168 AWARDED FOR VALOUR
Three nurses recently received the Military Medal ‘for conspicuous bravery
under fire, on No. 27 Ambulance Train’. The train was carrying a full
load of nearly five hundred sick and wounded away by night from a town
in the vicinity of the Somme front, when an aeroplane attack began. Five
bombs fell in the immediate neighbourhood of the train. The windows
were smashed and the lights went out. The train gave a heave which
threw some of the patients out of their cots. One of the sisters is reported
to have called out to the men in her coach: ‘Now, be quiet and good,
boys, till I light a lamp.’ This she managed to do, and the men declared
that her hand never trembled. The commanding officer reports that ‘the
sisters went about their work coolly, collectively, and cheerfully, and that
by their magnificent conduct they not only allayed the alarm among the
helpless patients, and those suffering from shell shock, but caused both
patients and personnel to play to the standard which they set.’^10
Women accompanying the Army were not the only noncombatants facing
danger from enemy actions. Submarines lurked off the coast while Zeppelins
and Gothas droned through the skies, constant reminders that the enemy
could strike areas that traditionally never felt the touch of war. All created
new potential scenarios for heroism.^11
With the King’s approval in hand, the question of warrant revision
achieved a higher level of significance and moved a rung further up on
the bureaucratic ladder. Military Secretary Lieutenant-General Sir Francis
Davies sent a formal announcement of the impending redraft to the various
service branches and appropriate government offices. Having notified them
to nominate a representative to the Warrant Committee, he then dropped
the bombshell concerning the possibility of including women as eligible
for the VC, using Ponsonby’s examples and reasoning as to why this was a
question of necessity.^12
It is interesting to note that in addition to the War Office, the Admiralty,
The Colonial Office and the Air Office, Davies also sent a copy of the
circular to GHQ in France. Davies informed Ponsonby, ‘I have also invited
the opinion of Sir Douglas Haig and have suggested that he consult his
Army commanders. Their opinion should, I suggest, carry great weight as
the number of V.C. awarded outside the Army during the present war is
very small in proportion.’^13 This reinforces the argument raised in previous
chapters as to the influence of Haig on what the VC was and was not.
Responses to the Davies circular ranged from the rational to the apoplectic.
Neither the Air Ministry nor the India Office had any philosophical objection
to the inclusion of women, although both stressed in their short replies
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