July 1916. — A month has passed and we are still here, still neutral, still on tenterhooks. There is no news from Russia, but troops are said to have crossed the Danube.
All the ladies have been requested to report themselves at the Headquarters of the Rou- manian Red Cross. We Englishwomen can go and work where we like, and I have offered myself to one of the big military hospitals. I was asked whether I had ever done any nursing, and was obliged to give a negative reply. But I was told that it "did not matter," my hands would be useful. I work there feverishly every day trying to accumu- late as much knowledge and nursing informa- tion as is possible. Nurses are even more completely non-existent than I had realised. There is not a woman in the place who knows the first principles of hospital training such as we have in England, and I feel just as com- petent as are any of the others to use lavish quantities of disinfectants and to do exactly as I am told. The doctor who is to be my immediate chief is a very clever man; he knows how to teach me my job, and now it is only a question of time.
The days fly past. Each evening the conflagration seems inevitable within the next twenty-four hours, every morning sees us sunk in apathy and summer stupor. And the heat is indescribable. We avoid meeting peo- ple ; where 's the use ? They know now more than we do ourselves, and talking about the situation only aggravates the tension.
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