ith an engine and seizing waggons, one at
this station, one at that. He bribed the French station masters who
happened to be awake. It was a lawless proceeding, but, thanks to
him, there were hospital trains. An Englishman would have written
letters about the pressing need and there would not have been
hospital trains for a long time. J. did nothing like that. There was
no need for such violence. Both he and the boys had good friends.
Every one wanted to help, and in the end something got done.

A scheme of physical training was arranged for the boys and they were
placed under the charge of special sergeants. Their names were
registered. I think they were "plotted" into a diagram and exhibited
in curves, which was not much use to them, but helped to soothe the
nerves of authorities. To the official mind anything is hallowed when
it is reduced to curves. The boys underwent special medical
examinations, were weighed and tested at regular intervals. Finally a
club was established for them.

At that point the Y.M.C.A. came to our aid. It gave us the use of one
of the best buildings in the camp, originally meant for an officers'
club. It was generous beyond hope. The house was lighted, heated,
furnished, in many ways transformed, at the expense of the Y.M.C.A.
We were supplied with a magic-lantern, books, games, boxing gloves, a
piano, writing-paper, everything we dared to ask for. Without the
help of the Y.M.C.A. that club could never have come into existence.
And the association deserves credit not only for generosity in
material things, but for its liberal spirit. The club was not run
according to Y.M.C.A. rules, and was an embarrassing changeling child
in their nursery, just as it was a suspicious innovation under the
military system.

We held an opening meeting, and the colonel--one of our most helpful
friends--agreed to give the boys an address. I wonder if any other
club opened quite as that one. In our eagerness to get to work we
took possession of our club house before it was ready for us. There
was no light. There was almost no furniture. There was no
organisation. We had very little in the way of settled plan. But we
had boys, eight or nine hundred of them, about double as many as the
largest room in the building would hold.

They were marched down from their various camps by sergeants. For the
most part they arrived about an hour before the proper time. The
sergeants, quite reasonably, considered that their