Women and War Work Part 13

The children are talked to and write essays on food and general saving and in these, one little girl of seven told us, "If you don't throw away your crusts, you will beat the Kaiser," and another small boy said, "Boys should give up sliding for the war, as it wears out their boots," and another said, "We should not go to picture houses so much--once a week is quite often enough." One little child who had been coached at school returned home to see a baby sister of two throw away a big crust and said, "If Lord Rhondda was here, wouldn't he give you a row." So the root of the matter seems to be in the youth of our country and the sweetness and willingness of their sacrifices is very fragrant. They sing about saving bread and saving pennies, and to hear a choir of Welsh children sing these songs, with a vigour and enjoyment that is infectious, is quite delightful.

Most of our big girls' schools have given up buying sweets, and when they get gifts of them send them to the prisoners and the soldiers. We have, of course, restricted our manufacture of sweets very much.

Our school children have, in addition, worked enormous numbers of school gardens and grown tons of potatoes and vegetables.

Our distilleries are taken over by the Government for spirits for munitions and our beer is cut down very greatly. Travelling kitchens go out from the Ministry of Food also and do demonstrations in villages and country districts on cooking and conservation. The Ministry issues leaflets of recipes and instructions in cooking and has a special Win the War Cookery Book. Articles are also published on food values and quite a number of people begin to understand something about calories, even though they are rather vague about what it all means.

Naturally most of the Food speaking and work is done by women though food control and saving is men's and women's work.

This year we saved grain by collecting the horse chestnuts, a work that was done by the school children. These are crushed and the oil used for munitions and it was reckoned we could save tens of thousands of tons of grain by doing this.

A wonderful work in the use of waste materials has been the work of the Glove Waistcoat Society, to which American women have kindly sent old gloves. Old gloves are cleaned, the fingers are cut off, the other big pieces st.i.tched together and cut into waistcoats and backed by linenette. These are sold to the soldiers and sailors for wear under their tunics and are most beautifully light and windproof. The fingers of kid gloves are made into glue, of wash leather gloves into rubbers for household use. The big pieces of linenette over are made into dust sheets and the small sc.r.a.ps go to stuff mattresses for a Babies' Home.

The b.u.t.tons are carded and sold and the making up provides work for distressed elderly women. It needs no funds--it is self-supporting--it only needs old gloves.

In preventing waste and in food production and conservation, our people have learned much, and a very great deal of admirable work is being done.

THE WOMEN'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS

"Now every signaller was a fine Waac, And a very fine Waac was she--e."

"Soldier and Sailor, too."

CHAPTER XI

THE WOMEN'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS

The Waacs is the name we all know them by and shall, it seems, continue to. It will have to go into future dictionaries beside Anzac.

The deeds of the Anzacs in Gallipoli and France are immortalised in many records--magnificently in John Masefield's "Gallipoli"--an epic in its simplicity. The work of the Waacs is the work of support and subst.i.tution and its records only begin to be made.

The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps is an official creation of this year.

At the Women's Service Demonstration in the Albert Hall in January, 1917, Lord Derby asked for Women for clerical service in the army and official appeals were issued in February and repeatedly since that time, and now all over the country we have Recruiting Committees organizing meetings and securing recruits. They are recruiting at the rate of 10,000 a month.

The Waacs had many forerunners in some of our voluntary organizations, in the Women's Reserve Ambulance, of "The Green Cross Society,"

attached to the National Motor Volunteers--the Women's Volunteer Reserve--the Women's Legion--the Women's Auxiliary Force and the Women Signallers Territorial Corps. The Women's Signallers Corps had as Commandant-in-Chief Mrs. E.J. Parker--Lord Kitchener's sister. They believed women should be trained in every branch of signalling and that men could be released for the firing line by women taking over signalling work at fixed stations. Their prediction came true more than two years later, for today they are in France. They drilled and trained the women in all the branches of signalling semaph.o.r.e--flags, mechanical arms; and in Morse--flags, airline and cable, sounder (telegraphy), buzzer, wireless, whistle, lamp and heliograph. They also learned map reading--the most fascinating of accomplishments.

This Corps had the distinction of introducing "wireless" for women in England in connection with its Headquarters training school. When one of the Corps later accepted a splendid appointment as wireless instructor at a wireless telegraph college--the Corps was duly elated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: W.A.A.C.'s. ON THE MARCH]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOMEN OF THE RESERVE AMBULANCE]

The Women's Reserve Ambulance had the distinction of being the first ambulance on the scene in the first serious Zeppelin Raid in London (September, 1915). They came to where the first bombs fell, killing and wounding, and did the work of rescue, and when another ambulance arrived later, "Thanks," said the police, "the ladies have done this job."

They worked a.s.sisting the War Hospital Supply Depots, that wonderful organization run by Miss MacCaul, they provided orderlies to serve the meals and act as housemaids, and make the men welcome at Peel House, one of the Canadian Clubs. Others helped in Hospitals, was.h.i.+ng up and doing other work.

Others met and moved wounded--others at night took the soldiers to the Y.M.C.A. huts. The Women's Volunteer Reserve, too, seemed to be everywhere doing all sorts of useful, helpful things--disciplined, ready, and trained. The Women's Legion led the way in providing cooks and waitresses for camps and sent out 1,200 of these inside a year.

The first convalescent camp to have all its cooking and serving done by women was managed--admirably, too--by the Women's Legion, so the Waacs had many voluntary forerunners, who are mostly in it and amalgamated with it now.

The Waacs are a part of the Army organization--are in His Majesty's Forces and when a girl joins she is subject to army rules and regulations. They are working now in large numbers in England and in France, at all the base towns, and in quiet places, where things that matter are planned and initiated.

The girl who goes to France knows she is going to possible danger by being handed, before she goes, her two identification discs.

For France, no woman under twenty or over forty is eligible. After volunteering, they are chosen by Selection Boards and medically examined. They receive a grant for their uniforms. The workers wear a khaki coat-frock--a very sensible garment--brown shoes and soft hat and a great coat. At the end of a year they get a 5 ($25) bonus on renewing their contracts, and they get a fortnight's leave in a year.

Their payment is not high--it works out about the same as a soldier's when everything is paid--and that, with us, is just over 25 cents a day, so the khaki girl, like the soldier, does not work for the money.

The whole organization is officered and directed by women. Mrs.

Chalmers Watson, M.D., C.B.E., is the Chief Controller, with Miss MacQueen as a.s.sistant Chief Controller. Under them are the Controllers--Area, Recruiting, etc., and the officer in charge of a unit is called an Administrator, and under her are deputy administrators and a.s.sistant-administrators. They are not given Military t.i.tles and do not hold commissions, but their appointments are gazetted in the ordinary way. There is always a strong feeling in England that Military and Naval t.i.tles should be strictly reserved.

The equivalent of a sergeant is a "forewoman," and there are quartermistresses in charge of stores. Rank is shown as among the men, by badges, rose and fleur-de-lys.

Administrators are being trained in large numbers. They have a short course of drilling, learn to fill up Army forms, make out pay sheets, how to requisition for rations, catering generally, and how to run a hostel. They also attend practical lectures on hygiene and sanitation.

When this is done, they go to camp for a fortnight's training under an administrator in actual charge of a Unit. If they have not done well in this course, they are not appointed.

An administrator receives a $100 grant for her uniform and is paid from $600 to $875 a year out of which $200 is deducted for food. There is generally one officer to every fifty women.

The administrator must drill her girls. The W.A.A.C. is proud of its tone and its discipline. Its officers make the girls feel much is expected of them, because of the uniform they wear, and the girls have made a fine response. There are very few rules and as little restraint as possible. The girls are put on their honour when not under supervision. The administrator has considerable disciplinary powers, but they are very little needed.

It does not seem to be by discipline that the officer succeeds best.

There is a nice story told of an Administrator who had been away from her unit some days, returning and being met at the station by one of the rank and file who had come for her bag.

"I _am_ glad to see you, Ma'am," was the greeting, so emphatic a one that the Administrator inquired nervously if something were wrong.

"Oh, no. Seems as if Mother had been away, Ma'am," explained the girl.

The Administrator can help her girls by sorting them out well, putting friends and the same kind of girls together; it makes so much difference.

The Administrator has not only to handle her own s.e.x--she has to deal with men officers and quartermasters, and she succeeds in doing that well, too.

Our Administrators are naturally women of education and carefully chosen and there is plenty of opportunity of rising "from the ranks."

The girls cross over to France on the gray transports, are received by the women Draft Receiving Officers, and go up the lines to their a.s.signed posts.

The women are billeted in some of the base towns in pensions and summer hotels that have been commandeered, in big houses and in one case in a beautiful old Chateau where the ghosts of dead-and-gone ladies of beauty and fas.h.i.+on must wonder what kind of women these khaki clad girls are. The girls in these make their rooms home-like with photographs, hangings, and little personal belongings.

The greater number of girls live in camps, and different types of huts have been tried. Some of the camps are entirely of wooden huts--large and roomy. Other camps have the Nissen hut of corrugated iron, lined with laths wood floored and raised from the ground. These have been linked together in the cleverest way by covered ways. In the sleeping huts the beds are iron bedsteads with springs and horse-hair mattresses. Each bed has four thoroughly good blankets and a pillow.

No sheets are given--there is no labour to wash the thousands of sheets, and the cotton is needed. Each woman has a wooden locker with a shelf above, and a chair. Was.h.i.+ng and bathing is done in separate huts, and in every camp hot and cold water is laid on.

The mess room is a big hut. The girls wait on themselves and the food is excellent. They receive in rations the same as the soldiers on lines of communication--four-fifths of a fighting man's ration and whatever is over is returned and credited, and the extra money is used for luxuries, games and for entertaining visitors from other camps.

Here is a typical week's meals and it shows how well they are fed: