"CHAUFFEUR GIRLS"

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 143, 6 March 1918, Page 2

"CHAUFFEUR GIRLS"

THEIR WORK FOR THE WOUNDED. In his book, "At the Serbian Front in Macedonia," E. P. Stabbing pays a high tribute to the work done by tho girl chauffeurs of the Scottish Women's Hospital Unit, which was attached under Dr. Agnes Ueimett to the Third Serbian Army. He writes:—"The road up to Gornicovo was an extraordinary track to take an ambulance car, when we first made its acquaintance. And mind you, all the ambulances were driven by girl chauffeurs. After leaving Ostrovo the road runs along the north edge of Lake Ostrovo, nearly two miles of deep sand furrowed by some dozen or more deep parallel ruts which, went in and out of deeper holes and gullies, in which tho car more often than not stuck, and had to bo pushed out by main force. You could take your choice between a pair of ruts, but whichever pair you picked out invariably turned out the worst. Then tho climb up the mountain by the rocky track began, and though subsequently improved, it remained a rocky track for most of tho way, bestrewn with boulders, and projecting rock masses. In many places two cars could only just pass oii the track with little to spare, and as the journey was usually made 'midst innumerable transport, horses, mules, carts, ammunition caissons, often w : th teams of eight horses, men mounted and afoot, and cars of all sorts in.long convoys, the arduous nature of the journey can be dimly imagined. The cars boiled, literally boiled, going up, and for this reason alone had to be stopped several times to cool; and tho boiling usually upset the oiling, and tho cars would not restart. "But if going up the mountain was an appallingly difficult task," the writer continues, "the coining down was worse. The brakes would not hold on these mountain tracks. The ears bumped down, first heeling over on one side, now on the other, as the wheels jolted over great masses of rock or boulders it was impossible to avoid, and on tho steep slopes on many a journey tho reverse was the only method of preventing the car from taking charge when tho brakes became functionless, and this with two badly wounded men on'tho stretchers behind. I A passenger —doctor, nurse, orderly, or anyone available—always accompanied the driver, nominally to look after the wounded, though they rarely wanted much attention en route. It was the car which needed that, either to push behind through deep sand, in which one got smothered, to shove it with the help of passers-by' out of ruts and holes, and so on." The Gornicovo road, however, tho •author states, was nothing compared to the Drina. "I have seen a good deal of the Himalayas, both eastern and western, and havo tramped and ridden miles in those beautiful mountains on tracks and bridle-paths, rocky and steep, and narrow' enough to please anyone. But it never entered my head in those days that I should seo cars-

using, and be in cars using, such tracks. I would never have thought it possible that cars should negotiate such tracks. And yet this is what the S.W.H. girl drivers had to do on the Drina, probably the finest feat girls havo ever done. . . '. That we did not huve serious accidents is due as much as anything to the skilful driving and extraordinary coolness of these girls." Two or three stories are told illustrating the sangfroid of tho girl'drivers. Olio is as follows:—"It was on the Drina/ An ambulance going up to the dressing station got its off-wheels on a mass of rock and fell over on its side. Hiddell, of tho R.A.M.C., who was with the driver (Miss Green), was shot out and rolled down the slope, being pulled up by a vock. He picked himself up, gavo himself a shako, and finding he was not dead, climbed up to see what had happened to the car and the girl. There lay the car on its side, the wheels still revolving and the girl still .clinging to the wheel, also lying on her side. Tho engine was stopped, the driver hauled out; and stood on her feet, and the first thing those two did was to swear at each other becauso, although each bad a ■camera, neither bad thought of taking a photograph before slm was hauled out." i . it is with a constantly growing admiration that the writer speaks of the work'of the doctors, and of all the workers of that unit. He goes on to say: "Mercifully, the doctors kept well. One wondered how they managed it, and at the capacity they exhibited for. work. In fact, all the men up there, British, Serbian, French, and Russian alike, who watched the work of the Ostrovo camp day by day, marvelled how women could face _ uncongenial surroundings and conditions of life so entirely new to many of them, accompanied by the constant booming of the guns, to sap nothing of tho possibility of air ralda at any moment, and yet do their work with the thoroughness characteristic of the'unit. ' Most of the money which provided the equipment of this unit had been subscribed in America, and 1 can assure the Americans that for every dollar so subscribed full value was obtained and many Serbian lives saved." Eeferring in an earlier part of the book to tho way in which the Serbians fought, the writer described it as being stupendous, magnificent. But the difficulties of the country had meant an untold amount of extra exposure and suffering, both of which they wero bearing with unbelievable fortitude and patience. What the Serbians bad been through had to bo seen to be credited.