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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 Salvation Army people went to work and baked up a lot of biscuits and
doughnuts and cakes, and got hot coffee ready. The Red Cross canteen was
better situated to serve the men and had more conveniences, so they took
the things over there, and the Red Cross supplied hot chocolate, and when
the men came they were well served. This is a sample of the spirit of
cooperation which prevailed. One Sunday night they were just starting the
evening service when word came from the military authorities that there
were a hundred men coming through the town who were hungry and ought to be
fed. They must be out of the town by nine-thirty as they were going over
the top that night. Could the Salvation Army do anything?

The woman officer who was in charge was perplexed. She had nothing cooked
ready to eat, the fire was out, her detailed helpers all gone, and she was
just beginning a meeting and hated to disappoint the men already gathered,
but she told the messenger that if she might have a couple of soldiers to
help her she would do what she could. The soldiers were supplied and the
fire was started. At ten minutes to nine the meeting was closed and the
earnest young preacher went to work making biscuits and chocolate with the
help of her two soldier boys. By ten o'clock all the men were fed and
gone. That is the way the Salvation Army does things. They never say "I
can't." They always CAN.

In Raulecourt there were several pro-Germans. The authorities allowed them
to stay there to save the town. The Salvation Army people were warned that
there were spies in the town and that they must on no account give out
information. Just before the St. Mihiel drive a special warning was given,
all civilians were ordered to leave town, and a Military Police knocked at
the door and informed the woman in the hut that she must be careful what
she said to anybody with the rank of a second lieutenant, as word had gone
out there was a spy dressed in the uniform of an American second
lieutenant.

That night at eleven o'clock the young woman was just about to retire when
there came a knock at the canteen door. She happened to be alone in the
building at the time and when she opened the door and found several
strange officers standing outside she was a little frightened. Nor did it
dispel her fears to have them begin to ask questions:

"Madam, how many troops are in this town? Where are they? Where can we get
any billets?"

To all these questions she replied that she could not tell or did not know
and advised them to get in touch with the town Major. The visitors grew
impatient. Then three more men knocked at the door, also in uniform, and
began to ask questions. When they could get no information one of them
exclaimed indignantly:

"Well, I should like to know what kind of a town this is, anyway? I tried
to find out something from a Military Police outside and he took me for a
SPY! Madam, we are from Field Hospital Number 12, and we want to find a
place to rest."

Then the frightened young woman became convinced that her visitors were
not spies; all the same, they were not going to leave her any the wiser
for any information she would give.

Several times men would come to the town and find no place to sleep. On
such occasions the Salvation Army hut was turned over to them and they
would sleep on the floor.

The St. Mihiel drive came on and the hut was turned over to the hospital.
The supplies were taken to a dugout and the canteen kept up there. Then
the military authorities insisted that the girls should leave town, but
the girls refused to go, begging, "Don't drive us away. We know we shall
be needed!" The Staff-Captain came down and took some of the girls away,
but left two in the canteen, and others in the hospital.

It rained for two weeks in Roulecourt. The soldiers slept in little dog
tents in the woods.

The meetings held the boys at the throne of God each night, they were the
power behind the doughnut, and the boys recognized it.

"One hesitated to ask them if they wanted prayers because we knew they
did," said one sweet woman back from the front, speaking about the time of
the St. Mihiel drive. "We couldn't say how many knelt at the altar because
they all knelt. Some of them would walk five miles to attend a meeting."

It poured torrents the night of the drive and nearly drowned out the
soldiers in their little tents.

They came into the hut to shake hands and say goodbye to the girls; to
leave their little trinklets and ask for prayers; and they had their
meeting as always before a drive.

But this was an even more solemn time than usual, for the boys were going
up to a point where the French had suffered the fearful loss of thirty
thousand men trying to hold Mt. Sec for fifteen minutes. They did not
expect to come back. They left sealed packages to be forwarded if they did
not return.

One boy came to one of the Salvation Army men Officers and said: "Pray for
me. I have given my heart to Jesus."

Another, a Sergeant, who had lived a hard life, came to the Salvation Army
Adjutant and said: "When I go back, if I ever go, I'm going to serve the
Lord."

After the meeting the girls closed the canteen and on the way to their
room they passed a little sort of shed or barn. The door was standing open
and a light streaming out, and there on a little straw pallet lay a
soldier boy rolled up in his blanket reading his Testament. The girls
breathed a prayer for the lad as they passed by and their hearts were
lifted up with gladness to think how many of the American boys, fully two-
thirds of them, carried their Testaments in the pockets over their hearts;
yes, and read them, too, quite openly.

Two young Captains came one night to say good-bye to the girls before
going up the line. The girls told them they would be praying for them and
the elder of the two, a doctor, said how much he appreciated that, and
then told them how he had promised his wife he would read a chapter in his
Testament every day, and how he had never failed to keep his promise since
he left home.

Then up spoke the other man:

"Well, I got converted one night on the road. The shells were falling
pretty thick and I thought I would never reach my destination and I just
promised the Lord if He would let me get safely there I would never fail
to read a chapter, and I never have failed yet!" This young man seemed to
think that--the whole plan of redemption was comprised in reading his
Bible, but if he kept his promise the Spirit would guide him.

On the way back to the hut one morning the girls picked marguerites and
forget-me-nots and put them in a vase on the table in the hut, making it
look like a little oasis in a desert, and no doubt, many a soldier looked
long at those blossoms who never thought he cared about flowers before.

Within thirty-six hours after the first gun was fired in the St. Mihiel
drive seven Salvation Army huts were established on the territory.

Three days before the drive opened twenty Salvation Army girls reached
Raulecourt, which was a little village half a mile from Montsec. They had
been travelling for hours and hours and were very weary.

The Salvation Army hut had been turned over to the hospital, so they found
another old building.

That night there was a gas alarm sounded and everybody came running out
with their gas masks on. The officer who had them in charge was much
worried about his lassies because some of them had a great deal of hair,
and he was afraid that the heavy coils at the back of their heads would
prevent the masks from fitting tightly and let in the deadly gas, but the
lassies were level-headed girls, and they came calmly out with their masks
on tight and their hair in long braids down their backs, much to the
relief of their officer.

It had been raining for days and the men were wet to the skin, and many of
them had no way to get dry except to roll up in their blankets and let the
heat of their body dry their clothes while they slept. It was a great
comfort to have the Salvation Army hut where they could go and get warm
and dry once in awhile.

The night of the St. Mihiel drive was the blackest night ever seen. It was
so dark that one could positively see nothing a foot ahead of him. The
Salvation Army lassies stood in the door of the canteen and listened. All
day long the heavy artillery had been going by, and now that night had
come there was a sound of feet, tramping, tramping, thousands of feet,
through the mud and slush as the soldiers went to the front. In groups
they were singing softly as they went by. The first bunch were singing
"Mother Machree."

There's a spot in me heart that no colleen may own,
There's a depth in me soul never sounded or known;
There's a place in me memory, me life, that you fill,
No other can take it, no one ever will;
Sure, I love the dear silver that shines in your hair,
And the brow that's all furrowed and wrinkled with care.
I kiss the dear fingers, so toil-worn for me;
O, God bless you and keep you!
Mother Machree!

The simple pathos of the voices, many of them tramping forward to their
death, and thinking of mother, brought the tears to the eyes of the girls
who had been mothers and sisters, as well as they could, to these boys
during the days of their waiting.

Then the song would die slowly away and another group would come by
singing: "Tell mother I'll be there!" Always the thought of mother. A
little interval and the jolly swing of "Pack up your troubles in your old
kit bag and smile, smile, smile!" came floating by, and then sweetly,
solemnly, through the chill of the darkness, with a thrill in the words,
came another group of voices:

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide!'

There had been rumors that Montsec was mined and that as soon as a foot
was set upon it it would blow up.

The girls went and lay down on their cots and tried to sleep, praying in
their hearts for the boys who had gone forth to fight. But they could not
sleep. It was as though they had all the burden of all the mothers and
wives and sisters of those boys upon them, as they lay there, the only
women within miles, the only women so close to the lines.

About half-past one a big naval gun went off. It was as though all the
noises of the earth were let loose about them. They could lie still no
longer. They got up, put on their rain-coats, rubber boots, steel helmets,
took their gas masks and went out in the fields where they could see. Soon
the barrage was started. Darkness took on a rosy hue from shells bursting.
First a shell fell on Montsec. Then one landed in the ammunition dump just
back of it and blew it up, making it look like a huge crater of a volcano.
It seemed as if the universe were on fire. The noise was terrific. The
whole heavens were lit up from end to end. The beauty and the horror of it
were indescribable.

At five o'clock they went sadly back to the hut.

The hospital tents had been put up in the dark and now stood ready for the
wounded who were expected momentarily. The girls took off their rain-coats
and reported for duty. It was expected there would be many wounded. The
minutes passed and still no wounded arrived. Day broke and only a few
wounded men had been brought in. It was reported that the roads were so
bad that the ambulances were slow in getting there. With sad hearts the
workers waited, but the hours passed and still only a straggling few
arrived, and most of those were merely sick from explosives. There were
almost no wounded! Only ninety in all.

Then at last there came one bearing a message. There _were_ no
wounded! The Germans had been taken so by surprise, the victory had been
so complete at that point, that the boys had simply leaped over all
barriers and gone on to pursue the enemy. Quickly packing up seven outfits
a little company of workers started after their divisions on trucks over
ground that twenty-four hours before had been occupied by the Germans, on
roads that were checkered with many shell holes which American road makers
were busily filling up and bridging as they passed.

One of the Salvation Army truck drivers asked a negro road mender what he
thought of his job. He looked up with a pearly smile and a gleam of his
eyes and replied: "Boss, I'se doin' mah best to make de world safe foh
Democrats!"

They had to stop frequently to remove the bodies of dead horses from the
way so recently had that place been shelled. They passed through grim
skeletons of villages shattered and torn by shell fire; between tangles of
rusty barbed wire that marked the front line trenches. Then on into
territory that had long been held by the Huns. More than half of the
villages they passed were partially burned by the retreating enemy. All
along the way the pitiful villagers, free at last, came out to greet them
with shouts of welcome, calling "Bonnes Americaines! Bonnes Americaines!"
Some flung their arms about the Salvation Army lassies in their joy. Some
of the villagers had not even known that the Americans were in the war
until they saw them.

In the village of Nonsard a little way beyond Mt. Sec they found a
building that twenty-four hours before had been a German canteen. Above
the entrance was the sign "KAMERAD, tritt' ein."

The Salvation Army people stepped in and took possession, finding
everything ready for their use. They even found a lard can full of lard
and after a chemist had analyzed it to make sure it was not poisoned they
fried doughnuts with it. In one wall was a great shell hole, and the
village was still under shell fire as they unloaded their truck and got to
work. One lassie set the water to heat for hot chocolate, while another
requisitioned a soldier to knock the head off a barrel of flour and was
soon up to her elbows mixing the dough for doughnuts. Before the first
doughnut was out of the hot fat several hundred soldiers were waiting in
long, patient, ever-growing lines for free doughnuts and chocolate. These
things were always served free after the men had been over the top.

The lassies had had no sleep for thirty-six hours, but they never thought
of stopping until everybody was served. In that one day their three tons
of supplies entirely gave out.

The Red Cross was there with their rolling kitchen. They had plenty of
bread but nothing to put on it. The Salvation Army had no stove on which
to cook anything, but they had quantities of jam and potted meats. They
turned over ten cases of jam, some of the cases containing as many as four
hundred small jars, to the Red Cross, who served it on hot biscuits. Some
one put up a sign: "THIS JAM FURNISHED BY THE SALVATION ARMY!" and the
soldiers passed the word along the line: "The finest sandwich in the
world, Red Cross and Salvation Army!" The first day two Salvation Army
girls served more than ten thousand soldiers in their canteen. They did
not even stop to eat. The Red Cross brought them over hot chocolate as
they worked.

Evening brought enemy airplanes, but the lassies did not stop for that and
soon their own aerial forces drove the enemy back.

That night the girls slept in a dirty German dugout, and they did not dare
to clean up the place, or even so much as to move any of the _débris_
of papers and old tin and pasteboard cracker boxes, or cans that were
strewn around the place until the engineer experts came to examine things,
lest it might be mined and everything be blown up. The girls set up their
cots in the clearest place they could find, and went to sleep. One of the
women, however, who had just arrived, had lost her cot, and being very
weary crawled into a sort of berth dug by the Germans in the wall, where
some German had slept. She found out from bitter experience what cooties
are like.

The next morning they were hard at work again as early as seven o'clock.
Two long lines of soldiers were already patiently waiting to be served.
The girls wondered whether they might not have been there all night. This
continued all day long.

"We had to keep on a perpetual grin," said one of the lassies, "so that
each soldier would think he had a smile all his own. We always gave
everything with a smile." Yet they were not smiles of coquetry. One had
but to see the beautiful earnest faces of those girls to know that nothing
unholy or selfish entered into their service. It was more like the smile
that an angel might give.

Here is one of the many popular songs that have been written on the
subject which shows how the soldiers felt:

SALVATION LASSIE OF MINE.

"They say it's in Heaven that all angels dwell,
But I've come to learn they're on earth just as well;
And how would I know that the like could be so,
If I hadn't found one down here below?

CHORUS.

A sweet little Angel that went o'er the sea,
With the emblem of God in her hand;
A wonderful Angel who brought there to me
The sweet of a war-furrowed land.
The crown on her head was a ribbon of red,
A symbol of all that's divine;
Though she called each a brother she's more like a mother,
Salvation Lassie of Mine.

Perhaps in the future I'll meet her again,
In that world where no one knows sorrow or pain;
And when that time comes and the last word is said,
Then place on my bosom her band of red."

_By "Jack" Caddigan and "Chick" Stoy._

That day a shell fell on the dugout where they had slept the night before,
and a little later one dropped next door to the canteen; another took
seven men from the signal corps right in the street near by, and the girls
were ordered out of the village because it was no longer safe for them.

One of the boys had been up on a pole putting up wires for the signal
corps. These boys often had to work as now under shell fire in daytime
because it was necessary to have telephone connections complete at once. A
shell struck him as he worked and he fell in front of the canteen. They
had just carried him away to the ambulance when his chum and comrade came
running up. A pool of blood lay on the floor in front of the canteen, and
he stood and gazed with anguish in his face. Suddenly he stooped and
patted the blood tenderly murmuring, "My Buddy! My Buddy!" Then like a
flash he was off, up the pole where his comrade had been killed to finish
his work. That is the kind of brave boys these girls were serving.




IX.

The Argonne Drive



That night they slept in the woods on litters, and the next day they went
on farther into the woods, twelve kilometres beyond what had been German
front.

Here they found a whole little village of German dugouts in the form of
log cabin bungalows in the woods. It was a beautifully laid out little
village, each bungalow complete, with running water and electric lights
and all conveniences. There were a dance hall, a billiard room, and
several pianos in the woods. There were also fine vegetable gardens and
rabbit hutches full of rabbits, for the Germans had been obliged to leave
too hastily to take anything with them.

The boys were hungry, some of them half starved for something different
from the hard fare they could take with them over the top, and they made
rabbit stews and cooked the vegetables and had a fine time.

The girls up at the front had no time for making doughnuts, so the girls
back of the lines made 8000 doughnuts and sent them up by trucks for
distribution. They also distributed oranges to the soldiers.

News came to the girls after they had been for a week in Nonsard that they
were to make a long move.

Back to Verdun they went and stopped just long enough to look at the city.
They were much impressed with St. Margaret's school for young ladies, and
a wonderful old cathedral standing on the hill with a wall surrounding it.
Just the face of the building was left, all the rest shot away, and
through the concrete walls were holes, with guns bristling from every one.

[Illustration: The girls who came down to help in the St. Mihiel drive]

[Illustration: Here they found a whole little village of German dugouts]

They did not linger long for duty called them forward on their journey. At
dusk they stopped in a little village, bought some stuff, and asked a
French woman to cook it for them. They inquired for a place in which to
wash and were given a bar of soap and directed to the village pump up the
street. After supper they went on their way to Benoitvaux. Here they found
difficulty in getting quarters, but at last an old French woman agreed to
let them sleep in her kitchen and for a couple of days they were quartered
with her. The word went forth that there were two American girls there and
people were most curious to see them. One afternoon two French soldiers
came to the kitchen to visit them. It was raining, as usual, and the girls
had stayed in because there was really nothing to call them out. The
soldiers sat for some time talking. They had heard that America was a wild
place with _beaucoup_ Indians who wore scalps in their belts, and
they wanted to know if the girls were not afraid. It was a bit difficult
conversing, but the girls got out their French dictionary and managed to
convey a little idea of the true America to the strangers. At last one of
the soldiers in quite a matter of fact tone informed one of the girls that
he was pleased with her and loved her very much. This put a hasty close to
the conversation, the lassie informing him with much dignity that men did
not talk in that way to girls they had just met in America and that she
did not like it. Whereupon the girls withdrew to the other end of the
kitchen and turned their backs on their callers, busying themselves with
some reading, and the crest-fallen gallants presently left.

They only had a canteen here one day when they were called to go on to
Neuvilly.

When the offensive was extended to the Argonne the Salvation Army followed
along, keeping in touch with the troops so that they felt that the
Salvation Army was ever with them, sharing their hardships and dangers,
and always ready to serve them.

Just before a drive, close to the front, there are always blockades of
trucks going either way.

The Salvation Army truck filled with the workers on their way to Neuvilly
one dark night was caught in such a blockade. They crawled along making
only about a mile an hour and stopping every few minutes until there was a
chance to go on again. At last the wait grew longer and longer, the mud
grew deeper, and the truck was having such a hard time that the little
company of travellers decided to abandon it to the side of the road till
morning and get out and walk to Neuvilly. There was a field hospital there
and they felt sure they could be of use; and anyway, it was better than
sitting in the truck all night. They were then about eight kilometers from
the front. So they all got off and walked. But when they reached the
place, found the hospital, and essayed to go in, the mud was so deep that
they were stuck and unable to move forward. Some soldiers had to rescue
them and carry them to the hospital on litters.

Their help was accepted gladly, and they went to work at once. There were
many shell-shocked boys coming in who needed soothing and comforting, and
a woman's hand so near the front was gratefully appreciated.

When at last there was a lull in the stream of wounded men the girls went
to find a place to sleep for a little while. It was early morning, and sad
sights met their eyes as they hurried down what had once been a pleasant
village street. Destruction and desolation everywhere. The house that had
been selected for a Salvation Army canteen was nearly all gone. One end
was comparatively intact, with the floor still remaining, and this was to
be for the canteen. The rest of the building was a series of shell holes
surrounding a cellar from which the floor had been shot away.

The women reconnoitred and finally decided to unfold their cots and try to
get a wink of sleep down in that cellar. It did not take them long to get
settled. The cots were brought down and placed quickly among the fallen
rafters, stone and tiling. Part of the walls that were standing leaned in
at a perilous slant, threatening to fall at the slightest wind, but the
lassies took off their shoes, rolled up in their blankets, and were at
once oblivious to all about them, for they had been travelling all the day
before and had worked hard all night.

One hour later, still early in the morning, they were awakened by the
arrival of the truck and the thumping of boxes, tables and supplies as the
Salvation Army truck drivers unloaded and set up the paraphernalia of the
canteen. The girls opened their eyes and looked about them, and there all
around the building were American soldiers, a head in every shell hole,
watching them sleep. There was something thrilling in the silent audience
looking down with holy eyes--yes, I said holy eyes!--for whatever the
American soldier may be in his daily life he had nothing in his eyes but
holy reverence for these women of God who were working night and day for
him. There was something touching, too, in their attitude, for perhaps
each one was thinking of his mother or sister at home as he looked down on
these weary girls, rolled up in the brown blankets, with their neat little
brown shoes in couples under their cots, nothing visible above the
blankets but their pretty rumpled brown hair.

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