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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




The field range was outside in the back yard.

One hot day in July a Salvation Army woman stood at the range frying
doughnuts from eleven in the morning until six at night without resting,
and scarcely stopping for a bite to eat. She fried seventeen hundred
doughnuts, and was away from the stove only twice for a few minutes. She
claims, however, that she is not the champion doughnut fryer. The champion
fried twenty-three hundred in a day.

One day a soldier watching her tired face as she stood at the range
lifting out doughnuts and plopping more uncooked ones into the fat,
protested.

"Say, you're awfully tired turning over doughnuts. Let me help you. You go
inside and rest a while. I'm sure I can do that."

She was tired and the boy looked eager, so she decided to accept his
offer. He was very insistent that she go away and rest, so she slipped in
behind a screen to lie down, but peeped out to watch how he was getting
on. She saw him turn over the first doughnuts all right and drain them,
but he almost burned his fingers trying to eat one before it was fairly
out of the fat; and then she understood why he had been so anxious for her
to "_go away_" and rest.

Often the boys would come to the lassies and say: "Say, Cap, I can help
you. Loan me an apron." And soon they would be all flour from their chin
to their toes.

They would come about four o'clock to find out what time the doughnuts
would be ready for serving, and the girls usually said six o'clock so that
they would be able to fry enough to supply all the regiment. But the men
would start to line up at half-past four, knowing that they could not be
served until six, so eager were they for these delicacies. When six
o'clock came each man would get three doughnuts and a cup of delicious
coffee or chocolate. A great many doughnut cutters were worn out as the
days went by and the boys frequently had to get a new cutter made.
Sometimes they would take the top of quite a large-sized can or anything
tin that they could lay hands on from which to make it. One boy found the
top of an extra large sized baking powder tin and took it to have a
smaller cutter soldered in the centre. Sometimes they used the top of the
shaving soap box for this. When he got back to the hut the cook exclaimed
in dismay: "Why, but it's too big!"

"Oh, that's all right," said the doughboy nonchalantly.

"That'll be all the better for us. We'll get more doughnut. You always
give us three anyway, you know. The size don't count."

They were always scheming to get more pie and more doughnuts and would
stand in line for hours for a second helping. One day the Salvation Army
woman grew indignant over a noticeably red-headed boy who had had three
helpings and was lining up for a fourth. She stood majestically at the
head of the line and pointed straight at him: "You! With the red head down
there! Get out of the line!"

"She's got my number all right!" said the red-headed one, grinning
sheepishly as he dropped back.

The town of Raulecourt was often shelled, but one morning just before
daybreak the enemy started in to shell it in earnest. Word came that the
girls had better leave as it was very dangerous to remain, but the girls
thought otherwise and refused to leave. One might have thought they
considered that they were real soldiers, and the fate of the day depended
upon them. And perhaps more depended upon them than they knew. However
that was they stayed, having been through such experiences before. For the
older woman, however, it was a first experience. She took it calmly
enough, going about her business as if she, too, were an old soldier.

On the evening of June 14th they made fudge for the boys who were going to
leave that night for the front lines.

For several hours the tables in the hut were filled with men writing
letters to loved ones at home, and the women and girls had sheets of paper
filled with addresses to which they had promised to write if the boys did
not come back.

At last one of the men got up with his finished letter and quietly removed
the phonograph and a few of its devotees who were not going up to the
front yet, placing them outside at a safe distance from the hut. A soldier
followed, carrying an armful of records, and the hut was cleared for the
men who were "going in" that night.

For a little while they ate fudge and then they sang hymns for another
half hour, and had a prayer. It was a very quiet little meeting. Not much
said. Everyone knew how solemn the occasion was. Everyone felt it might be
his last among them. It was as if the brooding Christ had made Himself
felt in every heart. Each boy felt like crying out for some strong arm to
lean upon in this his sore need. Each gave himself with all his heart to
the quiet reaching up to God. It was as if the eating of that fudge had
been a solemn sacrament in which their souls were brought near to God and
to the dear ones they might never see on this earth again. If any one had
come to them then and suggested the Philosophy of Nietzsche it would have
found little favor. They knew, here, in the face of death, that the Death
of Jesus on the Cross was a soul satisfying creed. Those who had accepted
Him were suddenly taken within the veil where they saw no longer through a
glass darkly, but with a face-to-face sense of His presence. They had
dropped away their self assurance with which they had either conquered or
ignored everything so far in life, and had become as little children,
ready to trust in the Everlasting Father, without whom they had suddenly
discovered they could not tread the ways of Death.

Then came the call to march, and with a last prayer the boys filed
silently out into the night and fell into line. A few minutes later the
steady tramp of their feet could be heard as they went down the street
that led to the front.

Later in the night, quite near to morning, there came a terrific shock of
artillery fire that heralded a German raid. The fragile army cots rocked
like cradles in the hut, dishes rolled and danced on the shelves and
tables, and were dashed to fragments on the floor. Shells wailed and
screamed overhead; and our guns began, until it seemed that all the sounds
of the universe had broken forth. In the midst of it all the gas alarm
sounded, the great electric horns screeching wildly above the babel of
sound. The women hurried into their gas masks, a bit flustered perhaps,
but bearing their excitement quietly and helping each other until all were
safely breathing behind their masks.

The next day several times officers came to the hut and begged the women
to leave and go to a place of greater safety, but they decided not to go
unless they were ordered away. On June 19th one of them wrote in her
diary: "Shells are still flying all about us, but our work is here and we
must stay. God will protect us." Once when things grew quiet for a little
while she went to the edge of the village and watched the shells falling
on Boucq, where one of her friends was stationed, and declared: "It looks
awfully bad, almost as bad as it sounds."

The next morning as the firing gradually died away, Salvation Army people
hurried up to Raulecourt from near-by huts to find out how these brave
women were, and rejoiced unspeakably that every one was safe and well.

That night there was another wonderful meeting with the boys who were
going to the front, and after it the weary workers slept soundly the whole
night through, quietly and undisturbed, the first time for a week.

It was a bright, beautiful Sunday morning, June 23, 1918, when a little
party of Salvationists from Raulecourt started down into the trenches. The
muddy, dirty, unpleasant trenches! Sometimes with their two feet firmly
planted on the duck-board, sometimes in the mud! Such mud! If you got both
feet on it at once you were sure you were planted and would soon begin to
grow!

As soon as they reached the trenches they were told: "Keep your heads
down, ladies, the snipers are all around!" It was an intense moment as
they crept into the narrow housings where the men had to spend so much
time. But it was wonderful to watch the glad light that came into the
men's eyes as they saw the women.

"Here's a real, honest-to-goodness American woman in the trenches!"
exclaimed a homesick lad as they came around a turn.

"Yes, your mother couldn't come to-day," said the motherly Salvationist,
smiling a greeting, "so I've come in her place."

"All right!" said he, entering into the game. "This is Broadway and that's
Forty-second Street. Sit down."

Of course there was nothing to sit down on in the trenches. But he hunted
about till he found a chow can and turned it up for a seat, and they had a
pleasant talk.

"Just wait," he said. "I'll show you a picture of the dearest little girl
a fellow ever married and the darlingest little kid ever a man was father
to!" He fumbled in his breast pocket right over his heart and brought out
two photographs.

"I'd give my right arm to see them this minute, but for all that," he went
on, "I wouldn't leave till we've fought this thing through to Berlin and
given them a dose of what they gave little Belgium!"

They went up and down the trenches, pausing at the entrances to dugouts to
smile and talk with the men. Once, where a grassy ridge hid the trench
from the enemy snipers, they were permitted to peep over, but there was no
look of war in the grassy, placid meadow full of flowers that men called
"No Man's Land." It seemed hard to believe, that sunny, flower-starred
morning, that Sin and Hate had the upper hand and Death was abroad
stalking near in the sunlight.

It was a twelve-mile walk through the trenches and back to the hut, and
when they returned they found the men were already gathering for the
evening meeting.

That night, at the close of a heart-searching talk, eighty-five men arose
to their feet in token that they would turn from the ways of sin and
accept Christ as their Saviour, and many more raised their hands for
prayers. One of the women of this party in her three months in France saw
more than five hundred men give themselves to Christ and promise to serve
Him the rest of their lives.

A little Adjutant lassie who was stationed at Boucq went away from the
town for a few hours on Saturday, and when she returned the next day she
found the whole place deserted. A big barrage had been put over in the
little, quiet village while she was away and the entire inhabitants had
taken refuge in the General's dugout. Her husband, who had brought her
back, insisted that she should return to the Zone Headquarters at Ligny-
en-Barrios, where he was in charge, and persuaded her to start with him,
but when they reached Menil-la-Tour and found that the division Chaplain
was returning to Boucq she persuaded her husband that she must return with
the Chaplain to her post of duty.

That night she and the other girls slept outside the dugout in little
tents to leave more room in the dugout for the French women with their
little babies. At half-past three in the morning the Germans started their
shelling once more. After two hours, things quieted down somewhat and the
girls went to the hut and prepared a large urn of coffee and two big
batches of hot biscuits. While they were in the midst of breakfast there
was another barrage. All day they were thus moving backward and forward
between the hut and the dugout, not knowing when another barrage would
arrive. The Germans were continually trying to get the chateau where the
General had his headquarters. One shell struck a house where seven boys
were quartered, wounding them all and killing one of them. Things got so
bad that the Divisional Headquarters had to leave; the General sent his
car and transferred the girls with all their things to Trondes. This was
back of a hill near Boucq. They arrived at three in the afternoon, put up
their stove and began to bake. By five they were serving cake they had
baked. The boys said: "What! Cake already?" The soldiers put up the hut
and had it finished in six hours.

While all this was going on the Salvation Army friends over at Raulecourt
had been watching the shells falling on Boueq, and been much troubled
about them.

These were stirring times. No one had leisure to wonder what had become of
his brother, for all were working with all their might to the one great
end.

Up north of Beaumont two aviators were caught by the enemy's fire and
forced to land close to the enemy nests. Instead of surrendering the
Americans used the guns on their planes and held off the Germans until
darkness fell, when they managed to escape and reach the American lines.
This was only one of many individual feats of heroism that helped to turn
the tide of battle. The courage and determination, one might say the
enthusiasm, of the Americans knew no bounds. It awed and overpowered the
enemy by its very eagerness. The Americans were having all they could do
to keep up with the enemy. The artillerymen captured great numbers of
enemy cannon, ammunition, food and other supplies, which the trucks
gathered up and carried far to the front, where they were ready for the
doughboys when they arrived. One of the greatest feats of engineering ever
accomplished by the American Army was the bridging of the Meuse, in the
region of Stenay, under terrible shell fire, using in the work of building
the pontoons the Boche boats and materials captured during the fighting at
Chateau-Thierry and which had been brought from Germany for the Kaiser's
Paris offensive in July. The Meuse had been flooded until it was a mile
wide, yet there was more than enough material to bridge it.

As the Americans advanced, village after village was set free which had
been robbed and pillaged by the Germans while under their domination. The
Yankee trucks as they returned brought the women and children back from
out of the range of shell fire, and they were filled with wonder as they
heard the strange language on the tongues of their rescuers. They knew it
was not the German, but they had many of them never seen an American
before. The Germans had told them that Americans were wild and barbarous
people. Yet these men gathered the little hungry children into their arms
and shared their rations with them. There were three dirty, hungry little
children, all under ten years of age, Yvonne, Louisette and Jeane, whose
father was a sailor stationed at Marseilles. Yvonne was only four years of
age, and she told the soldiers she had never seen her father. They climbed
into the big truck and sat looking with wonder at the kindly men who
filled their hands with food and asked them many questions. By and by,
they comprehended that these big, smiling, cheerful men were going to take
the whole family to their father. What wonder, what joy shone in their
eager young eyes!

Strange and sad and wonderful sights there were to see as the soldiers
went forward.

A pioneer unit was rushed ahead with orders to conduct its own campaign
and choose its own front, only so that contact was established with the
enemy, and to this unit was attached a certain little group of Salvation
Army people. Three lassies, doing their best to keep pace with their own
people, reached a battered little town about four o'clock in the morning,
after a hard, exciting ride.

The supply train had already put up the tent for them, and they were
ordered to unfold their cots and get to sleep as soon as possible. But
instead of obeying orders these indomitable girls set to work making
doughnuts and before nine o'clock in the morning they had made and were
serving two thousand doughnuts, with the accompanying hot chocolate.

The shells were whistling overhead, and the doughboys dropped into nearby
shell holes when they heard them coming, but the lassies paid no heed and
made doughnuts all the morning, under constant bombardment.

Bouconville was a little village between Raulecourt and the trenches. In
it there was left no civilian nor any whole house. Nothing but shot-down
houses, dugouts and camouflages, Y.M.C.A., Salvation Army and enlisted
men.

Dead Man's Curve was between Mandres and Beaumont. The enemy's eye was
always upon it and had its range.

Before the St. Mihiel drive one could go to Bouconville or Raulecourt only
at night. As soon as it was dark the supply outfits on the trucks would be
lined up awaiting the word from the Military Police to go.

Everyone had to travel a hundred yards apart. Only three men would be
allowed to go at once, so dangerous was the trip.

Out of the night would come a voice:

"Halt! Who goes there? Advance and give the countersign."

Every man was regarded as an enemy and spy until he was proven otherwise.
And the countersign had to be given mighty quick, too. So the men were
warned when they were sent out to be ready with the countersign and not to
hesitate, for some had been slow to respond and had been promptly shot.
The ride through the night in the dark without lights, without sound, over
rough, shell-plowed roads had plenty of excitement.

Bouconville for seven months could never be entered by day. The dugout
wall of the hut was filled with sandbags to keep it up. It was at
Bouconville, in the Salvation Army hut, that the raids on the enemy were
organized, the men were gathered together and instructed, and trench
knives given out; and here was where they weeded out any who were afraid
they might sneeze or cough and so give warning to the enemy.

Not until after the St. Mihiel drive when Montsec was behind the line
instead of in front did they dare enter Bouconville by day.

Passing through Mandres, it was necessary to go to Beaumont, around Dead
Man's Curve and then to Rambucourt, and proceed to Bouconville. Here the
Salvation Army had an outpost in a partially destroyed residence. The hut
consisted of the three ground floor rooms, the canteen being placed in the
middle. The sleeping quarters were in a dugout just at the rear of these
buildings. It was in the building adjoining this hut that three men were
killed one day by an exploding shell, and gas alarms were so frequent in
the night that it was very difficult for the Salvation Army people to
secure sufficient rest as on the sounding of every gas alarm it was
necessary to rise and put on the gas mask and keep it on until the
"alerte" was removed. This always occurred several times during the night.

[Illustration: Map]

It was just outside of Bouconville that the famous doughnut truck
experience occurred. The supply truck, driven by two young Salvation Army
men, one a mere boy, was making its rounds of the huts with supplies and
in order to reach Raulecourt, the boy who was driving decided to take the
shortest road, which, by the way, was under complete observation of the
Germans located at Montsec. The truck had already been shelled on its way
to Bouconville, several shells landing at the edge of the road within a
few feet of it. They had not noticed the first shell, for shells were a
somewhat common thing, and the old truck made so much noise that they had
not heard it coming, but when the second one fell so close one of the boys
said: "Say, they must be shooting at _us!_" as though that were
something unexpected.

They stepped on the accelerator and the truck shot forward madly and tore
into the town with shells breaking about it. Having escaped thus far they
were ready to take another chance on the short cut to Raulecourt.

They proceeded without mishaps for some distance. Just outside of
Bouconville was a large shell hole in the road and in trying to avoid this
the wheels of the truck slipped into the ditch, and the driver found he
was stuck. It was impossible to get out under his own power. While working
with the truck, the Germans began to shell him again. At first the two
boys paid little heed to it, but when more began to come they knew it was
time to leave. They threw themselves into a communicating trench, which
was really no more than a ditch, and wiggled their way up the bank until
they were able to drop into the main trenches, where they found safety in
a dugout.

The Germans meantime were shelling the truck furiously, the shells
dropping all around on either side, but not actually hitting it. This was
about two o'clock in the afternoon.

[Illustration: "It was just outside of Bouconville that the famous
doughnut truck experience occurred"---and this is the Salvation Army boy
who drove it]

[Illustration: Bullionville, promptly dubbed by the American boys
"Souptown"]

At Headquarters they were becoming anxious about the non-appearance of the
truck and started out in the touring car to locate it. Commencing at
Jouey-les-Cotes they went from there to Boucq and Raulecourt, which were
the last places the truck was to visit. Not hearing of it at Raulecourt,
the search was continued out to Bouconville, again, by a short road.
Montsec was in full view. There were fresh shell holes all along the road
since the night before. Things began to look serious.

A short distance ahead was an army truck, and even as they got abreast of
it a shell went over it exploding about twenty-five feet away, and one hit
the side of the road just behind them. It seemed wise to put on all speed.

But when they reached Bouconville and found that the truck they had passed
was the Salvation Army truck, they were unwilling to leave it to the
tender mercies of the enemy as everybody advised. That truck cost fifty-
five hundred dollars, and they did not want to lose it.

As soon as it was dark a detail of soldiers volunteered to go with the
Salvation Army officers to attempt to get it out, but the Germans heard
them and started their shelling furiously once more, so that they had to
retreat for a time; but later, they returned and worked all night trying
to jack it up and get a foundation that would permit of hauling it out.
Every little while all night the Germans shelled them. About half-past
four in the morning it grew light enough for the enemy to see, and the top
was taken off the truck so that it would not be so good a mark.

That day they went back to Headquarters and secured permission for an
ammunition truck to come down and give them a tow, as no driver was
permitted out on that road without a special permit from Headquarters. The
journey back was filled with perils from gas shells, especially around
Dead Man's Curve, but they escaped unhurt. That night they attached a tow
line to the front of the truck, started the engine quietly, and waited
until the assisting truck came along out of the darkness. They then
attached their line without stopping the other truck and with the aid of
its own power the old doughnut truck was jerked out of the ditch at last
and sent on its way. In spite of the many shells for which it had been a
target it was uninjured save that it needed a new top. The knowledge that
the truck was stuck in the ditch and was being shelled aroused great
excitement among all the troops in the Toul Sector and it was thereafter
an object of considerable interest. Newspaper correspondents telegraphed
reports of it around the world.

In most of the huts and dugouts Salvation Army workers subsist entirely
upon Army chow. At Bouconville the chow was frequently supplemented by
fresh fish. The dugout here was very close to the trenches, less than five
minutes' walk. Just behind the trenches to the left was a small lake. When
there was sufficient artillery fire to mask their attack, soldiers would
toss a hand grenade into this lake, thus stunning hundreds of fish which
would float to the surface, where they were gathered in by the sackful.
The Salvation Army dugout was never without its share of the spoils.

Before the soldiers began to think, as they do now, that being detailed to
the Salvation Army hut was a privilege, an Army officer sent one of his
soldiers, who seemed to be in danger of developing a yellow streak, to
sweep the hut and light the fires for the lassies. "You are only fit to
wash dishes, and hang on to a woman's skirts," he told the soldier in
informing him that he was detailed. That night the village was bombed. The
boy, who was really frightened, watched the two girls, being too proud to
run for shelter while they were so calm. He trembled and shook while they
sat quietly listening to the swish of falling bombs and the crash of anti-
aircraft guns. In spite of his fright, he was so ashamed of his fears that
he forced himself to stand in the street and watch the progress of the
raid. The next day he reported to his Captain that he had vanquished his
yellow streak and wanted a chance to demonstrate what he said. The
demonstration was ample. The example of these brave lassies had somehow
strengthened his spirit.

Back of Raulecourt the woods were full of heavy artillery. Raulecourt was
the first town back of the front lines. The men were relieved every eight
days and passed through here to other places to rest.

The military authorities sent word to the Salvation Army hut one day that
fifty Frenchmen would be going through from the trenches at five o'clock
in the morning who would have had no opportunity to get anything to eat.

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