A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The War Romance of the Salvation Army

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




So the girls went out and found an old building. It was very dirty but
they went cheerfully to work, cleaned it up, and started their canteen.

There was a hospital in the town; they knew that by the many ambulances
that were continually going back and forth; so they offered their services
to the doctors, which were eagerly accepted. After that they took turns
staying in the canteen and going to the hospital.

The hospital was fearfully crowded, though it was in no measure the fault
of the hospital authorities, for they were doing their best, working with
all their might; but it had not been expected that there would be so many
wounded at this point and they had not adequate accommodations. Many of
the wounded boys were lying on the ground in the sun, covered with blood
and flies, and parched with thirst and fever. There were not enough
ambulances to carry them further back to the base hospitals.

The girls stretched pieces of canvas over the heads of the poor boys to
keep off the sun; they got water and washed away the blood; and they sent
one of their indefatigable truck drivers after some water to make
lemonade. The little Adjutant twinkled his nice brown eyes and set his
firm merry lips when they told him to get the water, in that place of no
water, but he took his little Ford car and whirled away without a word,
and presently he returned with a barrel of ice-cold water from a spring he
had found two miles away. How the girls rejoiced that it was ice cold! And
then they started making lemonade. They had known that the Adjutant would
find water somewhere. He was the man the doughboys called "one game little
guy," because he was so fearless in going into No Man's Land after the
wounded, so indefatigable in accomplishing his purpose against all odds,
so forgetful of self.

They had but one crate of lemons, one crate of oranges and one bag of
sugar when they began making lemonade, but before they needed more it
arrived just on the minute. It was almost like a miracle. For a whole car
load of oranges and lemons had been shipped to Beauvais and arrived a day
too late--after the troops had gone. They were of no use there, so the
Zone Major had them shipped at once to the railhead at Crepy, and got a
special permit to go over with trucks and take them up to Morte Fontaine.

The Salvation Army never does things by halves. Colonel Barker sent to
Paris to get some mosquito netting to keep the flies off those soldiers,
and failing to find any in the whole city he bought $10,000 worth of white
net, such as is used for ladies' collars and dresses--ten thousand yards
at a dollar a yard--and sent it down to the hospital where it was used
over the wounded men, sometimes over a wounded arm or leg or head,
sometimes over a whole man, sometimes stretched as netting in the windows.
And no ten thousand dollars was ever better spent, for the flies
occasioned indescribable suffering as well as the peril of infection.

Wonderful relief and comfort all these things brought to those poor boys
lying there in agony and fever. How delicious were the cooling drinks to
their parched lips! The doctors afterward said that it was the cool drinks
those girls gave to the men that saved many a life that day.

There were some poor fellows hurt in the abdomen who were not allowed to
drink even a drop and who begged for it so piteously. For these the girls
did all in their power. They bathed their faces and hands and dipping
gauze in lemonade they moistened their lips with it.

The other day, after the war was over and a ship came sailing into New
York harbor, one of these same fellows standing on the deck looked down at
the wharf and saw one of these same girls standing there to welcome him.
As soon as he was free to leave the ship he rushed down to find her, and
gripping her hand eagerly he cried out so all around could hear: "You
saved my life that day. Oh, but I'm glad to see you! The doctor said it
was that cold lemonade you gave me that kept me from dying of fever!"

In one base hospital lay a boy wounded at Chateau-Thierry. Of course, when
wounded, he lost all his possessions, including a Testament which he very
much treasured. The Salvation Army supplied him with another, but it did
not comfort him as the old one had done. He said that it could never be
the same as the one he had carried for so long. He worried so much about
his Testament, that one of the lassies finally attempted to recover it,
and, after much trouble, succeeded through the Bureau of Effects. The
little book, which the soldier had always carried with him, was blood-
soaked and mud-stained; but it was an unmistakable aid in the lad's
recovery.

But the honor of those days in Morte Fontaine was not all due to the
Salvation Army lassies. The Salvation Army truck drivers were real heroes.
They came with their ambulances and their trucks and they carried the poor
wounded fellows back to the base hospitals. The hospitals were full
everywhere near there, and sometimes they would go from one to another and
have to drive miles, and even go from one town to another to find a place
where there was room to receive the men they carried. Then back they would
come for another load. They worked thus for three days and five nights
steadily, before they slept, and some of them stripped to the waist and
bared their breasts to the sharp night wind so that the cold air would
keep them awake to the task of driving their cars through the black night
with its precious load of human lives. They had no opportunity for rest of
any kind, no chance to shave or wash or sleep, and they were a haggard and
worn looking set of men when it was over.

While all this was going on the Zone Major kept out of sight of the
Colonel who had told him he couldn't go out on that drive; but two days
later he saw his familiar car coming down the road and the Colonel seemed
greatly agitated. He was shaking his fist in front of him.

The Zone Major pondered whether he would not better drive right on without
stopping to talk, but he reflected that he would have to take his
punishment some time and he might as well get it over with, so when the
Colonel's car drew near he stopped. The Colonel got out and the Zone Major
got out, and it was apparent that the Colonel was very angry. He forgot
entirely that the Zone Major was a Salvationist and he swore roundly: "I'm
out with you for life" declared the Colonel angrily. "The General's upset
and I'm upset."

"Why, what's the matter, Colonel?" asked the Zone Major innocently.

"Matter enough! You had no business to bring those girls up here!"

The Colonel said more to the same effect, and then got into his car and
drove off. The Zone Major wisely kept out of his way; but a few days later
met him again and this time the Colonel was smiling:

"Dog-gone you, Major, where've you been keeping yourself? Why haven't you
been around?" and he put out his hand affably.

"Why, I didn't want to see a man who bawled me out in the public highway
that way," said the Zone Major.

"Well, Major, you had no business to bring those girls up here and you
know it!" said the Colonel rousing to the old subject again.

"Why not, Colonel, didn't they do fine?"

"Yes, they did," said the Colonel with tears springing suddenly into his
eyes and a huskiness into his voice, "but, Major, think what if we'd lost
one of them!"

"Colonel," said the Zone Major gently, "my girls are soldiers. They come
up here to share the dangers with the soldiers, and as long as they can be
of service they feel this is the place for them."

The Colonel struggled with his emotion for a moment and then said gruffly:
"Had anything to eat? Stop and take a bite with me." And they sat down
under the trees and had supper together.

It was at this town that the girls slept in a German-dug cave, in which
our boys had captured seven hundred Germans, the commanding officer of
whom said that according to his rank in Germany he ought to have a car to
take him to the rear. However, he was compelled to leg it at the point of
an American bayonet in the hands of an American doughboy. The cave was of
chalk rock made to store casks of wine.

The airplanes were bad in this place. One speaks of airplanes in such a
connection in the same way one used to mention mosquitoes at certain
Jersey seashore resorts. But they were particularly bad at Morte Fontaine,
and Major Peabody ordered the canteen to be moved out of the village to
the cave. More Salvation Army girls came to look after the canteen leaving
the first girls free for longer hours at the hospital.

One beautiful moonlight night the girls had just started out from the
hospital to go to their cave when they heard a German airplane, the
irregular chug, chug of its engine distinguishing it unmistakably from the
smooth whirr of the Allies' planes. The girls looked up and almost over
their heads was an enemy plane, so low that they could see the insignia on
his machine, and see the man in the car. He seemed to be looking down at
them. In sudden panic they fled to a nearby tree and hid close under its
branches. Standing there they saw the enemy make a low dip over the
hospital tents, drop a bomb in the kitchen end just where they had been
working five minutes before, and slide up again through the silvery air,
curve away and dive down once more.

The scene was bright as day for the moon was full and very clear that
night, and the roads stretched out in every direction like white ribbons.
One block away the girls could see a regiment of Scotch soldiers, the
famous Highland Regiment called "The Ladies From Hell," marching up to the
front that night, and singing bravely as they marched, their skirling
Scotch songs accompanied by a bagpipe. And even as they listened with
bated breath and straining eyes the airplane dipped and dropped another
bomb right into the midst of the brave men, killing thirty of them, and
slid up and away before it could be stopped. These were the scenes to
which they grew daily accustomed as they plied their angel mission, and
daily saw themselves preserved as by a miracle from constant peril.

We had about eight or ten German prisoners here, who were employed as
litter bearers, and very good workers they were, tickled to death to be
there instead of over on their own side fighting. Most of the prisoners,
except some of the German officers, seemed glad to be taken.

These German prisoners were sitting in a row on the ground outside the
hospital one day when the Salvation Army girls and men were picking over a
crate of oranges. The Germans sat watching them with longing eyes.

"Let's give them each one," proposed one of the girls.

"No! Give them a punch in the nose!" said the boys.

The girls said nothing more and went on working. Presently they stepped
away for a few minutes and when they came back the Germans sat there
contentedly eating oranges. Questioningly the girls looked at their male
coworkers and with lifted brows asked: "What does this mean?"

"Aw, well! The poor sneaks looked so longingly!" said one of the boys,
grinning sheepishly.

There in the hospital the girls came into contact with the splendid spirit
of the American soldier boys, "Don't help me, help that fellow over there
who is suffering!" was heard over and over again when they went to bring
comfort to some wounded boy.

When the supplies in the canteen would run out, and the last doughnut
would be handed with the words: "That's the last," the boy to whom it was
given would say: "Don't give it to me, give it to Harry. I don't want it."

It was during that drive and there was a farewell meeting at one of the
Salvation Army huts that night for the boys who were going up to the
trenches. It was a beautiful and touching meeting as always on such
occasions. Starting with singing whatever the boys picked out, it dropped
quickly into the old hymns that the boys loved and then to a simple
earnest prayer, setting forth the desperate case of those who were going
out to fight, and appealing to the everlasting Saviour for forgiveness and
refuge. They lingered long about the fair young girl who was leading them,
listening to her earnest, plain words of instruction how to turn to the
Saviour of the world in their need, how to repent of their sins and take
Christ for their Saviour and Sanctifier. No man who was in that meeting
would dare plead ignorance of the way to be saved. Many signified their
desire to give their lives into the keeping of Christ before they went to
the front. The meeting broke up reluctantly and the men drifted out and
away, expecting soon to be called to go. But something happened that they
did not go that night. Meantime, a company had just returned from the
front, weary, hungry, worn and bleeding, with their nerves unstrung, and
their spirits desperate from the tumult and horror of the hours they had
just passed in battle. They needed cheering and soothing back to normal.
The girls were preparing to do this with a bright, cheery entertainment,
when a deputation of boys from the night before returned. There was a
wistful gleam in the eyes of the young Jew who was spokesman for the group
as he approached the lassie who had led the meeting.

"Say, Cap, you see we didn't go up."

"I see," she smiled happily.

"Say, Cap, won't you have another farewell meeting to-night?" he asked
with an appealing glance in his dark eyes.

"Son, we've arranged something else just now for the fellows who are
coming back," she said gently, for she hated to refuse such a request.

"Oh, say, Cap, you can have that later, can't you? We want another meeting
now."

There was something so pleading in his voice and eyes, so hungry in the
look of the waiting group, that the young Captain could not deny him. She
looked at him hesitatingly, and then said:

"All right. Go out and tell the boys."

He hurried out and soon the company came crowding in. That hour the very
Lord came down and communed with them as they sang and knelt to pray, and
not a heart but was melted and tender as they went out when it was over in
the solemn darkness of the early morning. A little later the order came
and they "went over."

It was a sharp, fierce fight, and the young Jew was mortally wounded. Some
comrades found him as he lay white and helpless on the ground, and bending
over saw that he had not long to stay. They tried to lift him and bear him
back, but he would not let them. He knew it was useless.

They asked him if he had any message. He nodded. Yes, he wanted to send a
message to the Salvation Army girls. It was this:

"Tell the girls I've gone West; for I will be by the time you tell them;
and tell them it's all right for at that second meeting I accepted Christ
and I die resting on the same Saviour that is theirs."

One of our wonderful boys out on the drive had his hand blown off and
didn't realize it. His chum tried to drag him back and told him his hand
was gone.

"That's nothing!" he cried. "Tie it up!"

But they forced him back lest he would bleed to death. In the hospital
they told him that now he might go home.

"Go home!" he cried. "Go home for the loss of a left hand! I'm not left-
handed. Maybe I can't carry a gun, but I can throw hand grenades!"

He went to the Major and the Major said also that he must go home.

The boy looked him straight in the eye:

"Excuse me, Major, saying I won't. But _I won't let go your coat_
till you say I can stay," and finally the Major had to give in and let him
stay. He could not resist such pleading.

One poor fellow, wounded in his abdomen, was lying on a litter in a most
uncomfortable position suffering awful pain. The lassie came near and
asked if she could do anything for him. He told her he wanted to lie on
his stomach, but the doctor, when she asked him, said "No" very shortly
and told her he must lie on his back. She stooped and turned him so that
his position was more comfortable, put his gas mask under his head, rolled
his blanket so as to support his shoulders better, and turned to go to
another, and the poor suffering lad opened his eyes, held out his hand and
smiled as she went away.

The doctors said to the girls: "It is wonderful to have you around."

The Red Cross men and their rolling kitchens came to the front, but no
women. Somehow in pain and sickness no hand can sooth like a woman's.
Perhaps God meant it to be so. Here at Morte Fontaine was the first time a
woman had ever worked in a field hospital.

The Salvation Army women worked all that drive.

It was a sad time, though, for the division went in to stay until they
lost forty-five hundred men, but it stayed two days after reaching that
figure and lost about seventy-five thousand.

The doctor in charge of the evacuation hospital at Crepy spoke of the
effect of the Salvation Army girls, not alone upon the wounded, but also
upon the medical-surgical staff and the men of the hospital corps who
acted as nurses in that advanced position. "Before they came," he said,
"we were overwrought, everyone seemed at the breaking point, what with the
nervous tension and danger. But the very sight of women working calmly had
a soothing effect on everyone."

When the drive was over orders came to leave. The following is the
official notice to the Salvation Army officers:


G-1 Headquarters, 1st Division, American Expeditionary Forces, July 26,
1918.

_Memorandum._

To Directors, Y.M.C.A., Red Cross, Salvation Army Services, 1st Division.

1. This division moves by rail to destination unknown beginning at 6.00
A.M., July 28th. Motor organizations of the Division move overland. Your
motorized units will accompany the advanced section of the Division Supply
Train, and will form a part of that train.

2. Time of departure and routes to be taken will be announced later.

3. Secretaries attached to units may accompany units, if it is so desired.

By command of Major-General Summerall.

P. E. Peabody,
Captain, Infantry,
G-1

Copies:
YMCA
Red Cross
Salvation Army
G-3
C. of S.
File


The girls stowed themselves and their belongings into the big truck. Just
as they were about to start they saw some infantry coming, seven men whom
they knew, but in such a plight! They were unshaven, with white, sunken
faces, and great dark hollows under their eyes. They were simply "all in,"
and could hardly walk.

Without an instant's hesitation the girls made a place for those poor,
tired, dirty men in the truck, and the invitation was gratefully accepted.

There were more poor forlorn fellows coming along the road. They kept
meeting them every little way, but they had no room to take in any more so
they piled oranges in the back end of the truck and gave them to all the
boys they passed who were walking.

Now the girls were on their way to Senlis, where they had planned to take
dinner at a hotel in which they had dined before. It was one of the few
buildings remaining in the town for the Germans, when they left Senlis,
had set it on fire and destroyed nearly everything. But as the girls
neared the town they began to think about the boys asleep in the back of
the truck, who probably hadn't had a square meal for a week, and they
decided to take them with them. So they woke them up when they arrived at
the hotel. Oh, but those seven dirty, unshaven soldiers were embarrassed
with the invitation to dinner! At first they declined, but the girls
insisted, and they found a place to wash and tidy up themselves a bit. In
a few minutes into the big dining-room filled with French soldiers and a
goodly sprinkling of French officers, marched those two girls, followed by
their seven big unshaven soldiers with their white faces and hollow eyes,
sat proudly down at a table in the very centre and ordered a big dinner.
That is the kind of girls Salvation Army lassies are. Never ashamed to do
a big right thing.

After the dinner they took the boys to their divisional headquarters,
where they found their outfit.

They went on their way from Senlis to Dam-Martin to stay for a week back
of the lines for rest.

There was a big French cantonment building here built for moving pictures,
which was given to them for a canteen, and they set up their stove and
went to work making doughnuts, and doing all the helpful things they could
find to do for the boys who were soon to go to the front again.

Then orders came to move back to the Toul Sector.

Those were wonderful moonlight nights at Saizerais, but the Boche
airplanes nearly pestered the life out of everybody.

"Gee!" said one of the boys, "if anybody ever says 'beautiful moonlight
nights' to me when I get home I don't know what I'll do to 'em!"

The boys were at the front, but not fighting as yet. Occasional shells
would burst about their hut here and there, but the girls were not much
bothered by them. The thing that bothered them most was an old "Vin" shop
across the street that served its wine on little tables set out in front
on the sidewalk. They could not help seeing that many of the boys were
beginning to drink. Poor souls! The water was bad and scarce, sometimes
poisoned, and their hearts were sick for something, and this was all that
presented itself. It was not much wonder. But when the girls discovered
the state of things they sent off three or four boys with a twenty-gallon
tank to scout for some water. They found it after much search and filled
the big tank full of delicious lemonade, telling the boys to help
themselves.

All the time they were in that town, which was something like a week, the
girls kept that tank full of lemonade close by the door. They must have
made seventy-five or a hundred gallons of lemonade every day, and they had
to squeeze all the lemons by hand, too! They told the boys: "When you feel
thirsty just come here and get lemonade as often as you want it!" No
wonder they almost worship those girls. And they had the pleasure of
seeing the trade of the little wine shop decidedly decrease.

However near the front you may go you will always find what is known over
there in common parlance as a "hole in the wall" where "vin blanche" and
"vin rouge" and all kinds of light wines can be had. And, of course, many
soldiers would drink it. The Salvation Army tried to supply a great need
by having carloads of lemons sent to the front and making and distributing
lemonade freely.

One cannot realize the extent of this proposition without counting up all
the lemons and sugar that would be required, and remembering that supplies
were obtained only by keeping in constant touch with the Headquarters of
that zone and always sending word immediately when any need was
discovered. There is nothing slow about the Salvation Army and they are
not troubled with too much red tape. If necessity presents itself they
will even on occasion cut what they have to help someone.

The airplanes visited them every night that week, and sometimes they did
not think it worth while to go to bed at all; they had to run to the
safety trenches so often. It was just a little bit of a village with
dugouts out on the edge.

One night they had gone to bed and a terrific explosion occurred which
rocked the little house where they were. They thought of course the bomb
had fallen in the village, but they found it was quite outside. It had
made such a big hole in the ground that you could put a whole truck into
it.

The trenches in which they hid were covered over with boards and sand, and
were not bomb proof, but they were proof against pieces of shell and
shrapnel.

It was a very busy time for the girls because so many different outfits
were passing and repassing that they had to work from morning early till
late at night.

At Bullionville the hut was in a building that bore the marks of much
shelling. The American boys promptly dubbed the place "Souptown."

The Division moved to Vaucouleurs for rest and replacements. At
Vaucouleurs there was a great big hut with a piano, a victrola, and a
cookstove.

They started the canteen, made doughnuts and pies, and gave
entertainments.

But best of all, there were wonderful meetings and numbers of conversions,
often twenty and twenty-five at a time giving themselves to Christ. The
boys would get up and testify of their changed feelings and of what Christ
now meant to them, and the others respected them the more for it.

They stayed here two weeks and everybody knew they were getting ready for
a big drive. It was a solemn time for the boys and they seemed to draw
nearer to the Salvation Army people and long to get the secret of their
brave, unselfish lives, and that light in their eyes that defied danger
and death. In the distance you could hear the artillery, and the night
before they left, all night long, there was the tramp, tramp, tramp of
feet, the boys "going up."

The next day the girls followed in a truck, stopping a few days at Pagny-
sur-Meuse for rest.




VIII.

The Saint Mihiel Drive



The hut in Raulecourt was an old French barracks. Outside in the yard was
an old French anti-aircraft gun and a mesh of barbed wire entanglement.
The woods all around was filled with our guns. To the left was the enemy's
third line trench. Three-quarters of the time the Boche were trying to
clean us up. Less than two miles ahead were our own front line trenches.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.