A Nurse's Life in War and Peace

by E. C. Laurence

We found no news at all in the Cape Town papers, but certainly the war does not seem likely to be over just yet; they say all civil traffic and mails north of De Aar have been stopped.

There was a rumour that there were Boers within thirty miles of Cape Town, so all the Boer prisoners were being sent away from Simon's Town. Some naval guns have been mounted on the "Lion's Head" (a part of Table Mountain), and the Town Guard were sent up there in watches, as well as some of the regulars.

The Town Guard were most energetic and constantly drilling. One day I wanted to speak to one of the Customs' men, and found they were all drilling with their rifles in the Customs' shed, and the Customs' business had to wait.

Then, of course, you will have heard there was plague in Cape Town, and there was some alarm lest it should get amongst the soldiers, and cripple us in that way; but they seem to be attacking it in an energetic way, and so far it is practically confined to the coloured people.

As usual it started among the rats on the South Arm at the docks; large numbers of them died, and the rest went off in a body to Green Point, at which place there is a large military camp, so that the sanitary officials were rather anxious.

Then the natives got frightened, and wanted to go home; but the Government stopped that by not allowing any of them to travel by train, except with special permits; this was partly to prevent their spreading the plague about the country, and also because it would have been difficult to get the dock work done if the natives had cleared.

At the same time a large native location is being built on the Cape flats (where they will all have to live), and a light railway to bring them into their work.

Rats are being bought for threepence each, and several hundreds of their bodies are being cremated daily at the gasworks.

At last we went into Cape Town and saw the P.M.O., but he said he could not say when we should get on; so we went on to our friend the embarkation officer, and told him that if there was no transport coming soon, we would pay our own passage to go up to Natal by a mailboat rather than waste more time at Wynberg; but he promised we should get a ship before the next mail and save our money, which we were glad enough to do; but my private opinion is that we should have been waiting at Wynberg still if we had not gone into Cape Town and agitated about it!

We paid a visit to the Yeomanry Hospital at Maitland, where a brother of Sister's was in as a patient (but getting better), and I found several old friends on the staff there.