Fanny Goes to War Part 14

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 a.s.sured 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 ca.n.a.ls 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 grat.i.tude. 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 inst.i.tuted.

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, w.i.l.l.y-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 princ.i.p.ally 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 G.o.d 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 'G.o.d 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 f.a.gging-- 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.