Hurry Up and Wait--Again!
Three months to the day came with orders for Morris Hirsch to report to Medical HQ for reposting.
Morris Hirsch was almost as sad to leave Barberton Army Base Camp as he had been to arrive. Some of his brief goodbyes were emotional.
He now thought more kindly of Col. Orford: Barberton had been a great experience, contributing much to his medical, army and social maturity. This time, his drive home was leisurely, soaking in the beauty of the landscapes, reliving the highlights, the joys and the lessons. He had no regrets.
As the golden mine dumps of Johannesburg came into view, he briefly wondered where to next? His army sentence for impatience fully served, so he thought, he looked forward to more active duty. But his reunion with Joan filled his mind.
Returning to Sonderwater Base Medical Depot and its mundane routine duties revived his restlessness and discontent as the weeks rolled by. Here he was sitting it out once more as the war moved inexorably from climax to climax. The South Africans had cleared Somaliland. Addis Ababa, the Abyssinian (Ethiopian) capital had fallen and the Italians were everywhere in retreat. The momentum and interest for South Africans had moved to the Middle East to augment General Wavell's desert army against the threat of German reinforcement of the inept and battle-shy Italians.
So he was shocked and despondent to be seconded, with half a dozen others, to the East African Medical Corps. They had forty-eight hours notice to fly to Nairobi, Kenya, where their immediate fate would be decided. It was little comfort that he was not the only one singled out for the Italian mopping up operation, now a backwater of the war.
But the others in the secondment were a stolid bunch. They reassured each other they would move on to more dramatic events when 'this little show was over.'
Young George Gosling was distinctively English, staid with set values and standards, reinforced no doubt by his select Johannesburg, St. John's private school education. Cheery enough with a winning smile and reassuring: if East Africa was where the army apparently needed serving, so be it.
David Goldberg, a Durban Surgeon, was middle aged, as bald as he was serious- minded: in the forces to do his bit, he minded not where he served.
Sam Garber, also Jewish, was the Don Juan: handsome in spite of his somewhat pockmarked face, with curly hair and sporting a neat moustache which he periodically caressed, and a well-built and proportioned body. He loved the girls and they expected to be loved when he paid them attention: a ladies man, the perfect stud. He spoke quickly with staccato precision, adding to his charm. He was also very intelligent and vied for the top place as a student. One year Morris' senior, he had taught him anatomy. He could make the most of his chances wherever he found himself. But his incessant smoking exposed his restlessness...
The historical novel Whitewashed Jacarandas and its sequel Full of Possibilities are both available on Amazon as paperbacks and eBooks.
These books are inspired by Diana's family's experiences in small town Southern Rhodesia after WWII.
Dr. Sunny Rubenstein and his Gentile wife, Mavourneen, along with various town characters lay bare the racial arrogance of the times, paternalistic idealism, Zionist fervor and anti-Semitism, the proper place of a wife, modernization versus hard-won ways of doing things, and treatment of endemic disease versus investment in public health. It's a roller coaster read.
References:
Excerpt from Dr. Morris Isaac Hirsch's Unpublished Memoirs. Hirsch Archives.
Photo: Hirsch Archives