WITH THE SCOTTISH NURSES IN RUMANIA.*
• Will tin Scottish Series in Eumania. By Yvonne IltzBoy. London: Joint Murray. L5s. net.j We have reason to be proud of the part that our women have played in the war. Like our men, they have served in many countries, and have displayed everywhere the courage and good humour which are the typical qualities of the British soldier. The full story will never be told. But we may form some idea of the spirit in which thousands of gently nurtured British women have affronted the perils of warfare in strange countries from books like Miss FitzRoy's diary of her experiences in Rumania with the Scottish nurses under the late Dr. Elsie Inglis. This little book, though unpretentious in form, has the heart of the matter in it ; it shows powers of sharp ob3ervation and apt expre:sion, and these are graced with an unvarying sympathy. The author, with the diffidence characteristic of our race, emphasizes her few frivolous moments and touches lightly on her serious work. But any one who cares to read between the lines will realize the extreme discomfort that the Scottish nurses cheerfully endured
far motiths on end, and the serious dangers that they faced when the Rtimanians Were retreating and when their hospital at ()slats or Reni was Within range of the enemy's guns, to say nothing of Zeppelin and aeroplane raids, typhus or cholera. We commend the little book not merely as a good example Of its class, but also as a tonic for fainthearts. While our young Women Can show Erlich pluck and gaiety in most depressing circumstances, there is no need to worry over the future Of Great Britain
The Scottish nurses left Liverpool at the end of Angina, 1916, and, after a long voyage to Archangel and a still longer train journey across Russia, found themselves in October close to Trajaii's Wall in the Debnidja, With mud everywhere and a great battle raging in front of thetn. No sooner had they improvised their hospital than the isiciiinded began to pour in, keeping the doctors and Sisters at work for eighteen hours on end :— "Between filth and wounds the men's condition is indescribable. They are Owning back in thousands ; our Transport have been working absolutely heretically; and bringing the wounded in is no joke, eipecially at night in a strange country and over these roads. It hea been the biggest rush of wounded they have yet had. By shoving the mattresses close to each other, and putting others in every available corner, we made room for every man we could, and still the cry of the Authorities was for more—more- more. In the Russian Red Cross Hospital next door tWo and three men Were shoved on a single Mattress just Be they came in, the dead and the living sometimes lying side by side for hours. Even in our own Wards, where British prejudice dies hard, and where every patient was in the end undressed and washed, the crawling uniforms, the dirt, the smell, the groaning men, or those still more terrible, lying in an inert 'silence, and latt but not least the heat and the flies, made of the world a sufficiently ghastly dittos. I don't know if the others have ever tried to imagine What coming face to face with Death would be like ; I have often wondered how they took the initiation, and whether they had associated it almost inseparably, as I had, with the order and discipline of an English Hospital. Something inextricably mixed up With privacy, relations, flowers, and fat black &Uses. As a matter of fact) there was so much to do When the men first came in that I never gave all this a thought."
A few days later enemy airmen began a series of deliberate raids on the Red Cross hospitals, without disturbing the serenity of the staff. But no Sooner was the Scottish hospital in good Working order than it had to be removed in consequence of the Ruthenian defeat near Tcheirnavcida :— " I went twice down to the station with the baggage in the evening, a perilous journey in rickety carts, through pitch darkneas oVer roads (?), crammed with troops and refugees, which were lit up periodically by the most amazing green lightning I have ever Been, and the roar and flash Of the guns wati incessant. At the staticin no lights were allowed because of enemy aircraft, but the place was illuminated here and there by the camp fireli of a new Siberian Division which had just arrived. Picked troops these and mag- nificent men. We wrestled with the baggage until 2 a.m., and went back to the Hospital in one of our own cars. One Orderly cane in almost in tears. Her &tit had twice turned over com- pletely on its way tb the station, So on arrival ehe had hastened to Dr I. with a tale of woe and a scratched face. Dr. I. said : That's right, dear child, that's right, stick to the equipment.' Which may very well be described as the motto of the Unit these
days . . The train party got off as quick as possible, and about 4 a big lor* came for otir equipment. We loaded it, seVen of us mounted on the top, and the rest went in two of our own cars. The scene was really intensely comic. Seven Scottish women balanced precariously on the pile of luggage, a Serbian Debtor, with whom Dr. I. is to travel, standing alongside in an hysterical condition, imploring us to hurry, telling us the Bulgarians were as good as in the town already, Dr. I. quite unmOved demanding the whereabouts of the Ludgate Boiler, somebody arriving at the last minute with a huge Open barrel of treacle, which, of course, could not possibly be left to a German—oh dear, how we laughed ! "
The whole population, who are said by the Bulgarians to be of their own race, fled in panic With the retreating Rumanians—a fairly good proof of the falsity of the Bulgarian claims. Out of the chaos the nurses made their way somehow to Galatz, and then to Braila, where they found eleven thousand wounded, with only seven doctors to tend them. Miss FitzRoy was given the charge of a ward with over sixty patients, "and all the windows are tight shut ! " After a vigorous attempt to start a "fresh-air campaign," the nurses were ordered to keep the windows shut, as they were "almost imperilling iaternational relations." The Rumanians were now depressed and lost heart, and the nurses suffered in the prevailing disorganization. Their hospital *as moved a long way to the new front and then moved back again, with some exciting adven- tures on the railway journey. Then they' had a "terrible week" at Galata, in a makeshift building crammed with severely wounded men. Miss FitzRoy and a comrade had ninety patients to deal with.; th 3 ward was filled with straw, and the wounded were laid side by side as close as possible, to await their turn for operation. The task would have been impossible had not four orderlies from the British Armoured Cars come to the rescue :—
"We try.and keep scime record of each case ; the name, number, and regiment ; and we tie little cardboard discs round their necks with duplicate information. But so many come in dying or un- cdrisicicias or delirious, and if they die I suppose no one ever dis- covers who or what they arc or where they come from. And 1
auppose their fat-Mlles just go on—waiting. It makes one tong *Wily for la* and order and discipline, Whatever the picturesque vane of other qualities. When these poor broken creatures are brought here in the springless Carts to find, at the beat, a straW mattress to lie on, to have to suffer tortures which perhaps they don't imdorstand, with all day the horror Of gangrene or tetanus before their eyes, and all day and all night Iting the 'sine% the confueion and the dirt—I think it is:laird to thaliza until yciu 'Waite seen it the heartbreaking courage and loneliness of them all. Seine of them mere children, submitting quite quietly to a crippling operation.; others peevish and indignant, imploring you to stop the pain ; here and there a Smile, and you don't Imo*. hoW We blessed the man Who smiled ; a child dying with a tiny abdominal *mind; tWo deliriens head eases; mid In one corner ail Officer, blind and sullen, watched over by aderoted little Cossack iserrant. You thank Death whenever it comes, and often and often you pray that it may be quick, and every minute there is so much to do and every minute what you achieve must fall so short of the neces- sity. You don't know what it is to feel impotent like that."
Suddenly the hospital had to be moved again, by barge, to Rani, where the nurses remained through a veit severe winter The cold may 'be estimated by the feet that two Wounded then, Who were pat in a cart four or five hundred yards from the hospital, • were frozen stiff when the nurses went to take them in. Miss FitzRoy broke down in health under the strain, as any one but an Amazon might be expected to do, and came home last exhumer. But before she left Reni she had seen the first enthusiasm for the Russian Revolution fading into doubt, aid thestriokihevik madaess was beginning to display itself in mutiny. At Odessa she found the Jews busily propagating fables hostile to the Allies. However, - she says little about panties. Her Whole heart was in her work, and her little book is all the more valuable because it is a plain record Of that Work. The Scottish Muses, We May be sure, Will 'never be forgotten by their Eastern patients. One grateful but 'tactless man was heard to remark "The Russian Sisters are pretty but they are not good—the English Sisters are good but they are not pretty ! " and the ill-turned compliment., which the 'author records with 'hock humility, meant thuish.
Previous page
