The Stricken Fortieths.

Levin Daily Chronicle, 17 December 1918, Page 4

The Stricken Fortieths.

SOLDIER'S GRAPHIC LETTER

The following graphic letter was written by a Christcliurcih resident who was one of the Fortieth Reinforcements. It is from the Ohristchuvch Sun:

'•Spanish influenza"—which lis a*> good a name as any other for a fatal sort of fever which shows some of the symptoms of pulmonary plague—got us in Sierra Leone. Eighty died on board, (half la , dozen are missing owing to some idiot saying tflio sea was cool, 250 ar estill in hospital, and myself and about 60 more are merely out and about. That's aill! After-effects include lung-trouble andi damaged hearts. Thanks bel I'm fairly free from either though slightly touched by both. Sierra Leone is a stinking, steaming, native town, green and poisonous as ttlio iiltlx paddooks of a sewage farm, ille niggers are chattering, grinning animals, who do about one-thirtieth as muclx work as a worn-out white wharf labourer who is following the go-sloav policy. Our lads had much fun throwing tilings at them, but were stuck" for something heavy until it occurred to a returning "Aussie" to fill a biscuit tin with boiling water. The results of this bomb being dropped from 40 feet were startling. They included! our being forbidden to go near the rails at all. ... Of course there was no shore leave, though three officers went ashore on business and three sailors "hooked it" to Learn the delights of cheap trade wliisky. We lay there for five days—lazy days of heat and damp—and watched another steamer dump lier dead eaah night at twilight. Oar health was good—men never looked fitter than we. Concerts in the evening kept things interesting and we were always interested in the gathering of the convoy— quaintly-camouflaged slhips of every nation.

First day out some of us felt rather rotten, and showed; high temperatures. The next day the hospital was full, and the third day 800 were down. Al-. ways the same symptoms—weariness, general feeling of not being up to tiho mark, a temperature, and . . tho man dropped where he was. I went out with 105, and lay lor three days in a breathless hell-liole, where the dead jostledi the living. Dysentery made matters worse, especially as sanitary needs could not be considered, and tilie ship had run out of disinfectants. Tho doctors worked like hertoes, although sick men themselves. The nurses saved many a life, and one lias since died l as a reward for her efforts. Most of the officers and many men kept going while they could keep their feet, washing and aiding the sick. Then, of all the soldiers and ship's crew, only 70 odd were left on their feet. Four men badi to do all the butchering and cooking for the crowd, the dispenser was out through fever and overwork, both doctors were "bust," and the stock of drugs began to fail—not that it mattered much, for one of the strange features of the disease was that drugs had no effect. Mere boys who had never used the drug before were taking 40 grains of quinine—with no result. Great slugs of chloral, which should have put a man out for a long spell, did not produce sleep at all. Injections of morphia made no difference. Sulphonal had no effect. T/ater, they found that rum, in small teaspoon dloses, enabled men to gulp down tiheir unappetising portions of boiled rice— about nil the food that was going.

On account of submarines, we were in tho dark from 6 to 6 —12 hours of lvinsr awake iini'd .sucli scenes is hell. Many wore delirious. Men strippel themselves naked and danced', wept, sang, proved, cursed, rode imaginary horses, felled imaginary trees, drank imaginarv beer, and grew very drunk. Next day I was down o ndeck witlh : a temperature of 103. I had no clothes except mv shirt and my denim shorts, and nobody was fit to go after my jk-it-baer. But I was absolutely determined that, whatever were lite rules of the trame, I would not let my wife enjoy being a widow. I got un when they found me an old pair of breeches and a "civvy'-' singlet, and began an amazing series oP efforts to back mv stavinsr power against high temporal inf. T was thoroughly convmeedi tflvat if T onee went down T should do like the rest, and maybe die. Tlie chief cook saved uiy life by taking me to his cabin and feeding me up on fe-ouu and soft stuff other than the eternal rice.

The day we reached England I was still too weak to walk. The arrangements were perfect, our sick going at once into hospital at Portsmouth, the milder cases being Sent by 6peoial

I train to Oodford, and the rest of us | met by motor ambulances from the j railway station to our present camp. I Our bunks had not been made up, and j it was quit© funny to note the unani- | mity with which each man dropped into | them and lay there coughing, with the i short, dry, symptomatic cough. Nest , a hot feed of stew, hot tea—and to lied.