But not content with such services to Serbia, and with her courage still undaunted, Dr. Inglis again set out in September, 1916, at the head of a fresh unit, for service with the Serbian army fighting in South Russia. The unit, numbering seventy-six women, comprised a staff of women doctors, an X-ray operator, a dispenser, seventeen fully-trained nurses, sixteen orderlies, besides cooks and laundresses. The accompanying transport column, under the Hon. Mrs. Haverfield, consisted of eight ambulances, two kitchen cars, a repair car, four lorries, and three touring cars, with a large staff of women chauffeurs and cooks. The unit landed at Archangel and travelled across Russia to Odessa, where the workers met with a rousing reception. They then proceeded to join the Serbian division to which they were attached, in the Dobrudja, and another splendid chapter of Scottish Women’s Hospital work was opened. A base hospital was started at Medjidia in Rumania, with a field station nearer to the front; but after about a fortnight’s work the inevitable evacuation was ordered before the Bulgarian advance, and the unit retreated with the army. Of this first hospital in Rumania Dr. Inglis writes: “The day after the unit arrived at Medjidia, where the whole seventy-five were obliged to camp in one big room, wounded began to pour in and ambulances to ply between there and the firing line. There were no roads, just tracks across endless plains.” Of the field station Dr. Inglis says: “The destination was a place smoking from shells, and filled with a sense of destruction and desolation impossible to describe. The Scottish women set up a camp near by, and were attached to the Serbian Field Hospital. Aeroplanes bombed them daily, and on one occasion the ambulance suffered a heavy bombardment. When the orders came to move, the transport went through five appalling days of labour, which can be understood only by people who have done cross-country tracks in roadless countries ... the scenes were indescribable—of confusion, terror, misery; of blocks of carts, troops, pigs, women, children, lame horses, and exhausted animals of all sorts. The refugees were throwing out things to lighten their carts, and the Scottish women got out and picked them up to use for their own kitchen.”
Dr. Inglis and the hospital party, on evacuating Medjidia, managed to secure what is known as a “sanitary train”—a long train of horse waggons, very different from an ambulance train, and they had to do their best for the crowd of wounded on board. Eventually Dr. Inglis reached Braila, where she was able to render valuable help to a large number of Rumanian wounded, who were very short of medical assistance. Some members of the unit have since returned to England, but Dr. Inglis is still in Rumania. She is temporarily working for the Russian army, pending the re-formation of the Serbian divisions, to which she will return.
The General in command of the Russian Red Cross on the Rumanian front (Prince Dolgouroukoff) has conferred the medal of St. George on all the members of the unit now at Reni who have worked under fire.
“Wherever the odds against the Allies seem overwhelming, there one may be nearly sure of finding a unit of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals working for the wounded,” writes an admirer of their work. “You do not find them in the well-equipped hospitals surrounded by every modern appliance, with crowds of men orderlies to carry out the heavy work, but rather in back-blocks of the war, as one may say, fighting a desperate battle of their own against dirt, disease, and wounds, and winning back precious lives of men whose language is in many cases unknown to them.”
Dr. Elsie Inglis has that magnetic personality which can command efficiency, even with inadequate equipment and in hopeless environment. The inspiring work of this great woman doctor makes her indeed a worthy leader for those wonderful Scottish women, who are putting their whole soul into the work they have undertaken, without any thought of recompense, without vainglory, and without any other motive than the desire to help and heal.
VI
MISS HARRIET SPROT, THE MISSES PLAYFAIR, AND LADY BADEN-POWELL
The Young Men’s Christian Association commenced work in the camps in France as soon as war began. For many years it had been accustomed to provide huts in the summer camps at home, but since the war the organisation has increased to such an extent that it now covers a vast field of enterprise. The Y.M.C.A. huts and those of the Church Army have proved the salvation of the men, who, when off duty, had nowhere to go, while in the camps the canteens provide an opportunity for them to buy small necessaries, tobacco, or any supplementary food in addition to their Army rations. The work of the ladies in the Y.M.C.A. huts in France is largely responsible for their great success. This work is arranged by a Committee under Princess Helena Victoria, with the Countess of Bessborough as hon. secretary, and it is owing to their insight and skilful organisation that it has been so successfully managed.
MISS AUDREY PLAYFAIR MISS LILIAS PLAYFAIR