The Sword of Deborah: First-hand impressions of the British Women's Army in France — John Shaqi
The Sword of Deborah: First-hand impressions of the British Women's Army in FranceJesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)
History
The Sword of Deborah: First-hand impressions of the British Women's Army in France
Jesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Women
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 sex to their own sex 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.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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