"_Paré, paré--quatre, paré--contre--Riposté!_" etc. left me
completely bewildered at first. Hope was a great nut with the foils and
she and the Frenchman had veritable battles, during which the little
man, on his mettle and very excited, would squeal exactly like a
rabbit. The big Belgian was more phlegmatic and not so easily moved.

One night I espied a pair of boxing gloves and pulled them on while
waiting for my turn. "Mademoiselle knows _la boxe_?" he asked
interestedly.

"A little, a very little, Monsieur," I replied. "Only what my brother
showed me long ago."

"Montrez," said he, drawing on a pair as well, and much to the amusement
of the others we began preliminary sparring. "Mademoiselle knows
_ze-k_-nock-oot?" he hazarded.

I did not reply, for at that moment he lifted his left arm, leaving his
heart exposed. Quick as lightning I got in a topper that completely
winded him and sent him reeling against the wall. When he got his breath
back he laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks, and whenever I
met him in the street he flew up a side alley in mock terror. I was
always designated after that as _Mademoiselle qui sait la boxe--oh, la
la_!

In spite of repeated efforts on the part of R.E.s. there was a spot in
the roof through which the rain persistently dripped on to my face in
the night. They never could find it, so the only solution was to sleep
the other way up! _C'est la guerre_, and that's all there was to it.

One cold blustery day I had left "Susan" at the works in Boulogne and
was walking along by the fish market when I saw a young fair-haired
staff officer coming along the pavement toward me. "His face is very
familiar," I thought to myself, and then, quick as a flash--"Why, it's
the Prince of Wales, of course!" He seemed to be quite alone, and except
for ourselves the street was deserted. How to cope? To bob or not to
bob, that was the question? Then I suddenly realized that in a stiff
pair of Cording's boots and a man's sheepskin-lined mackintosh, sticking
out to goodness knows where, it would be a sheer impossibility. I
hastily reviewed the situation. If I salute, I thought, he may think I'm
taking a liberty! I decided miserably to do neither and hoped he would
think I had not recognized him at all.[13] As we came abreast I looked
straight ahead, getting rather pink the while. Once past and calling
myself all manner of fools, I thought "I'm going to turn round, and
stare. One doesn't meet a Prince every day, and in any case 'a cat may
look at a king!'" I did so--the Prince was turning round too! He smiled
delightfully, giving me a wonderful salute, which I returned and went on
my way joyfully, feeling that it had been left to him to save the
situation, and very proud to think I had had a salute all to myself.

Christmas came round before we knew where we were, and Boss gave the
order it was to be celebrated in our own mess. Work was slack just then
and Mrs. Williams gave a tea and dance in the afternoon at her canteen
up at Fontinettes. It was a picturesque-looking place with red brick
floor, artistic-looking tables with rough logs for legs and a large open
fireplace, typically English, which must have rejoiced the hearts of men
so far from Blighty.

It was a very jolly show, in spite of my partner bumping his head
against the beam every time we went round, and people came from far and
near. It was over about five, and we hastened back to prepare for our
Christmas dinner in Mess.

Fancy dress had been decided on, and as it was to be only among
ourselves we were given carte blanche as to ideas. They were of course
all kept secret until the last moment. Baby went as a Magpie and looked
very striking, the black and white effect being obtained by draping a
white towel straight down one side over the black nether garments
belonging to our concert party kit.

I decided to go as a _Vie Parisienne_ cover. A study in black and
daffodil--a ravishing confection--and also used part of our "FANTASTIK"
kit, but made the bodice out of crinkly yellow paper. A chrysanthemum of
the same shade in my hair, which was skinned back in the latest
door-knob fashion, completed the get-up.

Baby and I met on our way across the camp and drifted into mess
together, and as we slowly divested ourselves of our grey wolf-coats we
were hailed with yells of delight.

Dicky went as Charlie's Aunt, and Winnie as the irresistible nephew. Eva
was an art student from the Quartier Latin, and Bridget a charming
two-year old. The others came in many and various disguises.

We all helped to clear away in order to dance afterwards, and as I ran
into the cook-house with some plates I met the mechanic laden with the
tray from his hut.

The momentary glimpse of the _Vie Parisienne_ was almost too much for
the good Brown. I heard a startled "Gor blimee! Miss" and saw his eyes
popping out of his head as he just prevented the tray from eluding his
grasp!

Soon after Christmas a grain-ship, while entering Boulogne harbour in a
storm, got blown across and firmly fixed between the two jetties, which
are not very wide apart. To make matters worse its back broke and so
formed an effectual barrier to the harbour and took from a fortnight to
three weeks to clear away.

Traffic was diverted to the other ports, and for the time being Boulogne
became almost like a city of the dead.

One port had been used solely for hospital ships up till then, and the
scenes of bustle and confusion that replaced the comparative calm were
almost indescribable. We saw many friends returning from Christmas
leave, who for the most part had not the faintest idea where they had
arrived. There were not enough military cars to transport the men to
Fontinettes, so besides our barge and hospital work we were temporarily
commissioned by the Local Transport Office.

I was detailed to take two officers inspecting the Archic stations north
of St. Omer one wet snowy afternoon, and many were the adventures we
had. It was a great thing to get up right behind our lines to places
where we had never been before, and Susan ploughed through the mud like
a two-year old, and never even so much as punctured. We were on our way
back at a little place called Pont l'Abbesse, about 6.30, when the snow
came down in blinding gusts. With only two side lamps, and a pitch dark
night, the prospect of ever finding our way home seemed nil, and every
road we took was bordered by a deep canal, with nothing in the way of a
fence as protection. It was bitterly cold, and once we got completely
lost; three-quarters of an hour later finding ourselves at the same
cottage where we had previously asked the way!

At last we found a staff car that promised to give us a lead, and in
time we reached the main St. Omer road, finally getting back to
Pont-le-Beurre about 10 p.m. I 'phoned up to the Convoy to tell them I
was still in the land of the living, and after a bowl of hot soup sped
back to camp.

My hands were so cold I had to sit on them in turns, and as for feet, I
didn't seem to have any. Still it was "some run," and the next day I
spent a long time hosing off the thick clay which almost completely hid
the good Susan from sight.

Another temporary job we had was to drive an army sister (a sort of
female Military Landing Officer) to the boat every day, where she met
the sisters coming back from leave and directed them to the different
units and hospitals.

One of the results of the closing of Boulogne harbour was that instead
of the patients being evacuated straight to England we had to drive
them into Boulogne, where they were entrained for Havre! A terrible
journey, poor things. Twenty to twenty-four ambulances would set off to
do the thirty kilometres in convoy, led at a steady pace by the Section
Leader. These journeys took place three times a week, and often the men
would get bitterly cold inside the cars. If there was one puncture in
the Convoy we all had to stop till a spare wheel was put on. We eagerly
took the opportunity to get down and do stamping exercises and "cabby"
arms to try and get warm. To my utmost surprise, on one of these
occasions my four stretcher patients got up and danced in the road with
me. Why they were "liers" instead of "sitters" I can't think, as there
was not much wrong with them. _À propos_ I remember asking one night
when an ambulance train came in in the dark, "Are you liers or sitters
in here?" and one humorist scratched his head and replied, "I don't
rightly know, Sister, I've told a few in my time!" To return to our long
convoy journeys: once we had deposited our patients it was not
unnaturally the desire of this "dismounted cavalry" unit to try the
speed of its respective 'buses one against the other on the return
journey; to our immense disappointment this idea was completely nipped
in the bud, for Boss rode on the first car.

Permission however was given to pass on hills, as it was considered a
pity to overheat a car going down to second gear when it could easily
have done the hill on third! That Boulogne road is one of the hilliest
in France, and Susan was a nailer on hills. I remember arriving in camp
second one day. "How have _you_ got here?" asked Boss in surprise, "I
purposely put you nineteenth!"

Heasy, Betty, and I in celebration of two years' active service had
permission to give a small dance in the mess at the beginning of the new
year. We trembled lest at the last moment an ambulance train might
arrive, but there was nothing worse than an early evacuation next
morning and all went off excellently. I was entrusted to make the "cup,"
and bought the ingredients in the town (some cup), and gravely assured
everyone there was absolutely "nothing in it." The boracic powder was
lifted in my absence from the _Pharmacie_ to try and get the first
glimmerings of a slide on that sticky creosoted floor. The ambulances,
fitted with paper Chinese lanterns, were temporarily converted into
sitting out places. It was a great show.

There was one job in the Convoy we all loathed like poison; it was known
as "corpses." There was no chance of dodging unpopular jobs, for they
worked out on an absolutely fair system. For instance, the first time
the telephone bell went after 8 a.m. (anything before that was counted
night duty) it was taken by a girl whose name came first in alphabetical
order. She rushed out to her car, but before going "warned" B. that when
the bell next went it would be _her_ job, and so on throughout the day.
If you were "warned," it was an understood thing that you did not begin
any long job on the car but stayed more or less in readiness. If the
jobs got half through the alphabet by nightfall the last girl warned
knew she was first for it the next morning.

To return to the corpses. What happened was that men were frequently
falling into the canals and docks and were not discovered till perhaps
three weeks later. An ambulance was then rung up, and the corpse, or
what remained of it, was taken to the mortuary.

One day Bobs was called on to give evidence at a Court of Enquiry with
regard to a corpse she had driven, as there was some mystification with
regard to the day and hour at which it was found. As she stepped smartly
up to the table the Colonel asked her how, when it occurred some ten
days ago, she could be sure it was 4.30 when she arrived on the scene.

"It was like this," said she. "When I heard it was a corpse, I thought
I'd have my tea first!" (This was almost as bad as the tape measure
episode and was of course conclusive. I might add, corpses were the only
jobs that were not allowed to interfere with meals.)

"Foreign bodies," in the shape of former Belgian patients, often drifted
up to camp in search of the particular "Mees" who had tended them at
Lamarck, as often as not bringing souvenirs made at great pains in the
trenches as tokens of their gratitude. It touched us very much to know
that they had not forgotten.

One night when my evening duty was nearing its close and I was just
preparing to go to my hut the telephone bell rang, and I was told to go
down to the hospital ship we had just loaded that afternoon for a man
reported to be in a dying condition, and not likely to stand the journey
across to England--I never could understand why those cases should have
been evacuated at all if there was any possibility of them becoming
suddenly worse; but I suppose a certain number of beds had to be cleared
for new arrivals, and individuals could not be considered. It seemed
very hard.

I drove down to the Quay in the inky blackness, it was a specially dark
night, turned successfully, and reported I had come for the case.

An orderly, I am thankful to say, came with him in the car and sat
behind holding his hand.

The boy called incessantly for his mother and seemed hardly to realize
where he was. I sat forward, straining my eyes in the darkness along
that narrow quay, on the look-out for the many holes I knew were only
too surely there.

The journey seemed to take hours, and I answered a query of the
orderly's as to the distance.

The boy heard my voice and mistook me for one of the Sisters, and then
followed one of the most trying half-hours I have ever been through.

He seemed to regain consciousness to a certain extent and asked me from
time to time,

"Sister, am I dying?"

"Will I see me old mother again, Sister?"

"Why have you taken me off the Blighty ship, Sister?"

Then there would be silence for a space, broken only by groans and an
occasional "Christ, but me back 'urts crool," and all the comfort I
could give was that we would be there soon, and the doctor would do
something to ease the pain.

Thank God, at last we arrived at the Casino. One of the most trying
things about ambulance driving is that while you long to get the patient
to hospital as quickly as possible you are forced to drive slowly. I
jumped out and cautioned the orderlies to lift him as gently as they
could, and he clung on to my hand as I walked beside the stretcher into
the ward.

"You're telling me the truth, Sister? I don't want to die, I tell you
that straight," he said. "Goodbye and God bless you; I'll come and see
you in the morning," I said, and left him to the nurses' tender care. I
went down early next day but he had died at 3 a.m. Somebody's son and
only nineteen. That sort of job takes the heart out of you for some
days, though Heaven knows we ought to have got used to anything by that
time.

To make up for the wet autumn a hard frost set in early in the year.

The M.T. provided us with anti-freezing mixture for the radiators, but
the antifreezing cheerfully froze! We tried emptying them at night,
turning off the petrol and running the engine till the carburettor was
dry (for even the petrol was not above freezing), and wrapping up the
engines as carefully as if they were babies, but even that failed.

Starting the cars up in the morning (a detail I see I have not mentioned
so far), even in ordinary times quite a hard job, now became doubly so.

It was no uncommon sight to see F.A.N.Y.s lying supine across the
bonnets of their cars, completely winded by their efforts. The morning
air was full of sobbing breaths and groans as they swung in vain! This
process was known as "getting her loose"--(I'm referring to the car not
the F.A.N.Y., though, from personal experience, it's quite applicable to
both.)

Brown or Johnson (the latter had replaced Kirkby) was secured to come if
possible and give the final fillip that set the engine going. It's a
well-known thing that you may turn at a car for ten minutes and not get
her going, and a fresh hand will come and do so the first time.

This swinging left one feeling like nothing on earth, and sometimes was
a day's work in itself.

In spite of all the precautions we took, whatever water was left in the
water pipes and drainings at the bottom of the radiators froze solidly,
and sure enough, when we had got them going, clouds of steam rose into
the air. The frost had come to stay and moreover it was a black one.

Something had to be done to solve the problem for it was imperative for
every car to be ready for the road first thing in the morning.

Camp fires were suggested, but were impracticable, and then it was that
"Night Guards" were instituted.

Four girls sat up all night, and once every hour turned out to crank up
the cars, run them with bonnet covers on till they were thoroughly warm,
and then tuck them up again till the next time. We had from four to five
cars each, and it will give some idea of the extreme cold to say that
when we came to crank them again, in roughly three-quarters of an hour's
time, they were _almost_ cold. The noise must have been heard for some
distance when the whole Convoy was roaring and racing at once like a
small inferno. But in spite of this, I know that when it was not our
turn to sit up we others never woke.

As soon as the cars were tucked up and silent again we raced back to the
cook-house, where we threw ourselves into deck chairs, played the
gramophone, made coffee to keep us awake, or read frightening books--I
remember I read "Bella Donna" on one of these occasions and wouldn't
have gone across the camp alone if you'd paid me. A grand midnight
supper also took up a certain amount of time.

That three-quarters of an hour positively flew, and seemed more like ten
minutes, but punctually at the second we had to turn out again,
willy-nilly--into that biting cold with the moon shining frostily over
everything apparently turning it into steel.

The trouble was that as the frost continued water became scarce--baths
had stopped long ago--and it began to be a question of getting even a
basinful to wash in. Face creams were extensively applied as the only
means of saving what little complexions we had left! The streets of the
town were in a terrible condition owing principally to the hygienic
customs of the inhabitants who _would_ throw everything out of their
front doors or windows. The consequence was that, without exaggeration,
the ice in some places was two feet thick, and every day fresh layers
were formed as the French housewives threw out more water. No one
remained standing in a perpendicular position for long, and the
difficulty was, once down, how to get up again.

Finally water became so scarce we had to bring huge cans in a lorry from
the M.T., one of the few places not frozen out, and there was usually
ice on them when they arrived in camp. Then the water even began to
freeze as we filled up our radiators; and, finally, we were reduced to
chopping up the ice in our tank and melting it for breakfast! One
morning, however, Bridget came to me in great distress. "What on earth
shall I do," said she, "I've finished all the ice, and there's not a bit
left to make the tea for breakfast? I know you'll think of something,"
she added hopefully.

I had been on night guard and the idea of no hot tea was a positive
calamity.

I thought for some minutes. "Here, give me the jug," I said, and out I
went. After looking carefully round to see that I was not observed, I
quietly tapped one of the radiators.

"I'll tell you after breakfast where it came from," I said, as I
returned with the full jug. Bridget seized it joyfully and must have
been a bit suspicious as it was still warm, but she was much too wise to
ask any questions.

We had a cheery breakfast, and when it was over I called out, "I hope
you all feel very much better and otherwise radiating? You ought to at
all events!"

"Why?" they asked curiously. "Well, you've just drunk tea made out of
'radium,'" I replied. "Absolutely priceless stuff, known to a few of the
first families by its original name of 'radiator water,'" and I escaped
with speed to the fastnesses of my hut.

THE STORY OF A PERFECT DAY

     (_From "Barrack Room Ballads of the F.A.N.Y. Corps,"
     By kind permission of Winifred Mordaunt, F.A.N.Y._)

     We were smoking and absently humming
     To anyone there who could play--
     (We'd finished our tea in the Mess hut
     Awaiting an ambulance train--)
     Roasting chestnuts some were, while the rest,
     Cut up toffee or sang a refrain.
     Outside was a bitter wind shrieking--
     (Thank God for a fug in the Mess!)
     Never mind if the old stove is reeking
     If only the cold's a bit less--
     But one of them starts and then shivers
     (A goose walking over her tomb)
     Gazes out at the rain running rivers
     And says to the group in the room:
     "Just supposing the 'God of Surprises'
     Appeared in the glow of a coal,
     With a promise before he demises
     To take us away from this hole
     And do just whatever we long to do.
     Tell me your perfect day."
     Said one, "Why, to fly to an island
     Far away in a deep blue lagoon;
     One would never be tired in my land
     Nor ever get up too soon."
     "Every time," cried the girl darning stockings,
     "We'd surf-ride and bathe in the sea,
     We'd wear nothing but little blue smockings
     And eat mangoes and crabs for our tea."
     "Oh no!" said a third, "that's a rotten
     Idea of a perfect day;
     I long to see mountains forgotten,
     Once more hear the bells of a sleigh.
     I'd give all I have in hard money
     For one day of ski-ing again,
     And to see those white mountains all sunny
     Would pretty well drive me insane."
     Then a girl, as she flicked cigarette ash
     Most carelessly on to the floor,
     Had a feeling just then that her pet "pash"
     Would be a nice car at the door,
     To motor all day without fagging--
     Not to drive nor to start up the thing.
     Oh! the joy to see someone else dragging
     A tow-rope or greasing a spring!
     Then a fifth murmured, "What about fishing?
     Fern and heather right up to your knees
     And a big salmon rushing and swishing
     'Mid the smell of the red rowan trees."
     So the train of opinions drifted
     And thicker the atmosphere grew,
     Till piercing the voices uplifted
     Rang a sound I was sure I once knew.
     A sound that set all my nerves singing
     And ran down the length of my spine,
     A great pack of hounds as they're flinging
     Themselves on a new red-hot line!
     A bit of God's country is stretching
     As far as the hawk's eye can see,
     The bushes are leafless, like etching,
     As all good dream fences should be.
     There isn't a bitter wind blowing
     But a soft little southerly breeze,
     And instead of the grey channel flowing
     A covert of scrub and young trees.
     The field of course is just dozens
     Of people I want to meet so--
     Old friends, to say nothing of cousins
     Who've been killed in the war months ago.
     Three F.A.N.Y.s are riding like fairies
     Having drifted right into my dreams,
     And they're riding their favourite "hairies"
     That have been dead for years, so it seems.
     A ditch that I've funked with precision
     For seasons, and passed by in fear,
     I now leap with a perfect decision
     That never has marked my career.
     For a dream-horse has never yet stumbled;
     Far away hounds don't know how to flag.
     A dream-fence would melt ere it crumbled,
     And the dream-scent's as strong as a drag.
     Of course the whole field I have pounded
     Lepping high five-barred gates by the score,
     And I don't seem the least bit astounded,
     Though I never have done it before!
     At last a glad chorus of yelling,
     Proclaims my dream-fox has been viewed--
     But somewhere some stove smoke is smelling
     Which accounts for my feeling half stewed--
     And somewhere the F.A.N.Y.s are talking
     And somebody shouts through the din:
     "What a horrible habit of snoring--
     Hit her hard--wake her up--the train's in."

CHAPTER XV

CONVOY PETS, COMMANDEERING, AND THE "FANTASTIKS"

We took turns to go out on "all-night duty"; a different thing from
night guards, and meant taking any calls that came through after 9 p.m.
and before 8 a.m. next morning.

They were usually from outlying camps for men who had been taken ill or
else for stranded Army Sisters arriving at the Gare about 3 a.m. waiting
to be taken to their billets.

It was comparatively cheery to be on this job when night guards were in
progress, as there were four hefty F.A.N.Y.s sitting up in the
cook-house, your car warm and easy to crank, and, joy of joys, a hot
drink for you when you came back!

In the ordinary way as one scrambled into warm sweaters and top coats
the dominant thought was, would the car start all right out there, with
not a hand to give a final fillip once the "getting loose" process was
accomplished?

Luckily my turns came round twice during night guards, and the last time
I had to go for a pneumonia case to Beau Marais. It was a bright
moonlight night, almost as light as day, with everything glittering in
the frozen snow. Susan fairly hopped it! After having found the case,
which took some doing, and deposited him in No. 30 hospital, I sped back
to camp.

As I crossed the Place d'Armes and drove up the narrow Rue de la Mer,
Susan seemed to take a sudden header and almost threw a somersault! I
had gone into an invisible hole in the ice, two feet deep, extending
half across the street. For some reason it had melted (due probably to
an underground bakery in the vicinity). I reversed anxiously and then
hopped out to feel Susan's springs as one might a horse's knees. Thank
goodness they had not snapped, so backing all the way down the street
again, relying on the moon for light, I proceeded cautiously by another
route and got back without further mishap.

Our menagerie was gradually increasing. There were now three dogs and
two cats in camp, not to mention a magpie and two canaries, more of
which anon. There was Wuzzy, of course, and Archie (a naughty looking
little Sealyham belonging to Heasy) and a mongrel known as G.K.W. (God
knows what) that ran in front of a visiting Red Cross touring car one
day and found itself in the position of the young lady of Norway, who
sat herself down in the doorway! I did not witness the untimely end, but
I believe it was all over in a minute.

One cat belonged to Eva, a plain-looking animal, black with a half-white
face, christened "Miss Dip" (an inspiration on my part suggested by the
donor's name, on the "Happy Family" principle). She was the apple of her
eye, nevertheless, and nightly Eva could be heard calling "Dip, Dip,
Dip," all over the camp to fetch her to bed. Incidentally it became
quite an Angelus for us.

Considering the way she hunted all the meat shops for tit bits, that cat
ought to have been a show animal--but it wasn't. One day as our fairy
Lowson was lightly jumping from a window-sill she inadvertently "came in
contact" with Dip's tail, the extreme tip of which was severed in
consequence! In wrathful indignation Eva rushed Dip down to the Casino
in an ambulance, where one of the foremost surgeons of the day operated
with skill and speed and made a neat job of it, to the entire
satisfaction of all concerned. If her tail still remains square at the
end she can tell her children she was _blessée dans la guerre_. The
other cat was a tortoiseshell and appropriately called "Melisande in the
Wood," justified by the extraordinary circumstances in which she was
discovered. One day at No. 35 hut hospital I saw three of the men
hunting in a bank opposite, covered with undergrowth and small shrubs.
They told me that for the past three days a kitten had been heard
mewing, but in spite of all their efforts to find it, they had failed to
do so. I listened, and sure enough heard a plaintive mew. The place was
a network of clinging roots, but presently I crawled in and found it was
just possible to get along on hands and knees. It was most
mysterious--the kitten could be heard quite loud one minute, and when
we got to the exact spot it would be some distance away again. (It
reminded me of the Dutch ventriloquist's trick in Lamarck). It was such
a plaintive mew I was determined to find that kitten if I stayed there
all night. At last it dawned on me, it must be in a rabbit hole; and
sure enough after pushing and pulling my way along to the top of the
bank, I found one over which a fall of earth had successfully pushed
some wire netting from the fence above. I waited patiently, and in due
time caught sight of a little black, yellow, and white kitten; but the
minute I made a grab for it, it bolted. I pulled the netting away, but
the hole was much too deep for so small a creature to get out by itself,
and it was much too frightened to let me catch it. With great difficulty
I extricated myself and ran to the cookhouse, where I soon enlisted
Bridget's aid. We got some small pieces of soft raw meat and crawled to
the top of the bank again. After long and tedious coaxing I at last
grabbed the little thing spitting furiously while Bridget gave it some
food, and in return for my trouble it bit and scratched like a young
devil! It was terribly hungry and bolted all we had brought. When we got
her to the cook-house she ran round the place like a mad thing, and
turned out to be rather a fast cat altogether when she grew up. We
tossed for her, Bridget won, and she was duly christened with a drop of
tinned milk on her forehead, "Melisande in the Wood."

The magpie belonged to Russell, and came from Peuplinghe. Magpies are
supposed to be unlucky birds. This one certainly brought no luck to its
different owners. Shortly after its arrival Russell was obliged to
return to England for good. Before going, however, she presented Jacques
to Captain White at Val de Lièvre. Sure enough after some time he was
posted to the Boche prisoner camp at Marquise--a job he did not relish
at all. I don't know if he took Jacques with him, but the place was
bombed shortly after and the Huns killed many of their own men, and
presumably Jacques as well. So he did his bit for France.

The canaries belonged to Renny--at least at first she had only one. It
happened in this wise. The man at the disinfector (where we took our
cars and blankets to be syringed after an infectious case), had had a
canary given him by his "best girl" (French). He did not want a canary
and had nowhere to keep it, but, as he explained, he did not know enough
of the language to say so, and thought the easiest way out of the
difficulty was to accept it. "Give me the bird, proper, she 'as," he
added.

The trouble was he did not reckon on her asking after it, which she most
surely did. He could hardly confess to her that he had passed the
present on so instead he conveyed the news to her, somehow, that the
"pore little bird had gone and died on 'im." She expressed her horror
and forthwith produced a second!

"Soon 'ave a bloomin' aviary at this rate," he remarked as he handed
the second one over! No more appeared, however, and the two little
birds, both presumably dead, twittered and sang merrily the length of
the "cues."

As the better weather arrived so our work increased again, and in March
the Germans began a retreat in the west along a front of 100 miles. We
worked early and late and reached the point of being able to drive
almost asleep. An extraordinary sensation--you avoid holes, you slip the
clutch over bumps, you stop when necessary, and go on ditto, and at the
same time you can be having dreams! More a state of coma than actual
sleep, perhaps. I think what happened was one probably slept for a
minute and then woke up again to go off once more.

I became "Wuzzy's" adopted mother about now and, whenever I had time,
combed and brushed his silver curls till they stood out like fluff. He
could spot Susan miles away, and though it was against rules I sometimes
took him on board. As we neared camp I told him he must get down, but he
would put on an obstinate expression and deliberately push himself
behind my back, in between me and the canvas, so that I was almost on
the steering wheel. At other times he would listen to me for awhile,
take it all in, and then put his head on my shoulder with such an
appealing gesture that I used to risk being spotted, and let him remain.
He simply adored coming out if I was going riding, but I disliked having
him intensely, for he ran about under the horses, nibbling at them and
making himself a general nuisance. He would watch me through half shut
eyes the minute I began polishing my riding boots; and try as I would to
evade him he nearly always came in the end.

He got so crafty in time he would wait for me at the bottom of the drive
and dash out from among the shrubs just as I was vanishing. One day we
had trotted some distance along the Sangatte road, and I was just
congratulating myself I had given him the slip, when looking up, there
he was sitting on a grassy knoll just ahead, positively laughing and
licking his chops with self-satisfied glee. I gave it up after that, I
felt I couldn't cope with him, and yet there were those who called him
stupid! I grant you he had his bad days when he was referred to as my
"idiot son," but even then he was only just "peculiar"--a world of
difference.

One job we had was termed "lodgers" and consisted of meeting the
"sitting" cases from an ambulance train, taking them to the different
hospitals for the night, and then back to the quay early next morning in
time to catch the hospital ship to England. The stretcher cases had been
put on board the night before, but there was no sleeping accommodation
for so many "sitters." An ordinary evacuation often took place as well,
so that before breakfast we had sometimes carried as many as thirty-five
sitting cases, and done journeys with twelve stretchers. One day at No.
30 hospital I saw several of the girls beside a stretcher, and there was
the "Bovril king" lying swathed in blankets, chatting affably! He was
the cook at No. 30, a genial soul, who always rushed out in the early
hours of the morning when one was feeling emptiest, with a cup of hot
soup. He called it doing his bit, and always referred to himself proudly
as the "Bovril king." Alas, he was now being invalided home with
bronchitis!

Hope came back from leave and told me she had been pursued half way down
Regent Street by a fat old taxi driver who asked after me. It was dear
old Stone, of course, now returned to civil life and his smart taxi with
the silver "vauses!" I have hunted the stands in vain for his smiling
rosy face, but hope to spot him some day and have my three days' joy
ride.

One precious whole afternoon off, a very rare event, I went out for a
ride with Captain D. He rode "Baby," a little bay mare, and I rode a
grey, a darling, with perfect manners and the "sweetest" mouth in the
world. He was devoted to "Baby," and wherever she went he went too, as
surely as Mary's little lamb.

We struck off the road on to some grass and after cantering along for
some distance found we were in a network of small canals--the ground was
very spongy and the canal ahead of us fortunately not as wide as the
rest. We got over safely, landing in deep mud on the other side, and
decided our best plan was to make for the road again. We espied a house
at the end of the strip we were in with a road beyond, and agreed that
there must be a bridge or something leading to it. Captain D. went off
at a canter and I saw Baby break into a startled gallop as a train
steamed up on the line beyond the road. They disappeared behind the
house and I followed on at a canter. I turned the corner just in time to
see them almost wholly immersed in a wide canal and the gallant Captain
crawling over Baby's head on to the bank! It was one of those deceptive
spots where half the water was overgrown with thick weeds and cress,
making the place appear as narrow again.

The grey was of course hot on Baby's track. Seeing her plight I
naturally pulled up, but he resented this strongly and rose straight on
his hind legs. Fearing he would over-balance, I quickly slacked the
reins and leant forward on his neck. But it was too late; that slippery
mud was no place to try and regain a foothold, and over he came. I just
had time to slip off sideways, promptly lost my foothold and collapsed
as well. How I laughed! There was Captain D. on one side of the canal
vainly trying to capture his "wee red tourie" floating down stream, and
Baby standing by with the mud dripping from her once glossy flanks; and
on the other was I, sitting laughing helplessly in the mud, and the grey
(now almost brown) softly nosing my cap and eyeing his beloved on the
further bank with pained surprise!

To crown all, the train, which had come to a standstill, was by the
irony of fate full of Scottish soldiers on their way up the line. Such a
bit of luck in the shape of a free cinema show had rarely come their
way and they were bent on enjoying it to the fullest extent. The fact
that the officer now standing ruefully on the bank was in Tartan riding
"troos" of course added to the piquancy of the situation.

The woman had come out of her cottage by this time and kept exclaiming
at intervals, "Oh, la-la, Oh, la-la," probably imagining that this
mudbath was only a new pastime of the mad English. She at last was kind
enough to open the gate; and thither I led the grey and then across a
plank bridge beyond, previously hidden from sight.

We scraped the mud off the saddles under a running fire of witty
comments from the train. I knew the whole thing had given them so much
enjoyment that I bore them no illwill. I could see their point of view
so well, it must have been such fun to watch! "Hoots, mon," they called
to the now thoroughly embarrassed D., as we mounted, "are ye no going to
lift the lassie oop?" I was glad we were "oop" and away before the train
started again, and as we trotted along the road, cries of "Guid luck to
ye!" "May ye have a happy death!" (which is a regular north-country
wish, and a very nice one when you come to think of it), followed us.
The batman eyed us suspiciously as we reached Fontinettes where he was
waiting for the horses, and remarked that they seemed to have had a "bit
roll." My topcoat I'm glad to say covered all traces of the "bit roll" I
had indulged in on my own. It was a great ride entirely.

One night for some reason I was unable to sleep--a rare occurrence--and
bethought me of an exciting spy book, called the _German Submarine
Base_, I had begun weeks before but had had no time to finish. All was
dead quiet with the exception of the distant steady boom of the guns,
which one of course hardly noticed. I had just got to the most thrilling
part and was holding my breath from sheer excitement when whiz! sob!
bang! and a shell went spinning over the huts. For a moment I thought I
must be dreaming or that the book was bewitched. Next minute I was out
of bed like a rabbit, and turning off the light, dashed outside just as
the second went over. I naturally looked skyward, but there was not a
sign of anything and, stranger still, not even the throb of an engine. A
third went over with a loud screech, and my hair was blown into the air
by the rushing wind it caused. I saw a flash from the sea and Thompson
said she was wakened by my voice calling, "I say, come out and see this
new stunt." Soon everyone was up and the shells came on steadily,
blowing our hair about, and making the very pebbles rush rattling along
the ground, hitting against our feet with such force we thought at first
it must be spent shrapnel. Some of those shells screeched and some
miauled like huge cats hurtling through the air to spring on their prey.
These latter made a cold shiver run down my spine; the noise they made
was so blood-curdling. One could cope with the ordinary ones, but
frankly, these were beastly. Luckily they only went over about every
tenth. It was something quite new getting shells of this calibre from
such a short range, and "side-ways," too, as someone expressed it; quite
a different sensation from on top. The noise was deafening; and then one
struck the bank our camp was built on. We had no dug-out and seemingly
were just waiting to be potted at. We got the cars ready in case we were
called up, and the shells whizzed over all the time. There was another
explosion--one had landed in our incinerator! Good business! Another hit
the bank again! Once more the fact of being so near the danger proved
our safety, for with these three exceptions, they all passed over into
the town beyond. The smell of powder in the air was so strong it made us
sneeze. It was estimated roughly that 300 shells were lobbed into the
town, and all passing over us on the way.

It was a German destroyer that had somehow got down the coast
unchallenged, and was--we heard afterwards--only at a distance of 100
yards! What a chance for good shooting on our part; but it was a pitch
black night and somehow she got away in the velvet darkness. Sounds of
firing at sea--easily distinguishable from those on land because of the
"plop" after them--continued throughout the night and we thought a naval
battle was in progress somewhere; however, it proved to be one of the
bombardments of England, according to the papers next day. To our great
disappointment, our little "drop in the bucket" of 300 odd shells was
not even mentioned.

There was much eager scratching in the bank for bits of shells the next
day. One big piece was made into a paper-weight by the old Scotch
carpenter, and another was put on the "narrow escape" shelf among the
other bits that had "nearly, but not quite!"

Wild rumours had got round the camps and town that the "lady drivers had
got it proper," been "completely wiped out," in fact not one left alive
to tell the lurid tale. So that wherever we drove the next morning we
were greeted with cheery nods and smiles by everyone. The damage to the
town was considerable, but the loss of life singularly small. The Detail
Issue Stores had gone so far as to exchange bets as to whether we would
appear to draw rations that morning, and as I drove up with Bridget on
the box we were greeted right royally. One often found large oranges in
one's tool box, or a bag of nuts, or something of the kind, popped in by
a kindly Tommy who would pass the car and merely say: "Don't forget to
look in your tool-box when you get to camp, Miss," and be gone before
you could even thank him! All the choicest "cuts" were also reserved for
us by the butcher and we were altogether spoilt pretty generally.

Tommy is certainly a nailer at what he terms "commandeering." I was down
at the M.T. yard one day and as I left, was told casually to look in the
box when I got to camp. I did so, and to my horror saw a wonderful foot
pump--the pneumatic sort. I had visions of being hauled up before a
Court of Enquiry to produce the said pump, which was a brand new one and
painted bright red. On my next job I made a point of going round by the
M.T. yard to return the "present." I found my obliging friend, who was
pained in the extreme at the mere mention of a pump. "Never 'eard of
one," he affirmed stoutly. "Leastways," he said reminiscently, looking
at me out of the corner of his eye, "I do seem to remember something
about a stawf car bein' in 'ere this morning when yours was"--and he
smiled disarmingly. "Look 'ere," he continued, "you forget all about it,
Miss. I 'ates to see yer puffing at the tyres with them old-fashioned
ones, and anyway," with a grin, "that car's in Abbeville now!"

Another little example of similar "commandeering" was when my friend of
the chopped sticks turned up one day with a small Primus stove: "I 'eard
you was askin' for one, and 'ere it is," and with that he put it down
and fled. After the pump episode I was full of suspicions about little
things that "turned up" from nowhere, but for a long time I had no
opportunity of asking him exactly where the gift had come from. One
night, however, one of the doctors from the adjacent hut hospital was up
in camp, and Primus stoves suddenly cropped up in the conversation.
"Most extraordinary thing," said he, "my batman is as honest as the day,
and can't account for the disappearance of my stove at all. No one went
into my hut, he declares, and yet the stove is gone, and not so much as
a sign of it. One thing is I'd know it if I saw it again." I started
guiltily at this, and got rather pink--"Look here," I said, "come into
my hut a moment." He did so. "By Jove! that's my stove right enough," he
cried, "I know the scratches on it. How on earth did you get it?" "That
I can't tell you," I replied, "but you can have it back" (graciously),
"and look here, it wasn't _your_ batman, so rest easy." He was too wise
to ask unnecessary questions (one didn't in France), and only too
thankful to get his Primus, which he joyfully carried back in state. It
was a pity about it, because they were impossible to get at that time,
and our huts had already been raided for electric kettles.

Gothas came frequently to visit us at night and terrible scenes took
place, during which we were ordered out amid the dropping bombs to carry
the injured to hospital, but more often than not to collect the dead, or
what was left of them.

One morning I was in great distress, for I lost my purse through the
lining of my wolf-coat. It was not the loss of the purse that worried
me, but the fact that I always kept the little medal of the Virgin and
Child in there, given me by the old Scotch nun in Paris "for
protection." "Eva," I called, "I've lost my luck--that little charm I
had given me in 1915--I do wish I hadn't. I'm not superstitious in the
ordinary way, but I kind of believe in that thing;" she only laughed
however. But I took the trouble to advertise for it in the local
paper--unfortunately with no result. I was very distressed.

Our concert party got really quite a slap-up show going about this time.
We also had a drop scene behind--a huge white linen sheet on which we
_appliquéd_ big black butterflies fluttering down to a large sunflower
in the corner, the petals of which were the same yellow as the bobbles
on our dresses. We came to the conclusion that something of the sort was
necessary, for as often as not we had to perform in front of
puce-coloured curtains that hardly showed us up to the best advantage.

One of the best shows we ever gave I think was for the M.T. _dépôt_.
They did so much for us one way and another repairing cars (not to
mention details like the foot pump episode), that we were only too glad
to do something for them in return. The _pièce de résistance_ (at least,
Dicky and I thought so) was a skit we got up on one of "Lena's" concert
party stars--a ventriloquist stunt. We thought of it quite suddenly and
only had time for one rehearsal before the actual performance. I paid a
visit to Corporal Coy of the mortuary (one of the local low comedians,
who, like the coffin-cart man at Lamarck, "had a merry eye!" and was a
recognized past-master in the art of make-up), and borrowed his little
bowler hat for the occasion. He listened solemnly to the scheme, and
insisted on making me a fascinating little Charlie Chaplin moustache
(the requisites for which he kept somewhere in the mortuary with the
rest of his disguises!) and he then taught me to waggle it with great
skill!

Dicky was the "doll" with round shiny patches of red on her cheeks and a
Tommy's cap and hospital blue coat. She supplied the glassy stare
herself most successfully. For these character stunts we simply put on
caps and coats over our "Fantastik" kit and left the rest to the
imagination of the audience who was quick (none quicker) to grasp the
implied suggestion. I was "Mr. Lenard Ashwell" in aforementioned bowler,
moustache, and coat. We made up the dialogue partly on the basis of the
original performance, and added a lot of local colour. I asked the
questions, and was of course supposed to ventriloquize the answers, and,
thanks to the glassy stare of my doll, her replies almost convinced the
audience I was doing so.

They had all seen the real thing a fortnight before, so that we were
greeted with shouts of laughter as the curtain went up.

The trouble was, as we had only written the book of words that day it
was rather hard for me to remember them, so I had taken the precaution
of safety-pinning them on my doll's back. It was all right for her as
she got the cue from me. It was not difficult, half supporting her as I
appeared to be, to squint behind occasionally for the next jest! On one
of these occasions my incorrigible doll horrified me by winking at the
audience and exclaiming, to their delight, "The bloke's got all the
words on my back!" She then revolved out of my grasp, and spun slowly
round on her stool. This unrehearsed effect quite brought the house
down, and not to be outdone, I raised my small bowler repeatedly in
acknowledgment!

I was a little taken aback the next morning when the man at the petrol
stores said, "My, but you wos a fair treat as Charlie Chaplin last
night, Miss." (It must have been Corporal Coy's moustache that did it,
not to mention lifting my bowler from the rear!)

The more local colour you get in a show of that sort the better the men
like it, and we parodied all the latest songs as fast as they came out.
Winnie and "Squig" in Unity More's "_Clock strikes Thirteen_" were
extremely popular, especially when they sang with reference to cranking
up in the mornings:

     Wind, wind. _Oh_ what a grind!
       I could weep, I could swear, I could scream,
     Both my arms ache, and my back seems to break
       But she'll go when the clock strikes thirteen.

     Oh, oh (with joy), at last she will go!
     There's a spark from the bloomin' machine,
     She's going like fire, when bang goes a tyre
     And we'll start when the clock strikes thirteen!

The whole programme was as follows:--

   1. The FANTASTIKS announce their shortcomings in
   chorus of original words to the opening music of the Bing
   Boys--"We're the FANTASTIKS, and we rise at six and
   don't get much time to rehearse, so if songs don't go, and
   the show is slow, well, we hope you'll say it might have
   been worse," etc., etc.

   2. _Violin_  1. "Andantino" (Kreisler) }
                                          } P.B. WADDELL
                2. "Capriccioso" (Drdla)  }
   3. _Recitation_      Humorous            N.F. LOWSON
   4. _Chorus Song_   "Piccadilly"                 FANTASTIKS (in monocles)
   5. _Stories_                                    M. RICHARDSON
   6. _China Town_                                 FANTASTIKS
      (Sung in the dark with lighted Chinese lanterns, quite
        professional in effect--at least we hoped so!)
   7. _Recitation_        Serious                  B. HUTCHINSON
   8. Mr. Lenard Ashwell and his }                    { M. RICHARDSON
        Ventriloquist Doll       }                    { P.B. WADDELL
   9. _Duet_   "When the Clock strikes Thirteen"   G. QUIN AND
                                                        W. MORDAUNT
   10. _Violin Solo_  "Zigeunerweisen" (Sarasate)  P.B. WADDELL
   11. _Song_         "Au Revoir"                  W. MORDAUNT
   12. _The Kangaroo Hop_                          FANTASTIKS

The chorus wore their goat-coats for this last item, and with animal
masks fixed by elastic, bears, wolves, elephants, etc., it was
distinctly realistic.

When "God save the King" had been sung, and the usual thanks and cheers
given, and received, the Sergeant-Major from the Canteen (with the
beautiful waxed moustache) rushed forward to say that light refreshments
had been provided. The "grizzly bears" were only too thankful, as they
had had no time to snatch even a bun before they left camp.

CHAPTER XVI

THE LAST RIDE

The hardest job in the Convoy was admittedly that of the big lorry, for,
early and late, it was first and last on the field.

It took all the stretchers and blankets to the different hospitals,
cleared up the quay after an early evacuation, brought stretchers and
blankets up to the Convoy, took the officers' kits to hospital and
boats, and rationed the ambulance trains and barges. "Jimmy" took to the
Vulcan instinctively when the Convoy was first started and jealously
kept to the job, but after a time she was forcibly removed therefrom in
order to take a rest. I could sympathize--I knew how I had felt about
the little lorry.

The job was to be taken in fortnightly turns, and while the old Vulcan
lorry was being overhauled a Wyllis-Overland was sent in its place.

The disadvantage of the lorry was that you never saw any of your
friends, for you were always on duty when they were off, and vice versa;
also you hardly ever had meals when they did. Eva's fortnight was almost
up, and I was hoping to see something of her before I went on leave when
one night in she came with the news that I was the next one for
it--hardly a welcome surprise; and down at barges that evening--it was a
Sunday--Gamwell, the Sergeant, told me officially I was to take on the
job next morning at 5 a.m.

When I got back to Camp I went for a preliminary run on it, as I had
never driven that make before. The tyres were solid, all vestige of
springs had long since departed from the seat and the roof was covered
with tin that bent and rattled like stage thunder. The gears were in the
middle and very worn, and the lever never lost an opportunity of
slipping into first as you got out, and consequently the lorry tried to
run over you when you cranked up! Altogether a charming car. You drove
along like a travelling thunder-clap, and coming up the slope into Camp
the earth fairly shook beneath you. I used to feel like the whole of
Valhalla arriving in a Wagner Opera! It was also quite impossible to
hear what anyone said sitting on the seat beside you.

The third day, as I got out, I felt all my bones over carefully. "When I
come off this job," I called to Johnson, "I shall certainly swallow a
bottle of gum as a wise precaution." He grinned appreciatively.

Lowson, who had had her turn before Eva, appropriately christened it
"Little Willie," and I can affirm that that car had a Hun soul.

You were up and dressed at 5 a.m. and waited about camp till the
telephone bell rang to say the train had arrived. Schofield, the
incinerator man who was usually in the camp at that hour, never failed
to make a cup of tea--a most welcome thing, for one never got back to
camp to have breakfast till 11 or 11.30 a.m. I used to spend the
interval, after "Little Willie" was all prepared for the road, combing
out Wuzzy's silver curls. He always accompanied the lorry and was
allowed to sit, or rather jolt, on the seat beside me, unrebuked. After
breakfast there was the quay to clear up and all the many other details
to attend to, getting back to camp about 3 to go off in an hour's time
to barges. When a Fontinettes ambulance train came down, the lorry
driver was lucky if she got to bed this side of 2 a.m.

All social engagements in the way of rides, etc., had to be cancelled in
consequence, but the Monday before I went into hospital the grey and
Baby appeared up in camp about 5.30. I was hanging about waiting for the
telephone to say the barge had arrived, but as there was a high wind
blowing it was considered very unlikely it would come down the canal
that evening. I 'phoned to a station several miles up to enquire if it
was in sight, and the reply came back "Not a sign," and I accordingly
got permission to go out for half an hour. I was so afraid Captain D.
might not consider it worth while and could have almost wept, but
fortunately he agreed half an hour was better than nothing, and off we
went up the sands, leaving the bob-tailed Wuzzy well in the rear. What a
glorious gallop that was--my last ride! The sands appeared almost
golden in the sun and the wind was whipping the deep blue waves into
little crests of foam against the paler turquoise of the sky. Already
the flowers on the dunes had burst into leaf, for it was the "merrie
month of May," and there, away on the horizon, the white cliffs of
England could just be discerned. Altogether it was good to be alive.
"Hurrah," I cried, as we slowed down to a walk, "five more days and then
on leave to England!" and I rubbed the grey's neck with joy. Alas! that
half hour flew like ten minutes and we turned all too soon and raced
back, thudding along over the glorious sands as we went.

I got to the Convoy to find there was no news of the barge, but I had to
dismount all the same--duty is duty--and I kissed the grey's nose,
little thinking I should never see him again. The barge did not come
down till 9 o'clock the next morning. _C'est la guerre_--and a _very_
trying one to boot!

The weather was ideal just then: warm and sunny and not a cloud in the
sky except for those little round white puffs where the Archie shells
burst round the visiting Huns.

One afternoon about 5 o'clock, when breakfast had been at lunch time and
consequently that latter meal had been _n'apoo'd_ altogether, I went
into the E.M.O.'s for the chits before leaving for camp. (These initials
stood for "Embarkation Medical Officer" and always designated the office
and shed where the blankets and stretchers were kept; also,
incidentally, the place where the Corporal and two men slept.) As I
entered a most appetising odour greeted my nostrils and I suddenly
realized how very hungry I was. I sniffed the air and wondered what it
could be.

"Just goin' to have a cockle tea," explained the Corporal. "I suppose,
Miss, you wouldn't care to join us?" I knew the brew at the Convoy would
be long since cold, and accepted the invitation joyfully.

Their "dining-room" was but the shed where the stretchers were piled up,
many of them brown and discoloured by blood, and bundles of fusty army
blankets, used as coverings for the wounded, reached almost to the
ceiling. They were like the stretchers in some cases, and always sticky
to the touch. I could not repress a shudder as I turned away to the much
more welcome sight of tea. A newspaper was spread on the rough table in
my honour and Wheatley was despatched "at the double" to find the only
saucer! (Those who knew the good Wheatley will perhaps fail to imagine
he could attain such a speed--dear Wheatley, with his long spindle legs
and quaint serio-comic face. He was a man of few words and a heart of
gold.)

I look back on that "cockle tea" as one of my happiest memories. It was
so jolly and we were all so gay and full of hope, for things were going
well up the line.

I had never tasted cockles before and thought they were priceless. We
discussed all manner of things during tea and I learnt a lot about their
aspirations for _après la guerre_. It was singular to think that within
a short month, of that happy party Headley the Corporal alone remained
sound and whole. One was killed by a shell falling on the E.M.O. One was
in hospital crippled for life, and the third was brought in while I was
there and died shortly after from septic pneumonia. Little did we think
what was in store as we drank tea so merrily!

Wheatley insisted on putting a bass bag full of cockles into the lorry
before I left, and when I got to camp I ran to the cook-house thinking
how they would welcome a variation for supper.

"Cockles?" asked Bridget. "Humph, I suppose you know they grow on sewers
and people who eat them die of ptomaine poisoning?" "No," I said, not at
all crestfallen, "do they really, well I've just eaten a whole bag full!
If they give me a military funeral I do hope you'll come," and I
departed, feeling rather hurt, to issue further invitations.

I was drawing petrol at the Stores the next day and as I was signing for
it the man there (my Charlie Chaplin friend) kindly began to crank up.

As he did so I saw Little Willie move gently forward, and ran out to
slip the gear back into "neutral."

"It's a Hun and called 'Little Willie,'" I explained as I did so.

"Crikey, wot a car," he observed, "no wonder you calls it that. Don't
you let him put it acrosst you, Miss."

"He's only four more days to do it in," I thought joyfully, as I rattled
off to the Quay, and yet somehow a premonition of some evil thing about
to happen hung over me, and again I wished I hadn't lost my charm.

The next day was Wednesday, and I had been up since 5 and was taking a
lorry-full of stretchers and blankets past a French Battery to the
E.M.O.'s. It was about midday and there was not a cloud in the sky. Then
suddenly my heart stood still. Somehow, instinctively, I knew I was "for
it" at last. Whole eternities seemed to elapse before the crash. There
was no escape. Could I urge Little Willie on? I knew it was hopeless;
even as I did so he bucketed and failed to respond. He would! How I
longed for Susan, who could always be relied upon to sprint forward. At
last the crash came. I felt myself being hurled from the car into the
air, to fall and be swept along for some distance, my face being
literally rubbed in the ground. I remember my rage at this, and even in
that extreme moment managed to seize my nose in the hope that it at
least might not be broken! Presently I was left lying in a crumpled heap
on the ground. My first thought, oddly enough, was for the car, which I
saw standing sulkily and somewhat battered not far off. "There _will_ be
a row," I thought. The stretcher bearer in behind had been killed
instantaneously, but fortunately I did not know of this till some time
later, nor did I even know he had jumped in behind. The car rattled to
such an extent I had not heard the answer to my query, if anyone was
coming with me to unload the stretchers.

I tried to move and found it impossible. "What a mess I'm in," was my
next thought, "and how my legs ache!" I tried to move them too, but it
was no good. "They must both be broken," I concluded. I put my hand to
my head and brought it away all sticky. "That's funny," I thought,
"where can it have come from?" and then I caught sight of my hand. It
was all covered with blood. I began to have a panic that my back might
be injured and I would not be able to ride again. That was all that
really worried me. I had always dreaded anything happening to my back,
somehow.

The French soldiers were down from their Battery in a trice, all great
friends of mine to whom I had often thrown ration cigarettes.

Gaspard (that was not his name, I never knew it, but always called him
that in my own mind after Raymond's hero) gave a cry and was on the
ground beside me, calling me his "little cabbage," his "poor little
pigeon," and presently he half lifted me in his arms and cradled me as
he might a baby. I remained quite conscious the whole time. "Will I be
able to ride again?" kept hammering through my brain. The pain was
becoming rapidly worse and I began to wonder just where my legs were
broken. As I could move neither I could not discover at all, and
presently I gave a gasp as I felt something tighten and hurt terribly.
It was a boot lace they were fixing to stop the hæmorrhage (bootlaces
are used for everything in France). The men stood round, and I watched
them furtively wiping the tears away that rolled down their furrowed
cheeks. One even put his arm over his eyes as a child does. I wondered
vaguely why they were crying; it never dawned on me it had anything to
do with _me_. "Complètement coupée," I heard one say, and quick as a
shot, I asked, "Où est-ce que c'est qu'est coupé?" and those tactful
souls, just rough soldiers, replied without hesitation, "La jaquette,
Mademoiselle."

"Je m'en fiche de la jaquette," I answered, completely reassured.

I wished the ambulance would come soon. "I _am_ in a beastly mess," I
thought again. "Fancy broken legs hurting like this. What must the men
go through!"

It was singular I was so certain they were broken. But a month before I
had received a wire from the War Office stating one of my brothers had
crashed 1,000 feet and had two legs fractured, and without more ado I
took it for granted I was in a similar plight. "I won't sit up and
look," I decided, "or I shall think I'm worse than I am. There's sure to
be some blood about," and the sun beat down fiercely, drying what there
was on my face into hard cakes. My lower lip had also been cut inside
somehow. One man took off his coat and held it high up to form a shade.
I saw everything that happened with a terrible distinctness. They had
already bound up my head, which was cut and bleeding profusely.

The pain was becoming almost intolerable and I wondered if in time I
would cry, but luckily one does not cry on those occasions; it becomes
an impossibility somehow. I even began to wish I could. I asked to have
my legs lifted a little and the pain seemed to ease somewhat. I shall
never forget those Frenchmen. They were perfect. How often I had smiled
at them as I passed, and laughed to see them standing in a ring like
naughty schoolboys, peeling potatoes, their Sergeant walking round to
see that it was done properly!

The little French doctor from the Battery, who had once helped me change
a tyre, came running up and I covered the scratched side of my face lest
he should get too much of a shock. "Je suis joliment dans la soupe," I
said, and saw him go as white as a sheet. "These Frenchmen are very
sympathetic," I thought, for it had dawned on me what they were crying
about by that time.

Just then an ambulance train came down the line and the two English
doctors were fetched. A tourniquet which seemed like a knife, and hurt
terribly, was applied as well as the bootlace. I was also given some
morphia. "This will hurt a little," he said as he pushed in the needle,
which I thought distinctly humorous. As if a prick from a hypodermic
could be anything in comparison with what was going on "down there"
where I hadn't courage to look! His remark had one good effect though,
because I thought: "If he thinks _that_ will hurt there can't be much to
fuss over down there."

Would the ambulance never arrive? I wondered if we were always so
long--which F.A.N.Y. would come? "She's cranked up by now and on the
way, probably as far as the bridge," I thought. I drove all the way down
in my own mind and yet she did not arrive, but they had 'phoned to the
French hospital in the town and not the Convoy. I did not know this till
I saw the French car arrive.

It seemed an age. Gaspard never moved once from his cramped position and
kept saying soothingly from time to time: "Allons, p'tit chou, mon
pauvre petit pigeon, ça viendra tout à l'heure, hé la petite."

At last the ambulance came. I dreaded being lifted, but those soldiers
raised me so tenderly the wrench was not half as bad as I had
anticipated. I had been there just over forty minutes. Then began the
journey in the ambulance. The men gave me a fine salute as I was taken
off and I waved good-bye. One of the Sisters from the train came in the
car with me and also the little French doctor whose hand I hung on to
most of the way, and which incidentally must have been like pulp when we
arrived.

As luck would have it the driver was a new man, and neither the doctor
nor the sister knew the way, so I had to give the directions. The doctor
was all for taking me to the French military hospital, but I asked to
be taken to the Casino.

"So this is what the men go through every day," I thought, as we were
into a hole and out again with a bump and the pain became almost too
much to bear. The doctor swore at the driver, and I took another grip of
his hand. "Bien difficile de ne pas faire ça," I murmured, for I knew he
had really manoeuvred it well. The constant give of the springs
jiggling endlessly up and down, up and down, was as trying as anything.
The trouble was I knew every hole in that road and soon we had to cross
railway lines! The sister, who was a stranger too, began to worry how
she would find her way back to the train, but I assured her once arrived
at the Casino, she only had to walk up to our camp to get a F.A.N.Y.
car. "I hope there won't be many people there when I'm pulled out," I
thought, "I hate being stared at in such a beastly mess," above all I
hated a fuss.

Now we had come to the railway lines. "What would it have been like
without morphia?" I wondered. Of course the drawbridge was up and that
meant at least ten minutes wait till the ships went through. My luck
seemed dead out. At last I heard the familiar clang as it rattled into
place, and we were over.

I dared not close my eyes, as I had a sort of feeling I'd never be able
to open them again. "Only up the slope and then I'm there. If I can't
keep them open till then, I'm done." The pain was getting worse again,
and from what the sister said I gathered something down there had begun
to hæmorrhage once more. Still no thought of the truth ever dawned on
me.

At last we arrived and slowly backed into place. I could not help seeing
the grim humour of the situation; I had driven so many wounded men there
myself. The Colonel, who must have heard, for he was waiting, looked
very white and worried, and Leather, one of the Duchess' drivers,
started visibly as I was pulled out. I was told after that my
complexion, or what could be seen of it, was ashen grey in colour and if
my eyes had not been open they would have thought the worst. I was
carried into the big hall and there my beloved Wuzzy found me. I heard a
little whine and felt a warm tongue licking my face--luckily he had not
been with me that morning.

"Take that ---- dog away, someone," cried the Colonel, who was peevish
in the extreme. "He's not a ---- dog," I protested, and then up came a
Padre who asked gravely, "What are you, my child?" Thinking I was now
fairly unrecognisable by this time with the Frenchman's hanky round my
head, etc., I replied, "A F.A.N.Y., of course!" This completely
scandalized the good Padre. When he had recovered, he said, "No, you
mistake me, what religion I mean?"

"He wants to know what to bury me under," I thought, "what a thoroughly
cheerful soul!" "C. of E.," I replied as per identity disc. He then took
my home address, which seemed an unnecessary fuss, and I was left in
peace. Captain C. was there as well and came over to the stretcher.

"I've broken both legs," I announced, "will I be able to ride again?"

"Of course you will," he said.

"Sure?" I asked.

"Rather," he replied, and I felt comforted.

I was then carried straight through ward I. into the operating theatre.
The men in bed looked rather startled, and Barratt, a man I had driven
and been visiting since, was near the door. What he said is hardly
repeatable. When the British Tommy is much moved he usually becomes
thoroughly profane! I waved to him as I disappeared through the door
into the theatre.

I was speedily undressed. Dicky appeared mysteriously from somewhere and
was a brick. The room seemed to be full of nurses and orderlies and then
I went slipping off into oblivion as the chloroform took effect (my
first dose and at that time very welcome) and at last I was in a land
where pain becomes obliterated in one vast empty space.

I woke that afternoon and of course wondered where I was. Everything
seemed to be aching and throbbing at once. I tried to move, but I felt
as if I was clamped to the bed. "This is terrible," I thought, "I must
be having a nightmare." Then I saw the cradle covering my legs. "What
could it be?" I wondered, and then in a flash the scenes of that morning
(or was it a week ago?) came back to me. I wondered if my back was all
right and felt carefully down the side. No, there was no bandage, and I
sighed with relief, though it ached like fury. I could feel the top of
the wooden splints on the one leg but nothing but bandages on the other.

My head had been sewn up, also my lip, and a nice tight bandage replaced
the hanky.

It was thumping wildly and presently an unseen figure gave me something
very cool to sip out of a feeding mug. Things straightened out a bit
after that, and I saw there were quantities of flowers in the room,
jugfuls in fact, which had been sent to cheer me along. Then something
in my leg, the one that was hurting most, gave a fearful tug and a jump
and I drew in my breath with a sobbing gasp. What could it be? It felt
just as if someone had tugged it on purpose, and it took ages to settle
down again. I looked mutely at my nurse for an explanation, and she put
a cool hand on mine.

It was the severed nerve, and I learnt to dread those involuntary jumps
that came so suddenly from nowhere and seized one like a deadly cramp.

Everything, including my back, was one vast ache punctuated by those
appalling nerve jumps that set every other one in my body tingling.

How I longed to turn on my side, but that was a luxury denied me for
weeks.

My friend Eva had heard the cheerful news when she returned from
Boulogne, where she had been all day, and she and Lowson were allowed to
come and see me for a few minutes.

"I've broken both legs," I stated. "Isn't it the limit? They don't half
hurt." They nodded sympathetically, not daring to give me a hint of the
real state of affairs.

"Captain C. says I'll be able to ride again though," I added, and once
more they nodded.

"I told you what would happen when I lost that charm," I said to Eva.

I asked after "Little Willie," and heard his remains had been towed to
camp, though being a Hun he would of course manage to escape somehow!

I had an adorable V.A.D. to look after me. The best I ever want to have.
She seemed to know exactly what I wanted without being told. I felt
almost too tired to speak, and in any case it's not easy with stitches
in your mouth.

The Padre, not my friend of the entrance hall I was glad to note, came
to see me and I had a Communion Service all to myself, as they thought I
might possibly die in the night.

I dreaded the nights as I'd dreaded nothing before in my life; with
darkness everything seemed to become intensified. Whenever I did manage
to snatch a few moments' sleep the dreadful demon that seemed to lurk
somewhere just out of sight would pop up and jerk my leg again. I would
think to myself "Now I will really catch him next time," and I would lie
waiting in readiness, but just as I thought I was safe, jerk! and my leg
would jump worse than ever. I clenched my fists in rage, and the V.A.D.
came from behind the screen to smooth the pillows for me. I used to lie
and think of all the thousands of men in hospital and perhaps even lying
untended in No-man's-land going through twice as much as I, and wondered
if the world would really be any the better for all this suffering or if
it would be forgotten as soon as the war was over. It seemed to be
rather a waste if it was to be so.

When morning came there were the dressings to be done. At 10 o'clock I
used to try and imagine it was really 11, and all over, but the rattle
of the trolley and terribly cheerful voice of Sister left room for no
illusions on that score. My hands were useful on these occasions, and at
the end of the half hour were excellent examples of the shape of my
teeth! They were practically the only parts completely uninjured, and I
knew that whatever happened I could still play the violin again.

I could not understand why one leg had jumping nerves and the other
apparently had none and argued that the one must be half-broken to
account for it. The B.E.F. specialist also paid frequent visits.

Then one evening, the third or fourth I think, Captain C. came in and
sat down in the shadow, looking very grave.

I think it must have been one of the worst half-hours he ever spent. It
is not a job any man would relish to tell someone who is particularly
fond of life that they have lost one leg and the other has only just
been saved! I was speechless for some minutes; in fact I refused to
believe it. It took a long time for the full horror of the situation to
dawn on me. It will seem odd that I did not feel I had lost my leg, but
one never has that sensation even when on crutches; the nerves are
unfortunately too much alive.

Captain C. stayed a long time and the evening drew on but still he sat
there and talked to me quietly in the darkness. I wondered why I
couldn't cry, but somehow it seemed to have nothing to do with me at
all. I was not the girl who had lost a leg. It was merely someone else I
was hearing about. "Jolly bad luck on them," I thought, "rotten not to
be able to run about any more."

Then my leg jumped and it began to dawn on me that I was the girl to
whom those things had happened. Still, I could not cry. Useless to urge
how lucky it was my knee had just been saved. What use was a knee, I
thought bitterly, if I could never fly round again! When was the very
soonest I could get about with one of these artificial legs, I asked,
and he swore to me that if all went well, in a year's time. A year! I
had fancied the autumn at latest. Little did I know it would be even
longer. That night was the worst I'd had. It is a useless occupation to
kick against the pricks anyway, and the hours dragged slowly on till
morning came at last. When it was light enough I looked round, as well
as I could at least, lying flat on my back, for something to distract my
thoughts. Seeing a _Pearson's Magazine_ with George Robey on the cover,
I drew it towards me and saw there was an article by him inside. Quite
sure that "George" would cheer me up if anyone could I turned the pages
and found it. It not only cheered me but gave me the first real ray of
hope. There in print was all Captain C. had told me the night before,
and somehow, to see a thing in print is doubly convincing. It was on
disabled soldiers and the pluck with which they bore their misfortunes.

There was one story of two of his friends who walked into his
dressing-room one day. After dancing about the place they told him they
were out of the army.

"I don't see much wrong with you," said G., eyeing them up and down.
They then whacked their legs soundly and never flinched once, for they
each had an artificial one! I blessed George from the bottom of my
heart. Someone told him this, and he promptly sat down and wrote to me,
enclosing several signed postcards and a drawing of himself at the end
of the letter--his own impression of what he looked like in the
pre-historic scene in _Zigzag_--and a promise of a box for the show as
soon as I got to Blighty. Some jolly good fellow!

The countless flowers I received were one of the chief joys. I simply
adored lying and looking at them.

Every single person I knew seemed to have remembered me, and boxes of
chocolates filled my shelf as well.

The Parc d'Automobiles Belges sent such a huge _gerbe_ that two men had
to carry it, and, emblazoned on a broad ribbon of the Belgian colours,
spanning the whole thing, was my name and an inscription in letters of
gold! Captain Saxon Davies, from the "Christol" in Boulogne, had fruit
sent over in the boat from Covent Garden delivered at the hospital every
morning by motor cycle. I felt quite overwhelmed; everyone seemed
determined to spoil me.

One day the Padre had come in to see me and was just concluding a prayer
when there was a tap, and the door opened on the instant. A large
bottle, the size of a magnum, was pushed in by an orderly, who, seeing
the Padre, departed in haste. (I was squinting up through my eyelashes
and saw it all and just pulled myself together in time to say "Amen.")

I knew who had sent it and hastened to explain: "It's not champagne,
Padre, it's Eau de Cologne!" That surprising sportsman replied: "Isn't
it? Bad luck. Have you a scent spray? No? Well, I'll get you one!" (Some
Padre!)

On the Sunday one of my people came over, thanks to the cheery telegrams
the War Office had been dispatching. It seemed an unnecessary fuss--the
Colonel, too, showed distinct signs of "needle"--but it was a dear
little Aunt who is never flustered by anything and who greeted me as if
we had parted only yesterday. The word "leg" was not included in her
dictionary at all. One is apt to be a bit touchy at first about these
little things, and though I had seen the most terrible wounds in our
hospital, amputations had always rattled me thoroughly.

The little Aunt subsequently entertained the austere A.P.M., while her
papers were being put in order, with most interesting details of my
childhood and how she had brought me up from a baby! The whole interview
was described to me as "utterly priceless," by the F.A.N.Y. who had
taken her there.

The French Battery sent daily to enquire and presently I was allowed
visitors. I began to realize after a while that in losing a leg you find
out exactly who your real friends are. There are those whom I shall
never forget who came day after day to read or talk to me--friends who
paid no attention when the leg gave one of its violent jerks, but went
on talking as if nothing had happened, a fact that helped me to bear it
more than all the expressed sympathy in the world. The type who says
"Whatever was that? How dreadful!" fortunately never came. It was only
due to those real friends that I was saved from slipping into a slough
of despond from which I might never have hoped to rise. Eva gave up
rides and tennis in order to come down every day, and considering the
little time there was to devote to these pastimes I appreciated it all
the more.

To say I was the best posted person in the place is no exaggeration. I
positively heard both sides of every question (top and bottom as well
sometimes) and did my best to make as little scandal as possible!

I was in a room off the "Grand Circle" of the one-time Casino, an
officers' ward. One night the Sister had left me for a moment and I
could have sworn I saw three Germans enter. I thought they said to me
that they had come to hide and if I gave them away they would hit my
leg. The mere suggestion left me dumb and I distinctly seemed to see
them getting under the two other empty beds in the room.

After a few minutes it dawned on me what a traitor I was, and bit by bit
I eased myself up on my elbows. "I must go and tell someone these
Germans are here," I thought, and turned back the clothes. After
throwing the small sand bags on the floor that kept my bad leg in
position, I next seized the cradle and pitched that overboard. I then
carefully lifted first one leg round and then the other and sat swaying
on the side of the bed. The splints naturally jutted out some distance
from the end of my one leg and this struck me as being very funny. I
wondered just how I could walk on them. Then I looked down at the other
and the proposition seemed funnier still; though I could feel as if the
leg was there, when I looked there was nothing. It was really extremely
odd! I sat there for some time cogitating these matters and was just
about to try how I could walk when very luckily in came an orderly.

"Germans!" I gasped, pointing to the two beds. I must have looked a
little odd sitting swaying there in a very inadequate "helpless" shirt
belonging to the hospital! With a muttered exclamation he rushed forward
just catching me in his arms, and I was back in bed in a twinkling. The
whole thing was so clear to me; even now I can fancy I really saw those
Germans, and the adorable V.A.D., after searching under the beds at my
request, sat with me for the rest of the night. My "good" leg was tied
securely down after that episode.

I was dead and buried (by report) several times that first week in
hospital and Sergeant Richardson from the Detail Issue Stores, who saw
we always had the best rations, came up to see me one afternoon. He was
so spick and span I hardly recognized him, and in his hand was a large
basket of strawberries. The very first basket that had appeared in the
fruiterers' that year. He sat down and told me how anxious "the boys"
were to hear how I really was. All sorts of exaggerated rumours had been
flying about.

He related how he had first heard the news on that fatal Wednesday and
how "a bloke" told him I had been killed outright. "I knocked 'im down,"
said the Sergeant with pride, "and when he comes to me the next morning
to tell to me you wos still alive, why, I was so pleased I knocked 'im
down again!"

Bad luck on the "bloke," what? I was convulsed, only the trouble was it
hurt me even to laugh, which was trying.

He had been out in Canada before the war as a cowboy and had always
promised to show me some day how to pick things off the ground when
galloping, a pastime we agreed I should now have to forgo. I assured him
if I couldn't do that, however, I had every intention of riding again.
Had I not heard that morning of someone who even hunted! I began to
appreciate the fact that I had my knee.

CHAPTER XVII

HOSPITALS: FRANCE AND ENGLAND

An old Frenchman came to the hospital every day with the English papers,
and looked in to leave me the _Mirror_, for which he would never accept
any payment. He had very few teeth and talked in an indistinct sort of
patois and insisted on holding long conversations in consequence! He
told me he would be _enchanté_ to bring me some novels _bien choisis par
ma femme_ (well chosen by my wife) one day, and in due course they
arrived--the 1 franc 25 edition.

The names in most cases were enough, and the pictures in some a little
more! If they were his wife's idea of suitable books for _jeunes filles_
I wondered vaguely with what exactly the grown-ups diverted themselves!
I had not the heart to tell him I never read them.

All the French people were extraordinarily kind and often came in to see
me. They never failed to bring a present of some sort either.
Mademoiselle Marguerite, the dear fat old lady who kept the flower shop
in the Rue, always brought some of her flowers, and looking round would
declare that I was trying to run an opposition to her! Madame from the
_Pharmacie_ came with a large bottle of scent, the little dressmaker
brought some lace. Monsieur and Madame from the "Omelette Shop" (a
popular resort of the F.A.N.Y.s) arrived very hot and smart one Sunday
afternoon. Monsieur, who was fat, with large rolls at the back of his
neck, was rather ill at ease and a little panting from the walk
upstairs. He had the air of a man trying to appear as if he were
somewhere else. He tiptoed carefully to the window and had a look at the
_plage_. "The bonhomme wished to come and assure himself which of the
_demoiselles anglaises_ it was, to whom had arrived so terrible a
thing," said Madame, "but me, I knew. Is it not so, Henri?" she cried to
her husband. "I said it was this one there," and she pointed
triumphantly to me. As they were going he produced a large bottle of
Burgundy from a voluminous pocket in his coat tails. "Ha! _le
bonhomme!_" cried the incorrigible wife, "he would first see which
demoiselle it was before he presented the bottle!" Hubby appeared to be
slightly discomfited at this and beat a hasty retreat.

And one day "Alice," whose baby I had doctored, arrived, and even she,
difficult as she found it to make both ends meet, had not come without
something. As she left she produced a little packet of lace wrapped in
newspaper, which she deposited on my bed with tears in her eyes.

I used to lie awake at nights and wonder about those artificial legs,
just what they were like, and how much one would be able to cope with
them. It was a great pastime! Now that I really know what they _are_
like it seems particularly humorous that I thought one would even sleep
in them. My great idea was to have the whole thing clamped on and keep
it there, and not tell anyone about it! Little did I know then what a
relief it is to get them off. One can only comfort oneself on these
occasions with the ancient jest that it is "the first seven years that
are the worst!"

It is surprising how the illusions about artificial legs get knocked on
the head one by one. I discussed it with someone at Roehampton later. I
thought at least I should have jointed toes! An enterprising French firm
sent me a booklet about them one day. That really did bring things home
to me and I cried for the first time.

My visitors varied in the social scale from French guttersnipes
(Jean-Marie, who had been wont to have my old boots, etc.), to
brigadier-generals. One afternoon Corporal Coy dropped in to enquire how
I was. As he remarked cheerfully, "It would have fair turned me up if
_you'd_ come round to the mortuary, miss!"

He then settled himself comfortably in the armchair and proceeded to
entertain me. I only wished it didn't hurt so much to laugh. I asked him
if he had any new songs, and he accordingly gave me a selection _sotto
voce_. He would stop occasionally and say, "Noa, I can't sing you that
verse, it's too bad, aye, but it's a pity!" and shaking his head
mournfully he would proceed with the next!

He was just in the middle of another when the door opened suddenly and
Sir A---- S---- (Inspector-General of Medical Services) was ushered in
by the Colonel. (The little corporal positively faded out of existence!)
I might add he was nearly if not quite as entertaining.

"Nobby" Clark, a scion of the Labour Battalion, was another visitor who
called one afternoon, and I got permission for him to come up. He was
one of the local comedians and quite as good as any professional. I
would have gone miles to hear him. His famous monologue with his
imaginary friend "Linchpin" invariably brought the house down. He was
broad Lancashire and I had had a great idea of taking him off at one of
the FANTASTIK Concerts some time, but unfortunately, it was not to be.
He came tiptoeing in. "I thought I might take the liberty of coming to
enquire after you," he said, twisting his cap at the bottom of my bed (I
had learnt by this time to keep both hands hidden from sight as a hearty
shake is a jarring event). I asked him to sit down. "Bein' as you might
say fellow artistes; 'aving appeared so often on the same platform, I
had to come," he said affably! "I promised 'the boys' (old labour men of
about fifty and sixty years) I'd try and get a glimpse of you," he
continued, and he sat there and told me all the funny things he could
think of, or rather, they merely bubbled forth naturally.

The weather--it was June then--got fearfully hot, and I found life
irksome to a degree, lying flat on my back unable to move, gazing at the
wonderful glass candelabra hanging from the middle of the ceiling. How I
wished each little crystal could tell me a story of what had happened in
this room where fortunes had been lost and won! It would have passed the
time at least.

A friend had a periscope made for me, a most ingenious affair, through
which I was able to see people walking on the sands, and above all
horses being taken out for exercise in the mornings.

The first W.A.A.C.s came out to France about this time, and I watched
them with interest through my periscope. I heard that a sand-bagged
dug-out had also been made for us in camp, and tin hats handed out; a
wise precaution in view of the bricks and shrapnel that rattled about
when we went out during air raids. I never saw the dug-out of course. We
had a mild air-raid one night, but no damage was done.

My faithful friends kept me well posted with all the news, and I often
wonder on looking back if it had not been for them how ever I could have
borne life. The leg still jumped when I least expected it, and of course
I was never out of actual pain for a minute.

One day, it was June then, the dressings were done at least an hour
earlier than usual, and the Colonel came in full of importance and
ordered the other two beds to be taken out of the ward. The Sister
could get nothing out of him for a long time. All he would say was that
the French Governor-General was going to give me the freedom of the
city! She knew he was only ragging and got slightly exasperated. At
last, as a great secret, he whispered to me that I was going to be
decorated with the French _Croix de Guerre_ and silver star. I was
dumbfounded for some minutes, and then concluded it was another joke and
paid no more attention. But the room was being rapidly cleared and I was
more and more puzzled. He arranged the vases of flowers where he thought
they showed to the best advantage, and seemed altogether in extremely
good form.

At last he became serious and assured us that what he had said was
perfectly true. The mere thought of such an event happening made me feel
quite sick and faint, it was so overwhelming.

The Colonel offered to bet me a box of chocolates the General would
embrace me, as is the custom in France on these occasions, and the
suggestion only added to my fright!

About 11 o'clock as he had said, General Ditte, the governor of the
town, was announced, and in he marched, followed by his two
aides-de-camp in full regalia, the English Base Commandant and Staff
Captain, the Colonel of the hospital, the Belgian General and his two
aides-de-camp, as well as some French naval officers and attachés. Boss,
Eva, and the Sister were the only women present. The little room seemed
full to overflowing, and I wondered if at the supreme moment I would
faint or weep or be sick, or do something similarly foolish. The General
himself was so moved, however, while he read the "citation," and so were
all the rest, that that fact alone seemed to lend me courage. He turned
half way through to one of the aides-de-camp, who fumbled about (like
the best man at a wedding for the ring!) and finally, from his last
pocket, produced the little green case containing the _Croix de Guerre_.

The supreme moment had arrived. The General's fingers trembled as he
lifted the medal from its case and walked forward to pin it on me.
Instead of wearing the usual "helpless" shirt, I had been put into some
of the afore-mentioned Paris frillies for the great occasion, and
suddenly I saw two long skewer-like prongs, like foreign medals always
have, bearing slowly down upon me! "Heavens," I thought, "I shall be
harpooned for a certainty!" Obviously the rest of the room thought so
too, and they all waited expectantly. It was a tense moment--something
had to be done and done quickly. An inspiration came to me. Just in the
nick of time I seized an unembroidered bit firmly between the finger and
thumb of both hands and held it a safe distance from me for the medal to
be fixed; the situation was saved. A sigh of relief (or was it
disappointment?) went up as the General returned to finish the citation,
and contrary to expectation he had not kissed me! He confided to someone
later I looked so white he was afraid I might faint. (It was a pity
about that box of chocolates, I felt!)

Two large tears rolled down his cheeks as he finished, and then came
forward to shake hands; after that they all followed suit and I held on
to the bed with the other, for in the fullness of their hearts they gave
a jolly good shake!

I was tremendously proud of my medal--a plain cross of bronze, with
crossed swords behind, made from captured enemy guns, with the silver
star glittering on the green and red ribbon above. It all seemed like a
dream, I could not imagine it really belonged to me.

I was at the Casino nearly two months before I was sent to England in a
hospital ship. It was a very sad day for me when I had to say goodbye to
my many friends. Johnson and Marshall, the two mechanics, came up the
day before to bid goodbye, the former bringing a wonderful paper knife
that he had been engaged in making for weeks past. A F.A.N.Y button was
at the end of the handle, and the blade and rivets were composed of
English, French, and Boche shells, and last, but by no means least, he
had "sweated" on a ring from one of Susan's plugs! That pleased me more
than anything else could have done, and I treasure that paper knife
among my choicest souvenirs. Nearly all the F.A.N.Y.s came down the
night before I left, and I felt I'd have given all I possessed to stay
with them, in spite of the hard work and discomfort, so aptly described
in a parody of one of Rudyard Kipling's poems:

THE F.A.N.Y.

     I wish my mother could see me now with a grease-gun under my car,
     Filling my differential, ere I start for the camp afar,
     Atop of a sheet of frozen iron, in cold that'd make you cry.
     "Why do we do it?" you ask. "Why? We're the F.A.N.Y."
        I used to be in Society--once;
        Danced, hunted, and flirted--once;
        Had white hands and complexion--once:
        Now I'm an F.A.N.Y.

     That is what we are known as, that is what you must call,
     If you want "Officers' Luggage," "Sisters," "Patients" an' all,
     "Details for Burial Duty," "Hospital Stores" or "Supply,"
     Ring up the ambulance convoy,
     "Turn out the F.A.N.Y."
        They used to say we were idling--once;
        Joy-riding round the battle-field--once;
        Wasting petrol and carbide--once:
        Now we're the F.A.N.Y.

     That is what we are known as; we are the children to blame,
     For begging the loan of a spare wheel, and fitting a car to the same;
     We don't even look at a workshop, but the Sergeant comes up with a sigh:
     "It's no use denyin' 'em _nothin_'!
     Give it the F.A.N.Y."
        We used to fancy an air raid--once;
        Called it a bit of excitement--once;
        Prided ourselves on our tin-hats once:
        Now we're the F.A.N.Y.

     That is what we are known as; we are the girls who have been
     Over three years at the business; felt it, smelt it and seen.
     Remarkably quick to the dug-out now, when the Archies rake the sky;
     Till they want to collect the wounded, then it's
     "Out with the F.A.N.Y."
        "Crank! crank! you Fannies;
        Stand to your 'buses again;
        Snatch up the stretchers and blankets,
        Down to the barge through the rain."
        Up go the 'planes in the dawning;
        'Phone up the cars to "Stand by."
        There's many a job with the wounded:
        "Forward, the F.A.N.Y."

I dreaded the journey over, and, though the sea for some time past had
been as smooth as glass, quite a storm got up that evening. All the
orderlies who had waited on me came in early next morning to bid
goodbye, and Captain C. carried me out of my room and downstairs to the
hall. I insisted on wearing my F.A.N.Y. cap and tunic to look as if
nothing was the matter, and once more I was on a stretcher. A bouquet of
red roses arrived from the French doctor just before I was carried out
of the hall, so that I left in style! It was an early start, for I was
to be on board at 7 a.m., before the ship was loaded up from the train.
Eva drove me down in her ambulance and absolutely crawled along, so
anxious was she to avoid all bumps. One of the sisters came with me and
was to cross to Dover as well (since the Boche had not even respected
hospital ships, sisters only went over with special cases).

It struck me as odd that all the trees were out; they were only in bud
when I last saw them.

Many of the French people we passed waved adieu, and I saw them
explaining to their friends in pantomime just what had happened. On the
way to the ship I lost my leg at least four times over!

The French Battery had been told I was leaving, and was out in full
force, and I stopped to say goodbye and thank them for all they had done
and once again wave farewell--so different from the last time! They were
deeply moved, and followed with the doctor to the quay where they stood
in a row wiping their eyes. I almost felt as if I was at my own
funeral!

The old stretcher-bearers were so anxious not to bump me that they were
clumsier in their nervousness than I had ever seen them! As I was pulled
out I saw that many of my friends, English, French, and Belgian, had
come down to give me a send off. They stood in absolute silence, and
again I felt as if I was at my own funeral. As I was borne down the
gangway into the ship I could bear it no longer, and pulled off my cap
and waved it in farewell. It seemed to break the spell, and they all
called out "Goodbye, good luck!" as I was borne round the corner out of
sight to the little cabin allotted me.

Several of them came on board after, which cheered me tremendously. I
was very keen to have Eva with me as far as Dover, but, unfortunately,
official permission had been refused. The captain of the ship, however,
was a tremendous sportsman and said: "Of course, if my ship starts and
you are carried off by mistake, Miss Money, you can't expect me to put
back into port again, and _I_ shan't have seen you," he added with a
twinkle in his eye as he left us. You may be sure Eva was just too late
to land! He came along when we were under way and feigned intense
surprise. As a matter of fact he was tremendously bucked and said since
his ship had been painted grey instead of white and he had been given a
gun he was no longer a "hospital," but a "wounded transport," and
therefore was within the letter of the law to take a passenger if he
wanted to. The cabin was on deck and had been decorated with flowers in
every available space. The crossing, as luck would have it, was fairly
rough, and one by one the vases were pitched out of their stands on to
the floor. It was a tremendous comfort to me to have old Eva there. Of
course it leaked out as these things will, and there was even the
question of quite a serious row over it, but as the captain and everyone
else responsible had "positively not seen her," there was no one to
swear she had not overstayed her time and been carried off by mistake!
At Dover I had to say goodbye to her, the sister, and the kindly
captain, and very lonely I felt as my stretcher was placed on a trolley
arrangement and I was pushed up to the platform along an asphalt
gangway. The orderlies kept calling me "Sir," which was amusing. "Your
kit is in the front van, sir," and catching sight of my face, "I
mean--er--Miss, Gor'blimee! well, that's the limit!" and words failed
them.

I was put into a ward on the train all by myself. I didn't care for that
train much, it stopped and started with such jolts, otherwise it was
quite comfy, and all the orderlies came in and out on fictitious errands
to have a look and try and get me anything I wanted. The consequence was
I had no less than three teas, two lots of strawberries, and a pile of
books and periodicals I could never hope to read! I had had lunch on
board when we arrived at one o'clock, before I was taken off. The
reason the journey took so long was that the loading and unloading of
stretchers from ship to train is a lengthy job and cannot be hustled. We
got to London about five. The E.M.O. was a cheery soul and came and
shook hands with me, and then, joy of joys, got four stretcher-bearers
to take me to an ambulance. With four to carry you there is not the
slightest movement, but with two there is the inevitable up and down
jog; only those who have been through it will know what I mean. I had
got Eva to wire to some friends, also to Thompson, the section leader
who was on leave, and by dint of Sherlock Holmes stunts they had
discovered at what station I was arriving. It was cheering to see some
familiar faces, but the ambulance only stopped for a moment, and there
was no time to say anything.

As I was driven out of the station--it was Charing Cross--the old flower
women were loud in their exclamations. "Why, it's a dear little girl!"
cried one, and she bombarded Thompson with questions. (I felt the
complete fool!) "Bin drivin' the boys, 'as she? Bless 'er," and they ran
after the car, throwing in whole bunches of roses galore! I could have
hugged them for it, dear fat old things! They did their bit as much as
any of them, and never failed to throw their choicest roses to "the
boys" in the ambulances as they were driven slowly past.

My troubles, I am sorry to say, began from then onwards. England seemed
quite unprepared for anything so unorthodox, and the general impression
borne in on me was that I was a complete nuisance. There was no
recognized hospital for "the likes of us" to go to, and I was taken to a
civilian one where war-work seemed entirely at a discount. I was carried
to a lift and jerked up to the top floor by a housemaid, when I was put
on a trolley and taken into a ward full of people. A sister came
forward, but there was no smile on her face and not one word of welcome,
and I began to feel rather chilled. "Put the case there," she said,
indicating an empty bed, and the "case," feeling utterly miserable and
dejected, was deposited! The rattle and noise of that ward was such a
contrast to my quiet little room in France (rather humorous this) that I
woke with a jump whenever I closed my eyes.

Presently the matron made her rounds, and very luckily found there was a
vacant room, and I was taken into it forthwith. There was a notice
painted on the wall opposite to the effect that the bed was "given in
remembrance" of the late so-and-so of so-and-so--with date and year of
death, etc. I can see it now. If only it had been on the door outside
for the benefit of the visitors! It had the result of driving "the case"
almost to the verge of insanity. I could say the whole thing backwards
when I'd been in the room half an hour, not to mention the number of
letters and the different words one could make out of it! There was no
other picture in the room, as the walls were of some concrete stuff, so,
try as one would, it was impossible not to look at it. "Did he die in
this bed?" I asked interestedly of the sister, nodding in the direction
of the "In Memoriam."--"I'm sure I don't know," said she, eyeing me
suspiciously. "We have enough to do without bothering about things like
that," and she left the room. I began to feel terribly lonely; how I
missed all my friends and the cheerful, jolly orderlies in France! The
frowsy housemaid who brought up my meals was anything but inspiring. My
dear little "helpless" shirt was taken away and when I was given a good
stuff nightdress in its place, I felt my last link with France had gone!

The weather--it was July then--got terribly hot, and I lay and
sweltered. It was some relief to have all bandages removed from my right
leg.

There were mews somewhere in the vicinity, and I could smell the horses
and even hear them champing in their stalls! I loved that, and would lie
with my eyes shut, drinking it in, imagining I was back in the stables
in far away Cumberland, sitting on the old corn bin listening to Jimmy
Jardine's wonderful tales of how the horses "came back" to him in the
long ago days of his youth. When they cleaned out the stables I had my
window pulled right up! "Fair sick it makes me," called my neighbour
from the next room, but I was quite happy. Obviously everyone can't be
satisfied in this world!

The doctor was of the "bluff and hearty" species and, on entering the
first morning, had exclaimed, in a hail-fellow-well-met tone, "So you're
the young lady who's had her leg chopped off, are you? ha, ha!" Hardly
what one might call tactful, what? I withdrew my hand and put it behind
my back. In time though we became fairly good friends, but how I longed
to be back in France again!

Being a civilian hospital they were short-staffed. "Everyone seems mad
on war work," said one sister to me peevishly, "they seem to forget
there are civilians to nurse," and she flounced out of the room.

A splendid diversion was caused one day when the Huns came over in full
force (thirty to forty Gothas) in a daylight raid. I was delighted! This
was something I really _did_ understand. It was topping to hear the guns
blazing away once more. Everyone in the place seemed to be ringing their
electric bells, and, afraid I might miss something, I put my finger on
mine and held it there. Presently the matron appeared: "You can't be
taken to the cellar," she said, "it's no good being nervous, you're as
safe here as anywhere!" "It wasn't that," I said, "I wondered if I might
have a wheel chair and go along the corridor to see them." "Rubbish,"
said she, "I never heard of such a thing," and she hurried on to quiet
the patient in the next room. But by dint of screwing myself half on to
a chair near the window I did just get a glimpse of the sky and saw
about five of the Huns manoeuvring. Good business!

One of the things I suffered from most, was visitors whom I had never
seen in my life before. There would be a tap at the door; enter lady,
beautifully dressed and a large smile. The opening sentence was
invariably the same. "You won't know who I am, but I'm Lady L----, Miss
so-and-so's third cousin. She told me all about you, and I thought I
really _must_ come and have a peep." Enters and subsides into chair near
bed smiling sweetly, and in nine cases out of ten jiggles toes against
it, which jars one excessively. "You must have suffered _terribly_! I
hear your leg was absolutely _crushed_! And now tell me all about it!
Makes you rather sick to talk of it? Fancy that! Conscious all the time,
dear me! What you must have gone _through_! (Leg gives one of its
jumps.) Whatever was that? Only keeping your knee from getting stiff,
how funny! _Lovely_ having the _Croix de Guerre_. Quite makes up for it.
What? Rather have your _leg_. Dear me, how odd! Wonderful what they do
with those artificial limbs nowadays. Know a man and really you can't
tell _which_ is which. (Naturally not, any fool could make a leg the
shape of the other!) Well, I really _must_ be going. I shall be able to
tell all my friends I've _seen_ you now and been able to cheer you up a
little. _Poor_ girl! _So_ unfortunate! Terribly cheerful, aren't you?
Don't seem to mind a bit. Would you kindly ring for the lift? I find
these stairs _so trying_. I've enjoyed myself so much. Goodbye." Exit
(goodby-ee). In its way it was amusing at first, but one day I sent for
the small porter, Tommy, aged twelve (I had begun to sympathise with
the animals in the Zoo). "Tommy," I said, "if you _dare_ to let anyone
come up and see me unless they're _personal_ friends, you won't get that
shell head I promised you. Don't be put off, make them describe me.
You'll be sorry if you don't."

Tremendous excitement one day when I went out for my first drive in a
car sent from the Transport Department of the Red Cross. Two of the
nurses came with me, and I was lifted in by the stalwart driver. "A
quiet drive round the park, I suppose, Miss?" he asked. "No," I said
firmly, "down Bond Street and then round and round Piccadilly Circus
first, and then the Row to watch the people riding" (an extremely
entertaining pastime). He had been in the Argentine and "knew a horse if
he saw one," and no mistake.

The next day a huge gilded basket of blue hydrangeas arrived from the
"bird" flower shop in Bond Street, standing at least three feet high,
the sole inscription on the card being, "From the Red Cross driver." It
was lovely and I was extremely touched; my room for the time being was
transformed.

I was promised a drive once a week, but they were unfortunately
suspended as I had an operation on July 31st for the jumping sciatic
nerve and once more was reduced to lying flat on my back. There was a
man over the mews who beat his wife regularly twice per week, or else
_she_ beat him. I could never discover which, and used to lie staring
into the darkness listening to the "sounds of revelry by night," not to
mention the choicest flow of language floating up into the air. I was
measured for a pair of crutches some time later by a lugubrious
individual in a long black frock coat looking like an undertaker. I
objected to the way he treated me, as if I were already a "stiff,"
ignoring me completely, saying to the nurse: "Kindly put the case
absolutely flat and full length," whereupon he solemnly produced a tape
measure!

I was moved to a nursing home for the month of August, as the hospital
closed for cleaning, and there, quite forgetting to instruct the people
about strangers, I was beset by another one afternoon. A cousin who has
been gassed and shell-shocked had come in to read to me. There was a tap
on the door. "Mrs. Fierce," announced the porter, and in sailed a lady
whom I had never seen in my life before. (I want the readers of these
"glimpses" to know that the following conversation is absolutely as it
took place and has not been exaggerated or added to in the very least.)

She began with the old formula. "You won't know me, etc., but I'm
so-and-so." She did not pause for breath, but went straight ahead. "It's
the second time I've been to call on you," she said, in an aggrieved
voice. "I came three weeks ago when you were at ---- Hospital. You had
_just_ had an operation and were coming round, and would you believe it,
though I had come _all_ the way from West Kensington, they wouldn't let
me come up and see you--positively _rude_ the boy was at the door." (I
uttered a wordless prayer for Tommy!)

"It was very kind of you," I murmured, "but I hardly think you would
have liked to see me just then; I wasn't looking my best. Chloroform has
become one of my _bêtes noires_." "Oh, I shouldn't have minded," said
the lady; "I thought it was so inconsiderate of them not to let me up.
So sad for you, you lost your _foot_," she chattered on, eyeing the
cradle with interest. I winked at my cousin, a low habit but excusable
on occasions. We did not enlighten her it was more than the foot. Then I
was put through the usual inquisition, except that it was if possible a
little more realistic than usual. "Did it bleed?" she asked with gusto.
I began to enjoy myself (one gets hardened in time). "Fountains," I
replied, "the ground is still discoloured, and though they have dug it
over several times it's no good--it's like Rizzio's blood at Holyrood,
the stain simply won't go away!" My cousin hastily sneezed. "How very
curious," said the lady, "so interesting to hear all these details
_first_ hand! Young man," and she fixed Eric with her lorgnettes, "have
_you_ been wounded--I see _no_ stripe on your arm?" and she eyed him
severely. Now E. has always had a bit of a stammer, but at times it
becomes markedly worse. We were both enjoying ourselves tremendously:
"N-n-n-no," he replied, "s-s-s-shell s-s-s-shock!"

"Dear me, however did _that_ happen?" she asked. "I w-w-was b-b-b-blown
i-i-i-into t-t-t-the air," he replied, smiling sweetly.

"How high?" asked the lady, determined to get to the bottom of it, and
not at all sure in her own mind he wasn't a conscientious objector
masquerading in uniform. "As all t-t-the other m-m-men were k-k-killed
b-b-b-by t-t-t-the same s-s-shell, t-t-there was n-n-no one t-t-there
t-t-t-to c-c-c-count," he replied modestly. (I knew the whole story of
how he had been left for two whole days in No-man's-land, with Boche
shells dropping round the place where he was lying, and could have
killed her cheerfully if the whole thing had not been so funny.)

Having gleaned more lurid details with which we all too willingly
supplied her, she finally departed.

"Fierce by name and fierce by nature," I said, as the door closed. "I
wonder sometimes if those women spend all their time rushing from bed to
bed asking the men to describe all they've been through--I feel like
writing to _John Bull_ about it," I added, "but I don't believe the
average person would believe it. Tact seems to be a word unknown in some
vocabularies." The cream of the whole thing was that, not content with
the information she had gleaned, when she got downstairs, she asked to
see my nurse. The poor thing was having tea at the time, but went
running down in case it was something important.

"Will you tell me," said Mrs. F. confidentially, "if that young man is
engaged to Miss B.?" (The "young man," I might add, has a very charming
fiancée of his own), and how we all laughed when she came up with the
news!

The faithful "Wuzzy" had been confided to the care of a friend at the
Remount Camp, and I was delighted to get some snaps of him taken by a
Frenchman at Neuve-Chapelle--I felt my "idiot son" was certainly seeing
life! "In reply to your question" (said my friend in a letter), "as to
whether I have discovered Wuzzy's particular 'trait' yet, the answer as
far as I can make out appears to be 'chickens'!"

In time I began to get about on crutches, and the question next arose
where I was to go and convalesce, and the then strange, but now all too
familiar phrase was first heard. "If you were only a man, of course it
would be _so_ easy." As if it was _my_ fault I wasn't? It was no good
protesting I had always wished I had been one; it did not help matters
at all.

I came to the conclusion there were too many women in England. If I had
only been a Boche girl now I might at least have had several Donnington
Halls put at my disposal! I was finally sent to Brighton, and thanks to
Lady Dudley's kindness, became an out-patient of one of her officers'
hospitals, but even then it was a nuisance being a girl. Another
disadvantage was that all the people treated me as if I was a strange
animal from the Zoo; men on crutches had become unfortunately a too
familiar sight, but a F.A.N.Y. was something quite new, and therefore an
object to be stared at. Some days I felt quite brazen, but others I went
out for about five minutes and returned, refusing to move for the rest
of the day. It would have been quite different if several F.A.N.Y.s had
been in a similar plight, but alone, one gets tired of being gaped at as
a _rara avis_.

The race meetings were welcome events and great sport, to which we all
went with gusto. I fell down one day on the Parade, getting into my bath
chair. It gave me quite a jar, but it must be got over some time as a
lesson, for of course I put out the leg that wasn't there and went smack
on the asphalt! One learns in time to remember these details.

It was ripping to see friends from France who ran down for the day, and
when the F.A.N.Y.s came over, how eagerly I listened to all the news!
The lines from one of our songs often rang through my brain:

     "On the sandy shores of France
      Looking Blighty-wards to sea,
      There's a little camp a-sitting
      And it's all the world to me--
      For the cars are gently humming,
      And the 'phone bell's ringing yet,
      Come up, you British Convoy,
      Come ye up to Fontinettes--
      On the road to Fontinettes
      Where the trains have to be met;
      Can't you hear the cars a-chunking
      Through the Rue to Fontinettes?

     "On the road to Fontinettes
      Where the stretcher-bearers sweat,
      And the cars come up in convoy,
      From the camp to Fontinettes.

     "For 'er uniform is khaki,
      And 'er little car is green,
      And 'er name is only FANNY
      (And she's not exactly clean!)
      And I see'd 'er first a'smoking
      Of a ration cigarette.
      And a'wasting army petrol
      Cleaning clothes, 'cos she's in debt."
         On the road to Fontinettes, etc.

I longed to be back so much sometimes that it amounted almost to an
ache! This, and the fact of being the only one, I feel sure partly
accounted for it that I became ill. According to the doctor I ought to
have been in a proper hospital, and then once again the difficulty arose
of finding one to go to. Boards and committees sat on me figuratively
and almost literally, too, but could come to no conclusion. Though I
could be in a military hospital in France it was somehow not to be
thought of in England. Finally I heard a W.A.A.C.'s ward had been opened
in London at a military hospital run by women doctors for Tommies, and I
promptly sat down and applied for admittance. Yes, I could go there, and
so at the end of November, I found myself once more back in London. I
was in a little room--a W.A.A.C. officers' ward, on the same floor as
the medical ward for W.A.A.C. privates. I met them at the concerts that
were often given in the recreation room, and they were extremely kind
to me. I was amused to hear them discussing their length of active
service. One who could boast of six months was decidedly the nut of the
party! We had a great many air raids, and were made to go down to the
ground floor, which annoyed me intensely. I hated turning out, apart
from the cold; it seemed to be giving in to the Boche to a certain
extent.

I loved my charlady. She was the nearest approach to the cheery
orderlies of those far away days in France, I had struck since I came
over. Her smiling face, as she appeared at the door every morning with
broom and coalscuttle, was a tonic in itself. I used to keep her talking
just as long as I could--she was so exceedingly alive.

"Do I mind the air rides, Miss? Lor' bless you no--nothin' I like better
than to 'ear the guns bangin' awy. If it wasn't for the childer I'd fair
enjoy it--we lives up 'hIslington wy, and the first sounds of firing I
wrep them up, and we all goes to the church cryp and sings 'ims with the
parson's wife a'plying. Grand it is, almost as good as a revival
meeting!"

(One in the eye for Fritz what?)

I asked her, as it was getting near Christmas, if she would let me take
her two little girls (eight and twelve respectively) to see a children's
fairy play. She was delighted. They had never been to a theatre at all,
and were waiting for me one afternoon outside the hospital gates, very
clean and smiling, and absolutely dancing with excitement. I was of
course on crutches, and as it was a greasy, slippery day, looked about
for a taxi. It was hopeless, and without a word the elder child ran off
to get one. The way she nipped in and out of the traffic was positively
terrifying, but she returned triumphant in the short space of five
minutes, and we were soon at the door of the theatre.

I had to explain that the wicked fairies leaping so realistically from
Pandora's box weren't real at all, but I'm sure I did not convince the
smaller one, who was far too shy and excited to utter a word beyond a
startled whisper: "Yes, Miss," or "No, Miss." There were wails in the
audience when the witch appeared, and several small boys near us doubled
under their seats in terror, like little rabbits going to earth,
refusing to come out again, poor little pets!

In the interval the two children watched the orchestra with wide-eyed
interest. "I guess that guy wot's wyving 'is arms abaht like that
(indicating the conductor) must be getting pretty tired," said the elder
to me. I felt he would have been gratified to know there was someone who
sympathised!

Altogether it was a most entertaining afternoon, and when we came out in
the dark and rain the eldest again slipped off to get a taxi, dodging
cabs and horses with the dexterity of an acrobat.

Christmas came round, and there was tremendous competition between the
different wards, which vied with each other over the most original
decorations.

At midday I was asked into the W.A.A.C.'s ward, where we had roast beef
and plum pudding. The two women doctors who ran the hospital visited
every ward and drank a toast after lunch. I don't know what they toasted
in the men's wards, but in the W.A.A.C.'s it was roughly, "To the women
of England, and the W.A.A.C.s who would win the war, etc." It seemed too
bad to leave out the men who were in the trenches, so I drank one
privately to them on my own.

As I sat in my little ward that night I thought of the happy times we
had had last Christmas in the convoy, only a short year before.

CHAPTER XVIII

ROEHAMPTON: "BOB" THE GREY, AND THE ARMISTICE

After Christmas it was thought I was well enough to be fitted with an
artificial limb, and in due course I applied to the limbless hospital at
Roehampton. The reply came back in a few days.

     "DEAR SIR, (I groaned),

     "You must apply to so-and-so and we will then be able to
     give you a bed in a fortnight's time, etc.

     _Signed_:         "SISTER D."

My heart sank. I was up against the old question again, and in
desperation I wrote back:

     "DEAR MADAM,

     "My trouble is that I am a girl, etc."

and poured forth all my woes on the subject. Sister D., who proved to be
an absolute topper, was considerably amused and wrote back most
sympathetically. She promised to do all she could for me and told the
surgeon the whole story, and it was arranged for him to see me and
advise what type of leg I had better wear and then decide where I was to
be put up later. He was most kind, but I returned from the interview
considerably depressed for, before I could wear an artificial leg,
another operation had to be performed. It took place at the military
hospital in January and I felt I should have to hurry in order to be
"doing everything as usual" by the time the year was up, as Captain C.
had promised.

For some reason, when I came round I found myself in the big W.A.A.C.s'
ward, and never returned to my little room again. I did not mind the
change so much except for the noise and the way the whole room vibrated
whenever anyone walked or ran past my bed. They nearly always did the
latter, for they were none of them very ill. The building was an old
workhouse which had been condemned just before the war, and the floor
bent and shook at the least step. I found this particularly trying as
the incision a good six inches long had been made just behind my knee,
and naturally, as it rested on a pillow, I felt each vibration.

The sheets were hard to the touch and grey in colour even when clean,
and the rows of scarlet blankets were peculiarly blinding. I realised
the meaning of the saying: "A red rag to a bull," and had every sympathy
with the animal! (It was so humorous to look at things from a patient's
point of view.) It had always been our ambition at Lamarck to have red
top blankets on every bed in our wards. "They make the place look so
bright and cheerful!" I daresay these details would have passed
unnoticed in the ordinary way, but I had already had eight months of
hospitals, during which time I had hardly ever been out of pain, and all
I craved was quiet and rest. Some of the women doctors were terribly
sarcastic.

We were awakened at 5 a.m. as per hospital routine (how often I had been
loth to waken the patients at Lamarck), and most of the W.A.A.C.s got up
and dressed, the ones who were not well enough remaining in bed. At six
o'clock we had breakfast, and one of them pushed a trolly containing
slices of bread and mugs of tea from bed to bed. It rattled like a
pantechnicon and shook the whole place, and I hated it out of all
proportion. The ward was swept as soon as breakfast was over. How I
dreaded that performance! I lay clenching the sides of the bed in
expectation; for as surely as fate the sweeping W.A.A.C. caught her
brush firmly in one of the legs. "Sorry, miss, did it ketch you?" she
would exclaim, "there, I done it agin; drat this broom!"

There were two other patients in the room who relished the quiet in the
afternoons when most of the W.A.A.C.s went out on pass. One of them was
a sister from the hospital, and the other a girl suffering from cancer,
both curtained off in distant corners. "Now for a sleep, sister," I
would call, as the last one departed, but as often as not just as we
were dropping off a voice would rouse us, saying: "Good afternoon, I've
just come in to play the piano to you for a little," and without waiting
for a reply a cheerful lady would sit down forthwith and bang away
virtuously for an hour!

We had had a good many air raids before Christmas and I hoped Fritz
would reserve his efforts in that direction till I could go about on
crutches again. No such luck, however, for at 10 o'clock one night the
warnings rang out. I trusted, as I had had my operations so recently, I
should be allowed to remain; but some shrapnel had pierced the roof of
the ward in a former raid and everyone had to be taken down willy-nilly.
I hid under the sheets, making myself as flat as possible in the hopes
of escaping. I was discovered of course and lifted into a wheel chair
and taken down in the lift to the Padre's room, where all the W.A.A.C.s
were already assembled. Our guns were blazing away quite heartily, the
"London front" having recently been strengthened. Just as I got down,