General Hospital, Natal,
March 1901.

Now I have waded (both literally and figuratively) through my first spell of a fortnight on night duty, and it has not been pleasant; but when one thinks how much worse it must be for the troops out trekking, one does not mind.

I have always thought that South Africa without the sun was rather a poor sort of a place, and, living in a tent in the wet season, I am confirmed in that opinion.

It began to rain the first night I went on duty, and during the fortnight I had only four fine nights: the other nights it rained—generally in bucketfuls.

The first day when I went to bed it was very hot and stuffy in the tent, so I did not sleep for some time, but was sleeping in the afternoon when the rain began, and soon it woke me up by splashing on my face; then I found it was coming down in torrents, and our tent had been so badly pitched, with no trench round it, that there was a deep stream flowing through. I had to paddle about and rescue all our goods from the floor, pitching most of them on to Sister's bed; and she was rather amused when she came over to call me, to find me fast asleep under a mackintosh and umbrella, my bed a simple island, and no room for her to get into her own bed!

Most of the sisters were prepared for this, and had suitable garments, but it was several days before I could obtain them, so I very soon had not a dry garment to my name.

Before I leave the subject I may as well tell you what is the correct garb, and then you can imagine us sitting on a bench at our mess—and I am sure no one seeing us would think we were sisters; with our lanterns hung up behind us, we look more like miners, or something of that sort!

The first essential is a pair of knee "gum" boots, as the grass between the tents is long; then you must have knickerbockers, with a very short serge skirt (some omit the skirt altogether on night duty!), then a mackintosh. When it does not rain, you substitute for the mackintosh a "British Warmer" coat—that is the short khaki overcoat that both officers and privates wear, a very rough wool with a warm flannel lining. For headgear we have a sailor hat, or a wool cap, or a sou'wester, according to taste. White caps and aprons are quite impossible when you have to go from tent to tent.

Of course there is no chance of drying anything till the sun comes out again, and when we get out of bed it would never do to turn it down; instead of that you put anything you wish to try to keep dry inside, and cover it all up with every rug and blanket and mackintosh that you can lay hands on.

Our tent was so hopelessly bad, that after some days they let us move into another, and that one having a wooden floor, we were better off.

I was so tired after moving our things into the new tent, and after a heavy night on duty in the pouring rain, that I slept like a top, and when I woke in the evening I found everything upset in the tent, and evident marks that a cow had been taking shelter with me!

The sisters gibed at me, and said I should probably not have waked up if it had been a Boer commando.

There are a lot of men very ill. I was supposed to have charge on night duty of the medical side (about 250 beds), and that included the enteric tents with about 100 beds. They seem to have a mania for shifting the men about, so it was often difficult to find the bad cases; there were generally only night orderlies in the enteric tents, so that men who needed much attention in the night were supposed to be sent to the enteric line, whether they had enteric or not. To escape this risk of infection for them, we sisters used to try to do all for them in their own tents as long as we possibly could, and the poor chaps were so grateful to us, and the day sisters (who were equally keen not to have them sent down) used to tell us that the men always assured the medical officers that they had everything they wanted in the night. You know how at home if a sick man wakes up, and is alone for a few minutes, he thinks he is being neglected, but these poor chaps must have many lonely hours in the dark tents, and yet they never complain; they know that so many are dying of enteric, and they seem to have a horror of being sent down to that line.

It really was pretty horrid paddling about in the dark and the long grass between the tents; and it was so slippery with mud and rain that twice I fell down, and it took some time before I could find my lantern and the kettle which I had just boiled up, and was carrying down to make a poultice for a poor chap with pneumonia: it was very annoying, as, of course, it took time to reboil the kettle. The day sister leaves everything ready, with the linseed in a bowl, so that I have only to pour the water on, and then I put everything all ready for the next one; in this way we can get fairly hot poultices, though the tents are a long way from the fire.

The men used to be so sorry for us being so constantly wet; and many a convalescent man used to beg me to let him stay awake with a man who was very ill and give him his drinks, &c., promising to come and fetch me if he wanted anything, so that I need not go round so often,—but, of course, I could not let him do that.

One man (a New Zealander) said to me, "Well, Sister, I have often grumbled at having to do sentry-go for two or three hours on a wet night, but I never knew that any woman had to do it for twelve hours at a stretch; I shan't grumble at my share again in a hurry."

The other day we had in a big convoy of eighty sick and wounded from General French's column. They had been eight days in ox waggons coming seventy-two miles; poor chaps, they were glad to get into beds.

Two days from here they had got stuck in a drift one night, and the Boers came down and fired on them, killing a corporal and a private of the guard and wounding two others. One man had been shot in the thigh, and Sister made him comfortable in bed, and the doctor said they should not do anything till next day; the man slept like a top for over twelve hours, and when he woke in the morning Sister said something to him about having been comfortable, and he said, "Yes, Sister, I was not going to miss five minutes' enjoyment of that bed, for I have not been on a bed for fifteen months."

This convoy also brought in a lot of Boer women and children, but they have gone into a camp about three miles from here.

If you, or any of your friends, care to post me any illustrated papers or magazines, they would be most gratefully received, or in fact anything wherewith to amuse the men. We should be very glad, too, of warm garments, as the winter is coming on, and the Red Cross people have stopped sending the splendid big bundles of papers that our men used to appreciate so much; in fact, most people seem to have tired of sending the things with which we were so well supplied at first. The poor Tommies feel a little hurt at no free supplies of tobacco or cigarettes, and I would give anything to have my old supply of warm shirts, sweaters, wool caps, &c., for the men who have to go back to roughing it on trek.

Now that the rain has stopped, we are having perfectly lovely days, but the nights are very cold; they say that a little later on it is bitterly cold up here.

There were six deaths during my first fortnight on night duty, and it was awfully sad, as one felt they had so little chance, and I cannot really see why they should not be better "done by"; but the sisters seem to think that it is the natural order of things, and that we must just "do our best and leave the rest."

The General was here the other day, and said that all the men were to have tumblers instead of mugs, but I suppose he does not know that they have not each got a mug yet!

There is one enteric tent (the last one opened) of fourteen beds, and their equipment includes only four mugs, and not a single feeding-cup at all. One night I found a man, who had not got enteric, sent there for the sake of having night orderlies, as he was very ill; so I had to borrow a mug for him from another line, and the next day I bought him the necessary fittings at the coolie store; but it won't do much good, as the orderlies probably won't take proper precautions to wash up for him separately.

There are some new R.A.M.C. officers here now, and one of them seems energetic; I don't know what had gone wrong that he was poking into, but one of the sisters heard him say to a sergeant, "Hospital scandals are not in it," so we can only hope things will improve here.

There was much excitement here one night. A major arrived, sick, in a mule buggy from a column near here; the C.O. saw him, and told him what tent to go to, but he never arrived. After much searching of the camp, neither the officer nor his mules could be found; then the heliograph was set to work, and eventually he was located at the next station, and when he was brought back he said the C.O. was so rude to him that he thought he would not stay, and had gone to a hotel!

Since I came off night duty I, and two other sisters, have been doing only "afternoon duty," which means looking after the camp while all the other sisters are off duty; this is because there are more sisters here than the proper number: if there were only the right number, two of the sisters who have lines would stay on every afternoon in turn; but the stupid thing about it is that if we were each turned on to a big tent of enterics (instead of one sister having all the line on her hands) we might be doing really useful nursing; as it is, there is not much to do in the afternoon, beyond prowling round and trying to talk to the men and cheer them up a bit.

The other day one of them presented me with these lines of his own composition; he was in a tent when I was on night duty where there was a very bad case:

(By an Australian Trooper.)