The Englishwomen in Alexandria were working like slaves for the wounded and the sick. They did all that was humanly possible to make up for the improvidence and the callousness of the home medical authorities. Thanks to their untiring and unceasing work, day and night, these ladies saved great numbers of British lives.
One day the Sultan came to inspect the hospital where I was a patient. For reasons of toilette, I should have preferred not to have been seen on that occasion by His Highness, but the royal eye fixed itself upon my kimono, and I was taken aside for a few minutes’ conversation.
Diary. (Subsequently written on the Peninsula.) The Sultan said that he was very grieved about the Conservative party, because of the Coalition, I suppose, and also about Gallipoli. There I cordially agreed.
I went up to Cairo for a few days, and found the city and life there very changed. Shepheard’s was filled with the ghosts of those who had left on and since April 12th.
In Egypt the danger of the Canal had passed, but anxiety had not gone with it. There was much doubt as to what the Senoussi would be likely to do and what consequences their action would have. They had little to gain by attacking, but all knew that this would not necessarily deter them. I was in Cairo when Fathy Pasha was stabbed, and those in authority feared for the life of the Sultan.
My friend Charlie B. and Major K. and I left Alexandria in brilliant moonlight. Our boat could do a bare twelve knots an hour. On the journey rockets went up at night, S.O.S. signals were sent us, all in vain: we were not to be seduced from our steady spinster’s course to Mudros. When we again reached that place we found that our sister-ship, the Ramadan, had been torpedoed.
Diary. (Written September 23rd.) General Godley was on the Lord Nelson. He had been sick for some time, and had been taking three days off. Roger Keyes desperately anxious to go up the Dardanelles, come what may. He is the proper man to do it, but I think it’s only singeing the King of Spain’s beard.