If you saw the jetty at Durban you would wonder that any stores ever got sent up to their right destination; literally hundreds of tons of boxes stacked up in hopeless confusion. Durban is a bit overdone by military requirements, and quite run out of some stores.
On April 3rd we were made very anxious by a strong rumour that Mafeking had fallen. They say that all the little children have died there. Yesterday we heard of the loss of a British convoy and five guns, and also that the Boers were going into laager again quite near to where Cronje was taken.
Durban is full of refugees, and of Ladysmith people recruiting after the siege. I went over one of the hospital ships, the Lismore Castle, before I came up here, and it was melancholy to see the skeletons from Ladysmith; one quite young fellow told me he had come here from India, got typhoid soon after the siege began, then, as soon as he began to convalesce, the only food they could give him was mealy meal and a little horse-flesh, so he got dysentery. He is now mending, but it is slow work with them all.
Before we came, our rooms had been occupied by refugees, and fleas abound; I catch about six ter die and once in the night. Luckily we are fairly free from mosquitoes. It is awfully hot, and the medical officers go about in trousers and vests only: we wish we could wear as little!
This is a very scrappy letter; we work from 6 A.M. to dusk, and then I have been scribbling a little before turning in, but I am weary to a degree, and must fill up the gaps in my next.
XXVIII
Pinetown, Natal,
April 1900.
You must not expect me to tell you anything about the progress of the war; the papers here give us very little news; of course we are constantly hearing many startling rumours, but they are frequently contradicted the next day, and probably you have more reliable news of the doings of our troops in your papers at home than we have.