With the Doughboy in France: A Few Chapters of an American EffortHungerford, Edward
History
With the Doughboy in France: A Few Chapters of an American Effort
Hungerford, Edward
American National Red Cross; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
Seemingly we have drifted away from our American boys, sick or wounded
and in hospitals. In reality, of course, we have not. Every one of these
provisions, large or small, was aimed directly at their comfort, while
each deserved to be rated as a necessity rather than comfort--comfort,
at least, as the average luxury-loving American knows it. It was comfort
rather than luxury that I found our boys enjoying there at
Savenay--long, comfortable huts, builded hurriedly but furnished with
great care, great taste, and great attractiveness. Savenay, itself, was
a good deal of a mud-hole, a fearfully wretched place underfoot. The Red
Cross huts shone brilliantly in contrast. Here, as in the canteens all
over France, the boys might congregate--practically at all hours--and
amuse themselves as their fancies dictated; or, if fancy grew a bit
bored, it was part of the job of the directress--one of whose essential
qualifications was resourcefulness and another versatility--to find some
new form of amusement. It was not enough to hand out the cigarettes--one
or two packs a week--or the pipes and the playing cards and the tobacco,
pretty much as requested--there had to be shows. The American passion
for play-acting is something to be reckoned with.
Perhaps you do not quickly understand how versatile those very shows
might readily become. Let me quote from _Toot Sweet_--the little
fortnightly newspaper which our American Red Cross printed for the boys
convalescing there at Savenay. That is, the Red Cross furnished the
printing press, the type, and the rest of the paraphernalia for the
making of the publication; the boys, themselves, supplied the brains
that made it so very readable at all times.
[Illustration: BANDAGES BY THE TENS OF THOUSANDS
An atelier workshop of the A. R. C. in the Rue St. Didier, Paris, daily
turned out surgical dressings by the mile]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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