The end of the Pervyse Station
Elsie Knocker was more badly affected by the gas attack on the nurses' station than Mairi Chisholm, and had to be sent home to Britain.
Mairi made a partial recovery and bravely returned alone to Pervyse to continue her work. But she was gassed again, and eventually, after about three weeks, had to be evacuated just some seven months before the end of the First World War.
The document shown is a letter from a Belgian General, saying that he can no longer accept responsibility for her staying at the Front.
The words quoted here are from Mairi's 1976 interview:
'The Baroness … was really badly shocked and she was evacuated. I went back to Pervyse and I got a second whiff [of gas] … When the Baroness got back [to Britain] the report was that she simply wouldn't ever be well enough to go back again and so they decided that I really couldn't hold the post entirely by myself for ever and a day and to my great regret I was evacuated.'
— Extract quoted by permission of the Imperial War Museum
