But my main business was to report myself to Colonel Guentchitch,
the head of the Army Medical Service, and at eleven o'clock I went
to Headquarters. There, to my great pleasure, I found, not only
Colonel Guentchitch, and our P.M.O. (Major Popovitch), and Colonel
Michaelovitch, and various other old friends, whom it was a joy to see
again, but also our beloved Divisional Commandant, Colonel Terzitch. He
had, this morning, been promoted to be Minister of War, and I was proud
to be amongst the first to congratulate him on an appointment which
gave everybody great satisfaction. I am not a military expert, but I
cannot help believing that the retreat of our Division, as well as
that of the whole Army, had been, from beginning to end, marvellously
handled. To retreat, during nearly three months, fighting rearguard
actions all the time, under circumstances which could scarcely have
been more difficult, and to have saved the Army and its morale, was a
great performance.
The new War Minister was, as he always had been, very kind to me, and
he said things about the work which we had done which made me very
happy. He, and our P.M.O. and Colonel Guentchitch all seemed especially
pleased with us, because ours was, they said, the only column which had
come in intact, without deserters, after a trek which, from first to
last, had totalled a distance of about eight hundred miles. They did
not, I was humbly thankful to find, regret the experiment of having
given to a woman, the command of a Field Hospital Column with the
active Army. I felt happy to think that we had, in an infinitesimal
way, been able to give proof of British sympathy with the brave Serbian
people, in the cause of freedom and idealism; and I was also glad to
think that we had perhaps shown that women need not be excluded from
taking a recognised share in national defence, on account of supposed
inability to suffer hardships incidental to campaigns.
But credit for any success which may have been achieved, is, of course,
mostly due to the loyalty and excellence of the staff who worked
under my command. The doctors and the nurses never spared themselves,
night or day, during times of stress of work, and adapted themselves
admirably to unusual and difficult conditions. If the army had been
advancing instead of retreating, they--the doctors and nurses--would
have had more patients, but their work was of great value, when, and
where, it was much needed. The cook was a marvel of good temper and
adaptability. There was no need of a Daylight Saving Bill with her. It
was never too late, or too early, for her to prepare food, when there
was any to prepare, or to go without it cheerfully, when there was none.
The chauffeurs (five men and one woman) performed miracles with the
cars, and showed pluck and endurance such as is not often exacted
from ambulance drivers. To have brought those Ford cars over those
unique roads, from Barchinatz, in the north of Serbia, to Petch, near
the Montenegrin frontier, with only one accident to one car, was a
wonderful feat, and their work of evacuating wounded from our own, and
from other field hospitals, was of inestimable value.
The interpreter, George, did his best, but for practical purposes he
knew no language but his own, and he could only read that in Croat
characters.
But Vooitch, a young Bosnian Serb, spoke French, German, English,
and Italian, besides his own Serbian. His position was, for various
reasons, not an easy one, but I never saw him out of temper, and by
unfailing service to me, night and day, he did much to strengthen weak
places elsewhere in the Serbian staff. He was invaluable.
Our secretary, John Greenhalgh, had, owing to the circumstances of
our prolonged retreat, not much secretarial work to do; but he acted
as honorary treasurer to the British members of the unit, and, in a
thousand ways, he was of service to us all. His hobby, in ordinary
life, is to help others; in our field hospital he was, therefore, in
his element, helping both the wounded and the staff, with kindly,
unostentatious, and unsolicited services. I owe him much, for his
loyalty to the command of a woman, was a fine example of unselfishness.
The sergeant was not a soldier born; he was, by constitution, weak
and lazy, but he meant well. The men had at once summed him up, and
they had told me, with charming _naïveté_, after the first few days of
our trek, that he had no influence over them, but that they liked him
because he was amiable.
Sandford and Merton were fish out of water; they were not adaptable,
but they were invariably courteous and loyal.
Of the Serbian soldiers, drivers, and ambulance men, I cannot speak too
highly. I loved them, and I recommended that their services should be
given official recognition. They were not perfect; none of us is. While
we are waiting for our wings to grow, we must fly by machinery, which
is liable to defects. But these men, who had been brought up under
Turkish traditions as to the position of women in the world, yielded
to their woman commander, a willing obedience and a loyalty which
never failed during three months. There was no physical force to back
up the commands, and it was conceivable that, under the demoralising
conditions of retreat, continuous flight, and privations, discipline
might almost excusably have weakened, or even failed. But these men
were whole-heartedly loyal from the first day to the last. It should
also be remembered that every step these soldiers took, was taking
them farther from their families, their homes, their country, but--and
this applies also to the thousands of soldiers whom I saw during the
three months of retreat--I never heard, or saw, a soldier say, or do,
anything that could have given offence to the most fastidious girl, and
I am proud if I have been able to render to this Serbian Army, and to
the Serbian people, whom I love and respect, even the smallest service.
All, both Serbians and British, performed excellent work under
difficult conditions, but the behaviour of the gallant little band who
stuck bravely to the column and followed their chief over the mountains
at a time when the fate of that column, and of the Army, was uncertain,
deserves special recognition.