It was quite a business getting them all packed up in a hurry, and they had to arrange about selling their horses, &c.
They gave a farewell dinner-party, which we all attended.
The Army Medical Department is a bit unsettling; of course you have to do exactly what you are told, and you are told to do things so suddenly: just a wire comes, and very often next day you move.
Colonel Galway (the P.M.O.) has gone home, and we miss him very much; he has been so particularly nice every time he has been here.
We have had a very quiet time lately. They are closing some beds up at Maritzburg, and sent us down a very good wardmaster and fifteen R.A.M.C. orderlies—some of them men with six or seven years' service.
At first the sisters could hardly realise that these men were really good nurses, as they have been so used to having to do most of the nursing themselves until they had shown each particular orderly how to do things; so they think now that the army sisters, in time of peace, must have a very easy life!
One night we had some people to dinner, and then they gave the men such a good concert. Some of the orderlies helped—one of them plays the violin beautifully, and the little Australian boy "bugled."
Another day a clergyman, who has a boys' school up the line, brought all his boys down to pay us a visit, and they played a cricket match against the medical officers and orderlies.
One other form of amusement has been very popular with the men, though rather an unusual one for hospital patients; we have a Lieutenant of the R.A.M.C. on duty here now, and when he went to the remount depot to secure a horse, he was rather surprised that a very nice-looking beast was willingly handed over to him when he said he would like it; but when they got it up here it promptly chucked all the stableboys in turn, and proved to be a bad Australian buckjumper!
Then the men, patients and orderlies, wanted to try their hand with him, and some of the Australian Bushmen are splendid at sticking on. Now he is getting quite tame, and only bucks a little when they first mount. The daily riding of the buckjumper has amused the whole camp; and I should simply have loved to try my hand at sticking on, but my damaged side won't allow me to ride anything for some time yet, though I am getting about my work all right, going slow.