First Aid Nursing Yeomanry; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
As you will remember, I was only in the cook-house as a "temporary
help," and great was my joy when Logan (fresh from the Serbian campaign)
loomed up on the horizon as the pukka cook. I retired gracefully--my
only regret being Bridget's companionship. Two beings could hardly have
laughed as much as we had done when impossible situations had arisen,
and when the verb "to cope" seemed ineffective and life just one
"gentle" thing after the other.
I was given the little Mors lorry to drive. To say I adored that car
would not be exaggerating my feelings about it at all. The seat was my
chief joy, it was of the racing variety, some former sportsman having
done away with the tool box that had served as one! "Tuppy" also
appreciated that lorry, and when we set off to draw rations, lying
almost flat, the tips of his ears could just be seen from the front on a
line with the top of my cap.
One of my jobs was to take Sergeant McLaughlan to fetch the hospital
washing from a laundry some distance out of the town. He was an old
"pug," but had grown too heavy to enter the ring, and kept his hand in
coaching the promising young boxers stationed in the vicinity. In
consequence, what I did not know about all their different merits was
not worth knowing, and after a match had taken place every round was
described in full. I grew quite an enthusiast.
He could never bear to see another car in front without trying to pass
it. "Let her rip, Miss," he would implore--"Don't be beat by them
Frenchies." Needless to say I did not need much encouragement, and
nothing ever passed us. (There are no speed limits in France.) There was
a special hen at one place we always tried to catch, but it was a wily
bird and knew a thing or two. McLaughlan was dying to take it home to
the Sergeants' Mess, but we never got her.
One day, as we were rattling down the main street, one of the tyres went
off like a "4.2." We drew to the side, and there it was, as flat as a
pancake.
There are always a lot of people in the streets of a town who seem to
have nothing particular to do, and very soon quite a decent-sized crowd
had collected.
"We must do this in record time," I said to McLaughlan, who knew nothing
about cars, and kept handing me the wrong spanners in his anxiety to
help. "See," exclaimed one, "it makes her nothing to dirty her hands in
such a manner."
"They work like men, these English young girls, is it not so?" said
another. "_Sapristi, c'est merveilleux._"
"One would truly say from the distance that they _were_ men, but this
one, when one sees her close, is not too bad!" said a third.
"Passing remarks about _you_, they are, I should say," said McLaughlan
to me as I fixed the spare wheel in place.
"You wait," I panted, "I'll pay them out."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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