tent pegs were pulled up and the tent pulled down and we all thankfully
tramped back to camp to 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.