 Section 20 of With the Royal Army Medical Corps in Egypt by Sergeant Major R.A.M.C. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 18. In arduous for dailies. In the pages foregoing, an attempt has been made to set before the people of the British Empire some account, albeit an imperfect one, of what the Royal Army Medical Corps has done and is still doing in Egypt. We of the R.A.M.C., in this part of the war zone, are under no delusions as to the relative importance in the world's struggle of our work, compared with that of the members of the Corps serving on the Great Western Front. The distance at which we have laboured may have lent some enchantment to our view of our own doings, but it has not destroyed our sense of proportion. Even so, however, we may fairly claim that our record, as above imperfectly set forth, shows that we have done much, and done it not unworthily, nor without honour. In arduous for dailies, the Royal Regiment, which elects to bear upon its escutcheon, a motto of that exulting kind, needs to take itself and its work seriously. That it has ever done so is within our knowledge and prideful conviction as a Corps, and need not be dwelt upon here, and that, in this part of the Near Eastern Theatre of War, the R.A.M.C. has still more firmly established its right to the motto, no one who has followed the history of the campaign can reasonably deny. Popular error dies hard, and the idea that the non-combatant section of an army on active service runs none of the risks of war may yet linger in a few adumbrated mines at home. For the information of these folk it may be well to set down here the following facts as regards casualties and military honours awarded to the men of the R.A.M.C., and the valorous women who served with the Dardanelles Army and with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force up to the end of the year 1916. That is to say a period of 21 months out of the three years of the war. 82 of our ambulance men were killed in action during this period, these being medical officers and men engaged in suckering the wounded during battle. In addition to these, 75 R.A.M.C. men actually died of wounds received in course of their duty, while 610 were more or less severely wounded. Disease accounted for 134 deaths among us. 17 are numbered among the missing, or known to have been taken prisoners by the Turks. 150 were drowned at sea in the various hospital ships sunk within the period taken. All together our casualties amounted to 1068. This figure is not put forward as anything calling for praise, or even worthy of special remark. It is merely set down here in refutation, if indeed refutation were needed, of the ancient idea that non-combatant regiments are immune from the risks of war. When, however, we come to the question of military honours awarded during the same period to men of the R.A.M.C. in Egypt for conspicuous bravery in the field, or signal devotion to duty, we have every right to be proud of our record, and to expect the nation at large to share our feeling. Members of our corps have been mentioned in dispatchers, no fewer than 223 times. Men of the R.A.M.C. in file have been awarded 18 Distinguished Conduct Medals, 6 Military Medals, and 3 Meritorious Service Medals, while various foreign decorations have been gained, such as the Medal Militaire, 2 Serbian Gold Medal, 3 Serbian Silver Medal, 5 Italian Bronze Medal, 1 Serbian Silver Star, 2nd Class, 2 Russian Medal of St George, 4th Class, 1, and Serbian Cross of Kerry George, with swords, 1. But the R.A.M.C. in Egypt is particularly proud of the honours gained by its officers of all grades. One has received the KCB, or Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, 8 the CMG, or Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, and 3 the CB, or Companion of the Order of the Bath. No fewer than 24 of our medical officers have been decorated with the Military Cross, and 11 with the Distinguished Service Order, 3 have received the Honourable Order of the Bath, 3rd Class, Military Division, and 4 have gained the Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George, 3rd Class. To these British decorations must be added the following awards to our officers from foreign countries. Order of the Nile, 4, Serbian Order of St Savva, 6, Croix de Guerre, 2, and Serbian Order of the White Eagle, 6. The women of the British Army Medical Service in Egypt have equal right to be proud of the distinctions conferred on them as they have equally shared in the dangers and privations of the war. 22 have laid down their lives in the service, of which number 11 were victims of the relentlessly cruel and stupid U-boat campaign. But, for the brighter side of the shield, we have to record that 40 members of the Queen Alexandra Imperial Nursing Service and Allied Institutions have been mentioned in dispatches. 41 have been awarded the much-coveted Royal Red Cross, 1st Class, and 75 have gained the 2nd Class Decoration of the Same Order. All these lists of casualties and honours among men and women of the Army Medical Service are carried, it must be remembered, only up to the end of 1916, when our account of the doings of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force naturally terminates. In the saying of a last word, there lurks ever a certain amount of pathos, and the writer neither seeks nor has reason for seeking to dissemble his regret at the conclusion of a task which, while calling for no little labour, has proved throughout both a pleasant and informing one. To an already pretty close acquaintance, with both the personnel and the methods of the Army Medical Service in Egypt and Gallipoli, the work entailed in the preparation of this record, by affording a truer perception of the magnitude of what has been done, has inevitably created a nearer, deeper comradeship with, and admiration for, the men and women who have done it so faithfully in the teeth of so much real difficulty. It is therefore with no feigned emotion that the writer, whose fortune of war it has been to share those difficulties in both spheres of action, will dip his pen to inscribe the word finis at the end of this page. Before closing, however, brief reference should be made to one matter not hitherto touched upon. This is the assistance rendered to the official Medical Service in Egypt by the voluntary aid organisations, the Order of St John of Jerusalem and the British Red Cross Society. Though this is professedly an account of what has been done by the Royal Army Medical Corps alone, and as such necessarily excludes any but incidental reference to the work of the two societies mentioned, it is felt that to close this volume without a full and free acknowledgement of the invaluable aid rendered by these two societies to the regular Army Medical Service would be alike, ungenerous and unpatriotic. There is perhaps no member of the RAMC from the highest to the lowest, who does not clearly recognise the full measure of good work which these societies have done in Egypt. It is due, however, to the officers and men of the official organisation, and such a statement can in no way detract from the praise due to the voluntary societies, to record here exactly what proportion the work of the societies bears to the whole volume of achievement which is to be placed to the credit of the British Medical Service in Egypt. This may be accurately set down as about three per cent. The estimate is not official. The figure, indeed, is quoted from a speech delivered by Sir Court Hall Thompson, the Chief Commissioner of the Red Cross Combined Organisations in Egypt, and may therefore be taken as unimpeachable. At first sight such a figure applied to the work of these societies may appear disappointingly astonishingly small. It is not, however, really so. A percentage is only a relative term. We are not dealing in this case with three per cent of a molehill, but of a mountain, and in that degree of estimation the work of the Red Cross societies can only be regarded as magnificent from whatever standpoint it may be viewed. End of section 20. End of With the Royal Army Medical Corps in Egypt by Sergeant Major R. A. M. C., a pseudonym of the writer and author, Tichner Edwards.