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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




[Illustration: She called the little company of workers together and gave
them such a charge as would make an angel search his heart]

[Illustration: The lassie who fried the first doughnut in France]

It wtas a bright, sunny afternoon, August 12th, when this first party of
American Salvation Army workers set sail for France.

No doubt there was many a smile of contempt from the bystanders as they
saw the little group of blue uniforms with the gold-lettered scarlet
hatbands, and noticed the four poke bonnets among the number. What did the
tambourine lassies know of REAL warfare? To those who reckoned the
Salvation Army in terms of bands on the street corner, and shivering forms
guarding Christmas kettles, it must have seemed the utmost audacity for
this "play army" to go to the front.

When they arrived at Bordeaux on August 21st they went at once to Paris to
be fitted out with French uniforms, as General Pershing had given them all
the rank of military privates, and ordered that they should wear the
regulation khaki uniforms with the addition of the red Salvation Army
shield on the hats, red epaulets, and with skirts for the women.

A cabled message had reached France from the Commander saying that funds
to the extent of twenty-five thousand dollars had been arranged for, and
would be supplied as needed, and that a party of eleven officers were
being dispatched at once. After that matters began to move rapidly.

A portable tent, 25 feet by 100 feet, was purchased and shipped to
Demange;--and a touring car was bought with part of the money advanced.

Purchasing an automobile in France is not a matter merely of money. It is
a matter for Governmental sanction, long delay, red tape--amazing good
luck.

At the start the whole Salvation Army transportation system consisted of
this one first huge limousine, heartlessly overdriven and overworked. For
many weeks it was Colonel Barker's office and bedroom. It carried all of
the Salvation Army workers to and from their stations, hauled all of the
supplies on its roof, inside, on its fenders, and later also on a trailer.
It ran day and night almost without end, two drivers alternating. It was a
sort of super-car, still in the service, to which Salvationists still
refer with an affectionate amazement when they consider its terrific
accomplishments. It hauled all of the lumber for the first huts and a not
uncommon sight was to see it tearing along the road at forty miles an
hour, loaded inside and on top with supplies, several passengers clinging
to its fenders, and a load of lumber or trunks trailing behind. For a long
time Colonel Barker had no home aside from this car. He slept wherever it
happened to be for the night--often in it, while still driven. One night
he and a Salvation Army officer were lost in a strange woods in the car
until four in the morning. They were without lights and there were no real
roads.

Later, of course, after long waiting, other trucks were bought and to-day
there are about fifty automobiles in this service. Chauffeurs had to be
developed out of men who had never driven before. They were even taken
from huts and detailed to this work.

In this first touring car Colonel Barker with one of the newly arrived
adjutants for driver, started to Demange.

Twenty kilometers outside of Paris the car had a breakdown. The two
clambered out and reconnoitered for help. There was nothing for it but to
take the car back to Paris. A man was found on the road who was willing to
take it in tow, but they had no rope for a tow line. Over in the field by
the roadside the sharp eyes of the adjutant discovered some old rusty
wire. He pulled it out from the tangle of long grass, and behold it was a
part of old barbed-wire entanglements!

In great surprise they followed it up behind the camouflage and found
themselves in the old trenches of 1914. They walked in the trenches and
entered some of the dugouts where the soldiers had lived in the memorable
days of the Marne fight. As they looked a little farther up the hillside
they were startled to see great pieces of heavy field artillery, their
long barrels sticking out from pits and pointing at them. They went closer
to examine, and found the guns were made of wood painted black. The
barrels were perfectly made, even to the breech blocks mounted on wheels,
the tires of which were made of tin. They were a perfect imitation of a
heavy ordnance piece in every detail. Curious, wondering what it could
mean, the two explorers looked about them and saw an old Frenchman coming
toward them. He proved to be the keeper of the place, and he told them the
story. These were the guns that saved Paris in 1914.

The Boche had been coming on twenty kilometers one day, nineteen the next,
fourteen the next, and were daily drawing nearer to the great city. They
were so confident that they had even announced the day they would sweep
through the gates of Paris. The French had no guns heavy enough to stop
that mad rush, and so they mounted these guns of wood, cut away the woods
all about them and for three hundred meters in front, and waited with
their pitifully thin, ill-equipped line to defend the trenches.

Then the German airplanes came and took pictures of them, and returned to
their lines to make plans for the next day; but when the pictures were
developed and enlarged they saw to their horror that the French had
brought heavy guns to their front and were preparing to blow them out of
France. They decided to delay their advance and wait until they could
bring up artillery heavier than the French had, and while they waited the
Germans broke into the French wine cellars and stole the "vin blanche" and
"vin rouge." The French call this "light" wine and say it takes the place
of water, which is only fit for washing; but it proved to be too heavy for
the Germans that day. They drank freely, not even waiting to unseal the
bottles of rare old vintage, but knocked the necks off the bottles against
the stone walls and drank. They were all drunk and in no condition to
conquer France when their artillery came up, and so the wooden French guns
and the French wine saved Paris.

When the two men finally arrived in Demange the Military General greeted
them gladly and invited them to dine with him.

He had for a cook a famous French chef who provided delicious meals, but
for dessert the chef had attempted to make an American apple pie, which
was a dismal failure. The colonel said to the general: "Just wait till our
Salvation Army women get here and I will see that they make you a pie that
is a pie."

The General and the members of his staff said they would remember that
promise and hold him to it.

The pleasure which the thought of that pie aroused furnished a suggestion
for work later on.

Within two or three days the hut had arrived. The question of a lot upon
which to place it was most important. The billeting officers stated that
none could be had within the town and insisted that the hut would have to
be placed in an inaccessible spot on the outskirts of the town, but
Colonel Barker asked the General if he would mind his looking about
himself and he readily assented. The indomitable Barker, true to the
"never-say-die" slogan of the Salvation Army, went out and found a
splendid lot on the main street in the heart of the town, which was being
partly used by its owner as a vegetable garden. He quickly secured the
services of a French interpreter and struck a bargain with the owner to
rent the lot for the sum of sixteen dollars a year, and on his return with
the information that this lot had been secured the General was greatly
impressed.

A wire had been sent to Paris instructing the men of the party to come
down immediately. A couple of tents were secured to provide temporary
sleeping accommodation and the men lined up in the chow line with the
doughboys at meal-time.

The six Salvationists pulled off their coats at once and went to work,
much to the amusement of a few curious soldiers who stood idly watching
them.

They discovered right at the start that the building materials which had
been sent ahead of them had been dumped on the wrong lot, and the first
thing they had to do was to move them all to the proper site. This was no
easy task for men who had but recently left office chairs and clerical
work. Unaccustomed muscles cried out in protest and weary backs ached and
complained, but the men stubbornly marched back and forth carrying big
timbers, and attracting not a little attention from soldiers who wondered
what in the world the Salvation Army could be up to over in France. Some
of them were suspicious. Had they come to try and stuff religion down
their throats? If so, they would soon find out their mistake. So, half in
belligerence, half in amusement, the soldiers watched their progress. It
was a big joke to them, who had come here for _serious_ business and
longed to be at it.

Steadily, quietly, the work went on. They laid the timbers and erected the
framework of their hut, keeping at it when the rain fell and soaked them
to the skin. They were a bit awkward at it at first, perhaps, for it was
new work to them, and they had but few tools. The hut was twenty-five feet
wide and a hundred feet long. The walls went up presently, and the roof
went on. One or two soldiers were getting interested and offered to help a
bit; but for the most part they stood apart suspiciously, while the
Salvation Army worked cheerily on and finished the building with their own
hands.

Colonel Barker meanwhile had gone back to Paris for supplies and to bring
the women overland in the automobile, because he was somewhat fearful lest
they might be held up if they attempted to go out by train. The idea of
women in the camps was so new to our American soldiers, and so distasteful
to the French, that they presented quite a problem until their work fully
justified their presence.

It got about that some real American girls were coming. The boys began to
grow curious. When the big French limousine carrying them arrived in the
camp it was greeted by some of the soldiers with the greatest enthusiasm
while others looked on in critical silence. But very soon their influence
was felt, for a commanding officer stated that his men were more contented
and more easily handled since the unprecedented innovation of women in the
camp than they had been within the experience of the old Regular Army
officers. Profanity practically ceased in the vicinity of the hut and was
never indulged in in the presence of the Salvationists.

While the hut was being erected meetings were conducted in the open air
which were attended by great throngs, and after every meeting from one to
four or five boys asked for the privilege of going into the tent at the
back and being prayed with, and many conversions resulted from these first
open-air meetings. Boys walked in from other camps from a distance as far
away as five miles to attend these meetings and many were converted. The
hut was finally completed and equipped and was to be formally opened on
Sunday evening.

In the meantime the Y.M.C.A. was getting busy also establishing its work
in the camps; therefore, the Salvation Army tried to place their huts in
towns where the Y. was not operating, so that they might be able to reach
those who had the greatest need of them.

Officers had been appointed to take charge of the Demange hut and
immediately further operations in other towns were being arranged.

A Y.M.C.A. hut, however, followed quickly on the heels of the Salvation
Army at Demange and the night of the opening of the Salvation Army hut
someone came to ask if they would come over to the Y. and help in a
meeting. Sure, they would help! So the Staff-Captain took a cornetist and
two of the lassies and went over to the Y.M.C.A. hut.

It was early dusk and a crowd was gathered about where a rope ring fenced
off the place in which a boxing match had been held the day before, across
the road from the hut. The band had been stationed there giving a concert
which was just finished, and the men were sitting in a circle on the
ground about the ring.

The Salvationists stood at the door of the hut and looked across to the
crowd.

"How about holding our meeting over there?" asked the Staff-Captain of the
man in charge.

"All right. Hold it wherever you like."

So a few willing hands brought out the piano, and the four Salvationists
made their way across to the ring. The soldiers raised a loud cheer and
hurrah to see the women stoop and slip under the rope, and a spirit of
sympathy seemed to be established at once.

There were a thousand men gathered about and the cornet began where the
band had left off, thrilling out between the roar of guns.

Up above were the airplanes throbbing back and forth, and signal lights
were flashing. It was a strange place for a meeting. The men gathered
closer to see what was going on.

The sound of an old familiar hymn floated out on the evening, bringing a
sudden memory of home and days when one was a little boy and went to
Sunday school; when there was no war, and no one dreamed that the sons
would have to go forth from their own land to fight. A sudden hush stole
over the men and they sat enthralled watching the little band of singers
in the changing flicker of light and darkness. Women's voices! Young and
fresh, too, not old ones. How they thrilled with the sweetness of it:

"Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee,
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me."

A cross! Was it possible that God was leading them to Him through all this
awfulness? But the thought only hovered above them and hushed their hearts
into attention as they gruffly joined their young voices in the melody.
Another song followed, and a prayer that seemed to bring the great God
right down in their midst and make Him a beloved comrade. They had not got
over the wonder of it when a new note sounded on piano and cornet and
every voice broke forth in the words:

"When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound
And time shall be no more--"

How soon would that trumpet sound for many of them! Time should be no
more! What a startling thought!

Following close upon the song came the sweet voice of a young girl
speaking. They looked up in wonder, listening with all their souls. It
was like having an angel drop down among them to see her there, and hear
her clear, unafraid voice. The first thing that struck them was her
intense earnestness, as if she had a message of great moment to bring to
them.

Her words searched their hearts and found out the weak places; those fears
and misgivings that they had known were there from the beginning, and had
been trying hard to hide from themselves because they saw no cure for
them. With one clear-cut sentence she tore away all camouflage and set
them face to face with the facts. They were in a desperate strait and they
knew it. Back there in the States they had known it. Down in the camps
they had felt it, and had made various attempts to find something strong
and true to help them, but no one had seemed to understand. Even when they
went to church there had been so much talk about the "supreme sacrifice"
and the glory of dying for one's country, that they had a vague feeling
that even the minister did not believe in his religion any more. And so
they had whistled and tried to be jolly and forget. They were all in the
same boat, and this was a job that had to be done, they couldn't get out
of it; best not think about the future! So they had lulled their
consciences to sleep. But it was there, back in their minds all the time,
a looming big awful question about the hereafter; and when the great guns
boomed afar as a few were doing tonight and they thought how soon they
might be called to go over the top, they would have been fools not to have
recognized it.

But here at last was someone else who understood!

She was telling the old, old story of Jesus and His love, and every man of
them as he listened felt it was true. It had been like a vague tale of
childhood before; something that one outgrows and smiles at; but now it
suddenly seemed so simple, so perfect, so fitted to their desperate need.
Just the old story that everybody has sinned, and broken God's law: that
God in His love provided a way of escape in the death of His Son Jesus on
the Cross, from penalty for sin for all who would accept it; that He gave
every one of us free wills; and it was up to us whether we would accept it
or not.

There were men in that company who had come from college classes where
they had been taught the foolishness of blood atonement, and who had often
smiled disdainfully at the Bible; there were boys from cultured, refined
homes where Jesus Christ had always been ignored; there were boys who had
repudiated the God their mothers trusted in; and there were boys of lower
degree whose lips were foul with blasphemy and whose hearts were scarred
with sin; but all listened, now, in a new way. It was somehow different
over here, with the thunder of artillery in the near distance, the
hovering presence of death not far away, the flashing of signal lights,
the hum of the airplanes, the whole background of war. The message of the
gospel took on a reality it had never worn before. When this simple girl
asked if they would not take Jesus tonight as their Saviour, there were
many who raised their hands in the darkness and many more hearts were
bowed whose owners could not quite bring themselves to raise their hands.

Then a lassie's voice began to sing, all alone:

"I grieved my Lord from day to day,
I scorned His love, so full and free,
And though I wandered far away,
My Mother's prayers have followed me.
I'm coming home, I'm coming home,
To live my wasted life anew,
For Mother's prayers have followed me,
Have followed me, the whole world through.

"O'er desert wild, o'er mountain high,
A wanderer I chose to be---
A wretched soul condemned to die;
Still Mother's prayers have followed me.

"He turned my darkness into light,
This blessed Christ of Calvary;
I'll praise His name both day and night,
That Mother's prayers have followed me!
I'm coming home, I'm coming home---"

Only the last great day will reveal how many hearts echoed those words;
but the voices were all husky with emotion as they tried to join in the
closing hymn that followed.

There were those who lingered about the speakers and wanted to inquire the
way of salvation, and some knelt in a quiet corner and gave themselves to
Christ. Over all of them there was a hushed thoughtfulness. When the
workers started back to their own hut the crowd went with them, talking
eagerly as they went, hovering about wistfully as if here were the first
real thing they had found since coming away from home.

Over at the Salvation Army hut another service had been going forward with
equal interest, the dedication of the new building. The place was crowded
to its utmost capacity, and crowds were standing outside and peering in at
the windows. Some of the French people of the neighborhood, women and
children and old men, had drifted over, and were listening to the singing
in open-eyed wonderment. Among them one of the Salvation Army workers had
distributed copies of the French "War Cry" with stories of Christ in their
own language, and it began to dawn upon them that these people believed in
the same Jesus that was worshipped in their French churches; yet they
never had seen services like these. The joyous music thrilled them.

Before they slept that night the majority of the soldiers in that vicinity
had lost most of their prejudice against the little band of unselfish
workers that had dropped so quietly down into their midst. Word was
beginning to filter out from camp to camp that they were a good sort, that
they sold their goods at cost and a fellow could even "jawbone" when he
was "broke."

Salvation Army huts gave the soldiers "jawbone," this being the soldier's
name for credit. No accounts were kept of the amount allowed to each
soldier. When a soldier came to the canteen and asked for "jawbone," he
was asked how much he had already been allowed. If the amount owed by him
already was large, he was cautioned not to go too deeply into his next pay
check; but never was a man refused anything within reason. Frequently one
hut would have many thousands of francs outstanding by the end of a month.
But, although there was no check against them, soldiers always squared
their accounts at pay-day and very little indeed was lost.

One man came in and threw 300 francs on the counter, saying: "I owe you
285 francs. Put the change in the coffee fund."

One Salvation Army Ensign frequently loaned sums of money out of his own
pocket to soldiers, asking that, when they were in a position to return
it, they hand it in to any Salvation Army hut, saying that it was for him.
He says that he has never lost by doing this.

One day as he was driving from Havre to Paris he met six American soldiers
whose big truck had broken down. They asked him where there was a
Salvation Army hut; but there was none in that particular section. They
had no food, no money, and no place to sleep. He handed them seventy
francs and told them to leave it at any Salvation Army hut for him when
they were able. Five months passed and then the money was turned in to a
Salvation Army hut and forwarded to him. With it was a note stating that
the men had been with the French troops and had not been able to reach a
Salvation Army establishment. They were very grateful for the trust
reposed in them by the Salvationist. Undoubtedly there are many such
instances.

The Salvation Army officer who with his wife was put in charge of the hut
at Demange, soon became one of the most popular men in camp. His generous
spirit, no less than his rough-and-ready good nature, manful, soldier-like
disposition, coupled with a sturdy self-respect and a ready humor, made
him blood brother to those hard-bitten old regulars and National Guardsmen
of the first American Expeditionary Force.

The Salvation Army quickly became popular. Meetings were held almost every
night at that time with an average attendance of not less than five
hundred. Meetings as a rule were confined to wonderful song services and
brief, snappy talks. At first there were very few conversions, but there
have been more since the great drives in which the Americans have taken so
large a share. The Masons, the Moose and a Jewish fraternity used the hut
for fraternal gatherings. Catholic priests held mass in it upon various
occasions. The school for officers and the school for "non-coms" met in
it. The band practiced in it every morning. Because of its popularity
among the men it was known among the officers as "the soldiers' hut."
General Duncan once addressed his staff officers in it upon some important
matters.

It rained every day for three months. The hut was on rather low ground and
in back of it ran the river, considerably swollen by the rains. One night
the river rose suddenly, carried away one tent and flooded the other two
and the hut. The Salvation Army men spent a wild, wet, sleepless night
trying to salvage their scanty personal belongings and their stock of
supplies. When the river retreated it left the hut floor covered with
slimy black mud which the two men had to shovel out. This was a back-
breaking task occupying the better part of two days.

The first snow fell on the bitterest night of the year. It was preceded by
the rain and was damp and heavy. The soldiers suffered terribly,
especially the men on guard duty who had perforce to endure the full blast
of the storm. During the earlier hours of the night the girls served all
comers with steaming coffee and filled the canteens of the men on guard
(free). When they saw how severe the night would be they remained up to
keep a supply of coffee ready for the Salvation Army men who went the
rounds through the storm every half hour, serving the sentries with the
warming fluid.

That first Expeditionary Force wanted for many things, and endured
hardships unthought of by troops arriving later, after the war industries
at home had swung into full production. It was almost impossible to secure
stoves, and firewood was scarce. For every load that went to the Salvation
Army Hut, men of the American Expeditionary Force had to do without, and
yet wood was always supplied to the Salvationists (it could not be
bought).

At St. Joire, the wood pile had entirely given out and it looked as if
there was to be no heat at the Salvation Army hut that night. The sergeant
promised them half a load, but the wood wagon lost a wheel about a hundred
yards out of town.

"Never mind," said the sergeant to the girls, "the boys will see that you
get some to-night."

So he requested every man going up to the Salvation Army hut that evening
to carry a stick of wood with him ("a stick" may weigh anywhere from 10 to
100 pounds). By eight o'clock there was over a wagon load and a half
stacked in back of the hut.

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