We thought we were going to sail at once, but in the end it was decided that the medical officers and the orderlies would have to leave a few days before the sisters. I was sorry for this, as I had hoped to get to know them a little on board ship.
Before they sailed, Mr. X., who was providing the hospital, gave a dinner party to all the staff, and we had a most pleasant evening. After the dinner there was a large reception, and I was introduced to many people whose names are well known both in South Africa and in England.
The doctors sailed on February 28th, and on March 1st I was at the Army and Navy Stores doing a little final shopping when the news came that Ladysmith was relieved; the excitement was intense; such cheering and waving of flags, and they set all the musical boxes, &c., to play "Rule Britannia"!
Mr. X. had decided to go out with us to see the hospital erected, and on March 3rd we sailed from Southampton on the R.M.S. _Tantallon Castle_.
We have troops on board, and I shall never forget the cheering the people at Southampton gave us as we got away.
The first-class is full up with officers and some "gentlemen troopers" of the Yeomanry.
We are now ploughing down the Channel with the sea so calm few people can even think of being sea-sick, so I thought I would send you a yarn up-to-date, and then you would understand that it has been impossible for me to come to say good-bye.
Until we reach Cape Town, we don't know what our destination will be; in the meantime I am having a good rest, and shall be quite fit for any amount of work by the time we land.
That was a strange voyage out on the _Tantallon Castle_. For one thing, instead of the usual mixed lot of passengers, the boat was nearly full of soldiers; there were very few ladies on board besides one Army Superintendent Sister with a batch of sisters and my little party of six, also a few wives of the senior officers; there were practically no old people or children on board.
As one would expect, with so many young men on board (many of them mere boys), there was a great deal of fun and joking, and yet beneath it all there was an under-current of solemnity.
I think we all felt that it was not possible that we should all return (before we left we heard how many were dying of enteric and dysentery), and we hoped, if we were to be left behind, we should have a chance of doing a bit before we got knocked over. Very few of the officers had ever been under fire, and they felt it was going to be a very new experience, and some of them talked of it with awe. I don't mean that they were the least bit "funky," but they wondered whether they would be certain to remember how to manage their men and lead them on as steadily as if they were on parade; some of them thought they would be sure to duck their heads when the bullets were flying, and it would "look so jolly bad."