Of course there is no chance of drying anything till the sun comes out again, and when we get out of bed it would never do to turn it down; instead of that you put anything you wish to _try_ to keep dry inside, and cover it all up with every rug and blanket and mackintosh that you can lay hands on.
Our tent was so hopelessly bad, that after some days they let us move into another, and that one having a wooden floor, we were better off.
I was so tired after moving our things into the new tent, and after a heavy night on duty in the pouring rain, that I slept like a top, and when I woke in the evening I found everything upset in the tent, and evident marks that a cow had been taking shelter with me!
The sisters gibed at me, and said I should probably not have waked up if it had been a Boer commando.
There are a lot of men very ill. I was supposed to have charge on night duty of the medical side (about 250 beds), and that included the enteric tents with about 100 beds. They seem to have a mania for shifting the men about, so it was often difficult to find the bad cases; there were generally only night orderlies in the enteric tents, so that men who needed much attention in the night were supposed to be sent to the enteric line, whether they had enteric or not. To escape this risk of infection for them, we sisters used to try to do all for them in their own tents as long as we possibly could, and the poor chaps were so grateful to us, and the day sisters (who were equally keen not to have them sent down) used to tell us that the men always assured the medical officers that they had everything they wanted in the night. You know how at home if a sick man wakes up, and is alone for a few minutes, he thinks he is being neglected, but these poor chaps must have many lonely hours in the dark tents, and yet they never complain; they know that so many are dying of enteric, and they seem to have a horror of being sent down to that line.
It really was pretty horrid paddling about in the dark and the long grass between the tents; and it was so slippery with mud and rain that twice I fell down, and it took some time before I could find my lantern and the kettle which I had just boiled up, and was carrying down to make a poultice for a poor chap with pneumonia: it was very annoying, as, of course, it took time to reboil the kettle. The day sister leaves everything ready, with the linseed in a bowl, so that I have only to pour the water on, and then I put everything all ready for the next one; in this way we can get fairly hot poultices, though the tents are a long way from the fire.