Page:Women Wanted.djvu/276

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WOMEN WANTED

Well, they did. They went over the Channel. "They are going now to advance the woman's cause by a hundred years. O, if only I were ten years younger," sighed Elizabeth Anderson wistfully as she waved them farewell at Southampton on the morning of Sept. 15, 1914.

France was in worse plight than England. Under the Femmes de France of the Croix Rouge, the Government there permitted the Women's Hospital Corps to establish themselves in what had been Claridge's Hotel in the Champs Elysées. In the course of time rumours reached the British War office of this soldiers' hospital in Paris run by English women. Oh, well, of course, women surgeons might do for French poilus. At length it was learned however that even the British Tommies were falling into their hands. And Sir Alfred Keogh, director of the General Medical Council, was hurried across to see about it.

"Miss Anderson," he addressed the surgeon in charge, "I should like to look over the institution."

"Certainly," she acquiesced. "But it's Dr. Anderson, if you please." Three times as they went through the wards, he repeated his mistake. And three times she suggested gravely, "Dr. Anderson, if you please."

They had finished the rounds. "This," he said, "is remarkable, 'er quite remarkable, don't you know. But may I talk with some of your patients privately?"

Then the soldiers themselves, British soldiers, as-