That winter of 1917/1918 was bitter and unrelenting. Month after month of ice, frost and snow, roads like broken glass, pitted with shell holes. In all the FANY convoys attached to the Allies, the girls worked on under incredibly difficult conditions ferrying the wounded and sick pouring in from the Front to base hospitals or to evacuation trains. When not doing that they were delivering Medical Staff and supplies wherever needed.

Things were bad enough. They suddenly got worse.

It was a grim time for the Allies. The French had suffered enormous casualties, leading to disillusion and mutiny in their armies. The British to the north were considerably under strength, and additionally, had taken over 67 kilometres of the French line. A lot of this consisted of trenches well below standard, just as the FANY had found their French vehicles to be largely unserviceable.

Then, on 21st of March, Germany launched a massive offensive. It was a last attempt to shatter Allied resistance and defeat them. That morning, three million shells hit the British trenches in front of Amiens. By the day's end there were 17000 new casualties to deal with. The effect on the FANY's workload was immense and immediate. Wounded poured in throughout the day, swamping all facilities for dealing with them. The English and Belgian convoys in Calais were stretched beyond the limit.

That offensive fortunately didn't last, and petered out round Amiens three weeks later. One reason given was that the German troops couldn't be stopped from over-eating and drinking from the huge stocks they looted from captured British stores!

After a pause to regroup, the Germans struck again, this time against the French along the Marne. Again they were initially successful, and hospital after hospital had to be evacuated in their path, wounded driven to waiting trains and barges.

Horrified by their experiences, and although still heavily involved in Calais with the Belgian Convoy, Grace did what she could in encouraging and supporting the French Convoys by visiting them as often as possible.

These trips were not without their hazards. On one trip, Grace, driven by Marples, was on her way to visit one of the French units. Two men stopped their car and made to attack them. One was a Belgian soldier, one a civilian, who leapt onto the car. Quick-thinking Marples picked up a tyre lever lying on the floor and passed it to Grace. She didn't hesitate. Swinging the lever with all her might, she cracked the nearest man over the head. He fell back, Marples accelerated away, and the incident was over.

It wasn't the first time Grace had dealt with this kind of problem. In June 1917 a similar event had taken place, returning from a visit to Rheims. Passing through Ville en Jardenois, just a few days before the French troops there mutinied, a drunk French soldier leapt onto her car. Grace made short of it in her Diary that night, adding: "Most objectionable, I hit him off." She went on "Belgians never did that sort of thing." Sadly she was now apparently proved wrong.

The remainder of the visit passed without incident. She was able to see at first hand just what the convoys were having to deal with, and the stress they were working under.

The main burden, however, lay on Doris Allen and her teams. The following weeks saw them operating along roads clogged with retreating soldiers, walking wounded and civilian refugees. It was hellish. In her diary Doris recorded:

"The wounded are pouring in, in all sorts of conveyances. Hundreds waiting to be received, situation appalling, not enough staff to deal with them……….wounded lying all over the ground. It was simply ghastly. Ambulances waiting to be unloaded, sometimes fifty at a time."

Unit 6 had to leave Chateau Thierry in a hurry. It was chaotic. The FANY coped as best they could, even going that extra mile as usual when they felt it was in the interests of the wounded. At Epernay, when all the staff at the main evacuation hospital moved out at short notice, half of the FANY convoy decided to stay on, under dangerous conditions, until the following day, to evacuate any late arrivals who might be brought in during the night.

At last this German advance, too, was held, surprisingly by the Americans. They had finally agreed to become involved. For months their Commanding General, Pershing, had obstinately resisted calls from Allied Chiefs, insisting that that they would only enter the fray as a self-contained Army, under their own commanders. However, as the situation became more desperate Pershing consented to assisting the French.

He positioned some of his machine-gun Battalions across the Marne Valley around Chateau Thierry. They held the German advance, and broke it, just short of the town.

Grace and her driver, young Moses, along with Joan Bowles Commanding Unit 6 had a brief, - and amusing in retrospect - encounter near there, with the Americans. On their way to Toul to call on a detached FANY Unit, they took a wrong turning, ending up much too close to the Front for comfort. Having driven for miles through empty countryside, they stopped to try to check where they were.

Grace takes up the story in 'Five Years with the Allies':

"The road went on for miles and the Renault was going splendidly. Once Bowles and I got down by the roadside and still no sign of life – no sign of anyone. Suddenly I saw men's heads. I got quite a shock, and we all looked. Hidden in the fields cut deep in the earth were trenches filled with American soldiers. We cheerfully waved to them, and remarked they must be supports. Then we saw more trenches and more heads and still the truth did not dawn on us. Suddenly the Renault swerved and Moses jumped, for a furious soldier had leapt on us from nowhere, his rifle with bayonet at the charge. "Halt" he screamed "Halt" He poured forth a volley of language, we could not follow a word. Then a Corporal dashed out. "What are you doing here?" Show us your papers. What is the Word?"

He threatened us with his gun and an officer now plunged at us with a revolver levelled at our heads. The road was right on top of a trench that stretched along on either side.

"What are you doing?" the officer hissed at us.

By this time I was off the car beside him. "What's the matter?" I asked, "We are going to Toul."

"You are putting all our lives in danger." he said quite angrily. "Standing here in the open talking to you. – don't you see you are going straight to the German lines?" – he pointed ahead – "They are not three kilometres away, you can see them. They can see us.

"We must go back" I said, utterly taken aback.

"No, no. You can't turn the car. All right men, go back to your places" he said to the other two soldiers. "They're not spies." And to us "There is a path on the left a few yards along, it turns suddenly down this side of the little hill there." He pointed to a rise in the ground. "It is your only chance, there is no road."

He vanished into his trench."

Moses looked at me, her lips smiling in spite of herself. "Oh Mrs Mac, if we'd gone into the German lines with the Renault, what would the Belgians have said?"

I was in no mood for joking now. I realized what utter fools we were – that camouflaged, deserted road, that absolute absence of life. The trenches of Americans – and we had not guessed! At that moment there was a shrill screaming sound, and a tree on the roadside not far ahead swayed stupidly and rolled over on its side, across the road.

"Shall I turn, Mac?" Moses gasped.

"No" I shouted "drive like hell, watch for the turn off."

The Renault went all out.

"HERE, MOSES. LOOK!"

Another shell came screaming along the road. The Germans had seen us, they must have been puzzled as too what we were doing, heading straight for them. The car swayed and shook on one wheel. Moses turned a white face to me.

"Oh Mac. I nearly turned her over. I was past it when you called".

I had only just seen the footpath in time. We were sheltered now, by a grassy hillock, and we heard a shell scream but we were safe. I think it was too sudden to realize it. I know my thoughts went to the car. The Belgians had let me take it as it was the fastest in the garage: if I had lost it to the Germans? - It was unthinkable!

We were driving through masses of Americans lying on the ground waiting to go up when darkness came. They eyed us with wonder. We did not stop, saw a road, and got onto it, and passed an American burial ground. "

The three of them finally got to Toul, had some lunch with the small group of the French convoy, and then travelled on to Chalons sur Marne where they caught up with Unit 9, rushed off their feet as were they all.

Once the German advance was stopped, the casualty flow stemmed. The Marne Valley Units, pretty well exhausted, were given a much-needed – and appreciated – 2 weeks rest at Connautre, well south of the fighting line. Here they were accommodated, to their great amusement, in a German POW hut, surrounded by barbed wire, which they considered gave it 'an air of great distinction'. They were all able to relax, and meet up again with old friends from Binson, as Grace and others came to join them for brief periods.

Always full of admiration for her FANYs., Grace wrote of these Units:

"The girls were wonderful from start to finish, the comradeship & affection & loyalty to their officers & pride in their Corps. I speak for all the French and Belgian Units & I feel certain the English Units were the same, for they were all FANY,"

She was absolutely right.

The English convoy came under tremendous pressure when another phase of the German offensive was launched. Aimed initially at Ypres, and Hazebruck which wasn't far from St Omer, the major British communications centre, its immediate success meant the urgent evacuation of all hospitals in that area.

Unit 8, the newly formed convoy near St Omer, found themselves driving day and night under almost continual bombardment, dealing not only with military casualties, but civilian, too.

Once they were called to an exploding ammunition dump. They arrived, to find the place littered with dead and wounded. The girls coped magnificently. All day they worked quietly and competently, as the explosions continued, collecting the wounded, loading them into their ambulances, delivering them, and returning for more.

It turned out to be a memorable day indeed for the Corps. Not only did they earn unstinted praise from all the Army personnel who were there, but no fewer that 16 Military Medals for their bravery and devotion to duty, to boot!

Because it was an almost unprecedented number of recommendations, every single one was closely scrutinized, checked and re-checked, and each and every one was found to be truly merited.

It is worthy of note, that the British Army awarded these 16 decorations for bravery to an unofficial and independent group of ladies in uniform, with which they had been at loggerheads since war broke out.

A far cry, indeed, from the jibes levelled against them not so very long before, of 'soft white hands' and 'go home and knit'.