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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




When the first man died on board, the Captain commanding the soldiers and
the ship's Captain requested a Salvation Army Adjutant to conduct the
funeral service.

At 4.30 P.M. the ship's propeller ceased to turn and the steamer came up
into the wind. The United States destroyer acting as convoy also came to a
halt. The French flag on the steamer and the American flag on the
destroyer were at half-mast. Thirty-two men from the dead man's company
lined up on the after-deck. The coffin (a rough pine box), heavily
weighted at one end, lay across the rail over the stern. Here a chute had
been rigged so that the coffin might not foul the ship's screws. The flags
remained at half-mast for half an hour. The Salvation Army Adjutant read
the burial service and prayed. Passengers on the promenade deck looked on.
Then a bugler played taps. Every soldier stood facing the stern with hat
off and held across the breast. As the coffin slipped down the chute and
splashed into the sea a firing squad fired a single rattling volley. The
ship came about and, with a shudder of starting engines, continued her
voyage, the destroyer doing likewise.

During the passage the Adjutant conducted six such funerals, two more
being conducted by a Catholic priest. Four more bodies of men who died as
they neared port were landed and buried ashore.

In the hospital the Envoy was undoubtedly the means of saving several
lives by her endless toil and by the encouragement of her cheerful face in
that depressing place. The sick men called her "Mother" and no mother
could have been more tender than she.

"You look so much like mother," said one boy just before he died. "Won't
you please kiss me?"

Another lad, with a great, convulsive effort, drew her hand to his lips
and kissed her just as he passed away.

All of the American officers and two French officers attended the funerals
in full dress uniform and ten sailors of the French navy were also
present.

The night before the ship docked at Bordeaux a letter signed by the
Captain of the ship and the American officers was handed to the Envoy
lady. It contained a warm statement of their appreciation of her service.
Officers of the Aviation Corps who were aboard the ship arranged a banquet
to be held in her honor when they should reach port; but she told them
that she was under orders even as they were and that she must report to
Paris Headquarters at once. And so the banquet did not take place.

As she left the ship, the soldiers were lined up on the wharf ready to
march. When she came down the gangplank and walked past them to the
street, they cheered her and shouted: "Good-bye, mother! Good luck!"

As the fame of the doughnuts and pies spread through the camps a new
distress loomed ahead for the Salvation Army. Where were the flour and the
sugar and the lard and the other ingredients to come from wherewith to
concoct these delicacies for the homesick soldiers?

It was of no use to go to the French for white flour, for they did not
have it. They had been using war bread, dark mixtures with barley flour
and other things, for a long time. Besides, the French had a fixed idea
that everyone who came from America was made of money. Wood was thirty-
five dollars a load (about a cord) and had to be cut and hauled by the
purchaser at that. There was a story current throughout the camps that
some Frenchmen were talking together among themselves, and one asked the
rest where in the world they were going to get the money to rebuild their
towns. "Oh," replied another; "haven't we the only battlefields in the
world? All the Americans will want to come over after the war to see them
and we will charge them enough for the sight to rebuild our villages!"

But even at any price the French did not have the materials to sell. There
was only one place where things of that sort could be had and that was
from the Americans, and the question was, would the commissary allow them
to buy in large enough quantities to be of any use? The Salvation Army
officers as they went about their work, were puzzling their brains how to
get around the American commissary and get what they wanted.

Meantime, the American Army had slipped quietly into Montiers in the night
and been billeted around in barns and houses and outhouses, and anywhere
they could be stowed, and were keeping out of sight. For the German High
Council had declared: "As soon as the American Army goes into camp we will
blow them off the map." Day after day the Germans lay low and watched.
Their airplanes flew over and kept close guard, but they could find no
sign of a camp anywhere. No tents were in sight, though they searched the
landscape carefully; and day after day, for want of something better to do
they bombarded Bar-le-Duc. Every day some new ravishment of the beautiful
city was wrought, new victims buried under ruins, new terror and
destruction, until the whole region was in panic and dismay.

Now Bar-le-Duc, as everyone knows, is the home of the famous Bar-le-Duc
jam that brings such high prices the world over, and there were great
quantities stored up and waiting to be sold at a high price to Americans
after the war. But when the bombardment continued, and it became evident
that the whole would either be destroyed or fall into the hands of the
Germans, the owners were frightened. Houses were blown up, burying whole
families. Victims were being taken hourly from the ruins, injured or
dying.

A Salvation Army Adjutant ran up there one day with his truck and found an
awful state of things. The whole place was full of refugees, families
bereft of their homes, everybody that could trying to get out of the city.
Just by accident he found out that the merchants were willing to sell
their jam at a very reasonable price, and so he bought tons and tons of
Bar-le-Duc jam. That would help out a lot and go well on bread, for of
course there was no butter. Also it would make wonderful pies and tarts if
one only had the flour and other ingredients.

As he drove into Montiers he was still thinking about it, and there on the
table in the Salvation Army hut stood as pretty a chocolate cake as one
would care to see. A bright idea came to the Adjutant:

"Let me have that cake," said he to the lassie who had baked it, "and I'll
take it to the General and see what I can do."

It turned out that the cake was promised, but the lassie said she would
bake another and have it ready for him on his return trip; so in a few
days when he came back there was the cake.

Ah! That was a wonderful cake!

The lassie had baked it in the covers of lard tins, fourteen inches across
and five layers high! There was a layer of cake, thickly spread with rich
chocolate frosting, another layer of cake, overlaid with the translucent
Bar-le-Duc jam, a third layer of cake with chocolate, another layer spread
with Bar-le-Duc jam, then cake again, the whole covered smoothly over with
thick dark chocolate, top and sides, down to the very base, without a
ripple in it. It was a wonder of a cake!

With shining eyes and eager look the Adjutant took that beautiful cake,
took also twelve hundred great brown sugary doughnuts, and a dozen
fragrant apple pies just out of the oven, stowed them carefully away in
his truck, and rustled off to the Officers' Headquarters. Arrived there he
took his cake in hand and asked to see the General. An officer with his
eye on the cake said the General was busy just now but he would carry the
cake to him. But the Adjutant declined this offer firmly, saying: "The
ladies of Montiers-sur-Saulx sent this cake to the General, and I must put
it into his hands"

He was finally led to the General's room and, uncovering the great cake,
he said:

"The Salvation Army ladies of Montiers-sur-Saulx have sent this cake to
you as a sample of what they will do for the soldiers if we can get flour
and sugar and lard."

The General, greatly pleased, took the cake and sent for a knife, while
his officers stood about looking on with much interest. It appeared as if
every one were to have a taste of the cake. But when the General had cut a
generous slice, held it up, observing its cunning workmanship, its
translucent, delectable interior, he turned with a gleam in his eye,
looked about the room and said: "Gentlemen, this cake will not be served
till the evening's mess, and I pity the gentlemen who do not eat with the
officer's mess, but they will have to go elsewhere for their cake."

The Adjutant went out with his pies and doughnuts and distributed them
here and there where they would do the most good, getting on the right
side of the Top Sergeant, for he had discovered some time ago that even
with the General as an ally one must be on the right side of the "old
Sarge" if one wanted anything. While he was still talking with the
officers he was handed an order from the General that he should be
supplied with all that he needed, and when he finally came out of
Headquarters he found that seven tons of material were being loaded on his
car. After that the Salvation Army never had any trouble in getting all
the material they needed.

After the tents in Montiers were all settled and the work fully started,
the Staff-Captain and his helpers settled down to a pleasant little
schedule of sixteen hours a day work and called it ease; but that was not
to he enjoyed for long. At the end of a week the Salvation Army Colonel
swooped down upon them again with orders to erect a hut at once as the
tents were only a makeshift and winter was coming on. He brought materials
and selected a site on a desirable corner.

Now the corner was literally covered with fallen walls of a former
building and wreckage from the last year's raid, and the patient workers
looked aghast at the task before them. But the Colonel would listen to no
arguments. "Don't talk about difficulties," he said, brushing aside a plea
for another lot, not quite so desirable perhaps, but much easier to clear.
"Don't talk about difficulties; get busy and have the job over with!"

One big reason why the Salvation Army is able to carry on the great
machinery of its vast organization is that its people are trained to obey
without murmuring. Cheerfully and laboriously the men set to work. Winter
rains were setting in, with a chill and intensity never to be forgotten by
an American soldier. But wet to the skin day after day all day long the
Salvationists worked against time, trying to finish the hut before the
snow should arrive. And at last the hut was finished and ready for
occupancy. Such tireless devotion, such patient, cheerful toil for their
sake was not to be passed by nor forgotten by the soldiers who watched and
helped when they could. Day after day the bonds between them and the
Salvation Army grew stronger. Here were men who did not have to, and yet
who for the sake of helping them, came and lived under the same conditions
that they did, working even longer hours than they, eating the same food,
enduring the same privations, and whose only pay was their expenses. At
the first the Salvationists took their places in the chow line with the
rest, then little by little men near the head of the line would give up
their places to them, quietly stepping to the rear of the line themselves.
Finally, no matter how long the line was the men with one consent insisted
that their unselfish friends should take the very head of the line
whenever they came and always be served first.

One day one of the Salvation Army men swathed in a big raincoat was
sitting in a Ford by the roadside in front of a Salvation Army hut,
waiting for his Colonel, when two soldiers stopped behind him to light
their cigarettes. It was just after sundown, and the man in the car must
have seemed like any soldier to the two as they chatted.

"Bunch of grafters, these Y.M.C.A. and Salvation Army outfits!" grumbled
one as he struck a match. "What good are the 'Sallies' in a soldier camp?"

"Well, Buddy," said the other somewhat excitedly, "there's a whole lot of
us think the Salvation Army is about it in this man's outfit. For a rookie
you sure are picking one good way to make yourself unpopular _tout de
suite!_ Better lay off that kind of talk until you kind of find out
what's what. I didn't have much use for them myself back in the States,
but here in France they're real folks, believe me!"

So the feeling had grown everywhere as the huts multiplied. And the huts
proved altogether too small for the religious meetings, so that as long as
the weather permitted the services had to be held in the open air. It was
no unusual thing to see a thousand men gathered in the twilight around two
or three Salvation Army lassies, singing in sweet wonderful volume the
old, old hymns. The soldiers were no longer amused spectators, bent on
mischief; they were enthusiastic allies of the organization that was
theirs. The meeting was theirs.

"We never forced a meeting on them," said one of the girls. "We just let
it grow. Sometimes it would begin with popular songs, but before long the
boys would ask for hymns, the old favorites, first one, then another,
always remembering to call for 'Tell Mother I'll Be There.'"

Almost without exception the boys entered heartily into everything that
went on in the organization. The songs were perhaps at first only a
reminder of home, but scon they came to have a personal significance to
many. The Salvation Army did not hare movies and theatrical singers as did
the other organizations, but they did not seem to need them. The men liked
the Gospel meetings and came to them better than to anything else. Often
they would come to the hut and start the singing themselves, which would
presently grow into a meeting of evident intention. The Staff-Captain did
not long have opportunity to enjoy the new hut which he had labored so
hard to finish at Montiers, for soon orders arrived for him to move on to
Houdelainecourt to help put up the hut there, and leave Montiers in charge
of a Salvation Army Major. The Salvation Army was with the Eighteenth
Infantry at Houdelainecourt.

It was an old tent that sheltered the canteen, and it had the reputation
of having gone up and down five times. When first they put it up it blew
down. It was located where two roads met and the winds swept down in every
direction. Then they put it up and took it down to camouflage it. They got
it up again and had to take it down to camouflage it some more. The
regular division helped with this, and it was some camouflage when it was
done, for the boys had put their initials all over it, and then, had
painted Christmas trees everywhere, and on the trees they had put the
presents they knew they never would get, and so in all the richness of its
record of homesickness the old tent went up again. They kept warm here by
means of a candle under an upturned tin pail. The tent blew down again in
a big storm soon after that and had to be put up once more, and then there
came a big rain and flooded everything in the neighborhood. It blew down
and drowned out the Y.M.C.A. and everything else, and only the old tent
stood for awhile. But at last the storm was too much for it, too, and it
succumbed again.

After that the Salvation Army put up a hut for their work. A number of
soldiers assisted. They put up a stove, brought their piano and
phonograph, and made the place look cheerful. Then they got the regimental
band and had an opening, the first big thing that was recognized by the
military authorities. The Salvation Army Staff-Captain in charge of that
zone took a long board and set candles on it and put it above the platform
like a big chandelier. The Brigade Commander was there, and a Captain came
to represent the Colonel. A chaplain spoke. The lassies who took part in
the entertainment were the first girls the soldiers had seen for many
months.

Long before the hour announced for the service the soldier boys had
crowded the hutment to its greatest capacity. Game and reading tables had
been moved to the rear and extra benches brought in. The men stood three
deep upon the tables and filled every seat and every inch of standing
room. When there was no more room on the floor, they climbed to the roof
and lined the rafters. There was no air and the Adjutant came to say there
was too much light, but none of these things damped the enthusiasm.

With the aid of the regimental chaplain, the Staff-Captain had arranged a
suitable program for the occasion, the regimental band furnishing the
music.

When the General entered the hutment all of the men stood and uncovered
and the band stopped abruptly in the middle of a strain. "That's the worst
thing I ever did--stopping the music," he exclaimed ruefully. He refused
to occupy the chair which had been prepared for him, saying: "No, I want
to stand so that I can look at these men."

The records of the work in that hut would be precious reading for the
fathers and mothers of those boys, for the Fighting Eighteenth Infantry
are mostly gone, having laid their young lives on the altar with so many
others. Here is a bit from one lassie's letter, giving a picture of one of
her days in the hut:

"Well, I must tell you how the days are spent. We open the hut at 7; it
is cleaned by some of the boys; then at 8 we commence to serve cocoa and
coffee and make pies and doughnuts, cup cakes and fry eggs and make all
kinds of eats until it is all you see. Well, can you think of two women
cooking in one day 2500 doughnuts, 8 dozen cup cakes, 50 pies, 800
pancakes and 225 gallons of cocoa, and one other girl serving it? That is
a day's work in my last hut. Then meeting at night, and it lasts two
hours."

A lieutenant came into the canteen to buy something and said to one of
the girls: "Will you please tell me something? Don't you ever rest?" That
is how both the men and officers appreciated the work of these tireless
girls.

Men often walked miles to look at an American woman. Once acquainted with
the Salvation Army lassies they came to them with many and strange
requests. Having picked a quart or so of wild berries and purchased from a
farmer a pint of cream they would come to ask a girl to make a strawberry
shortcake for them. They would buy a whole dozen of eggs apiece, and
having begged a Salvation Army girl to fry them would eat the whole dozen
at a sitting. They would ask the girls to write their love letters, or to
write assuring some mother or sweetheart that they were behaving
themselves.

Soldiers going into action have left thousands of dollars in cash and in
valuables in the care of Salvation Army officers to be forwarded to
persons designated in case they are killed in action or taken prisoner. In
such cases it is very seldom that a receipt is given for either money or
valuables., so deeply do the soldiers trust the Salvation Army.

One of the girl Captains wears a plain silver ring, whose intrinsic value
is about thirty cents, but whose moral value is beyond estimate. The ring
is not the Captain's. It belongs to a soldier, who, before the war, had
been a hard drinker and had continued his habits after enlisting. He came
under the influence of the Salvation Army and swore that he would drink no
more. But time after time he fell, each time becoming more desperate and
more discouraged. Each time the young lassie-Captain dealt with him. After
the last of his failures, while she was encouraging him to make another
try, he detached the ring from the cord from which it had dangled around
his neck and thrust it at her.

"It was my mother's," he explained. "If you will wear it for me, I shall
always think of it when the temptation comes to drink, and the fact that
someone really cares enough about my worthless hide to take all of the
trouble you have taken on my behalf, will help me to resist it."

"No one will misunderstand" he cried, seeing that the lassie was about to
decline, "not even me. I shall tell no one. And it would help."

"Very well," agreed the girl, looking steadily at him for a moment, "but
the first time that you take a drink, off will come the ring! And you must
promise that you will tell me if you do take that drink."

The soldier promised. The lassie still wears the ring. The soldier is
still sober. Also he has written to his wife for the first time in five
years and she has expressed her delight at the good news.

On more than one occasion American aviators have flown from their camps
many miles to villages where there were Salvation lassies and have
returned with a load of doughnuts. On one occasion a bird-man dropped a
note down in front of the hut where two sisters were stationed, circling
around at a low elevation until certain that the girls had picked up the
note, which stated that he would return the following afternoon for a mess
of doughnuts for his comrades. When he returned, the doughnuts were ready
for him.

The Adjutant of the aerial forces attached to the American Fifth Army
around Montfaucon on the edge of the Argonne Forest, before that forest
was finally captured at the point of American bayonets, drove almost
seventy miles to the Salvation Army Headquarters at Ligny for supplies for
his men. He was given an automobile load of chocolate, candies, cakes,
cookies, soap, toilet articles, and other comforts, without charge. He
said that he _knew_ that the Salvation Army would have what he
wanted.

The two lassies who were in Bure had a desperate time of it. Things were
most primitive. They had no store, just an old travelling field range, and
for a canteen one end of Battery F's kitchen. They were then attached to
the Sixth Field Artillery. This was the regiment that fired the first shot
into Germany.

The smoke in that kitchen was awful and continuous from the old field
range. The girls often made doughnuts out-of-doors, and they got
chilblains from standing in the snow. All the company had chilblains, too,
and it was a sorry crowd. Then the girls got the mumps. It was so cold
here, especially at night, they often had to sleep with their clothes on.
There was only one way they could have meetings in that place and that was
while the men were lined up for chow near to the canteen. They would start
to sing in the gloomy, cold room, the men and girls all with their
overcoats on, and fingers so cold that they could hardly play the
concertina, for there was no fire in the big room save from the range at
one end where they cooked. Then the girls would talk to them while they
were eating. Perhaps they did not call these meetings, but they were a
mighty happy time to the men, and they liked it.

A minister who had taken six months' leave of absence from his church to
do Y.M.C.A. work in France asked one of the boys why he liked the
Salvation Army girls and he said: "Because they always take time to cheer
us up. It's true they do knock us mighty hard about our sins, but while it
hurts they always show us a way out." The minister told some one that if
he had his work to do over again he would plan it along the lines of the
Salvation Army work.

You may hear it urged that one reason the boys liked the Salvation Army
people so much was because they did not preach, but it is not so. They
preached early and often, but the boys liked it because it was done so
simply, so consistently and so unselfishly, that they did not recognize it
as preaching.

In Menaucourt as Christmas was coming on some United States officers
raised money to give the little refugee children a Christmas treat. There
was to be a tree with presents, and good things to eat, and an
entertainment with recitations from the children. The school-teacher was
teaching the children their pieces, and there was a general air of
delightful excitement everywhere. It was expected that the affair was to
be held in the Catholic church at first, but the priest protested that
this was unseemly, so they were at a loss what to do. The school-house was
not large enough.

The Salvation Army Staff-Captain found this out and suggested to the
officers that the Salvation Army hut was the very place for such a
gathering. So the tree was set up, and the officers went to town and
bought presents and decorations. They covered the old hut with boughs and
flags and transformed it into a wonderland for the children. The officers
were struggling helplessly with the decorations of the tree when the
Salvation Army man happened in and they asked him to help.

"Why, sure!" he said heartily. "That's my regular work!" So they eagerly
put it into his hands and departed. The Staff-Captain worked so hard at it
and grew go interested in it that he forgot to go for his chow at lunch-
time, and when supper-time came the hall was so crowded and there was so
much still to be done that he could not get away to get his supper. But it
was a grand and glorious time. The place was packed. There were two
American Colonels, a French Colonel, and several French officers. The
soldiers crowded in and they had to send them out again, poor fellows, to
make room for the children, but they hung around the doors and windows
eager to see it all.

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