To write the true story of three months' work in a hospital is a task
before which the boldest man might quail. Let my very dear friends of
the Belgian Field Hospital breathe again, for I have attempted nothing
of the sort. I would sooner throw aside my last claim to self-respect,
and write my autobiography. It would at least be safer. But there were
events which happened around us, there was an atmosphere in which
we lived, so different from those of our lives at home that one felt
compelled to try to picture them before they merged into the shadowy
memories of the past. And this is all that I have attempted. To all who
worked with me through those months I owe a deep debt of gratitude.
That they would do everything in their power to make the hospital a
success went without saying, but it was quite another matter that they
should all have conspired to make the time for me one of the happiest
upon which I shall ever look back. Where all have been so kind, it is
almost invidious to mention names, and yet there are two which must
stand by themselves. To the genius and the invincible resource of
Madame Sindici the hospital owes an incalculable debt. Her
friendship is one of my most delightful memories. The sterling powers
of Dr. Beavis brought us safely many a time through deep water, and
but for his enterprise the hospital would have come to an abrupt
conclusion with Antwerp. There could have been no more delightful
colleague, and without his aid much of this book would never have
been written.
For the Belgian Field Hospital I can wish nothing better than that its
star may continue to shine in the future as it has always done in the
past, and that a sensible British public may generously support the
most enterprising hospital in the war.