Fanny Goes to War Page 10

  I frequently met an old A.S.C. driver at one of the hospitals where I had a long wait while the rations were unloaded. He was fat, rosy, and smiling, and we became great friends. He was at least sixty; and told me that when War broke out, and his son enlisted, he could not bear to feel he was out of it, and joined up to do his bit as well. He was a taxi owner-driver in peace times, and had three of them; the one he drove being fitted with "real silver vauses!" I heard all about the "missus," of whom he was very proud, and could imagine how anxiously she watched the posts for letters from her only son and her old man.

  Some months later when I was driving an ambulance a message was brought to me that Stone was in hospital suffering from bronchitis. I went off to visit him.

  "I'm for home this time," he said sadly, "but won't the old missus be pleased?" I looked at his smiling old face and thought indeed she would.

  He asked particularly if I would drive him to the boat when he was sent to England. "It'll seem odd to be going off on a stretcher, Miss," he said sadly, "just like one of the boys, and not even so much as a scratch to boast of." I pointed out that there were many men in England half his age who had done nothing but secure cushy jobs for themselves.

  "Well, Miss," he said, as I rose to leave, "it'll give me great pleasure to drive you about London for three days when the war's over, and in my best taxi, too, with the silver vauses!"

  (N.B. I'm still looking for him.)

  Life in the Convoy Camp was very different from Lamarck, and I missed the cheery companionship of the others most awfully. At meal times only half the drivers would be in, and for days at a time you hardly saw your friends.

  There were no "10 o'clocks" either. Of course, if you happened to be in camp at that time you probably got a cup of tea in the cook-house, but it's not much of a pastime with no one else to drink it with you. "Pleasant Sunday Evenings" were also out of the question for, with all the best intentions in the world, no one could have spent an evening in our Mess tent (even to the accompaniment of soft music) and called it "pleasant!" They were still carried on at Lamarck, however, and whenever possible we went down in force.

  A BLACK DAY IN THE LIFE OF A CONVOY F.A.N.Y.

  (By kind permission of Winifred Mordaunt,

  From "Barrack Room Ballads

  of the F.A.N.Y. Corps.")

  Gentle reader, when you've seen this,

  Do not think, please, that I mean this

  As a common or garden convoy day,

  For the Fany, as a habit

  Is as jolly as a rabbit—

  Or a jay.

  But the're days in one's existence,

  When the ominous persistence

  Of bad luck goes thundering heavy on your track,

  Though you shake him off with laughter,

  He will leap the moment after—

  On your back.

  'Tis the day that when on waking,

  You will find that you are taking,

  Twenty minutes when you haven't two to spare,

  And the bloomin' whistle's starting,

  When you've hardly thought of parting—

  Your front hair!

  You acquire the cheerful knowledge,

  Ere you rush to swallow porridge,

  That "fatigue" has just been added to your bliss,

  "If the weather's no objection,

  There will be a car inspection—

  Troop—dismiss!"

  With profane ejaculation,

  You will see "evacuation"

  Has been altered to an earlier hour than nine,

  So your 'bus you start on winding,

  Till you hear the muscles grinding—

  In your spine.

  Let's pass over nasty places,

  Where you jolt your stretcher cases

  And do everything that's wrong upon the quay,

  Then it's time to clean the boiler,

  And the sweat drops from the toiler,

  Oh—dear me!

  When you've finished rubbing eye-wash,

  On your engine, comes a "Kibosch."

  As the Section-leader never looks at it,

  But a grease-cap gently twisting,

  She remarks that it's consisting,—

  "Half of grit."

  Then as seated on a trestle,

  With the toughest beef you wrestle,

  That in texture would out-rival stone or rock,

  You are told you must proceed,

  To Boulogne, with care and speed

  At two o'clock.

  As you're whisking through Marquise

  (While the patients sit at ease)

  Comes the awful sinking sizzle of a tyre,

  It is usual in such cases,

  That your jack at all such places,

  Won't go higher.

  A wet, cold rain starts soaking,

  And the old car keeps on choking,

  Your hands and face are frozen raw and red,

  Three sparking-plugs are missing,

  There's another tyre a-hissing,

  Well—! 'nuff said!

  You reach camp as night's descending,

  To the bath with haste you're wending,

  A hot tub's the only thing to save a cough,

  Cries the F.A.N.Y. who's still in it,

  "Ah! poor soul, why just this minute,

  Water's off!"

  N.B.—It was a popular pastime of the powers that be to turn the water off at intervals, without any warning, rhyme or reason—one of the tragedies of the War.

  CHAPTER XII

  THE PASSING OF THE LITTLE LORRY, "OLD BILL" AND "'ERB" AT AUDRICQ

  A mild sensation was caused one day by a collision on the Boulogne road when a French car skidded into one of ours (luckily empty at the time) and pushed it over into the gutter.

  "Heasy" and Lowson were both requested to appear at the subsequent Court of Enquiry, and Sergeant Lawrence, R.A.M.C. (who had been on the ambulance at the time) was bursting with importance and joy at the anticipation of the proceedings. He was one of the chief witnesses, and apart from anything else it meant an extra day's pay for him, though why it should I could never quite fathom.

  As they drove off, with Boss as chaperone, a perfect salvo of old shoes was thrown after them!

  They returned with colours flying, for had not Lowson saved the situation by producing a tape measure three minutes after the accident, measuring the space the Frenchman swore was wide enough for his car to pass, and proving thereby it was a physical impossibility?

  "How," asked the Colonel, who was conducting the Enquiry, "can you declare with so much certainty the space was 3 feet 8 inches?"

  "I measured it," replied Lowson promptly.

  "May I ask with what?" he rasped.

  "A tape-measure I had in my pocket," replied she, smiling affably the while (sensation).

  The Court of Enquiry went down like a pack of cards before that tape measure. Such a thing had never been heard of before; and from then onwards the reputation of the "lady drivers" being prepared for all "immersions" was established finally and irrevocably.

  It was a marvel how fit we all kept throughout those cold months. It was no common thing to wake up in the mornings and find icicles on the top blanket of the "flea bag" where one's breath had frozen, and of course one's sponge was a solid block of ice. It was duly placed in a tin basin on the top of the stove and melted by degrees. Luckily we had those round oil stoves; and with flaps securely fastened at night we achieved what was known as a "perfectly glorious fug."

  Engineers began to make frequent trips to camp to choose a suitable site for the huts we were to have to replace our tents.

  My jobs on the little lorry were many and varied; getting the weekly beer for the Sergeants' Mess being one of the least important. I drew rations for several hospitals as well as bringing up the petrol and tyres for the Convoy, rationing the Officers' Mess, etc.; and regularly at one o'clock just as we were sitting at Mess, Sergeant Brown would appear (th
ough we never saw more of him than his legs) at the aperture that served as our door, and would call out diffidently in his high squeaky voice: "Isolation, when you're ready, Miss," and as regularly the whole Mess would go off into fits! This formula when translated meant that he was ready for me to take the rations to the Isolation hospital up the canal. Hastily grabbing some cheese I would crank up the little lorry and depart.

  The little lorry did really score when an early evacuation took place, at any hour from 4 a.m. onwards, when the men had to be taken from the hospitals to the ships bound for England. How lovely to lie in bed and hear other people cranking up their cars!

  Barges came regularly down the canals with cases too seriously wounded to stand the jolting in ambulance trains. One day we were all having tea, and some friends had dropped in, when a voice was heard calling "Barges, Barges." Without more ado the whole Mess rose, a form was overturned, and off they scampered as fast as they could to get their cars and go off immediately. The men left sitting there gazed blankly at each other and finally turned to me for an explanation—(being a lorry, I was not required). "Barges," I said; "they all have to hurry off as quickly as possible to unload the cases." They thought it rather a humorous way of speeding the parting guest, but I assured them work always came before (or generally during) tea in our Convoy! Major S.P. never forgot that episode, and the next time he came, heralded his arrival by calling out at the top of his voice, "Barges, Barges!" with the result that half the Convoy turned out en masse. He assured his friends it was the one method of getting a royal welcome.

  I shall never forget with what fear and trepidation I drove my first lot of wounded. I was on evening duty when the message came up about seven that there were eight bad cases, too bad to stay on the barge till next morning, which were to be removed to hospital immediately. Renny and I set off, each driving a Napier ambulance. We backed into position on the sloping shingly ground near the side of the canal, and waited for the barge to come in.

  Presently we espied it slipping silently along under the bridge. The cases were placed on lifts and slung gently up from the inside of the barge, which was beautifully fitted up like a hospital ward.

  It is not an easy matter when you are on a slope to start off smoothly without jerking the patients within; and I held my breath as I declutched and took off the brake, accelerating gently the meanwhile. Thank heaven! We were moving slowly forward and there had been no jerk. They were all bad cases and an occasional groan would escape their lips in spite of themselves. I dreaded a certain dip in the road—a sort of open drain known in France as a canivet—but fortunately I had practised crossing it when out one day trying a Napier, and we man[oe]uvred it pretty fairly. My relief on getting to hospital was tremendous. My back was aching, so was my knee (from constant clutch-slipping over the bumps and cobbles), and my eyes felt as if they were popping out of my head. In fact I had a pretty complete "stretcher face!" I had often ragged the others about their "stretcher faces," which was a special sort of strained expression I had noticed as I skimmed past them in the little lorry, but now I knew just what it felt like.

  The new huts were going apace, and were finished about the end of April, just as the weather was getting warmer. We were each to have one to ourselves, and they led off on each side of a long corridor running down the centre. These huts were built almost in a horse-shoe shape and—joy of joys! there were to be two bathrooms at the end! We also had a telephone fixed up—a great boon. The furniture in the huts consisted of a bed and two shelves, and that was all. There was an immediate slump in car cleaning. The rush on carpentering was tremendous. It was by no means safe for a workman to leave his tools and bag anywhere in the vicinity; his saw the next morning was a thing to weep over if he did. (It's jolly hard to saw properly, anyway, and it really looks such an easy pastime.)

  The wooden cases that the petrol was sent over in from England, large enough to hold two tins, were in great demand. These we made into settees and stools, etc., and when stained and polished they looked quite imposing. The contractor kindly offered to paint the interiors of the huts for us as a present, but we were a little startled to see the brilliant green that appeared. Someone unkindly suggested that he could get rid of it in no other way.

  When at last they were finished we received orders to take up our new quarters, but, funnily enough, we had become so attached to our tents by that time that we were very loath to do so. A fatigue party however arrived one day to take the tents down, so there was nothing for it. Many of the workmen were most obliging and did a lot of odd jobs for us. I rescued one of the Red Cross beds instead of the camp one I had had heretofore—the advantage was that it had springs—but there was only the mattress part, and so it had to be supported on two petrol cases for legs! The disadvantage of this was that as often as not one end slipped off in the night and you were propelled on to the floor, or else two opposite corners held and the other two see-sawed in mid-air. Both great aids to nightmares.

  "Tuppence" did not take at all kindly to the new order of things; he missed chasing the mice that used to live under the tent boards and other minor attractions of the sort.

  The draughtiness and civilization of the new huts compared with the "fug" of the tents all combined to give us chills! I had a specially bad one, and managed with great skill to wangle a fortnight's sick leave in Paris.

  The journey had not increased much in speed since my last visit, but everything in Paris itself had assumed a much more normal aspect. The bridge over the Oise had long since been repaired, and hardly a shop remained closed. I went to see my old friend M. Jollivet at Neuilly, and had the same little English mare to ride in the Bois, and also visited many of the friends I had made during my first leave there.

  I got some wonderful French grey Ripolin sort of stuff from a little shop in the "Boul' Mich" with which to tone down the violent green in my hut, that had almost driven me mad while I lay ill in bed.

  The Convoy was gradually being enlarged, and a great many new drivers came out from England just after I got back. McLaughlan gave me a great welcome when I went for the washing that afternoon. "It's good to see you back, Miss," he said, "the driver they put on the lorry was very slow and cautious—you know the 'en we always try to catch? Would you believe it we slowed down to walking pace so as to miss 'er!" and he sniffed disgustedly.

  The news of the battle of Jutland fell like a bombshell in the camp owing to the pessimistic reports first given of it in the papers. A witty Frenchman once remarked that in all our campaigns we had only won one battle, but that was the last, and we felt that however black things appeared at the moment we would come out on top in the end. The news of Kitchener's death five days later plunged the whole of the B.E.F. into mourning, and the French showed their sympathy in many touching ways.

  One day to my sorrow I heard that the little Mors lorry was to be done away with, owing to the shortage of petrol that began to be felt about this time, and that horses and G.S. wagons were to draw rations, etc., instead. It had just been newly painted and was the joy of my heart—however mine was not to reason why, and in due course Red Cross drivers appeared with two more ambulances from the Boulogne dépôt, and they made the journey back in the little Mors.

  It was then that "Susan" came into being.

  The two fresh ambulances were both Napiers, and I hastily consulted Brown (the second mechanic who had come to assist Kirkby as the work increased) which he thought was the best one. (It was generally felt I should have first choice to console me for the loss of the little Mors.)

  I chose the speediest, naturally. She was a four cylinder Napier, given by a Mrs. Herbert Davies to the Red Cross at the beginning of the war (vide small brass plate affixed), and converted from her private car into an ambulance. She had been in the famous old Dunkirk Convoy in 1914, and was battle-scarred, as her canvas testified, where the bullets and shrapnel had pierced it. She had a fat comfortable look about her, and after I had had her for some time I felt "Susan" wa
s the only name for her; and Susan she remained from that day onwards. She always came up to the scratch, that car, and saved my life more than once.

  We snatched what minutes we could from work to do our "cues," as we called our small huts. It was a great pastime to voyage from hut to hut and see what particular line the "furnishing" was taking. Mine was closed to all intruders on the score that I had the "painters in." It was to be art nouveau. I found it no easy matter to get the stuff on evenly, especially as I had rather advanced ideas as to mural decoration! With great difficulty I stencilled long lean-looking panthers stalking round the top as a sort of fresco. I cut one pattern out in cardboard and fixing it with drawing pins painted the Ripolin over it, with the result that I had a row of green panthers prowling round against a background of French grey! I found them very restful, but of course opinions differ on these subjects. Curtains and cushions were of bright Reckitt's blue material, bought in the market, relieved by scrolls of dull pink wool embroidered (almost a stitch at a time) in between jobs. The dark stained "genuine antiques" or veritables imitations (as I once saw them described in a French shop) looked rather well against this background; and a tremendous house-warming took place to celebrate the occasion.

  No. 30 Field hospital arrived one day straight from Sicily, where it had apparently been sitting ever since the war, awaiting casualties.

  As there seemed no prospect of any being sent, they were ordered to France, and took up their quarters on a sandy waste near the French coastal forts. The orderlies had picked up quite a lot of Italian during their sojourn and were never tired of describing the wonderful sights they had seen.