Читать книгу The Romance of the Red Triangle - Arthur K. Yapp - Страница 6

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Few organisations have done so much in caring for the comfort and well-being of our soldiers as your Associations. They have given invaluable help to the Army, and have immeasurably lightened the hardships which have to be endured by our troops. In recognising the excellent work that has already been done, I should like to wish you success in that which you still propose to undertake. I consider that your plans for after the war are not the least important of your activities.—The Right Hon. David Lloyd George, M.P.

The Red Triangle is often to be found in unexpected places. 'A wonderful, friendly old octopus, this Y.M.C.A.' was the way an Australian put it, and it was not at all a bad description of the ubiquitous Red Triangle. Tommy recognises it to-day as his club, his meeting house, his home from home. It is his, and he knows it! It touches him at every point and in almost every place. The recruit finds it at his depôt, near his billet, and in the training camp where he learns to be a soldier; indeed, it is part of the training, and an important part, too. Passing through London or a great provincial city, he can stay the night in one of the Y.M.C.A. hostels; he meets it again at the English ports before he embarks for one of the fighting fronts; it is there to greet him on the other side, not only at the ports of entry and in the base camps, but on the lines of communication in France, Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and right up the line, in cellar or dug-out as well as in rest-camp and at railhead. If he should have the misfortune to be wounded he may expect to find the Association at the casualty clearing station or in the hospital, and later on in the convalescent camp, or, if invalided out of the army, it will still stick to him and befriend him at a time when he is likely to need a friend. If he is numbered amongst the missing and finds himself in a prisoner of war camp in Germany, even then he may not be beyond the outreach of the Association. There is at least one redeeming feature to the prisoner of war camp in Ruhleben in Germany, for right in the heart of it there is a little brown hut with the Red Triangle and the letters 'Y.M.C.A.' on the roof—one of several in Germany erected with American Y.M.C.A. money, at a time when America was a neutral state, and run entirely by British prisoners of war for the benefit of their fellow-Britishers, who also have the misfortune to be prisoners of war.

It is little we can do for these brave lads who are wearing their hearts out longing to hear the voices of those they love in the Homeland, but the Y.M.C.A. does what it can.

This girdle of loving-kindness is completed in the Internment Camps of Switzerland—at Mürren, Leysin, Interlaken, Meiringen, and Seeburg, and in those of Holland at Scheveningen, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Groningen. None need our help more than the officers and men of those internment camps. It was one of the latter who said he would rather be in Germany than in the internment camp in Switzerland, for in Germany, said he, one has, at any rate, the excitement of trying to escape; but now, working hand-in-hand with the British Red Cross, the Red Triangle provides recreation and employment for the long hours of leisure, and there can be no doubt as to the appreciation of those it seeks to serve.

A worker at Cambridge went to a neighbouring village to arrange a flag day on behalf of our war fund. He was advised to get in touch with the post-mistress, who was keenly interested in the movement. 'Of course, I am interested,' she said when he saw her, 'and if you will come into my sitting-room I will show you why.' There on the wall in a little room at the back of the post-office was what she called her Roll of Honour—the photographs of twelve lads from her Bible class, all serving with His Majesty's Forces. 'Eleven out of the twelve,' said she, 'write me almost every week, and tell me what a boon the Y.M.C.A. is to them. That is why I am ready to do all I can to help you with your Flag Day.' The sequel was interesting. Half an hour later No. 12 called to see her. 'How strange,' she cried; 'I was just talking about you, and saying you were the only one of the boys who never wrote expressing appreciation of the Y.M.C.A.' 'That is easily explained,' was the reply. 'I have been at sea since the early days of the war, and have had no opportunity of getting ashore and using the Y.M.C.A. until three months ago, when I was sent to Egypt and stationed at the Mena camp. There I used the Association hut within sight of the great pyramid, and I appreciate the work as much as anyone to-day.'

A young soldier who was formerly a Y.M.C.A. worker wrote from France:—'We came upon the Prussian Guard about ten days ago, and for five days and nights we fought hand to hand like demons, but in the end we gained our objective. You talk of the work of the Y.M.C.A. at home as splendid. I know it is, but here the Y.M.C.A.'s are more. In this place, famous for its wonderful bell tower, the Y.M.C.A. is in full swing, although only yesterday it was shelled heavily and shrapnel was falling pretty thick along the road. Cheero!' Another young soldier wrote from Malta, and gave his experience of the Y.M.C.A. 'The Association is the finest thing that was ever instituted without doubt. The Army has blessed the fact many a time. I have served in France and a few other countries, and am in a position to know.'

In the early days of the war Y.M.C.A. secretaries learned to adapt all kinds of premises, no matter how primitive, to meet the needs of the troops. A cow-house amid the trenches of the East Coast; a pigsty in the south-west of England, neither of them much to look at, but doing good service and helping to blaze the trail; a dug-out at Anzac and three tiny marquees at Cape Helles; a cellar at Meroc, just behind the British lines in the neighbourhood of Loos; a château formerly the residence of the lord of the manor at Mazingarbe, and a palatial but ruined Technical Institute at Armentières. It was fixed up in a convent at Aire—the first Y.M.C.A. to be opened in a forward position in France, and inside a ruined hospice at Ypres; in a Trappist monastery on the Mont des Cats; in the most southern city in the world at Invercargill; above the clouds with the British troops in Italy; inside some of the German prisoner of war camps in Germany; in the old German Consulate at Jaffa, in the heart of the Holy City, and on the Palestine lines of communication at Gaza and Beersheba. 'The Jolly Farmer' near Aldershot, and the more notorious 'Bolger's' public house in Sackville Street, Dublin, made their appearance early in the war under the sign of the Red Triangle, whilst Ciro's, the once famous night club in the heart of London, and the mansions of Viscount Wimborne and Lord Brassey have also been thrown open for the service of the Association.

The trail of the Red Triangle was first blazed in the United Kingdom, and since then it has become familiar on every fighting front, and in all sorts of queer and unexpected places: in the jungle of India; on the banks of the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Nile; amid the swamps of East Africa; along the valley of the Jordan; in the Egyptian desert; in the great training camps of North America; in Australasia and South Africa, as well as in the plains of Flanders and Picardy; in the valleys of the Somme, the Marne, the Meuse, and the Aisne. It is to be found on the Varda and the Struma, and we have seen for ourselves how that trail has been welcomed by men of many nationalities—Britons from the Homeland and from the outposts of Empire, from Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa; Indians, Chinese, Cape Boys and Kaffirs, Frenchmen, Portuguese, and Belgians, and wherever the trail of the Red Triangle goes it stands for reconstruction even amid the horrors and desolation of war.

An officer cadet who had spent two years in France, said he had noticed a great change in the attitude of the men. 'In the early days of the war,' said he, 'men on arriving in new billets at the Front would say, "Is there no Y.M.C.A. in the village?" Later on they took it for granted that the Red Triangle was there and asked, "Where is the Y.M.C.A.?" Now they always say, "Where is it?" and every one knows to what they refer.' It brings comfort, hope, good cheer, and inspiration with it. An English boy writing home from Egypt to his people in the Midlands, said that the Y.M.C.A. was to him as 'a bit of Heaven in a world that was otherwise all hell.' A visitor to the Association at Kantara expressed his surprise at finding such a splendid Y.M.C.A. building in that Egyptian centre, fitted up even with hot and cold baths!

A sum of £400 was taken in a single day over the refreshment counter in one of the Y.M.C.A. marquees in the heart of the Sinai Peninsula, and it will give an idea of the immense amount of work involved to the staff of the Association, when it is remembered that all stores had to be conveyed from the railhead to the Y.M.C.A. on the backs of camels.

A British soldier writing from the 'Adam and Eve' hut in Mesopotamia said, 'I should like to comment upon the wonderful work the Y.M.C.A. is doing here among the troops. In almost every large camp there is a Y.M.C.A. hut, a veritable haven in the desert, not only for canteen, but religious work also. I attended a service in the hut, and it made a good impression on me. We sang the good old hymns, and I am sure we all felt refreshed.'

As might be expected, the Dominions have done their full share of pioneering, and have blazed the trail in many different directions. The Canadians have done a great work at Shorncliffe, Sandling, Bramshott, and Witley; in the Forestry camps at home and right up the line in France. The Australians on Salisbury Plain, at Weymouth, and in many other home centres have served their troops splendidly; whilst in France, Egypt, the Dardanelles, and Palestine their pioneering work has been great. The New Zealanders at Sling Plantation, Hornchurch, and other centres at home, have done equally well, and their pioneering work overseas has been most efficient. The South Africans have done valuable work in the Military Expedition to Swakopmund and in East Africa. India has made a great contribution to the Empire work of the Red Triangle, first of all by catering for the needs of British troops quartered in India itself, and also in Mesopotamia and East Africa, where the work has been directed from India, as has that for the Indian troops in France. Passing reference should also be made here to the great programme of work undertaken and planned by the Y.M.C.A.'s of the United States. In the United Kingdom, in France, Russia and Italy, as well as in North America, they have projected work on an enormous scale, in fact, all the Allied countries are closely co-operating in the work of the Red Triangle. It has been the privilege of the British Associations to provide huts for the exclusive use of Belgian, Serbian, and Portuguese troops, and to cater for the needs of American and Colonial soldiers in hundreds of centres. In London, for instance, special facilities have been given to New Zealanders at the Shakespeare hut; we were able to procure for the Canadian Y.M.C.A. the magnificent Tivoli site on which their fine hostel now stands, and to hand over the group of huts to the Americans which formed the nucleus of the Eagle Hut. The Australians rented and furnished the Aldwych Theatre on their own account. The New Zealand Y.M.C.A.'s made a handsome contribution towards the cost of the Shakespeare Hut, and the whole of the cost of the Eagle and Beaver Huts has been borne by the American and Canadian Y.M.C.A.'s, respectively. The American and Colonial Associations have taken over a number of British huts in camps, and in some cases have enlarged them.