CHAPTER IV
The unit numbered forty-five, and comprised seven women doctors—Mrs. King-May Atkinson, M.B., Ch.B., Miss Beatrice Coxon, D.R.C.P.S.R., Miss Helen B. Hanson, M.D., B.S., D.P.H., Miss Mabel Eliza King-May, M.B., Ch.B., Miss Edith Maude Marsden, M.B., Ch.B., Miss Catherine Payne, M.B., Miss Isobel Tate, M.D., N.U.I.—eighteen trained nurses, together with cooks, orderlies, chauffeurs, and interpreters. The principle that women could successfully conduct a war hospital in all its various departments, had now been amply proved, and had been conceded even by the sceptical. The original demonstration had already borne ample fruit. Units of Scottish women were doing excellent work in France, and also in Serbia, and even in London, women doctors had now been given staff rank in military hospitals. The principle was firmly established, and I thought, therefore, that no harm would now be done by accepting the services of a few men orderlies and chauffeurs.
Amongst the applications for the post of orderly, were some Rhodes scholars; and an interesting reversal of traditional procedure occurred. At the last moment, the scholars asked to be excused, because, owing to the additional risks of typhus involved in the expedition to Serbia, they must first obtain permission to run the risk, from their relatives in America, and for this, they said, there would not now be time. Our women, on the other hand, braved their relatives, knowing that a woman's worst foes, where her work is concerned, are often those of her own household.
Determined, however, to dodge the typhus if possible, I proposed to the Serbian Relief Fund that our hospital should be housed—both staff and patients—entirely in tents. It was only a question of raising more money; and this was obtained through friends and sympathetic audiences.
Typhus infection is carried by lice, and these would naturally be more difficult to eliminate within already infected houses than in tents in the open air. Also by the use of tents we should render ourselves mobile, and be more likely to be of service in emergency; this was later amply proved.
The Committee of the Serbian Relief Fund agreed to the proposal, and sixty tents, mostly double-lined, were specially made to order, by Messrs. Edgington of Kingsway, for wards, staff, X-ray, kitchens, dispensary, lavatories, baths, sleeping, etc., etc., with camp beds and outfit.
Lady Grogan and Mrs. Carrington Wilde, who were giving up their lives to Serbian Relief Fund work, did wonders for our unit, and in every way helped to make things easy for us. Mr. B. Christian, chairman, also gave wholehearted support, and the Women's Imperial Service League, with Lady Muir Mackenzie, Lady Cowdray, Mrs. Carr Ellison, Lady Mond, Mrs. Ronald McNeill, and their indefatigable secretary, Mrs. McGregor, were of invaluable service.
The Admiralty transport, for which during six precious weeks we had waited impatiently, was an old two thousand ton boat, of the Royal Khedivial Mail Line, only accustomed to carrying passengers from one port to another, short distances on the Mediterranean coast, and she could only give us nineteen places. It was arranged, therefore, for the remainder of the unit to follow overland, and to arrive, if possible, simultaneously at Salonica.
The captain of our boat received twenty-four hours' notice of the fact that he was to carry to Salonica a couple of hundred members of various hospital units. His chief steward, to whom would have been entrusted the purchase of food stores, was laid up with a broken leg, and the captain had been obliged himself to go from house to house, in Liverpool, to find a crew. We were lucky, therefore, to get any food or any crew at all, and still more lucky in the captain, who, by his courtesy, and concern for our welfare, compensated for little deficiencies in the ménu. Besides, one was thankful to be on the way to work, after so much delay.