There are three kinds of punishment for prisoners: first, boxing their ears; second, sending to prison for ten days on bread and water and solitary confinement; and third, to shoot them. It makes me quite ill to see the men have their ears boxed. The Serbians seem really good to their prisoners; I hope ours in Germany are being treated as well.
I had a lovely dish of wild strawberries brought me to-day as a present; the strawberries were strung on grasses and they are sold for 1d. a string. I also had a bunch of cherries and some sweets, and this evening two of the Austrian prisoners gave me their prison badges, so I was in luck's way.
All around our camp we have funny round holes. I discovered that black-looking beetles lived down them, but to-night I found they are crickets; they sing all night and are such dears. I dug one out of its hole and put it in the kitchen. We also found some of these funny holes where great large spiders live with hairy legs, and they spin such a nice strong web over their holes. I suppose this is their front door. We have been up to our knees in mud the last few days, and little streams run through our camp, but one gets used to these things; the ground is of hard clay and the water does not disperse quickly unless the sun comes out, then it dries up in quite a short time. This makes us think of our poor soldiers in the trenches.
Sunday, May 23, 1915.
This morning one of the doctors came for me to go and see an operation. It was a poor man who had recovered from typhus, then got frost-bitten toes, and they had fallen off; new skin had to be grafted over the stumps, and it was taken from the thigh. It will be interesting to see how it grows on the foot.
In the afternoon two of the doctors and I went for a long walk. We went about twelve miles right on the top of the highest hill, and from there, a few months back, one could see the battle raging from Belgrade. At the top of these hills we could see great holes where the shells had burst. Wild flowers are gorgeous. The acacia trees are wonderful, much finer than ours. Most of the hedges are acacias. The fields are covered with wild strawberries.
Mrs. Stobart and one of the doctors have gone to Nish till Wednesday morning.
The girl I told you of, who had the gangrene on her leg, had the leg off to-day. We put a little tent up for her; we could not let her go on suffering.
Another terrible day. I have never seen such rain; we are simply flooded; the storm lasted five or six hours.
Mrs. Stobart and the doctor arrived home at 6 o'clock this morning. We shall soon hear when our camp moves on. I cannot continue writing as we have another bad storm. The hailstones were like small marbles. We have now streams running through our camp.