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to Cairo. The sisters had to consciously separate their private lives from their professional duties. When Frank sent her a telegram, ‘coolly expecting me to meet him in Cairo’, she wrote: ‘He takes things very much for granted.’ 14 She did not go. After meeting him again, she was disappointed and decided it was ‘just as well not to be falling in love’ with him. However, when a young South Australian Lighthorseman invited her out, she decided she ‘wanted one more nibble’ at Frank. They met at ‘a shabby little place’ for afternoon tea, the discreet venue chosen, Alice decided, because of ‘awkwardness and not meanness’.
    One day she accepted an invitation from another officer before realising she had double-booked with Frank. She wrote to the officer, putting him off. ‘I’m sorry now because they may be going away to fight any day and goodness knows who will come back again. The nearer it comes the less I can bear to think of our boys being wounded. They are such dear things. Of course we see the best of them because they are always so pleased to see us. Already they are tired of the French Girls.’ 15 The ‘French Girls’ were prostitutes and bar girls in Cairo’s red-light district. Yet another officer wanted to see Alice before his regiment marched. They walked together in the hospital garden, but Alice believed that he was ‘weak’ and did not have ‘the back of a fish’. Frank Smith remained a focus of her attention, but still uncertainty plagued her. There was something about him that she wasn’t sure of.
    Nonetheless, they spent an afternoon driving around Cairo, followed by dinner at Shepheard’s Hotel. ‘Got home in time for 10 minutes canoodle before I must come on duty.’ 16 Dinners and moonlight rides continued, but time was running out, for Frank was about to leave for the Dardanelles. Outings became more precious, and Alice began to like Frank more. ‘He is a dear thing really and so jolly—I’m going to miss him horribly when he goes.’ 17 Alice began to compare other men with Frank, among them Captain A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, a writer turned Army stable manager, who had just returned from Cyprus after buying mules for transport work. Alice found him ‘an interesting bombastic little chap’. 18
    In the three months since the nurses’ arrival, their introduction to war had encompassed both an active social life and the sight of awful suffering and death. Alice lamented the loss of a ‘fine lad of 24’ to pneumonia. ‘He told me in the morning that when he left Sydney he did not know that his people were coming over here—but that they came by a quick mail boat and were here to meet him when he arrived. He told me this so seriously and evidently believed himself that I did not realise until today that it must have been only delirium. He died very happy believing that his mother was beside him all the time.’ 19 Experiences such as this would soon become all too frequent.

4

THE PRELUDE

    The Australian and New Zealand troops were restless and ready for action. But they had to wait, each in their own way anticipating what lay ahead. The nurses sensed their keenness to get on with it. In late February, when the AIF 3rd Brigade left Mena Camp, the nurses joined in the cheering and excitement. Elsie Cook, at church later with her husband Syd, noted ‘the khakied boys and their keen, splendid earnest faces there’. Sensing the inevitability of Syd’s departure, Elsie was determined to celebrate their ‘semi-anniversary’ on 19 March, donning her ‘travelling dress hat, shoes and even gloves that I had worn after my wedding’. They strolled about the gardens and had tea on an island as a band played. On return to Mena, Syd was required for night operations. ‘After dinner, I wrote letters home. So endeth the 19th. I wonder as I write where we shall be next 19th September, our real and first anniversary day? In Australia I hope.’ 1
    The impatience of waiting