"Yours sincerely, "(Signed) COURTAULD THOMSON,
"_Chief Commissioner for British Red Cross and Order of St. John, Malta, Egypt, and Near East Commission._"
EXTRACT FROM A REPORT FROM LIEUT.-COLONEL SIR COURTAULD THOMSON, CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF THE BRITISH RED CROSS AND ORDER OF ST. JOHN, TO THE HON. ARTHUR STANLEY, DATED MAY 25, 1915.
"A striking feature in Cairo is the remarkable work which is being done by the Australian Red Cross. They have not only two exceptionally large hospitals and the large convalescent home, but they supply the motor transport for the wounded for the whole of Egypt. They have also very large Red Cross stores which they have brought with them. With these articles they have been more than generous, and I am informed that they have given away to the hospitals for our own troops something like 75 per cent. of whatever they had."
EXTRACT FROM CORPS ORDERS, MARCH 28, 1915
"_Appreciation._--The D.M.S. Egypt, who visited the Hospital yesterday afternoon, has requested the Officer Commanding to convey to the officers, nurses, N.C.O.s, and men in the Hospital his appreciation of the work done and the thorough character of the organisation."
"_Appreciation._--The D.M.S. Egypt, Surgeon-General Ford, witnessed the detraining of the invalids who arrived here Wednesday evening. He asked Major Barrett to convey to the Officer Commanding his great appreciation of the excellence of the arrangements and the efficient and quiet manner in which the work was done.
"He congratulates officers and men on the splendid work they are doing and requests that it shall be communicated to them in Corps Orders."
Looking back, does it not seem essential that these hospitals should have been formed, at all events in outline, in time of peace? That their commanding officers and essential staff should have been marked out beforehand, so that on the declaration of war the gaps could have been filled in from the reserve without difficulty? Satisfactory appointments are much less likely to be made in the turmoil which follows the declaration of war than in the atmosphere of deliberate calm which prevails in time of peace. Had such an arrangement prevailed, the First Australian General Hospital would certainly never have been recruited from three States distant from one another hundreds of miles.