Back to Ganges. I'd now been in the RN for the sum total of 4 weeks.We had, a few days previously, been to Harwich for a night out. I now found myself lying in a bed in the sick bay feeling bloody awful and generally sorry for myself.
How had I got here - well, the visit to Harwich had involved swapping some spit with a local girl. Unfortunately, she also managed to pass on a good dose of glandular fever to me at the same time. This would mean a stay in the sick bay of 2 weeks followed by 6 weeks sick leave. Not bad! Six weeks on and six weeks off.
Actually, this was disaster as far as I was concerned. This meant being back classed and my fellow trainees moving on without me. All for the sake of a snog!
So, here I was, feverish and feeling bad. The Ganges sick bay was rumoured to have been sited near or on a mass grave, dating back, apparently to WWI. Whether this is true or not, I cannot really say. It was, however, a pretty gloomy place.
The ward was long with beds along the two walls. At the end of the rows of beds was a TV area complete with a few standard navy chairs.
One evening, at dusk, I glanced out of the window opposite me and thought I saw a vague shape flit past the window. It was hard to tell in the gloom, so I thought no more of it.
Later, that same night, well past midnight, something roused me from my feverish slumber. I listened intently - from the TV end of the room I could hear an odd scraping noise. It sounded as though someone was moving the chairs. Then a few footsteps began to make their way up the ward towards me - then stopped. I glanced down the ward - there was nothing.
Frightened, I sunk down below the bed covers, and didn't surface until the morning. Was anyone else disturbed during the night. No. It appeared to be just me. Was it a practical joke, my fevered imagination or something else. Who knows.
I do now that over the coming years working in naval hospitals, I would experience a few other weird occurrences, some of which I will tell of later.
No comments:
Post a Comment