First Aid Nursing Yeomanry; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
I became "Wuzzy's" adopted mother about now and, whenever I had time,
combed and brushed his silver curls till they stood out like fluff. He
could spot Susan miles away, and though it was against rules I sometimes
took him on board. As we neared camp I told him he must get down, but he
would put on an obstinate expression and deliberately push himself
behind my back, in between me and the canvas, so that I was almost on
the steering wheel. At other times he would listen to me for awhile,
take it all in, and then put his head on my shoulder with such an
appealing gesture that I used to risk being spotted, and let him remain.
He simply adored coming out if I was going riding, but I disliked having
him intensely, for he ran about under the horses, nibbling at them and
making himself a general nuisance. He would watch me through half shut
eyes the minute I began polishing my riding boots; and try as I would to
evade him he nearly always came in the end.
He got so crafty in time he would wait for me at the bottom of the drive
and dash out from among the shrubs just as I was vanishing. One day we
had trotted some distance along the Sangatte road, and I was just
congratulating myself I had given him the slip, when looking up, there
he was sitting on a grassy knoll just ahead, positively laughing and
licking his chops with self-satisfied glee. I gave it up after that, I
felt I couldn't cope with him, and yet there were those who called him
stupid! I grant you he had his bad days when he was referred to as my
"idiot son," but even then he was only just "peculiar"--a world of
difference.
One job we had was termed "lodgers" and consisted of meeting the
"sitting" cases from an ambulance train, taking them to the different
hospitals for the night, and then back to the quay early next morning in
time to catch the hospital ship to England. The stretcher cases had been
put on board the night before, but there was no sleeping accommodation
for so many "sitters." An ordinary evacuation often took place as well,
so that before breakfast we had sometimes carried as many as thirty-five
sitting cases, and done journeys with twelve stretchers. One day at No.
30 hospital I saw several of the girls beside a stretcher, and there was
the "Bovril king" lying swathed in blankets, chatting affably! He was
the cook at No. 30, a genial soul, who always rushed out in the early
hours of the morning when one was feeling emptiest, with a cup of hot
soup. He called it doing his bit, and always referred to himself proudly
as the "Bovril king." Alas, he was now being invalided home with
bronchitis!
Hope came back from leave and told me she had been pursued half way down
Regent Street by a fat old taxi driver who asked after me. It was dear
old Stone, of course, now returned to civil life and his smart taxi with
the silver "vauses!" I have hunted the stands in vain for his smiling
rosy face, but hope to spot him some day and have my three days' joy
ride.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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