PARTITION - additional recordings I Andrew Whitehead / __________________________________I CD-14 TOM DYKES eldest son of Lt-Col Tom Dykes and his wife Biddy now lives in South Africa interviewed at his brother Douglas's home at Dorking by AW, 24th June 2001 Tr2 'well, I can remember waking up [on 27/10/1947 at Baramulla] and there was gunfire alia round the place, the whole n'hodd there was shooting going on, and I got up and went into the gardens of the hospital and there was some nuns standing, talking together, obv v worried and concerned, and they beckoned me over to them. And suddenly, the who place eruote with shooting, shouting, screaming, yelling, and the nuns grabbed me and we went into a room next to the garden, and I think that was the medicine room for the hospital, I remember, and locked ourselves in. And then these fellowa that had raide the hospital started to batter down the door of this room we were in, I cd actually see the - the splinters started to fly across the room, and I cd see the wild faces thro the cracks in the door, and I noticed that at the back of the room there was another door, and I tried it and it wasn't locked and I ran for it. I left the nuns, they were all huddled, huddled in a comer, obviosuly petrified, holding each other in a group, I don't know what happened to them. I do rememebr seeing some of them later, and they were staggering around the place with their habits tom, but in retrospect maybe they were raped, but I certainly don't know if that did happen. No one's ever told me this happened. (2'15) But anyway, after having left this little room, I found my way to one of the wards, where the tribesmen were looting the place, they were pulling everything apart, and putting their booty into sheets which lay on the floor and were made up into bundles. They were v nice - well when I say nice, I don't rememebr them being unkind to me. They took me with them, and,as I say, bundled this stuff into their sheets, and made their way to the front of the hospital where they put a;; their booty in a pil and I don't know what their plans were for me at all, but I often wonder if they had any plans of taking me off with them. (3 10) But nevertheless, rather fortuitously, our servant -1 do remember his name, his name was Feroze - saw me with them. He was obviously milling about out in the road there, and he came up, and he persuaded them to let me go off with him. And he sd well, we must go and find your family. Which we duly did, and went back to the central part of the hospital, a garden ares with a path round it, and we came across these bodies, covered with blood, and sittimng on top howling his eyes out, was my little brother Douglas. Not very nice. 1