by Ann Harries
Unfortunately the two refugee nurses are having an argument across the children’s beds just as Sarah and Emily enter the overheated ward. Carpets have been nailed across the floorboards to block out drafts and keep down the volume of noise, but the disagreement between the nurses gusts through the ward more raucously than the gale outside and makes the children shiver in their sheets. The issue is over whether mothers should be allowed to spend longer with their bedridden children than the hospital rules of one hour every second day allow. Nurse Nicholson, from Benoni on the Witwatersrand and undoubtedly the softer-hearted of the two, is in favour of the mothers being allowed to visit the ward at any time every day, while Nurse McKillen wants them banned altogether.
‘These women just get in the way, Nurse Nicholson, you must realise that. They waste our time trying to smuggle in their Boer remedies and so on. They would bring in dead animals to split open and place on their children’s chests if they could. They listen to their children’s complaints and try to tell us how to do our job. They’re not satisfied that Britain has to look after the results of their filthy living habits, free of charge.’
‘Free of charge,’ echoes Nurse Nicholson who has a tendency to repeat the ends of other people’s sentences. ‘But it’s understandable that the children are homesick and their mothers want their sons and daughters back home.’
‘If they go back into the tents they’ll die and then we’ll get it in the ear,’ says Nurse McKillen, tying an emaciated child back into her cot. ‘At least they’re properly looked after here. Stop that grizzling, Maria. Good afternoon, Sister Palmer.’ She looks mistrustfully at Sarah’s companion who is gazing round the ward, horror and compassion etched on her expressive face.
‘Nurse Nicholson, Nurse McKillen, this is Miss Emily Hobhouse from England,’ says Sarah. ‘She is the lady I told you about.’
‘Humph!’ This grunt expresses Nurse McKillen’s low opinion of lady amateurs from across the waters who think they know better than anyone.
Emily smiles frigidly. She is forcing back tears. It is a relief to bend over and undo the bundle she has brought with her. ‘My Distress Fund has sent over some bits and pieces for sick children,’ she murmurs.
‘Well, I don’t know—’ begins Nurse MacKillen, but Emily interrupts in a piercing voice, suddenly resonant with the self assurance of the headmistress of a large girls’ public school or the matron of a famous hospital.
‘Sir Alfred Milner and Lord Kitchener’ – she could be announcing their names at the school prizegiving – ‘have given our project their blessing.’ Nurse McKillen flushes and retreats, muttering under her breath to Nurse Nicholson who is trembling.
The nearest bed is occupied by a small boy whose head peers out above the grey sheets. Emily leans over the child and brushes away the flies. ‘E wat is je naam?’ she enquires pleasantly.
‘Piet,’ whispers the boy. His skin is yellow as old writing paper.
‘That’s funny,’ says Emily, digging into her bundle. ‘I’ve got a Piet in here.’ She pulls out a home-made golliwog which Nora had donated to the Distress Fund, golliwogs being all the rage after the success of the eponymous poems from America. ‘Can I put him in the bed next to you? He’s a friendly little chap.’
The boy’s eyes widen. Somewhere in their blank depths a puzzled interest stirs. Slowly – what an effort it seems – he nods his head. Some of the pallid children in the beds nearby turn equally slow heads. Emily lifts his sheet, and gasps out loud. The boy’s thin body is clad in rags. Quickly she tucks the golly beside him on the pillow. Then she turns to Sarah. ‘Aren’t the children supplied with bedclothes?’ she asks in an undertone.
Sarah shakes her head. ‘There just aren’t enough to go round.’ Her right hand is twisting the bracelet on her left wrist, beneath the long sleeve of her uniform.
‘I have some little nightdresses in my bundle, but looking round this ward I suspect every child here needs one.’ Emily sighs and groans simultaneously. ‘To say nothing of every child in this camp. To say nothing of all the children in all the camps.’
‘To say nothing of the native children in their camps,’ adds Sarah. She has still to visit the central hospital to find out the progress of Namzuma’s child. ‘If you think this is bad, you should see the native camp. They don’t even have a doctor. They’ve just been dumped there to look after themselves.’
‘I must have a look at them too.’ Miss Hobhouse sounds dismal.
‘Let me introduce you to some of the children,’ says Sarah. ‘Lizzie over there writes letters to everyone in the ward. Most of the patients can’t read but they love getting post from Lizzie. Ah, Poppie!’ The young Boer girl in a very white apron curtsies shyly. ‘This is Miss Hobhouse from England. Poppie is one of our trainee nurses, Miss Hobhouse. Her father is in the camp at Norval’s Pont but she is staying in one of the tents here because they got separated during their – deportation. Poppie says she would like to become a nurse. She comes round the tents with me sometimes, and helps out in the ward.’ She smiles affectionately at Poppie. ‘She’s also Lizzie’s postman!’
‘I will be going to Norval’s Pont soon!’ exclaims Emily. ‘Poppie, perhaps you would like to come with me and we will find your father. Could you translate for me, Sister Palmer? I’m afraid my Dutch isn’t up to that yet.’
Poppie lowers her eyes and performs a half-curtsey. ‘I am sorry, Sister, but I love my work here, and I think the children need me.’
Dr Pern, who has just entered the ward, calls out, ‘We can’t do without Poppie!’
Miss Hobhouse looks at the young woman with approval. ‘You are right, my dear. They cannot do without you. How do you do, Doctor.’
‘This is Dr Pern – Miss Hobhouse.’ Sarah wants to say ‘the good doctor’ but checks herself in time. ‘She has come from England to help the children and their mothers.’
‘Just what we need.’ Dr Pern smiles a welcome, then feels the forehead of a small boy.
As the two women move round the ward, greeting the ill and possibly dying children, Emily’s heart sinks. Can the word distress explain what she sees before her? The children look as if they belong to some other species: skinned monkeys, or albino frogs. Their mouths are slits. Their black-ringed eyes glowing in ashen faces remind her of the adorable meerkat she had met in Cape Town. This is too painful; too distressing. How is it possible to separate oneself from the suffering of children? But no doubt Miss Nightingale had felt the same while walking round the unhygienic wards of Scutari and look what she had achieved, single-handed almost. ‘There is something you can do,’ she urges herself as she cheerfully tucks dollies into little girls’ beds, and rattles bags of glass marbles at the boys. But where to start? The ghost of Miss Nightingale (who has not yet died but has retired from public life for so long that most people assume she has) whispers: soap and clean water. Nothing can change until people can clean themselves.
‘And this is Lizzie!’ exclaims Sarah. A waif-like child with a halo of bright hair gazes with fascination at Emily’s clothes: her straw hat with its English-country-garden accessories; the leg-of-mutton sleeves of her cream blouse; her neat waist; the elegantly striped skirt. The child smiles. ‘Auntie is pretty,’ she croaks.
‘And so are you, Lizzie!’ cries Emily in delight. ‘And I hear you are a great letter-writer.’
‘Shall I perhaps write Auntie a letter too?’ enquires the child hopefully.
‘I’d like nothing better,’ replies Emily. Her cloud of anxiety begins to lift. ‘And I promise you I’ll write back to you because I’m a great letter-writer too.’
Nurse McKillen scurries over. ‘It is our policy not to excite the children,’ she says in hostile tones. ‘I must ask you to leave now that you’ve seen our ward. There are other wards for you to visit.’
‘Thank you so much for letting me see your little patients,’ says Emily in her headmistress voice, smiling and waving to the children who are watching her closely. ‘I can see that you
care for them deeply.’ She gives a dismissive nod.
Outside the ward, the air seems fresh by comparison. Miss Hobhouse inhales, holds her breath, sighs profoundly. Then bites her lip. ‘It is a terrible thing to see children lying around in that collapsed state,’ she whispers. ‘They are just exactly like faded flowers thrown away.’ For a moment it seems she may weep, but she looks fiercely at Sarah instead. ‘And I do so hate to stand and look on at such misery and be unable to do something.’
‘Oh, please don’t say that, Miss Hobhouse!’ cries Sarah. ‘Please don’t lose heart, we depend on you to stop the misery.’ She gazes at her with admiring eyes.
Emily is clearly embarrassed by the young woman’s vehemence. ‘My dear, do not expect too much of me. I am ashamed of the inadequacy of my truckload. All I can give them now are comforts and extras. I had absolutely no idea when gathering gifts that a truckload of soap was what was really needed. Absolute basics.’ She pauses. Sarah can see from the narrowing of her eyes and twitching of her mouth that Miss Hobhouse’s thoughts are racing. Finally she says in a low, rapid voice, ‘I need to awaken the conscience of England. That will do more for the mothers and their children than anything I can get out of my truckload.’ She frowns at the lines of bell tents fanning out from the hospital. ‘I have contacts in high places, Sister Palmer. My aunt has the ear of the prime minister. That counts for a lot if you want to get things done.’
‘You don’t intend to return to England already?’ asks Sarah in alarm.
‘I plan to gather facts, Sister Palmer, and when I have an armoury of information – and photographs to back it up – I shall return to Britain and wage my own war. But in the meantime I will do my best to enlighten the idiotic men who run this camp; get them to boil the water for a start. And impress upon them the necessity for soap. Really, you’d think they’d understand these absolute basics of hygiene.’
They walk along the cluttered lanes running between the tents. ‘Extraordinary what these women have brought with them,’ muses Emily. ‘Look over there.’ A marble bust of Shakespeare lies in the mud, gazing thoughtfully at a hairbrush, two umbrellas, a candlestick, a sewing machine, and a child’s tin drum. She smiles. ‘Do you not find the Boer women here among the most charming you have ever met? How do they manage to exude such warmth and hospitality in the most iniquitously deprived of circumstances? And so brave. The magnitude of their suffering has lifted them beyond tears.’ She shakes her head at a three-legged cooking pot in which is stored a variety of crockery and cutlery, some of it very fine. ‘I am indeed privileged to be among them. And it is women like you, Sister Palmer, who will help to redeem the besmirched name of England.’
Sarah feels a stir of pride. She will do whatever Miss Hobhouse asks of her.
Bloemfontein,
27 January 1901
Dear Aunt Mary,
… it is such wholesale cruelty and one of which England must be ashamed. It can never be wiped out of the memories of people here. And it presses hardest on the children. They droop in the terrible heat and with the insufficient, unsuitable food.
Will you try somehow to make the British Public understand the position and force it to ask itself what is going to be done with these people? There must be already 50,000 of them and I should not wonder if there were more. Some few have means, but most are ruined and have not a present penny. In one of two ways the British Public must support them; either through the Military or else through voluntary charity … Dear Aunt Mary, couldn’t you write such a letter about it to The Times as should make people listen and believe and understand – which would touch their conscience? Is England afraid of losing her prestige? … To keep these camps going is murder to the children.
Today is Sunday and all the morning your unregenerate and unsabbatarian niece has been toiling and moiling over the bales of clothes, unpacking and sorting and putting up bundles. We were so glad of such odd things … such as a little boy’s braces. I found some baby linen for Mrs Pienaar. We have much typhoid and are dreading a great outbreak, so I am directing my energies to getting water from the Modder River boiled. As well swallow typhoid germs whole as drink that water. Yet they cannot boil it all; for first, fuel is very scarce. That which is supplied weekly would not cook a meal a day, and they have to search the bare kopjes for a supply. Secondly, they have no utensil to hold the water when it is boiled.
30 January
Captain Hume, Dr Pern and I sat in council yesterday, and the doctor supported me loyally. I suggested a big railway boiler to boil every drop of water before it is served out. This will economise fuel and be cheaper in the end.
Do not worry about me at all. I am perfectly well in body, only desperate in mind, and I understand now how wise it was in Bible days to send people out two by two when there was something difficult to be done …
Your loving niece,
Emily
Cape Town, 10 February 1901
Siyabulele Tamara looks out over Table Bay and yawns. The overspill of ships from Cape Town docks bob peacefully in the long purple shadow of the mountains, for the sun is just rising from behind the mountains, a signal to Siyabulele that his night shift is nearly over. Further along the lawns of Green Point, next to the docks, reveille has not yet sounded among the military tents that line the beachfront. It is hard to believe there is a cruel war waging in the north, so calm is the city in the early morning. Siyabulele takes a final swig of the home-brewed beer that helped him get through the long night; puffs on the long pipe he has brought with him from the Eastern Cape; then frowns. From behind the great stacks of tarpaulin-covered military supplies which he guards every night, he can hear a pattering sound, as if rain has begun to fall. A glance upward reveals a clear dawn sky with a crescent of white moon above the mountain. The pattering sound quickly grows into the swift rush of river which now, to the terror of the drowsy night watchman, seethes before his eyes, streaming over the common towards the houses on the other side of the road.
Siyabulele drops his mug of beer. Sweat breaks out over his entire body in ice-cold bubbles. For the river does not foam and splash with water; this river leaps and skips with creatures that Siyabulele knows only too well from his home in the District: rats. In their panic-stricken thousands they race from the nearby South Arm of the docks where forage for the military horses is unloaded and stored.
‘Aikona!’ screams Siyabulele. He stands up and finds his legs are shaking so much that he has to sit down again. There is only one thing to do, something he has in fact always longed to do. Siyabulele lifts his rifle, a Lee Enfield, the same model that is issued to the soldiers of the British Army, and fires a shot into the air. The startled rats slide into a thousand rivulets. At the same time Captain Philips from the Green Point camp comes running towards the night watchman in his embroidered silk dressing gown, shaving foam still on his jaw.
Though Siyabulele knows very little English he does know the word rats. Has not the chief sanitary inspector paid regular visits to Horstley Street in the District, where the African labourers live in shifts of twenty to a room? And has he not examined the men for illnesses on several occasions? Luthando Gobelo, who speaks good English, explained to the bewildered men that the Sanitary and Health Committee of the Cape Town City Council felt that the kaffirs’ overcrowded and unhygienic living conditions could be a breeding ground for disease. The inspector had been quite astonished at the number of rats that tumbled through the houses and across the streets and had said to Luthando, who seemed to have become the spokesperson for the Horstley Street occupants, that only someone called a Pied Piper could get rid of such vast numbers of rattus rattus. Strangely, the inspector found that there were fewer cases of infectious disease among the kaffirs than among the same number of other racial groups in the District.
Now Captain Philips looks at the khaki-clad young guard, shivering and gibbering in kaffir language, and smells the sweet fumes of kaffir beer. In spite of the fact that the word rets featured prominentl
y in Siyabulele’s outburst, Captain Philips has him arrested immediately, for of the rattus rattus there is not a sign, and we can’t have blacks firing off rifles just for the fun of it.
The same day Johan Witbooi finds a swelling in his left armpit. As he lists the huge stocks of grain and forage conveyed to the South Arm of the docks from Argentinian ships, he finds his hand has developed a tendency to shake. Nevertheless, he continues filling in his columns: a hundred tons of hay to various parts of the Orange River Colony where tens of thousands of military horses are dropping dead of starvation; twenty tons of corn to the Transvaal for the same reason. Suddenly he feels overcome by nausea and is obliged to rush to the toilet area at the back of the army ordnance stores. While vomiting horribly into the portable lavatory, he wonders whether he might have caught something unpleasant when, a few days ago, after an appalling smell had refused to go away, the floors of the storage shed next to his office had been lifted to reveal hundreds of dead or dying rats under the floorboards. Many of the creatures had been so dazed that you could have caught them with your hand (had you been so unwise). Some of them staggered out among the horrified troopers as if they were tame family pets. And at least two hundred dead rats were discovered when the haystack in the next shed was taken down. The anxiety among the authorities was not so much over the huge number of rats but the fact that most of them were dead or dying. And all of them were covered in giant fleas that leapt gladly up the legs and arms of their human saviours, for a dead rodent is a useless host to a flea infected with a bubonic bacillus.
By the time Johan returns to his desk the ache in his back is excruciating and his head is gripped in a vice of pain. Lieutenant Jones, who had spent time in Calcutta, diagnoses the young clerk’s condition immediately.