Typhus had not stricken the village badly, but the old barracks were
full of cases which developed several days after each batch of wounded
came.
The Red Cross unit took on the typhus barracks. Mr. Berry, seeing that
surgery was for the moment a secondary thing, and having received a
batch of Austrian prisoners riddled with typhus, built some barracks not
far from the school. Glass was unobtainable, so thin muslin was used for
the windows.
The first precaution against bad air that Mr. Berry took in preparing
his chief surgical ward was to smash all top panes of the windows with a
broom, thus earning the name of the Window Breaker. Whenever the wind
blew through the draughty corridors and glass rattled down from the
sashes, word went round that "Mr. Berry has been at it again."
Our unit and the Red Cross ran a quarantine hospital together. It was
originally the state cafe and lay in the park of the watering-place.
Near by were the sulphur baths. We ripped out the stuffy little wooden
dressing-rooms, to the joy of the bath attendant, who possessed the
facsimile of Tolstoi's face, and with the _debris_ we built a large shed
outside for the reception of the wounded.
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