CHAPTER XIV
SIDE LINES OF THE RED TRIANGLE
The Y.M.C.A. has fashioned a girdle of mercy and loving-kindness round the world which will stand to their credit as long as the memory of this war exists.—Lord Curzon of Kedleston.
A SHAKEDOWN IN A LONDON HUT
RELATIVES OF THE DANGEROUSLY WOUNDED ARE LOOKED AFTER BY THE Y.M.C.A. IN FRANCE
There are numerous side-lines to this work, that are important enough in themselves, the significance of which is scarcely realised by the general public, or even by those who are supporting the movement. Take, for example, the 'Snapshots from Home' movement, which represented the combined voluntary work of the photographers of the United Kingdom, organised under the Red Triangle. Upwards of 650,000 snapshots were sent out to soldiers and sailors on active service, each one bearing a message of love and a reminder of home. Sir Evelyn Wood, V.C., was one of the first to recognise the significance of the letter-writing that is done on such a large scale in the Y.M.C.A. tents. The veteran Field-Marshal pointed out that the benefit was two-fold: first, it occupied the time of the men; and, secondly, it kept them in touch with their homes, both matters of first importance. 'That's what my Dad always puts on his letters to Mummy,' said a little girl, pointing to the Red Triangle on the notepaper, when on a visit to the Crystal Palace. Fifteen to twenty million pieces of stationery are distributed free of charge to the troops monthly by the Y.M.C.A., and in four years the total issued amounted to upwards of nine hundred million pieces. Workers are often called upon to write letters for the men, and the latter make all sorts of mistakes with their correspondence. Sometimes they stamp their letters but forget to address them, often they address them but forget the stamps. One lad was greatly excited and wanted the secretary in charge of the post-office to rescue two letters he had posted earlier in the afternoon. When asked why he wanted them back he blushed like a schoolgirl and stammered out, 'I've written two letters—one to my mother and the other to my sweetheart—and I've put them in the wrong envelopes!' The letters were not rescued, for more than five thousand had been posted before he discovered his mistake, and one wonders what happened!
Y.M.C.A. NIGHT MOTOR TRANSPORT
In Paris the Association has established a central inquiry bureau under the Hôtel Édouard VII. off the Grand Boulevard. Two daily excursions are arranged around Paris, and two each week to Versailles. Representatives of the Red Triangle meet all the principal trains, day and night. The Hôtel Florida is now run under the Association for British troops, whilst the American Y.M.C.A. has its Headquarters for France in the city, and has taken over several large hotels and other buildings.
There is not the romance about the work of the Red Triangle in the munition areas, that there is in what it is doing for our fighting men, but there can be no doubt as to its importance. The munition workers as a class are as patriotic as any other class, but their work is drab, monotonous, and strenuous. Little has been done officially to bring home to the man who makes the shell the relationship of his work to the man who fires it; or of the woman who works on the aeroplane to the man who is to fly in it, and yet the one can do nothing without the other. Things have changed for the better, but earlier in the war the output of munitions was positively hindered by the inadequacy of the canteen facilities available to the munition workers. The Y.M.C.A. was the first organisation to attempt to meet this need on anything like a large scale, and eventually the work grew to considerable dimensions. Our work in the munition areas has been essentially a ladies' movement, and has largely consisted of canteen work. Other features are being increasingly added, music and singing have been organised successfully, lectures have been greatly appreciated, and several big athletic features introduced. Sporting events, also cricket and football leagues for munition workers, have been well supported. It is intensely interesting to see these people at work, and no other proof of British organising power and ability are necessary than a visit to some of the great works, many of which were not built for the purpose of manufacturing munitions of war, and others improvised since the commencement of hostilities. At one place in which a canteen was formally opened by Princess Helena Victoria—who has taken the keenest interest in the development of our munitions department—from ordinary shipbuilding before the war great changes had taken place: a Super-Dreadnought was approaching completion; several T.B.D.'s were on the stocks, and some of the latest type of submarines were being built; aeroplanes were being turned out at an incredible rate; shells made by the thousand; rigid air-ships were under construction; and, perhaps as wonderful as anything, artificial feet were being made in the same workshops.
Incidentally might be mentioned here, the work the Association is doing for officers. There are four large hostels in London for the accommodation of officers, and one for officer-cadets. The young officer is often not blessed with too much of this world's goods, and hotel life is expensive, and not always too comfortable. The success of these hostels has demonstrated the need. At Havre, Calais, St. Omer, Étaples, and many centres up the line, as well as in home camps, such as Ripon, we have the pleasure of doing something to serve the officer, and in many English camps we have opened huts for the exclusive use of officer-cadets. Gidea Park, Berkhampstead, and Denham were amongst the first and most successful of these centres. The interned officers in Switzerland and Holland are largely catered for by the Y.M.C.A.
It has been a pleasure to co-operate from time to time with the work of the R.A.M.C. and the Red Cross. In huts, in hospitals, and convalescent camps, in caring for the relatives of wounded, in work for the walking wounded, and in many other ways the Red Cross and the Red Triangle have worked closely together. An officer of the R.A.M.C. (T.), has written the following interesting description of the work of the Y.M.C.A. for the walking wounded:—'The O.C. the Divisional Walking Wounded Collecting Post was frankly worried as he sat in his tiny sandbagged hut with the D.A.D.M.S., and talked over all the problems which faced him in view of the "stunt" due to come off at dawn a few days later. "I've got plenty of dressings, and everything of that sort," he said, "and, of course, I can get plenty more brought up by returning ambulance cars. But there is the question of food—there's the rub. The numbers of wounded vary so greatly, and it's not so easy to lay in a huge reserve of grub as it is of dressings. Of course, I've done my best, but I'm rather worried." "If that is all your worry we'll soon put that right," answered the optimist of the staff. "We'll get the Y.M.C.A. chap on the job." "What can he do?" "What can he not do rather? You wait and see. Come along and we'll call on him now."
'In a little shed of corrugated iron by the side of a shell-swept road they found him. With his coat off and his sleeves rolled up, he was pushing across the counter steaming mugs of cocoa and piles of buns to the crowd of hungry and clamouring Tommies who besieged his premises. He was not a young man. Not the strongest-hearted of Medical Boards would have passed him for service. To put it briefly, he had no right in the world to be where he was, in one of the nastiest corners of that particularly nasty place, Flanders. But there he was, roughing it with the rest of them, and to judge from his smiling countenance, thoroughly enjoying every particle of his experience. "Hello, Major!" he called out cheerfully on seeing his two officer visitors. "Anything I can do for you to-day?" "Rather! A whole lot. Can we have a talk in your own place—away from the crowd?" The Y.M.C.A. man led the way to the six feet square hole in the ground which he called his billet, and there the medical staff officer explained his needs. "There's a stunt on in a few days," he said. "You may have guessed that. What can you do to help us? You know the pressure under which the R.A.M.C. will be working. It'll be a big job dressing all the casualties there are likely to be; but we'll manage that bit. What we want is a hand in the feeding of them. You understand?" The face of the secretary glowed with excitement. "I'll do any mortal thing I can," he answered eagerly. "There'll be nothing doing here once the show starts, so I'll shut down, and bring my whole stock over to your dressing station, and my staff too. We can feed several hundred if you'll let us." "What about the cost of the grub?" "Not a word about cost, sir! You're welcome to it free, gratis, and for nothing, with all the pleasure in the world." "Thanks awfully," said the D.A.D.M.S. "That's just what I wanted you to offer, and I thought you would; your folks have helped us so often before." "Jolly good job," mused the Y.M.C.A. man, "that I have kept hidden those extra cases of chocolates and sweet biscuits. I thought there might be something of this sort coming off."
'Ere the grey dawn of a certain morning brought the nerve-racking inferno of barrage and counter-barrage, the entire stock of the canteen was installed in the larger of the two huts which formed the collecting post. Boxes of biscuits, chocolates, and cigarettes with the lids knocked off, stood ranged along the wall, ready for the tired and hungry guests who would soon appear. Outside, in two huge cauldrons, gallons of strong cocoa were brewing merrily. Little was spoken by the men standing around, as they waited, nerves a trifle on edge, for the breaking of the storm. Suddenly from somewhere in the rear came the hollow boom of a "heavy," the artillery signal, and in an instant every battery in the area had hurled its first salvo of the barrage. The air was full of noise, the rolling roar of the guns at "drum fire," the hissing and screaming of flying shells, the echoes of far-away explosions. The ground trembled as if an earthquake had come. The battle had begun.
'The O.C. looked in at the door of the hut. "Everything ready?" he asked. "Ready and waiting," answered the Y.M.C.A. man, and very soon in twos and threes the wounded began to dribble in, and shortly a steady stream of battered humanity was straggling down the road, to halt at the welcome sight of the hut with the Red Cross flag by its door. How some of them limped over every weary step of the way was beyond understanding. With shattered limbs and mangled flesh they came, worn, hungry, thirsty, in agony, some stumbling alone, some helped along by less grievously injured comrades. In a pitiful throng they gathered around the dressing station.
'The quick eyes of the R.A.M.C. sergeant picked out the worst cases, and these were hurried into the hut where the medical officers plied their sorrowful trade. The others sat down and waited their turn with the stolid patience of the British soldier when he is wounded, and among them worked an Angel of Mercy, an elderly angel clad in a flannel shirt, and a pair of mud-stained khaki trousers. Amid the poor jetsam of the fight went the Y.M.C.A. man with his mugs of cocoa and his biscuits, his chocolate and his cigarettes, as much a minister of healing as was the surgeon with his dressings and anodynes. All the men were bitterly cold after their long night of waiting in the old front trench, or were dead beat with the nervous strain of the action and the pain of their wounds. All were hungry. A few no longer cared greatly what more might happen to them, for they had reached the limit of endurance, as surely as they had reached the limit of suffering. But even to those last the warm drink and the food and, perhaps more than anything else, the soothing nicotine, brought back life and hope in place of apathy and despair. 'God bless you, sir,' murmured a man here and there. But the greater part could find no words to speak the gratitude which their eyes told forth so clearly.'
This little story is not the tale of one actual incident. It is only the stereotype of scenes that have been acted and reacted often and often at the Front. Time and time again has the Red Triangle come to the aid of the Red Cross, placing its workers and its stores unreservedly at the disposal of the Royal Army Medical Corps. When the wounded have been pouring into the dressing stations in hundreds, the Y.M.C.A. workers have taken over the responsibility of feeding them, and have halved the cares of the overwrought R.A.M.C. This they have done not once but unnumbered times, and what gratitude they have earned from their guests! The wounded man can scarcely realise what he owes to the surgeon who tends his injuries; but he does appreciate his debt to the man who feeds him and gives him the 'fag' for which he has been craving. The cocoa and cigarettes of the Y.M.C.A. do not figure among the medicaments of the Pharmacop ia, yet many a 'walking wounded' will swear to you that they have saved his life—as perhaps they have.