Fanny Goes to War Read online

  While waiting for patients there one day, a corporal informed me that on the return journey they had "passed the volcano Etna, in rupture!"

  A great many troops came to a rest camp near us, and I always feel that "Tuppence's" disappearance was due to them. He would be friendly with complete strangers, and several times had come in minus his collar (stolen by French urchins, I supposed). I had just bought his fourth, and rather lost heart when he turned up the same evening without it once more. Work was pouring in just then, and I would sometimes be out all day. When last I saw him he was playing happily with Nellie, another terrier belonging to a man at the Casino, and that night I missed him from my hut. I advertised in the local rag (he was well known to all the French people as he was about the only pure bred dog they'd ever seen), but to no avail. I also made visits to the Abattoir, the French slaughter house where strays were taken, but he was not there, and I could only hope he had been taken by some Tommies, in which case I knew he would be well looked after. I missed him terribly.

  Work came in spasms, in accordance with the fighting of course, and when there was no special push on we had tremendous car inspections. Boss walked round trying to spot empty grease caps and otherwise making herself thoroughly objectionable in the way of gear boxes and universals. On these occasions "eye-wash" was extensively applied to the brass, the idea being to keep her attention fixed well to the front by the glare.

  One day, when all manner of fatigues and other means of torture had been exhausted, Dicky and Freeth discovered they had a simultaneous birthday. Prospects of wounded arriving seemed nil, and permission was given for a fancy-dress tea party to celebrate the double event. It must be here understood that whether work came in or not we all had to remain on duty in camp till five every day, in case of the sudden arrival of ambulance trains, etc. After that hour, two of us were detailed to be on evening duty till nine, while all night duty was similarly taken in turns. Usually, after hanging about all day till five, a train or barges would be announced, and we were lucky if we got into bed this side of 12. Hardly what you might call a "six-hour day," and yet nobody went on strike.

  The one in question was fine and cloudless, and birthday wishes in the shape of a Taube raid were expressed by the Boche, who apparently keeps himself informed on all topics.

  The fancy dresses (considering what little scope we had and that no one even left camp to buy extras in the town) were many and varied. "Squig" and de Wend were excellent as bookies, in perfectly good toppers made out of stiff white paper with deep black ribbon bands and "THE OLD FIRM" painted in large type on cards. Jockeys, squaws, yokels, etc., all appeared mysteriously from nothing. I was principally draped in my Reckitts blue upholsterings and a brilliant Scherezade kimono, bought in a moment of extravagance in Paris.

  The proceedings after tea, when the cooks excelled themselves making an enormous birthday cake, consisted of progressive games of sorts. You know the kind of thing, trying to pick up ten needles with a pin (or is it two?) and doing a Pelman memory stunt after seeing fifty objects on a tray, and other intellectual pursuits of that description. Another stunt was putting a name to different liquids which you smelt blindfold. This was the only class in which I got placed. I was the only one apparently who knew the difference between whisky and brandy! Funnily enough, would you believe it, it was the petrol that floored me. Considering we wallowed in it from morning till night it was rather strange. I was nearly spun altogether when it came to the game of Bridge in the telephone room. "I've never played it in my life," I said desperately. "Never mind," said someone jokingly, "just take a hand." I took the tip seriously and did so, looking at my cards as gravely as a judge—finally I selected one and threw it down. To my relief no one screamed or denounced me and I breathed again. (It requires some skill to play a game of Bridge when you know absolutely nothing about it.)

  "Pity you lost that last trick," said my partner to me as we left the room; "it was absolutely in your hand."

  "Was it?" I asked innocently.

  We had a rush of work after this, and wounded again began to pour in from the Third Battle of Ypres.

  Early evacuations came regularly with the tides. They would begin at 4 a.m. and get half an hour later each day. When we took "sitters" (i.e. sitting patients with "Blighty" wounds), one generally came in front and sat beside the driver, and on the way to the Hospital Ships we sometimes learnt a lot about them. I had a boy of sixteen one day, a bright cheery soul. "How did you get in?" (meaning into the army), I asked. "Oh, well, Miss, it was like this, I was afraid it would be over before I was old enough, so I said I was eighteen. The recruiting bloke winked and so did I, and I was through." Another, when asked about his wound, said, "It's going on fine now, Sister (they always called us Sister), but I lost me conscience for two days up the line with it."

  We had a bunch of Canadians to take one day. "D'you come from Sussex?" asked one, of me. "No," I replied, "from Cumberland." "That's funny," he said, "the V.A.D. who looked after me came from Sussex, and she had the same accent as you, I guess!" Another man had not been home for five years, but had joined up in Canada and come straight over. A Scotsman had not been home for twenty, and he intended to see his "folks" and come out again as soon as he was passed fit by the doctors.

  One fine morning at 5 a.m. we were awakened by a fearful din, much worse than the usual thing. The huts trembled and our beds shook beneath us, not to mention the very nails falling out of the walls! We wondered at first if it was a fleet of Zepps. dropping super-bombs, but decided it was too light for them to appear at that hour.

  There it was again, as if the very earth was being cleft in two, and our windows rattled in their sockets. It is not a pleasant sensation to have steady old Mother Earth rocking like an "ashpan" leaf beneath your feet.

  We dressed hurriedly, knowing that the cars might be called on to go out at any moment.

  What the disaster was we could not fathom, but that it was some distance away we had no doubt.

  At 7 a.m. the telephone rang furiously, and we all waited breathless for the news.

  Ten cars were ordered immediately to Audricq, where a large ammunition dump had been set on fire by a Boche airman.

  Heavy explosions continued at intervals all the morning as one shed after another became affected.

  When our cars got there the whole dump was one seething mass of smoke and flames, and shells of every description were hurtling through the air at short intervals. Several of these narrowly missed the cars. It was a new experience to be under fire from our own shells. The roads were littered with live ones, and with great difficulty the wheels of the cars were steered clear of them!

  Many shells were subsequently found at a distance of five miles, and one buried itself in a peaceful garden ten miles off!

  A thousand 9.2's had gone off simultaneously and made a crater big enough to bury a village in. It was this explosion that had shaken our huts miles away. The neighbouring village fell flat like a pack of cards at the concussion, the inhabitants having luckily taken to the open fields at the first intimation that the dump was on fire.

  The total casualties were only five in number, which was almost incredible in view of the many thousands of men employed. It was due to the presence of mind of the Camp Commandant that there were not more; for, once he realized the hopeless task of getting the fire under control, he gave orders to the men to clear as fast as they could. They needed no second bidding and made for the nearest Estaminets with speed! The F.A.N.Y.s found that instead of carrying wounded, their task was to search the countryside (with Sergeants on the box) and bring the men to a camp near ours. "Dead?" asked someone, eyeing the four motionless figures inside one of the ambulances. "Yes," replied the F.A.N.Y. cheerfully—"drunk!"

  The Boche had flown over at 3 a.m. but so low down the Archies were powerless to get him. As one of the men said to me, "If we'd had rifles, Miss, we could have potted him easy."

  He flew from shed to shed dropping incendiary bo
mbs on the roofs as he passed, and up they went like fireworks. The only satisfaction we had was to hear that he had been brought down on his way back over our lines, so the Boche never heard of the disaster he had caused.

  Some splendid work was done after the place had caught fire. One officer, in spite of the great risk he ran from bursting shells, got the ammunition train off safely to the 4th army. Thanks to him, the men up the line were able to carry on as if nothing had happened, till further supplies could be sent from other dumps. It was estimated that four days' worth of shells from all the factories in England had been destroyed.

  An M.T. officer got all the cars and lorries out of the sheds and instructed the drivers to take them as far from the danger zone as possible, while the Captain in charge of the "Archie" Battery stuck to his guns; and he and his men remained in the middle of that inferno hidden in holes in their dug-out, from which it was impossible to rescue them for two days.

  Five days after the explosion Gutsie and I were detailed to go to Audricq for some measles cases, and we reported first to the Camp Commandant, who was sitting in the remains of his office, a shell sticking up in the floor and half his roof blown away.

  He gave us permission to see the famous crater, and instructed one of the subalterns to show us round. There were still fires burning and shells popping in some parts and the scenes of wreckage were almost indescribable.

  The young officer was not particularly keen to take us at all and said warningly, "You come at your own risk—there are nothing but live shells lying about, liable to go off at any moment. Be careful," he said to me, "you're just stepping on one now." I hopped off with speed, but all the same we were not a whit discouraged, which seemed to disappoint him.

  As Gutsie and I stumbled and rolled over 4.2's and hand grenades I quoted to her from the "Fuse-top collectors"—"You can generally 'ear 'em fizzin' a bit if they're going to go 'orf, 'Erb!" by way of encouragement. Trucks had been lifted bodily by the concussion, and could be seen in adjacent fields; many of the sheds had been half blown away, leaving rows of live shells lying snugly in neat piles, but as there was no knowing when they might explode it was decided to scrap the whole dump when the fires had subsided.

  We walked up a small hill literally covered with shells and empty hand grenades of the round cricket ball type, two of which were given to us to make into match boxes. Every description of shell was there as far as the eye could see, and some were empty and others were not. We reached the summit, walking gingerly over 9.2's (which formed convenient steps) to find ourselves at the edge of the enormous crater already half filled with water. It was incredible to believe a place of that size had been formed in the short space of one second, and yet on the other hand, when I remembered how the earth had trembled, the wonder was it was not even larger.

  It took weeks for that dump to be cleared up. Little by little the live shells were collected and taken out to sea in barges, and dropped in mid-ocean.

  Not long after that the "Zulu," a British destroyer, came into port half blown away by a mine. Luckily the engine was intact and still working, but the men, who had had marvellous escapes, lost all their kit and rations. We were not able to supply the former, unfortunately, but we remedied the latter with speed, and also took down cigarettes, which they welcomed more than anything.

  We were shown all over the remains, and hearing that the "Nubia" had just had her engine room blown away, we suggested that the two ends should be joined together and called the "Nuzu," but whether the Admiralty thought anything of the idea I have yet to learn!

  Before the Captain left he had napkin rings made for each of us out of the copper piping from the ship, in token of his appreciation of the help we had given.

  The Colonials were even more surprised to see girls driving in France than our own men had been.

  One man, a dear old Australian, was being invalided out altogether and going home to his wife. He told me how during the time he had been away she had become totally blind owing to some special German stuff, that had been formerly injected to keep her sight, being now unprocurable. "Guess she's done her bit," he ended; "and I'm off home to take care of her. She'll be interested to hear how the lassies work over here," and we parted with a handshake.

  Important conferences were always taking place at the Hôtel Maritime, and one day as I was down on the quay the French Premier and several other notabilities arrived. "There's Mr. Asquith," said an R.T.O. to me. "That!" said I, in an unintentionally loud voice, eyeing his long hair, "I thought he was a 'cellist belonging to a Lena Ashwell Concert party!" He looked round, and I faded into space.

  Taking some patients to hospital that afternoon we passed some Australians marching along. "Fine chaps," said the one sitting on the box to me, "they're a good emetic of their country, aren't they?" (N.B. I fancy he meant to say emblem.)

  Our concert party still flourished, though the conditions for practising were more difficult than ever. Our Mess tent had been moved again on to a plot of grass behind the cook-house to leave more space for the cars to be parked, and though we had a piano there it was somehow not particularly inspiring, nor had we the time to practise. The Guards' Brigade were down resting at Beau Marais, and we were asked to give them a show. We now called ourselves the "FANTASTIKS," and wore a black pierrette kit with yellow bobbles. The rehearsals were mostly conducted in the back of the ambulance on the way there, and the rest of the time was spent feverishly muttering one's lines to oneself and imploring other people not to muddle one. The show was held in a draughty tent, and when it was over the Padre made a short prayer and they all sang a hymn. (Life is one continual paradox out in France.) I shall never forget the way those Guardsmen sang either. It was perfectly splendid. There they stood, rows of men, the best physique England could produce, and how they sang!

  Betty drove us back to camp in the "Crystal Palace," so-called from its many windows—a six cylinder Delauney-Belville car used to take the army sisters to and from their billets. We narrowly missed nose-diving into a chalk pit on the way, the so-called road being nothing but a rutty track.

  The Fontinettes ambulance train was a special one that was usually reported to arrive at 8 p.m., but never put in an appearance till 10, or, on some occasions, one o'clock. The battle of the Somme was now in progress; and, besides barges and day trains, three of these arrived each week. The whole Convoy turned out for this; and one by one the twenty-five odd cars would set off, keeping an equal distance apart, forming an imposing looking column down from the camp, across the bridge and through the town to the railway siding. The odd makes had been weeded out and the whole lot were now Napiers. The French inhabitants would turn out en masse to see us pass, and were rather proud of us on the whole, I think. Arrived at the big railway siding, we all formed up into a straight line to await the train. After many false alarms, and answering groans from the waiting F.A.N.Y.s, it would come slowly creaking along and draw up. The ambulances were then reversed right up to the doors, and the stretcher bearers soon filled them up with four lying cases. At the exit stood Boss and the E.M.O., directing each ambulance which hospital the cases were to go to. Those journeys back were perfect nightmares. Try as one would, it was impossible not to bump a certain amount over those appalling roads full of holes and cobbles. It was pathetic when a voice from the interior could be heard asking, "Is it much farther, Sister?" and knowing how far it was, my heart ached for them. After all they had been through, one felt they should be spared every extra bit of pain that was possible. When I in my turn was in an ambulance, I knew just what it felt like. Sometimes the cases were so bad we feared they would not even last the journey, and there we were all alone, and not able to hurry to hospital owing to the other three on board.

  The journey which in the ordinary way, when empty, took fifteen minutes, under these circumstances lasted anything from three-quarters of an hour to an hour. "Susan" luckily was an extremely steady 'bus, and in 3rd. gear on a smooth road there was practically no movement
at all. I remember once on getting to the Casino I called out, "I hope you weren't bumped too much in there?" and was very cheered when a voice replied, "It was splendid, Sister, you should have seen us up the line, jolting all over the place." "Sister," another one called, "will you drive us when we leave for Blighty?" I said it was a matter of chance, but whoever did so would be just as careful. "No," said the voice decidedly, "there couldn't be two like you." (I think he must have been in an Irish Regiment.)

  The relief after the strain of this journey was tremendous; and the joy of dashing back through the evening air made one feel as if weights had been taken off and one were flying. It was rather a temptation to test the speed of one's 'bus against another on these occasions; and "Susan" seemed positively to take a human interest in the impromptu race, all the more so as it was forbidden. The return journey was by a different route from that taken by the laden ambulances so that there was no danger of a collision.

  We usually had about three journeys with wounded; twelve stretcher cases in all, so that, say the train came in at nine and giving an hour to each journey there and back, it meant (not counting loading and unloading) roughly 1 o'clock a.m. or later before we had finished. Then there were usually the sitting cases to be taken off and the stretcher bearers to be driven back to their camp. Half of one head light only was allowed to be shown; and the impression I always had when I came in was that my eyes had popped right out of my head and were on bits of elastic. A most extraordinary sensation, due to the terrible strain of trying to see in the darkness just a little further than one really could. It was the irony of fate to learn, when we did come in, that an early evacuation had been telephoned through for 5 a.m. I often spent the whole night dreaming I was driving wounded and had given them the most awful bump. The horror of it woke me up, only to find that my bed had slipped off one of the petrol boxes and was see-sawing in mid-air!