Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch by Eva Shaw McLaren
page 93 of 118 (78%)
page 93 of 118 (78%)
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"On the morning of October 22 the train party got off as quick as
possible, and about 4 p.m. a big lorry came for our 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 doctor with whom Dr. Inglis 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. Inglis, 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!" Dr. Inglis would never allow the Sunday service to be missed if it was at all possible to hold it.[17] Miss Onslow tells us how she seized a seeming opportunity even on this Sunday of so many dangers to make ready for the service. "_Medjidia._--Sunday was the day on which we began our retreat from the Dobrudja. We spent most of the morning going to and from the station--a place almost impossible to enter or leave on account of the refugees, their carts and animals, and the army, which was on the move, blocking all the approaches--transporting sick members of the Unit and some equipment which had still to be put on the train, and only my touring car and one ambulance with which to do the work. Dr. Inglis had been at the station until the early hours of the morning, but nevertheless superintended everything that was being done both at the train and up at the hospital. "Towards noon a Serbian officer brought in a report that things were not as bad for the moment as they expected. Whereupon the Doctor immediately |
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