Part 14

We had with us a January number of the _Natal Mercury_ giving a full account of _the_ day, so we were able to trace the positions, and I had heard the men talk so much about it I felt I knew my way quite well.

Of course we went up from the Ladysmith side (where the Boers were), but from the top we could look over to Potgieter's Drift and Spearman's Camp, and marvel how our poor chaps ever got up in the dark, with the Boers in such good cover above them; and _then_ to be ordered back must have been frightfully disappointing.

We saw many English and Boer graves, and I took a good many photos, including one of the cross on the spot where General Woodgate fell.

We picked up heaps of cartridges (full and empty ones), emergency ration tins, soldiers' uniform buttons, &c.; it was too hard climbing to burden ourselves with any shells, but I bought a few from Kaffirs who had gathered near our carriage. I am collecting a very varied stock of ammunition, including one soft-nosed cartridge.

They were burning the grass down all round the base of the hill, and every now and then a cartridge went off; we hoped the fire would not come across any stray shells while we were there.

We had a splendid view of the Drakensberg Range. Returning to our carriage we had lunch, with an admiring crowd of rather naked Kaffirs around (who seemed much to appreciate our remains), and we started for the return drive about 1 P.M. The sick horse was worse on the way back, and had to have several doses administered.

As we were nearing Ladysmith, I found we were passing close to Tin Town Hospital; so, thinking it was a pity to miss seeing the place, I left the carriage and walked across a drift on the Klip River.

First I passed some officers on their ponies playing at "Heads and Posts"; then I came to the horses' sick camp, and met a nice old veterinary sergeant (who, I found, was a Colonial who came from Kimberley, and of course knew people whom I had met there); he told me he had charge of 400 sick horses, but many of them were "convalescent," and if he had known I wanted a horse he would gladly have lent me one; he said if I would stay another day or two I could send down for my saddle and he would lend me a horse and a mounted orderly so that I could ride to Bulwana, Waggon Hill, Cæsar's Camp, and other places which I should much have liked to visit, but I could not spare the time.

Then he took me along to the sisters' huts. I found the Lady Superintendent was out, but some kindly Kilburn Sisters gave me some tea and took me round the hospital; not many cases in just now, but a few very bad enterics.

The sisters told me that as the Red Cross Ambulance (drawn by eight mules) was going into Ladysmith, I could drive back in it. I was just going to climb inside when a gentleman in khaki came and asked me if I would not rather ride on the top with him, so I gladly climbed up, and found he was a doctor (one of the big civilian doctors); he had heard who I was, and amused me by saying he wished I had called at their mess (fancy shy _me_ calling at an unknown officers' mess!) instead of going to tea with "those estimable females," as they would have shown me more of the place, and they have a good collection of curios that would have interested me (he was looking at the things I had picked up). It was a very jolly drive, and he insisted on driving me right up to my hotel.

I must really tell you about the rest of my travels in my next letter. I was away only five days, but you will see that I squeezed a good deal into those days.

XXXV

PINETOWN, NATAL, _September 1900_.

I will just finish telling you of my travels while they are fresh in my memory, and then this letter can wait till there is enough material to fill it up.

I was very sorry to hear from my friend on the ambulance of the death of Sir William Stokes (physician); he was ill only four days, and it seems only the other day he came round this hospital and was so cheery and bright, and I know he was meaning to say a good deal to the Hospital Commission in favour of the hospitals out here, and of the work they have done.

I just had dinner with my friends at the Royal, and then the 'bus took me to the station with my heavy bag of shells, &c., in time for the 7.40 P.M. train back to Colenso. I was awfully tired, but the mosquitoes were bad, and did not let me have much sleep.

The next day I was invited to go with a picnic party to the Tugela Falls. A large ox waggon was loaded up with children, provisions, &c., and I went with some more people in an Army Service Corps Scotch cart, with no springs, drawn by four mules, who frequently ran away, and who seemed to have a rooted objection to keeping to the road (or rather track); so the journey was rather perilous and distinctly painful.

We passed Fort Wylie, and saw where all the fighting took place on Pieter's Hill, and we saw the rough bridge that the Boers had made over the Tugela by simply pulling up our rails with the sleepers attached and throwing them into the river.

We had lunch close by the Falls--even after this very dry season it is quite a big fall--and after lunch we climbed the hills around, including Hart's Hill. On the top of this hill is a big memorial stone to Colonel Thackery, several more officers, and _sixty-seven_ men of the 27th Inniskillings, who fell up there, and we also saw their grave (fenced in) at the foot of the hill.

By the time that we got down to the line again it was blowing a gale, and _such_ dust, so some of us sheltered in a platelayer's cottage.

He had a fine collection of shells and other relics; his cottage had been used by the Boers as a telegraph station, and we found he had been in the smash-up of the armoured train, when Winston Churchill was taken prisoner.

As Mrs. D. had her baby with her, and it was now a really bad dust-storm, this man kindly stopped a goods train with his red flag, and we returned comfortably to Colenso in the guard's van.

I should much like to have had longer stay both at Colenso and Ladysmith, there was so much of interest both in the places and in the people one met; but I wanted to visit a few places on the way down, so I left Colenso the next morning at 9.30. My first stop was at Chieveley, where there had been a big hospital, but all that remains now is a little closed-in graveyard, with nearly two hundred graves; many died from wounds, but many more from enteric. They had a clever way of marking the graves, each man's name, regiment, &c., being written on a slip of paper and enclosed in a medicine bottle and securely stuck into the mound.

I saw poor Lieutenant Roberts' grave (it has a plain stone with an inscription, but I hear a cross is being sent out); they had brought him from Colenso on the ambulance train the evening of the day he was wounded. The station-master told me he had helped to lift him out of the train, and he seemed sensible and comfortable then, but he died the same night.

I saw a very fine redoubt at Chieveley made by the Royal Engineers, but it was never used. I took the next train on to Mooi River. Before we reached Frere station we passed the place of the armoured train disaster, and the graves of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers who fell there. Wherever you go there seem to be graves dotted about, most of them enclosed with barbed wire, and some with a cross set up, or the man's initials marked out in empty cartridge-cases.

There is a large hospital at Estcourt, but I had only time for a hasty lunch at the station there, as I wanted to have an hour or two at Mooi River, to see the hospital, where I knew one of the doctors, and where it seemed probable that we should be sent when we first arrived; on the whole, I am glad we were _not_ stationed there, though they have had more interesting surgical work than we have.

Unfortunately my friend was away, but the superintendent kindly showed me round, and I had tea in the sisters' mess.

They have 950 beds, nearly all under canvas. It was blowing hard, and while I was there it began to rain, and it was snowing on the Drakensberg, and very cold, so every one looked rather miserable. It is a desolate place on the bare veldt.

I left again on a goods train at 4.30, and rattled down to Maritzburg by 9 P.M., where I meant to stay the night.

Miss ---- kindly met me at the station, and we drove down to her house in a riksha; she has been taking in convalescent nurses, and feeding them and giving them a rest. She has had much anxiety about her brothers, one of whom was commandeered and had to fight for the Boers, together with his son (a boy of sixteen). They were with Cronje at Paardeberg, and are now prisoners at St. Helena; another brother was fighting for us, and was taken prisoner by the Boers, but released when we took Pretoria.

Miss ---- wanted me to go out to Howick to see the falls there, and to have a look at the big convalescent camp, where they have 1600 beds; but the train left half-an-hour earlier than she thought, so I missed it, and instead she took me to see the Maritzburg Hospitals, Fort Napier, Grey's Hospital (now civilian again), and the Garrison Church, the last the most comfortable looking hospital I have seen further up-country than this one, but it was a little strange to see the men in their hospital suits lounging and smoking on the church steps.

I met a sister whom I had known in London. She was excited about playing in a cricket match; and as she and all the eleven sisters had been given a week's leave from duty to practise for this cricket match, they are evidently as slack in the way of work as we are.

I had some nice greetings from some old patients of ours, now on duty in Maritzburg.

I left there about 6 P.M., had dinner at Inchanga with a _Daily News_ correspondent, and got back here about 9.30 P.M. Some orderlies were at the station and kindly carried up my load of curios, &c.

The two medical officers had got back the night before, and though they went as far up as Newcastle they had not seen as much as I had, and regretted that they had not had my offer of a convalescent horse at Ladysmith!

I have seen a good many hospitals, and met a good many sisters, and I have gathered a few hints of little ways in which we might improve this hospital; but, though "I says it as shouldn't," I don't think there is any hospital up this side where the men are more comfortable and happy, and I think the sisters here are better fed and their mess bills are no higher than at any of the hospitals--indeed, lower than most of them.

I was glad to find that they had had a peaceful time while I was away, and no difficulties; and as there are actually only eighteen men and ten officers in, we are still very slack; we expect some more any day now, but there is very little sickness just at present.

You ask about the men and their letters; it was rather difficult when we were so frightfully busy at first to do all that one would have liked, but we always try to write for the men who are too ill to write for themselves, and I always saw that all the men who wished had writing materials, and they used to help each other.

They say at some of the base hospitals stray lady visitors have been such a nuisance in interfering with the nurses, but I could well and safely have employed a few stray ladies in amusing the men, writing their letters for them, &c. The friends of those officers who were dangerously ill were all written to by each mail.

Now that we are slack, of course, I have much more chance of talking to the men, and they tell me many tales of the fighting, and of the rough time they have had at the front; but you will hear plenty of that from the men who have gone home.

I am beginning to have many grateful letters from our patients' friends at home.

There has been some delay about our pay lately, and some of the sisters who were lodging here had not received any since they left England, so were not able to pay their mess bills, and I had to pay various mess accounts when I got back from my run up-country, and began to feel rather anxious as to whether I could go on feeding my large party of sisters; but now the pay has turned up, so we have got straight again; and the Government give us various allowances--Colonial allowance, and for mess, servants, fuel, &c., so we are feeling rather well off.

We are much enjoying a big package of papers that the Red Cross Society now send up to us each week; whole weeks of _Times_, _Daily Mail_, _Daily Graphic_, _Daily Telegraph_, _Standard_, _Illustrated London News_, _Army and Navy_, &c. They are the greatest boon to the whole camp.

The men point out to me the "pretty boys" in the illustrated papers when they see any pictures of soldiers, as, by comparison, they all look so thin and rough out here.

XXXVI

PINETOWN, NATAL, _September 1900_.

Now we are really getting busy again. Patients keep arriving, sometimes small parties, sometimes large.

Early in September we admitted thirteen men who had been prisoners in Pretoria for nine months. They were very weak and run down, and so happy to be here; when I took them their first basket of fruit, they simply wolfed it down, as they had seen no fruit since they went up-country.

Then we had rather a "difficult" batch of officers sent down from Mooi River. They have no officers' wards there, so these men had been quartered in a hotel more than a mile from the hospital, where each had his own room and servant, and they seem to have ordered and done just what they liked.

Up to now we have never had more than three or four officers well enough to sit up to meals at one time, as they have always come to us really ill, and as soon as they were well enough they have either rushed back to the front or have been sent home on the hospital ships; but with these officers from Mooi River (none of them very ill), I suddenly found that we had twenty-four sick officers in, and that _sixteen_ of them were well enough to sit up to meals, and that it was not suitable for them to eat in the ward where there were a few men still very ill; so, eventually, a large tent had to be rigged up for them, and as it was a long way from the kitchen there was some difficulty in getting the food to them hot.

The medical officer was a civilian, and he did not seem to think he had anything to do with the responsibility about feeding these hungry convalescent officers; in fact, every one seemed rather inclined to say "It isn't my work"--and our St. John's men are not like R.A.M.C. men, who may be accustomed to turning to as mess waiters on occasion; neither was the cook quite ready to serve up a dinner of several courses instead of single "diets" for each patient.

I am afraid I had to worry the poor C.O.; but I knew if I did not do so the officers would complain they could not get anything to eat; and, after wrestling through the first night's dinner--(when I found well-meaning orderlies running down with the fish before the soup, and some vegetables after the sweets had been served!)--we laid plans for better management, and for a day or two the Major went to the kitchen and saw the food sent down in proper order, and I received it and saw it served in the tent, and four of the officers' servants were told off to wait each night, and the orderlies had only to carry the food down for them. So now that is running all right, and I only just have to look in to see they have all they want.

For some time we have been expecting to be inspected by the Hospital Commission, but at last we heard they were not coming here at all, as there had been "no complaints" about this hospital; so I should have been very vexed if our record had been spoilt at this late stage of the war.

Our next order was to prepare for a train that was bringing us seven officers and 108 men from Pretoria (the biggest trainload we have yet received). Having had sisters here over our correct number for some time, and very little for them to do, of course as soon as we got busy we kept having wires to send one sister for duty on the Hospital Ship _Avoca_, or two sisters to the Hospital Ship _Dunera_, and so on, and none of them wanted to go, so it was a little difficult to sort them.

In fact, there have been so many orders and counter orders that I should never be surprised if I had a wire telling me to go off on a hospital ship, or if we had orders to pack up the whole hospital and take it up to Pretoria.

Before Mr. X. left, he let us buy some remaining groceries at home prices (a great saving for our mess), and after we found a small storeroom to arrange them in, I, rather foolishly, let them use the cases for firewood, which has been very scarce here; so, if we have to move, all the sisters intend to sling bottles of fruit, and tins of jam, sardines, &c., round them, as we really can't leave our stores behind!

I hear that the army sisters on the hospital ships are rather horrified that I am still left in charge here, now that it is a Military Hospital, and that there are plenty of army sisters out in the country; but the P.M.O. has been very nice to me, and I am very glad to "carry on" as long as they want me; the only thing is that I should very much have liked to see a little of the work nearer up to the front, and as it seems probable that this place will become, later on, a sort of convalescent home, the work will not be so interesting.

Yesterday some officers went down to Durban, and came back much excited by rumours that the line and the wire had been cut at Standerton, that 1700 Boer prisoners had been released, that Johannesburg was surrounded, and a few more exciting items, but I dare say they are not true; I never pretend to tell you about the war.

By degrees we are getting a few R.A.M.C. orderlies and non-commissioned officers, and of course they make the work easier for us; but we are quite proud of some of the St. John's men, who are becoming excellent and most efficient nurses, and they really knew nothing of nursing six months ago.

I had a great triumph when the big batch of men (108) arrived, as everything had been issued for them the day before and signed for by the orderlies, and half-an-hour after they arrived every man was either comfortably in bed or had had a preliminary wash and was ready to sit down to a good meal, and after that he went up to the store to hand in his kit; some of the patients and some of the R.A.M.C. men told me that in many of the Military Hospitals it would have taken four or five hours to get so many of them settled and fed.

There are several very bad cases amongst them, but also a good many convalescents. We have two officers desperately ill, one a Major in the R.A.M.C., who, I fear, is not likely to get better, though they are trying everything possible for him, and the other is a Lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade who has been delirious for a long time (enteric) and very ill, but I fancy he will pull round. I have been able to give him special nurses when necessary. Also we have a bad case of enteric in the men's ward; I don't think I have ever seen a case where there has been so much hæmorrhage, and yet I think he will pull round, though he is nearly a skeleton, and even I can easily lift him up while his sheet is changed. I have been much pleased at the really tender way the orderlies have nursed this boy, as he has needed a great deal of patience.

We are getting quite keen on our gardens now that we have a little more time to breathe, but whenever I plant anything I wonder whether, by any chance, I shall be here to see it grow up. I now have some healthy violets and some ivy-leaf geraniums. Some time ago I had two beautiful Orpington hens and a cock given to me. They lay splendidly, and the eggs have been very useful, but they showed no sign of wishing to sit, so I got a friend to put some of my eggs under a broody hen, and hope soon to have some young Orpingtons.

The men have not had time to make me a henhouse yet, so we have to keep a sharp look-out to secure the eggs, and our small Dick is very attentive to them.

I went into Durban the other day to do some shopping for the mess, and saw some friends, and then I went down to the jetty to see some of our orderlies and patients (a nice lot of men of the Coldstreams and other regiments, many of them wounded from Pretoria), who were going home on the _Montrose_. I met a sister whom I knew, and one of our medical officers was seeing the men on board, and one of the embarkation people invited us to go out in the tender to the _Montrose_ at the outer anchorage; so we had a nice little sea breeze, and the officers on board gave us tea, and offered to show us our cabins, so we had a good chance to stow away for home!

Six of our orderlies were going home on duty, and they all came to say good-bye, and we had quite a "send off" from them and the old patients when we left the ship.

To-day some people have been giving a picnic at a pretty place called Krantz Kloof. They invited all we could spare to join them, so I let six sisters go, and four of the medical officers and four convalescent officers also went off with them in an ox waggon at 8 A.M., and they did not get back till 9 P.M. I have been busy all day keeping an eye on the place generally to see that nothing was neglected while so many were away.

The night sister and night special both went, so I have now sent them to bed for a few hours, and I have been writing beside Lieutenant ---- (of the Rifle Brigade), but I am sure he is better to-day, and to-night he is inclined to sleep; every now and then I let the orderly sit by him while I take a prowl round to see the other wards are all right; now it is 2 A.M., so I shall call the two sisters and turn in, and I need not hurry up in the morning unless there are any fresh orders to attend to.

XXXVII

PINETOWN, NATAL, _October 1900_.

We have had a good deal of rain lately and the country is looking lovely again: you can almost see the things growing in the garden.

Sometimes it rains for three days without stopping, and South Africa without the sun always looks very gloomy, but when the sun comes out again it makes up for the gloominess.

It has begun to get very hot rather earlier than usual, and the thermometer showed 94° in the shade the other day.

Last month we took in fifty more men who had been prisoners with the Boers; a good many of them were gentlemen troopers of the Yeomanry; they were sent here _via_ Delagoa Bay; one of them brought a parrot, and there were several small birds as well.

Then the other day we took in eighty men from Charlestown, nearly all convalescents, and such a mixed lot of regiments--Scotch, Irish, Australians, New Zealanders, and Tasmanians, and one little Australian bugler, aged fifteen, whom all the men spoil.

The poor Major of the R.A.M.C., who I told you was so ill, died in the early part of this month; it was very sad, as he knew so well what all the bad symptoms meant as they appeared.

I think I told you also of Lieutenant ----, who was desperately ill for so long. We had a very anxious time with him, as the delirium went on for so long that we began to fear it would become permanent, but at last he pulled round, and has been such a nice patient. We have very few officers in now.

The Natal Volunteers were expected to return to Durban on October 2nd (they have been a year at the front), but the Boers attacked a convoy near Dundee, and they were all ordered back.

Durban was preparing a great welcome for them, and the meat for the big lunch that the Mayor was going to give them was actually cooked! They got home about a week later, and we all went down to the station to see them pass, many of our old patients amongst them.