Winter Conditions in the Field Hospital

And then we were under canvas again and we were in a what they called a sportiva part of it, where the tents for the hospital were and that was like an arena. We had a hard winter, very hard winter for living in that, the water froze in the water pails and we had very little heat. We had little teeny kerosene stoves, one in each tent and we had three in a great big marquis tent for the patients. We had a board between our cots because when it started to melt it was all mud and then we were issued rubber boots. We always had an issue with things for the place and in the winter we were issued with lovely boots that came about that high, lovely boots but they had steel toes and heels and so your feet froze in them, you know. It was very cold.