THE HUT IN THE MUD

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 147, 11 March 1918, Page 7

THE HUT IN THE MUD

« AND THE Y.M. BLOKE.

(By W.M.L.)

A sergeant and ten men were coming out of the trenches in Flanders after afiorce engagement. It was cold; a bitter wind blew over tbo level land: the raindrops pattered and "plopped into the mud holes which intersected a sea of shallower mud—not more than knee-deep—on the roads and tracks. The sergeant and his men were "allin," and some of them wanted to give up tho apparently hopeless task of getting back to billets through the awful mud. But the sergeant would not hear of it. "There's a'Y.M. hut 300 yards further on," ho said. . It was a matter of indifference to them where they followed him to. at 3 o'clock in the morning in that shelltorn, rain-soaked land. So thoy staggered on, muttering incoherent words, poor lads 1 You, walking your city's lightod streets, sleeping in soft beds, with olec-. trie switches at your hands, cannot imagine the blackness of the way they had to follow. . "Anyhow, if wo do get to that Y.M. ,i dug-out, the bloke'll be gone by now," a mud-caked man growled, shifting a slack bandage that bound a j wounded wrist. "I'll bet you," said the sergeant. "It's just round this dump." j And it was. They filed through a low opening into a low room. There ! was a hurricane lamp burning behind tho counter—a counter made of boxes— and tho glow of a stove warmed the place and threw red discs of light upon tho earth floor. : Tho Y.M. bloko was there, too, and awake. "The coffee's ready," he said, in answer to a weary man's demand, not too politely made. "I guessed somo 'of you boys might bo passing this way." _ They had hot coffee and biscuits and cigarettes-'-nqt too many cigarettes, as supplies were getting low and there might bo other dog-tired soldiers passing on that black morning. As the sergeant and his ten men drank and ate and smoked they heard the sound of enemy bnllete every now and then passing overhead. "Yes, sometimes one comes in," tho Y.M. man told them.' Tills storv is told to drive home to people in tno comfort, and security of their homes tho need for maintaining those oases in a mud-onvcloped, desolate land, that is wrapped in rain and blackness. It was a sergeant and tonmen on that occasion, an impersonal matter to you, you think 1 But how do you know that your sergeant, your son, your husband or brother or fnend may not seek, under similar circumstances, for tho Y.M. hut and the Y.M. bloko? And in any case thoy wero Now Zealand lads.

I think, and I offer this opinion from a convinced mind—that it is every man's, woman's, and child's duty in this country to help what tho Red Triangle stands for. Especially should tho picture appeal of that sergeant and his ten men finding comfort and nourishment and companionship on that black night. You Would liko to liavo that little, old dugout kept going, I'm sure. Tho chance to do so is here to-day; this is the week—Red Triangle Week—next Friday is the last day. Remember those German bullets singing overhead and the kettles singing on tho stoyo, and eleven exhausted men staggering in; and help tho cause that put the Y.M. bloke there and keeps him there—along, with hundreds of similar blokes and huts. i