In these recreation huts the girls enjoy themselves and there are evenings when the soldier friends come in, too, and have a good time with them, for Waacs and the soldiers know each other and meet at all the Bases and Camps.

They dance and play games, and act, or sing, or come and talk, and one visitor tells us of seeing a girl doing machining at the end of a hut with one soldier turning the handle for her and another helping.

One evening at a dance some gallant Australian N.C.O.’s arrived carrying two enormous pans of a famous salad, that was their specialty, as their contribution to the provisions.  So life in the Waacs is not all work—­there is play, too, wisely.  Every camp has a trained V.A.D. worker to look after the girls in case of sickness.  If the case is bad they are sent over to Endell Street Hospital in London.

The Navy is going to follow the Army—­so our women will be “Soldier and Sailor too,” and we shall have to sing, “Till the girls come home,” as well.

The Admiralty has decided to employ women on various duties on shore hitherto done by naval ratings, and to establish a Women’s Royal Naval Service.  The women will have a distinctive uniform and the service will be confined to women employed on definite duties directly connected with the Royal Navy.  It is not intended at present to include those serving in the Admiralty departments or the Royal Dockyards or other civil establishments under the Admiralty.  There are thousands of women in these already, as there were in Army pay offices, etc., before the Waacs were formed.

Dame Katherine Furse, G.B.E., will be Director of the Women’s Royal Naval Service, and will be responsible under the Second Sea Lord, for its administration and organization.

Already we hear they are likely to be known as the “Wrens.”  And so our women are inside the organized forces of defence of our Country—­the last line of usefulness and service.

THE WAR AND MORALS

“Evils which have been allowed to flourish for centuries cannot be destroyed in a day.  If the nation really wishes to be freed from the consequences of prostitution it must deal with the sources of prostitution by a long series of social, educational, and economic reforms.  The ultimate remedy is the acceptance of a single standard of morality for men and women, and the recognition that man is meant to be the master and not the slave of his body.  There are thousands of men both in the army and out of it who know this, and for whom the streets of London have no dangers.”

—­Dr. HELEN WILSON.

CHAPTER XII

THE WAR AND MORALS