I heard one boy say as he saw me, ‘She won’t stick the winter through.’ He exactly expressed my feelings. It all seems in that weather with wind travelling at the rate of 100 miles an hour and rain, sleet, and snow so pitifully hopeless. The wards inside both night and day are dark, the patients cold, and I would defy anyone to call the outlook bright. Some of the sisters were able to rise past their own feelings and be bright and happy. Dear old Rush was one of them, how fond I am growing of her, she saved me from being downright sick. I will send you a snap I took of her outside the tent stirring the dixie.

During those fearful days our thoughts were constantly with the boys on the peninsula and wondering how they were faring, but little did we realise their sufferings until the wind abated and they began to arrive down with their poor feet and hands frostbitten. Thousands have been taken to Alexandria. Hundreds, the boys say, were drowned because their feet were so paralysed, and they couldn’t crawl away to safety in time. Some of the boys are losing both feet, some both hands. It’s all too sad for words; hopelessly sad.