sleep the sleep of the just till the reveille
sounded to herald another day.

CHAPTER II

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The last Chapter was devoted to the F.A.N.Y.'s in camp before the War,
but from now onwards will be chronicled facts that befell them on active
service.

When war broke out in August 1914 Lieutenant Ashley Smith lost no time
in offering the Corps' services to the War Office. To our intense
disappointment these were refused. However, F.A.N.Y.'s are not easily
daunted. The Belgian Army, at that time, had no organised medical corps
in the field, and informed us they would be extremely grateful if we
would take over a Hospital for them. Lieutenant Smith left for Antwerp
in September 1914, and had arranged to take a house there for a Hospital
when the town fell; her flight to Ghent where she stayed to the last
with a dying English officer, until the Germans arrived, and her
subsequent escape to Holland have been told elsewhere. (_A F.A.N.Y. in
France--Nursing Adventures._) Suffice it to say we were delighted to see
her safely back among us again in October; and on the last day of that
month the first contingent of F.A.N.Y.'s left for active service, hardly
any of them over twenty-one.

I was unfortunately not able to join them until January 1915; and never
did time drag so slowly as in those intervening months. I spent the time
in attending lectures and hospital, driving a car and generally picking
up every bit of useful information I could. The day arrived at last and
Coley and I were, with the exception of the Queen of the Belgians
(travelling incognito) and her lady-in-waiting, the only women on board.

The Hospital we had given us was for Belgian Tommies, and called
Lamarck, and had been a Convent school before the War. There were fifty
beds for "_blesses_" and fifty for typhoid patients, which at that
period no other Hospital in the place would take. It was an extremely
virulent type of pneumonic typhoid. These cases were in a building apart
from the main Hospital and across the yard. Dominating both buildings
was the cathedral of Notre Dame, with its beautiful East window facing
our yard.

The top floor of the main building was a priceless room and reserved for
us. Curtained off at the far end were the beds of the chauffeurs who had
to sleep on the premises while the rest were billeted in the town; the
other end resolved itself into a big untidy, but oh so jolly, sitting
room. Packing cases wer