n
Switzerland and Holland are largely catered for by the Y.M.C.A.

* * * * *

It has been a pleasure to co-operate from time to time with the work of
the R.A.M.C. and the Red Cross. In huts, in hospitals, and convalescent
camps, in caring for the relatives of wounded, in work for the walking
wounded, and in many other ways the Red Cross and the Red Triangle have
worked closely together. An officer of the R.A.M.C. (T.), has written
the following interesting description of the work of the Y.M.C.A. for
the walking wounded:--'The O.C. the Divisional Walking Wounded
Collecting Post was frankly worried as he sat in his tiny sandbagged hut
with the D.A.D.M.S., and talked over all the problems which faced him in
view of the "stunt" due to come off at dawn a few days later. "I've got
plenty of dressings, and everything of that sort," he said, "and, of
course, I can get plenty more brought up by returning ambulance cars.
But there is the question of food--there's the rub. The numbers of
wounded vary so greatly, and it's not so easy to lay in a huge reserve
of grub as it is of dressings. Of course, I've done my best, but I'm
rather worried." "If that is all your worry we'll soon put that right,"
answered the optimist of the staff. "We'll get the Y.M.C.A. chap on the
job." "What can he do?" "What can he not do rather? You wait and see.
Come along and we'll call on him now."

'In a little shed of corrugated iron by the side of a shell-swept road
they found him. With his coat off and his sleeves rolled up, he was
pushing across the counter steaming mugs of cocoa and piles of buns to
the crowd of hungry and clamouring Tommies who besieged his premises. He
was not a young man. Not the strongest-hearted of Medical Boards would
have passed him for service. To put it briefly, he had no right in the
world to be where he was, in one of the nastiest corners of that
particularly nasty place, Flanders. But there he was, roughing it with
the rest of them, and to judge from his smiling countenance, thoroughly
enjoying every particle of his experience. "Hello, Major!" he called
out cheerfully on seeing his two officer visitors. "Anything I can do
for you to-day?" "Rather! A whole lot. Can we have a talk in your own
place--away from the crowd?" The Y.M.C.A. man led the way to the six
feet square hole in the ground which he called his billet, and there the
medical staff officer explained his needs. "There's a stunt