This article comes from the book Fanny Goes To War by Pat Beauchamp her account of working with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry.
1918 saw her at Roehampton hospital where she had a leg amputated. Her reaction to Armistice Day was not wild celebration but ‘a quiet thankfulness that we had ended on the right side and their lives had not been lost in vain.’
It’s interesting that in May 1919 she visited her old hospitals in Belgium and France and notes ‘The hospital where I had been was shut up and empty, and was shortly going to become a Casino again. How good it was to be back with the F.A.N.Y.s! I had just caught them in time, for they were to be demobilized on the following Sunday and I began to realize, now that I was with them again, just how terribly I had missed their gay companionship.’
Amongst all the horror and tragedy of war, the camaraderie of those that took part still left a void.
"Unfortunately, in July, I was obliged to undergo an operation on my right foot, where it had been injured. By great good luck it was arranged to be done in the sister's sick ward at the hospital. It was not successful though, and at the end of August a second was performed, bringing the total up to six, by which time I loathed chloroform more than anything else on earth.
Before I returned to the convent again, the King and Queen with Princess Mary came down to inspect the hospital.
It was an imposing picture. The sisters and nurses in their white caps and aprons lined the steps of the old red-brick, Georgian House, while on the lawn six to seven hundred limbless Tommies were grouped, forming a wonderful picture in their hospital blue against the green.
I was placed with the officers under the beautiful cedar trees and had a splendid view, while on the left the different limb makers had models of their legs and arms. The King and Queen were immensely interested and watched several demonstrations, after which they came and shook each one of us by hand, speaking a few words. I was immensely struck by the King's voice and its deep resonant qualities. It is wonderful, in view of the many thousands he interviews, that to each individual he gives the impression of a real personal interest.
I soon returned to the convent, and there in the beautiful gardens diligently practised walking with the help of two sticks. The joy of being able to get about again was such that I could have wept. The Tommies at the hospital took a tremendous interest in my progress. "Which one is it?" they would call as I went there each morning. "Pick it up, Miss, pick it up!" (one trails it at first). The fitter was a man of most wonderful patience and absolutely untiring in his efforts to do any little thing to ease the fitting. I often wonder he did not brain his more fussy patients with their wooden legs and have done with it!
"Got your knee, Miss?" the men would call sometimes. "You're lucky." When I saw men who had lost an arm and sometimes both legs, from above the knee too, I realised just how lucky I was. They were all so splendidly cheerful. I knew too well from my own experience what they must have gone through; and again I could only pray that something good would come out of all this untold suffering, and that these men would not be forgotten by a grateful country when peace reigned once more.
I often watched them playing bowls on the lawn with a marvellous dexterity—a one-armed man holding the chair steady for a double amputation while the latter took his aim.
I remember seeing a man struggling painfully along with an above-the-knee leg, obviously his first day out. A group of men watched his efforts. "Pick it up, Charlie!" they called, "we'll race you to the cedars!" but Charlie only smiled, not a bit offended, and patiently continued along the terrace.
At last I was officially "passed out" by the surgeon, and after eighteen months was free from hospitals. What a relief! No longer anyone to reproach me because I wasn't a man! It was my great wish to go out to the F.A.N.Y.s again when I had got thoroughly accustomed to my leg. I tried riding a bicycle, and after falling off once or twice "coped" quite well, but it was not till November that I had the chance to try a horse. I was down at Broadstairs and soon discovered a job-master and arranged to go out the next day. I hardly slept at all that night I was so excited at the prospect. The horse I had was a grey, rather a coincidence, and not at all unlike my beloved grey in France. Oh the joy of being in a saddle again! A lugubrious individual with a bottle nose (whom I promptly christened "Dundreary" because of his long whiskers) came out with me. He was by way of being a riding master, but for all the attention he paid I might have been alone.
I suggested finding a place for a canter after we had trotted some distance and things felt all right. I was so excited to find I could ride again with comparatively little inconvenience I could hardly restrain myself from whooping aloud. I presently infected "Dundreary," who, in his melancholy way, became quite jovial. I rode "Bob" every day after that and felt that after all life was worth living again.
On November 11th came the news of the armistice. The flags and rejoicings in the town seemed to jar somehow. I was glad to be out of London. A drizzle set in about noon and the waves beat against the cliffs in a steady boom not unlike the guns now silent across the water. Through the mist I seemed to see the ghosts of all I knew who had been sacrificed in the prime of their youth to the god of war. I saw the faces of the men in the typhoid wards and heard again the groans as the wounded and dying were lifted from the ambulance trains on to the stretchers. It did not seem a time for loud rejoicings, but rather a quiet thankfulness that we had ended on the right side and their lives had not been lost in vain.
The words of Robert Nichols' "Fulfilment," from Ardours and Endurances (Chatto & Windus), rang through my brain. He has kindly given me permission to reproduce them:
Was there love once? I have forgotten her.
Was there grief once? Grief yet is mine.
Other loves I have, men rough, but men who stir
More grief, more joy, than love of thee and mine.
Faces cheerful, full of whimsical mirth,
Lined by the wind, burned by the sun;
Bodies enraptured by the abounding earth,
As whose children we are brethren: one.
And any moment may descend hot death
To shatter limbs! pulp, tear, blast
Beloved soldiers, who love rough life and breath
Not less for dying faithful to the last.
O the fading eyes, the grimed face turned bony,
Open mouth gushing, fallen head,
Lessening pressure of a hand shrunk, clammed, and stony
O sudden spasm, release of the dead!
Was there love once? I have forgotten her.
Was there grief once? Grief yet is mine.
O loved, living, dying, heroic soldier
All, all, my joy, my grief, my love are thine!"
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