There was no time to relax. The new convalescent Home at St. Inglevert was still very much on the agenda. On Christmas Eve Grace, choosing her moment carefully, and "with triumph in my heart" had broken the news in as casual a manner as possible to the Surgeon General that she had found a place for the Home, and that it would be ready very soon. His spontaneous reaction, - disbelief, amazement, delight – was, to Grace, worth all the worry and effort she had gone through.

True to their word, Sir Arthur Slogget and Mr Stanley had despatched the beds and accessories. They were now at the docks ready for collection, and Grace once more swept into action. She arranged for the new beds to be delivered immediately to Lamarck typhoid wards, where they were exchanged for the old wooden ones, which under her supervision were scrubbed with boiling water and disinfectant, before being ferried by ambulance to the Church Hall at St. Inglevert.

Once they were in place, and satisfactorily lined up in true military fashion, the plentiful supply of mattresses, sheets and blankets followed, direct from the Quay, Cecily Maudant and Evelyn Laidlaw, the first two FANYs selected to run the new Home, went with them, watching over their precious cargo like hawks.

There, along with the two or three temporary back-up staff attached to the Home for the first few weeks of the project to get it up and running smoothly, they buckled down to making up the beds, hanging decorations, brightening the place up any way they could.

It would be a few more days before the convalescents occupied the place, but the girls would make sure that those poor, wretched men, who had been through the hell of that frightful disease and survived, would enjoy the best possible conditions it was in their power to provide. Especially at this time of the year.

About this Grace was adamant. She loved Christmas, birthdays, Hogmanay, the traditional celebrations that went with them, and infused her FANYs with the same sense of fun and enthusiasm. Not that much urging was needed. Infectious gaiety was part of their lives at home, and in spite of the unpleasant, and sometimes shocking, conditions they lived under, the girls never lost that touch of good cheer. As time went on they became renowned for it.

The work and efforts of the FANYs still in England and staff at HQ in London were largely instrumental in providing these Christmas 'goodies'. They raised the funds for much of the decorations and trees, and most of the new clothing given to every patient on Christmas morning; while a great many of the FANY both at home and at Lamarck, happily dipped into their own pockets to fund a lot of the festivities that went on over Christmas and the New Year. They made special efforts to give the new Home a cheerful, colourful look.

By Boxing Day the Home was ready! A rash promise was fulfilled, thanks entirely to the initiative, energy and hard work of the FANYs.

During the following week, the bulk of the patients from les typhiques who had recovered sufficiently to convalesce, were transferred to the Home at St. Inglevert, their places in the Typhoid Ward quickly taken.

The Christmas festivities were barely over, things slowly getting back to normal, when it was the turn of the Belgians to show how they celebrated New Year. They were much more emotional in their approach. At midnight on New Years Eve the FANYs were invited into the kitchen. There they found the entire Belgian staff assembled. Most of these made long emotional speeches, according to Grace, praising the '"Eengleesh Misses and their devotion, and how we had left our homes to care for their homeless wounded."

The Belgians all wept, so touched were they by their speakers. And Grace had to try to make a suitable reply to match the feelings. She said at some length how 'honoured the FANY were to help these heroes who had saved Europe from the Hun.' It went down well.

Then everyone kissed everyone else. This led to the Belgians singing a "Flemish ditty which the English didn't understand, followed by Auld Lang Syne which the Belgians didn't understand."

Finally Grace and the other FANYs bade their hosts goodnight and went 'first footing' in the Unic. They were singularly unsuccessful. Their first 'target' was the Senior British Medical Officer, an Irishman who apparently did not understand Scottish customs, and was absolutely furious at being wakened!

They drove on to a hospital some way off, where they knew there were four Scottish doctors in residence. This, too, was a complete disaster, as all four were teetotal, and were "sleepy and bored" as Grace remembers. "so we returned to our quarters to snatch a few hours sleep before morning!'

Christmas and New Year 1914 had passed over in a euphoria of gaiety and goodwill. Grace wrote: "Had anyone told us that we should spend our next Christmas in France, we would have treated them with scorn!"

It was at this point that the season of goodwill among the various Allied organizations ended abruptly!

Between them, Allied Military and Civil administrators had built a complex system of jurisdiction within the Area. Obviously, Calais belonged to France, but in view of the military and logistical strength of the British Army in that part, in support of their section of the Lines north of Calais, it was nominally in the charge of the British. However, sizeable areas had been allocated to the Belgian Army too, for much the same reasons.

Bureaucracy being what it is, the ongoing petty jealousies between – and within – the various factions rose to the surface. Most units played by the rules, obtaining written permission from a Higher Authority to so much as blow their noses. The wheels moved ponderously and slowly, if at all.

Not so the FANY! Mavericks all, they revelled in their independence. They didn't just talk about doing things, they just went ahead and did them! It never occurred to Grace, for one minute, that she had to get somebody's permission for the Convalescent Home.

So it wasn't until the Belgian typhoid convalescents were actually in the new Home, that the British Authorities woke up to the fact that all this was going on under their very noses. And nobody had applied for permission for any of it.

Reaction was immediate and truculent. To start with, letters of protest were sent to FANY HQ complaining bitterly. Nothing had been authorized.

The main road out of Calais and through St. Inglevert was under the control of the British. They even went so far as to threaten to withdraw Passes for all FANY ambulances and other vehicles to St. Inglevert and the Convalescent Home. The BRCS, who had long resented the independence of the FANY , seized upon the episode with glee, supporting the British Administration wholeheartedly, saying, in effect, see ! – that's how they behave if left to themselves.

Grace was upbeat about the whole thing from start to finish, even though summoned to British Admin. HQ to explain her actions. She commented cheerfully: "Possession generally ensures victory."

And it did!

One of the reasons Grace was on such a high at this time was the well-kept secret that she had become engaged. When or under what circumstances this happened is unknown. Where they met is not recorded. What is certain is that at the end of October 1914 she had not met her husband-to-be, Captain Ronald McDougall of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. They were married at All Saints' Church, Bourne End, in Maidenhead on January 23^rd 1915! It must have been something of a whirlwind romance. But then Grace was something of a whirlwind herself. Apart from a Marriage Certificate, all records or photographs of the event have been lost. What is known is that in her early days in Southern Rhodesia after the war, a lot of her papers were eaten by the voracious white ants, before she came to realize what a scourge they were. It may be that those records were among them.

Grace makes a brief, passing reference to the event in her memoirs, Five Years with the Allies: " I spent three days in Scotland with my mother, and on my return ( to London ) found my brother and the man I was engaged to at the station with a Special Licence. .It seemed absurd not to use it, so we dashed off to buy a ring and caught a train to Maidenhead in the morning. As it was the first wedding where the bride wore khaki, the parson was consumed with curiosity and rallied through the service to gasp out, "who are you, do tell me what your uniform is?"

We had three wedding cakes, and everyone promised us presents when the war was over. (The war has been over for some time now!)

Quite what that final sentence infers is uncertain. Perhaps that the promised presents hadn't been forthcoming after all.?

What sort of honeymoon they enjoyed is also a mystery. Certainly it wasn't long before Grace was back in Calais, and Ronald's regiment, the KOYLI were headed for France. It is thought that the 'brother' referred to in that extract, must have been Billy, he who drove the first FANY 'Band of Hope' ambulance to France at the end of October. He had just received his long-awaited induction papers, and was commissioned into the KOYLI, Ronald McDougall's regiment.

Grace's marriage made little difference to her dedicated service to her Corps. With her new husband securely ensconced in the army, and shortly to be in the trenches, there was little in the way of wifely duties for her to perform. Whereas there was still much to be done for the FANY.

The main change to her service was that from then on she became known as either 'Mrs Mac' to the majority of the Corps, or plain Mac to her closer friends.

Back in France there was more work to be done. The ill-tempered Establishment stramash over the Convalescent Home patients soon blew over, and on her return to St. Inglevert after her wedding, she made sure all was going smoothly.

The two FANYs put in charge soon got it up and running, though it was hard work, It was an absolutely unique enterprise, new territory to them all. Grace was to admit much later that she should have used at least four girls to cope with the workload. "They worked nobly" she wrote, and: "the patients grew fat and rosy!"

It is unlikely the FANYs running the place did the same. They had a very long, full day. Reveille was a 6 a.m. They held roll-calls, and prepared and served breakfast. The patients then made their beds and tidied up under the supervision of one of the girls, while the other got dinner ready; then, after a good meal, they went en masse, in crocodile formation, for a walk, escorted by the two FANYs. It must have been a strange sight! They all then settled down to coffee and biscuits on getting back; played games, read, and smoked till supper prepared by the girls. Then, after washing up, they went to bed. None more glad to do so than the girls themselves.

They slept in a farmhouse adjacent to the Home, The Cure would have been delighted to accommodate them in his spacious manse, but the laws of the Church were very strictly enforced – no females under the age of forty were allowed to sleep in the manse, even with an elderly housekeeper in residence to act as chaperone! Grace's amused comment was that the combined ages of the two barely exceeded forty.

Unhappily, there was no comparison in the quality of the rooms offered. The manse, large, comfortable, immaculate. The room at the farmhouse, shared by the two, described by Cecily Mordaunt as no bigger than 'a good sized cupboard'. It contained only a bed, covered with a large hay-filled mattress, and two thick quilts. No sheets or blankets, but numbers of small and active resident fleas and bugs. However, they were FANYs.

They put up with it, with their usual good humour.