Extract from The Red and Green Life Machine (a diary of the Falklands Field Hospital) by Rick Jolly.
June 10th 1982
Back in Ajax Bay we were still ferrying customers by helicopter to Uganda, so I hitch-hiked a ride out to the hospital ship, briefed the Captain, and kept her command structure in the picture about the planned final assault on Stanley.
There was a sad little ceremony to undertake before we returned about twenty minutes later. Paul Callan, the young 45 Commando chef so grievously injured on the night of May 27th when we were bombed in Ajax Bay, had finally died of his wounds. Following up the tremendous efforts of Lt Col Bill McGregor and Major Malcolm Jowitt in our little field hospital, Surgeon Commander Roger Leicester had done his very, very best - but despite three operations and nearly fifty pints of blood, the young marine's exhausted and badly-injured body had given up the ghost.
Slow marching, with their classic precision, a detachment of Uganda's bandsmen ascended the ramp. Their precious load, a body bag containing their Royal Marines colleague, was positioned with great care and reverence in the Wessex helicopter’s cabin. The flight deck party then snapped off a sad salute that showed on their faces. We started up, engaged rotors, and then lifted off to deliver Paul Callan back to Ajax Bay, for burial with those of his friends who had gone before.
