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The War Romance of the Salvation Army

E >> Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill >> The War Romance of the Salvation Army




My dear Major:

Grace, love and peace unto you! Many thanks for the beautiful letter I
received from you full of love, Christian admonition and encouragement.
Such letters are much Appreciated over here.

I have been very busy. The last week, in addition to running the ordinary
business, I have used the pick and shovel and wheelbarrow in lowering our
wine-cellar floor (now used as a Salvation Army rest room), so we can walk
straight in. I have also done some white-washing to brighten things up and
have some flowers in bowls, large French wine bottles and big brass
shells, which makes a great improvement. I now expect to pick up pieces
and erect a range, so we can cook and make things faster. I secured two
hams and am having them cooked, and expect to serve ham sandwiches by
Decoration Day, two days hence, when there is to be a great time in
decorating the graves of our heroes. I am also trying to get some lemons
so that I can make lemonade for the boys besides the coffee and cocoa. You
can get an idea of the immensity of our business when I tell you I got
999.25 francs worth of butter-scotch candy alone with the last lot of
goods, besides a dozen other kinds of candy, nuts, toilet articles, etc.,
and this will be sold and given out in a very few days.

We had very good meetings last Sunday. I spoke at night. A glorious time
we had, indeed. Praise God for the opportunity of working among the New
England braves!

At Menil-la-Tours the French forbade any huts at all to be put up at
first, but finally they gave permission for one hut. The Staff-Captain
wanted to put up two, but as that wasn't allowed he got around the order
by building five rooms on each side of the one big hut and so had plenty
of room. It is pretty hard to get ahead of a Salvation Army worker when he
has a purpose in view. Not that they are stubborn, simply that they know
how to accomplish their purpose in the nicest way possible and please
everybody.

There were some American railroad engineers here, working all night taking
stuff to the front. They came over and asked if they could help out, and
so instead of taking their day for sleep they spent most of it putting tar
paper on the roof of the Salvation Army hut.

It was in this place that there seemed to be a strong prejudice among some
of the soldiers against the Salvation Army for some reason. The soldiers
stood about swearing at the Staff-Captain and his helper as they worked,
and saying the most abusive and contemptible things to them. At last the
Staff-Captain turned about and, looking at them, in the kindliest way
said:

"See here, boys, did you ever know anything about the Salvation Army
before?"

They admitted that they had not.

"Well, now, just wait a little while. Give us fair play and see if we are
like what you say we are. Wait until we get our hut done and get started,
and then if you don't like us you can say so."

"Well, that's fair, Dad," spoke up one soldier, and after that there was
no more trouble, and it wasn't long before the soldiers were giving the
most generous praise to the Salvation Army on every side.

L'Hermitage, nestled in the heart of a deep woods, was no quiet refuge
from the noise of battle and the troubles of a war-weary world, as one
might suppose. It was surrounded by swamps everywhere. And it had been
raining, of course. It always seems to have been raining in France during
this war. There were duck boards over the swampy ground, and a single mis-
step might send one prone in the ooze up to the elbows.

It was a very dangerous place, also.

There was a large ammunition dump in the town, and besides that there was
a great balloon located there which the Boche planes were always trying to
get. It was the nearest to the front of any of our balloons and, of
course, was a great target for the enemy. There was a lot of heavy coast
artillery there, also, and there were monster shell holes big enough to
hold a good audience.

At last one day the enemy did get the ammunition dump, and report after
report rent the air as first one shell and then another would burst and go
up in flame. It was fourteen hours going off and the military officer
ordered the girls to their billets until it should be over. It was like
this: First a couple of shells would explode, then there would be a
second's quiet and a keg of powder would flare; then some boxes of
ammunition would go off; then some more shells. It was a terrible
pandemonium of sound. Thirty miles away in Gondrecourt they saw the fire
and heard the terrific explosions.

The Zone Major and one of his helpers had been to Nancy for a truck load
of eggs and were just unloading when the explosions began. Together they
were carefully lifting out a crate containing a hundred dozen eggs when
the mammoth detonations began that rocked the earth beneath them and
threatened to shake them from their feet. They staggered and tottered but
they held onto the eggs. One of the sayings of Commander Eva Booth is,
"Choose your purpose and let no whirlwind that sweeps, no enemy that
confronts you, no wave that engulfs you, no peril that affrights you, turn
you from it." The Zone Major and his helper had chosen the purpose of
landing those eggs safely, and eggs at five francs a dozen are not to be
lightly dropped, so they staggered but they held onto the eggs.

The girls in the canteen went quietly about their work until ordered to
safety; but over in Sanzey and Menil-la-Tour their friends watched and
waited anxiously to hear what had been their fate.

The General who was in charge of the Twenty-sixth Division was exceedingly
kind to the Salvation Army girls. He acted like a father toward them:
giving up his own billet for their use; sending an escort to take them to
it through the woods and swamps and dangers when their work at the canteen
was over for a brief respite; setting a sentry to guard them and to give a
gas alarm when it became necessary; and doing everything in his power for
their comfort and safety.




IV.

The Montdidier Sector



Spring came on even in shell-torn France, lovely like the miracle it
always is. Bare trees in a day were arrayed in wondrous green. A
camouflage of beauty spread itself upon the valleys and over the hillsides
like a garment sewn with colored broidery of blossoms. Great scarlet
poppies flamed from ruined homes as if the blood that had been spilt were
resurrected in a glorious color that would seek to hide the misery and
sorrow and touch with new loveliness the war-scarred place. Little birds
sent forth their flutey voices where mortals must be hushed for fear of
enemies.

The British had been driven back by the Huns until they admitted that
their backs were against the wall, and it was an anxious time. Daily the
enemy drew nearer to Paris.

When the great offensive was started by the Germans in March, 1918, and
American troops were sent up to help the British and French, the Division
was located at Montdidier. Under the rules for the conduct of war, they
were not permitted to know where they were destined to go, and so the
Salvation Army could not secure that information. They knew it was to be
north of Paris, but where, was the problem.

The French were opposed to any relief organizations going into the Sector,
and rules and regulations were made which were calculated to discourage or
to keep them out altogether.

It was urgent that the Salvation Army should be there at the earliest
possible moment and as they could not secure permits, especially for the
women, they decided to get there without permits,

The first contingent was put into a big Army truck, the cover was put down
and they were started on the road, to a point from which they hoped to
secure information of the movements of their outfit. From place to place
this truck proceeded until, finally, detachments of the troops were
located in the vicinity of Gisors. Contact was immediately established.
The girls were received with the greatest joy and portable tents were set
up. It seemed as if every man in the Division must come to say how glad he
was to see them back. The men decided that if it was in their power they
would never again allow the Salvation Army to be separated from them. A
few days later when the Division was ordered to move they took these same
lassies with them riding in army trucks. The troops were on their way to
the front and seldom remained more than three days in one place, and
frequently only one day. On arrival at the stopping-place, fifteen or
twenty of the boys would immediately proceed to erect the tent and within
an hour or two a comfortable place would be in operation, a field range
set up, the phonograph going, and the boys had a home.

At Courcelles the Salvation Army set up a tent, started a canteen, and had
it going four days in charge of two sisters just come from the States.
Then one morning they woke up and found their outfit gone, they knew not
where, and they had to pick up and go after them. An all-day journey took
them to Froissy, where they found their special outfit.

There was no place for a tent at Froissy, but there was an old dance hall,
where they had their canteen. The Division stayed there five weeks-under a
roar of guns. But in spite of this there were wonderful meetings every
night in Froissy.

This work was exceedingly trying on the girls. Permits were never secured
for any of the Salvation Army workers in this Sector. They were applied
for regularly through the French Army. About three months after
application was made, they were all received back with the statement from
the French that, seeing the workers were already there, it was not now
necessary that permits should be issued. It must be reported that the
French Army was opposed to the presence of women in any of the camps of
the soldiers. This prejudice existed for a long time, but it was finally
broken down because of the good work done by Salvation Army women, which
came to be fully recognized by the French Army.

The work in the Montdidier Sector was particularly hard. Permanent
buildings could not be established. The best that could be done was to
erect portable tents, which were about twenty feet wide and fifty-seven
feet long. Huts were established in partially destroyed buildings or
houses or stores that had been vacated by their owners, and on the extreme
front canteens were established in dugouts and cellars and the entire
district was under bombardment from the German guns as well as from the
airplane bombs. The Salvation Army had no place there that was not under
bombardment continually. The huts were frequently shelled and there was
imminent danger for a long time that the German Army would break through,
which, of course, added to the strain.

The Zone Major went back and forth bringing more men and more lassies and
more supplies from the Base at Paris to the front, and many a new worker
almost lost his life in a baptism of fire on his way to his post of duty
for the first time. But all these men and women, as a soldier said, were
made of some fine high stuff that never faltered at danger or fatigue or
hardship.

They rode over shell-gashed roads in the blackest midnight in a little
dilapidated Ford; made wild dashes when they came to a road upon which the
enemy's fire was concentrated, looking back sometimes to see a geyser of
flame leap up from a bend around which they had just whirled. Shells would
rain in the fields on either side of them; cars would leap by them in the
dark, coming perilously close and swerving away just in time; and still
they went bravely on to their posts.

Everything would be blackest darkness and they would think they were
stealing along finely, when all of a sudden an incendiary bomb would burst
and flare up like a house-on-fire lighting up the whole country for miles
about, and there you were in plain sight of the enemy! And you couldn't
turn back nor hesitate a second or you would be caught by the ever
watchful foe! You had to go straight ahead in all that blare of light!

The S. A. Adjutant's headquarters were fifty feet below the ground;
sometimes the earth would rock with the explosives. Two of the dugouts
were burrowed almost beneath the trenches and S. A. Officers here looked
after the needs of the men who were actually engaged in fighting. Every
night the shattered villages were raked and torn above them. Such dugouts
could only be left at night or when the firing ceased. The two men who
operated these lived a nerve-racking existence. Of course, all pies and
doughnuts for these places had to be prepared far to the rear, and no fire
could be built as near to the front as this. It was no easy task to bring
the supplies back and forth. It was almost always done at the risk of
life.

The Staff-Captain and the Adjutant were speeding over a shell-swept road
one cold, black, wet night at reckless speed without a light, their hearts
filled with anxiety, for a rumor had reached them that two Salvation Army
lassies had been killed by shell fire. The night was full of the sound of
war, the distant rumble of the heavy guns, the nervous stutter of machine
guns, the tearing screech of a barrage high above the road.

Suddenly in front of them yawned a black gulf. The Adjutant jammed on his
brakes, but it was too late. The game little Ford sailed right into a big
shell hole, and settled down three feet below the road right side up but
tightly wedged in. The two travelers climbed out and reconnoitered but
found the situation hopeless. There had been many sleepless nights before
this one, and the men, weary beyond endurance, rolled up in their
blankets, climbed into the car, and went to sleep, regardless of the guns
that thundered all about them.

They were just lost to the land of reality when a soldier roused them
summarily, saying:

"This is a heck of a place for the Salvation Army to go to sleep! If you
don't mind I'll just pick your old bus out of here and send you on your
way before it's light enough for Fritzy to spot you and send a calling
card."

He was grinning at them cheerfully and they roused to the occasion.

"How are you going to do it?" asked the Adjutant, who, by the way, was
Smiling Billy, the same one the soldiers called "one game little guy." "It
will take a three-ton truck to get us out of this hole!"

"I haven't got a truck but I guess we can turn the trick all right!" said
the soldier.

He disappeared into the darkness above the crater and in a moment
reappeared with ten more dark forms following him, and another soldier who
patrolled the rim of the crater on horseback.

"How do you like 'em?" he chuckled to the Salvation Army men, as he turned
his flashlight on the ten and showed them to be big German prisoners of
war. Under his direction they soon had the little Ford pushed and
shouldered into the road once more. In a little while the Salvationists
reached their destination and found to their relief that the rumor about
the lassies was untrue.

At Mesnil-St.-Firmin one of the lassies, a young woman well known in New
York society circles, but a loyal Salvationist and in France from the
start, drove a little flivver carrying supplies for several nights,
accompanied only by a young boy detailed from the Army. Every mile of the
way was dark and perilous, but there was no one else to do the work, so
she did it.

Here they were under shell fire every night. The girls slept in an old
wine cellar, the only comparatively safe place to be found. It was damp,
with a fearful odor they will never forget--moreover, it was already
inhabited by rats. They frequently had to retire to the cellar during gas
attacks, and stay for hours, sometimes having only time to seize an
overcoat and throw it over their night-clothes. They were here through ten
counter-attacks and when Cantigny was taken.

There seemed to be big movements among the Germans one day. They were
bringing up reinforcements, and a large attack was expected. The airplanes
were dropping bombs freely everywhere and it looked as if there would not
be one brick left on the top of another in a few hours. Then the military
authorities ordered the two girls to leave town. When the boys heard that
the hut was being shelled and the girls were ordered to leave they poured
in to tell them how much they would miss them. They well knew from
experience that their staunch hardworking little friends would not have
left them if they could have helped it. Also, they dreaded to lose these
consecrated young women from their midst. They had a feeling that their
presence brought the presence of the great God, with His protection, and
in this they had come to trust in their hour of danger. Often the boys
would openly speak of this, owning that they attributed their safety to
the presence of their Christian friends.

One young officer from the officers' mess where the girls had dined once
at their invitation, brought them boxes of candy, and in presenting them
said:

"Gee! We shall miss you like the devil!"

The lassie twinkled up in a merry smile and answered: "That sure is some
comparison!" The officer blushed as red as a peony and tried to
apologize:

"Well, now, you know what I mean. I don't know just how to say how much we
shall miss you!"

They left at midnight on foot accompanied by one of the Salvation Army men
workers who had been badly gassed and needed to get back of the lines and
have some treatment. It was brilliant moonlight as they hiked it down the
road, the airplanes were whizzing over their heads and the anti-aircraft
guns piling into them. They started for La Folie, the Headquarters of the
Staff-Captain of that zone, but they lost their way and got far out of the
track, arriving at last at Breteuil. Coming to the woods a Military Police
stationed at the crossroads told them:

"You can't go into Breteuil because they have been shelling it for twenty
minutes. Right over there beyond where you are standing a bomb dropped a
few minutes ago and killed or wounded seven fellows. The ambulance just
took them away."

However, as they did not know where else to go they went into Breteuil,
and found the village deserted of all but French and American Military
Police. They tried to get directions, and at last found a French mule team
to take them to La Folie, where they finally arrived at four o'clock in
the morning.

The next day they went on to Tartigny, where they were to be located for a
time.

One of the lassies left her sister with the canteen one day and started
out with another Officer to the Divisional Gas Officer to get a new gas
mask, for something had happened to hers. As they reached a crossroads a
boy on a wheel called out: "Oh, they're shelling the road! Pull into the
village quick!"

When they arrived in the village there was a great shell just fallen in
the very centre of the town. The girl thought of her sister all alone in
the canteen, for the shells were falling everywhere now, and they started
to take a short cut back to Tartigny, but the Military Police stopped
them, saying they couldn't go on that road in the daytime as it was under
observation, so they had to go back by the road they had come. The canteen
was at the gateway of a chateau, and when they reached there they saw the
shells falling in the chateau yard and through the glass roof of the
canteen. It was a trying time for the two brave girls.

They had been invited out to dinner that evening at the Officers' Mess. As
a rule, they did not go much among the officers, but this was a special
invitation. The shells had been falling all the afternoon, but they were
quite accustomed to shells and that did not stop the festivities. During
the dinner the soldier boys sang and played on guitars and banjos. But
when the dinner was over they asked the girls to sing.

It was very still in the mess hall as the two lovely lassies took their
guitars and began to sing. There was something so strong and sweet and
pure in the glance of their blue eyes, the set of their firm little chins,
so pleasant and wholesome and merry in the very curve of their lips, that
the men were hushed with respect and admiration before this highest of all
types of womanhood.

It was a song written by their Commander that the girls had chosen, with a
sweet, touching melody, and the singers made every word clear and
distinct:

Bowed beneath the garden shades,
Where the Eastern--sunlight fades,
Through a sea of griefs He wades,
And prays in agony.
His sweat is of blood,
His tears like a flood
For a lost world flow down.
I never knew such tears could be--
Those tears He wept for me!

Hung upon a rugged tree
On the hill of Calvary,
Jesus suffered, death, to be
The Saviour of mankind.
His brow pierced by thorn,
His hands and feet torn,
With broken heart He died.
I never knew such pain could be,
This pain He bore for me!

Suddenly crashing into the midst of the melody came a great shell,
exploding just outside the door and causing everyone at the table to
spring to his feet. The singers stopped for a second, wavered, as the
reverberation of the shock died away, and then went on with their song;
and the officers, abashed, wondering, dropped back into their seats
marvelling at the calmness of these frail women in the face of death.
Surely they had something that other women did not have to enable them to
sing so unconcernedly in such a time as this!

Love which conquered o'er death's sting,
Love which has immortal wing,
Love which is the only thing
My broken heart to heal.
It burst through the grave,
It brought grace to save,
It opened Heaven's gate.
I never knew such love could be--
This love He gave to me!

It needs some special experience to appreciate what Salvation Army lassies
really are, and what they have done. They are not just any good sort of
girl picked up here and there who are willing to go and like the
excitement of the experience; neither are they common illiterate girls who
merely have ordinary good sense and a will to work. The majority of them
in France are fine, well-bred, carefully reared daughters of Christian
fathers and mothers who have taught them that the home is a little bit of
heaven on earth, and a woman God's means of drawing man nearer to Him.
They have been especially trained from childhood to forget self and to
live for others. The great slogan of the Salvation Army is "Others." Did
you ever stop to think how that would take the coquetry out of a girl's
eyes, and leave the sweet simplicity of the natural unspoiled soul? We
have come to associate such a look with a plain, homely face, a dull
complexion, careless, severe hair-dressing and unbeautiful clothes. Why?

Righteousness from babyhood has given to these girls delicate beautiful
features, clear complexions that neither faded nor had to be renewed in
the thick of battle, eyes that seemed flecked with divine lights and could
dance with mirth on occasion or soften exquisitely in sympathy, furtive
dimples that twinkled out now and then; hands that were shapely and did
not seem made for toil. Yet for all that they toiled night and day for the
soldiers. They were educated, refined, cultured, could talk easily and
well on almost any subject you would mention. They never appeared to force
their religious views to the front, yet all the while it was perfectly
evident that their religion was the main object of their lives; that this
was the secret source of strength, the great reason for their deep joy,
and abiding calm in the face of calamities; that this was the one great
purpose in life which overtopped and conquered all other desires. And if
you would break through their sweet reserve and ask them they would tell
you that Jesus and the winning of souls to Him was their one and only
ambition.

And yet they have not let these great things keep them from the pleasant
little details of life. Even in the olive drab flannel shirt and serge
skirt of their uniform, or in their trim serge coats, the exact
counterpart of the soldier boy's, except for its scarlet epaulets, and the
little close trench hat with its scarlet shield and silver lettering, they
are beautiful and womanly. Catch them with the coat off and a great khaki
apron enveloping the rest of their uniform, and you never saw lovelier
women. No wonder the boys loved to see them working about the hut, loved
to carry water and pick up the dishes for washing, and peel apples, and
scrape out the bowl after the cake batter had been turned into the pans.
No wonder they came to these girls with their troubles, or a button that
needed sewing on, and rushed to them first with the glad news that a
letter had come from home even before they had opened it. These girls were
real women, the kind of woman God meant us all to be when He made the
first one; the kind of woman who is a real helpmeet for all the men with
whom she comes in contact, whether father, brother, friend or lover, or
merely an acquaintance. There is a fragrance of spirit that breathes in
the very being, the curve of the cheek, the glance of the eye, the grace
of a movement, the floating of a sunny strand of hair in the light, the
curve of the firm red lips that one knows at a glance will have no
compromise with evil. This is what these girls have.

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