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
I tried all the places where I thought our officers might be--the
R.A.M.C. Depot, hotels, &c.--but could not find them, the sisters all
very tired and hungry, and some of them rather nervous; then, by good
luck, we met our Major, who had come out to see if we were comfortable
in our quarters, and discovered that we had been given the name of the
wrong street!
About 9 P.M. we found the house; but the landlady had given us up, and,
thinking we should not land till the morning, had gone out; but some
other lodgers (refugees from Johannesburg) raided the larder for our
benefit, and we thoroughly enjoyed our supper.
The next day we found the idea had been to send us up to Mooi River, but
it was thought that, with the winter coming on, that would be a cold
place for sick troops, so we had better be nearer the coast; and then a
Durban gentleman came forward, and most kindly offered the use of his
estate of 150 acres at Pinetown; it is only about seventeen miles from
Durban, but much higher up and more healthy; so the offer was gratefully
accepted, and the building was at once begun.
Then followed a time when we all had to forget that we had come out to
"nurse the sick and wounded," and turn to work at other jobs.
Before they were ready for us to go up to Pinetown we were all
inoculated against typhoid. It was not a pleasant experience: my
temperature went up to 102°, and I had intense abdominal pain and
headache; it seemed like a very concentrated touch of typhoid, but it
kept us in bed only two or three days, and the following five or six
days we felt as weak as though we had been ill for a month.
As soon as possible I went up to see where our hospital was to be built,
and found them busy levelling the ground for the tin pavilions.
There were three permanent buildings already up on the land; one, we
thought, would make a good ward for officers (eight beds); another had a
large room we thought would do for our staff mess-room, and some small
rooms suitable for medical officers' bedrooms; and the third was a row
of rooms that was apportioned for sisters' rooms, and various offices,
stores, &c.
The orderlies were established in tents a little way off; they were all
St. John's Ambulance men, and camping out was a new experience for them,
so of course they did not know how to make themselves as comfortable as
regular soldiers would have done in a new camp. They had joined
expecting to have the excitement of stretcher work at the front, and
when they were told off to level the ground for the buildings, or to
carry up the planks and the heavy boxes from the railway trucks, and to
help the builders put up the pavilions, there was a good deal of
grumbling.
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