It was called Spanish Flu!

Locally it was referred to by the FANYs as Flanders Grippe. No matter it's name, it was deadly, a killer, at its peak more deadly than bullets or bombs. The hospital trains pouring into Calais and other centres now carried more sick than wounded. Numbers rose horrifically.

No longer were the casualties only from among the fighting men at the front. Spanish Flu knew no boundaries. It spread everywhere. As the trainloads of patients increased, the numbers pf doctors, nurses, carers way down the line dwindled, as they too succumbed to this dread infection, a virus which defied the best that medical science could do to defeat it.

The FANYs were no exception. Many of them were stricken down with it, wherever they were.

As soon as it began to take hold, Grace took what little action she could to fight it. She bought tonic for all her girls, and insisted they take it, though the virus being what it was, any effect was probably in the mind rather than medicinal. Her more practical, and likely successful approach was, she remembers to "dash in and spray all the cubicles and Mess Rooms with disinfectant" in between the trainloads of sick and wounded being cleared.

She writes of the flu cases being absolutely ghastly, streaming in by the hundreds every day. It so weakened the men they died in the trains on the way. They died where they were, lying hunched up on platforms waiting to be loaded into cars or trains to be moved on to hospitals. "Died" wrote Grace "within hope of Peace. It was cruelly hard."

The work was both heartbreaking and backbreaking, often short-staffed as the girls went down with the bug themselves. Not just the girls. During these 'nightmare days" as Grace called them, both the Colonel in charge of l'Hopital de Passage, and the only resident doctor, were taken ill and had to get hospital treatment themselves. The Colonel was so upset, he sent for Grace and apologised profusely from his stretcher, for leaving her on her own!

This put Grace in something of a predicament. On the one hand she had no official status, apart from commanding the FANYs of Belgian Unit 5. On the other, such were the chaotic circumstances brought about by the epidemic, she was the only person with any authority who knew what was required. It had always been the Colonel's job to make up the trainloads for the South, a vitally important job, to clear local hospitals, making room for the new arrivals who needed immediate attention.

The watchword, the key phrase in use at all times, was – 'the lines must be kept clear!'

Happily, there was someone else who knew a great deal about the operation. The Head Clerk, Jules. Unassuming and more often than not, totally ignored, he just quietly carried out the Colonel's instructions. Writing about him, Grace noted "Jules was a treasure, fat and podgy and pimply and we had laughed at him." But no more. He was a huge help to her, and she freely admitted that she could not have got by without him.

Working together for the first time, Grace and Jules looked at the figures – 600 on the way, sick and wounded. It was a daunting thought. What if she got it all wrong? What if….? She pushed the unease to the back of her mind. She looked at Jules. "He pursed his lips and shook his head."

Between them they 'made up' the next train for the South. Jules knew this part of the routine from following the Colonel's orders for so long. He and Grace sent the orders out to the various hospitals in the area. Somehow they had to send 600 patients away to make room for the 600 new arrivals en route.

There were off-the-cuff decisions to be made. Some patients were too far away to collect in time. Grace managed to make up numbers from a train recently arrived, men considered able to make the onward journey immediately. They had to send 600 men away. They sweated at the thought.

There was another hitch. What Grace hadn't known was that every trainload of Belgian wounded travelling on French railways was charged £200. Requisitions were presented by the French railway official – somebody had to sign it before he would allow the train to proceed. Again, Grace and Jules exchanged glances, eyebrows raised.

By this time Grace was beginning to enjoy herself, a happy mood of recklessness. If there was a comeback later she would deal with it then. She took the requisition, looked the official in the eye, and signed it. Red tape – to hell with it. 'The lines must be kept clear.'

On one occasion Grace, worn out, was persuaded by Marples to go and get some sleep. There was a train due at 3 a.m. but she could deal with that. Unfortunately, in the early hours she was wakened by a fuming Marples, because the French sergeant in charge of the train would only take orders or a signature from an officer. 'So" wrote Grace "I put my coat on over my pyjamas and sallied forth!"

She recalls, too, "another long, endless day running into evening and night". In despair she sent a telegram to Commandant Bemelmanns, her boss at Belgian HQ in Le Havre. They must have help, she pleaded.

That evening Bemelmans turned up himself, smiling but firm, worked like a Trojan all night helping the depleted FANY section to load and unload sick and wounded, always cheerful, always supportive. When the trainloads were finished, he got onto PARC transport and demanded trucks to carry the patients to the outlying hospitals. Within a short time several of these arrived, each with wooden seats for 20 men. Loaded with waiting 'sitters' they set off, saving the FANY drivers hours of driving out and back, out and back , and allowing them to get some much needed rest.

Jules and Grace between them, with the support of Bemelmanns, kept the flow going, the lines clear. Calais was the only section not to break down under the strain. The Belgian Minister for War sent his personal congratulations, as did the British Base Commander. And his French counterpart.

Grace herself was fulsome in her praise for the "seventeen girls of mine who never faltered, never let us down." They kept Calais clear, though many at times were ill themselves. During these eight crucial days they cleared no fewer than 10,070 sick and wounded through the system.

She was full of heartfelt affection and admiration for the FANYs of her Belgian Convoy. "There may be other wars, we pray not" she wrote "but there will never be other girls like these." She went on to recount all they had been through in these past years – bombing, violence, death, destruction. The job, for them, at that time, had subsided into "an endless procession of trains & stretchers of wounded & flu-stricken men, and they carried on, managing to smile, however tired they were."

She loved these girl of hers, and was so proud of them, so fearful for their safety. Listing the seventeen names in her memoirs, she added "There is a statue in Calais called 'The Brave Boys of Calais'. She goes on to suggest that if a millionaire had some money to spare, he 'could do worse" than have a similar monument erected, with a FANY on top and an ambulance carved in stone beneath, entitled 'The Khaki Girls of Calais'!

Alas, it never was…………