Читать книгу The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere - M. A. Stobart - Страница 7

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I found that my unit had not yet left London, and I was able in a short time, with them, to accept an invitation from the Belgian Red Cross to go to Antwerp. We went out under the auspices of the St. John Ambulance Association, and established our hospital in the big Summer Concert Hall, in the Rue de l'Harmonie. Here once again the glories of war were manifested.

After three weeks' work upon the maimed and shattered remnants of manhood that were hourly brought to us from the trenches, the German bombardment of the city began. For eighteen hours our hospital unit was under shell fire, and I had the opportunity of seeing women—untrained to such scenes—during the nerve-racking strain of a continuous bombardment. They took no notice of the shells, which whizzed over our heads, without ceasing, at the rate of four a minute, and dropped with the bang of a thousand thunderclaps, burning, shattering, destroying everything around us.

The story of how these women rescued their wounded, carried them without excitement, as calmly as though they were in a Hyde Park parade, on stretchers, and when stretchers failed, upon their backs, from the glass-roofed hospital, down steep steps, to underground cellars, has also been told elsewhere.

We saved our wounded, but in the picture of the murderous shells, dropping at random, here, there, and everywhere; of the beautiful city of Antwerp in flames, its peaceful citizens, its women and children, with little bundles of household treasures in their arms, fleeing terror-stricken from their homes into the unknown: in all this it was difficult to see glory, except the glory triumphant of the enemy's superior make of guns—superior machinery.

Photo, Vandyk, C. H.R.H. PRINCE ALEXANDER OF SERBIA

We lost, of course, all our hospital material, but once again, thanks to the Women's Imperial Service League and to the St. John Ambulance Association, now in conjunction with the British Red Cross Society, who also assisted us; thanks also again to friends and sympathisers, we were enabled to collect fresh equipment, and as, alas! hospitals could no longer be worked in Belgium, we offered our services to the French Red Cross, and were invited to establish our hospital in Cherbourg.

At this port, every day, arrived boat-loads of wounded from the northern battlefields. Their uniforms indistinguishable with blood, maimed, blinded, shattered in mind and body, these human derelicts were lifted from the dark ship's-hold, on stretchers, to the quay, and thence were transported to hospitals for amputations, a weary convalescence, or perhaps death. It was again a little difficult to recognise the glory of it all. And then came Serbia.

We had been working for four months at Cherbourg, when I read one day that an epidemic of typhus had broken out in Serbia; that the hospitals were overcrowded with sick and wounded; that one-third of the Serbian doctors had died, either of typhus, or at the front, and that nursing and medical help were badly needed. I knew from the moment when I read that report, that I should go, but I confess that I tried, at the beginning, to persuade myself that my first duty was to the Cherbourg hospital. I dreaded the effort of going to London, of facing the endless red tape, snubs, opposition, the collecting of money, and a unit, difficulties of all sorts with which I was now familiar. One of my plays was going to be acted at the theatre in Cherbourg, at a charity matinée, and I wanted to see it. Also, after a winter of continuous rain, the sun had begun its spring conjuring tricks, and one morning before breakfast, as I was walking in the woods, I noticed that through the damp earth, and the dead beech leaves, myriads of violets, ferns and primroses were showing their green leaf-buds. I felt a momentary twinge of joy; and that decided me. This would be a pleasant place in Spring; many women would be glad to do my work.

The wounded were no longer coming south in such numbers as at first, owing probably to the dangers of the sea voyage; the hospital was in thorough order, and the administration could be left in capable hands. The call had come, and I could no more ignore it, than the tides can ignore the tugging of the moon.

I went to London (in February, 1915) to see if I was right in my surmise as to the need for help in Serbia, and I was at once asked by the Serbian Relief Fund, to organise and to direct a hospital unit, also to raise a portion of the funds. We were to go to Serbia as soon as Admiralty transport could be procured. This involved considerable delay, and it was not till April 1st that we set sail from Liverpool for Salonica.