"Yours affectionately, "(Signed) ALEXANDRA."[41]
Some fourteen months after my return home a _Gazette_ appeared with the awards gained during the early part of the war, and great was my delight to find I had been selected for the coveted distinction of the Royal Red Cross. The King had previously nominated Lady Georgiana Curzon and myself to be Ladies of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, which entitles its members to wear a very effective enamel locket on a black bow; but, next to the Red Cross, the medal which I prize most highly is the same which the soldiers received for service in South Africa, with the well-known blue and orange striped ribbon. This medal was given to the professional nurses who were in South Africa, but I think I was, with one other exception, the only amateur to receive it, and very unworthy I felt myself when I went to St. James's Palace with all the gallant and skilful sisterhood of army nurses to share with them the great honour of receiving the same from His Majesty in person.
[41] I am allowed to reproduce the foregoing letters by the gracious permission of Their Majesties the King and Queen.
THE WORK OF LADY GEORGIANA CURZON, LADY CHESHAM, AND THE YEOMANRY HOSPITAL, DURING THE WAR--THIRD VOYAGE TO THE CAPE, 1902
On the pages of history is recorded in golden letters the name and deeds of Florence Nightingale, who, as the pioneer of scientific hospital nursing, did so much to mitigate the horrors of war. Her example was nobly followed half a century later by two other English ladies, who, although they had not to encounter the desperate odds connected with ignorance and old-fashioned ideas which Miss Nightingale successfully combated, did marvellous service by displaying what private enterprise can do in a national emergency--an emergency with which, in its suddenness, gravity, and scope, no Government could have hoped to deal successfully. I must go back to the winter of 1899 to call their great work to mind. War had already been waging some weeks in South Africa when the Government's proclamation was issued calling for volunteers from the yeomanry for active service at the front, and the lightning response that came to this appeal from all quarters and from all grades was the silver lining shining brightly through the black clouds that hovered over the British Empire during that dread winter. Thus the loyalty of the men of Britain was proven, and among the women who yearned to be up and doing were Lady Georgiana Curzon and Lady Chesham. Not theirs was the sentiment that "men must work and women must weep"; to them it seemed but right that they should take their share of the nation's burden, and, as they could not fight, they could, and did, work.