The Macedonian call 'Come over and help us' has been repeated in our own days, and has come from near and far East. The Red Triangle has been quick to respond to the call, and a few incidents of its work are recorded here, though the story itself must be told after the war. The Chief Executive officer of the Indian National Council is himself an Indian, and not only has he, with the assistance of his Council, been responsible for the great work of the Red Triangle in India, but also for the extensive programme of work the Association has undertaken for Indian troops in East Africa, Mesopotamia, and Europe. In addition to work for British troops in India, the Y.M.C.A. has established work for Indian troops in a number of cantonments, where service parallel to that undertaken for British troops is carried on, with the exception that no religious work is done, unless in the case of Christian Sepoys.
The number of branches with British troops on August 1, 1917, was 43, worked by 40 European and American and 9 Indian secretaries, and 1 honorary lady secretary. With Indian troops there were 8 branches, worked by 1 European and 8 Indian secretaries. These figures do not include the temporary work undertaken by the Army Y.M.C.A. with the Waziristan Field Force, which terminated during August 1917, and which included 4 British and 4 Indian branches, with 3 European and 2 Indian secretaries. There was also 1 European secretary at Headquarters on August 1, 1917, for Army work in India; and in addition secretaries engaged in civilian Y.M.C.A. work in several stations gave part of their time to Army work, as well as many voluntary workers.
In Burma a large barrack-room, made of wood and bamboo with a grass-thatched roof, houses the Association, which works amongst the men of the newly formed Burmese regiments. The whole building is on piles, and stands about six feet off the ground, thus preventing snakes and other unwelcome guests from coming inside. The regiments comprise not only Burmans but Karens, Chinese, and Arakanese. Most of the men are from the deep jungle, and very few of them can read or write. The gramophone interests them enormously, and they look inside it to see who is producing the sound, and will sit round in a circle listening to it for hours. Picture papers interest them, but usually they prefer holding the pictures upside down. The better educated men write a good deal on the free notepaper provided by the Y.M.C.A. Quartettes are sung by Karen and Chinese Christians. At the far end of the building is a huge image of the Buddha which was there before we came, and is used by some of the boys as a sort of chapel for private devotions. The boys have to take their choice between Christianity and Buddhism, and as we have three exceptionally good lamps there is much more light at the Y.M.C.A. end of the hall, and we have the better attendance in numbers at all events.
Egypt, handicapped at first through lack of money, has also done magnificently. There is no more important centre of Association activity in the world than the Esbekia Gardens in Cairo. Ever since the early days of the war, night after night, thousands of khaki-clad warriors have congregated in these lovely gardens, which under other auspices might easily have been one of the danger spots of Cairo, instead of a kind of modern 'City of Refuge' from the temptations of the city. The Anzac hostel is another striking feature of the work in Cairo. In June 1917 no fewer than 6893 soldiers slept in it, and that was not by any means a record month. The money for the purchase of this hostel as the permanent property of the Y.M.C.A. has been subscribed by members of the Baltic, but the discovery of the existence of a third mortgage has delayed the completion of the purchase. At Alexandria, Khartoum, Port Soudan, on both sides of the canal and far into the Sinai Peninsula, the Association outposts have been busy. A Red Triangle hut in the desert was destroyed by a bomb dropped from a hostile aeroplane, but when the smoke subsided, the centre pole was still standing and the Association flag flying. The huts at Kantara are amongst the finest in the world, and neither here nor anywhere else has it been necessary to put up a notice intimating that the Y.M.C.A. is 'open to all,' Tommy knows it, and regards the Red Triangle as his own peculiar possession. One cannot conceive of any place on earth where it is more needed than in one of these desert camps, where there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, and nothing to see but endless stretches of monotonous and dreary sand. Under such circumstances the Red Triangle is Tommy's tuck shop; his church—with the chaplain as the parson; his post-office, concert hall, social room, school, and home. This is true of every fighting front, and that is why the Association has won for itself a lasting place in the affections of the manhood of the Empire.
A young soldier writing home the day after his arrival in Mesopotamia, said the first thing he struck on landing was the welcome sign of the Red Triangle. 'And,' said he, 'if we are ordered next to the North Pole, I am sure we shall find it there!' The Y.M.C.A. secretary for Mesopotamia tells of a visit he paid to a centre on the way to Bagdad. It was a big bare marquee, crammed with men, with very little furniture in it—the difficulties of transport being so great in those days—just half a dozen tables and a few chairs, a heap of books, and a number of games. There were six inches of dust all over the floor, and the temperature was 120 degrees in the shade, yet one thing that attracted the men to the Y.M.C.A. marquee was that it enabled them to escape the heat of their own bell tents. Through the kindness of Sir Alfred Yarrow a Red Triangle motor launch has since then been provided for use on the Tigris, and has greatly simplified transport. The central Y.M.C.A. at Bagdad is one of the best of our war buildings, and is situated on the banks of the Tigris. An Association centre has been established on the reputed site of the Garden of Eden.
The story of the Red Triangle in Palestine is an epic in itself. For months the Association occupied dug-outs along the Palestine front, and in those days one secretary devoted the whole of his time to making personal purchases for officers and men, who could not themselves get away to any centre of civilisation to make purchases on their own account. Gaza was the first centre occupied in the Holy Land; Beersheba, Jaffa, and Jerusalem being occupied later. At Jaffa the former German Consulate was fitted up as a Y.M.C.A., and the Red Triangle as a matter of course has made its appearance on a big building in Jerusalem.
Malta was a very important centre in the early days of the war, and the Y.M.C.A. flourished in its numerous hospital camps. In Macedonia the work has been difficult, but greatly appreciated in Salonica itself, as well as on the Varda and the Struma. The need has been urgent, and every effort has been made to meet that need. Transport difficulties have led to inevitable delays in the delivery of stores and equipment, but there are more than forty centres now, including five for Serbian soldiers.
The Y.M.C.A. had its part in the ill-fated expedition to the Dardanelles. Mudros, Imbros, and Tenedos were centres of importance in those days, and the Red Triangle was at work in each island. The urgent need of the troops was for soft drinks, and those ordinary canteen supplies that give variety to the soldiers' menu, and make the official rations palatable. The official canteens were powerless to meet the demand. We were anxious to help, but transport was the difficulty. At last, through the kindness of Lord Nunburnholme, we were enabled to charter the s.s. Nero of the Wilson Line, and despatch it with a cargo of canteen supplies to the value of eleven thousand pounds to Mudros. A few days later the Peninsula was evacuated, but whilst they were there the men availed themselves to the full of the opportunity of buying supplementary food at British prices. When the Nero reached Mudros, Greek venders were selling our Tommies tinned fruit at twelve shillings a tin, and other prices were correspondingly high.
In the centre of an official photograph of Anzac showing the Bay, the camp, and the surrounding sandhills, are to be seen the letters 'Y.M.C.A.' They appear on a tiny marquee and close to it a big dug-out, measuring 30 by 19 feet, in which the Red Triangle carried through its programme of friendliness and good cheer, always under shell-fire. One night a fragment of a Turkish shell, weighing twelve and a half pounds, found its way through the roof of that dug-out. At Cape Helles there were three tiny tents fastened end on end. Had they been larger they could scarcely have escaped the attention of 'Asiatic Annie,' the big Turkish gun that dominated the position. As it was, the Officer Commanding the advanced base at Lancashire Landing wrote to Headquarters to say how much the men appreciated those tents, and explained that the previous day an eight-inch high explosive shell from a Turkish gun had burst in the centre of the middle tent and completely destroyed it. 'Fortunately,' said he, 'it didn't damage the piano, and still more fortunately,' he added, 'it didn't harm the gramophone.' That was curious, and we thought of some of the gramophones we had known, and felt it would have been no disaster if a shell had destroyed the lot! This gramophone was different, however, for it had only just been wound up when the shell burst, but regardless of the bustle and confusion caused by the explosion, it kept on playing until it had finished the last note of the tune! What a splendid object lesson for the Allies, to stick to the job they have on hand to the finish, or in other words, till victory crowns their efforts. Many months after the incident here recorded the Irish Y.M.C.A. was invited to open up at Rathdrum. The secretary responsible interviewed the O.C., and learning that he was a Catholic, asked politely if he knew the work of the Y.M.C.A. 'Indeed I do,' was the reply. 'I was at Cape Helles when a shell burst in your tent. I was the officer in charge, and it was my duty to remove casualties. I went up to the tents fearing the worst, and shall never forget the smiling face of the Y.M.C.A. man behind the counter. It won me over completely.'