As you’re whisking through Marquise
(While the patients sit at ease)
Comes the awful sinking sizzle of a tyre,
It is usual in such cases,
That your jack at all such places,

                                    Won’t go higher.

A wet, cold rain starts soaking,
And the old car keeps on choking,
Your hands and face are frozen raw and red,
Three sparking-plugs are missing,
There’s another tyre a-hissing,

                                    Well—! ’nuff said!

You reach camp as night’s descending,
To the bath with haste you’re wending,
A hot tub’s the only thing to save a cough,
Cries the F.A.N.Y. who’s still in it,
“Ah! poor soul, why just this minute,

                                  Water’s off!”

N.B.—­It was a popular pastime of the powers that be to turn the water off at intervals, without any warning, rhyme or reason—­one of the tragedies of the War.

CHAPTER XII

THE PASSING OF THE LITTLE LORRY, “OLD BILL” AND “’ERB” AT AUDRICQ

A mild sensation was caused one day by a collision on the Boulogne road when a French car skidded into one of ours (luckily empty at the time) and pushed it over into the gutter.

“Heasy” and Lowson were both requested to appear at the subsequent Court of Enquiry, and Sergeant Lawrence, R.A.M.C. (who had been on the ambulance at the time) was bursting with importance and joy at the anticipation of the proceedings.  He was one of the chief witnesses, and apart from anything else it meant an extra day’s pay for him, though why it should I could never quite fathom.

As they drove off, with Boss as chaperone, a perfect salvo of old shoes was thrown after them!

They returned with colours flying, for had not Lowson saved the situation by producing a tape measure three minutes after the accident, measuring the space the Frenchman swore was wide enough for his car to pass, and proving thereby it was a physical impossibility?

“How,” asked the Colonel, who was conducting the Enquiry, “can you declare with so much certainty the space was 3 feet 8 inches?”

“I measured it,” replied Lowson promptly.

“May I ask with what?” he rasped.

“A tape-measure I had in my pocket,” replied she, smiling affably the while (sensation).

The Court of Enquiry went down like a pack of cards before that tape measure.  Such a thing had never been heard of before; and from then onwards the reputation of the “lady drivers” being prepared for all “immersions” was established finally and irrevocably.

It was a marvel how fit we all kept throughout those cold months.  It was no common thing to wake up in the mornings and find icicles on the top blanket of the “flea bag” where one’s breath had frozen, and of course one’s sponge was a solid block of ice.  It was duly placed in a tin basin on the top of the stove and melted by degrees.  Luckily we had those round oil stoves; and with flaps securely fastened at night we achieved what was known as a “perfectly glorious fug.”