However, we were told to clear the hospitals, for the wounded were expected.

“What could be done with the scarlet fever boy?” At last an idea came:  “The Mortuary,” built by the Horse Show Judge with such joy.  The mortuary that we had all gone to admire as a work of art.

But the scarlet fever boy did not seem to see it that way, for in the night he escaped, and we have never seen him since.

Diphtheria was so prevalent that the Red Cross on receiving a patient, gathered in the whole family for a few days, inoculated, washed, and gargled it.  They also toured the villages around, digging out typhus and other infectious cases, thus stopping the spread of infection.  They had a most energetic matron, Miss Caldwell, who had already nursed in Cettinje during the Balkan Wars, and we have already told how she managed the Montenegrins.

Often the patients came in ox-carts.  Too ill to be lifted out, they had to be examined and treated in the carts.  Dr. Boyle acquired a special nimbleness in jumping in and out of these contrivances armed with stethescope, spoons, bowls, and dressings.  We accumulated a congregation of “regulars,” who came to be dressed every day—­gathered feet, suppurating glands, eczema, etc.

One old mother with a bad leg was bandaged up with boracic ointment and told to come back in two days.  She came.  Jo undid the bandage.  All the old lady’s fleas had swarmed to the boracic till it looked like a fly-paper.  After which we used Vermigeli.

All wore brightly woven belts, sometimes two or three, each a yard and a half long, tightly wound round their bodies, thus making their waists wider than their hips.  One girl was black and blue with the pattern showing on her skin, and many men were suffering from the evils of tight lacing.

The village priest received belts as fees from the peasants when he married them.  He sent us a message to say he had some for sale, so we went in a body to his house, were received by his daughter, who looked like a cow-girl, turned over a basketful of belts, and bought largely.  After which he put up the price.

Jo went on night duty for the first time.

A queer experience this, starting the day’s work at half-past seven in the evening and finishing at seven in the morning—­breakfasting when other people are dining; hearing their contented laughter as they go off to bed; and then a queer loneliness and the ugly ticking of a clock.  One creeps round the big ward.  What a noisy thing breathing is.  Some one groans, “Sestra, I cannot sleep.”  This man has not been ordered morphia.  Silence once more broken only by the sound of the breathing, distant howling of dogs from the darkness or the hoot of an owl.  The old frostbite man coughs; he coughs again insistently.  Both say “Yes” to hot milk.  So down to the big kitchen, some mice scatter by, the puppy wakes up and thinks it is time for a game.  A woman’s voice calls