When I spoke at H.Q. of the depression I found in all the landscape around and of its peculiar morbid quality, nearly everyone a.s.sured me that I should find the country round E----, whither I was going, far more depressing. "There is nothing but sand dunes and huts, miles of huts, hospitals and camps and so on...." It did not sound very delightful.
But to differing vision, differing effects, and personally, I loved E----; terrible as cities of huts generally are, here they seemed to me to have lost much of their terror. I loved the long rippling lines of dunes, the decoration of hundreds of tall pines that came partly against the sandy pallor, partly against the vivid steely blue of the river beyond, I loved the bare woods we pa.s.sed all along the road, the trees still not perceptibly misted with buds but giving, with their myriads of fine ma.s.sed twigs, an effect of clouded wine-colour. And was there ever such a countryside for magpies? Superst.i.tion dies before their numbers, helpless to count them, so far are they beyond the range of sorrow, mirth, marriage and birth, at any one glance. Everywhere through those winey woods there went up the fanlike flutter of black-and-white, the only positive notes in all the delicate universe, compact of pearly skies, dim purples of earth, and pale irradiation of the sun.
[Ill.u.s.tration: H. M. THE QUEEN INSPECTING A "VAD" DOMESTIC STAFF]
[Ill.u.s.tration: A V. A. D. MOTOR CONVOY]
[Ill.u.s.tration: WAAC GARDENERS AT WORK IN THE CEMETERY]
[Ill.u.s.tration: WREATHS FROM MOTHERS OF THE FALLEN]
On the roads there was the usual medley of the races of the world, added to as we neared E---- by Canadian nurses in streaming white veils and uniforms of brilliant blue, and also--for surely the most delightful of created blessings may rank as a race of the world--by the glossy golden war-dogs, who also have their training camp near here, and take their walks abroad, waving their plumy tails and jumping up on their masters, like any leisured dog at home.
But--to my sorrow--I was not sent to look at war-dogs, and so had to pa.s.s by and leave the wagging plumes behind. I had several ends in view at E----; I had to see the large Waac camp there, its outflung ramifications, and the work that the Waacs did in the men"s camps; and I had to see the V.A.D. Motor Convoy, at which I was to spend a night.
Incidentally, I had high hopes of getting permission to go out in an ambulance with the latter, though it is against the most sacred Army Orders for anyone not in uniform to be seen upon an ambulance. Here I may say that the permission was granted by a powerful individual known as the D.D.M.S., though he mentioned that being shot at dawn was the least painful thing that ought to happen to me for doing it.
I was going first to the Waac headquarters, to see the Area Controller, who corresponds to an Area Commandant in the V.A.D."s and whose rank approximates to that of a Major. She is supreme in her area and only the Chief Controller of the Waacs is above her. Below her are her Unit Administrators, who are in charge of units and approximate to captains, and have their Deputy and a.s.sistant Administrators whom for convenience"
sake we can cla.s.sify as lieutenants and second lieutenants.
This is the place to say frankly that I had heard--as had we all--"the rumors" that were flying round about the Women"s Army. They "weren"t a success," ... "it had been found to be unworkable ..." and, as reason, a more specific charge. Need I say what that specific charge was? What is it that always jumps to the mind of the average materialist? The most innocent thing in the world--in itself--and the cause of most of the scandal since the dawn of civilisation. A Baby.
There is a certain type of mind which always jumps to babies, apparently looking on them as the Churchmen of the Middle Ages looked on women--as the crowning touch of evil in an evil world. If you remember, there was great agitation in certain quarters at the beginning of the war, over "War-Babies." They were going to inundate the country, they were going to be a very serious proposition indeed. The Irish question, Conscription, Conscientious Objectors, were going to be as nothing to the matter of the War-Babies. It is perhaps from some points of view a pity that the War-Babies didn"t materialize, but that of course is another question altogether. "Pa.s.sons oultre," as the great Master of delicate--and indelicate--situations used to say.
The point as regards the Women"s Army is that the whole of the agitation against it is a libel, and one which decent people should be ashamed to circulate even as supposit.i.tious. Quite apart from the evidence of my own ears and eyes, at various camps I was supplied with the official statistics for the Women"s Army from March of 1917 to February of 1918.
And of these women who "have not been a success," as the mischievous gossip has had it, how many do you think have proved failures out of six thousand? In the time mentioned fourteen have been sent home for incompetence, without any slur on their characters; twenty-three for lack of discipline, mostly in the early days when the girls did not realise what being in the Army meant and thought if they wanted to go to any particular place there was no reason why they shouldn"t; and fifteen who were already _enceinte_ before leaving England and which even the most censorious can hardly lay to the charge of the B.E.F. And of all that six thousand what percentage do you suppose has had to be sent back for what is euphemistically known, I believe, as "getting into trouble,"
since landing in France? No percentage at all, if I may express myself thus unmathematically, but exactly five cases. Five, out of six thousand. Compare that with the morality of any village in England, or anywhere else in the world, and then say, if you dare to be so obviously dishonest, that there is any reason why the Women"s Army should be aspersed.
These statistics were given to me at the office of the Area Controller, and later repeated at the Women"s Army H.Q. by the Controller in Chief, but on that first sunny morning amongst the pines and pale golden sand-dunes it was naturally the human and individual side rather than any of figures, however startling, that claimed the mind the most. For one thing, I had the actual organisation and attributes of the Women"s Army to learn. I knew nothing. The actual working knowledge, apart from impressions and things learnt only by seeing them, that I gathered during the days I spent at various Waac centres is as follows:
The Women"s Army differs from the F.A.N.Y. and the V.A.D. in being a paid instead of a voluntary body, in being directly under the Army, not the Red Cross, and in its members being ranked as privates. But it also differs from the G.S.V.A.D., though that too is paid and its members rank as privates. The G.S.V.A.D. is far more "mixed"; its members are of all cla.s.ses and educations, and are drafted off for work accordingly, but the bulk of the Waacs are working girls and do manual labour, such as gardening, cooking, baking, scrubbing, etc., though there are amongst them girls of a more specialised education who are signallers and clerks. The officers, of course, are women of education who have undergone a stiff training and been carefully selected for the posts they fill. For, as will be seen, nearly everything depends upon the Waac officers; they have certainly a greater power for good or harm than the officers in the Regular Army, and never were both the force and danger of personality more acutely ill.u.s.trated than in the position of the Waac leaders.
A Unit Administrator has to know individually every girl in her camp, though there may be several hundreds. She has to blend with her absolute authority a maternal interest and supervision. While she has no power to say whom a girl shall or shall not "walk out" with, she yet makes it her business to know what choice of men friends the girl makes and to influence, as far as she can, that choice towards discretion. She must not nag but must inculcate by subtle methods a realisation of what is due to the uniform, a sense of the "idea," the "symbol," of it. She does not actually say to a girl that she is not to walk arm in arm with a Tommy or pin her collar with her paste brooch, but she conveys to her that these things are not done in the best uniforms.... And the girl learns with incredible rapidity. A thing is Not Done--what a potency in those words; in that att.i.tude of mind! It probably influenced the earliest savages in the manner of wearing their cowries.
After all, the whole idea of uniform, of distinguishing one caste from another by bits of different coloured cloth, is based on the instinct for being superior. Was it not John Selden who said something to the effect that our rulers have always tried to make themselves as different from us as possible? Of course they have, and it is exactly the same thing which the wise Pope Gregory VII had in mind when he definitely crystallised the measures for celibacy of the priesthood, and it is exactly the same thing which puts the policeman into a dark blue uniform and a helmet before he can so much as stop a milkcart. A policeman in plain clothes is a dethroned monarch. Nothing in the nature of controlling others was ever done without dressing up. The marvel is that for so many centuries the principle should have been confined to the masculine s.e.x, when it has such an obvious appeal to the feminine.
This principle when carried a step further and applied to those controlled, by giving them also the sensation of being different from the rest of the world, results in that spirit called _esprit de corps_, which is really _esprit de l"uniforme_. Towards the rest of the world the uniformed are proud of being different, amongst themselves proud of being alike, and the more alike, so to speak, the aliker. It is not a thing to treat scornfully, for it has the whole of symbolism behind it.
That which makes a man cheerfully die for a piece of bunting which, prosaically speaking, _is_ only a piece of bunting that happens to be dyed red, white, and blue, is part of this same spirit. Dull of soul indeed must he be who can look without a profound emotion on the tattered "colours" of a regiment, and yet it is only the idea, the symbol, that makes these things what they are....
And for most of these girls, remember, it is the first time they have had a symbol held before them.... We of the upper cla.s.ses are brought up with many reverences--for our superiors, our elders, for traditions, but the cla.s.ses which for want of a better word I must call "lower"--so please do not cavil at me for doing so or attribute false meanings--are for the most part brought up to think themselves as good as anyone else, and their "rights" the chief thing in life; while owing to the unfortunate curriculum of our Board Schools, which does not insist nearly enough on history as the fount of the present and of all that is great and good in the past, they are left without those standards of impersonal enthusiasms and imaginative daring--which should be the rightful inheritance of us all.
These girls are now given an abstract idea to live up to, no mere standard of expediency, but an idea that appeals to the imagination. And how magnificently they are responding those statistics show, but more still does the att.i.tude of all the officers and men who have to do with them. I talked with all ranks on the subject, and never once did I meet with anything but admiration and enthusiasm. The men are touchingly grateful to them and value their work and their companionship. For, very wisely, the girls are encouraged to be friends with the men, are allowed to walk out with them, to give teas and dances for them in the Y.W.C.A.
huts, and to go to return parties given by the men in the Y.M.C.A. huts.
It is, of course, easy to sneer at the ideal which is held before the men, of treating these girls as they would their sisters, but the fact remains that they very beautifully do so.
Another point to be remembered is, that, far from these girls being exposed to undue temptation, the great majority of them have never been so well looked after as now. They are mostly girls of a cla.s.s that knows few restrictions, who, with the exception of those previously in domestic service, have always had what they call their "evenings," when they roamed the streets or went to the cinemas with their "boys."
Now every Waac has to be in by eight, can go nowhere without permission, is carefully though unostentatiously shepherded, and is provided with healthy recreation, such as Swedish exercises, Morris dancing, hockey, and the like. In short, she is now looked after and guarded as young girls of the educated cla.s.ses are normally.
And these are the girls, good, honest, hard-working creatures, who have been maligned in whispers and giggles up and down the country. It is perhaps needless to say that they are naturally very indignant over it, that the parents of many write to them agitatedly to demand if it"s all true and to beg them to come back, and that sometimes, when they are home on leave, instead of their uniforms bringing them the respect and honour they deserve and which every man overseas accords to them, they are subjected to insult from people who have nothing better to do than to betray to the world the pitiable condition of their own nasty minds.
CHAPTER VII
THE BROWN GRAVES
When first one has dealings with the Waacs and their officers, one imagines distractedly that one has fallen among Royalty. This is because the word "Ma"am" is always used by a Waac when speaking to another of superior rank, till you very nearly find yourself bobbing. Later this impression is strengthened by the memory for faces which every Waac officer displays in a manner one has always been taught to consider truly royal. It is only among themselves that any t.i.tles exist; to the outside world, even the Army officers, each Waac officer is mere "Mrs."
or "Miss," whichever she may chance to be. The "putting on of frills"
has been avoided with extraordinary dexterity; there is just enough ritual to make the girls feel they belong to an organised body, without the enemy being given occasion to blaspheme by saying that women like playing at being men. In France, though not in England, the girls salute their officers, as this helps them to get at the "idea" of the thing--that feeling of being part of an ordered whole, which is so valuable.
In the matter of uniforms, someone at the War Office, or wherever these things are thought out, has really had a rather charming series of inspirations. At first the women wore the same badges as denote the ranks of soldiers, but a paternal--or should one not almost say maternal?--Government evidently thought that not feminine enough, and now the badges of varying rank are roses, fleur-de-lys and laurel leaves, a touch which would have delighted old Andrew Marvell.
One of the chief activities of the Waacs is cooking, and when, escorted by the D.D.M.S., whom I have before mentioned, I arrived at the little wooden office amidst the pines, it was to hear a one-sided conversation on the telephone between the Area Controller and various great ones of the earth who were frantically ringing up for cooks. Also a new Officers" Club for senior officers wanting a rest from the firing line is just being opened near E----, and it is to be staffed by Waacs and the cook is to be of the very best. Punch"s immortal advice as to the treatment of husbands is not forgotten by the Waac controllers when questions of this kind arise.
After talk of cooks came the seeing of cooks, in a big camp and Small Arms school near. Kitchens are kitchens and mess-rooms mess-rooms everywhere you go, and beyond a general impression of extreme cleanliness, an extraordinarily appealing smell of stew, and the sight of great branches of mimosa set about the long mess tables, there is nothing of particular interest to describe. The point is that all the preparing and the serving of food in this great camp for officers and men is done by women and that all the male creatures are unreservedly jubilant at the change. The C.O. expressed his hope that after the war the W.A.A.C. would continue as a permanent part of the Army, while a sergeant gave it as his opinion that the women managed to introduce so much more variety into the preparation of the food than the men had done. Also, he added that they wasted much less.
In every kitchen there is a forewoman cook--there are these forewomen in every department of the work of the women, and they correspond rather to the "noncoms" among the men. At present they are distinguished by a bronze laurel leaf and always have their own mess-room and sitting-room as distinct from the rest of the girls, but it is rather an influence than an authority which is vested in them, though the advisability of definitely endowing them with more of the latter is being considered.
They "answer," as the rest of the Waac machinery does, extremely well.
An interesting point about army kitchens, as they are run nowadays, is that after the amount of fats necessary to the cooking has been put aside, the rest is poured into great tins, graded according to its quality, and sent home for munitions. We are getting things down to the fine edge of no-waste at last, and the women are helping to do it.
At another camp I found the C.O. most anxious for the women to start a Mending Factory--it would be such a help to the men, who, unlike sailors, are not adept at the repairing of their clothes. Also a laundry, he intimated, would be necessary really to round off the scheme satisfactorily. Both these are thoroughly sound suggestions that may yet, let us hope, come to something, though they would be in a sense breaking new ground, as the idea of the Waacs is that they actually replace men. Each cook releases one man, while among the clerks at present the ratio is four women to three men. And there are already six thousand Waacs in France.... Does not this give the obvious reason why slanders, started by enemy agents, have been busy trying to drive the Women"s Army out of France?
Every Waac who goes to France is like the p.a.w.n who attains the top of the chessboard and is exchanged for a more valuable piece. She sends a fighting man to his job by taking on the jobs that are really a woman"s after all. For is it not woman"s earliest job to look after man?
She looks after him to keep him well and strong, she looks after him when he is ill--and now, in France, she looks after the gallant dead, who are lying in the soil for which they fought. Between the pines and the gleaming river with its sandy shoals are the rows of crosses, sparkling, the ash grey wood of them, in the effulgence of the spring light, making hundreds of points of brightness above the earth still brown and bare, that soon, under the gardeners" care, will blossom like the rose. Not a desert even now--for no place where fighters rest is a desert--but a place expectant, full of the promise of beauty to come, an outward beauty which is what it calls for as its right, because it is holy ground. Not only in the merely technical sense as the consecrated earth of quiet English cemeteries, where lie all, both those who lived well and those who lived basely, but holy as a place can only be when it is held by those who all died perfectly....
Here and there, among the earth-brown graves, stooping above them, are the earth-brown figures of the gardeners. Every grave is freshly raked, moulded between wooden frames to a flat, high surface where the flowers are to overflow, and above every raised das of earth the bleached wood of the cross spreads its arms, throwing a shadow soft and blue like a dove"s feather, a shadow that curves over the mound and laps down its edge lightly as a benison. On each cross is the little white metal plate giving the name and regiment of the man who lies beneath and the letters R.I.P. Here and there is an ugly stiff wreath of artificial immortelles beneath a gla.s.s frame, the pathetic offering of those who came from England to lay it there.
Sometimes a wreath fresh and green shows that someone who loves the dead man has sent money with a request that flowers shall be bought and put upon his grave on the anniversary of his death. Sometimes, when they come over from England, these poor people break down and turn blindly, as people will for comfort, to the nearest sympathy, to the women gardeners who are showing them the grave they came to see. And a sudden note of that deep undercurrent which at times of stress always turns the members of either s.e.x to their own s.e.x for comfort sends the women mourners to the arms of the women who are working beside them.
Sentiment, if you will--but a sentiment that is stirred up from the deep and which would scorn the apologies of the critical.
And what of the girls who work daily on that sacred earth, who see before their eyes, bright in the sun, inexpressibly grey and dauntless in the rain, those serried rows of crosses, all so alike and each standing for a different individuality, a different heartbreak--Do you suppose that they will ever again forget the aspect of those silent witnesses to the splendour and the unselfishness and the utter release from pettiness of the men who lie there? This is what it is to make good citizens, and that is what the members of the Women"s Army are doing daily. They are not only doing great things for the men--but they are making of themselves, come what conditions may after the war, efficient, big-minded citizens who will be able to meet with them.
CHAPTER VIII
VIGNETTES
The interesting thing about the various places where Waacs are housed, which I saw, is that no two of them were alike in atmosphere. I had rather dreaded much seeing of camps, but, as a matter of fact, though I saw two, they were totally unlike each other, while the other three places that I saw each had an aspect, a character, unlike the others.
One was a convalescent home for Waacs, set amidst pine-trees, a house of deep wide stairs, airy rooms, long cushioned chairs, and flowers, where one might well be content to be just-not-well for a long time; the others were houses where those Waacs lived who were not in camps.