Part 8 (2/2)

The bathing machines had their uses, one near the cook-house acting as our larder, another as a store for spare parts, while several others were adopted by F.A.N.Y.s as their permanent abodes. One bore the inscription, ”The Savoy--Every Modern Inconvenience!”

Some R.E.'s came to look at the big cook-house stove and decided it must be put on a raised asphalt sort of platform. Of course this took some time, and we had to do all the cooking on the Primus. The field kitchen (when it went) was only good for hot water. We were relieved to see tins of bully beef and large hunks of cheese arriving in one of the cars the first day we drew rations, ”Thank heaven that at least required no cooking.” It was our first taste of British bully, and we thought it ”really quite decent,” and so it was, but familiarity breeds contempt, and finally loathing. It was the monotony that did it. You would weary of the tenderest chicken if you had it every other day for months. As luck would have it, Bridget was again out shopping when, the day following, a huge round of raw beef arrived. How to cope, that was the question? (The verb ”to cope” was very much in use at that period.) Obviously it would not fit into the frying pan. But something had to be done, and done soon, as it was getting late. ”They must just have chops,” I said aloud, in desperation, and bravely seizing that round of beef I cut seventeen squares out of it (slices would have taken too long; besides, our knife wasn't sharp enough).

They fried beautifully, and no one in the Mess was heard to murmur. When you've been out driving from 7.30 a.m. hunger covers a mult.i.tude of sins, and Bridget agreed I'd saved the situation.

The beef when I'd finished with it looked exactly as if it had been in a worry. No _wonder_ cooks never eat what they've cooked, I thought.

To our great disappointment an order came up to the Convoy that all cameras were to be sent back to England, and everyone rushed round frantically finis.h.i.+ng off their rolls of films. Lowson appeared and took one of the cook-house ”staff” armed with kettles and more or less covered with s.m.u.ts. It was rightly ent.i.tled, ”The abomination of desolation”--when it came to be gummed into my War Alb.u.m!

Quin was a great nut with our tent ropes at night, and though she had not been in camp before the war, a.s.sured me she knew all about them.

Needless to say, I was only too pleased to let her carry on.

When I rolled in at night after was.h.i.+ng up in the cook-house she would say: ”You must come out and tighten the tent ropes with this gale blowing, it won't be funny if the whole thing blows over in the night.”

But none of the horrors she depicted ever persuaded me to turn out once I was safely tucked up in my ”flea bag” with ”Tuppence” acting as a weight to keep the top blankets in place. In the morning when I awoke after a sound night's sleep, I would exclaim triumphantly: ”There you are, 'Squig,' what price the tent blowing down? It's as safe as a rock and hasn't moved an inch!”

”No?” the long-suffering ”Squig” would reply bitterly, ”it may interest you to hear I've only been up _twice_ in the night hammering in the pegs and fixing the ropes!”

The only time I didn't bless her manipulation of these things was when I rose at 6.30 a.m., by which time they had been frozen stiff and shrunk to boot. The ones lacing the flap leading out of the tent were as hard to undo as if they had been made of iron. On these occasions ”Tuppence,”

who had hardly realized the seriousness of war, would wake up and want me instantly to go out, half dressed as I was, and throw stones for his benefit! That dog had no sense of the fitness of things. If I did not comply immediately he sat down, threw his head in the air, and ”howled to the moon!” The rest of the camp did not appreciate this pastime; but if they had known my frenzied efforts with the stiffened ropes ”Squig”

had so securely fixed over-night, their sympathies would have been with, rather than against, me.

One night we had a fearful storm (at least ”Squig” told me of it in the morning and I had no reason to doubt her word), and just as I was rolling out of bed we heard yells of anguish proceeding from one of the other tents.

That one had collapsed we felt no doubt, and, rus.h.i.+ng out in pyjamas just as we were, in the wind and rain, we capered delightedly to the scene of the disaster. The Sisters Mudie-Cooke (of course it would be their tent that had gone) were now hidden from sight under the heavy ma.s.s of wet canvas on top of them. The F.A.N.Y.s, their hair flying in the wind, looking more like Red Indians on a scalping expedition than a salvage party, soon extricated them, and they were taken, with what clothes could be rescued, to another tent. Their fate, ”Squig” a.s.sured me, would have a.s.suredly been ours had it not been for her!

Madame came into existence about this time. She was a poor Frenchwoman whom we hired to come and wash the dishes for us. She had no teeth, wispy hair, and looked very underfed and starved. Her ”man” had been killed in the early days of the war. Though she looked hardly strong enough to do anything, Bridget and I, who interviewed her jointly, had not the heart to turn her away, and she remained with us ever after and became so strong and well in time she looked a different woman.

The Mess tent was at last moved nearer the cook-house (I had fallen over the ropes so often that, quite apart from any feelings I had left, it was a preventive measure to save what little crockery we possessed).

The cars were all left in a pretty rotten condition, and the petrol was none too good. How Kirkby, the one mechanic, coped at that time, always with a cheery smile, will never be known. As Winnie aptly remarked, ”In these days there are only two kinds of beings in the Convoy--a ”Bird”

and a ”Blighter”!”[12] Kirkby was decidedly in the ”Bird” cla.s.s.

”Be a bird, and do such and such a thing,” was a common opening to a request. Of course if you refused you were a ”blighter” of the worst description.

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 companions.h.i.+p. 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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.”

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