Women and War Work Part 14

MONDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, baked mince, jam.

Dinner: Cold beef, potatoes, tomatoes, baked apples, custard.

Tea: Tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, jam. Supper: Welsh rarebit, bread, b.u.t.ter, jam.

TUESDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, boiled ham, marmalade. Dinner: brown onion stew, potatoes, baked beans, biscuit pudding. Tea: Tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, jam, cheese. Supper: Savoury rice, tea, bread.

WEDNESDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, veal loaf. Dinner: Roast mutton, potatoes, marrow, bread pudding. Tea: Tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, marmalade, jam. Supper: Rissoles, bread, b.u.t.ter, cheese.

THURSDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, fried bacon. Dinner: Meat pie, potatoes, cabbage, custard and rice. Tea: Tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, jam. Supper: Soup, bread and jam.

FRIDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, rissoles, marmalade.

Dinner: Boiled beef, potatoes and onions, Dundee roll. Tea: tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, jam, slab cake. Supper: Shepherd's pie, tea, bread, b.u.t.ter.

SAt.u.r.dAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, boiled ham, jam.

Dinner: Thick brown stew, potatoes and cabbage, bread pudding.

Tea: Tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, jam, cheese. Supper: Toad-in-hole, bread jam.

SUNDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, fried bacon. Dinner: Roast beef, potatoes and cabbage, stewed fruit, custard. Tea: Tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, jam. Supper: Soup, bread, b.u.t.ter, cheese.

They are divided into five big cla.s.ses for work. There are large numbers of them cooks and waitresses, and many of these cooks come from the best private houses in England, so the Waacs and the soldiers fare well. In one camp in the early days sixty women cooks walked in and sixty men out, released for the fighting lines. The saving in fats done by the women is very great and their economies admirable and the women are waitresses in the camps and messes.

In one base in France when twenty-nine cooks came to take charge in the early days the commanding officer issued an order that expresses very well the spirit in which the women are regarded.

BASE DEPOT.

The Officer Commanding Base Depot wishes to draw the attention of all ranks to the following points in connection with the Domestic Section of the Women's Auxiliary Army, which is employed in this depot:

These women have not come out for the sake of money, as their pay is that of a private soldier. In nearly every case they have lost someone dear to them in this war, and they are out here to try to do their best to make things more comfortable for the men in regard to their food.

It, therefore, is up to all ranks to make their lot an easy and not a hard one during their stay in France. If any man should so forget himself as to use bad language or at any time to be rude to them, it is up to any of his comrades standing by to shut him up, and see that he does not repeat this offence.

To the older men I would say: Treat them as you would your own daughters. To the younger men: Treat them as you would your own sisters.

----, Comdg., Base Depot.

They are doing the clerical work more and more, and in a few weeks have become so technical that they know where to send requisitions concerning 9.2 guns or trench mortars or giant howitzers. There is a favourite story told against an early Waac that when a demand came for armoured hose, she sent it to the clothing department, but she knows better now.

French girls are also helping in the clerical department, working side by side with the Waacs.

Others, the telegraphists and telephonists are in the Signalling Corps and these are the only ones who wear Army badges. They work under the Officers Commanding Signals and are so successful that the officers want thousands more.

Another small group are called the "Hush Waacs." There are only about a dozen of them and they have come from the Censor's Office and between them have a thorough knowledge of all modern languages. They are decoding signalled and written messages, script of every kind.

Numbers more are motor car and transport drivers working with A.S.C.

An intensely interesting piece of work at the front in which the Waacs now are, and in which French women have worked for a very long time, and are still working in large numbers, is the great "Salvage" work of the Army. In the Salvage centre at one ordnance base 30,000 boots are repaired in a week. They are divided into three cla.s.ses--those that can be used again by the men at the front--those for men on the lines of communication--those for prisoners and coloured labour, and uppers that are quite useless are cut up into laces. They salve old helmets, old web and leather equipments, haversacks, rifles, horse shoes, spurs, and every conceivable kind of battlefield debris.

The work of repair and of renewal of clothing, which goes over to England to be dealt with, is a wonder of economy.

The women are helping in postal work and we handle about three million letters and packets a day in France for our Army there.

One other piece of work that falls to trained women gardeners in the Corps, is the care of the graves in France. There are so many graves in little cl.u.s.ters, lonely by the roadside, and in great cemeteries.

They mark them clearly and they make them more beautiful with flowers.

No work they have come to do, is done more faithfully than this act of reverence to our heroic and honoured dead.

The Y.W.C.A.'s Blue Triangle is going to be the same symbol for the Waacs as the Red Triangle for the Soldiers. They are building huts everywhere in France and in England, and the girls like them as much as the men do.

In these recreation huts the girls enjoy themselves and there are evenings when the soldier friends come in, too, and have a good time with them, for Waacs and the soldiers know each other and meet at all the Bases and Camps.

They dance and play games, and act, or sing, or come and talk, and one visitor tells us of seeing a girl doing machining at the end of a hut with one soldier turning the handle for her and another helping.

One evening at a dance some gallant Australian N.C.O.'s arrived carrying two enormous pans of a famous salad, that was their specialty, as their contribution to the provisions. So life in the Waacs is not all work--there is play, too, wisely. Every camp has a trained V.A.D. worker to look after the girls in case of sickness.

If the case is bad they are sent over to Endell Street Hospital in London.

The Navy is going to follow the Army--so our women will be "Soldier and Sailor too," and we shall have to sing, "Till the girls come home," as well.

The Admiralty has decided to employ women on various duties on sh.o.r.e hitherto done by naval ratings, and to establish a Women's Royal Naval Service. The women will have a distinctive uniform and the service will be confined to women employed on definite duties directly connected with the Royal Navy. It is not intended at present to include those serving in the Admiralty departments or the Royal Dockyards or other civil establishments under the Admiralty. There are thousands of women in these already, as there were in Army pay offices, etc., before the Waacs were formed.

Dame Katherine Furse, G.B.E., will be Director of the Women's Royal Naval Service, and will be responsible under the Second Sea Lord, for its administration and organization.

Already we hear they are likely to be known as the "Wrens." And so our women are inside the organized forces of defence of our Country--the last line of usefulness and service.

THE WAR AND MORALS

"Evils which have been allowed to flourish for centuries cannot be destroyed in a day. If the nation really wishes to be freed from the consequences of prost.i.tution it must deal with the sources of prost.i.tution by a long series of social, educational, and economic reforms. The ultimate remedy is the acceptance of a single standard of morality for men and women, and the recognition that man is meant to be the master and not the slave of his body. There are thousands of men both in the army and out of it who know this, and for whom the streets of London have no dangers."

--Dr. HELEN WILSON.

CHAPTER XII

THE WAR AND MORALS

The unprecedented state of things produced by the war brought in its train serious anxiety as to moral conditions, not only in regard to the relation between the s.e.xes but in other ways. The gathering of every kind of man together in camps creates great problems. Young boys, who had never been away from home before, who know very little of the world or of temptations, were often flung in with very undesirable companions. There were many risks and many hard tests and the parents who see their young boys go to camp without preparing them, or warning them, do their boys a great disservice and I have known of sons who bore in their hearts a feeling of having been badly treated by their parents, that would never die, for being sent without a word of counsel into these things.

It is not only actions--corrupt thoughts are the most evil of all--and to help to give our boys the greatest possession, moral courage, founded on knowledge, is our finest gift.

There were temptations to think less cleanly, to hear things said without protest and to say them later. There were drinking temptations and one used to wonder with a sick heart, what mothers would feel if they could see these young boys of theirs sometimes, so pathetically young and so foolish. There was also in these great camps of men--let us realize that quite clearly--great good for the boys and the men--good that far outweighs the evil. All the good of discipline, all they gained by their coming together for a great cause, all they gained in that great comradeship and service for each other, and in their self-sacrifice for their country and the world. The wonder and beauty of what it is, and means some of our own men have told us--among them one who died, Donald Hankey, and has left us a rich treasure in his works. And we all know it in our own men--that abiding spirit that is the vision without which the people perish.

But there are and were evils to fight and men and women to help. The huts and canteens and guesthouses are great agencies for good--as well as for comfort. Loneliness, and nowhere to go, and no one to talk to, are conditions that make for mischief.

Then there were the girls at the outbreak of the war, excited by all that was happening, not yet busy as they nearly all are now, feeling that the greatest thing was to know the soldiers and talk and walk with them, and flocking around camps and barracks, being foolish and risking worse.