What a picture this gives us of organisation at its best! "Beautifully clean!" Surely this is just what is needed, and we cannot wonder that over sixty per cent. of the wounded are able ere long to return to the firing line.
4. And then after the journey in the hospital train _de luxe_, there is the _Base Hospital_, with everything in perfect order, and all that can be done for the wounded men. I have written about the work in the base hospitals in the chapter on "Work at the Fighting Base." It is not necessary, therefore, that I should linger here. I will, however, add a tribute which the Rev. R. Hall (Wesleyan) pays to the nursing sisters. Says Mr. Hall:
"I must say a word about the nursing sisters. No braver and truer women ever lived, kind and gentle and brave in the face of disease and death. By day and night they watch and care for our comrades; many a lad's dying hours are made more comfortable by the gentle touch and loving word of these devoted women.
"I heard one day that in another hospital seven miles away one of our own men was dying. I went over and found that he was isolated; he was dying of an infectious disease. He was in great agony. A sister stood beside him, and was trying to comfort him and ease his pain, at the same time the tears flowed freely down her cheeks.
"I have been profoundly impressed by the work of this branch of the Service. We forget sometimes that it is easier to face the shell and the bullet in the excitement of battle than it is to watch hour by hour and tend to those who are suffering from some deadly infectious disease, or from some ghastly wound received in battle."
Mr. Hall's tribute is surely well earned. In this war woman has been as brave as man or braver. She has given of her best and dearest, she has worked and prayed and endured. And away out there among our wounded and dying, far from the excitement of battle, by day and by night she has given herself--all she is and all she has--to the service of her country. And in doing so she has earned the undying gratitude of those to whom she has ministered, and of the land she loves so well.
I turn now to consider another branch of Red Cross work at the front--the treatment and prevention of disease.