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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 women did not waste much more time in sleeping. They arose at once and
got busy. There were five tables in the canteen above and already from
each one there stretched a long line of men waiting silently, patiently
for the time to arrive when there would be something good to eat. The
girls had no more sleep that day, and there simply was no seclusion to be
had anywhere. Everything was shell-riddled.

When night came on the question of beds arose again. The cellar seemed
hardly possible, and the military officers considered the question.

Across the road from the most ruined end of the canteen building stood an
old church. All of its north wall was gone save a supporting column in the
middle, all the north roof gone. There were holes in all the other walls,
and all the windows were gone. The floor was covered with _débris_
and wreckage. It had been used all day for an evacuation hospital.

Just over the altar was a wonderful picture of the Christ ascending to
heaven. It was still uninjured save for a shot through the heart.

The military officer stood on the steps of this ruined church, and,
looking around in perplexity, remarked:

"Well, I guess this is the wholest place in town." Then stepping inside he
glanced about and pointed:

"And this is the most secluded spot here!"

The seclusion was a pillar! But the girls were glad to get even that for
there was no other place, and they were very weary. So they set up their
little cots, and prepared to roll themselves in their blankets for a well-
earned rest.

The boys had built a small bonfire on the stone floor against a piece of
one wall that was still standing, and now they sent a deputation to know
if the girls would bring their guitars over and have a little music. The
boys, of course, had no idea that the girls had not slept for more than
twenty-four hours, and the girls never told them. They never even cast one
wistful glance toward their waiting cots, but smilingly assented, and went
and got their instruments.

[Illustration: The wrecked house in Neuvilly where the lassies went to
sleep in the cellar and woke up to find the soldiers watching]

[Illustration: The wrecked church in Neuvilly where the memorable meeting
was held]

Beneath the picture of the Christ, in front of the altar a few men were at
work in an improvised office with four candles burning around them. In the
rear of the church Lt.-Col. Frederick R. Fitzpatrick of the One Hundred
and Tenth Ammunition Train had his office, and there another candle was
burning. Some wounded men lay on stretchers in the shadowed northwest
corner, and around the little fire the five Salvation Army lassies sat
among two hundred soldiers. They sang at first the popular songs that
everybody knew: "The Long, Long Trail," "Keep the Home Fires Burning,"
"Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile! Smile! Smile!" and
"Keep Your Head Down, Fritzie Boy!"

By and by some one called for a hymn, and then other hymns followed:
"Jesus Lover of My Soul," "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder," and, as
always, the old favorite, "Tell Mother I'll Be There!"

They sang for at least an hour and a half, and then they did not want to
stop. Oh, but it was a great sound that rolled through the old broken
walls of the church and floated out into the night! One of the lassies
said she would not change crowds with the biggest choir in New York.

Then they asked the girls to sing and the room was very still as two sweet
voices thrilled out in a tender melody, speaking every word distinctly:

Beautiful Jesus, Bright Star of earth!
Loving and tender from moment of birth,
Beautiful Jesus, though lowly Thy lot,
Born in a manger, so rude was Thy cot!

Beautiful Jesus, gentle and mild,
Light for the sinner in ways dark and wild,
Beautiful Jesus, O save such just now,
As at Thy feet they in penitence bow!

Beautiful Christ! Beautiful Christ!
Fairest of thousands and Pearl of great price!
Beautiful Christ! Beautiful Christ!
Gladly we welcome Thee, Beautiful Christ!

Before they had finished many eyes had turned instinctively toward the
picture in the weirdly flickering light.

Then the young Captain-lassie asked her sister to read the Ninety-first
Psalm, "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty," and she told them that was a promise
for those who trusted in God, and she wished they would think about it
while they were going to sleep.

"This evening has made me think so much of home," she said thoughtfully,
drooping her lashes and then raising them with a sweeping glance that
included the whole group, while the firelight flickered up and lit her
lovely serious face, and touched her hair with lights of gold, "I suppose
it has made every one else feel that way," she went on; "I mean especially
the evenings at home when the family gathered in the parlor, with one at
the piano and brothers with their horns, and the rest with some kind of
instrument, and we had a good 'sing;' and afterward father took the Bible
and read the evening chapter, and then we had family prayers and kissed
Mamma and Papa good night and went to bed. I shouldn't wonder if many of
you used to have homes like that?"

The lassie raised her eyes again and looked on them. Many of the men
nodded. It was beautiful to see the look that came into their faces at
these recollections.

"And you used to have family prayers, too, didn't you?" she asked eagerly.

They nodded once more but some of them turned their faces away from the
light quickly and brushed the back of their hands across their eyes.

"To-night has been a family gathering," she went on, "We girls are little
sisters to all you big brothers, and we have had a delightful time with
just the family, and the evening chapter has been read, and now I think it
would not be complete if we did not have the family prayers before we
separate and go to sleep."

Down went the heads in response, with reverent mien, and the place was
very still while the lassie prayed. Afterward the boys joined their gruff
voices, husky now with emotion, into the universal prayer with which she
closed: "Our Father which are in heaven----"

They were all sorts and conditions of men gathered around the little fire
in that old shell-torn church in Neuvilly that night. To quote from a
letter written by a military officer, Lt-Col. Frederick R. Fitzpatrick, to
his wife:

"There was the lad who was willing but not strong enough for field work,
who was in the rear with the office; the walking wounded who had stopped
for something to eat; the big, strong mule skinner who could throw a mule
down or lift a case of ammunition, who was rough in appearance and speech
and who would deny that the moisture in his eye was anything but the
effects of the cold. There were the men who had been facing death a
thousand times an hour for the last three days, who had not had a wash or
a chance to take off their shoes and had been lying in mud in shell holes
--men who looked as though they were chilled through and through; men on
their way to the front, well knowing all the hardships and dangers which
were ahead of them, but who were worried only about the delay in the
traffic; doctors who had been working for three days without rest; men off
ammunition and ration trucks, who had been at the wheel so long that they
had forgotten whether it was three or four days and nights; wounded on
their stretchers enjoying a smoke. And as I stepped in the door there were
the feminine voices singing the good old tunes we all know so well, and
not a sound in the church but as an accompaniment the distant booming of
big guns, the rattle of small arms, the whirl of air craft, the passing of
the ever-present column of trucks with rations and ammunition going up,
and the wounded coming back; the shouted directions of the traffic police,
the sound of the ammunition dump just outside the door and the rattle of
the kitchens which surround the church, and which are working twenty-four
hours a day.

There was the crowd of men, each uncovered, giving absolute undivided
attention to the good, brave girls who were not making a meeting of it; it
was just a meeting which grew--men who in their minds were back with
mother and sister. The girls sang the good old songs, and then one of them
offered a short prayer, in which all the men joined in spirit, and as I
tip-toed out of the church it seemed to me that the four candles at the
altar did not give all the light that was shown on the picture of Christ
our Saviour. Every man in the building that night was in the very presence
of God. It was not a religious meeting; it was a meeting full of religion.
And it was a picture that will ever stand fresh in my memory and which
will be an inspiration in time of doubt. There was nothing there but the
real things, absolutely no sham of any kind. Oh, it was wonderful! I hope
you can get just a little idea of what it was. I wish you would keep this
letter. I want to be able to read it in future years."

In what remained of another village not far distant from Neuvilly, the
lassies had a tent erected. The rain was endless--a driving drizzle which
quickly soaked through everything but the staunchest raincoats in a very
few moments. The ground was so thickly covered by shell craters that they
could find no clear space wide enough for the tent. It so happened that
almost in the centre of the tent there was a big shell crater. In this the
girls lighted a fire. All through the night, and through nights to follow,
wounded men limping back through the rain and mud to the dressing stations
came in to warm themselves around the fire in the shell hole, and to drink
of the coffee prepared by the girls. As they sat around the blazing wood,
the fire cast strange shadows on the bleached brown canvas of the tent. In
spite of their wounds, they were very cheerful, singing as lightly as
though they were safe at home.

Everybody had worked hard at Neuvilly, but they felt they must get to
their own outfit as soon as possible at the Field Hospital up in Cheppy
where the wounded were coming in droves and the boys were pouring in from
the front half-starved, having been fighting all night with nothing to eat
except reserve rations. Some had been longer with only such rations as
they took from their dead comrades. The need was most urgent, but the
puzzle was how to get there. The roads had been shelled and ploughed by
explosives until there was no possible semblance of a way, and there were
no conveyances to be had. The Zone Major had gone back for supplies,
telling the girls to get the first conveyance possible going up the road.
That was enough for the girls. "We've _got_ to get there" they said,
and when they said that one knew they would. They searched diligently and
at last found a way. One girl rode on a reel cart, one on a mule team and
one went with an old wagon. They went over roads that had to be made ahead
of them by the engineers, and late in the night, bruised and sore from
head to foot, they arrived at their destination.

The next morning they reported at the hospital for work and the Major in
charge said: "I never was so glad to see anybody in my life!"

They went straight to work and served coffee and sandwiches to the poor
half-starved men. The Red Cross men were there, also, with sandwiches, hot
chocolate and candy.

The wounded men continued to pour in, later to be evacuated to the base
hospital; they kept coming and coming, a thousand men where two hundred
had been expected. There was plenty to be done. The girls were put in
charge of different wards. They were under shell fire continually, but
they were too busy to think of that as they hurried about ministering to
the brave soldiers, who gave never a groan from their white lips no matter
what they suffered.

The girls worked about eighteen hours a day, and slept from about one or
two at night to five or six in the morning. The hospital was in front of
the artillery and every shell that went over to Germany passed over their
heads. When they had been there five days under continual shell fire from
the enemy the General gave orders that they _must_ leave, that it was
no fit place for women so near to the front.

When the Salvation Army Zone Major brought this order to the girls
rebellion shone in their eyes and they declared they would not leave! They
knew they were needed there, and there they would stay! The Zone Major
surveyed them with intense satisfaction. He turned on his heel and went
back to the General:

"General," he said, with a twinkle, "my girls say they won't go."

The General's face softened, and the twinkle flashed across to his eyes,
with something like a tear behind its fire. Somehow he didn't look like a
Commanding Officer who had just been defied. A wonderful light broke over
his face and he said:

"Well, if the Salvation Army wants to stay let them stay!" And so they
stayed.

It was in a German-dug cave that they had their headquarters, cut out of
the side of a hill and opening into the hospital yard. It was a work of
art, that cave. There was a passage-way a hundred feet long with avenues
each side and places for cots, room enough to accommodate a hundred men.

The German airplanes came in droves. When the bugle sounded every one must
get under cover. There must be nobody in sight for the Germans were out to
get individuals, and even one person was not too insignificant for them to
waste their ammunition upon. They had a mistaken idea, perhaps, that this
sort of thing destroyed our morale. The tents, of course, were no
protection against shells and bombs, and presently the Boche began to
shell the town in good earnest, especially at night. Gas alarms, also,
would sound out in the middle of the night and everybody would have to
rush out and put on their gas masks. They would not last long at a time,
of course, but it broke up any rest that might have been had, and it was
only too evident that the enemy was trying to get the range on the
hospital.

One morning, standing by the window making cocoa for the boys, one of the
lassies saw an eight-inch shell land between the hospital tents, ten feet
in front of the window, and only five feet from the door of the place
where the severely wounded were lying. These shells always kill at two
hundred feet. All that saved them was that the shell buried itself deep in
the soft earth and was a dud.

The shells were coming every twenty minutes and there was no time to lose
for now the enemy had their range. At once all hands got busy and began to
evacuate the wounded men into the Salvation Army cave. The cave would
accommodate seventy men, but they managed to get a hundred men inside,
most of them on litters. They were all safe and the girls heard the
whistle of the next shell and made haste toward safety themselves. But
someone had carelessly dropped a whole outfit of blankets and things
across the passageway of the dugout and the first woman to enter fell
across it, shutting out the other two. Before anything could be done the
next shell struck the doorway, partly burying the fallen young woman.
Inside the dugout rocks came down on some of the men on litters, and
anxious hands extricated the lassie from the _débris_ that had fallen
upon her, and lifted her tenderly. She was pretty badly bruised and lamed,
besides being wounded on her leg, but the brave young woman would not
claim her wound, nor let it become known to the military authorities lest
they would forbid the girls to stay at the front any longer. So for three
weeks she patiently limped about and worked with the rest, quietly bearing
her pain, and would not go to the hospital. One lassie outside was struck
on the helmet by a piece of falling rock. If she had not had on her helmet
she would have been killed.

The shelling continued for six hours.

The hospital was all the time filled with wounded men and there was plenty
to be done twenty-four hours out of every day. The women moved about among
the men as if they were their own brothers.

A poor shell-shocked boy lay on his cot talking wildly in delirium, living
over the battle again, charging his men, ordering them to advance.

"Company H. Advance! See that hill over there? It's full of Germans, but
_we've got to take it_!"

Then he turned over and began to sob and cry, "Oh God! Oh God!"

A lassie went to him and soothed him, talking to him gently about home,
asking him questions about his mother, until he grew calm and began to
answer her, and rested back quite rationally. The stretcher-bearers came
to take him to another hospital, and he started up, put out his hand and
cried: "Oh, nurse! I've got to get back to my men! _I'm the only one
left_!"

Thus the heart-breaking scenes were multiplied.

One boy came back to the hospital in the Argonne badly wounded. He called
the lassie to him one day as she passed through the ward, and motioned her
to lean down so he could talk to her. He said he knew he was hard hit and
he wanted to tell her something.

"I was wounded, lying on the ground over there in No Man's Land," he went
on. "It was all dark and I was waiting for someone to come along and help
me. I thought it was all up with me and while I was lying there I felt
something. I can't explain it, but I knew it was there and I saw my mother
and I prayed. Then my Buddy came along and I asked him if he could baptize
me. He said he wasn't very good himself but he guessed the heavenly Father
would understand. So he stooped down and got some muddy water out of a
shell hole close by and put it on my forehead, and prayed; and now I know
it's all right. I wanted you to know."

Often the boys, just before they went over the top, would come to these
girls and say:

"We're going up there, now. You pray for us, won't you?"

One day some boys came to the hut when there were not many about and asked
the girls if they might talk with them. These boys were going over the top
that night.

"We fellows want to ask you something," they said. "Some of the chaplains
have been telling us that if we go over there and die for liberty that
it'll be all right with us afterward. But we don't believe that dope and
we want to know the truth. Do you mean to tell me that if a man has lived
like the devil he's going to be saved just because he got killed fighting?
Why, some of us fellows didn't even go of our own accord. We were drafted.
And do you mean to tell me that counts just the same? We want to know the
truth!"

And then the girls had their opportunity to point the way to Jesus and
speak of repentance, salvation from sin, and faith in the Saviour of the
world.

A lassie was stooping over one young boy lying on a cot, washing his face
and trying to make him more comfortable, and she noticed a hole in his
breast pocket. Stooping closer she examined it and found it was a piece of
high explosive shell that had gone through the cloth of his pocket and was
embedded in his Testament, which he, like many of the boys, always kept in
his breast pocket.

Another boy lay on a cot biting his lips to bear the agony of pain, and
she asked him what was the matter, was the wound in his leg so bad? He
nodded without opening his eyes. She went to ask the doctor if the boy
couldn't have some morphine to dull the pain. The Sergeant in charge came
over and looked at him, examined the bandage on the boy's leg and then
exclaimed: "Who bandaged this leg?"

"I did" said the boy weakly, "I did the best I could."

The poor fellow had bandaged his own leg and then walked to the hospital.
The bandage had looked all right and no one had examined it until then,
but the Sergeant found that it was so tight that it had stopped the
circulation. He took off the bandage and made him comfortable, and the
agony left him. In a little while the Salvation Army lassie passed that
way again and found the boy with a little book open, reading.

"What is it?" she asked, looking at the book.

"My Testament," he answered with a smile.

"Are you a Christian?"

"Oh, yes," he said with another smile that meant volumes.

It grew dark in the tent for they dared not have lights on account of the
enemy always watching, but stooping near a little later she could see that
his lips were murmuring in prayer. There was an angelic smile on his
white, dead face in the morning when they came to take him away.

There was a funeral every day in that place. A hundred boys were buried
that week. Always the girls sang at the graves, and prayed. There would be
just the grave digger, a few people, and some of the boys. Off to one side
the Germans were buried. When the simple services over our own dead were
complete one of the girls would say: "Now, friends, let us go and say a
prayer beside our enemy's graves. They are some mother's boys, and some
woman is waiting for them to come home!"

And then the prayers would be said once more, and another song sung.

Those were solemn, sorrowful times, death and destruction on every side.
The fighting was everywhere. United States anti-aircraft guns firing at
German planes; Germans firing at us; air fights in the sky above.

And in the midst of it all the boys had meetings every night on log piles
out in the open. These meetings would begin with popular songs, but the
boys would soon ask for the hymns and the meetings would work themselves
out without any apparent leading up to it. The boys wanted it. They wanted
to hear about religious things. They hungered for it. So they were held at
the throne of God each night by the wonderful men and girls who had
learned to know human hearts, and had attained such skill in leading them
to the Christ for whom they lived.

It was not alone the doughnut that bound the hearts of the boys to the
Salvation Army in France, it was what was behind the doughnut; and here,
in these wonderful God-led meetings they found the secret of it all. Many
of them came and told the girls they did not believe in the so-called
"trench religion" and wanted to know the truth from them. And those girls
told them the way of eternal life in a simple, beautiful way, not mincing
matters, nor ignoring their sins and unworthiness, but pointing the way to
the Christ who died to save them from sin, and who even now was waiting in
silent Presence to offer them Himself. Great numbers of the men accepted
Christ, and pledged themselves to live or die for Him whatever came to
them.

How close the Salvation Army people had grown to the hearts and lives of
the men was shown by the fact that when they came back from the fight they
would always come to them as if they had come to report at home:

"We've escaped!" they would say. "We don't know how it is, but we think
it's because you girls were praying for us, and the folks at home were
praying, too!"

There were three cardinal principles which were deemed necessary to
success in this work. The first and most important depended upon winning
the confidence of the boys. This was a prime requisite in any work with
the boys, especially by a religious organization.

_The first quality_ looked for in a person professing religion is
always consistency. It was felt that if the boys saw that the Salvation
Army was consistent, that it stood only for those things in France which
it was known to stand for in the United States, that the first step would
be established in winning the confidence of the boy. It was therefore
determined that the Salvation Army would not, under any circumstances,
compromise, and that it should stand out in its religious work and adhere
to its teachings as firmly and as vigorously as it was known to do at
home.

A stand upon the tobacco question was, therefore, highly important. Other
organizations were encouraging the use of tobacco but those who had come
in contact with the Salvation Army at home knew that it had always
discouraged its use, and although the officers had to go against the
judgment of many high military authorities who thought they should handle
it, they decided that the Salvation Army would not handle tobacco and that
no one wearing its uniform should use it. The consistency of the Salvation
Army and the careful conduct of its workers won the esteem of the boys.

_The second requisite_ was that the Salvation Army should be willing
to share their hardships. To accomplish this, it was made a rule that
Salvation Army workers should not mess with the officers but should draw
their rations at the soldiers' mess, also that they should not associate
with the officers more than was absolutely necessary and that in the huts.
It was neither possible nor desirable that officers should be kept out of
the huts, but as far as possible soldiers were made to feel that the
Salvation Army was in France to serve them and not for its own pleasure or
convenience.

_The third requisite_ was that the Salvation Army should be willing
to share their dangers and this was proved to them when they went to the
trenches--the Salvation Army moved to the trenches with them and
established huts and outposts as close to the front line as was permitted.

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