The slow, dawning hope that the tide of this dreadful war was changing for the better became reality when the British unleashed a massive offensive against the Germans on August 8th 1918. Supported by ANZACS and Canadians, it swept across the long–stagnant No Man's Land, throwing the enemy back 8 miles, a huge distance in those days of static trench warfare.
It was a time of one-liner quotes from the Generals of both sides, following Haig's famous 'Backs to the Wall' cri de Coeur in March. Now his German counterpart, Ludendorff, dubbed this British attack 'the Black Day of the German Army in the War.' Not to be outdone, the French went on the offensive with Marshal Foch declaring 'Tout le Monde a la Bataille!'
The initial surge forward couldn't be maintained. To counter the Allied attacks the Germans resorted to indiscriminate use of poison gas, and the FANY were suddenly under the most appalling pressure as hundreds of gassed soldiers poured in daily from the Front Lines. Not only were many of these wretched victims blinded, but their faces paralyzed.
The Medical Services were once more swamped, unable to cope with the sheer numbers. The unfortunate men lay about largely unattended. Desperate French Medical Officers begged the FANY to help them nurse and tend these casualties. With the same dedication which had earned them such praise in the past, the girls did just that. After a full day of driving, starting at 4 a.m. until evening, they then worked through the night doing what they could for these shattered men.
Grace felt terribly for her girls working such long hours under horrific conditions, herself putting in exhausting hours supporting and encouraging them as much as possible. Luckily, her 2 i/c in Unit 5, O'Neill Power was always a tower of strength, allowing Grace to get away as often as she could to travel around visiting the French convoys, and do the same for them.
It was a long journey for her from Calais, looping around behind Amiens, and along the Marne Valley, but she loved every moment of it, feeling part of this great movement. It gave her, too, the chance to pass through and see many of her old friends with Unit 8. It was, of course, Boss Franklin's convoy, but they both shared the same enormous pride and pleasure in directly serving their own British Tommies, something specially dear to all the FANYs.
This Convoy itself was stretched to the limit, following up behind the British advance. History has largely ignored the tremendous achievements of the British Army in the last 100 days of the war, probably due to the huge panorama of the overall picture, advancing Allied forces stretching hundreds of miles eastwards from the Channel Ports. By this time the average age of the British army was barely 18. They suffered dreadful losses, over 300,000, as they moved inexorably forward, smashing their way through the formidable Hindenberg Line by the end of September. At the same time they inflicted more casualties on the enemy, and took more prisoners, than the French, Belgian and American armies combined.
It was this endless stream of wounded that fell so heavily on the shoulders of the two English convoys at first, down from the Front Lines, through temporary holding hospitals, and on to Calais, to be shipped home on the constant flow of Hospital Ships plying back and forth across the Channel. Both Units, 3 and 8, led by the fearless Franklin and her officers, coped, but only by ignoring clocks, working long, long hours, snatching sleep where they could. Like all the FANY units at this time, it was sheer determination not to be beaten that kept them going.
Through that month of August the Germans kept up their aerial bombardment of the Channel Ports, Calais in particular. It was part of their last desperate throw, but seemed never-ending in its intensity.
There was occasional relief. On the 20th the British 8th Corps, in spite of the Army's ongoing offensives, found time to hold a Horse Show, just seven miles from the Front Line. Anything of this nature acted as a great morale booster to the troops.
Grace received an official invitation, and took along her three stalwarts, O'Neill, Moses and Marples. The Grand Stand was decorated, she remembers, with pink velvet hangings borrowed from the French racecourse at Bethune. One of the special presentations was a "wonderful old-time carriage complete with 4 horses, and postillions, made out of gun carriages."
There were many Top Brass present, including Generals Plumer and
Horne among others. 'Had the Germans put a shell into the Tea Enclosure" writes Grace, "half the Headquarters staff of the BEF would have gone west." Adding wryly "and with them our humble selves!" However, it was a splendid day, all went well, and all felt better for the break.
Then it was back to work.
A few days later in the midst of a normal day for them – 200 wounded being evacuated from the holding hospitals, 240 new patients arriving by train from the battlefields – Grace received a telegram from Sezanne informing her that one of her French convoy FANYs, Shaw, had died from dysentery. It was something she dreaded, a possibility constantly bedevilling Grace's thoughts. Shaw was the only FANY to die on Active Service, but it made it no easier to bear. She looked on each of them as her own, and constantly worried about them. The death affected her greatly.
The funeral was scheduled two days later, and handing over to O.Neill once more, Grace set off for Sezanne. She got to Paris with no trouble, but there her car broke down and she was quite unable to raise the spare part needed. Finally, the Americans came to her rescue, with their usual generosity, providing her with a car, driver and officer escort all the way there and back. To her eternal regret, she was too late for the funeral itself.
The French had been incredibly supportive, providing a room draped all in white, with greenery collected by some of their men sent into the hills to gather it. Doris Allen in charge of the French section wrote "the effect was beautiful, making a lovely little chapel to which Shaw was brought, covered with the Union Jack." The French buried her with full military honours, saluted at the end by an Officers' Firing Party.
Returning to Calais shortly after, she was happily surprised to find that Ronald had got leave, and was waiting for her. She persuaded him to take her back to Scotland, - "away from everyone" – possibly a reference to his family with whom there was often some sort of friction. There they had an idyllic couple of weeks.
Later, in retrospect, she looked on the unexpected break as an Act of Providence, happily unaware as she was at the time of the enormous pressures she would be under in the weeks ahead. She was just so happy to be together again with her husband in her beloved Scotland. Settling for The Trossachs, they tramped together across the hills and the heather. At other times she sat and read and relaxed, while Ronald indulged his passion for fishing.
Her mood of supreme contentment was reflected in her memoirs. "Only the Scottish people" she wrote "realize what it is to be exiled from their moors year after year. My heart was hungry for my own country and the kindly folk up North." It is probable that when she came to write about this in 'Five years with the Allies" she was strongly influenced by her years of what she looked upon as exile, in Southern Rhodesia, after the war.
While she was relaxing on leave in Scotland, her 2 i/c O'Neil, she acknowledges, "had her hands full at a critical time." The Allied offensives and German counter-attacks were in full swing. Casualties poured in day and night, and the bombing raids continued. Cars and ambulances were often out of action, as base workshops were denuded of drivers and mechanics, sent to the Front Lines to maintain the vital flow of essential ammunition and weapons to the fighting men.
It was a desperate time, but O'Neill, with the help of old hands like Wood and Clayton and Marples, managed, as Grace had every confidence she would. One of the girls, Barron, had to be sent to a hospital in England after a bad accident while driving in an air raid. So it went on, but the FANYs, as ever, managed.
Grace and Ronald's leave raced by, and at the end of September she landed back in Boulogne, bringing with her a new driver. The shortage of cars being acute, and not knowing she wasn't alone, O'Neill had sent a motorcyclist with sidecar, to drive her back to the Mess at Calais.
It was late, and as Grace noted, "I could not leave her [the new driver] to fend for herself at that time of night," so Grace sent her back in the sidecar, making her own way to Calais.
She arrived early by train, braced herself mentally for whatever lay ahead. She thought she was ready. She had followed the news daily in the papers. The British Army was hammering at the Hindenburg Line. The French, Belgians and Americans – the latter now involved in the conflict – had launched offensives in the Argonne and Flanders.
She realized things would be bad.
They were worse.