War Memoir of Robert Ellwood

Turnbull: What was Nile fever?

Ellwood: I don’t remember much about it. I was knocked over unconscious and the next thing I new I woke up in an American hospital and there were a couple of sisters – you’d call them Sisters of Mercy sort of business and they were bathing me with cold water and that woke me up and the next thing I knew they were relieved by some Arab or Egyptian medical people and next thing I knew I was returned to my Regiment. It was one of those things it hit you like a gun – a shot out of a gun and you went down and that was where they brought me around I remember. I woke up to consciousness with these two Sisters of Mercy, whatever they were Americans – American hospital it was. And it was American, not a field hospital but ah a hospital in a civilian sense you know. It was staffed by American, some religious order. And that was Nile fever. It was a nasty thing. I don’t know how long it happened. It may have only been three days or four days, I don’t remember.