Fanny Went to War

Excerpts:

. . . Many and varied were the suggestions till Dicky had the brilliant idea of holding an auction sale of our surplus furniture, souvenirs and wardrobes. Most people take pleasure in breaking the tenth commandment and we decided that it was an excellent idea, as there was nothing we wanted so much as So-and-so's new teacups, coloured silk handkerchief and so on. The promoter's cubicle was the receiving office and her friends could be seen hurrying from all sides with their miscellaneous offerings.

A green armchair 'guaranteed to fit' (in fact, once ensconced even a slim F.A.N.Y. was hardly able to leave it) ; brown silk stockings (too short for owner) ; a tea-pot 'which will pour well if only you're not in such a hurry as I am ' ; a shell-head with fuse 'warranted to go off at any moment'. Many were the offerings.

Towards evening we assembled in the mess where Quin and De Wend (suitably attired as bookies) assisted Dicky as auctioneer—surely one of the most breezy auctioneers ever heard. She contended that 15s. was far too little for the caricature of a well-known local colonel. " One would think from your buying, ladies, that he was a mere subaltern —if only the Army knew they could get a colonel for fifteen shillings." He went with a bang. " Now then, ladies, any advance on ten francs for this pair of leather bootlaces ? It must be a pleasure to handle them every day in one's boots at that price ! " (Ten francs were ten francs in those days—about 8s.)

What was described as a ' passionate ' tin of bath salts was keenly contested, for the F.A.N.Y.s strove to acquire cleanliness and fragrance at all costs. When asked if a tin of sweets was 'quite full', the auctioneer peered into the depths and announced that she " could see some at the bottom ".

We auctioned the contents of our parcels from home, and one buyer was heard to murmur, "Sixty francs for pate de foie gras ! I hate the stuff but think of the prisoners."— " That's the stuff," called the auctioneer. " You pays your money and you don't get your choice ! "

Lean lent a decided cachet to the entertainment as mannequin in her maillot de bain. She donned the various articles of clothing with such grace and charm that even an old mackintosh looked as if it 'still did' instead of 'having been'. The top price of the evening was 104 francs, accompanied by a sigh of relief from the runner-up who meant to have stopped long before.

Days later Quin still sat in her cubicle—some say with ice-bags on her brow—wrestling with pages of figures and current rates of exchange. Coffee continually bubbled on her stove and a cigarette was handed silently to discourage those from talking who might interrupt her calculations. Her unsociability was justified, however, when it was discovered that we had realised the astonishing sum of £50.

We had a rush of work after this, and wounded again began to pour in from a 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', that is, sitting patients with 'Blighty' wounds (wounds which were just bad enough to send them home to England), one generally came in front and sat beside the driver, and on the way to the hospital ships we sometimes learned a lot about them. One 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."

A Scotsman from Canada had not been home for twenty years, and he intended to see his 'folks ' and come out again as soon as he was passed fit by the doctors.

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One fine morning at 5 a.m., we were awakened by a fearful din, much worse than usual. The huts trembled, our beds shook beneath us, and the very nails fell out of the wall. We wondered at first if it were a fleet of Zepps dropping super-bombs, but decided that at that hour it was too light for them to appear. Another crash, as if the earth were being cleft in two ; our windows rattled in their sockets.

We dressed hurriedly, knowing that the cars might be called to go out at any moment. What the disaster was we could not fathom, though we thought that it was some distance away. At 7 a.m. the telephone bell rang furiously ; we waited breathlessly.

Ten cars were ordered immediately for Audricq, two girls to each car, which was most unusual. A large ammunition dump had been set on fire by an enemy airman. Heavy explosions continued at intervals all the morning as one shed after another became affected.

When the cars arrived, 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 narrowly missing the cars. The roads were littered with live shells and it was with great difficulty that the wheels were steered clear of them. Many shells were found later at a distance of five miles, one even travelling ten before it buried itself in a peaceful garden.

A thousand 9-2's had gone off simultaneously and made a crater large enough to bury a village. It was this explosion that had shaken our huts. The neighbouring village had fallen flat like a pack of cards at the concussion, the inhabitants having fortunately taken to the fields as soon as the dump caught fire.

We heard that six million pounds' worth of damage had been done. The total casualties were only five in number, which was almost incredible in view of the many thousands of men employed. A good many of them, however, were badly burnt. Dicky had some of the worst of these in her ambulance.

One man, a Scotsman, kept shouting and groaning, " Oh, Hinny, I canna stand the pain in me hands and me arrms." She got down, crept inside the ambulance and dropped a few trickles of water into the mouth-hole of the mask which covered his face. " Look here, Sandy," she said, " I know the pain must be too awful and almost impossible to bear, but will you try to do so for the sake of the other three men here in the same plight ? "

He was quiet for a moment, then said, " Will I sing ye a Scotch song then to take me mind off it ? " and from then on, in a voice growing gradually weaker, he sang most of Harry Lauder's songs, but when he got to 'I love a lassie ', the voice ceased altogether. When she reached the hospital and went to unload, he was dead.

It was due to the presence of mind of the camp commandant that there were not more hurt, for, once he realised that the task of getting the fire under control was hopeless, he gave orders to the men to clear as fast as they could. They needed no second buying 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 too low for the Archies (anti-aircraft guns) 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 bombs 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 that the enemy did not hear 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 dugout, from which it was impossible to rescue them for two whole days.

Five days after the explosion, Fairlie 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. Trucks had been blown bodily into adjacent fields by the concussion. We walked up a 'hill' formed of 9-2's and found ourselves on the lip of the enormous crater eighty feet across, already half full of water. It was incredible that it had been formed in a minute ; no wonder the earth had trembled.

It took weeks for that dump to be cleared up. Little by little the live shells were collected, 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, had lost all their kit and rations. We were not able to supply the former, 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. Later I received a letter from a naval officer telling me that the two had been joined together and called the Zubia.

* * *

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 was going home to his wife. He told me that she had become totally blind since he had been away, as the special German stuff injected to preserve her sight was no longer procurable. " Guess she's done her bit," he said, " and I'm off home to take care of her. I'll tell her about you. She'll be interested to hear how lassies work over here," and we parted with a hearty handshake.

That afternoon we passed some Australians marching. " Fine chaps," said the patient sitting beside me. " They're a good emetic of their country, aren't they ? " meaning to say emblem !

Our concert party still flourished, though the conditions for practising were as difficult as ever. As often as not, the rehearsals were conducted in the back of the ambulance on the way to the concert, the remaining time being spent feverishly muttering the lines to oneself and imploring other people not to muddle one. We now called ourselves The Fantastiks and wore black and yellow pierrette kit.
 

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The night ambulance train was a special one that was usually reported to arrive at 8 p.m., but which rarely put in an appearance till ten o'clock or even later. The Battle of the Somme was in progress, and besides barges and day trains, three of these specials arrived each week. The whole convoy turned out for this, and one by one the twenty-five cars would set off, keeping an equal distance apart, forming an imposing column as they wound their way down from the camp, across the bridge and through the town to the railway siding at the other end. By now, the odd makes had been weeded out, and only Napiers were used. The French inhabitants would turn out en masse to see us pass, and on the whole seemed quite proud of us.

A stranger on hearing that we went out in air-raids said, " But do they not get wounded, these demoiselles ? " " Le Bon Dieu protege les F.A.N.Y," was the reply.

The following gives a rough idea of the procedure on these occasions.

It was a recognised thing that as soon as anyone had fixed up an off-duty jaunt, a rumour would come in that a train might be due. By 5 p.m., all doubts were dispelled by an order that off duty for everyone was cancelled and the convoy must stand by.

We boasted a secretary now that the numbers had increased, and drivers would drop in at the office at intervals. "Any news of that train yet ? Tell us the worst."

The harassed secretary would glance up. "Nothing definite," she would reply, and the drivers would lounge . . .