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Chapter 21
February 1944 - December 1945 – Nadzab airport, PNG
Meg lifted her hairoff her neck and fanned her face with her notebook. The tent was sweltering in the late afternoon humidity, and she’d give anything for even a little sea breeze that had sometimes cooled the hospital in Townsville, but she was a long way north from there.
‘Eight hundred and seventy-two miles, Sister.’ The flight lieutenant who delivered the nurses to Nadzab airbase had told her. ‘Almost due north from your last posting.’
The Americans had built this airbase, northwest of Lae, after they, and an Aussie contingent, had liberated it from the Japanese last year. Although the base wasn’t far from the Markham River, Nadzab was twenty-seven miles inland from the coast, and she walked around in a near-constant state of sweat-dampened clothes. All of the staff looked wilted most of the time. But then, neatly ironed uniforms were irrelevant here.
Meg looked around the room at her fellow sisters. Since last October, nurses and physiotherapists had been posted to 2/9th AGH at “Seventeen Mile” near Port Moresby. They had treated some of the wounded from the Kokoda campaign. Now, she was one of fifteen Aussie nurses selected to begin bringing home wounded servicemen. By air! They might look wilted, but a burst of pride hit Meg as she thought about the mission they were embarking on.
She flipped back to an early page in her notebook. Their training had included in-flight medicine and care at altitude, tropical hygiene, and emergency survival procedures—which Meg prayed she would never have to implement. Ditching in the ocean had become the stuff of her most recent nightmares. It didn’t help that at best, she was only a mediocre swimmer. Maybe she should try to fit in another training session?
A swimmer, she wasn’t, but tomorrow, she would be one of the first of the RAAF medi-evac nurses the men were already dubbing “Flying Angels”.
With a concerted effort, she focused her attention back on Major Allen, the doctor heading up their new unit, who was summing up after days of lectures and some scary practical training. Thank goodness she wasn’t afraid of heights.
‘So, ladies, in conclusion. Air evacuations are the quickest and most effective way to transport seriously wounded troops from the front line in New Guinea and the surrounding islands. The faster we can get a wounded man to expert care, the greater his chance of survival. You, Sisters, will be the difference to these men, and to getting them home alive to their families.’
He stood at the front of the group of nurses, all recruited from the RAAFNS, and smiled for the first time. ‘Your flight schedules will be posted in the mess hall at seventeen hundred hours, which is—’ He flipped over his wrist and looked at his watch. ‘Now. Check when you’ll be heading out. Those of you on the first evacuation flight, get your beauty sleep. You’ll be expected at breakfast at zero three thirty with take-off at first light. I don’t need to tell you in these parts that comes early. Congratulations on passing your training, and good luck. Dismissed.’
Meg gathered her clipboard, set her hat on her head, and edged along the row of chairs following in the footsteps of three of her fellow nurses as they headed towards the mess tent.
Cynthia, Meg’s bunk buddy, dropped back from the leading group and took her arm. ‘I’m a bundle of nerves. There’s a lot of pressure if you’re the first cab off the rank tomorrow.’
‘Or the first plane off the tarmac in this case. And yes, there is pressure, but it will be so exciting to become a flying nurse.’ They both giggled at her silly turn of phrase. ‘Do you think they’ll give us insignia with wings, like the pilots?’
Cynthia shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting. The top brass takes forever to make major changes that seem obvious to us. I mean, why didn’t they let us start these evacuations last year, when the first nurses were permitted to work in forward stations in Papua?’
‘Probably because they didn’t have a secure airbase close enough to the front lines back then.’
‘Hey, girls, the roster is up.’ Two nurses who’d led the way to the mess tent stepped to one side as Meg and Cynthia entered the tent.
Meg stopped in front of the board and looked at the orders. There in black type was her name against tomorrow’s inaugural flight. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
‘So, Sister Dorset is Flying Angel Number One. Ready for all that excitement and pressure, Margaret?’ Cynthia gave her a one-armed hug. ‘I’m so relieved it’s you and not me. You’re a leader.’
‘What do you mean? You volunteered for this posting, like the rest of us. That’s leading the way in my book.’
Cynthia shrugged as she often did when deflecting attention from herself. ‘Okay, I’ll give you that, but I prefer to follow where others forge a path. But hey, you can tell me all about it when you get back because I’m not on until—’ Cynthia ran her finger down the list. ‘Three days’ time. Flying Angel number four—suits me perfectly.’
##
3.30 A.M./Zero threethirty
Meg blinked furiously and rubbed her eyes, still trying to clear the grit of sleep as she headed into breakfast. It was such an odd time to wake and begin the day, neither late nor early for a nurse used to night shifts.
Her flight team—how her heart sang at those words—drifted into the mess where the poor cook had probably been up since two a.m. preparing their breakfast. Corporal Duncan Jarvis, her orderly, slid along the bench and patted the spot beside him. ‘Here you go.’
As she sat next to him, he asked, ‘Nervous about taking your first flight, Sister?’
‘Yes and no. I think I’m more excited than nervous, but I’ll give you an update when we’re in the air.’ But the rush of adrenaline had the tang of an adventure in it.
‘Eat well is my advice. You won’t get another meal for a while.’
Meg did as Duncan suggested and was finishing a mug of tea when the call came to board. Meg slung her bag over her shoulder and headed out into the grey light. A sliver of pale light sat between the earth and a heavy layer of low clouds.
The DC-47 sat on the tarmac with its cargo doors open and engines revving. To Meg’s untrained eye, its snub nose made it look like a flying fish, or a child’s model airplane. The nearer they drew to the olive-drab Dakota the more deafening the twin engines became. There was no Red Cross insignia on the plane, and a shiver ran down Meg’s spine. Camouflage colours reminded her – they were heading into dangerous territory.
