Invitations poured in.
During their stay in Bruges, the Unit had had very little in the way of entertainment, apart from the Victory Ball, and invitations to occasional dances at one or other of the airfields around the town.
But now their lives were filled with luncheons, dinners, receptions, dances. Life was filled with fun and laughter. According to Grace "We all went dancing mad."
Apart from restaurants, Messes, private houses, there were Night Clubs, too, of which Grace remembers "The less said the better.' Not as bad as it sounds. The FANY maintained their strict rules of propriety – they never went out except in pairs at least, and always with a suitable man or men. These unwritten rules that governed their behaviour were respected and followed to the letter.
Every Sunday evening there was always an 'At Home' in their Mess at rue Limite, and it became a Mecca for officers of all the Allied forces.- mostly Belgian and British. It "became quite a fashionable stunt to come to the Fannies' Sunday Evenings." They got ices and orangeade from the best patisseries in town, and frequently held dances until early Monday mornings, for which they hired a pianist for 30 francs a night.
Grace herself took on the job of Mess Secretary to start off with, a job made easier by her access to the Officers' Canteen as it was called. There she was able to purchase quality Dry Champagne at 14 francs a bottle, and unlimited quantities of red Rhine wine at just 1 franc a bottle. These last came from a huge stock laid down for the German Army based around Brussels.
An additional and very useful perk, with the help of Lt Bonnevie, was access to the large 'liberated' German aerodrome outside Brussels. "Here were left" writes Grace "thousands of gallons of petrol that were seized upon with great rejoicing."
The Belgian population were determined to repay what they saw as a debt of gratitude to those who had delivered them from the German oppression. Many of the wealthy specially welcomed the FANY, a unique organization of young ladies in British uniforms, not bound by the arbitrary disciplines of military service, and on a social par with them. They were women doing men's jobs with enormous confidence and professionalism, yet remaining glamorous, fun loving and feminine.
They threw their homes open to them in generous hospitality – and forgave unintended indiscretions. At the palatial home of Comtesse Paula de Liedenkirk, Grace and some of her FANYs caused a certain degree of consternation by preparing to smoke in the drawing-room. Unheard of behavious before the war. Grace wrote wryly "So much for our barrack room manners!"
And so the 'fun and gaiety' continued, from mansions in Brussels to chateaux in the country. She remembers a dinner given by the 51st Scottish Territorial Division at the Chateau of the Comte de Lichterveldt. The old Scottish Colonel in charge arranged for the Pipe Major to play in the background, as the guests worked their way through the magnificent banquet. She said :Never have I seen such expressions of polite endurance on the faces of the Belgian guests."
There was so much going on, so many things to do. They frequently went to the Opera, and there were a few cinemas, still in their infancy. The other great love of the FANYs was riding, and here again doors were flung open for them. The Commandant of the Belgian Army Cavalry School gave them carte blanche, lent them horses whenever asked for, he or his officers escorting them to all the best places to ride. It was an idyllic period, Grace recalls glorious gallops in the woods round about.
It wasn't all play, there was much work to be done. Apart from long hours acting as drivers to the Top Brass and senior politicians in and around Brussels, they frequently had to be away from base for days at a time as Generals and Ministers went on tours of inspection or attended conferences as far afield as Paris, Lille, the Channel Ports, Arras, Luxembourg.
When they weren't motoring all over Flanders and beyond, they were much involved with their ambulances, transporting sick and wounded from place to place, especially ex-POWs who were frequently found wandering along roads, often near to collapse, after walking out of their camps when the German guards fled.
Grace vividly remembers one horrendous trip taking Doctors and medical staff to a Russian POW camp. The guards had disappeared overnight, taking all available food and provisions with them, leaving behind a motley collection of starving, ill, Russian prisoners, always singled out for the harshest treatment by the Germans. It obviously affected her deeply, and she wrote about this episode: "Dear God! That was Hell let loose on earth. These starved, emaciated, wolfish creatures were animals, not human beings & their cries & gestures and bestial ways made the girls turn sick."
The climax came when one of the girls, finding it impossible to contemplate eating her sandwiches in front of these 'hunger-driven souls', threw her food to them without thinking. In the resulting uproar and scrabbling by these wretches, she had to be rescued by the doctors, and officers in charge.
They never went back, but never forgot the scene.
There were happier memories for the FANY. When the body of Nurse Edith Cavell was being repatriated to England, they were chosen to mount a Guard of Honour at the Gare du Nord station. This British nurse was in charge of the Berkendael Institute in Brussels. After the German occupation she stayed on, became involved in helping over 200 Allied soldiers to escape from Belgium. She was long under suspicion, largely through a couple of English soldiers leaving their hiding place at the Institute against orders, going to a local Café, and getting drunk. Her days were numbered.
Finally she was arrested. The only evidence against her was a postcard from a British escapee back in England, thanking her for helping him escape. This was a particularly stupid thing to have done, but it was enough. After nine weeks in solitary confinement, the Germans shot her. The story went around the world, did enormous harm to Germany's standing.
In 1919 her body was exhumed from an unmarked grave at the Brussels prison. Her funeral procession wound through the streets of the city, escorted by British troops all the way. At the Gare du Nord an alter had been set up inside the station, and there the FANYs of Unit 5 proudly mounted a Guard of Honour round her coffin, while a brief service was held, and the time came for it to be placed on the special train.
Of this, Grace wrote: "Ten of the girls hoisted the coffin onto their shoulders and carried it to the train that steamed off for Ostend and the boat to England."
This sombre but uplifting event over, the parties, dinners, hospitality went on as before. Grace met up with the couple on whom she had been billeted in those far off days of 1914, went to stay with them in their house in the Ardennes.
So it went on. Had she looked back on past experience, she might have realized that the bubble had to burst sometime. But such was the continuing and contagious euphoria of Peace, all thoughts of that nature were banished.
One night in April The Coldstream Guards stationed at Namur held a magnificent Dinner and Ball for Grace and her FANYs. They pulled out all the stops to make it something really special.
She recalls: It was a wonderful night, we danced the soles off our shoes. We all enjoyed every minute of it."
At five o'clock in the morning they arrived back at their Mess, flushed, happy, the excitement and exhilaration of the last few hours still paramount.
Mary Baxter-Ellis, Grace's 2 i/c, was, to their surprise, waiting for them, fully dressed, strained expression on her face. Making Grace sit down she handed her a telegram. It was from Grace's sister. It read simply……..
"Mother dying. Come home at once. Isabel"