Our tent is the last one at this end of the camp, and when we were told that we were not to go more than a mile from the camp in any direction (except along the line) it used to be strange to walk out, after we came off duty, for a few hundred yards beyond my tent, and then sit down on a grassy ridge as it got dark and watch the heliographs flashing around, and wonder whether the little lights we saw meant our men or Boers camping out. Sometimes we used to imagine they were quite close and watching us, and used to go back to our tents feeling quite creepy, and borrowing an extra piece of string to tie up our tent door!
And then, when we heard the guns in the distance, it was always a debatable point whether it was worth getting up and dressing in case any wounded were brought in soon, but we generally decided to finish our usual allowance of hours in bed.
People are kindly sending me English papers now, both from England and passed on from Durban, and they are very much enjoyed; the men were especially delighted last week when they got hold of an old weekly edition of The Times in which General Buller and General Roberts mentioned some of the regiments to which they belonged.
It is getting frightfully cold at nights; there are big icicles hanging round the water tanks, and when one of them overflowed there was quite a little sea of ice round it; the water in our tents often freezes, and it is quite difficult to break it to wash in the morning.
The night sisters are very miserable with the cold; I shall have to take my turn on night again next month, and I shall be quite sorry to give up my line, as the patients are so awfully grateful for what one can do for them, and I have nice orderlies just now.
We go to bed directly we finish dinner at night, so as to try to get warm.
XLVI
General Hospital, Natal,
June 1901.