In the smaller rooms some kind of departmental order was growing. With real kindness, the authorities gave advice and assistance, and one of the officials put the doctors into touch with two first-class male nurses, who proved most valuable assistants.
The place was full of rumours and of special information brought over by its Commissioners about military matters and German atrocities. All the head officials appeared to have different opinions and to come to different decisions, and one old gentleman, who held a high office, kept saying, ‘Kitchener will never let you cross, you know. Does Kitchener know you are going? He won’t let any one cross.’
‘The Gate’ distrusted the French Red Cross, and was quite sure that if anything was left for it to do it would be muddled; and the French Red Cross could not understand why ‘The Gate’ should offer to arrange about passports and baggage, since it was quite able to do all that itself. As a matter of fact, the arrangements for the transport of baggage were made, and most excellently made, by Monsieur Brasier de Thuy.
The packing was done by Messrs. John Barker & Co., of Kensington, a firm which also supplied a great part of the equipment. When the bales and boxes were complete, they were piled in the street outside their premises and made an imposing array. There were more than a hundred packages—many large Red Cross cases with padlocks, all labelled and painted with ‘Croix Rouge Française’ and ‘Women’s Hospital Corps,’ with lists of their contents noted on them and the address. Piled on the top of them were enormous bales of wool and blankets, pillows and clothing. The display attracted crowds of interested spectators as it lay under the awnings, and members of the Corps who saw it thrilled with anticipation and eagerness.
The uniform of the Corps had been chosen carefully. It consisted of a short skirt with a loose, well-buttoned-up tunic, and was made of covert coating of a greenish-grey colour. The material was light and durable, and stood wear and weather well. The medical officers had red shoulder straps with the Corps initials, ‘W.H.C.,’ worked on them in white, and the orderlies had white collars and shoulder straps with red letters. The white was not serviceable, and at a later date blue was substituted for it. Small cloth hats with veils and overcoats to match made a very comfortable and useful outfit.
That uniform was a passport which admitted the women who wore it to offices, bureaus, stations, canteens, wherever their work took them. It was equally correct in hospitals, in ambulances, in the streets of Paris and among troops. In some magic way it opened doors and hearts and pockets.
The Parisians murmured, ‘C’est chic, ça!’
The senior British officer asked, ‘Who designed your uniform?’
And the subaltern said, ‘Where did you get that jolly kit?’