CHAPTER XII
It was clear that if there was this urgent need for help amongst the peasants in our district, there would be an equally urgent need in other districts. Therefore, as soon as the success of the Kragujevatz dispensary was assured, and Colonel Guentchitch and the local authorities had expressed approval, I determined to extend the work and to establish a series of roadside tent dispensaries, within an average radius of thirty miles around Kragujevatz, in the Schumadia district, the heart of Old Serbia. Accordingly, on May 9th, I cabled home to Mr. Christian, the Chairman of the Serbian Relief Fund, explaining the scheme, and asked his Committee to send out, without delay, material, equipment, and personnel for additional dispensaries. "I should like twelve," I said, "but I must have six." Colonel Harrison also cabled to his wife, asking her to collect money for our purpose; she responded nobly, and in the North of England held meetings which brought in several thousand pounds.
Each dispensary was to comprise one woman doctor, two nurses, one cook, one interpreter, and one chauffeur, the latter to drive the motor ambulance which would convey to the mother hospital at Kragujevatz, patients who needed operations or prolonged treatment. Tents were to be used as long as weather permitted, partly to avoid infectious buildings, partly to escape the difficulty of finding suitable houses, and also in order that the dispensary could be placed wherever it would be most likely to be useful—along the roadside, and probably where cross roads met.
The scheme received the hearty approval of Sir Ralph Paget, who was acting as British Commissioner for Serbia, and of Colonel Hunter, Chief of the Royal Army Medical Mission in Serbia. The latter told me that he had mentioned the dispensary scheme, and also the hospital work, in despatches to the Foreign Office, and had asked that all facilities should be granted us. I felt confident, therefore, that the scheme would be supported.
The Serbian Relief Fund rose to the occasion, and the Chairman cabled approval and agreed to send material and personnel for six additional dispensaries. Dr. King-May kindly agreed to go to London and help to make arrangements for the medical requirements. She left Kragujevatz on May 20th, and returned on July 23rd. But there was no need to wait till the latter date to start the new work. Time was of life-and-death importance to the peasants. The first consignment of stores and tents came on July 13th, and as Dr. Iles, who had cabled from India acceptance of service, had arrived on June 29th, we established a dispensary at Natalintzi, about thirty-five kilometres from Kragujevatz, on July 14th.
The site had been selected on June 29th by Major Protitch, and the District Prefect, Dr. Hanson, and myself.
We had intended to go to Natalintzi on the 28th, but the Prefect remembered that this was a fast day, in commemoration of the Battle of Kossovo, and that he must attend cathedral service. At Kossovo, in 1389, more than five hundred years ago, the Serbians had, upon the field of blackbirds, lost their independence to the Turks. I little guessed that I should, before long, be riding over that plain of Kossovo, with the Serbian Army, whilst it once more fought for independence.
June 28th (15th in the Serbian calendar) was also the anniversary of the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife.