First Aid Nursing Yeomanry; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
The faithful "Wuzzy" had been confided to the care of a friend at the
Remount Camp, and I was delighted to get some snaps of him taken by a
Frenchman at Neuve-Chapelle--I felt my "idiot son" was certainly seeing
life! "In reply to your question" (said my friend in a letter), "as to
whether I have discovered Wuzzy's particular 'trait' yet, the answer as
far as I can make out appears to be 'chickens'!"
In time I began to get about on crutches, and the question next arose
where I was to go and convalesce, and the then strange, but now all too
familiar phrase was first heard. "If you were only a man, of course it
would be _so_ easy." As if it was _my_ fault I wasn't? It was no good
protesting I had always wished I had been one; it did not help matters
at all.
I came to the conclusion there were too many women in England. If I had
only been a Boche girl now I might at least have had several Donnington
Halls put at my disposal! I was finally sent to Brighton, and thanks to
Lady Dudley's kindness, became an out-patient of one of her officers'
hospitals, but even then it was a nuisance being a girl. Another
disadvantage was that all the people treated me as if I was a strange
animal from the Zoo; men on crutches had become unfortunately a too
familiar sight, but a F.A.N.Y. was something quite new, and therefore an
object to be stared at. Some days I felt quite brazen, but others I went
out for about five minutes and returned, refusing to move for the rest
of the day. It would have been quite different if several F.A.N.Y.s had
been in a similar plight, but alone, one gets tired of being gaped at as
a _rara avis_.
The race meetings were welcome events and great sport, to which we all
went with gusto. I fell down one day on the Parade, getting into my bath
chair. It gave me quite a jar, but it must be got over some time as a
lesson, for of course I put out the leg that wasn't there and went smack
on the asphalt! One learns in time to remember these details.
It was ripping to see friends from France who ran down for the day, and
when the F.A.N.Y.s came over, how eagerly I listened to all the news!
The lines from one of our songs often rang through my brain:
"On the sandy shores of France
Looking Blighty-wards to sea,
There's a little camp a-sitting
And it's all the world to me--
For the cars are gently humming,
And the 'phone bell's ringing yet,
Come up, you British Convoy,
Come ye up to Fontinettes--
On the road to Fontinettes
Where the trains have to be met;
Can't you hear the cars a-chunking
Through the Rue to Fontinettes?
"On the road to Fontinettes
Where the stretcher-bearers sweat,
And the cars come up in convoy,
From the camp to Fontinettes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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