A French Senegalese.
Dressed in white with a red sash, these troops were very vain and like all negroes could not keep their hands off the henroost.
Nurses!
The camp was thrilled when Canadian nurses were discovered on the island. With their wonderful ways, their delightful accents, and their cute little naval capes, the memory of those nurses working away in that hell-hole of Mudros should never be forgotten. On the road from Anzac, Suvla and Helles; on this dusty, rocky island; surrounded by that atmosphere of desolation and suffering caused by an aggregation of wounded and broken men—these girls, with no halfpenny illustrated paper to print their pictures and sing their praises, slaved away in the Mudros hospitals and saved the lives of many New Zealanders who must have perished had it not been for the devotion of the nurses. The soldiers of New Zealand can never adequately express their thanks for the magnificent work of those Canadian and Australian women at Lemnos, and the British, Australian and New Zealand nurses who toiled so heroically on those awful journeys in the hospital ships from Anzac to Mudros, Alexandria and Malta.
War has some compensations, after all. One begins to realize that we are so dependent on our fellows for most of the happiness and joys of life. Between the sailormen and the Colonials, too, there was a strong bond of friendship. This became very manifest after the landings, and further intimate acquaintance strengthened those early ties. The latest expression of these feelings came from the cruisers and destroyers in the bay. The crews had a "tarpaulin muster," the result of which was a present for every man in the division of half a pound of tobacco, at a time when it was specially acceptable.
Hot Baths at Thermos.
Most welcome news was that, at Thermos, about three miles away, hot baths could be had. From the day when the baths were built, they could not have been more crowded. Since leaving Egypt, five months before, hot baths were unknown, unless one was lucky and sufficiently hurt to be put aboard a hospital ship. So out to Thermos hurried the men, to whom a hot bath was a boon beyond price. The little stone building was below ground level, the inside lined with marble, and with marble basins full and overflowing in each corner so that the marble floor was also awash. The procedure was to strip off and with a little dipper pour the water over oneself. Thermos became the most popular resort on the island.
In the little villages, too, very good meals could be obtained—especially those delicious Continental omelettes made only in countries where eggs, tomatoes and fine herbs are estimated at their full value. The mild Greek beer was also most palatable. Mixed with the wine of the country, it made even the listless Anzacs quite hilarious. The quaint old windmills on the hill, and the church in the village square, where the gossips gathered together, were reminiscent of the Old World life made familiar to us in our youth by means of books and pictures. Indeed, some of these old villages seemed just like an ancient painting come to life. Flocks of sheep with little bells on their necks made sweet tinkling music as they wandered to and from their pasture lands; by the roadside the comely (if rather fat) Greek women worked in the fields, and winnowed in olden style their crops of grain and seeds; on the hillside the ancient windmills ground corn which made a most palatable brown bread; under the spreading tree in the village square, picturesque old patriarchs, apparently telling the tales of ancient Greece, were really discussing how much money they could extract in the shortest time from these open-handed, spendthrift warriors!
The Main Street in Mudros.