A Nurse's Life in War and PeaceLaurence, E. C. (Eleanor Constance)
History
A Nurse's Life in War and Peace
Laurence, E. C. (Eleanor Constance)
Military nursing; Nursing -- Great Britain; South African War, 1899-1902 -- Medical care
The guard of the train had a rough time, as they took away his boots,
and then made him carry sacks of provisions for them up a steep kopje.
For the present, they have stopped the trains from running at night. I
do think the railway men have been awfully plucky in sticking to their
work, when they could never feel confident that the line was not mined.
We had orders not to go outside the camp for some days, and the C.O.
went round and took notes of all the men who were fit to take a rifle if
there was an attack; and of course all the men ride about armed.
We had a quiet Easter Day here. The sisters were expecting some officers
of the 5th Dragoons over to tea, but they did not turn up, as they had
been out all night chasing Boers.
A few days later the Boers burnt a hotel and stores at Ingogo, and some
troops were hurried through here to go after them, but of course they
got away.
Still a great many deaths here; the other day we had four in twenty four
hours; one of those who died was a doctor whom I knew slightly (he
travelled up the coast with us when we first came out). He had been
practising out here, so his wife was able to come and be with him, and
she stayed in our camp. The poor man had heart disease. Of course he
wasn't in my line, but the sister of the officers' ward had a case in
the theatre, and as he had been asking for me the Lady Superintendent
asked me if I would go to sit with him if I could leave my line for a
bit. 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! All the ward equipment, mugs, plates, buckets,
brooms, &c., has to be laid out at the tent door for the officers to
count. In a hospital at home, when "stock-taking" comes, you know that
anything that is worn out, or damaged, or really lost, will be replaced,
and you are glad of the chance of getting things made correct; but here
they assure me that things must _be_ correct, or the orderly gets fined
or punished; so, to avoid this, he resorts to strategy.
As soon as the officer (with the wardmaster and orderly in attendance)
has passed one tent as correct, the things may be put away again, and
then comes in the help of the patients (who fully enter into the game),
the most nimble trotting off with a medicine glass to one orderly who is
short of that, or a bucket to another; I have known a good broom do duty
for three different lines by careful dodging about.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account