A laughing crowd akin to tears,
And men are passing by,
Who come from trench and battlefield
Where Soldiers’ die.
Deep notes of music rise and fall
As men have fallen, too,
When Life laugh’d low at danger-mark
And Death withdrew.
Across the hill the crimson glow
Of day’s return is blown,
And poppies nod in barren fields
Where blood was sown.
Coo-ee Cafe.
TO PROVIDE COMFORTS FOR SOLDIERS.
SOCIETY GIRLS BECOME WAITRESSES.
It would cheer the soldiers in France and Egypt if they could catch a glimpse of the scene enacted every day and all day in Isles-lane to provide comforts for soldiers fighting abroad. There in the Brisbane Club building, may be seen girls in dainty white frocks and frilly caps and aprons, cooking every day to supply the restaurant in the adjacent compartment. In the heat of summer they stood beside the stoves, and baked cakes and cut up sandwiches and luncheons to attend to the ever-increasing customers in the long tea room leading from the lane, and to-day they are as enthusiastic in their work as when the room first opened at the beginning of the year.
Until July the tea room was in the basement of the building, and on descending the wide steps from the lane, the first thoughts that struck the visitor were what a charming scene, what a bevy of pretty girls, and what a babble of tongues. The café is now situated on the ground floor, and at small tables, daintily arrayed with the picked blossoms from suburban and country gardens, are visitors from all parts of Brisbane. Soldiers in khaki, tired men, soldiers in the making and raw recruits, mingle with the civilian in mufti, while women in all their charm of pretty frocks and subtle femininity are there to amuse and be amused. From the far end a singer’s voice rises and the babble is subdued to a low murmur. Again an orchestra will break forth into melodious music, while all the time busily attending to the wants of their customers are girls in becoming white uniforms with their frilly aprons and mop caps.
This is no idle hobby. There is a manager, a cashier and a superintendent, who are in daily attendance at the café, while over 200 girls each give a day a week to either cooking in the kitchen or waiting in the restaurant. All this work is entirely voluntary. The proceeds are devoted to the Comforts Funds of the 9th and 49th Battalions, 9th Field Artillery and the 5th Light Horse, 10 per cent of the takings being donated to the Queensland Soldiers’ Comforts Fund. The committees of these various funds thought out the scheme and launched it as a venture. It has been an unqualified success, and they deserve all the profits they work for to send away to their men fighting abroad for the prestige of kith and kin.
Each battalion takes two days a week, and a member from that particular comforts fund is in charge of the working of the girls for that day. The offices of the manager, cashier and superintendent, however, are permanent, and have been held by the same members since the opening of the café. Two or three days a week the soldiers of the military band are given luncheon free, and it is a stirring scene to see them all file in after the recruiting meetings at the Post Office. Sometimes they play outside the lane, and from every office window along the lane and overlooking from Queen-street, listening business girls and men are craning to see the soldiers and listen to the delightful music of the band.
The café is an emblem of woman’s admiration for the man in khaki. No work is too great or too tiresome to express that hardly understood feeling of her’s for the soldier who risks his life for his country. And overshadowing the laughter and the music, the symbols of the soldier are ever present, for round the walls of the café are the glorious flags of the Empire: Australia, the 9th Battalion, 49th Battalion, 9th Field Artillery Brigade, and the 5th Light Horse.
