The Luck of Thirteen | Page 2

assisting Dr. Helen Boyle, the Brighton mind specialist, to run a large
and flourishing out-patient department to which tuberculosis and
diphtheria--two scourges of Serbia--came in their shoals. We had
endeavoured to ward off typhoid by initiating a sort of sanitary
vigilance committee, having first sacked the chief of police: we had
laid drains, which the chief Serbian engineer said he would pull up as
soon as we had gone away. We had helped in the plans of a very
necessary slaughter-house, which Mr. Berry was going to present to the
town. There was an excuse for Jan's desire. The English papers had
been howling about the typhus months after the disease had been
chased out by English, French, and American doctors, who had
disinfected the country till it reeked of formalin and sulphur; shoals of
devoted Englishwomen were still pouring over, generously ready to
risk their lives in a danger which no longer existed. Our own unit,
which had dwindled to a comfortable--almost a family--number, with
Mr. Berry as father, had been suddenly enlarged by an addition of ten.
These ten complicated things, they all naturally wanted work, and we
had cornered all the jobs.

So, after the fatigues of February, March, and April, and the heat of
June, Jan quite decided on that Uzhitze mud patch that a holiday would
do little harm to himself, and good to everybody else. Then, however,
came the problem of Jo. Jo is a socialistic sort of a person with
conservative instincts. She has the feminine ability to get her wheels on
a rail and run comfortably along till Jan appears like a big railway
accident and throws the scenery about; but once the resolution
accomplished she pursues the idea with a determination and ferocity
which leaves Jan far in the background.
Jo had her out-patient department. Every morning, wet or fine, crowds
of picturesque peasants would gather about the little side door of our
hospital, women in blazing coloured hand-woven skirts, like Joseph's
coat, children in unimaginable rags, but with the inevitable belt tightly
bound about their little stomachs, men covered with tuberculous sores
and so forth, on some days as many as a hundred. Jo, having finished
breakfast, had then to assume a commanding air, and to stamp down
the steps into the crowd, sort out the probable diphtheria cases--this by
long practice,--forbid anybody to approach them under pain of instant
disease, get the others into a vague theatre queue, which they never
kept, and then run back into the office to assist the doctor and to
translate. All this, repeated daily, was highly interesting of course, and
so when Jan suggested the tour she "didn't want to do it."
But authority was on Jan's side. Jo had had a mild accident: a diphtheria
patient fled to avoid being doctored, they often did, and Jo had chased
after her; she tripped, fell, drove her teeth through her lower lip, and for
a moment was stunned. When they caught the patient they found that it
was the wrong person--but that is beside the subject. Dr. Boyle thought
that Jo had had a mild concussion and threw her weight at Jan's side. Dr.
Berry was quite agreeable, and gave us a commission to go to Salonika
to start with and find a disinfector which had gone astray. Another
interpreter was found, so Jo took leave of her out-patients.
* * * * *
In Serbia it was necessary to get permission to move. Jan went to the
major for the papers. There were crowds of people on the major's steps,

and Jan learned that all the peasants and loafers had been called in to
certify, so that nobody should avoid their military service. Later we
parted, taking two knapsacks. Dr. Boyle and Miss Dickenson were very
generous, giving us large supplies of chocolate, Brand's essence, and
corned beef for our travels, and we had two boxes of "compressed
luncheons," black horrible-looking gluey tabloids which claim to be
soup, fish, meat, vegetables and pudding in one swallow.
[Illustration: OUT-PATIENTS.]
[Illustration: SHOEING BULLOCKS.]
The Austrian prisoners bade us a sad farewell, but many friends
accompanied us to the station, and the rotund major and his rounder
wife did us the like honour. Our major was a queer mixture: he was
jolly because he was fat, and he was stern because he had a beaky nose,
and in any interview one had first to ascertain whether the stomach or
the nose held the upper hand, so to speak. With the wife one was
always sure--she had a snub nose. On this occasion the major furiously
boxed the Austrian prisoner coachman's ears, telling us that he was the
best he had ever had. The unfortunate driver was a picture of rueful
pleasure. The two plump dears stood waving four