Some splendid work was done after the place had caught fire. One officer, in spite of the great risk he ran from bursting sh.e.l.ls, 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.l 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.ls lying snugly in neat piles, but as there was no knowing when they might explode it was decided to sc.r.a.p the whole dump when the fires had subsided.
We walked up a small hill literally covered with sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.l 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 s.p.a.ce 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 la.s.sies work over here," and we parted with a handshake.
Important conferences were always taking place at the Hotel 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 s.p.a.ce.
Taking some patients to hospital that afternoon we pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s behind the cook-house to leave more s.p.a.ce 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 ma.s.se_ to see us pa.s.s, 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 b.u.mp 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 circ.u.mstances 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 b.u.mped 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 b.u.mp. 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!
THE RED CROSS CARS
"They are bringing them back who went forth so bravely.
Grey, ghostlike cars down the long white road Come gliding, each with its cross of scarlet On canvas hood, and its heavy load Of human sheaves from the crimson harvest That greed and falsehood and hatred sowed.
"Maimed and blinded and torn and shattered, Yet with hardly a groan or a cry From lips as white as the linen bandage; Though a stifled prayer "G.o.d let me die,"
Is wrung, maybe, from a soul in torment As the car with the blood-red cross goes by.
"Oh, Red Cross car! What a world of anguish On noiseless wheels you bear night and day.
Each one that comes from the field of slaughter Is a moving Calvary, painted grey.
And over the water, at home in England "Let"s play at soldiers," the children say."
Anon.
CHAPTER XIII
CONVOY LIFE
The Prince of Wales was with the Grenadiers at Beau Marais when they came in to rest for a time. One day, while having tea at the Sauvage, Mademoiselle Leonie, sister of the proprietor, came up to me in a perfect flutter of excitement to say that that very evening the Prince had ordered the large room to be prepared for a dinner he was giving to his brother officers.
I was rather a favourite of hers, and she a.s.sured me if I wished to watch him arriving it would give her great pleasure to hide me in her paying-desk place where I could see everything clearly. She was quite hurt when I refused the invitation.
He was tremendously popular with the French people; and the next time I saw her she rushed up to me and said: "How your Prince is beautiful, Mees; what spirit, what fire! Believe me, they broke every gla.s.s they used at that dinner, and then the Prince demanded of me the bill and paid for everything." (Some lad!) "He also wrote his name in my autograph book," she added proudly. "Oh he is _chic_, that one there, I tell you!"
One warm summer day Gutsie and I were sitting on a gra.s.sy knoll, just beyond our camp overlooking the sea (well within earshot of the summoning whistle), watching a specially large merchant ship come in.
Except for the distant booming of the guns (that had now become such a background to existence we never noticed it till it stopped), an atmosphere of peace and drowsiness reigned over everything. The ship was just nearing the jetty preparatory to entering the harbour when a dull reverberating roar broke the summer stillness, the banks we were on fairly shook, and there before our eyes, out of the sea, rose a dense black cloud of smoke 50 feet high that totally obscured the ship from sight for a moment. When the black fumes sank down, there, where a whole vessel had been a moment before, was only half a ship! We rubbed our eyes incredulously. It had all happened so suddenly it might have taken place on a Cinema. She had, of course, struck a German mine, and quick as lightning two long, lithe, grey bodies (French destroyers) shot out from the port and took off what survivors were left. Contrary to expectation she did not sink, but settled down, and remained afloat till she was towed in later in the day.
A "Y.M.C.A." article on "Women"s work in France," that appeared in a Magazine at home, was sent out to one of the girls. The paragraph relating to us ran:--
"Then there are the "F.A.N.N.I.E.S.," the dear mud-besplashing F.A.N.Y.s. (to judge from the language of the sometime bespattered, the adjective was not always "dear"), with them cheeriness is almost a cult; at 6 a.m. in the morning you may always be sure of a smile, even when their sleep for the week has only averaged five hours per night."
There were not many parties at Filbert during that summer. Off-time was such an uncertain quant.i.ty. We managed to put in several though, likewise some gallops on the glorious sands stretching for miles along the coast. (It was hardly safe to call at the Convoy on your favourite charger. When you came out from tea it was more than probable you found him in a most unaccountable lather!) Bathing during the daytime was also a rare event, so we went down in an ambulance after dark, macks covering our bathing dresses, and scampered over the sands in the moonlight to the warm waves shining and glistening with phosphorus.
Zeppelin raids seemed to go out of fashion, but Gothas replaced them with pretty considerable success. As we had a French Archie battery near us it was no uncommon thing, when a raid was in progress, for our souvenirs and plates, etc., to rattle off the walls and bomb us (more or less gently) awake!
There was a stretch of asphalt just at the bottom of our camp that had been begun by an enterprising burgher as a tennis club before the war, though others _did_ say it was really intended as a secret German gun emplacement. It did not matter much to us for which purpose it had been made, for, as it was near, we could play tennis and still be within call. There was just room for two courts, and many a good game we enjoyed there, especially after an early evacuation, in the long empty pause till "brekker" at eight o"clock.
"Wuzzy," or to give him his proper name, "Gerald," came into existence about this time. He arrived from Peuplinghe a fat fluffy puppy covered with silky grey curls. He was of nondescript breed, with a distinct leaning towards an old English sheep dog. He had enormous fawn-coloured silky paws, and was so soft and floppy he seemed as if he had hardly a bone in his body. We used to pick him up and drop him gently in the gra.s.s to watch him go out flat like a tortoise. He belonged to Lean, and grew up a rather irresponsible creature with long legs and a lovable disposition. He adored coming down to the ambulance trains or sitting importantly on a car, jeering and barking at his low French friends in the road, on the "I"m the king of the castle" principle. Another of his favourite tricks was to rush after a car (usually selecting Lean"s), and keep with it the whole time, never swerving to another, which was rather clever considering they were so much alike. On the way back to Camp he had a special game he played on the French children playing in the _Pet.i.t Courgain_. He would rush up as if he were going to fly at them.
They would scream and fall over in terror while he positively laughed at them over his shoulder as he cantered off to try it on somewhere else.
The camp was divided in its opinion of Wuzzy, or rather I should say quartered--viz.--one quarter saw his points and the other three-quarters decidedly did not!
A priceless article appeared in one of the leading dailies ent.i.tled, "Women Motor Drivers.--Is it a suitable occupation?" and was cut out by anxious parents and forwarded with speed to the Convoy.