The Corporal of the Guard, utterly out of his depth, just threw open the massive doors to the ante-room within. The usual hubbub ceased. Dead silence descended on the officers and men congregated there. All heads swung round, staring at her. One or two, mistaking her for a man, saluted without thinking.

"I saluted gravely back," Grace wrote later "and looked around for a likely interpreter." Recovering himself, a very dapper ADC asked her business. She stated it quietly. "I am English. I am a nurse. The English officer I have been nursing is dead. I want to return to England."

A small group of officers gathered round her. All spoke perfect English. They made plain they could not permit her to return to England. She would go to Brussels, and from there she would almost certainly be sent to Germany.

Grace continued to press her point. She was a nurse. She would go to England to nurse English patients. Not to Germany to nurse Germans.

They couldn't understand it. An Englishwoman in British officers' khaki, with a Lieutenant's insignia. The discussion was brought abruptly to an end by a senior Colonel who strode up to the group. He was quite clear. She would present herself at this Headquarters at 9 o'clock the next day, when her papers would be prepared for her. She would then be sent to Germany via Brussels.

Savouring the drama of the situation to the end, Grace recalls:

"So, with many salutes we parted, and I swanked out through the courtyard filled with Germans, as if khaki had never before been so fittingly worn..."