Part 3

Miss Harriet Sprot manages a district which has its headquarters in a base town under the shadow of a great cathedral. Describing the average day of her workers, Miss Sprot says that their mornings till twelve o’clock are spent in preparation of the canteen counters, so that the quickest possible distribution of refreshments and other small purchases may be made to the soldiers in the short hours fixed by the camp authorities which they may spend at the hut. No money is taken over the counter--tickets have to be bought. “It is usual for the queue of men waiting to buy tickets to extend the whole length of the room. On a busy night it even stretches into the billiard-room and curls back half way up the main hut.” Old Y.M.C.A. _habitués_ know the arrangements so well that no time is wasted, but Miss Sprot reports that it takes double the time to serve a newly arrived draft, to whom the French money and its purchasing power are sources of bewilderment. The heaviest part of the work is always at night, but the men are unanimously said to be so good-natured, patient, and orderly that, however dense the crowd, they all get served in time. When the hut closes, the workers may be justified in feeling that valuable work has been accomplished and the night’s rest well earned.

In every hut there is a small library counter where postcards are sold, notepaper is given out, books or games are lent, and games of billiards are arranged, a bell being rung every twenty minutes to mark the close of each game. Miss Sprot writes: “To sit down here is considered a rest, but one can have a busy time.... Private A. brings his watch and hopes it will not be too much trouble to get it mended for him. You take down his name, and hope the watch will not get mixed up with some half-dozen others passing through your hands, and that you will be able to get it back in time from the watchmaker before Private A. goes up the line. He himself has apparently no misgivings; indeed, the implicit faith of himself and his fellows in one’s unworthy self is something quite touching. Many questions are asked and answered. I have been consulted on religious matters and listened to innumerable family histories. The first move in a confidential talk comes when Tommy pulls out his pay-book and spreads before you the photos of his relatives. To most of us the hour spent each evening at this little counter is one to look forward to.”

Another worker is Miss Lilias Playfair, who, with a group of other ladies, went to a base town in France in February, 1915. A canteen had been started in the only available place, a very small, inconvenient room; but, even so, Miss Playfair reports that it was “packed every evening, and most of the day.” Gradually the proper huts were built in the outlying camps and in the town, and there are now over ten huts, and two cinemas in this district, which Miss Playfair and her sister, Miss Audrey Playfair, manage in alternate spells. Describing her work, Miss Playfair says: “Besides serving at the canteens and helping with the arranging and ordering of food, we do most of the entertainments. I have organised a small orchestra which plays at different huts, and last year we had a most successful Pierrot troupe.... We hope shortly to produce a ‘revue,’ and two or three short plays. French classes are held regularly, and the men are keen to learn. It is hard work, as our hours are long, but it is very interesting, and the men are so appreciative and say that they do not know how they could endure things without the Y.M.C.A.”

How much the Tommies themselves appreciate the presence of the Y.M.C.A. ladies may be seen in the following extract, written by a Tommy, describing what he calls a “heaven-sent organisation”: “When I entered the hut I was greeted with that glad smile of welcome which I shall always associate with the Y.M.C.A. by real English ladies--the first I had seen for over seven months, except the nurses, of course. I only wish to God that I could adequately describe my feelings, and I know mine were the same as thousands of my brothers-in-arms. It seemed to me that, amidst all the awful turmoil and din, with the horrors of the retreat and the first battle for Ypres imperishably photographed on my memory, I had found a haven of rest.” Volumes could be written by the lady workers on the mingled humour and pathos in their interviews with the men. In a letter to a friend at home a worker says: “All the time out here life is so full of humour, if only one had the gift of describing it. At one moment one is doing something for a very correct General, and at the next one is in a hut having tea with a soldier, ex-greengrocer, quite charming, but the unmistakable type! Everyone who interests the greengrocer has to sign their names in his Bible. Then one takes an Australian out shopping, and he tips one two francs for one’s trouble!”

Quite apart from their ministrations to the men’s material needs, the influence of the Y.M.C.A. ladies in France has been invaluable--cheering, encouraging, and helping the men in countless ways in their brief hours of leisure, and relieving by their presence the endless monotony of their life of discipline.

Among the interesting features of the Y.M.C.A. work are the Scout Huts started by Lady Baden-Powell at two of the bases. The ladies who work in them are mostly Scout-masters and wear the Scout uniform, old Boy Scouts amongst the troops being their most keenly appreciative patrons. Lady Baden-Powell went to France in October, 1915, to organise the work when the huts were built, and she worked for some months in the first two huts. In June, 1916, a Girl Guide Hut was built from funds earned by Girl Guides who, forbidden by their rules from collecting money, each did a day’s work for the fund. Lady Baden-Powell is putting her energies into developing the Girl Guide movement on the same scale as the Boy Scouts. Realising the responsibilities of citizenship which the opportunities of the war have brought to the women of the country, the advantages are manifest of a voluntary training for girls, on the lines which have been so successful with boys, and the Girl Guide movement is a step to this end.

VII

MISS AGNES BORTHWICK

No woman’s work has more directly furthered the prosecution of the war than that of Miss Agnes Borthwick, who within one year has risen to the unique position--for a woman--of works manager in a great Munition Factory.

When Miss Borthwick sees the trains laden with ammunition steaming out of the factory straight for Southampton, she must feel with justifiable pride that she and her 4000 girls are working for the country as vitally as the soldiers, who will fire the unceasing stream of shells which the girls are sending to them day by day.

Miss Borthwick’s rise to her present position of responsibility has been rapid, even judged by the standards of war promotion. She is of Scottish birth. A woman of high educational attainments, she took an honours M.A. degree in English at Glasgow University in 1912, and subsequently held a research scholarship at Bryn Mawr College, U.S.A. Miss Borthwick spent two years studying in America, and from Bryn Mawr went to Whittier Hall, University of Columbia, New York, and Barnard Hall, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass. She also did some research work in Harvard Library.

At the outbreak of war Miss Borthwick returned to England, and in November, 1915, when the newly formed Ministry of Munitions appealed for women workers, she volunteered, and went to Woolwich for a course of training in both the theoretical and practical work of shell and cartridge filling. At the end of five weeks she obtained a first-grade or “excellent” certificate.

In January, 1916, Miss Borthwick was sent to Georgetown-by-Paisley, where a new filling factory was in course of construction. Here she began work with only 24 girls. At first she and her workers scrubbed the shops, cleaned the newly built blocks of buildings, and unloaded the trucks of empty shells, which arrived at the factory ready to be filled with explosives. By the end of January the shops were sufficiently prepared for the real work to begin, and 200 girls were taken on and instructed in filling. After that the factory grew rapidly. Every week from 30 to 50 girls were engaged, who started work in the new blocks, which were taken over from the builders as fast as they were finished. Two months later Miss Borthwick was promoted from forewoman to assistant works manager, and in May, on the promotion of the works manager, she took his place. By the end of 1916 the 24 original workers had increased to 4000 girls, and when an inspector came round to inquire into the question of labour dilution he was unable to eliminate a single man, for the only men employed in the factory were a few engineers and mechanical experts.

Not only do the girls do all the filling of 18-pounder shells and cartridges of all sizes, but they also do the packing of the filled shells, and the trollying to the railway. The medical and nursing staff, the police patrol, the fire patrol, and the canteen workers are all women. Work never ceases night and day. The girls work in shifts of eight and three-quarter hours.

There are now 130 shops, and the factory covers such a large acreage that its boundary is about five miles round. Above everything else, it must not be forgotten that the _entire_ work of this factory is what is called “danger work.” Although every possible precaution is taken for the safety and health of the workers, in all handling of powerful explosives the element of danger must be present.

Miss Borthwick is only twenty-seven. She is a fresh-looking girl with a very quiet manner, suggesting a reserve of resolution and courage eminently necessary in her work. On her shoulders rests the heavy responsibility for the successful working of the factory, and she has helped to develop it in an incredibly short time from a few huts to the throbbing hive of industry which it is to-day. Owing to her efficiency, and because she has never failed to make good whatever she has undertaken, she has earned this great opportunity of service to the country. She talks of her work as calmly and naturally as if there were nothing remarkable about it. Yet she made this admission while on a recent three days’ leave: “Until I came away from the factory, I hadn’t realised how heavy and how unending the responsibility is.”

VIII

MRS. ST. CLAIR STOBART

No woman has seen the war at closer quarters and in more varied fields of action than Mrs. St. Clair Stobart, and no one has worked harder to help the sick and wounded--on the field, in besieged fortresses, at base hospitals, and in the stricken villages of a ravaged and invaded country. Everywhere she has sought and found her opportunity to bear her part in the actual campaign--a part such as no woman has ever taken before.

The outbreak of war found Mrs. Stobart already trained, for she had gained her experience with the Women’s Convoy Corps, which she founded, and which did such successful work in the Balkan War in 1912-1913.

Early in August, 1914, therefore, she was entrusted with the leadership of an ambulance unit, under the organisation of the St. John Ambulance Association, and proceeded at once to Brussels. Before a hospital could be established, the Germans had entered the city, and Mrs. Stobart escaped with difficulty, after having been actually a prisoner in German hands, and condemned to be shot as a spy.

Nothing daunted by her first experience, Mrs. Stobart then established a hospital in Antwerp. After three weeks of fine work the town was besieged, and the bombardment began. The hospital was in the direct line of fire of one of the enemy’s objectives, the ammunition depôt, but under a storm of shell-fire Mrs. Stobart and her unit rescued their wounded, and were themselves the last to leave the burning city, crossing the bridge of boats just before it was blown up.

After the fall of Antwerp Mrs. Stobart accepted an invitation from the French Red Cross to establish a hospital at Cherbourg.

At first the work was very heavy and the numbers of wounded enormous, but once it was started, Mrs. Stobart was able to leave the smoothly working hospital in good hands, and to answer the call to help Serbia, then in such dire need. Accordingly, after spending some time in making her preparations, she travelled to Serbia in April, 1915, with a fresh unit.

On arrival Mrs. Stobart began by establishing a camp hospital, entirely consisting of tents, at Kragujevatz.

It was the first experiment of this kind which had been tried, but the advantages of healthy outdoor conditions, as opposed to the alternative of insanitary buildings, were soon proved, for the hospital, which had been requested by the Serbian medical authorities to undertake surgical work, entirely escaped the scourge of typhus. Unfortunately, this was not so with regard to typhoid, from which several members of the staff died in June, 1915, including the well-known author, Mrs. Percy Dearmer, who, though far from strong, had offered her services to the unit, and had already done fine work.

During the first three months the hospital undertook both civil and military cases, and Mrs. Stobart organised a further invaluable and successful scheme in establishing roadside tent dispensaries in seven or eight remote villages. Altogether, within a few weeks, 22,000 civilians received surgical and medical assistance.

At the end of September, 1915, came a signal proof of the confidence which Mrs. Stobart had inspired in Serbia. The army was preparing its fresh resistance to the second invasion, and the Bulgarians were on the eve of declaring war. Mrs. Stobart was approached by the Serbian military authorities and asked to mobilise a portion of her unit as a flying field hospital. She was appointed commander, with the rank of major in the Serbian army (the first time in history that such an appointment has been given to a woman), and the unit, which was called the First Serbian-English Field Hospital, was attached to the Schumadia division.

After making arrangements for the continuation of the work of the Kragujevatz hospital, Mrs. Stobart chose for the ambulance column a dozen of her English women doctors and nurses, motor ambulance drivers, a cook, orderlies, interpreters, and about sixty Serbian soldiers. On October 1 the column started for the Bulgarian front, travelling by train, through Nish, to Pirot. But, after a few days of trekking in that direction, the column was ordered to move north with the division to within a few miles of Belgrade on the Danube front, to face the stronger enemy, the Germans and the Austrians. On October 14 the hospital camp was pitched within sound of the guns, and the first batches of wounded were received. But the stand of the Serbian army was destined to be a short one. Two days later, orders came to move southwards, and the first stage began of the great retreat, which was to continue steadily for three months.

The life of the members of the field hospital during the retreat was indeed a strange one, for ever on the march, stopping for a few hours to pitch a camp and attend to the wounded brought to them from the battlefields close at hand, evacuating them by motor ambulance to the nearest railway or hospital, and then marching on again. Throughout the retreat Mrs. Stobart rode at the head of her column night and day, selecting every inch of their road, struggling for a place for them in the endless procession of the straggling host that beset the mud-soddened roads and slippery mountain paths, obtaining food for them and their horses with infinite difficulty in the deserted villages through which the column passed. Forced to snatch odd hours of sleep when and where they could, always fully dressed, and prepared for the orders to march at any moment, they often narrowly escaped capture. The sound of the enemy guns was ever in their ears, the invading armies always at their heels. Mrs. Stobart truly proved herself a leader in fact as well as in name, for no trained commander of troops could have shown a higher courage or faced emergencies with a more decided energy than this Englishwoman.

It was a cruel day for the hospital column when, at the end of a terrible forced march, during which Mrs. Stobart was eighty-one hours in the saddle, the motor ambulance and the hospital equipment had at last to be destroyed and abandoned at the foot of the Montenegrin mountains, through which Mrs. Stobart then led her skeleton column on foot. The horrors of the retreat increased every day, but the only way to safety had to be faced, though it lay over trackless mountains 8000 feet high, through snow, ice, unbroken forests, and bridgeless rivers. It was then mid-winter. Men and animals died by the roadside in hundreds from starvation and exposure. Writing of the retreat afterwards, Mrs. Stobart said: “Continued cold, exhaustion from forced marches, and increasing lack of food made the track a shambles ... men by the hundred lay dead, dead from cold and hunger, by the roadside, and no one could stop to bury them. But worse still, men lay dying by the roadside, dying from cold and hunger, and no one could stay to tend them. The whole scene was a combination of mental and physical misery, difficult to describe in words. No one knows, nor ever will know accurately, how many people perished, but it is believed that not less than 10,000 human beings lie sepulchred in those mountains.”

At last, on December 20, Mrs. Stobart had the triumph of leading her weary but courageous column into Scutari in Albania, without the loss of a single one of its members--the only commander who succeeded in bringing a column intact through the retreat.

The chief officer of the Serbian medical staff expressed true sentiments when he wrote to Mrs. Stobart: “You have made everybody believe that a woman can overcome and endure all the war difficulties ... you can be sure, esteemed Madam, that you have won the sympathies of the whole of Serbia.”

IX

MISS E. G. BATHER AND MISS DOROTHY RAVENSCROFT

Miss Bather is one of the women whose sporting experiences in pre-war days have been turned to valuable account in the service of her country. Her knowledge of horses, gained in the enjoyment of hunting, has enabled her to undertake the serious and arduous work of running a Remount Depôt for the War Office under Mr. Cecil Aldin, M.F.H.

Many girls who have hunted, or had their own horses, might think that they could easily do remount work; but it is not merely a case of being able to ride well, the riding is only the lightest part of the duties: it is a matter of settling down to a life of real hard work, requiring strength, courage, infinite patience and firmness. That Miss Bather has been able to organise a depôt successfully, and carry on the work entirely with the help of girl workers for over two years, is a tribute to any woman which can only be realised if the exact scope of the work is understood.

The functions of workers at remount depôts are to receive horses and mules which are sent to them, and to make them fit for active service. The animals arrive mostly in rough condition--the horses being of all types, from the heavy draught-horse to the colonel’s charger. An expert has said: “To be able to do this work, a girl must love her horse for himself; but that is not everything--she must be practical, capable, strong, self-denying, and brave.”

The horses are usually sent to the depôt in mixed batches of thirty or more, dirty in their coats, perhaps thin and out of condition, and often lame or suffering from various ailments.

“It requires quite a lot of pluck in the first instance,” writes Miss Bather, “to unload from the railway trucks, saddle up, and mount those horses that look as if they had been ridden lately, and ride them, each rider leading another horse, to their destination some five miles away.”

The grooming of the horses is hard work and requires considerable strength, even when the horse is quiet; with wild and difficult horses it is necessary to hobble and muzzle them before grooming is possible. They are often deceptively quiet at first, and it may take a few days of bitter experience before the kickers and biters are discovered! Besides the daily grooming, which has to be performed for each horse like a child’s toilet, there is the clipping and singeing. After the grooming comes the work of keeping the stables, which must be cleaned out and disinfected daily; while the harness and “tackle” have to be cleaned and polished. There is also the care of the horses in sickness and convalescence, which requires particular skill and knowledge.

With regard to the exercising, Miss Bather writes: “This is fraught with difficulties and anxieties, especially with a new lot of horses. To set the pace someone responsible has to lead the string with the quiet horses that will face the traffic; but though all army horses are supposed to be broken in, I have known our string resemble a Wild West Show!”

An eyewitness described an occasion when she happened to meet Miss Bather’s “lads” out for exercising. One of the horses had taken fright, and, breaking loose, had become entangled in barbed wire near the road. The onlooker states that the girls behaved with the utmost coolness, extricating the struggling horse with courage and skill, and successfully preventing a stampede among the other horses.

During the first year of her work about 500 horses passed through Miss Bather’s depôt, and in June, 1917, she completed her second year of work.

Miss Dorothy Ravenscroft is another lady who has been doing similar work for the War Office.

She is responsible for a remount depôt at Chester, where, with the help of twelve girl assistants, forty horses at a time are prepared for active service. The horses here are mostly officers’ cobs and chargers, and, as at the other depôts, the girl workers do the entire work of the stables, as well as the exercising, grooming, and feeding of the horses.

The post of superintendent of a Remount Depôt is one of considerable responsibility, for the success of a depôt depends largely upon the personality of the responsible head. Her life is necessarily one of continual anxiety, not only for the horses, but for her girl workers, who need to be chosen carefully; the work is far too great a strain physically and mentally for girls under twenty. Writing to a friend recently, a superintendent said with truth: “One’s nerves need to be made of iron; I am wondering how much longer mine will stand the strain.”

This is a question that women must be asking themselves in almost every branch of war work to-day, for all work just now is at high pressure. But the women at home are inspired with the same spirit as the men in the trenches, and are equally prepared to go on until they drop.

X

MISS EDITH STONEY AND DR. FLORENCE STONEY

Miss Edith Stoney and her sister, Dr. Florence Stoney, are specialists in X-ray work, and in this vitally important branch of surgery they have both rendered fine service throughout the war.