The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fanny Goes to War, by Pat Beauchamp

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Title: Fanny Goes to War

Author: Pat Beauchamp

Release Date: August 13, 2005 [EBook #16521]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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FANNY GOES TO WAR

BY PAT BEAUCHAMP
(FIRST AID NURSING YEOMANRY)

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
MAJOR-GENERAL H.N. THOMPSON,
K.C.M.G, C.B., D.S.O

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1919

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

To T.H.

INTRODUCTION

I eagerly avail myself of the Author's invitation to write a foreword to
her book, as it gives me an opportunity of expressing something of the
admiration, of the wonder, of the intense brotherly sympathy and
affection--almost adoration--which has from time to time overwhelmed me
when witnessing the work of our women during the Great War.

They have been in situations where, five short years ago, no one would
ever have thought of finding them. They have witnessed and taken active
part in scenes nerve-racking and heart-rending beyond the power of
description. Often it has been my duty to watch car-load after car-load
of severely wounded being dumped into the reception marquees of a
Casualty Clearing Station. There they would be placed in long rows
awaiting their turn, and there, amid the groans of the wounded and the
loud gaspings of the gassed, at the mere approach of a sister there
would be a perceptible change and every conscious eye would brighten as
with a ray of fresh hope. In the resuscitation and moribund marquees,
nothing was more pathetic than to see "Sister," with her notebook,
stooping over some dying lad, catching his last messages to his loved
ones.

Women worked amid such scenes for long hours day after day, amid scenes
as no mere man could long endure, and yet their nerves held out; it may
be because they were inspired by the nature of their work. I have seen
them, too, continue that work under intermittent shelling and bombing,
repeated day after day and night after nig