As they drove back to Boulogne in bright sunshine, Grace's sombre mood changed, with Betty's help, and became as cheerful and vivacious as ever. Something else that raised their spirits was the presence of so many British troops in that part of France. Then they lost their way, and according to Grace: "through the stupidity of an English sentry we wandered in circles in little by-roads, and didn't reach Boulogne until 12.30!

At this point, Betty decided that she would cross, too, and we had a great time Visa-ing our Passports – AND had to borrow money from the Base Commandant!"

This was so typical of the ways of the FANY in those days. They could make a decision on the spot, and act on it immediately, such was their independence. There is no doubt that this characteristic was at the root of the reasons the British authorities viewed them with such suspicion.

Grace took the opportunity of a break away from France to write a long letter to her mother. Dated April 19^th, the day before her return to Boulogne, it was full of her adventures with Charlie, of the last few days. It was obvious from the tenor of the letter that she was greatly amused by the whole episode, and loved being with Charlie again. Of the French officers crashing into her ambulance , she said: " One was very nice and I asked him to come to Calais to see us – so he has promised to come and bring Charlie, too."

She rattled on in her slightly discordant fashion, about the British troops they had passed as they headed for Boulogne. "It was rather fun, as we met squadrons of English cavalry on our return journey and they all cheered and saluted – no women are ever allowed here at all."

She mentioned, in passing, that they had heard the firing of the new 15 inch guns some way away; hastily reassuring her mother that they were 25 kilometres from the Front Line, and perfectly safe.

There were other things on her mind too that she was anxious to tell her mother about. Shortly before leaving Calais to meet Charlie, The Belgian Commandant in Calais, General Clooten, had approached her. Following her proposal earlier, would she go up to Camp du Ruchard for a few days and report back to him on the true state of affairs there?

She was delighted, telling her mother she would be going up next week. It was a vast camp for 4000 or so Belgian soldiers, and about 700 convalescents, the latter being the target of Grace's sympathy. She writes, with obvious excitement; "I am going there on Thursday, and will probably be five days gone." Then she adds, almost as an aside: "I have also offered to start a Soldiers' Club for Belgians at the Front, and my offer has been sent to the King, personally recommended by General Clooten."

This letter is so typical of the kind of woman Grace was, bubbling with enthusiasm, - words and ideas and plans tumbling out of her, often full of non sequitors. "I am over here for a weekend." she goes on "I met Charlie at Boulogne (your wire to me was signed Brown, how was that?) and motored him to St. Omer." Scribbled at one side of the margin at the top of the letter –another of Grace's hallmarks - she says: "Charlie gave me a wire to send to you from Boulogne that he had arrived safely – I had not a chance of sending it and forgot it this morning."

Also at the top of the page, on the other side, was scrawled another snippet: "Have posted a group of Rhodesian KOYLI with Rannie (her new husband) in it till I get a photo of him. Mine have not come yet."

So much to write – so little time!

Not quite drawing this rather breathless letter to a close, she dashes off another afterthought at the top of the last page, in her bold, fast-moving, can't-waste-a –second handwriting: "There is a big photo of me and a whole page interview in the Lady's Pictorial of 3^rd April also a photo of me in The Gentlewoman same date."

All this was written towards the close of her weekend, somewhere called The Puzzle, Aston Clinton. But apparently she nearly did not get there, having to pass through Aylesbury. She finishes with a series of fascinating but disjointed sentences, leaving one desperate to know more. She continued:

"I didn't get to Aylesbury till midnight. Rannie (as her husband Ronald was known to his close friends) had got none of my wires - and the Aylesbury policeman tried to arrest me for wearing an officer's uniform!! However I soon settled him, AND the Military Police sergeant they had sent for," How one longs to have been a fly on the wall at that particular confrontation! Those policemen hadn't a chance, had they but known.

Finally Grace ends her letter: "I go back tomorrow and come over again Friday week, d.v." Still the human dynamo, the whirlwind, rushing from place to place, never pausing for long.

Returning to Calais on schedule, she reassured herself that all was going as smoothly as possible, which, of course it was, in the capable hands of Franklin, and headed for Camp du Ruchard to carry out the survey for General Clooten.

Arriving towards the end of April, her first impression was a real eye-opener. In the lyrical style so typical of much of her writing she builds a picture of the place itself, sets the scene. In mid-April, after one of the worst winters on record, Ruchard did not show up well. Writes Grace: "In summer there are few valleys so smiling and so prosperous." She then gets down to the nitty-gritty: "In winter few places so bleak and damp and bare. In the centre, tucked away, lies Ruchard – a vast place……………huts were few and tents were many, and mud was everywhere!"

It was a depressing place. A huge encampment , where there was virtually nothing to do, nowhere to go. For the 4000 or so troops who were comparatively fit, it was bad enough, but for the hundreds of convalescents trying to recover form a variety of serious wounds and illnesses, it was hell. Grace was appalled. "I paid my first visit to the Camp, and returned from it sad of heart for the want of comfort, and the monotony of life for these brave fellows."

It was to be four months before she got back and set the whole project under way. While she was away, everything remained static, in spite of full support for Grace's report from General Clooten. It would no doubt have been a very different story had she been able to remain in France.

Returning to Calais from Ruchard in early May 1915, Grace headed straight to London where she felt there was a possible breakthrough in her constant quest to get the FANY officially working with the British Army. It turned out to be another wild goose chase, being informed yet again by Sir Alfred Keogh that the idea of 'women driving for the British Army was quite impractical.'

While relatively quiet in London, Grace typed up her report on Ruchard, and returned to Calais where she presented it to General Clooten. She started off in her slightly fractured, but fluent, French: "En suite de mon voyage au Camp du Ruchard je viens vous demander le permission d'installer une 'messe' pour les sept cents convalescents typhiques la-bas." The poor souls, she went on, were half-starved, and it was intended that the canteen would stock soup, tea, coffee, cakes, biscuits, and other things at reasonable prices, in pleasant surroundings, tables and chairs for them to relax in.

The response was a long time coming, but accepted with much appreciation. In fact, it was 'sealed with a closely definite situation' in the words of the General, proving that French was not the only language to suffer!

Well into May by this time, Grace busied herself, fund and profile raising for the Corps. On her recent flying visit to London she had made one or two valuable contacts, and returned to London to see what resources she could generate through them. There was no shortage of invitations, and when these temporarily dried up Grace was able to herself issue invitations, which many were delighted to accept. It was something of a hectic social round. The British newspapers and magazines were desperate to run stories of British women at war, however far fetched, and they quickly realized that in Grace they 1had the genuine article, with real experiences behind her.

Furthermore, there were a great many socialites who liked to be seen aiding the war effort, having their photographs in the press. Grace was happy to exploit all of this for her FANY, and did so very successfully. Funds poured in, as well as gifts ranging from woollen clothing to complete ambulances and cars; beds, hospital equipment. This 'social round' might have seemed out of place for a member of a voluntary medical Corps, but the operative word was 'voluntary'. The FANY was entirely self-supporting, could not exist without external fund-raising.

Not just the senior officers of the Corps were expected to become involved, but it was an unwritten axiom that every FANY who went home on leave was expected to give talks in her home town to raise what she could.

In this way a great many found themselves rubbing shoulders with the aristocracy, stars of theatre and music hall, writers, operatic divas and the like. Many of the FANYs themselves were from the upper echelons of Society, and moved effortlessly through these occasions. Grace herself, though by no means among the aristocracy, had been described as a "mixer par excellence." And with her gentle Aberdeen accent was accepted everywhere.

With a considerable sum collected and in the FANY coffers, to the relief of the hard-pressed Treasurer and Secretary of the Corps, based in London, Grace returned to Calais. There the letter of acceptance about her Ruchard project was waiting her, much to her delight.

A couple of days later, her great friend, Molly Wilkinson, had a surprise visit from her cousin, commanding an Admiralty yacht which had just arrived in Calais with some VIPs. Molly and Grace were invited to dinner aboard. It was beautifully fitted out; rosewood panelling, thick carpets, beds not bunks, the finest crockery and cutlery. The two girls were offered a trip to Dover, a chance too good to be missed amid all this luxury. They were kept out of sight until the official visit part was over.

Once across the Channel, Grace was hoping to catch up with her husband who had just recovered from a bout of pleurisy, but out of the blue came news that Charlie had been badly wounded, and in Hospital in Boulogne, several days. She took the first available boat back across to Calais, commandeered her Unic ambulance and a driver, and drove to Boulogne.

A sergeant in the Army Service Corps was heard to say about FANY drivers: "When the cars are full of wounded, no one could be more patient, considerate or gentle than the FANYs, but when the cars are empty, they drive like bats out of hell!"

Grace lived up to that sergeant's expectations, drove like a bat out of hell. Arrived at the Hospital, she handed over to the colleague who had accompanied her, and studied the building briefly. Like most hospitals of that time, it had a grim, almost Victorian appearance. Showing her pass to the sentry, she chafed at the delay as the Corporal in the Orderly Room searched through his file. Eventually he raised a finger. "Got it" he said 'Lieutenant Charles Smith, 3^rd Dragoon Guards?" Grace nodded. "Yes, yes" she snapped, 'where can I find him?" The Corporal beckoned to a weary looking Orderly, told him to take the lady along as quick as possible.

Grace set the pace, the Orderly having to almost run to lead the way. The long stone corridor sent a shiver down Grace's spine. How often had she tramped down corridors such like this, a curious, heavy artificial silence everywhere; the overpowering smell of disinfectant trying to smother those other obnoxious odours of a wartime hospital.

Their boots rang out loudly on the stone floor, echoing down the passage. Doors spaced out on either side, most closed, occasionally one left open, glimpses within of rows of beds evenly spaced out, Doctors in long white coats, nurses in VAD uniforms moving swiftly and quietly. In the beds patients, bodies, so familiar to Grace – lying supine, unmoving; men with arms or legs in traction; others with their lower halves hidden under tunnels of raised-up bedclothes. Doors slammed shut with sudden, earsplitting menace, echoes reverbrating from wall to wall.

For all her familiarity with scenes like this, for Grace this was a new and terrifying experience. Of all the hundreds of young men, many just boys barely out of school, who Grace had nursed, so many in their last hours, they had one thing in common. They were all strangers. Now it was her adored brother Charles lying wounded . How badly? She desperately wanted to know, to be with him again. Hurrying along behind the Orderly, her mind couldn't help dwelling on those shattered bodies, severed limbs, blinded eyes, she had met with so often, too often, since this foul war began.

The Orderly's voice broke into her thoughts. " 'ere we are, Ma'am".

Grace stopped, closing her eyes for a moment. Then, straightening her shoulders, she marched into the ward. This was an officers' ward, smaller and less crowded than some she had seen on the way through the building.

A nurse approached her. The ward was deeply quiet, just occasional groans, a tired cough. Grace instinctively lowered her voice. "I'm here to see my brother. Lieutenant Smith, Dragoon Guards?" She raised her chin fractionally, partly in pride, mostly to give herself courage to face what lay ahead of her. A moment's hesitation, and the nurse nodded. "Over here" she said, and led Grace to a heavily bandaged figure lying in a bed further along. Charlie lay quite still, unmoving, the bandage round his head lightly stained with blood. The rest of him was hidden under the bedclothes. Slow, guttural breathing the only sign of life.

She bent swiftly and kissed his cheek. Tears came to her eyes, The young nurse reached out squeezed Grace's arm gently. "I'm sorry" she said. "You had better speak to the Sister." The more she learnt from the Ward Sister, and later a doctor on his rounds, the further her heart sank. She had seen the signs, heard the words too often.

The 2^nd battle of Ypres was in full swing, casualties pouring in. Charlie had been shot as he 'went over the top' in yet another senseless attack. Falling back into the trench, she was told, he had lain there all day, until night came and it was safe to evacuate the wounded. He had arrived a 'few days ago', unconscious, and been in a coma ever since. He was 'not responding', another dreaded phrase Grace was familiar with. There were so many others in whom the spark of life was stronger, and they got priority. She understood, but it made it no easier for her to bear.

Tears streaming down her face she knelt by his bedside, and prayed as she had never prayed before. A firm believer in life after death, she prayed not only to God, but to her loved and long-dead father; wildly, grasping at any straw, begging him to step in and help. She knew it was a forlorn hope, but kept on. This was her brother Charlie, and reason played no part in her grief.

All that afternoon and evening she or knelt or sat beside him. At last the Ward Sister managed to persuade her that she must eat to keep her strength up, She had had nothing since morning. She returned from the nurses' Mess as the shadows lengthened, and within the hospital, curtains were being pulled across the windows.

As she entered the ward, it seemed to her there was subtle change in atmosphere, the silence of the room was heavy with a sense of foreboding, dark shadows shifted in the dimness of the dusk. A spectral figure stood at the foot of Charlie's bed, silhouetted against the faint light seeping through the curtained window behind. It stopped her in her tracks. She took a quick glance around the ward. Nothing. Nobody. - Just a strange quiet stillness.

She moved nearer, and the figure slowly raised a hand. Don't come any closer. Grace instinctively stood still. With a gasp of amazement, and a surge of hope, she recognized the figure as her father, standing there before her, just as she remembered him from all those years ago, when she was a little girl. She tried to speak, but no words came.

Then she heard his voice, gentle and kind as ever, tinged with sympathy and sadness. His words were there somehow, all around her, in her head. She was not to grieve, Charlie was going to a better place, the two of them would be together. And later, young Billy, too, would be joining them. But her husband Rannie would survive the war unwounded. She was not to worry about him. All would be well, try not to grieve. Then the apparition smiled, and slowly dissolved in the gloom of the unlighted ward.

The silence around was heavy and deep, broken only by Charlie's regular, hoarse breathing. Gradually the unnatural, heavy stillness faded, and the normal sounds of the ward returned. The spell broke. Grace ran forward. There was nothing, nobody. But throughout her life she swore she had truly experienced those few moments. She never doubted the truth of what she had heard, never spoke to Billy of it, only to her husband, but much later when he was able to get some leave.

Now it was a question of 'when' not 'if' Grace never left Charlie's side. She had not long to wait. Less than 24 hours later, at 2 o'clock the following afternoon, with Grace holding his hand tightly, tears streaming down her cheeks, Charlie, still unconscious, passed on to that "Great Beyond" as Grace put it.

And only half an hour later, young Billy arrived, having just managed to get leave, raced to Dover, caught a boat across the Channel to Boulogne, rushed to the hospital, only to find he was too late.

They were at least able to share the grief, console each other, be there at Charlie's brief, bare funeral. But now, whenever Grace looked at, or thought of Billy, one word leapt out at her with awful clarity.

WHEN ?