All these ambulances at LeTreport are driven by girls belonging to the V. A. D. I'm not sure whether it means Volunteer Ambulance Department or Volunteer Aid Department, but that is immaterial; they are wonders, whatever name they sail under.
They work all hours, day or night, transferring patients to and from trains and hospitals. They furnished their own uniforms and paid all their own expenses, and for a long time served without any compensation, but I have heard that a small allowance has been made them recently.
The girl who took us down to the train told me that she had been over there two years. I asked her if it was not pretty hard work and she replied: "Oh, sometimes it is hard, when the weather is bad, but we know it is nothing to what the men are doing up in front, so we are glad to be able to do our little bit, wherever we can."
Going down the hill, we passed a big ambulance, filled with wounded, standing alongside the road. A little slip of a girl, who looked as though she weighed about ninety pounds, was changing a tire and I honestly believe that that tire and rim weighed as much as she did. Our driver stopped and proffered assistance but the little one declined, remarking that we'd better hurry or she would beat us to the train. As a matter of fact, she was not five minutes after us.
I was in pretty bad shape; could see very little and had an attack of trench fever. As soon as I was able to travel I was sent, with several others, by hospital train to Le Havre, where we went aboard the hospital ship Carisbrook Castle, landing at Southampton, and so on to London, where I was lucky enough to draw an assignment to another B. R. C. hospital--Mrs. Pollock's, at 50 Weymouth Street. And here I remained until, passed on by numerous "boards" and subjected to many examinations, I found myself again on the way to France, where I reported the fifth of December--still able to "carry on."