War Work
After all, Avelyn enjoyed her holidays far more than she had ever
expected. The Lascelles gave her a kind welcome, and tried to make her
feel at home. They were quite a jolly family--all considerably older
than Avelyn. Two sons were in the Flying Corps, and the third was at a
Government office in the town. The daughters, Mary and Gwen, were busy
with various kinds of war work, and had little time to spare. They made
a great effort, however, to amuse their visitor, and took her out in
turns. Avelyn was treated to pantomime, concerts, and cinemas, and was
invited with the Lascelles to many little parties and social evenings.
She would infinitely rather have been constructing a rockery in the dear
Walden garden than sitting in a picture palace looking at the
eccentricities of Charlie Chaplin, but she appreciated the kindness of
the Lascelles, and felt what the French call _reconnaissante_, which has
a far more subtle meaning than "grateful".
"Couldn't you take Avelyn to the Munition Hostel, Mary?" said Mrs.
Lascelles one day, when plans for entertaining the young guest were
running rather low. "I'm sure Bertha Gordon would show you over the
canteen if you asked her."
"If it would amuse Ave?" began Mary doubtfully.
"I'd just love it!" agreed Avelyn, brightening perceptibly.
"Then I'll ring up Bertha. If it's her afternoon off I'm certain she'll
have us. She told me to come the first opportunity I had, and I've
always seemed too busy up till to-day. I've been wanting to go for ever
so long."
A brisk ringing of the telephone bell followed, and Mary came back
presently with the welcome information that her friend Bertha would be
free from three till six o'clock, and would be delighted to see two
visitors and show them all in her power.
"We'll get up there as early as we can," said Mary, "so that we'll have
time for sight-seeing before tea."
Miss Gordon was doing Government war work in Harlingden. She had taken
her certificate for domestic economy at a training college in London,
and now held a post in the canteen department of a huge munition
factory. The place lay a few miles out of the town. Mary and Avelyn
first caught a tram-car, which whisked them along an uninteresting
stretch of shabby road, and put them down at a corner where three ways
met. It was a tolerably long walk from there to the munition works. The
neighbourhood was dingy, with rows of small cottages and second-rate
shops, and tall chimneys or furnaces in the background. The Chayton
Government factory was a colony in itself, with a special railway line
out from Harlingden. The station platform marked its boundary. After
that came rows and rows of munition cottages--little wooden houses, each
containing three rooms and a bath-room, all exactly similar except for
the numbers on the doors. The girls passed these, and went in the
direction of the hostels. At the great gate of the works stood a sentry
on duty, who asked them their names, residence, and whom they were going
to visit, and entered these particulars in a book before he would admit
them.
"It's all right. Miss Gordon told me that she was expecting you," he
volunteered, as he opened the gate for them.
Feeling rather as if they were going into prison, Mary and Avelyn
stepped forward, and found themselves in a big enclosure fenced with
barbed wire. Each hostel was a large, separate bungalow building, and
there were also several recreation halls. Patches of ground planted with
cabbages lay between. It all looked very new and unfinished, something
like the pictures of mushroom cities in America. In front of them loomed
the canteen, an enormous red-brick structure with a corrugated-iron
roof. Mary enquired at the office for Miss Gordon, and her friend soon
made her appearance.
"I'm so glad you've found your way here! Come in, and I'll show you
everything. It's a queer place, isn't it?"
"I should get lost in it!" declared Mary.
"Oh! it's wonderful how soon you learn to find your way about. What
would you like to see first? The canteen? We shall just have time to go
round before tea, then we'll do the hostel afterwards."
Avelyn trotted off with great interest in the wake of Mary Lascelles and
Miss Gordon. She was going to see a new side of life, and learn what
some women were doing to help the war. Out at the front our boys were
fighting for Britain's honour, but their heroism would be of no avail if
the hands slacked that forged the weapons at home. The workers who made
the munitions, and those who toiled to feed the workers and keep them
fit, were taking their share of the burden, and, in however small and
obscure a way, were pushing the world on towards the victory of Right
over Might.
Miss Gordon first led the way into the canteen, an enormous hall with
seats for three thousand people. There were long tables with benches,
placed in rows, and over these hung sign-boards: "Hostel I", "Hostel
II", "Hostel III", &c.
"Each hostel has its own tables," explained Miss Gordon, "and the girls
are bound to go there. It saves scrambling. They all have food coupons,
and they take them to the counter, and exchange them for any dishes they
want, and then carry their plates to their own places. There's a menu
hung up, and they generally have the choice of several things. It's a
tremendous sight to see them all filing in for their meals."
"Are they easily satisfied?" asked Mary.
"As a rule, but sometimes we get grumblers, and they inflame the others.
You see, there are all sorts and conditions of girls here, and some of
them are a rough lot. Individually they are quite nice, but when they
get together in crowds some spirit of lawlessness seems to permeate
them, and they get utterly out of hand sometimes. Once there was a
terrific row. They were discontented with their rations, and they put
the blame on Mr. Jennings, the canteen manager. Some agitators stirred
up trouble, and one evening things came to a head. There was rice
pudding for supper, and the girls didn't like rice pudding, so they
flung it all about the room and smashed the plates; then they stood on
the seats and shouted and yelled. They said that, if they could catch
the manager, they would teach him a lesson. He dared not show himself.
Indeed, he was obliged to go away altogether. It was about two hours
before the row subsided; all that time the girls were shouting in the
canteen. They had utterly lost control of themselves, and wouldn't
listen to anyone who tried to speak to them. We've a new manager now,
and things are going better."
"How fearfully exciting!" commented Mary.
"Rather too exciting at the time, I can tell you! And the hall was in
such an awful mess, with rice pudding flung about everywhere. Come into
the kitchen now and I'll show you my department."
Avelyn had never seen cooking on so vast a scale before. There were
great polished copper cauldrons for stews, so large that they looked as
if Giant Blunderbore's meals might be prepared in them; there were rows
and rows of ovens and steamers; and an electric meat cutter that sliced
up the joints. Puddings were being mixed in big washing basins, and
vegetables were cut up by a machine. There were enormous cans of milk,
and all kinds of receptacles for other stores.
"We have to calculate exactly what we require, so that there's no
waste," said Miss Gordon. "We send up lists every day, and the lists are
inspected."
The tea canteen kitchen was a department in itself. There were huge
boilers for hot water, rows of bright copper tea urns, and an electric
cutter for bread. Two girls stood at a table buttering enormous piles of
slices.
"What monotonous work!" remarked Avelyn.
"Yes, it is rather," answered Miss Gordon. "They give that to the
novices, and pass them on to something else afterwards. But one gets
accustomed to all the work, and doesn't mind. Now we'll have some tea
ourselves. Come to the Staff Room. I'm allowed to bring in my visitors."
The sitting-room reserved for the members of the staff was divided by
glass doors from the canteen. It had little tables and chairs, and its
wooden walls had been decorated with pictures from magazines, fastened
up with drawing pins. Some of the staff were already seated there having
tea--brisk, capable ladies, most of whom had left comfortable homes in
order to take up war work. Miss Gordon greeted several friends, and
introduced Mary and Avelyn. The scones and the oat cake were delicious,
and were certainly a good advertisement of the cookery done in the
canteen. It was quite a merry little tea-party, for the lady workers
appeared to have a stock of jokes among themselves.
"Now you must see my hostel," said Miss Gordon, pushing aside her cup
and rising when her guests had finished. "If you've seen mine you've
seen them all, for they're exactly alike."
The colony consisted of thirty-two hostels, each holding a hundred
girls. The buildings were separate bungalows, and each had its own
matron, who was responsible for the comfort of its inmates. Miss Gordon
showed Mary and Avelyn into her bedroom, a little room nine feet square,
heated by hot-water pipes, and containing a bed, chest of drawers,
table, wash-stand, chair, and cupboard for dresses.
"They give us the necessary furniture," explained Miss Gordon, "but we
must find our own pretty things. I brought the curtains and the
bed-cover and cushion and dressing-table mats, and of course my own
pictures and photos. There's a good deal of competition in making our
rooms nice."
"This one's perfectly sweet!" exclaimed Avelyn.
"It's not so bad, and there's quite a comfy chair to sit in to rest and
write letters. We can lock up our rooms if we like; the matron has
duplicate keys for cleaning purposes."
There was more to be seen at the hostel: the laundry, where any girls
who liked might wash their own clothes, and where several were busily at
work with an ample supply of water and hot irons; the matron's little
office, with its piles of papers neatly filed; and the store-room, with
its sacks of flour, sugar, rice, and other commodities, that were
weighed out daily and sent to the canteen.
"We lack a cosy sitting-room," said Miss Gordon; "we have to use our
bedrooms instead. There's a recreation hall, where we can dance in the
evenings if we wish, and I hope sometime there's going to be a library.
At present everything's so new, and they have to think of the stern
business part first before they give us luxuries. It's a utilitarian
sort of life."
"Do you like it?" asked Avelyn.
"Yes, on the whole very much. It's interesting, and I always enjoy being
among a crowd. Masses of people attract me, and I've got the community
spirit at present, and want to work with the hive."
Avelyn looked thoughtful. It was not the kind of life that appealed to
her at all. She loved Nature's solitudes, and the companionship of woods
and streams more than crowds of people. To live in a hostel and canteen
would be absolute purgatory. She hoped she was not unpatriotic. Then
her face suddenly cleared.
"I could go on the land when I leave school!" she exclaimed with relief.
Mary Lascelles and Miss Gordon laughed. Avelyn's train of thought had
been so evident. Palpably she was not attracted by what she saw.
"Yes, you'd be doing your bit on the land just as much as in a factory,"
said Miss Gordon kindly. "It isn't everybody who cares to take up
canteen work. Let's hope the war will be over before you leave school.
You'll have several years more at your lessons yet, I suppose."
The little country mouse was certainly turned into a town mouse for
these Christmas holidays. Avelyn felt that she had never before seen so
much of Harlingden, even when she had lived there. The Lascelles were
very public-spirited people, who were interested in everything that was
going on in the city and anxious to lend a hand in all schemes for the
general good. They sewed national costumes for the Serbians, rolled
bandages at the War Supply Depot, distributed dinners at the municipal
kitchens, taught gymnastic classes at girls' clubs, visited crippled
children, got up concerts for wounded soldiers, and organized Christmas
parties for slum babies. They seemed to be occupied nearly every minute
of the day, and they soon swept Avelyn into the whirl of the war
activities. If it was not exactly her ideal life, she nevertheless liked
it, and felt that she was being of use. She went with Cousin Lilia to
the Town Hall, and rather enjoyed standing behind a counter handing out
pies, or ladling soup into jugs for the rows of busy people who kept
pushing in from the long queue standing in the courtyard outside. She
admired the smart quick drill in Mary's gymnasium class, and marvelled
that the girls had so much spirit left after their long day's work; she
made the whole of a Serbian child's dress herself, with beautiful
barbaric red-and-blue trimming on it; she helped to hand cigarettes
round to the soldiers at their concert; and she played "Blind Man's
Buff" and "Drop the Handkerchief" with the slum children at the New
Year's party in the Ragged School.
She had an altogether fresh experience at the Creche. This day nursery
was a new institution in Harlingden, and had been opened in order that
women who wished to help at munitions might leave their babies to be
taken care of while they were at work. Gwen Lascelles gave two mornings
a week to it, as a voluntary nurse, thereby releasing some of the staff
to go off duty. One day she offered to take Avelyn with her, and the
latter jumped at the invitation.
"Matron doesn't mind, and you'd be a help," said Gwen. "Nurse Barnes is
away ill, so we're short-handed just now, and sometimes it's all I can
do to manage. One or two of those toddlers are the limit!"
Elton Lodge had been lent by a patriotic citizen for use as a day
nursery, and was well adapted for the purpose. It had plenty of
accommodation, and a garden where the babies could be out of doors in
summer. Gwen and Avelyn arrived here by ten o'clock, took off coats and
hats, donned aprons, and entered the ward. This was a large, light, airy
room, or rather two rooms thrown together. At one end stood twelve cribs
in which lay twelve babies, most of them fast asleep. At the other end,
grouped round the high fire-guard, were sixteen little toddlers of all
ages from eighteen months to four years. The nurse in charge rose with
an air of relief and handed over her duties to Gwen.
"They're all right," she remarked, "all but Curly, who's in a temper
to-day. Don't let George bully the others, and smack Eddie if he tries
to unfasten the fire-guard. He knows what to expect! Nurse Peters will
be in the laundry if you want her."
The nurse made her escape, and the toddlers came crowding round Gwen,
clamouring for her to open the toy-box. Avelyn strolled across the room
to inspect the babies. They had just had their bottles, and indeed some
had not yet quite finished and were sucking away contentedly. They were
dear babies, some quite wee who counted their ages by weeks, and older
ones with little tight silky curls. One blue-eyed, tearful, barefooted
person stood up in her crib and held out a beseeching pair of arms.
Avelyn could not resist the appeal. She took up the small creature and
cuddled it; it clasped her tightly round the neck, put a confiding head
on her shoulder, and sobbed gently. Gwen disengaged herself from the
toddlers and came across.
"We're really not supposed to take them up and nurse them," she said.
"But I own I break the rules sometimes. Poor little Queenie's a
new-comer; she's been petted at home and hasn't got used to creche ways
yet. She'll soon settle down. Look at Arthur! Isn't he splendid? When he
first came he was simply skin and bone through improper feeding. His
mother used to give him tastes of tea and red herrings. This is Frankie,
our special creche baby. He lives here altogether. His mother is in
prison for ill-treating him, poor wee darling! She's not to have him
again when she comes out--the judge said so. I know you'd love Patty if
she were awake. She's got the cutest little ways."
Gwen went round from cot to cot performing services for the babies,
restoring a teat to a small mouth that had not yet finished its bottle,
covering cold hands, turning the position of some, and patting others
who were inclined to be fretful and wail.
"I just long to nurse them," she assured Avelyn. "But you see it really
wouldn't do to let them get into the habit of thinking that they must be
taken up and played with every time they cry."
"Don't they howl when they first come?"
"Simply yell for a day or two. Sometimes we have to put them in the
isolation ward because they disturb the others so dreadfully. They soon
get accustomed to creche life, though. Their mothers bring them at about
six in the morning, and take them home after work in the evening. When
they arrive here they're washed, and dressed in the creche clothes, and
their own clothes are put on again at night."
"They don't seem shy," remarked Avelyn, who was still hugging Queenie.
"No, that's the best of them. With seeing so many nurses and helpers
they'll go to anybody. They're very sweet when you may have them up and
attend to them. Queenie's getting sleepy. I think you'd better put her
back to bed."
Avelyn disengaged the clinging little arms with reluctance. She would
cheerfully have acted nurse all the morning if allowed. She lowered her
sleepy burden into the crib, and turned her attention to the toddlers,
who certainly needed it. Several of them had followed Gwen, and were
popping mischievous fingers through the bars of the cribs and poking the
babies; some were indulging in a free fight over a toy. Eddie, the black
sheep, was attempting to climb the fire-guard; George was punching the
head of a smaller boy, and Curly, for no particular reason, was standing
with arms outstretched, yelling at the pitch of his lung power. It took
the best energies of the two young helpers to restore order.
"My clothes aren't comfy!" pleaded one small sinner in a tight jersey.
"I'd be good if you'd let me have my own clothes on!"
"George took my horse!"
"I want a doll!"
"Give me a picture-book!"
"I want one too!"
"You won't get anything at all unless you ask prettily!" declared Gwen
sternly. "Where are your manners, I should like to know?"
By the end of the morning Avelyn decided that she could thoroughly
sympathize with the trying experiences of the old woman who lived in a
shoe. She felt in a perfect whirl of babies. They were sweet little
souls, but she would have enjoyed them more individually; to wrestle
with so many at once was decidedly wearing. At twelve o'clock came
dinner. Tiny chairs were placed round low tables, feeders were tied on,
and the children were put in their seats and taught to say grace. The
nurses brought in an enormous rice pudding, and gave platefuls to those
who were old enough to use spoons. Avelyn, sitting in a rocking-chair,
fed alternately one small person on her knee and another by her side.
Gwen was performing a like service.
When the meal was at length over, the toddlers trotted off to low
camp-beds for their midday sleep, leaving a blissful calm in the ward,
where the babies were now receiving their share of attention.
"Do you do this two mornings a week?" asked Avelyn as the girls walked
home.
"Yes, but the children aren't always as troublesome as they were to-day,
and if they get very bad I can call Matron, or a nurse."
"I'd like just the babies alone, if there weren't the toddlers as well
to look after. But to have sixteen of them to keep in order is the
limit. I feel----"
"You'd rather go on the land?" queried Gwen, with an amused smile.
"Yes, if I can choose my war work, I certainly should!"