Some idea of the amount of work undertaken and accomplished by this Red Cross pharmacy may be gained when it is understood that in the six months ending January, 1919, 75,016 pounds of drugs were issued from it. There were in that time 3,954,178 tablets, 21,566 phials of serum, 271 surgical units, 15,108 pairs of rubber gloves, and 22,059 feet of adhesive plaster, in addition to many hundreds of packets of other drug supplies.
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]