The hospital at Wimereux was lighter than it had been for many weeks, for the winter weather had caused a lull in the fighting. In February it was evident that the constant rains and the state of the ground at the Front would make any advance impossible for weeks to come. The patients coming down to the base were chiefly medical cases or had slight injuries, which made their early transfer to England possible; and the work assumed more and more the character of a clearing station.
In conversation with the Assistant Director of Medical Services, it was learnt that fifty thousand additional hospital beds were to be set up in England that spring, and that the supply of doctors—especially of doctors who could organise—was far short of the Army’s requirements. The organisers had now to consider whether the Corps could be of greater service in England than in France. General W——, with whom this question was discussed, stated that the pressure of work would probably lie in England, and that the services of the Women’s Hospital Corps would certainly be acceptable there.
‘You must not give up military work,’ he said to Dr. Garrett Anderson and Dr. Flora Murray. And with real kindness he sent a despatch to the Director General about their work, and advised them to ask for an interview with him at the War Office.
Preceded by General W—’s despatch and their letter enclosing various introductions and asking for an appointment, Dr. Garrett Anderson and Dr. Flora Murray arrived in London. Here rumour met them with reports of the intentions of the Director General and of his favourable disposition towards them, and it was with a not unnatural thrill of anticipation that they entered the War Office.
Surgeon-General Sir Alfred Keogh, G.C.V.O., G.C.B., opened the interview by saying that he had heard a great deal about their hospitals, that he had heard nothing but good, and that he expected them to manage a larger formation than a hundred beds.
‘Who is running you?’ he asked.
‘Nobody. We run ourselves.’
‘Yes! but who is behind you? What lady?’
‘There is no lady.’
‘Who gets your money?’