Then came the ructions, and now the sisters have to give everything, and I believe they are going to put on a third night sister, so I think things will go more smoothly in time.
The Lady Superintendent has only once been round my line since I have had charge of it.
I had a curious case the other day that gave us a good deal of anxiety--that of a young lance-corporal, who had been bad with malaria, but was better and able to sit up in bed. I left him one night very cheery and bright, and the next morning I happened to meet the night sister as she went off duty, and she said, "Oh, Sister, I forgot to report that that lance-corporal of yours in tent 3 did not seem so well, and he was sick this morning." I thought that I would go and look at him first instead of beginning my round in tent 1, and I was shocked to find the poor boy quite unconscious, and almost pulseless. Of course I sent for the doctor and got brandy, hot bottles, &c.; the doctor thought it was all up, but he injected strychnine; he said he thought it must have been typhoid and not malaria, and that this meant perforation. Anyhow, the boy began to revive; I hardly left him all day, but now I think I may say he is out of danger; I really think it was heart trouble, perhaps embolism, but I have seldom seen a man pull round after being as nearly gone as he was.
Of course you will have heard that the poor old _Tantallon Castle_, the ship on which we first came out, has gone down on Robben Island. The passengers and the mails were saved, and I was rejoiced when a nice, soft little blanket arrived that my people had sent out by her; I roll myself in it inside my sheets, and am much more comfortable.
It is a curious thing that so many ships in which I have travelled have gone to the bottom: I made one trip years ago up the coast on the _Drummond Castle_, and went down the coast on the _Courland Castle_; I also went home from Tenerife on the _Fez_--they have all gone down, and now the _Tantallon Castle_ has shared their fate.
There was a big dance one night about three miles from here, to which twelve of the sisters went, and another night there were some theatricals. I daresay I am wrong, but somehow these festivities seem a little out of place while the war is still going on. Some of the sisters appear to think that they have come out here to have as much fun as they can get, and they talk about very little except the men they have been dancing with, and so on.