It is only on reading these pages that many of us who worked with them at Endell Street will realise even partially the difficulties and anxieties through which they passed during the four years and more that the Hospital remained open. They had a double responsibility all through: firstly, for the lives and welfare of the soldiers entrusted to their care, and secondly, for the demonstration of women’s efficiency and vindication of the confidence placed in their professional and administrative abilities. If they had failed to satisfy the Authorities even in the slightest detail, there is not much doubt but that the charge of the Hospital would have been handed over to a man, and that more than one military official would have had the joy and triumph of saying: ‘_There--I told you so. The women have failed medically and administratively, and have been unable to maintain discipline._’ But the opportunity did not occur. The weeks, the months, the years went on. Thousands of soldiers poured in and out of that Hospital. A year after Armistice found it still open. The women had succeeded--not failed, and had set a living example of what trained and disciplined women could do in the service of their country. Perhaps our C.O. will forgive me for being personal enough to refer to one of her characteristics which was greatly appreciated by all--the trust she reposed in those working under her. You were given your task, your opportunity, your department, and you went ahead with it. It was yours--your own. If you could not do it, you went. If you could, you stayed. She interfered with no details, and harassed you with no unnecessary restrictions. She took it for granted that you were carrying on in the right way and in the right spirit--and judged by results whether it were desirable that you should continue to carry on. In this way you became and remained a living part of the administration. Work and personality alike were benefited, and the young received a baptism of responsibility, destined to influence them favourably for the rest of their lives. This is surely a great characteristic--and rare. It is not to be wondered at that the success of this Military Hospital, officered, staffed, and run entirely by women, became a source of immense satisfaction and pride to all women, but more especially to those who had taken an active part in the struggle for the Suffrage, and had shared, with Dr. Flora Murray and Dr. Garrett Anderson, the ups and downs, the hopes and fears, the disappointments, disillusions, and encouragements, and all the stress and strain of a long-drawn-out political campaign. To these, Endell Street represented work for the country and work for the woman movement combined, and to the members of the Women’s Hospital Corps itself it meant, in addition, a double chance of service, a double devotion, a double inspiration, a double reason for carrying on with undiminished enthusiasm and faithfulness to the end.