into the notebook...

[bronze_ribbons]

We were all sent outside during a lecture on "Gases in Warfare" to smell geraniums, for they smell the same as -- I think -- mustard gas. I thought at the time that if smelling geraniums-not-near-the-flower in the future, would I stand there thinking "Why do I smell flowers?" or remember it and immediately put on my gas mask? Almost certainly I would die thinking "How odd, I can smell flowers".

- Anne Lewis-Smith, Off Duty! Bletchley Park Outstation, Gayhurst Manor WW2

(Traeth Publications, 2006), on WRNS training