E. C. Laurence

“ The longer I am in hospital the more I see how much harder it is to be responsible for other people's work than just for your own, and I can quite understand why so many of the staff nurses much prefer to do all the best part of the nursing themselves than to teach the probationers and let them do it ”

“ This is no small merit, since the record of nursing experiences is apt to be blurred by exaggeration or made nauseous by sickly romance. There is pathos enough in the sick-room and in the presence of death, but those who come in touch with it would do better to hush the knowledge in their hearts, rather than to proclaim it on the house-tops. ”

“ She runs about, and does many things that the junior probationers ought to do, but she has no idea of looking after the nurses; and as the staff nurse is rather a shirker, and is very fond of chattering to the dressers, the probationers who are keen to work are rather overworked, and those who are not keen don't work. Also, if there is a rush of work, Sister rather loses her head, and runs about in an aimless sort of way; and in the theatre, if anything goes wrong, and they want things in a hurry, she always seems to hand the wrong thing. ”

“ I managed to be with him most of the day, and he died in the evening, and I went with his wife to the funeral the next day.
The enteric line is now full, so one of my tents has been allowed to have night orderlies, and we collect the bad cases into that.
You would be amused at a "kit inspection" here: when one is proclaimed, the excitement is great, and the orderlies, almost tearing their hair, are so distracted that if the sister has any bad cases, she must nurse them herself, or understand that they will get no attention till the inspection is over! ”

“ I think the thing one misses most in Kimberley is water. If you ride or drive, you may find some out at the waterworks or (a variable amount) in the river out at Alexanderfontein, but the water you can find within walking distance might be measured in bucketsful; and the men are fond of talking of the "early days," when it was cheaper to have a bath in soda-water than in plain water, and of a notice that was said to have been put up in a hotel, "Please do not use soap, as the water is required for tea."
In the season, with careful watering, one can grow a good many flowers. ”

“ There are about twenty of us lady pupils, and we live in the Matron's house. We have all our meals in the large nurses' dining-hall—but at a separate table—except supper, which we have in the sisters' dining-hall. The food is ever so much better than it was at the Children's Hospital. Some of the nurses grumble at it; but I think wherever people feed in a crowd there are always some who grumble. ”

“ I think I told you some of the orderlies were ill when our first patients (from the train accident) arrived; it proved to be a form of dengue fever they had, and now the medical officers also are indulging in it; it is rather like influenza—high fever for two or three days, and then they are very weak and pulled down for a few more days. I only hope the sisters will refrain from having it until the orderlies have had a little more education: at present they are about as useful as an average ward-maid at home, and the sisters have to act as sister, staff nurse, and probationer too ”

“ As soon as we could disentangle ourselves, we looked out—quite expecting to see a party of Boers—but only saw one man waving his arms violently, and we came to a standstill just as we rounded a sharp curve, and found ourselves immediately on the tail of a heavy coal train that had got stuck on our line ”

“ I think it is a wonderful system by which all these tribes—that have hated each other for generations—can be made to live together in one compound, working side by side, and earning very good wages. They have separate huts and messes, but they buy at the same store, and share the same chapel, hospital, and swimming-bath. ”

“ I tried very hard to get into some London hospital last autumn, but could not find a vacancy in any really good one, so I made up my mind it was better to wait for a vacancy here—where I had always wanted to train—than to slip in anywhere, where I did not know that the training was good. So I have just stayed at home, and in the summer played tennis and cricket, and learnt to make butter and jam, &c., and in the winter had a little hunting (on rather a stupid horse that was always doing something foolish, and one day distinguished himself by lying down at the meet!) ”

“ I think I have been lucky in being first sent to a men's medical ward of forty beds. The Sister is a first-rate nurse and a splendid manager. She works hard herself, and expects every one else to do the same; so the ward always looks trim, and the patients are very comfortable. ”

“ The other day I had rather an amusing time. I had ridden out to Karnak with Miss L. to see the temple: it was very dusty, and we were very hot; and when we got into the shade of the temple we saw a party of people having tea, with two men in very gorgeous uniforms waiting upon them and a dignified dragoman standing by. I recognised the dragoman as one of Cook's men who had helped us in Cairo, and he gave me a sweeping bow as we passed. ”

“ If we had only come out to South Africa to nurse this one batch of thirty officers and men back to health, I think it would have been worth while, for they were just about as bad as they well could be, and one can't help thinking of the anxiety of their poor friends at home, who will have seen them reported on the "danger lists" from their Field Hospitals; and we go plodding on night and day trying to make them pull round. Only one man has died, and I think the rest will get on, though some of them are still pretty bad. ”

“ I had a letter from J. the other day from Kroonstad, saying that he was fit and well, but heartily sick of trekking about the Free State. Really all the men seem so tired of the war just now; it is all very well to put up with hardships, and short rations, for a few months, but when it runs on to a year, every one has had enough.
The other day we had a wire to ask for a doctor to go to an officer who had been taken ill when on leave about an hour up the line from here. Dr. —— went to see him and found him rather bad, so the next day a stretcher-party went up and brought him here. ”

“ My friends met me a mile or two outside Greytown with a mule-cart, in which we drove up to their farm—such a delightful old house. It really belongs to Mrs. ——'s father, but he is in England now, where they have some children at school; so they have come up from their smaller house in Greytown to take care of the farm.
I have been here a fortnight now, and have enjoyed every minute of it. For one thing, the climate is delightful. It is pretty hot, but not the damp heat you find near the coast, nor the dusty heat of Kimberley. ”

“ I very much dislike coffee; but there is nothing else provided for breakfast but coffee and a loaf of stale bread, and our own butter (if we have any left) , so we don't seem to start the day very well. For the rest, we make tea twice a day in the ward kitchens, and can use the ward bread. If funds are high and the lunch bad, we sometimes indulge in rashers of bacon; sometimes on Sunday we have a sausage or two; but it is more usual to fill in the cracks with tea and cake. ”

“ Durban is full of refugees, and of Ladysmith people recruiting after the siege. I went over one of the hospital ships, the Lismore Castle, before I came up here, and it was melancholy to see the skeletons from Ladysmith; one quite young fellow told me he had come here from India, got typhoid soon after the siege began, then, as soon as he began to convalesce, the only food they could give him was mealy meal and a little horse-flesh, so he got dysentery. He is now mending, but it is slow work with them all. ”