28 
SCOUTING FOR GIRLS 
Long before there was any idea of the war the Guides had 
been taught to think out and to practise what they should do 
supposing such a thing as war happened in their own country, or 
that people should get injured by bombs or by accidents in their 
neigborhood. Thousands of women have done splendid work in 
this war, but thousands more would have been able to do good 
work also had they only Been Prepared for it beforehand by 
learning up a few things that are useful to them outside their 
mere school work or work in their own home. And that is what 
the Guides are learning in all their games and camp work; they 
mean to be useful in other ways besides what they are taught 
in school. 
WHAT THE GUIDES DO. 
As a Guide your first duty is to be helpful to other people, both 
in small everyday matters and also under the worst of circum- 
stances. You have to imagine to yourself what sort of things 
might possibly happen, and how you should deal with them when 
they occur. Then you will know what to do. 
I was present when a German aeroplane dropped a bomb on 
to a railway station in London. There was the usual busy scene 
of people seeing to their luggage, saying good-bye and going 
off by train, when with a sudden bang a whole carriage was 
blown to bits, and the adjoining ones were in a blaze; seven or 
eight of those active in getting into the train were flung down — 
mangled and dead ; while some thirty more were smashed, broken, 
and bleeding, but still alive. The suddenness of it made it all the 
more horrifying. But one of the first people I noticed as keeping 
her head was a smartly dressed young lady kneeling by an injured 
working-man; his thigh was smashed and bleeding terribly; she 
had ripped up his trouser with her knife, and with strips of it 
had bound a pad to the wound ; she found a cup somehow and 
filled it with water for him from the overhead hose for filling 
engines. Instead of being hysterical and useless, she was as cool 
and ready to do the right thing as if she had been in bomb- 
raids every day of her life. Well, that is what any girl can do if 
she only prepares herself for it. 
These are things which have to be learnt in peace-time, and 
because they were learnt by the Guides beforehand, these girls 
were able to do their bdt so well when war came. 
FIRST AID. 
When you see an accident in the street or people injured in 
an air raid, the sight of the torn limbs, the blood, the broken 
bones, and the sound of the groans and sobbing all make you feel 
sick and horrified and anxious to get away from it — if you’re not 
a Girl Guide. But that is cowardice : your business as a Guide 
is to steel yourself to face it and to help the poor victim. As a 
