A Nurse's Life in War and Peace

by E. C. Laurence

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.