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The Red Cross station to which we reported, Poste de Secours des Marins, was conducted by Monsieur le Docteur Rolland, and Monsieur Le Doze. Our workers were standing guests at their officers' mess. The little sawed-off sailor in the Villa Marie where I was billetted made coffee for two of us each morning. Our friends have the faults of young men, flushed with life.
Sturgeon was plentiful; in fact, there being a greater supply than could be used, some of the surplus was dried, then pounded, mixed with the roe and sorrel to provide both bread and meat. In order to conserve their scarce food supply, the colonists sought to acquaint themselves with the use of the native resources. To this end, a number of the settlers were billetted with the Indians.
Our coolies were released on the 18th, more than half starved, but the Sirdars were still kept in chains or the stocks: some were sent back to Dorjiling, and the British subjects billetted off amongst the villagers, and variously employed by the Dewan: my lad, Cheytoong, was set to collect the long leaves of a Tupistra, called "Purphiok," which yield a sweet juice, and were chopped up and mixed with tobacco for the Dewan's hookah.
It is a process like the trapping of an innocent woman, and when she is trapped, saying, "Now you are compromised, anyway, so you had better submit." A friend of mine who remained in Ghent after the German occupation, had German officers billetted in his home.
Being severally billetted on the inhabitants for some days before they embarked, one of them requested permission to see the superintendant, Monsieur Kearnie, which being granted, the British tar thus addressed him: "An please your honour, I don't come to trouble you with any bother about ourselves: we are all as well treated as Christians can be; but there is one thing that makes my food sit heavy on my stomach, and that of my two messmates."
He sent us away under guard, who escorted us in safety through the camp to a shack. "Here we were billetted in a filthy room with a lot of Russian prisoners, some the survivors of the defense of Bolsheozerki and some the recalcitrants or suspected deserters from the Bolo ranks. We were given half of a salt fish, a lump of sour black bread and some water for our hunger.
Our party was too large to be billetted upon one family. Mrs. T took compassion upon Moodie, myself, and the baby, while their uncle received the three children to his hospitable home. It was some weeks before Moodie succeeded in repairing the roof, the intense cold preventing any one from working in such an exposed situation. The news of our fire travelled far and wide.
The General's almost invariable escape from illness during so many years of travelling, in so many varying climates and seasons, can only be attributed to God's special guidance and care. In Melbourne, influenza raged in the home where he was billetted, and seized upon one of the Officers travelling with him. And yet he escaped, and could resume his journey undelayed.
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