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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 regimental band played, there were recitations in French and a good
time generally.

The seats were facing the canteen where the supplies were all stocked
neatly, boxes of candy and cakes and good things. The Colonel in charge of
the regiment looked over to them wistfully and said to the Staff-Captain:
"Are you going to sell all those things?" The Staff-Captain, with quick
appreciation, said: "No, Colonel, Christmas comes but once a year and
there's a present up there for you." And the Colonel seemed as pleased as
the children when the Staff-Captain handed him a big box of candy all tied
up in Christmas ribbons.

In the huts, phonographs are never silent as long as there is a single
soldier in the place. One night two of the Salvation Army girls, who slept
in the back room of a certain hut, had closed up for the night and
retired. They were awakened by the sound of the phonograph, and wondered
how anyone got into the hut and who it might happen to be. They were a
little bit nervous, but went to investigate. They found that a soldier on
guard had raised a window, and although this did not allow him room to
enter the hut, he was able to reach the table where the phonograph stood.
He had turned the talking machine around so that it faced the window, and,
placing a record in position, had started it going. He was leaning up
against the outer wall of the hut, smoking a cigarette in the moonlight,
and enjoying his concert. The girls returned to bed without disturbing the
audience.

One of the most popular French confections sold in the huts was a variety
of biscuits known under the trade name of "Boudoir Biscuits" One day a
soldier entered a hut and said: "Say, miss, I want some of them there-them
there--Dang me if I can remember them French names!--them there (suddenly
a great light dawned)--some of them there bedroom cookies." And the lassie
got what he wanted.

The Salvation Army men who worked among the soldiers in advanced positions
from which all women are barred are among the heroes of the war. Here
during the day they labored in dugouts far below the shell-tortured earth,
often going out at night to help bring in the wounded; always in danger
from shells and gas; some with the ammunition trains; others driving
supply trucks; still others attached to units and accompanying the
fighting men wherever they went, even to the active combat of the firing
trench and the attack. These are unofficial chaplains. Such a one was "La
Petit Major," as the soldiers called him, because of his smallness of
stature.

The Little Major commenced his service in the field with the Twenty-sixth
Infantry, First Division, at Menaucourt. Soon he was transferred to
command the hut at Boviolles. At this place was the battalion of the
Twenty-sixth Infantry, commanded by Major Theodore Roosevelt. His brother,
Captain Archie Roosevelt, commanded a company in this battalion. He was
for the greater part of the time alone in the work at Boviolles.

By his consistent life and character and his willingness to serve both men
and officers, he won their esteem.

When they left the training area for the trenches the Major was requested
to go with them. He turned the key in the canteen door and went off with
them across France and never came back, establishing himself in the front-
line trenches with the men and acting as unofficial chaplain to the
battalion.

There is an interesting incident in connection with his introduction to
Major Roosevelt's notice.

For some reason the Salvation Army had been made to feel that they were
not welcome with that division. But the Little Major did not give up like
that, and he lingered about feeling that somehow there was yet to be a
work for him there.

A young private from a far Western state, a fellow who, according to all
reports, had never been of any account at home, was convicted of a most
horrible murder and condemned to die by hanging because the commanding
officer said that shooting was too good for him.

He accepted his fate with sullen ugliness. He would not speak to anyone
and he was so violent that they had to put him in chains. No one could do
anything with him. He had to be watched day and night; and it was awful to
see him die this way with his sin unconfessed. Many attempts were made to
break through his silence, but all to no effect. Several chaplains visited
him, but he would have nothing to do with them.

On the morning of his execution, to the surprise of everybody he said that
he had heard that there was a Salvation Army man around, and he would like
to see him. The authorities sent and searched everywhere for the Little
Major, and some thought he must have left, but they found him at last and
he came at once to the desperate man.

The criminal sat crouched on his hard bench, chained hand and foot. He did
not look up. He was a dreadful sight, his brutal face haggard, unshaven,
his eyes bloodshot, his whole appearance almost like some low animal.
Through the shadowy prison darkness the Little Major crept to those
chains, those symbols of the man's degradation; and still the man did not
look up.

"You must be in great trouble, brother. Can I help you any?" asked the
Little Major with a wonderful Christ-like compassion in his voice.

The man lifted his bleared eyes under the shock of unkempt hair, and
spoke, startled:

"You call me brother! You know what I'm here for and you call me brother!
Why?"

The Little Major's voice was steady and sweet as he replied without
hesitation:

"Because I know a great deal about the suffering of Christ on the Cross,
all because He loved you so! Because I know He said He was wounded for
your transgressions, He was bruised for your iniquities! Because I know He
said, 'Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow,
though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool!' So why shouldn't I
call you brother?"

"Oh," said the man with a groan of agony and big tears rolling down his
face. "Could I be made a better man?"

Then they went down on their knees together beside the hard bench, the man
in chains and the man of God, and the Little Major prayed such a wonderful
prayer, taking the poor soul right to the foot of the Throne; and in a few
minutes the man was confessing his sin to God. Then he suddenly looked up
and exclaimed:

"It's true, what you said! Christ has pardoned me! Now I can die like a
man!"

With that great pardon written across his heart he actually went to his
death with a smile upon his face. When the Chaplain asked him if he had
anything to say he publicly thanked the military authorities and the
Salvation Army for what they had done for him.

The Colonel, greatly surprised at the change in the man, sent to find out
how it came about and later sent to thank the Little Major. Two days later
Major Roosevelt came in person to thank him:

"I knew that someone who knew how to deal with men had got hold of him,"
he said, "but I almost doubted the evidence of my own eyes when I saw how
cheerfully he went to his death, it all seemed too wonderful!"

The little Major was with this battalion in all of its engagements, and on
several occasions went over the top with the men and devoted himself to
first aid to the wounded and to bringing the men back to the dressing
station on stretchers. Between the times of active engagements, the Major
gave himself to supplying the needs of the men and made daily trips out of
the trenches to obtain newspapers, writing material, and to perform
errands which they could not do for themselves.

One of the lieutenants said of him: "He is worth more than all the
chaplains that were ever made in the United States Army. He will walk
miles to get the most trivial article for either man or officer. The men
know that he loves them or he would not go into the trenches with them,
for he does not have to go. You can tell the world for me that he is a
real man!"

One of the fellows said of him he had seen him take off his shoes and
bring away pieces of flesh from the awful blisters got from much tramping.

The men soon learned to love their gray haired Salvation Army comrade.
When an enemy attack was to be met with cold steel he was the first to
follow the company officers "over the top," to cheer and encourage the
onrushing Americans in the anxious semi-calm which follows the lifting of
a barrage. A non-combatant, unarmed and fifty-three years of age, he was
always in the van of the fierce onslaught with which our men repulsed the
enemy, ready to pray with the dying or help bring in the wounded, and
always fearless no matter what the conditions. By his unfearing heroism as
well as his willingness to share the hardships and dangers of the men, he
so won their confidence that it was frequently said that they would not go
into battle except the Major was with them. The men would crouch around
him with an almost fantastic confidence that where he was no harm could
come. Knowing that many earnest Christian people were praying for his
safety and having seen how safely he and those with him had come through
dangers, they thought his very presence was a protection. Who shall say
that God did not stay on the battlefield living and speaking through the
Little Major?

When the first division was moved from the Montdidier Sector he travelled
with the men as far as they went by train. When they detrained and marched
he marched with them, carrying his seventy pound pack as any soldier did.
He was by the side of Captain Archie Roosevelt when he received a very
dangerous wound from an exploding shell, and was in the battle of Cantigny
in the Montdidier Sector, where his company lost only two men killed and
four wounded, while other companies' losses were much more severe.

Protestant, Catholic and Jew were all his friends. One Catholic boy came
crawling along in the waist-deep trench one day to tell the Major about
his spiritual worries. After a brief talk the Major asked him if he had
his prayer book. The boy said yes. "Then take it out and read it," said
the Major. "God is here!" And there in the narrow trench with lowered
heads so that the snipers could not see them, they knelt together and read
from the Catholic prayer book.

In one American attack the Little Major followed the Lieutenant over the
top just as the barrage was lifted. The Lieutenant looking back saw him
struggling over the crest of the parapet, laughed and shouted: "Go back,
Major, you haven't even a pistol!" But the Major did not go back. He went
with the boys. "I have no hesitancy in laying down my life," he once said,
"if it will help or encourage anyone else to live in a better or cleaner
way."

He was always striving for the salvation of his boys, and in his meetings
men would push their way to the front and openly kneel before their
comrades registering their determination to live in accordance with the
teachings of Jesus. One tells of seeing him kneel beside an empty crate
with three soldiers praying for their souls.

It was because of all these things that the men believed in him and in his
God. He used to say to the men in the meetings, "We are not afraid because
we have a sense of the presence of God right here with us!"

One night the battalion was "in" after a heavy day's work strengthening
the defenses and trying to drain the trenches, and the men were asleep in
the dugouts. The Major lay in his little chicken-wire bunk, just drowsing
off, while the water seeped and dripped from the earthen roof, and the
rats splashed about on the water covered floor.

Across from him in a bunk on the other side of the dugout tossed a boy in
his damp blankets who had just come to the front. He was only eighteen and
it was his first night in the line. It had been a hard day for him. The
shells screamed overhead and finally one landed close somewhere and rocked
the dugout with its explosion. The old-timers slept undisturbed, but the
boy started up with a scream and a groan, his nerves a-quiver, and cried
out: "Oh, Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

The Little Major was out and over to him in a flash, and gathered the boy
into his arms, soothing him as a mother might have done, until he was
calmed and strengthened; and there amid the roaring of guns, the screaming
of shells, the dripping of water and splashing of rats, the youngest of
the battalion found Christ.

An old soldier came down from the front and a Salvationist asked him if he
knew the Little Major.

"Well, you just bet I know the Major--sure thing!" And the Major is always
on hand with a laugh and his fun-making. In the trenches or in the towns,
where the shells are flying, the Little Major is with his boys. No words
of mine could express the admiration the boys have for him. The boys love
him. He calls them "Buddie." They salute and are ready to do or die. The
last time I saw him he had hiked in from the trenches with the boys. He
carried a heavy "war baby" on his back and a tin hat on his head. He was
tired and footsore, but there was that laugh, and before he got his pack
off he jabbed me in the ribs. "No, sir, we can't get along without our
Major!" So says "Buddie."

A request came from a chaplain to open Salvation Army work near his
division. The Brigade Commander was most favorable to the suggestion until
he learned that the Salvation Army would have women there and that
religious meetings would be conducted. As this was explained the General's
manner changed and he declared he did not know that the work was to be
carried on in this way; that he did not favor the women in camps, or any
religion, but thought it would make the soldier soft, and the business of
the soldier was to kill, to kill in as brutal a manner as possible; and to
kill as many of the enemy as possible; and he did not propose to have any
work conducted in the camps or any influence on his soldiers that would
tend to soften them.

He ordered them, therefore, not to extend the work of the Salvation Army
within his brigade. It was explained to him that Demange was now within
the territory named. He appeared to be put out that the Salvation Army was
already established in his district, but said that if they behaved
themselves they could go on, but that they must not extend.

He reported the matter to the Divisional Headquarters and an investigation
of the Salvation Army activities was ordered. A major who was a Jew was
appointed to look into the matter. During the next two weeks he talked
with the men and officers and attended Salvation Army meetings. The
leaders, of course, knew nothing about this, but they could not have
planned their meetings better if they had known. It seemed as though God
was in it all. At the end of two weeks there came a written communication
from the General stating that after a thorough examination of the
Salvation Army work he withdrew his objections and the Salvation Army was
free to extend operations anywhere within his brigade.

The Salvation Army hut was a scene of constant activity.

At one place in a single day there was early mass, said by the Catholic
chaplain, later preaching by a Protestant chaplain, then a Jewish service,
followed by a company meeting where the use of gas masks was explained.
All this, besides the regular uses of the hut, which included a library,
piano, phonograph, games, magazines, pies, doughnuts and coffee; the pie
line being followed by a regular Salvation Army meeting where men raised
their hands to be prayed for, and many found Christ as their Saviour.

It was in an old French barracks that they located the Salvation Army
canteen in Treveray. One corner was boarded off for a bedroom for the
girls. There were windows but not of glass, for they would have soon been
shattered, and, too, they would have let too much light through. They were
canvas well camouflaged with paint so that the enemy shells would not be
attracted at night, and, of course, one could not see through them.

Inside the improvised bedroom were three little folding army cots, a board
table, a barrack bag and some boxes. This was the only place where the
girls could be by themselves. On rainy days the furniture was supplemented
by a dishpan on one cot, a frying-pan on another, and a lard tin on the
third, to catch the drops from the holes in the roof. The opposite corner
of the barracks was boarded off for a living-room. In this was a field
range and one or two tables and benches.

The rest of the hut was laid out with square bare board tables. The
canteen was at one end. The piano was at one side and the graphophone at
the other. Sometimes in places like this, the hut would be too near the
front for it to be thought advisable to have a piano. It was too liable to
be shattered by a chance shell and the management thought it unwise to put
so much money into what might in a moment be reduced to worthless
splinters. Then the boys would come into the hut, look around
disappointedly and say: "No piano?"

The cheerful woman behind the counter would say sympathetically: "No,
boys, no piano. Too many shells around here for a piano."

The boys would droop around silently for a minute or two and then go off.
In a little while back they would come with grim satisfaction on their
faces bearing a piano.

"Don't ask us where we got it," they would answer with a twinkle in reply
to the pleased inquiry. "This is war! We salvaged it!"

Around the room on the tables were plenty of magazines, books and games.
Checkers was a favorite game. No card playing, no shooting crap. The
canteen contained chocolate, candy, writing materials, postage stamps,
towels, shaving materials, talcum powder, soap, shoestrings, handkerchiefs
in little sealed packets, buttons, cootie medicine and other like
articles. The Salvation Army did not sell nor give away either tobacco or
cigarettes. In a few cases where such were sent to them for distribution
they were handed over to the doctors for the badly wounded in the
hospitals or the very sick men accustomed to their use, who were almost
insane with their nerves. They also procured them from the Red Cross for
wounded men, sometimes, who were fretting for them, but they never were a
part of their supplies and far from the policy of the Salyation Army.
Furthermore, the Salvation Army sent no men to France to work for them who
smoked or used tobacco in any form, or drank intoxicating liquors. No man
can hold a commission in the Salvation Army and use tobacco! It is a
remarkable fact that the boys themselves did not want the Salvation Army
lassies to deal in cigarettes because they knew it would be going against
their principles to do so.

Occasionally a stranger would come into the canteen and ask for a package
of cigarettes. Then some soldier would remark witheringly: "Say, where do
you come from? Don't you know the Salvation Army don't handle tobacco?"

The men were always deeply grateful to get talcum powder for use after
shaving. It seemed somehow to help to keep up the morale of the army, that
talcum powder, a little bit of the soothing refinement of the home that
seemed so far away.

To this hut whenever they were at liberty came Jew and Gentile, Protestant
and Catholic, rich and poor. War is a great leveler and had swept away all
differences. They were a great brotherhood of Americans now, ready, if
necessary, to die for the right.

To one of the huts came a request from the chaplain of a regiment which
was about to move from its temporary billet in the next village. The men
had not been so fortunate as to be stationed at a town where there was a
Salvation Army hut and it had been over four months since they had tasted
anything like cake or pie. Would the Salvation Army lassies be so good as
to let them have a few doughnuts before they moved that night? If so the
chaplain would call for them at five o'clock.

The lassies worked with all their might and fried thirty-five hundred
doughnuts. But something happened to the ambulance that was to take them
to the boys, and over an hour was lost in repairs. Back at the camp the
boys had given up all hope. They were to march at eight o'clock and
nothing had been heard of the doughnuts. Suddenly the truck dashed into
view, but the boys eyed it glumly, thinking it was likely empty after all
this time. However, the chaplain held up both hands full of golden brown
beauties, and with a wild shout of joy the men sprang to "attention" as
the ambulance drew up, and more soldiers crowded around. The villagers
rushed to their doors to see what could be happening now to those crazy
American soldiers.

When the chaplain stood up in the car flinging doughnuts to them and
shouting that there were thousands, enough for everybody, the enthusiasm
of the soldiers knew no bounds. The girls had come along and now they
began to hand out the doughnuts, and the crowd cheered and shouted as they
filed up to receive them. And when it came time for the girls to return to
their own village the soldiers crowded up once more to say good-bye, and
give them three cheers and a "tiger."

These same girls a few days before had fed seven hundred weary doughboys
on their march to the front with coffee, hot biscuits and jam.

In one of the Salvation Army huts one night the usual noisy cheerfulness
was in the air, but apart from the rest sat a boy with a letter open on
the table before him and a dreamy smile of tender memories upon his face.
Nobody noticed that far-away look in his eyes until the lassie in charge
of the hut, standing in the doorway surveying her noisy family, searched
him out with her discerning eyes, and presently happened down his way and
inquired if he had a letter. The boy looked up with a wonderful smile such
as she had never seen on his face before, and answered:

"Yes, it's from mother!" Then impulsively, "She's the nearest thing to God
I know!"

Mother seemed to be the nearest thought to the heart of the boys over
there. They loved the songs best that spoke about mother. One boy bought a
can of beans at the canteen, and when remonstrated with by the lassie who
sold them, on the ground that he was always complaining of having to eat
so many beans, he replied: "Aw, well, this is different. These beans are
the kind that mother used to buy."

In the dark hours of the early morning a boy who belonged to the
ammunition train sat by one of the little wooden tables in the hut, just
after he had returned from his first barrage, and pencilled on its top the
following words:

Mother o' mine, what the words mean to me
Is more than tongue can say;
For one view to-night of your loving face,
What a price I would gladly pay!
The wonderful face . . .
. . . smiling still despite loads of care,
Tis crowned by a silvering sheen.
Your picture I carry next to my heart;
With it no harm can befall.
It has helped me to smile through many a care,
Since I heeded my country's call.
O mother who nursed me as a babe
And prayed for me as a boy,
Can I not show, now at man's estate,
That you are my pride and joy?
Good night! God guard you, way over the ocean blue,
Your boy loves you and his dreams are bright,
For he's dreaming of home and you.

One of the letters that was written home for "Mother's Day" in response to
a suggestion on the walls of the Salvation Army hut was as follows:


Dearest Little Mother of Mine:

They started a campaign to write to mother on this day, and, believe me, I
didn't have to be urged very hard. If I wrote you every time I think of
you this war would go hang as far as I am concerned, for I think of you
always and there are hundreds of things that serve as an eternal reminder.

Near our billet is one lone, scrubby little lilac bush that has a dozen
blossoms, and it doesn't take much mental work to connect lilacs with
mother. Then, too, the distant whistle of a train 'way down the valley
reminds me of how you would listen for the whistle of the Montreal train
on Saturday morning and then fix up a big feed for your boy to offset a
week of boarding-house grub. Those and many other things remind me many
times a day of the one who bid me good-by with a smile and saved her tears
'till she was home alone; who knit helmets, wristlets and sweaters to keep
out the cold when she should have been sleeping; who (I'll bet a hat)
didn't sleep one of the thirteen nights I was on the ocean, and who writes
me cheerful, newsy letters when all others fail.

And I appreciate all those things too, although I'm not much on showing
affection. I haven't always been as good to you as I ought, but I'm going
to make up by being the soldier and the man "me mudder" thinks I am.

And when I come back home, all full of prunes and glory, we're going to
have the grandest time you ever dreamed of. We'll go joy riding, eat
strawberry shortcake and pumpkin pie, and have all the lilacs in the
U.S.A. Wait till I walk down Main Street with you on my arm all fixed up
in a swell dress and a new bonnet and me with a span new uniform, with
sergeant-major's chevrons, about steen service stripes, a Mex. campaign
badge and a Croix de Guerre (maybe), then you'll be glad your boy went to
be a soldier.

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