The Flaming Sword in Serbia and ElsewhereStobart, M. A. (Mabel Annie)
History
The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere
Stobart, M. A. (Mabel Annie)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
The sanitation was in the hands of Miss B. Kerr, and was a subject of
interested and invariably of favourable criticism. And it required some
system to cope successfully with open-air sanitation, on a fixed spot,
for more than two hundred people. Colonel Hunter, sometimes twice a
day, brought visitors to whom he was anxious to show certain features
in the scheme of which he specially approved. He told me that we were
useful to him as object-lessons, and he cabled home in favourable terms
to the War Office, concerning our hospital work, and also, later,
concerning the dispensary scheme, with which he was well pleased.
It soon, indeed, came to be considered quite the correct thing for
visitors to Kragujevatz to come up and visit the camp, and the only
relief from the monotony of showing people round, was the variety
of language which had to be employed. Sometimes, simultaneously, a
Serbian, who, in addition to his own language, only spoke German,
another who only spoke French, another who could only talk Serbian, and
perhaps an Englishman who could only talk English--these must all be
entertained together. It was like the juggler's feat with balls in the
air.
Almost everybody of note in Serbia visited us at one time or another,
and our visitors' book, now, alas! in the hands of the Germans, was an
interesting record.
His Royal Highness the Crown Prince (Alexander) honoured us with a
visit as soon as he learnt that he would be able to converse in French
or German. He speaks good English, but has presumably not had the same
opportunities of practice in this language. But in the visitors' book,
which he took back to the palace for the purpose, he wrote a page and
a half, in excellent English, describing his impression of the work of
the hospital, and expressing his gratitude for the help given to his
brave soldiers.
A fine fellow this Prince: straightforward, unostentatious, full of
sympathy and quick intelligence; in every way worthy of a throne. He
looked at every detail of the camp with critical interest, then as he
walked, in the scorching sun, from the hospital quarters to the tents
reserved for the staff, he asked, as he looked around, "Have you no
sun-shelters?" We had none, and he immediately turned to a member of
his staff, and told him to see that "ladniaks," or arbours, made of
young trees, and dead branches, were at once arranged for us.
Accordingly, in a few days, a procession of wagons arrived, carrying a
whole forest of young trees for props, and dead branches for roof and
sides; and arbours were erected, and much comfort to us all was the
result.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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