I spoke of the bravery of our girls in Serbia; how many of them had laid down their lives during the typhus epidemic; how cheerfully they had borne hardships, our doctors writing home that their tent hospitals were like “great white birds spreading their wings under the trees,” whereas really they had often been up all night hanging on to the tent poles to prevent the tents collapsing over their patients.

A member of the Etat Major asked how we overcame the language difficulty.  I pointed out that to diagnose typhus and watch the progress of the patient it was not necessary to speak to him, and that by the magic language of sympathy we managed to establish some form of “understanding” between the patients, the Doctors, and the Nurses.  The members of our staff were chosen as far as possible with a knowledge of French or German, and it was possible to find many Serbians speaking either one of these languages.  We also found interpreters amongst the Austrian prisoner orderlies.  These prisoner orderlies had really proved useful and had done their best to help us.  Naturally they had their faults.  One of our Lady Doctors had as orderly a Viennese Professor, willing but somewhat absent-minded.  One morning she sent for him and asked him:  “Herr Karl, can you tell me what was wrong with my bath water this morning?” “I really don’t know, Fraulein, but I will endeavour to find out.”

Ten minutes later he returned, looking decidedly guilty and stammered out, “I do not know how to tell you what happened to that bath water.”  “Nonsense, it can’t be very terrible,” replied Doctor X.  “What was wrong?” “Well, Fraulein, when I went into the camp kitchen this morning there were two cauldrons there, one was your bath water, and the other was the camp soup.  To you, Fraulein, I brought the camp soup.”

We who had worked with the Serbians had learned to respect and admire them for their patriotism, courage and patient endurance.  We felt that their outstanding characteristic was their imagination, which, turned into the proper channels and given a chance to develop, should produce for the world not only famous painters and poets but also great inventors.  This vivid imagination is found in the highest and lowest of the land.  To illustrate it, I told my neighbour at table a tale related to me by my good friend Dr. Popovic.  “Two weary, ragged Serbian soldiers were sitting huddled together waiting to be ordered forward to fight.  One asked the other, ’Do you know how this War started, Milan?  You don’t.  Well then I’ll tell you.  The Sultan of Turkey sent our King Peter a sack of rice.  King Peter looked at the sack, smiled, then took a very small bag and went into his garden and filled it with red pepper.  He sent the bag of red pepper to the Sultan of Turkey.  Now, Milan, you can see what that meant.  The Sultan of Turkey said to our Peter, ’My army is as numerous as the grains of rice in this sack,’ and by sending a small bag of red pepper to the Sultan our Peter replied, ‘My Army is not very numerous, but it is mighty hot stuff.’”