Twenty more orderlies have arrived, St. John's Ambulance men, and the buildings were all complete by the end of May.
I have had a few rides on the funeral horse, and, as it is very tame in harness, I was astonished to find it was quite gay and hard to hold; but we have found out that it was once a racehorse, and of course it has never had a side-saddle on before.
Our nice compounder has been awfully ill with appendicitis and dysentery. We have had to write each mail to his people, but now I am glad to say he is doing well. Several of the orderlies are down with enteric, including our mess-room waiter; so "Cup-of-tea" has to wait on our mess of eighteen, and needs a good deal of looking after.
I expect they will give me another orderly soon, but so many are ill, and the wards are heavy, and need a good many men for night duty. Every few nights the orderlies have to do a spell on night (as well as their ordinary day) duty, so they are rather inclined to grumble, and it is difficult for them to keep awake; but I don't think any of them do longer hours than I do, as I prowl about a good deal in the night when the cases first come down and are bad; so they don't grumble too loud.
The sisters seemed to be getting rather fagged out, so I have begun to give them in turn a monthly day off, and I look after their wards. I find it is rather useful, as I get a good opportunity of seeing how they have managed, and also of learning how much the orderlies are good for; it is quite touching how good they are to me: they want to show me they can be trusted, and they do everything they possibly can to save me trouble on these "days off." From the sergeant-major downwards they have always been very nice to me, and I am sure I do very little for them (except when they are ill and need fussing over) beyond scolding them for misdeeds for which the sisters report them.
I wonder whether they guess that, all the time, I feel that the sisters are expecting too much of them!
I was amused when a new sergeant arrived with twenty men the other day; of course, at first they did not know any of us, and when I met them and said "Good morning," they simply gaped. The next day I had a fatigue party sent up to tidy the china and linen store; of course our old batch of men saluted when I went to show them what I wanted done; and I expect the new men received a few words from them on their slack manners afterwards, for since then there has been a very stiff draw up and salute whenever they come for orders or with a message. I hear the army sisters are not saluted as a rule.
I think I told you how much we suffered from fleas at first; now they are quite banished. We have twenty coolies, and a good orderly in charge of them, and they do all the sanitary work, and sweep and scrub and generally keep the place tidy (they also have to dig the graves), and since we have got rid of all the packing-cases, and everything is trim and tidy, the fleas have disappeared.
So far we have had very few wounded in—nearly all enteric or dysentery, with some cases of camp fever, rheumatism, &c.; the medical officers are disappointed at so little surgical work, but I don't think I mind, as we can feel we are actually saving the lives of some of these men by sheer hard nursing, and that is good enough for me; sometimes a man sees that I am worrying about a patient who does not seem to be improving, or who is going downhill, and he will come up and say "Never mind, Sister, he would have been dead long ago if he had been left in that Field Hospital any longer; you have given the chap a chance." It is grand to see the first batch of men, who came to us so desperately ill, so haggard, starved, dirty, and miserable, getting about now in their blue suits, looking so clean and bright, though still very thin.
Some of them are beginning to need to be amused, and the knitting wool and materials for worsted work that I brought out are coming in very useful; in fact, they will soon be finished, but the Durban ladies have kindly promised to send me more.