General Hospital, Natal,
June 1901.

Thank goodness the winter will soon be over. I have never felt anything like the keenness of the cold up here.

On the whole, things have been fairly quiet in the country round just lately, though once the line was threatened and some of the trains delayed; and on another day there was a rumour of fighting not far off, and it was said that we had lost some guns, but I don't think there was much truth in the report.

Things are also going a little better in the hospital. We have a new Lady Superintendent, the other having gone home on a hospital ship.

There has been another big dance, to which most of the sisters went, and some other entertainments.

One night we (my tent full) had all gone to bed to try to get warm, when some one came banging on the canvas, and Sister —— of the Hospital Train put her head in; you know she was an old London friend of mine.

Her train was tied up here for the night, and, as she had heard our men were suffering from the cold, she had brought up a noble present of flannel jackets for them. They really were treasures: of course, I wanted them all for my own line, but had to be generous and give up a few to sisters who really had some bad chest and rheumatism patients.

Talking about rheumatism—I had one man in with rheumatism who was rather bad at first; he would not improve, but remained so helpless that the orderly had to lift him about. I did not quite know what to do with him, and began to think that if an R.A.M.C. surgeon had been on my line the improvement would have been rather more rapid than with the civil surgeon who had charge! Then, one day, I had a man bad in the next tent to this man, so I asked leave to go down to do something for him one evening after we had gone off duty, as I knew the night sister would be too busy to go to him when she first went on—and here there is always an hour's interval after the day sisters leave the camp and before the night sisters go down. What was my surprise when I got to the tent to find my rheumatic patient in there playing cards! He had pretended he could not sit up in bed.

I only said to him that I thought it was time he turned in for the night; and the next day I handed his board to the medical officer when he came round, and said that if he did not mind marking him "up," I thought it would do him good to sit out in the sun in the middle of the day, if the orderly put him to bed after tea. You can imagine the poor man felt pretty small, and in a few days he told the civil surgeon that he thought he felt fit to go back to duty, so we shook hands and parted good friends. I hope that he will not get shot, or I shall wish I had let him slack a bit longer!

We have had a good many Boer patients in lately; one poor young captain has lost his leg. One old fellow used to crawl about on crutches, but he was caught one night slipping about without them, and a Boer woman was found outside the fence with his clothes; so now all the Boers have been collected together and a guard posted.

I am now on night duty again, and find the orderlies more attentive, and the patients (generally) better nursed.

The first night I was on duty I was just reading the reports and trying to find out where the worst cases were, so as to visit them first (I now have 285 beds on my side, instead of the 250 I had when I was on before), when a wardmaster came to tell me that a sick convoy had turned up unexpectedly from General Bullock's column, and one man had been wounded on the way and had some hÆmorrhage from a shattered hand. I helped the surgical sister get the theatre ready in a hurry, and then she stayed for the operation, while I went to see the others. There were only fifteen men, and they were black as sweeps and very cold; but they did not seem very bad, and they were delighted to be in shelter, with the prospect of a bed.

The orderly officer asked me to give them anything I liked, and he would order it afterwards, while he went to the theatre with the case; the wardmaster got them all some Bovril, and we soon settled which of them might have bread with it; and then I had not the heart to insist on the usual wash, as it was so bitterly cold, but I let them all tumble into beds, and then took round a bottle of whisky and a kettle and gave them all a hot drink; there was nothing more heard of that lot of men (but snores) for a good many hours! Poor chaps, they were absolutely tired out, and the medical officer quite approved, only saying he thought they might have had two bottles of whisky amongst them instead of one, but you know I am a strict teetotaller!

Having settled them, I started my rounds, and soon found that the worst case was a poor chap with pneumonia; fortunately he was in a building (instead of a tent), so it was possible to keep him fairly warm. The night orderly was not a very intelligent youth, but he was fairly watchful and obedient, and for four nights I spent every spare minute with this man, and really thought we should pull him through; then the fifth night the day sister met me in a very bad temper, and said, "What do you think? they have moved our poor O. down to a very draughty enteric tent; after all the trouble we have taken to pull him round! I am sure he will die there." I asked why he had been moved, as there had been no sign of enteric, and she replied that she could not get any reason, but an orderly had told her that "the doctor said that he was going to die, and he did not want any death up there."

Poor chap, he did die the next day, and of course he might have done so in any case, but to shift him then just took away his only chance.

It has been very cold all the time that I have been on night duty, but two of the nights were so horrible that I don't think I shall ever forget them. Sister —— is on with me now, so we grumble together; for those two nights it was blowing hard, and then a sleety rain came on that positively cut like knives, and was almost paralysing; on the second of those two nights I struggled back to the duty room and flopped down by the fire, which was very low, but I had not even the energy to poke it up; after a bit Sister came in dripping wet and looking blue with cold; she set down her lantern, and then came to the fire and gazed at me, and, after a bit, said, "Sister, you do look ill." I tried to laugh, but I think we were both much nearer crying with cold; so I struggled up to attend to the fire and brewed some tea, and after a bit Sister said, "Do you know, Sister, when I came in I thought you looked as though you were going to die, and if you had been, I positively had not the power to set to work to get you a hot drink or anything."

I told her I thought we were both too tough to die of cold, and then we both (feeling a little better for the tea and warmth) had to tramp off again to give brandy to some of the bad cases. After that, they put on another night sister, so the work was not quite so hard, and we could take rather longer spells in the duty room to get warm, but we have not had rain (as well as the cold) except on those two nights.

Last night was full of excitement: during the day a poor young Australian lad had gone off his head and had been put in a guard tent, and he tried to get hold of the sentry's bayonet. Then there was much commotion because the C.O. found one of the signalmen was drunk, and brought him down to the guard tent. Then Sister —— found an orderly straying about, who was supposed to be special with a young R.A.M.C. lieutenant who is down with fever, and the orderly did not seem to know what he wanted; so Sister flew off to the tent, and found the lieutenant very much upset, and saying that the orderly was quite mad, and had refused to go and fetch the wardmaster when he ordered him to do so; he said he could not tell Sister what mad things the orderly had been doing; so she had to send for the medical officer, who got the orderly removed at once and another posted.

There is not nearly so much drinking as there was at first, but still they do find ways of getting drunk at times. A little while ago there was a great row because the convalescent officers were allowed to drive or ride about, and they used to go over to the next town and bring back whisky and champagne. I don't think there was much harm in it at first (except that it was a bad example for the men), and it was winked at for some time, until they had a very rowdy lot of men in, and then one day one of them was found to be suffering from D.T.

I am glad I am not Lady Superintendent up here: I should find it hard to know where to draw the line with the present lot of sisters; at first they were given every liberty, and were rather encouraged to go to dances and riding picnics, &c., with the men; then, when their behaviour began to be talked about, the authorities put up notices in our mess-room of rules referring to conduct of which no lady would be guilty, rules which were, in fact, an insult to us, but which we cannot say are unnecessary, because there are just a few sisters who don't care what they do—one of them was seen at a hotel at the next station smoking cigarettes with a most undesirable companion!

We can only hope the war will soon be over, and let us all go home; otherwise, the sooner sisters of that sort are weeded out the better. They seem to have been choosing the sisters in a very casual way at home lately, and, though there are plenty of sisters out here who are working hard and well, they will probably all get classed together in the public estimation with those who are simply "frivolling" and getting themselves talked about.