We can only hope the war will soon be over, and let us all go home; otherwise, the sooner sisters of that sort are weeded out the better. They seem to have been choosing the sisters in a very casual way at home lately, and, though there are plenty of sisters out here who are working hard and well, they will probably all get classed together in the public estimation with those who are simply "frivolling" and getting themselves talked about.
XLVII
Uitenhage, Cape Colony,
October 1901.
It is a long time since I have written to you, but for some time things went jogging on very much the same as when I wrote last, and there was little to write about, and then lately I have had a wretched time of it, so did not feel inclined for writing.
After I finished my turn on night duty I went back to my line, but soon knocked up, and was ill and off duty for nearly three weeks; first with dysentery, and then my damaged side got bad again.
By the time I got to work once more, the weather had very much improved, and my tents were very light. I received from home some splendid boxes of literature, and also of tobacco and jerseys, and some games for the men. I taught them to play Halma, and it was very popular; they used to make out it was a competition between the different branches of the Service—the greens were always the Volunteers, the yellows were the Yeomanry, the reds the Regulars, and the blues the Navy or the Colonials; sometimes they could get a representative of each branch to play the men, and then there was much excitement as to which would get in first.
The men in my line got a photographer to photograph them, and presented me with a large copy. You can understand that we were fairly slack when I tell you that we used to brew toffee in the duty room on afternoon duty. I think we were all very tired of ration feeding, and we were all getting thin, and when one gets to that stage one has a sort of craving for sweet things, so the toffee was very popular.
Something went wrong with the washing arrangements for a time, and we could not get our things washed, so for a week or two we had to wash for ourselves, and, irons being very scarce, we had to press our things by putting them under our mattresses and sleeping on them!