The Guardian (And Evening star, withwhich is incorported the west coast Times.) THURSDAY, JULY 5th.1923 THE WOMENS PART

Hokitika Guardian, 5 July 1923, Page 2

The Guardian (And Evenin g star, withwhich is incorported the west coast Times.) THURSDAY, JULY 5th.1923 THE WOMENS PART

Am hough the women of the Empire played Midi a great part in helping U> win the war, not nnieh i= heard of their groat service in .so many necessary fields of activity. The women in “grey and scarlet” did noble work, and now and again there is a glimpse o' the tasks they had to jierform. Many women had varied service in the war period, l-'rom the highest, to the lowest—so far ns station was concerned there was no shirking. A teviewer remarks that few non-combatants, or for the matter of that few combatants, can have had such varied war set vice as Sister K. A. Kircaldie, whose experiences arc deserihed in “In Grey and Scarlet.” lit August 1!H 1, the author had tecently completed her training in Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney. 11 the outbreak of war she secured a. post on the hospital shi ]> Grnntala. which accompanied the expedition to Ihahaul. 'When the tniliuny operations were over, the vessel went to Fiji to he at. hand in case the Australia should encounter the Scharnhorst and (ineisenau. lint the German warships were on their way to South American waters, and when the news of the battle of Ooronel carno through the Grnntala returned to Sydney, where she was paid off. Sister Kircaldie was told that it was most improbable that any more Australian nurses would Iso sent abroad—little did we foresee then what the future held—so with a friend she went to England, and joined Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Reserve, more conveniently known ns Q.A.T.M.X.S.R. In duo course she was appointed to a hospital in Malta, and made the acquaintance of the wily “Mall”, who, whatever his native virtues, is rather exasperating ns an orderly especially when one cannot speak his language. Two of them, by the way, blossomed out ns opera singers, rather to the author's surprise. The opera was the chief, indeed Lite only diversion in Malta, and was much patronised by sisters escorted by officers. A stern -edict canto front headquarters that: “In future sisters will: only be permitted to go to the opera in family parties suitably chaperoned.” Next day an advertisement appeared in the Malta “Chronicle” : —“"Wanted, an elderly chaperon to accompany family parties to the opera.” Sister ’

cal die is not snare whether there wore any applicants for the position. Certainly no chaperons wore ever seen in the opera-house. The author's first M.C. was a middle-aged doctor, who had practised all his life in a small English village. Ho would have boon quite at home in a measles or typhoid hospital, but frankly admitted that he knew nothing about modern surgery. Still it was not only in'the Imperial Army that, square pegs were chosen for round holes. In the A.M.C. in Egypt was not a very distinguished surgeon set to trent cases of measles, while an eminent physician—n professor of medicine in an Australian Uni-versity—-was detailed to issue stores. To Malta many of the casualties from Gallipoli wore sent. The report of the Koval Commission has already referred to the inadequacy of the arrangements for the transport and care of the wounded. »nd Sister Kirealdie bears grim testimony to the same effect. The endurance and cheerfulness of tre sufferers was n cause of unfailing wondor and admiration to her. At the end of October, 1915, she joined the hospital ship Panama, which went to the Peninsula and reached Suvla just after the great storm of sinister memory. On the boarft were hundreds and hundreds

of men, starving ami crippled with frostbite. The Panama had accommodation for 400 patients; on this trip she carried 1172! After the evacuation the Panama, proceeded up the Adriaticto an Albanian port to take off a stranded Red Cross unit, and some Serbian refugees. France was the next scene of the author’s labours. She was stationed in turn at Rouen. Abbeville and Arras. Then at a largo military hospital in Lancashire, and then back to Australia, after more than three years’ of war service of which she lias written in a most vivid and interesting fashion.