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DONALD C. BOWIE
where they fed us and found our guard. In the Empress of Australia, Major MacIntyre was senior medical officer and he turned out to be a fellow graduate of the University of Glasgow, a coincidence which turned out to be much to my advantage.
Apparently at this time I was making returns to some authority or other relating to money transactions while we were prisoners. In the Civil Internment Camp in Stanley, I believe that a few people who could get money sent in lent sums to others for repayment after the war at exorbitant rates of interest. This practice was frowned upon by the British leaders in the camp, and the returns I refer to undoubtedly had to do with transactions of this kind. The hospital had been free of such speculators who operated on this scale.
On 8 September I received a message from my wife and on 9 September we embarked in the Empress of Australia for a destination that was unknown. Next day we took on board all who were being evacuated from Stanley camp, having anchored just off the peninsula there. On 13 September we disembarked in Manila and were sent to an Australian officers camp where we were medically examined and interrogated on 15 September. While in Manila all messing arrangements were kept going throughout the whole 24 hours for the benefit of those who felt they needed much food.
On 18 September we reembarked in the Empress but our Q.A. sisters had taken the other route home via Canada. We voyaged home via Singapore, Colombo, Aden, Suez where all the troops were re-equipped with warm clothing, then after a short stop in Port Said we landed in Liverpool on 28 October having been delayed for 24 hours outside the port by storms and high winds. My thoughts went back to a similar 24-hour delay when my wife and I originally landed in Hong Kong some six and one-half years earlier.
While we were in Colombo a very interesting event occurred. Our accommodation in the Australia was on wartime standards and some of our men reacted very unfavourably to the crowded conditions. The atmosphere in the troop decks had become fiery at times. While we were anchored in Colombo, Lady Mountbatten came on board looking very smart in her Red Cross uniform. She went below to the troop decks, climbed on a mess table and spoke in simple and direct terms to the men. She drew their attention probably for the first time to the vastly different conditions in which life was being lived in ships and at home after six years at war. Her talk showed her sympathy and her understanding and I have