Kitabı oku: «Dr. Elsie Inglis», sayfa 7

‘It is not her great gifts that I remember now,’ says another of that young circle, ‘it is that she was always such a darling.’

These nieces were often the companions of Dr. Elsie’s holidays. She had her own ideas as to how these should be spent. She always had September as her month of recreation. She used to go away, first of all, for a fortnight quite alone to some out-of-the-way place, when not even her letters were sent after her. She would book to a station, get out, and bicycle round the neighbourhood till she found a place she liked. She wanted scenery and housing accommodation according to her mind. Her first requirement was hot water for ‘baths.’ If that was found in abundance she was suited; if it could not be requisitioned, she went elsewhere. Her paintbox went with her, and when she returned to rejoin or fetch away her family she brought many impressions of what she had seen. The holidays were restful because always well planned. She loved enjoyment and happiness, and she sought them in the spirit of real relaxation and recreation. If weather or circumstances turned out adverse, she was amused in finding some way out, and if nothing else could be done she had a power of seeing the ludicrous under all conditions, which in itself turned the rain-clouds of life into bursts of sunlight.

Mrs. Inglis gives a happy picture of the life in 8 Walker Street, when she was the guest of Dr. Inglis. Her love for the three nieces, the one in particular who bore her name, and in whose medical education she deeply interested herself, was great.

She used to return from a long day’s work, often late, but with a mind at leisure from itself for the talk of the young people. However late she was, a hot bath preluded a dinner-party full of fun and laughter, the account of all the day’s doings, and then a game of bridge or some other amusement. Often she would be anxious over some case, but she used to say, ‘I have done all I know, I can only sleep over it,’ and to bed and to sleep she went, always using her will-power to do what was best in the situation. Those who were with her in the ‘retreats’ in Serbia or Russia saw the same quality of self-command. If transport broke down, then the interval had better be used for rest, in the best fashion in which it could be obtained.

Her Sundays, as far as her profession permitted, were days of rest and social intercourse with her family and friends. After evening church she went always to supper in the Simson family, often detained late by pacings to and fro with her friends, Dr. and Mrs. Wallace Williamson, engaged in some outpouring of the vital interests which were absorbing her. One of the members of her household says: —

‘We all used to look forward to hearing all her doings in the past week, and of all that lay before her in the next. Sunday evening felt quite wrong and flat when she was called out to a case and could not come to us. It was the same with our summer holidays. Her visit in September was the best bit of the holidays to us. She laid herself out to be with us in our bathing and golfing and picnics.’

The house was ‘well run.’ Those who know what is the highest meaning of service, have always good servants, and Dr. Elsie had a faithful household. Her cooks were all engaged under one stipulation, ‘Hot water for any number of baths at any time of the day or night,’ and the hot water never failed under the most exacting conditions. Her guests were made very comfortable, and there was only one rigid rule in the house. However late she came downstairs after any night-work, there was always family prayers before breakfast. The book she used was Euchologion, and when in Russia asked that a copy should be sent her. Her consulting-room was lined with bookshelves containing all her father’s books, and of these she never lost sight. Any guest might borrow anything else in her house and forget to return it, but if ever one of those books were borrowed, it had to be returned, for the quest after it was pertinacious. In her dress she became increasingly particular, but only as the adornment, not of herself, but of the cause of women as citizens or as doctors. When a uniform became part of her equipment for work, she must have welcomed it with great enthusiasm. It is in the hodden grey with the tartan shoulder straps, and the thistles of Scotland that she will be clothed upon, in the memory of most of those who recall her presence.

It is difficult to write of the things that belong to the Spirit, and Dr. Elsie’s own reserve on these matters was not often broken. She had been reared in a God-fearing household, and surrounded from her earliest years with the atmosphere of an intensely devout home. That she tried all things, and approved them to her own conscience, was natural to her character. Certain doctrines and formulas found no acceptance with her. Man was created in God’s image, and the Almighty did not desire that His creatures should despise or underrate the work of His Hand. The attitude of regarding the world as a desert, and human beings as miserable sinners incapable of rendering the highest service, never commended itself to her eminently just mind. Such difficulties of belief as she may have experienced in early years lay in the relations of the created to the Creator of all that is divine in man. Till she had convinced herself that a reasonable service was asked for and would be accepted, her mind was not completely at rest. In her correspondence with her father, both in Glasgow and London, her interest was always living and vital in the things which belonged to the kingdom of heaven within. She wandered from church to church in both places. Oblivious of all distinctions she would take her prayer book and go for ‘music’ to the Episcopal Church, or attend the undenominational meetings connected with the Y.W.C.A. Often she found herself most interested in the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Hunter, who subsequently left Glasgow for London. There are many shrewd comments on other ministers, on the ‘Declaratory Acts,’ then agitating the Free Church. She thought the Westminster Confession should either be accepted or rejected, and that the position was made no simpler by ‘declarations.’ In London she attended the English Church almost exclusively, listening to the many remarkable teachers who in the Nineties occupied the pulpits of the Anglican Church. It was not till after her father’s death that she came to rest entirely in the ministry of the Church of Scotland, and found in the teaching and friendship of Dr. Wallace Williamson that which gave her the vital faith which inspired her life and work, and carried her at last triumphantly through the swellings of Jordan.

St. Giles’ lay in the centre of her healing mission, and her alert active figure was a familiar sight, as the little congregation gathered for the daily service. When the kirk skailed in the fading light of the short days, the westering sun on the windows would often fall on the fair hair and bright face of her whose day had been spent in ministering work. On these occasions she never talked of her work. If she was joined by a friend, Dr. Elsie waited to see what was the pressing thought in the mind of her companion, and into that she at once poured her whole sympathy. Few ever walked west with her to her home without feeling in an atmosphere of high and chivalrous enterprise. Thus in an ordered round passed the days and years, drawing ever nearer to the unknown destiny, when that which was to try the reins and the hearts of many nations was to come upon the world. When that storm burst, Elsie Inglis was among those whose lamp was burning, and whose heart was steadfast and prepared for the things which were coming on the earth.

CHAPTER VIII
WAR AND THE SCOTTISH WOMEN

 
‘God the all-terrible King, Who ordainest
Great winds Thy clarion, the lightnings Thy sword,
Show forth Thy pity on high where Thou reignest,
Give to us peace in our time, O Lord.
 
 
God the All-wise, by the fire of Thy chastening
Earth shall to freedom and truth be restored,
Through the thick darkness Thy kingdom is hastening,
Thou wilt give peace in Thy time, O Lord.’
 

The year of the war coincided with that period in the life of Dr. Inglis when she was fully qualified for the great part she was to play among the armies of the Allied nations.

It is now admitted that this country was unprepared for war, and incredulous as to the German menace. The services of women have now attained so high a value in the State that it is difficult to recast their condition in 1914.

In politics there had been a succession of efforts to obtain their enfranchisement. Each effort had been marked by a stronger manifestation in their favour in the country, and the growing force of the movement, coupled with the unrest in Ireland, had kept all political organisations in a high state of tension.

It has been shown how fully organised were all the Women Suffrage societies. Committees, organisers, adherents, and speakers were at work, and in the highest state of efficiency. Women linked by a common cause had learnt how to work together. The best brains in their midst were put at the service of the Suffrage, and they had watched in the political arena where to expect support, and who could be trusted among the leaders of all parties. No shrewder or more experienced body of politicians were to be found in the country than those women drawn from all classes, in all social, professional, and industrial spheres, who acknowledged Mrs. Fawcett as their leader, and trusted no one party, sect, or politician in the year 1914.

When the war caused a truce to be pronounced in all questions of acute political difference, the unenfranchised people realised that this might mean the failure of their hopes for an indefinite time. They never foresaw that, for the second time within a century, emancipation was to be bought by the life blood of a generation.

The truce made no difference to any section of the Suffrage party. It was accepted by the whole people. War found both men and women unprepared, but the path of glory was clear for the men. A great army must be formed in defence of national liberty. The army was mobilised. It would have been well had the strength of the women been mobilised in the same hour. Their long claim for the rights of citizenship made them keenly alive and responsive to the call of national service.

War and its consequences had for many years been uppermost in their thoughts. In the struggle for emancipation, the great argument they had had to face among the rapidly decreasing anti-party, was the one that women could take no part in war, and, as all Government rested ultimately on brute force, women could not fight, and therefore must not vote.

In countering this outlook, women had watched what war meant all over the world, wherever it took place. With the use of scientific weapons of destruction, with the development of scientific methods of healing, with all that went to the maintenance of armies in the field, and the support of populations at home, women had some vision in what manner they would be needed if war ever came to this country.

The misfortune of such a controversy as that of the ‘Rights of Women’ is that it necessarily means the opposition has to prove a negative proposition – a most sterilising process. Political parties were so anxious to prove that women were incapable of citizenship, that the whole community got into a pernicious habit of mind. Women were underrated in every sphere of industry or scientific knowledge. Their sense of incapacity and irresponsibility was encouraged, and when they turned militant under such treatment, they were only voted a nuisance which it was impossible to totally exterminate.

Those who watched the gathering war clouds, and the decline of their Parliamentary hopes, did not realise that, in the overruling providence of God, the devastating war among nations was to open a new era for women. They were no longer to be held cheap, as irresponsibles – mere clogs on the machinery of the State. They were to be called on to take the place of men who were dying by the thousand for their homes, fighting against the doctrine that military force is the only true Government in a Christian world.

After mobilisation, military authorities had to make provision for the wounded. We can remember the early sensation of seeing buildings raised for other purposes taken over for hospitals. Since the Crimea, women as nurses at the base were institutions understood of all men. In the vast camps which sprang up at the commencement of the war, women modestly thought they might be usefully employed as cooks. The idea shocked the War Office till it rocked to its foundations. A few adventurous women started laundries for officers, and others for the men. They did it on their own, and in peril of their beneficent soap suds, being ordered to a region where they would be out of sight, and out of any seasonable service, to the vermin-ridden camps.

The Suffrage organisations, staffed and equipped with able practical women Jacks of all trades, in their midst, put themselves at the call of national service, but were headed back from all enterprises. It had been ordained that women could not fight, and therefore they were of no use in war time. A few persisted in trying to find openings for service. Among these were Dr. Inglis. It is one thing to offer to be useful without any particular qualification; it is another to have professional knowledge to give, and the medical women were strong in the conviction that they had their hard-won science and skill to offer.

Those who have read the preceding pages will realise that Dr. Inglis carried into this offer a perfect knowledge how women doctors were regarded by the community, and she knew political departments too well to believe that the War Office would have a more enlightened outlook. In the past she had said in choosing her profession that she liked ‘pioneer work,’ and she was to be the pioneer woman doctor who, with the aid of Suffrage societies, founded and led the Scottish Women’s Hospitals to the healing of many races.

After bringing the story of Dr. Inglis to this point, it is easy to imagine the working of her fertile brain, and her sense of vital energy, in the opening weeks of the war. What material for instant action she had at hand, she used. She had helped to form a detachment of the V.A.D. when the idea of this once despised and now greatly desired body began to take shape. Before the war men spoke slightingly of its object, and it was much depreciated. Dr. Inglis saw all the possibilities which lay in the voluntary aid offer. Dr. Inglis was in Edinburgh at the commencement of the war, and the 6th Edinburgh V.A.D., of which she was commandant, was at once mobilised. For several weeks she worked hard at their training. She gave up the principal rooms in her house for a depot for the outfit of Cargilfield as an auxiliary hospital. The hospital was not accepted. If it had been, and Dr. Inglis put in charge of it, the wider work of her life might never have had its fulfilment. Dr. Inglis from the first advocated that the V.A.D. should be used as probationers in military hospitals, and the orderlies who served in her units were chiefly drawn from this body.

In September she went to London to put her views before the National Union and the War Office, and to offer the services of herself and women colleagues. Miss Mair expresses the thoughts which were dominating her mind. ‘To her it seemed wicked that women with power to wield the surgeon’s knife in the mitigation of suffering and with knowledge to diagnose and cure, should be withheld from serving the sick and wounded.’

Her love for the wounded and suffering gave her a clear vision as to what lay before the armies of the Allies. ‘At the root of all her strenuous work of the last three years,’ says her sister, ‘was the impelling force of her sympathy with the wounded men. This feeling amounted at times to almost agony. Only once did she allow herself to show this innermost feeling. This was at the root of her passionate yearning to get with her unit to Mesopotamia during the early months of 1916. “I cannot bear to think of them, our Boys.” To the woman’s heart within her the wounded men of all nations made the same irresistible appeal.’

In that spirit she approached a departmental chief. Official reserve at last gave way, and the historic sentence was uttered – ‘My good lady, go home and sit still.’ In that utterance lay the germ of that inspiration which was to carry the Red Cross and the Scottish women among many nations, kindreds, and tongues.

It is easy to picture the scene. The overworked red-tape-bound official: the little figure of the woman with the smile, and the ready answer, before him. There is a story that, while a town in Serbia was under bombardment, Dr. Inglis was also in it with some of her hospital work. She sought an official in his quarters, as she desired certain things for her hospital. The noise of the firing was loud, and shells were flying around. Dr. Inglis seemed oblivious of any sound save her own voice, and she requested of an under officer an interview with his chief. The official had at last to confess that his superior was hiding in the cellar till the calamity of shell-fire was overpast. In much the same condition was the local War Office official when confronted with Dr. Inglis and her practical importunity. No doubt she saw it was useless to continue her offers of service. Mrs. Fawcett says:

‘Nearly all the memorial notices of her have recorded the fact that at the beginning of her work in 1914 the War Office refused her official recognition. The recognition so stupidly refused by her own country was joyfully and gratefully given by the French and later the Serbian A.M.S. and Red Cross.’

She went home to her family, who so often had inspired her to good work, and as she sat and talked over the war and her plans with one of her nieces, she suddenly said, ‘I know what we will do! We will have a unit of our own.’

The ‘We’ referred to that close-knit body of women with whom she had worked for a common cause, and she knew at once that ‘We’ would work with her and in her for the accomplishment of this ideal which so rapidly took shape in her teeming brain.

She was never left alone in any part of her life’s work. Her personality knit not only her family to her in the closest bonds of love, but she had devoted friends among those who did not see eye to eye with her in the common cause. She never loved them the less for disagreeing with her, and though their indifference to her views might at times obscure her belief in their mental calibre, it never interfered with the mutual affections of all. She did not leave these friends out of her scheme when it began to take shape.

The Edinburgh Suffrage offices, no longer needed for propaganda and organisation work, became the headquarters of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, and the enlarged committee, chiefly of Dr. Inglis’ personal friends, began its work under the steam-hammer of her energy. Miss Mair may again be quoted.

‘Well do I recall the first suggestion that passed between us on the subject of directing the energies of our Suffrage Societies to the starting of a hospital. Let us gather a few hundred pounds, and then appeal to the public, was the decision of our ever courageous Dr. Elsie, and from that moment she never swerved in her purpose. Some of us gasped when she announced that the sum of £50,000 must speedily be advertised for. Some timid souls advised the naming of a smaller amount as our goal. With unerring perception, our leader refused to lower the standard, and abundantly has she been proved right! Not £50,000, but over £200,000 have rewarded her faith and her hope.

‘This quick perception was one of the greatest of her gifts, and it was with perfect simplicity she stated to me once that when on rare occasions she had yielded her own conviction to pressure from others, the result had been unfortunate. There was not an ounce of vanity in her composition. She was merely stating a simple fact. Her outlook was both wide and direct. She saw the object aimed at, and she marched straight on. If, on the road, some obstacles had to be not exactly ruthlessly, but very firmly brushed aside, her strength of purpose was in the end a blessing to all concerned. Strength combined with sweetness – with a wholesome dash of humour thrown in – in my mind sums up her character. What that strength did for agonised Serbia only the grateful Serbs can fully tell.’

A letter written in October of this year to Mrs. Fawcett tells of the rapid formation of the hospital idea.

‘8 Walker Street,

‘Oct. 9, 1914.

‘Dear Mrs. Fawcett, – I wrote to you from the office this morning, but I want to point out a little more fully what the Committee felt about the name of the hospitals. We felt that our original scheme was growing very quickly into something very big – much bigger than anything we had thought of at the beginning – and we felt that if the hospitals were called by a non-committal name it would be much easier to get all men and women to help. The scheme is of course a National Union scheme, and that fact the Scottish Federation will never lose sight of, or attempt to disguise. The National Union will be at the head of all our appeals, and press notices, and paper.

‘But – if you could reverse the position, and imagine for a moment that the Anti-Suffrage Society had thought of organising all these skilled women for service, you can quite see that many more neutrals, and a great many suffragists would have been ready to help if they sent their subscriptions to the “Scottish Women’s Hospital for Foreign Service,” than if they had to send to the Anti-Suffrage League Hospital.

‘We were convinced that the more women we could get to help, the greater would be the gain to the woman’s movement.

‘For we have hit upon a really splendid scheme. When Mrs. Laurie and I went to see Sir George Beatson – the head of the Scottish Red Cross, in Glasgow – he said at once: “Our War Office will have nothing to say to you,” and then he added, “yet there is no knowing what they may do before the end of the war.”

‘You see, we get these expert women doctors, nurses, and ambulance workers organised. We send our units wherever they are wanted. Once these units are out, the work is bound to grow. The need is there, and too terrible to allow any haggling about who does the work. If we have a thoroughly good organisation here, we can send out more and more units, or strengthen those already out. We can add motor ambulances, organise rest stations on the lines of communication, and so on. It will all depend on how well we are supplied with funds and brains at our base. Each unit ought to be carefully chosen, and the very best women doctors must go out with them. I wrote this morning to the Registered Medical Women’s Association in London, and asked them to help us, and offered to address a meeting when I come up for your meeting. Next week a special meeting of the Scottish Medical Women’s Association is being called to discuss the question.

‘From the very beginning we must make it clear that our hospitals are as well-equipped and well-manned as any in the field, more economical (easy!), and thoroughly efficient.

‘I cannot think of anything more calculated to bring home to men the fact that women can help intelligently in any kind of work. So much of our work is done where they cannot see it. They’ll see every bit of this.

‘The fates seem to be fighting for us! Sometimes schemes do float off with the most extraordinary ease. The Belgian Consul here is Professor Sarolea – the editor of Everyman. He grasped at the help we offered, and has written off to several influential people. And then yesterday morning he wrote saying that his brother Dr. Leon Sarolea, would come and “work under” us. He is an M.P., a man of considerable influence. So you can see the Belgian Hospital will have everything in its favour.

‘Then Mr. Seton Watson, who has devoted his life to the Balkan States, has taken up the Servian Unit. He puts himself “entirely at our service.” He knows all the powers that be in Servia.

‘Two people in the Press have offered to help.

‘The money is the thing now. It must not be wasted, but we must have lots.

‘And as the work grows do let’s keep it together, so that, however many hospitals we send out, they all shall be run on the same lines, and wherever people see the Union Jack with the red, white and green flag below it, they’ll know it means efficiency and kindness and intelligence.

‘I wanted the Executive, for this reason, to call the hospitals “British Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service,” but of course it was their own idea, and one understood the desire to call it “Scottish”; but if there is a splendid response from England and from other federations, that will have to be reconsidered, I think. The great thing is to do the thing well, and do it as one scheme.

‘I do hope you’ll approve of all this. I am marking this letter “Private,” because it isn’t an official letter, but just what I think – to you, my Chief. But you can show it to anybody you like – as that.

‘I can think of nothing except these “Units” just now! And when one hears of the awful need, one can hardly sit still till they are ready. Professor Sarolea simply made one’s heart bleed. He is just back from Belgium. He said, “You talk of distress from the war here. You simply know nothing about it.” – Ever yours sincerely,

‘Elsie Maud Inglis.’

In October 1914 the scheme was finally adopted by the Scottish Federation, and the name of Scottish Women’s Hospitals was chosen.

At the same meeting the committee decided to send Dr. Inglis to London to explain the plan to the National Union, and to speak at a meeting in the Kingsway Hall, on ‘What women could do to help in the war.’ At that meeting she was authorised to speak on the plans of the S.W.H. The N.U.W.S.S. adopted the plan of campaign on 15th October, and the London society was soon taking up the work of procuring money to start new units, and to send Dr. Inglis out on her last enterprise, with a unit fully equipped to work with the Serbian army, then fighting on the Bulgarian front.

The use she made of individuals is well illustrated by Miss Burke. She was ‘found’ by Dr. Inglis in the office of the London Society, and sent forth to speak and fill the Treasury chest of the S.W.H. It is written in the records of that work how wonderfully Miss Burke influenced her countrymen in America, and how nobly, through her efforts, they have aided ‘the great adventure.’

‘U.S.M.S. St. Paul,

‘Saturday, February 9th.

‘Dear Lady Frances, – Certainly I am one of Dr. Elsie’s children. It was largely due to her intuition and clear judgment of character that my feet were placed in the path which led to my reaching my maximum efficiency as a hospital worker and a member of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals. I first met Dr. Elsie after I had been the Secretary of the London Committee for about a month. There was no question of meeting a “stranger”; her kindly eyes smiled straight into mine.

‘Was I young and rather shy? Well, the best way to encourage me was to give me responsibility.

‘“Do you speak French?”

‘“Yes.”

‘“Very well, go and write me a letter to General de Torcy, telling him we accept the building he has offered at Troyes.”

‘Some one hazarded the suggestion that the letter should be passed on.

‘“Nonsense,” replied Dr. Elsie, “I know the type. That girl probably speaks six languages. If she says she speaks French, she does.”

‘She practically signed the letter I wrote her without reading it. Doubtless all the time I was with her I was under her keen scrutiny, and when finally, after arranging a meeting for her at Oxford, which she found impossible to take, owing to her sudden decision to leave for Serbia, she had already judged me, and without hesitation she told me to go to Oxford and speak myself. I have wondered often whether any one else would have sent a young and unknown speaker – it needed Dr. Elsie’s knowledge of human character and rapid energetic method of making decisions.

‘It would be difficult for we young ones of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals to analyse our feelings towards Dr. Elsie. A wave of her hand in passing meant much to us.’

Space utterly forbids our following the fortunes of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals as they went forth one by one to France, to Belgium, to Serbia, to Corsica, and Russia. That history will have some day to be written. It is only possible in this memoir to speak of their work in relation to their founder and leader. ‘Not I, but my unit,’ was her dying watchword, and when the work of her unit is reviewed, it is obvious how they carried with them, as an oriflamme, the inspiration of unselfish devotion set them by Dr. Inglis.

Besides going into all the detailed work of the hospital equipment, Dr. Inglis found time to continue her work of speaking for the cause of the hospitals. We find her addressing her old friends:

‘I have the happiest recollection of Dr. I. addressing a small meeting of the W. L. Association here. It was one of her first meetings to raise money. She told us how she wanted to go to Serbia. She was so convincing, but with all my faith in her, I never thought she would get there! That, and much more she did – a lesson in faith.

‘She looked round the little gathering in the Good Templar Hall and said, “I suppose nobody here could lend me a yacht?” She did get her ship there.’

To one of her workers in this time, she said, ‘My dear, we shall live all our lives in the shadow of war.’ The one to whom she spoke says, ‘A cold chill struck my heart. Did she feel it, and know that never again would things be as they were?’

At the close of 1914 Dr. Inglis went to France to see the Scottish Women’s Hospital established and working under the French Red Cross at Royaumont. It was probably on her way back that she went to Paris on business connected with Royaumont. She went into Notre Dame, and chose a seat in a part of the cathedral where she could feel alone. She there had an experience which she afterwards told to Mrs. M‘Laren. As she sat there she had a strong feeling that some one was behind her. She resisted the impulse to turn round, thinking it was some one who like herself wanted to be quiet! The feeling grew so strong at last, that she involuntarily turned round. There was no one near her, but for the first time she realised she was sitting in front of a statue of Joan of Arc. To her it appeared as if the statue was instinct with life. She added: ‘Wasn’t it curious?’ Then later she said, ‘I would like to know what Joan was wanting to say to me!’ I often think of the natural way which she told me of the experience, and the practical conclusion of wishing to know what Joan wanted. Once again she referred to the incident, before going to Russia. I see her expression now, just for a moment forgetting everything else, keen, concentrated, and her humorous smile, as she said, ‘You know I would like awfully to know what Joan was trying to say to me.’