NEW ZEALAND NURSE.

Marlborough Express, Volume L, Issue 224, 2 October 1916, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND NURSE.

„ HER WAR WORK.

FROM ANTWERP TO SERBIA

DECORATED BY KING PETER

Sister Ethel Lew-is, who nursed j amongst the Maoris at Otaki before the war was one of the invalids' who returned by the Willochra on Thursday. She arrived in' England on September 1, 1914, and four days later was in Belgium with a .field hospital, organised by Colonel Hartnell Beavis. She spent nine weeks in an Antwerp hospital, which was noti evacuated till the enemy Avas almost upon it. Re~ turning to England, the commander reorganised the hospital for duty in Serbia, and Sister Lewis again joined the organisation, which was attached to the Serbian Second Army on the Bulgarian frontier. Sister Lewis did duty actually'in "the trenches, and received a slight shrapnel wound in the shoulder. She rescued, a Serbian officer "f high command, and for this King Peter personally conferred on her the Third Order of his kingdom. When the retreat began, the plight of i)he army and the British field hospital was tenible. . Nish fell two days after Sister Lewis and a comrade had left with 400 patients. Early, in the retreat'the tyres of the motor transport wore out, and for a time the vehicles made slow progress on tyres packed with straw, but very soon the cars had to bo abandoned. The nurses, however, pushed forward on foot, through the mountain passes of Albania, often with snow up to the knees, witli rations reduced to one I slico of i read per day, and no shelter !at night 'except what they could find. They frequently slept in pigstiyes. Patients died daily ,and not one'survived the retreat." One died on Sister Lewis's 'oack after she had carried him two miles. On one occasion Sister Lewis ate a piece of bacon-rind picked up in the street of a deserted village. When the hospital staff reached safety their, strength was exhausted, and they had not a warm garment among 'them.'Their blankets had been tlirown' away -.long"''before. Sister Lewis was frostbitten on one knee as a result of exposiire. She went into harness again afc Walton-on-Thames, where she unfortunately broke'"'her arm, causing some amazement! amongst the staff by appearing for duty in that condition. /