We had no telephone in those days, and orderlies came up from the Casino hospital and A.D.M.S. with buff slips when ambulances were wanted.  At that time the cars, Argylls, Napiers, Siddeley-Deaseys, and a Crossley, inscribed “Frank Crossley, the Pet of Poperinghe,” were just parked haphazard in the open square, some with their bonnets one way and some another—­it just depended which of the two drives up to camp had been chosen.  It will make some of the F.A.N.Y.s smile to hear this, when they think of the neat rows of cars precisely parked up to the dead straight, white-washed line that ultimately became the order of things!

The bathing machines had their uses, one near the cook-house acting as our larder, another as a store for spare parts, while several others were adopted by F.A.N.Y.s as their permanent abodes.  One bore the inscription, “The Savoy—­Every Modern Inconvenience!”

Some R.E.’s came to look at the big cook-house stove and decided it must be put on a raised asphalt sort of platform.  Of course this took some time, and we had to do all the cooking on the Primus.  The field kitchen (when it went) was only good for hot water.  We were relieved to see tins of bully beef and large hunks of cheese arriving in one of the cars the first day we drew rations, “Thank heaven that at least required no cooking.”  It was our first taste of British bully, and we thought it “really quite decent,” and so it was, but familiarity breeds contempt, and finally loathing.  It was the monotony that did it.  You would weary of the tenderest chicken if you had it every other day for months.  As luck would have it, Bridget was again out shopping when, the day following, a huge round of raw beef arrived.  How to cope, that was the question? (The verb “to cope” was very much in use at that period.) Obviously it would not fit into the frying pan.  But something had to be done, and done soon, as it was getting late.  “They must just have chops,” I said aloud, in desperation, and bravely seizing that round of beef I cut seventeen squares out of it (slices would have taken too long; besides, our knife wasn’t sharp enough).

They fried beautifully, and no one in the Mess was heard to murmur.  When you’ve been out driving from 7.30 a.m. hunger covers a multitude of sins, and Bridget agreed I’d saved the situation.

The beef when I’d finished with it looked exactly as if it had been in a worry.  No wonder cooks never eat what they’ve cooked, I thought.

To our great disappointment an order came up to the Convoy that all cameras were to be sent back to England, and everyone rushed round frantically finishing off their rolls of films.  Lowson appeared and took one of the cook-house “staff” armed with kettles and more or less covered with smuts.  It was rightly entitled, “The abomination of desolation”—­when it came to be gummed into my War Album!

Quin was a great nut with our tent ropes at night, and though she had not been in camp before the war, assured me she knew all about them.  Needless to say, I was only too pleased to let her carry on.