Although Grace had quickly proved her worth at the Field Hospital in Boulevard Leopold, willing to undertake any task asked of her, she longed for more direct action. She changed dressings, assisted Doctors during operations, carried out the many varied and often unpleasant tasks which so many of the wounded were unable to do themselves. But her upbringing and adventurous nature, all conspired to channel her thoughts and ambitions to more active participation in the war.

She got her chance. One afternoon, officially off-duty, she was asked if she would go with an ambulance to help collect wounded from just behind the front lines. This was exactly the chance she had been waiting for, determined to prove herself away from the confines of a Military Hospital. She needed no further urging and leapt aboard the ambulance. This first foray for her was in the direction of Lierre. As they were approaching the front line zone, they met up with a cyclist, who waved them down. He explained he needed help removing wounded further along the road. Away they went, the cyclist in front leading the way. Grace had never done this before, was full of excitement, smiling wryly at the thought of the Corps' original aim of ladies galloping onto the field of battle to succour the wounded in colourful uniforms of red, blue and white. And here was she, a few hectic years later, doing much the same, but in a motor ambulance in a drab khaki uniform.

They stopped at a small brick house by the roadside, but before Grace could get out, both the driver and the cyclist had taken to their heels and were running wildly down the road away from the house. The countryside was flat, a ditch ran alongside the road. In the distance Grace caught a glimpse of some cottages. On the road itself, she was aware of small puffs of smoke in the sky above her, wild explosions, then ahead of her, "great clouds of smoke bursting from the ground". She wrote later, "Suddenly I felt a great exaltation, and I ran – ran my hardest – and stood on the edge of the trench and looked in. There were three or four figures there, very still."

This was her 'blooding', - her baptism of enemy fire. There was more to come. Two men began lifting another out of the trench, and a third man " with a ragged, untidy moustache, and a white face was trying to climb out. One of his legs was all torn – clothing, and blood and bandage."

Grace leapt down beside him, wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and struggled out onto the road. She was deafened by a massive explosion close by, Half dazed by the sheer volume of sound, the breathtaking impact, she lost all sense of thought. She stood quite still, unable to move. A thick cloud of dark smoke rose not far away, and a frightening unfamiliar smell spread with it. She was alone. All the men had gone. But where? Forcing herself to swivel round, a feeling of dread within her, eyes blinking in the dust and smoke, she found them, all crouched again in the ditch.

At last she realized what had happened as her mind started to clear. A shell had burst just a few yards away. The soldiers, experienced, and recognizing the sound of one approaching, had instinctively flung themselves back into the ditch. Grace, of course, had had no such experience to draw on. Recording the incident in her diary, she notes "The men were looking at me with stolid unconcern. They were rising, going back [to the ambulance]. I went too."

Then one of those many instances of black of humour that occasionally occur when men are locked in combat, imprinted itself in Grace's memory. As Grace hurried behind the other men, she heard a loud, wailing scream. Another shell? she wondered. The soldiers all stopped, grouped behind a very small, young tree. She records. "I stopped, too, facing them, looking into their faces to question them. To me it was all new. I did not understand. All I saw was these white, scared faces – in them a sort of dumb appeal. A demon of mischief awoke in me of what we must look like, - four hefty people hanging on like this to a little thin tree. I laughed, and their white faces and troubled eyes glared at me!"

Leaving the 'shelter' of the tree, they ran to the ambulance, where Grace found two other men lying beside it. One was conscious, and moaning. Grace gave him a shot of brandy she carried with her. Then the two badly wounded men were loaded onto the stretcher racks, the others sitting on folding chairs inside. Grace waited in the road with one last casualty for whom there was no room. The car's owner, sitting in front with the driver, glanced at her and raised his eyebrows. Grace shook her head, to indicate she would stay behind. The owner immediately jumped out of his seat in the front, settled the last wounded man into his space, and told the driver to go on back to base.

The house, larger than it appeared from the road, contained a bar. A number of Belgian soldiers stood around. "Ragged, unwashed heroes" Grace called them, just out of the firing line for a few hours. They were a revelation to her, took her inside to see the holes in the roof and walls, broken glass and china scattered everywhere. In the back yard, Grace recorded, "lay a dead pig, raising a stench of protest to the sky!" A young lad brought her a jagged piece of shrapnel, still warm. He asked her if she had been afraid. "Yes" Grace answered him, "very afraid, terribly frightened for a time." The soldier just shook his head slowly from side to side, and shrugged his shoulders.

Eventually the ambulance returned, more wounded were loaded in, and this time Grace sat in front alongside the owner and the driver. The patients were unloaded at the Boulevard Leopold hospital. They drove, then, to the English Medical HQ in Antwerp, who directed them to yet another Forward Aid Post. There they found crowds of soldiers, many wounded, but most already treated and bandaged. By this time Grace was becoming almost blasé. She recorded in her diary: "We filled the car and sent them in. I was left alone and waiting for their return. The men I was left with were all very curious. They all wanted to talk, asking if I was an officer; why had I left England to come and help the Belgians; had I helped many?"

Outside in the roadway, reinforcements headed for the trenches, - marching men, lorries, cavalry, artillery and ammunition carts, staff cars. Most expressed amazement at seeing an Englishwoman in khaki standing there; and as well as rousing cheers, some, to Grace's amusement, saluted her as they passed. She recorded in her diary: "The sun was setting, and far away the loud roar of guns cut through the evening stillness. This was war!"

This was indeed war, any romanticism torn out of it. Here she came upon a British soldier, trudging slowly, very slowly, towards her. Her surge of pride in seeing a British uniform waned, as he stopped every few steps, "looking fearfully behind him." The Belgian soldiers fell silent, watching him and Grace. Seasoned troops, they could read the signs, the body language, new to Grace. He claimed to have just delivered a message to some trenches about a kilometre away. On his way back he had seen a Priest driving an officer in an open car, a shell exploding nearby, and the officer's head had rolled into the road. He was shaking, and looking for sympathy. Grace wrote of the incident in Nursing Adventures.

"I returned his look coldly, for I was too new at the game to realize what a nerve-strain these gallant fellows had to undergo. Many a time since I have regretted my hardness, my stupid lack of understanding, for the poor lad had been through hell!".

It was a lesson that remained with her ever afterwards.

The overall experiences at Lierre were to be repeated again and again during the days she was based in Antwerp. She got to know well the villages and towns in the area, - Malines, Boucherout, Vieux Dieu, all near the wavering front lines of the time. Only the Belgians were prepared to allow women to do this dangerous work, drive their ambulances out to treat and pick up wounded from forward zones. Neither the French nor the British would even consider it, but Belgium was desperate for help. Their small and badly equipped army had no Medical Service, as such. But even in their desperation they drew only on the services offered by foreigners, seldom involving their own Belgian ladies.

But Grace, and later the FANY Corps as a whole were infinitely grateful. Without the active support and encouragement of l'Armee Belge, in those early days, it is almost certain that the Corps would not have survived. It was through the example of dedication set by Grace originally on her own, and followed by those FANYs who came later into France, that so impressed the sceptical and suspicious in the military hierarchy, and led to their being invited to work with both the other Allied Armies.

One of Grace's more memorable trips was to an old, and quite beautiful church at Boucherout, now badly shattered by shell fire, walls partly collapsed, windows blown out. It was being used as a Forward Aid Post, with an English doctor in charge. Those casualties ready to travel were loaded into her ambulance, and despatched to Antwerp hospitals. Grace remained to give what help she could. By now she was becoming quite adept at dressing and bandaging a variety of wounds, some quite serious ones.

The Sacristy of the church was littered with packets of cotton wool, bandages, bottles of iodine, - and a bottle of chloroform, almost beyond worth in that place at that time! Two men had just been brought in, both severely wounded. The first, shot through the buttocks; the second with an arm hanging loose, - "by a thread of flesh" - as well as being shot in the stomach. Grace assisted the exhausted doctor as best she could, but in spite of their combined efforts the soldier "shouted and writhed, and at last his head fell back: then, with a mighty effort, he raised himself and opened his mouth to speak: but only a stream of blood gushed forth, and a brave soul had gone to his God."

Much of Grace's writing about the early part of the war is in this vein. It is difficult now to understand whether it was one way of getting these dreadful experiences and memories out of her mind; or, as the book was written and published at the height of the war, it was, perhaps, to draw attention to the real and so often unseen, horrors undergone by the men in the trenches. Experiences the men themselves were loth to talk about at home.

By the time Nursing Adventures was published, of course, FANYs were serving with all three Armies. It was written anonymously, as a tribute to all those FANYs who crossed the Channel. Not just an account of what they had to put up with, but how well these "elegant, high-spirited, well-bred young ladies" who voluntarily abandoned their lives of well-heeled ease at home, coped with the dreadful and often revolting tasks they experienced in hospitals and Aid Posts. They frequently found themselves living under dreadful conditions, willing, but ill-prepared to face up to and overcome the stresses they were subjected to. But with humour and selflessness, they were able to subordinate everything to the well-being of the sick and wounded in their care.

Meanwhile, back at the church, the ambulance, full once again. was sent back to Antwerp to drop the men off at whatever hospital would accept them, while Grace remained behind. On this occasion, with treated wounded piling up awaiting transport, Grace once again demonstrated her imagination and decisiveness, and disregard for red tape.

A large Army Service Corps bread wagon appeared, and on the spur of the moment Grace pulled rank on the sergeant in charge, and commandeered it. The fact that she had absolutely no jurisdiction over anyone other than FANYs, was a point she was not prepared to argue, even if she gave it a thought. However, in spite of his initial objections, the sergeant entered into the spirit of it. Between them they spread some blankets under a covered gateway, and unloaded all the bread. Then, dragging the sergeant into nearby shattered and derelict houses, they collected mattresses, blankets and cushions, turning the flat breadwagon into a haven of comfort and warmth. When the doctor in charge saw it, he was delighted. A big wagon, it cleared almost all the wounded awaiting transport, and with a broad smile on his face, and an exaggerated salute, the Sergeant set off back to the city.

While all this was in progress, those soldiers and officers in the vicinity were keeping eyes and ears open for the direction of the ever-present artillery barrage. If it was directed onto a certain road outside the town, that was the signal for all to leave as quickly as possible. Troops were passing in all directions mostly between Vieux Dieu and the front line trenches not very far away. One of the most frequent visitors was Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, who passed by several times in his Staff Car, encouraging and speaking to some of the 3000 men of the Naval Brigade he had sent in to help the Belgians defend Antwerp.

As Grace's car returned, a call came in to pick up 3 wounded from an outpost about 4 kilometres up the road, which was unfortunately under shellfire all the way. Grace noted "Luckily my little ambulance was ready, and off we went." Arriving at the lonely outpost, she met an Englishman wearing a Belgian soldiers' cap; he had been attached to the Belgian Service, and Grace was to come across him again and again in the days ahead, always cheerful ,and in the thick of it. As they pulled alongside, there was "an earsplitting skirl" as Grace described it, and all bolted for their lives round the side of the small building, as a shell ploughed its way across the road, knocking down a tree on the far side.

Grace and her driver had a long wait, listening to the occasional shell targeting the road from time to time, while a Priest and the Englishman brought the wounded to the ambulance. When they got back to the Dressing Station at Boucherout, there was a rousing cheer from the St John's Ambulance men who had arrived in her absence. It was this sort of camaraderie that helped everyone to maintain morale in the difficult and dangerous conditions they were working in.

As evening approached, the workload grew lighter, and Grace rode back to Antwerp on the footboard of the last ambulance to leave. Apart from collecting the wounded, she had been interpreting for the English doctors, none of whom spoke French. Back at the British Medical HQ she was asked to try to get a complete list, if possible, of all British wounded in Antwerp. This looked like a formidable task, but the Belgian owner of the ambulance she had been using, assured her he had 'connections', and would get the information for her. He was as good as his word and during the next day had them ready for her.

That morning they left early for Boucherout, by way of Vieux Dieu. To Grace's surprise the latter village was completely deserted, the English HQ empty, and the odd shell bursting in the streets. They left hurriedly and headed direct for Boucherout.

A Staff Car with two British officers aboard drove towards them, and Grace waved them down to ask if Bucherout was still the collecting station for the locally wounded. The officer Grace first spoke to had no idea, nor did his companion. "Go back at once" she was told, "this is no place for an ambulance. The firing line is 200 yards from here." And they drove off!

Some Belgian soldiers appeared in the distance, and they drove on to meet them. The soldiers were not much help. They said there must be wounded about, but they didn't know where. They added that the road wasn't too dangerous if the Mademoiselle stayed behind! This, 'Mademoiselle' declined to do. And they drove on and into Boucherout itself. So busy yesterday, today it too, was quite deserted. Driving on a little further, they came upon a group of English Marines with a wounded Belgian in a wheelbarrow.

One of the Marines was trying to rebandage the soldier's leg, which was swamped in blood. The Marine in charge said gruffly, "Let Sister do it" which she proceeded to do. The small party was completely lost, no idea of the way to Antwerp, and spoke no French. Grace gave them directions, then loaded the Belgian into the ambulance. She wished with all her heart that she could load these wonderful countrymen of hers into the ambulance and take them on their way, but it was just not possible. She waved good luck to them, and set off once again into war-torn, bleak desolation.