"'It's a wonder she did not say _now_,' one of my fellow-officers remarked!
"We were equipped for two field hospitals of 100 beds each, and our second hospital was established close to the firing-line at Bulbulmic. We were at Bulbulmic and Medjidia only some three weeks when we had to retreat."
Three weeks of strenuous work at these two places ended in a sudden evacuation and retreat--Hospital B and the Transport got separated from Hospital A. We can only, of course, follow the fortunes of Hospital A, which was directly under Dr. Inglis.
The night of the retreat is made vivid for us by Dr. Inglis:
"The station was a curious sight that night. The flight was beginning. A crowd of people was collected at one end with boxes and bundles and children. One little boy was lying on a doorstep asleep, and against the wall farther on lay a row of soldiers. On the bench to the right, under the light, was a doctor in his white overall, stretched out sound asleep between the two rushes of work at the station dressing-room; and a Roumanian officer talked to me of Glasgow, where he had once been invited out to dinner, so he had seen the British 'custims.' It was good to feel those British customs were still going quietly on, whatever was happening here--breakfasts coming regularly, hot water for baths, and everything as it should be. It was probably absurd, but it came like a great wave of comfort to feel that Britain was there, quiet, strong, and invincible, behind everything and everybody."
A member of the Unit also gives us details:[16]
"I went twice down to the station with baggage in the evening, a perilous journey in rickety carts through pitch darkness over roads (?) crammed with troops and refugees, which were lit up periodically by the most amazing green lightning I have ever seen, and the roar and flash of the guns was incessant. At the station no lights were allowed because of enemy aircraft, but the place was illuminated here and there by the camp fires of a new Siberian division which had just arrived. Picked troops these, and magnificent men.
"We wrestled with the baggage until 2 a.m., and went back to the hospital in one of our own cars. Our orderly came in almost in tears. Her cart had twice turned over completely on its way to the station; so on arrival she had hastened to Dr. Inglis with a tale of woe and a scratched face. Dr. Inglis said: 'That's right, dear child, that's right, _stick_ to the equipment,' which may very well be described as the motto of the Unit these days!...