Diphtheria was so prevalent that the Red Cross on receiving a patient, gathered in the whole family for a few days, inoculated, washed, and gargled it. They also toured the villages around, digging out typhus and other infectious cases, thus stopping the spread of infection. They had a most energetic matron, Miss Caldwell, who had already nursed in Cettinje during the Balkan Wars, and we have already told how she managed the Montenegrins.
Often the patients came in ox-carts. Too ill to be lifted out, they had to be examined and treated in the carts. Dr. Boyle acquired a special nimbleness in jumping in and out of these contrivances armed with stethescope, spoons, bowls, and dressings. We accumulated a congregation of "regulars," who came to be dressed every day—gathered feet, suppurating glands, eczema, etc.
One old mother with a bad leg was bandaged up with boracic ointment and told to come back in two days. She came. Jo undid the bandage. All the old lady's fleas had swarmed to the boracic till it looked like a fly-paper. After which we used Vermigeli.
All wore brightly woven belts, sometimes two or three, each a yard and a half long, tightly wound round their bodies, thus making their waists wider than their hips. One girl was black and blue with the pattern showing on her skin, and many men were suffering from the evils of tight lacing.
The village priest received belts as fees from the peasants when he married them. He sent us a message to say he had some for sale, so we went in a body to his house, were received by his daughter, who looked like a cow-girl, turned over a basketful of belts, and bought largely. After which he put up the price.
Jo went on night duty for the first time.
A queer experience this, starting the day's work at half-past seven in the evening and finishing at seven in the morning—breakfasting when other people are dining; hearing their contented laughter as they go off to bed; and then a queer loneliness and the ugly ticking of a clock. One creeps round the big ward. What a noisy thing breathing is. Some one groans, "Sestra, I cannot sleep." This man has not been ordered morphia. Silence once more broken only by the sound of the breathing, distant howling of dogs from the darkness or the hoot of an owl. The old frostbite man coughs; he coughs again insistently. Both say "Yes" to hot milk. So down to the big kitchen, some mice scatter by, the puppy wakes up and thinks it is time for a game. A woman's voice calls loudly, "Sestra." Taking the milk off, Sestra hurries across the courtyard and along the corridor to the little rooms with the puppy tugging at her skirt. The woman wants water; she has wakened the other women—they want water. When silence again comes back into the ward, one notes instinctively the vivid colouring of the two big blue windows at the far end, the long lines of beds disappearing into the darkness, the dim light of the lantern on the table showing up the cheap clock and a few flowers. The intensity of light upon this clock is only equalled by the intensity of one's thoughts upon the clock. The minute-hand drags on as though it were weary with the day's work. A groan ticks off the quarters and cries for water or milk the half-hours. At last one o'clock. Time for a midnight meal. Eggs and cocoa hurriedly eaten without appetite in the kitchen, but breaking the monotony. Back to the ward again, one of the patients very restless, in great pain. Poor fellow, he has had a long and hard time of it, fifteen months in bed and all due to early neglect.
"Sestra," he says, "sestra," and holds out a handkerchief heavy with coin. "Tell the doctor to take me down to the operating-room and cure me or not let me wake up."
Between four and five there is more movement in the ward. Groans give way to yawns. In the windows the blue is paling to grey. Cocks are crowing now quite close, now faintly, like an echo. Suddenly the world is filled with work, "washings, brushings, combings, cleanings, temperatures, breakfasts, medicines, some beds to make, reports, all fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle, until at last the day-sisters come and relieve, and yawning at the daylight one eats warmed-up dinner while the others are having breakfast."