A Nurse's Life in War and Peace

by E. C. Laurence

We have had one man awfully bad with double pneumonia after a stiff turn of typhoid. Then he got a bad abscess in the jaw, and had to have it operated on; for some days his temperature hovered between 105° and 106°, but now he is doing well, and will soon be sent home.

We have been inspected by Colonel Clery, who, unfortunately, came on the day on which we had those seventy-five men in, and before we had got them all washed or their kit put away; but he was very pleasant to me, and said he was pleased with the wards and the looks of the patients, bedding, &c.

We have also had several other distinguished visitors—Sir John Furley, Sir William Stokes, and Major Baptie of the R.A.M.C., who won his V.C. at Colenso.

We have all been very sorry to hear of the death of Colonel Forrester, who had been in charge of the Princess Christian Hospital Train, and had been here several times bringing us patients.

The four months for which this hospital was given, equipped, and maintained by private generosity, are now nearly over, and in a few days we shall have become a Government Hospital. We shall then receive our pay and various allowances from the Government; and we are now arranging to separate the mess of the sisters from that of the medical officers. I expect it will be difficult to keep our stores separately, but we shall wish to live more economically than they do. For the present we have decided to share the same cook, an Indian who has been acting as our dhobie for the last few weeks, and who, we hear, is a good cook; his wife will continue to act as our dhobie; she is such a pretty little thing, with rings in her nose and bangles on her ankles and arms.

I quite expected to be superseded by an Army Sister proper when the hospital was handed over, but the P.M.O. has asked me to "carry on" (which does not mean the same in the army as it does in Cockney land!)

The other day poor Miss H. arrived. She had started from England as soon as she heard her brother was ill here, meaning to nurse him, and I think I told you he died here (our first death amongst the officers). It was awfully sad for her. I was frightfully busy the day she came, but felt I must walk over to the cemetery with her. She is a trained nurse, and we should have been very glad of her help if she could only have arrived in time, as her brother was delirious for so long, and we had to take turns at sitting up with him for some time; but everything that could possibly be done for him was done.

They do seem to muddle things a bit; in the last few weeks we have had seven new sisters sent to us; we would have given anything for a few of them a couple of months ago, but now there is much less fever, and many of the beds are filled with convalescents. We had no rooms for so many sisters, so had to put up tents for them.

One day we sent off a batch of over fifty men for home, emptied several wards (putting the remaining cases into other wards), and had a general clean up; the same day we had a wire to tell us to expect seventy-two men the next evening, so we had a scramble to get the linen dry and everything ready for them. They proved to be all convalescents, and they came down thinking they were going straight on board ship for home, and of course were rather disgusted at being stopped here. The next day, having got them all settled in, and their kit stowed away, we had a wire asking us to send sixty men down to Durban the next morning for home!

So, again, there was a great bustle and inspection, and the lucky sixty having been selected had to retrieve their kit from the store and be fitted up with comforts for the voyage.