matter-of-fact bustling place, and what with V.A.’s in pink smocks handing round cups of tea and sandwiches and iced cakes, and obliging relatives allocating chairs, emotionalism could for the moment be comfortably shelved. So everybody settled down with a cup of tea and something to eat, and found that for the first time they were talking normally to their newly-returned. Now they could begin to give the headline news from the domestic front, to hold inquests on the letters and parcels that hadn’t arrived, and, of course, to find out full details of the progress being made towards recovery. One or two of the women-folk still showed a tendency to dab at their eyes with inadequate handkerchiefs, but the moment they threatened to start in earnest, a cheerful-faced V.A. would be at their elbow offering them the choice of savoury scones or pikelets. And emotion would slink away defeated. And everybody talked. There are so many things that there isn’t room for in letters, and so much had happened even since the last letter had been written. And many of the people present hadn't seen each other for more than two and a-half years. So now they talked, in between the mouthfuls of tea, as "* there was only this half-hour or so before the menfolk must vanish for another two and a-half years. The Universal Pronouncement I joined three uniformed men who were sitting, relativeless, at a small table of their own. They looked a little disconsolate. I started unoriginally enough, with the weather. "Lovely sunshine outside. Don’t you rather wish you were out in it?" "No thank you," said the first. "We’ve just come back from the desert. Had enough sunshine to las: us for the rest of our lives." The others nodded agreement. "Glad to be home," was the universal pronouncement. "Not that we minded being over there," said another. "Good fun while it lasted, and a good kind of experience to look back ca. But we’re glad we’ve got to the point of looking back on _ All three were happy at the thought of going back to where they left off to go to the war. "I’ve got a wife and children waiting for me at New Plymouth. My oldest boy will be six now ard going to school. He was only four when I went away." "Won’t you be bored going back to the routine of office life? And won’t you’ miss some of the excitement?" I asked. "No fear," they all replied. "We're too excited about getting home to worry about missing any other kind." Yes, it was a cheerful gathering. The talk and laughter which had subsided during the speeches of welcome rose up again behind me as I left the hall. I walked out of the hospital into the sunshine, and paused for a moment to look back at the hospital ship. Two ambulances were driwn up near the gangway, and they were bringing out on stretchers the patients who wern’t well enough yet to go to a reception.

M.

B.