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Title: The War Romance of the Salvation Army

Author: Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

Release Date: May 19, 2003 [EBook #7811]
[Most recently updated: March 21, 2020]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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[Illustration]




The War Romance of the Salvation Army

by

Evangeline Booth

Commander-in-Chief,
The Salvation Army in America

and

Grace Livingston Hill

Author of “The Enchanted Barn”; “The Best Man”;
“Lo Michael”; “The Red Signal,” _etc_.

Copyright 1919, by J.B. Lippincott Company

Contents

 Foreword
 From the Commander’s Own Pen
 Preface by the Writer

 Chapter I. The Story
 Chapter II. The Gondrecourt Area
 Chapter III. The Toul Sector
 Chapter IV. The Montdidier SectorThe Montdidier Sector
 Chapter V. The Toul Sector Again
 Chapter VI. The Baccarat Sector
 Chapter VII. The Chateau-Thierry-Soissons Drive
 Chapter VIII. The Saint Mihiel Drive
 Chapter IX. The Argonne Drive
 Chapter X. The Armistice
 Chapter XI. Homecoming
 Chapter XII. Letters of Appreciation

Illustrations

 General Bramwell Booth.
 Commander Evangeline Booth.
 Lieutenant Colonel William S. Barker.
 “Introduced to French Rain and French Mud.”
 She Called the Little Company of Workers Together and Gave Them a Charge.
 The Lassie Who Fried the First Doughnut in France.
 “Tin Hat for a Halo! Ah! She Wears It Well!”.
 The Patient Officers Who Were Seeing to All These Details Worked Almost Day and Night.
 Here During the Day They Worked in Dugouts Far Below the Shell-tortured Earth.
 They Came To Get Their Coats Mended and Their Buttons Sewed On.
 The Entrance to the Old Wine Cellar in Mandres.
 The Salvation Army Was Told that Ansauville Was Too Far Front for Any Women To Be Allowed To Go.
 L’Hermitage, Nestled in the Heart of a Deep Woods.
 L’Hermitage, Inside the Tent.
 “Ma”.
 They Had a Pie-baking Contest in Gondrecourt One Day.
 A Letter of Inspiration from the Commander.
 The Salvation Army Boy Truck Driver.
 The Centuries-old Gray Cemetery in Treveray.
 Colonel Barker Placing the Commander’s Flowers on Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt’s Grave.
 The Salvation Army Boy Who Drove the Famous Doughnut Truck.
 Bullionville, Promptly Dubbed by the American Boy “Souptown”.
 Here They Found a Whole Little Village of German Dugouts.
 The Girls Who Came Down to Help in the St. Mihiel Drive.
 The Wrecked House in Neuvilly Where the Lassies Went to Sleep in the Cellar.
 The Wrecked Church in Neuvilly Where the Memorable Meeting Was Held.
 Right in the Midst of the Busy Hurrying Throng of Union Square.
 “Smiling Billy”.
 Thomas Estill.
 The Hut at Camp Lewis.


[Illustration: William Bramwell Booth, General of the Salvation Army]

[Illustration: Evangeline Booth, Commander-in-Chief of the Salvation
Army in America]




Foreword


In presenting the narrative of some of the doings of the Salvation Army
during the world’s great conflict for liberty, I am but answering the
insistent call of a most generous and appreciative public.

When moved to activity by the apparent need, there was never a thought
that our humble services would awaken the widespread admiration that
has developed. In fact, we did not expect anything further than
appreciative recognition from those immediately benefited, and the
knowledge that our people have proved so useful is an abundant
compensation for all toil and sacrifice, for _service_ is our
watchword, and there is no reward equal to that of doing the most good
to the most people in the most need. When our National Armies were
being gathered for overseas work, the likelihood of a great need was
self-evident, and the most logical and most natural thing for the
Salvation Army to do was to hold itself in readiness for action. That
we were straitened in our circumstances is well understood, more so by
us than by anybody else. The story as told in these pages is
necessarily incomplete, for the obvious reason that the work is yet in
progress. We entered France ahead of our Expeditionary Forces, and it
is my purpose to continue my people’s ministries until the last of our
troops return. At the present moment the number of our workers overseas
equals that of any day yet experienced.

Because of the pressure that this service brings, together with the
unmentioned executive cares incident to the vast work of the Salvation
Army in these United States, I felt compelled to requisition some
competent person to aid me in the literary work associated with the
production of a concrete story. In this I was most fortunate, for a
writer of established worth and national fame in the person of Mrs.
Grace Livingston Hill came to my assistance; and having for many days
had the privilege of working with her in the sifting process, gathering
from the mass of matter that had accumulated and which was being daily
added to, with every confidence I am able to commend her patience and
toil. How well she has done her work the book will bear its own
testimony.

This foreword would be incomplete were I to fail in acknowledging in a
very definite way the lavish expressions of gratitude that have
abounded on the part of “The Boys” themselves. This is our reward, and
is a very great encouragement to us to continue a growing and more
permanent effort for their welfare, which is comprehended in our plans
for the future. The official support given has been of the highest and
most generous character. Marshal Foch himself most kindly cabled me,
and General Pershing has upon several occasions inspired us with
commendatory words of the greatest worth.

Our beloved President has been pleased to reflect the people’s pleasure
and his own personal gratification upon what the Salvation Army has
accomplished with the troops, which good-will we shall ever regard as
one of our greatest honors.

The lavish eulogy and sincere affection bestowed by the nation upon the
organization I can only account for by the simple fact that our
ministering members have been in spirit and reality with the men.

True to our first light, first teaching, and first practices, we have
always put ourselves close beside the man irrespective of whether his
condition is fair or foul; whether his surroundings are peaceful or
perilous; whether his prospects are promising or threatening. As a
people we have felt that to be of true service to others we must be
close enough to them to lift part of their load and thus carry out that
grand injunction of the Apostle Paul, “Bear ye one another’s burdens
and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

The Salvation Army upon the battlefields of France has but worked along
the same lines as in the great cities of the nations. We are, with our
every gift to serve, close up to those in need; and so, as
Lieut.-Colonel Roosevelt put it, “Whatever the lot of the men, the
Salvation Army is found with them.”

We never permit any superiority of position, or breeding, or even grace
to make a gap between us and any who may be less fortunate. To help
another, you must be near enough to catch the heart-beat. And so a
large measure of our success in the war is accounted for by the fact
that we have been with them. With a hundred thousand Salvationists on
all fronts, and tens and tens of thousands of Salvationists at their
ministering posts in the homelands as well as overseas, from the time
that each of the Allied countries entered the war the Salvation Army
has been with the fighting- men.

With them in the thatched cottage on the hillside, and in the humble
dwelling in the great towns of the homelands, when they faced the great
ordeal of wishing good-bye to mothers and fathers and wives and
children.

With them in the blood-soaked furrows of old fields; with them in the
desolation of No Man’s Land; and with them amid the indescribable
miseries and gory horrors of the battlefield. With them with the
sweetest ministry, trained in the art of service, white-souled, brave,
tender-hearted men and women could render.

[Evangeline Booth]
National Headquarters Salvation Army, New York City.
April, 1919.




From the Commander’s Own Pen


The war is over. The world’s greatest tragedy is arrested. The awful
pull at men’s heart-strings relaxed. The inhuman monster that leapt out
of the darkness and laid blood-hands upon every home of a peace-blest
earth has been overthrown. Autocracy and diabolical tyranny lie
defeated and crushed behind the long rows of white crosses that stand
like sign-posts pointing heavenward, all the way from the English
Channel to the Adriatic, linking the two by an inseverable chain.

While the nations were in the throes of the conflict, I was constrained
to speak and write of the Salvation Army’s activities in the frightful
struggle. Now that all is over and I reflect upon the price the nations
have paid I realize much hesitancy in so doing.

When I think of England-where almost every man you meet is but a piece
of a man! France—one great graveyard! Its towns and cities a wilderness
of waste! The allied countries—Italy, and deathless little Belgium, and
Serbia—well-nigh exterminated in the desperate, gory struggle! When I
think upon it—the price America has paid! The price her heroic sons
have paid! They that come down the gangways of the returning boats on
crutches! They that are carried down on stretchers! They that sail into
New York Harbor, young and fair, but never again to see the Statue of
Liberty! The price that dear mothers and fathers have paid! The price
that the tens of thousands of little children have paid! The price they
that sleep in the lands they made free have paid! When I think upon all
this, it is with no little reluctance that I now write of the small
part taken by the Salvation Army in the world’s titanic sacrifice for
liberty, but which part we shall ever regard as our life’s crowning
honor.

Expressions of surprise from officers of all ranks as well as the
private soldier have vied with those of gratitude concerning the
efficiency of this service, but no thought of having accomplished any
achievement higher than their simplest duty is entertained by the
Salvationists themselves; for uniformly they feel that they have but
striven to measure up to the high standards of service maintained by
the Salvation Army, which standards ask of its officers all over the
world that no effort shall be left unprosecuted, no sacrifice
unrendered, which will help to meet the _need at their door_.

And it is such high standards of devoted service to our fellow, linked
with the practical nature of the movement’s operations, the deeply
religious character of its members, its intelligent system of
government, uniting, and thus augmenting, all its activities; with the
immense advantage of the military training provided by the
organization, that give to its officers a potency and adaptability that
have for the greater period of our brief lifetime made us an
influential factor in seasons of civic and national disaster.

When that beautiful city of the Golden Gate, San Francisco, was laid
low by earthquake and fire, the Salvationists were the first upon the
ground with blankets, and clothes, and food, gathering frightened
little children, looking after old age, and rescuing many from the
burning and falling buildings.

At the time of the wild rush to the Klondike, the Salvation Army was,
with its sweet, pure women—the only women amidst tens of thousands of
men— upon the mountain-side of the Chilcoot Pass saving the lives of
the gold- seekers, and telling those shattered by disappointment of
treasure that “doth not perish.”

At the time of the Jamestown, the Galveston, and the Dayton floods the
Salvation Army officer, with his boat laden with sandwiches and warm
wraps, was the first upon the rising waters, ministering to marooned
and starving families gathered upon the housetops.

In the direful disaster that swept over the beautiful city of Halifax,
the Mayor of that city stated: “I do not know what I should have done
the first two or three days following the explosion, when everyone was
panic- stricken without the ready, intelligent, and unbroken
day-and-night efforts of the Salvation Army.”

On numerous other similar occasions we have relieved distress and
sorrow by our almost instantaneous service. Hence when our honored
President decided that our National Emblem, heralder of the inalienable
rights of man, should cross the seas and wave for the freedom of the
peoples of the earth, automatically the Salvation Army moved with it,
and our officers passed to the varying posts of helpfulness which the
emergency demanded.

Now on all sides I am confronted with the question: _What is the secret
of the Salvation Army’s success in the war?_

Permit me to suggests three reasons which, in my judgment, account for
it:

First, when the war-bolt fell, when the clarion call sounded, it found
_the Salvation Army ready!_

Ready not only with our material machinery, but with that precious
piece of human mechanism which is indispensable to all great and high
achievement—the right calibre of man, and the right calibre of woman.
Men and women equipped by a careful training for the work they would
have to do.

We were not many in number, I admit. In France our numbers have been
regrettably few. But this is because I have felt it was better to fall
short in quantity than to run the risk in falling short in quality.
Quality is its own multiplication table. Quality without quantity will
spread, whereas quantity without quality will shrink. Therefore, I
would not send any officers to France except such as had been fully
equipped in our training schools.

Few have even a remote idea of the extensive training given to all
Salvation Army officers by our military system of education, covering
all the tactics of that particular warfare to which they have
consecrated their lives—_the service of humanity_.

We have in the Salvation Army thirty-nine Training Schools in which our
own men and women, both for our missionary and home fields, receive an
intelligent tuition and practical training in the minutest details of
their service. They are trained in the finest and most intricate of all
the arts, the art of dealing ably with human life.

It is a wonderful art which transfigures a sheet of cold grey canvas
into a throbbing vitality, and on its inanimate spread visualizes a
living picture from which one feels they can never turn their eyes
away.

It is a wonderful art which takes a rugged, knotted block of marble,
standing upon a coarse wooden bench, and cuts out of its uncomely
crudeness—as I saw it done—the face of my father, with its every
feature illumined with prophetic light, so true to life that I felt
that to my touch it surely must respond.

But even such arts as these crumble; they are as dust under our feet
compared with that much greater art, _the art of dealing ably with
human life in all its varying conditions and phases_.

It is in this art that we seek by a most careful culture and training
to perfect our officers.

They are trained in those expert measures which enable them to handle
satisfactorily those that cannot handle themselves, those that have
lost their grip on things, and that if unaided go down under the high,
rough tides. Trained to meet emergencies of every character—to leap
into the breach, to span the gulf, and to do it without waiting to be
told _how_.

Trained to press at every cost for the desired and decided-upon end.

Trained to obey orders willingly, and gladly, and wholly—not in part.

Trained to give no quarter to the enemy, no matter what the character,
nor in what form he may present himself, and to never consider what
personal advantage may be derived.

Trained in the art of the winsome, attractive coquetries of the round,
brown doughnut and all its kindred.

Trained, if needs be, to seal their services with their life’s blood.

One of our women officers, on being told by the colonel of the regiment
she would be killed if she persisted in serving her doughnuts and cocoa
to the men while under heavy fire, and that she must get back to
safety, replied: “Colonel, we can die with the men, but we cannot leave
them.”

When, therefore, I gathered the little companies together for their
last charge before they sailed for France, I would tell them that while
I was unable to arm them with many of the advantages of the more
wealthy denominations; that while I could give them only a very few
assistants owing to the great demand upon our forces; and that while I
could promise them nothing beyond their bare expenses, yet I knew that
without fear I could rely upon them for an unsurpassed devotion to the
God-inspired standards of the emblem of this, the world’s greatest
Republic, the Stars and Stripes, now in the van for the freedom of the
peoples of the earth. That I could rely upon them for unsurpassed
devotion to the brave men who laid their lives upon the altar of their
country’s protection, and that I could rely upon them for an
unsurpassed devotion to that other banner, the Banner of Calvary, the
significance of which has not changed in nineteen centuries, and by the
standards of which, alone, all the world’s wrongs can be redressed, and
by the standards of which alone men can be liberated from all their
bondage. And they have not failed.

A further reason for the success of the Salvation Army in the war is,
_it found us accustomed to hardship_.

We are a people who have thrived on adversity. Opposition, persecution,
privation, abuse, hunger, cold and want were with us at the
starting-post, and have journeyed with us all along the course.

We went to the battlefields _no strangers to suffering_. The biting
cold winds that swept the fields of Flanders were not the first to lash
our faces. The sunless cellars, with their mouldy walls and
water-seeped floors, where our women sought refuge from shell-fire
through the hours of the night, contributed no new or untried
experience. In such cellars as these, in their home cities, under the
flicker of a tallow candle, they have ministered to the sick and
comforted the dying.

Wet feet, lack of deep, being often without food, finding things
different from what we had planned, hoped and expected, were frequent
experiences with us. All such things we Salvationists encounter in our
daily toils for others amid the indescribable miseries and inestimable
sorrows, the sins and the tragedies of the underworlds of our great
cities—the _underneath_ of those great cities which upon the surface
thunder with enterprise and glitter with brilliance.

We are not easily affrighted by frowns of fortune. We do not change our
course because of contrary currents, nor put into harbor because of
head- winds. Almost all our progress has been made in the teeth of the
storm. We have always had to “tack,” but as it is “the set of the
sails, and not the gales” that decides the ports we reach, the
competency of our seamanship is determined by the fact that we “get
there.”

Our service in France was not, therefore, an experiment, but an
organized, tested, and proved system. We were enacting no new rôle. We
were all through the Boer War. Our officers were with the besieged
troops in Mafeking and Ladysmith. They were with Lord Kitchener in his
victorious march through Africa. It was this grand soldier who
afterwards wrote to my father, General William Booth, the Founder of
our movement, saying: “Your men have given us an example both of how to
live as good soldiers and how to die as heroes.” And so it was quite
natural that our men and women, with that fearlessness which
characterizes our members, should take up positions under fire in
France.

In fact, our officers would have considered themselves unfaithful to
Salvation Army traditions and history, and untrue to those who had gone
before, if they had deserted any post, or shirked any duty, because
cloaked with the shadows of death.

This explains why their dear forms loomed up in the fog and the rain,
in the hours of the night, on the roads, under shell fire, serving
coffee and doughnuts.

This is how it was they were with them on the long dreary marches, with
a smile and a song and a word of cheer.

This is how it is the Salvation Army has no “closing hours.” “Taps”
sound for us _when the need is relieved_.

Three of our women officers in the Toul Sector had slept for three
weeks in a hay-stack, in an open field, to be near the men of an
ammunition train taking supplies to the front under cover of darkness.
The boys had watched their continued, devoted service for them—the many
nights without sleep—and noticing the shabby uniform of the little
officer in charge, collected among themselves 1600 francs, and offered
it to her for a new one, and some other comforts, the spokesman saying:
“This is just to show you how grateful we are to you.” The officer was
deeply touched, but told them she could not think of accepting it for
herself. “I am quite accustomed to hard toils,” she said. “I have only
done what all my comrades are doing—my duty,” and offered to compromise
by putting the money into a general fund for the benefit of all—to buy
more doughnuts and more coffee for the boys.

Salvation Army teaching and practice is: Choose your purpose, then set
your face as flint toward that purpose, permitting no enemy that can
oppose, and no sacrifice that can be asked, to turn you from it.

Again, a reason for our success in the war is, _our practical
religion_.

That is, our religion is _practicable_. Or, I would rather say, our
Christianity is practicable. Few realize this as the secret of our
success, and some who do realize it will not admit it, but this is what
it really is.

We _do_ worship; both in spirit and form, in public and in private. We
rely upon prayer as the only line of communication between the creature
and his Creator, the only wing upon which the soul’s requirements and
hungerings can be wafted to the Fount of all spiritual supply. Through
our street, as well as our indoor meetings, perhaps oftener than any
other people, we come to the masses with the divine benediction of
prayer; and it would be difficult to find the Salvationist’s home that
does not regard the family altar as its most precious and priceless
treasure.

We do preach. We preach God the Creator of earth and heaven, unerring
in His wisdom, infinite in His love and omnipotent in His power. We
preach Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, dying on Calvary for a
world’s transgressions, able to save to the uttermost “all those who
come unto God by Him.” We preach God the Holy Ghost, sanctifier and
comforter of the souls of men, making white the life, and kindling
lights in every dark landing-place. We preach the Bible, authentic in
its statements, immaculate in its teaching, and glorious in its
promises. We preach grace, limitless grace, grace enough for all men,
and grace enough for each. We preach Hell, the irrevocable doom of the
soul that rejects the Saviour. We preach Heaven, the home of the
righteous, the reward of the good, the crowning of them that endure to
the end.

Even as we preach, so we practice Christianity. We reduce theory to
action. We apply faith to deeds. We confess and present Jesus Christ in
things that can be done. It is this that has carried our flag into
sixty- three countries and colonies, and despite the bitterest
opposition has given us the financial support of twenty-one national
governments. It is this that has brought us up from a little handful of
humble workers to an organization with 21,000 officers and workers,
preaching the gospel in thirty-nine tongues. It is this that has
multiplied the one bandsman and a despised big drum to an army of
27,000 musicians, and it is this-our practice of religion-that has
placed _Christ in deeds_.

Arthur E. Copping gives as the reason for the movement’s success-“the
simple, thorough-going, uncompromising, seven-days-a-week character of
its Christianity.” It is this every-day-use religion which has made us
of infinite service in the places of toil, breakage, and suffering;
this every-day-use religion which has made us the only resource for
thousands in misery and vice; this every-day-use religion which has
insured our success to an extent that has induced civic authorities,
Judges, Mayors, Governors, and even National Governments-such as India
with its Criminal Tribes-to turn to us with the problems of the poor
and the wicked.

While the Salvationist is not of the generally understood ascetic or
monastic type, yet his spirit and deeds are of the very essence of
saintliness.

As man has arrested the lazy cloud sleeping on the brow of the hill,
and has brought it down to enlighten our darkness, to carry our
mail-bags, to haul our luggage, and to flash our messages, so, I would
say with all reverence, that the Salvation Army in a very particular
way has again brought down Jesus Christ from the high, high thrones,
golden pathways, and wing-spread angels of Glory, to the common mud
walks of earth, and has presented Him again in the flesh to a
storm-torn world, touching and healing the wounds, the bruises, and the
bleeding sores of humanity.

That was a wonderful sermon Christ preached on the Mount, but was it
more wonderful than the ministry of the wounded man fallen by the
roadside, or the drying of the tears from the pale, worn face of the
widow of Nain? Or more wonderful than when He said, Let them come—let
them come—mothers and the little children—and blessed them?

It has only been this same Christ, _this Christ in deeds_, when our
women have washed the blood from the faces of the wounded, and taken
the caked mud from their feet; when under fire, through the hours of
the night, they have made the doughnuts; when instead of sleeping they
have written the letters home to soldiers’ loved ones, when they have
lifted the heavy pails of water and struggled with them over the
shell-wrecked roads that the dying soldiers might drink; when they have
sewn the torn uniforms; when they have strewn with the first spring
flowers the graves of those who died for liberty. Only _Christ in
deeds_ when our men went unarmed into the horrors of the Argonne Forest
to gather the dying boys in their arms and to comfort them with love,
human and divine.

That valiant champion of justice and truth; that faithful, able and
brilliant defender of American standards, the late Honorable Theodore
Roosevelt, told me personally a few days before he went into the
hospital that his son wrote him of how our officer, fifty-three years
of age, despite his orders, went unarmed over the top, in the
whirl-wind of the charge, amidst the shriek of shell and tear of
shrapnel, and picked up the American boy left for dead in No Man’s
Land, carrying him on hie back over the shell-torn fields to safety.

It is this _Christ in deeds_ that has made the doughnut to take the
place of the “cup of cold water” given in His name. It is this _Christ
in deeds_ that has brought from our humble ranks the modern Florence
Nightingales and taken to the gory horrors of the battlefields the
white, uplifting influences of pure womanhood. It is this _Christ in
deeds_ that made Sir Arthur Stanley say, when thanking our General for
$10,000 donated for more ambulances: “I thank you for the money, but
much more for the men; they are quite the best in our service.”

It is this Christ who has given to our humblest service a
sheen-something of a glory-which the troops have caught, and which will
make these simple deeds to hold tenaciously to history, and to outlive
the effacing fingers of time-even to defy the very dissolution of
death.

As Premier Clemenceau said: “We must love. We must believe. This is the
secret of life. If we fail to learn this lesson, we exist without
living: we die in ignorance of the reality of life.”

A senator, after several months spent in France, stated: “It is my
opinion that the secret of the success of this organization is their
complete abandonment to their cause, _the service of the man_.”

Of the many beautiful tributes paid to us by a most gracious public,
and by the noblest-hearted and most kindly and gallant army that ever
stood up in uniform, perhaps the most correct is this: _Complete
abandonment to the service of the man_.

This, in large measure, is the cause of our success all over the world.

When you come to think of it, the Salvation Army is a remarkable
arrangement. It is remarkable in its construction. It is a great
empire. An empire geographically unlike any other. It is an empire
without a frontier. It is an empire made up of geographical fragments,
parted from each other by vast stretches of railroad and immense sweeps
of sea. It is an empire composed of a tangle of races, tongues, and
colors, of types of civilization and enlightened barbarism such as
never before in all human history gathered together under one flag.

It is an army, with its titles rambling into all languages, a soldiery
spreading over all lands, a banner upon which the sun never goes
down-with its head in the heart of a cluster of islands set in the
grey, wind-blown Northern seas, while its territories are scattered
over every sea and under every sky.

The world has wondered what has been the controlling force holding this
strange empire together. What is the electro-magnetism governing its
furthest atom as though it were at your elbow? What is the magic
sceptre that compels this diversity of peoples to act as one man? What
is the master passion uniting these multifarious pulsations into one
heart-beat?

Has it been a sworn-to signature attached to bond or paper? No; these
can all too readily be designated “scraps” and be rent in twain. Has it
been self-interest and worldly fame? No, for all selfish gain has had
to be sacrificed upon the threshold of the contract. Has it been the
bond of kinship, or blood, or speech? No, for under this banner the
British master has become the servant of the Hindoo, and the American
has gone to lay down his life upon the veldts of Africa. Has it been
the bond of that almost supernatural force, glorious patriotism? No,
not even this, for while we “know no man after the flesh,” we recognize
our brother in all the families of the earth, and our General infused
into the breasts of his followers the sacred conviction that the
Salvationist’s country is the world.

What was it? What is it? Those ties created by a spiritual ideal. Our
love for God demonstrated by our sacrifice for man.

My father, in a private audience with the late King Edward, said: “Your
Majesty, some men’s passion is gold; some men’s passion is art; some
men’s passion is fame; my passion is man!”

This was in our Founder’s breast the white flame which ignited like
sparks in the hearts of all his followers.

_Man is our life’s passion._

It is for man we have laid our lives upon the altar. It is for man we
have entered into a contract with our God which signs away our claim to
any and all selfish ends. It is for man we have sworn to our own hurt,
and—my God thou knowest-when the hurt came, hard and hot and fast, it
was for man we held tenaciously to the bargain.

After the torpedoing of the _Aboukir_ two sailors found themselves
clinging to a spar which was not sufficiently buoyant to keep them both
afloat. Harry, a Salvationist, grasped the situation and said to his
mate: “Tom, for me to die will mean to go home to mother. I don’t think
it’s quite the same for you, so you hold to the spar and I will go
down; but promise me if you are picked up you will make my God your God
and my people your people.” Tom was rescued and told to a weeping
audience in a Salvation Army hall the act of self-sacrifice which had
saved his life, and testified to keeping his promise to the boy who had
died for him.

When the _Empress of Ireland_ went down with a hundred and thirty
Salvation Army officers on board, one hundred and nine officers were
drowned, and not one body that was picked up had on a life-belt. The
few survivors told how the Salvationists, finding there were not enough
life- preservers for all, took off their own belts and strapped them
upon even strong men, saying, “I can die better than you can;” and from
the deck of that sinking boat they flung their battle-cry around the
world— _Others!_

_Man!_ Sometimes I think God has given us special eyesight with which
to look upon him, We look through the exterior, look through the shell,
look through the coat, and find the man. We look through the ofttimes
repulsive wrappings, through the dark, objectionable coating collected
upon the downward travel of misspent years, through the artificial
veneer of empty seeming-through to the _man_.

He that was made after God’s image.

He that is greater than firmaments, greater than suns, greater than
worlds.

Man, for whom worlds were created, for whom Heavens were canopied, for
whom suns were set ablaze. He in whose being there gleams that immortal
spark we call the soul. And when this war came, it was natural for us
to look to the man-the man under the shabby clothes, enlisting in the
great armies of freedom; the man going down the street under the spick
and span uniform; the man behind the gun, standing in the jaws of death
hurling back world autocracy; the man, the son of liberty, discharging
his obligations to them that are bound; the man, each one of them,
although so young, who when the fates of the world swung in the
balances proved to be _the man of the hour;_ the man, each one of them,
fighting not only for today but for tomorrow, and deciding the world’s
future; the man who gladly died that freedom might not be dead; the man
dear to a hundred million throbbing hearts; the man God loved so much
that to save him He gave His only Son to the unparalleled sacrifice of
Calvary, with its measureless ocean of torment heaving up against His
Heart in one foaming, wrathful, omnipotent surge.

Wherein is price? What constitutes cost, when the question is _The
Man_?




Preface by the Writer


I wish I could give you a picture of Commander Evangeline Booth as I
saw her first, who has been the Source, the Inspiration, the Guide of
this story.

I went to the first conference about this book in curiosity and some
doubt, not knowing whether it was my work; not altogether sure whether
I cared to attempt it. She took my hand and spoke to me. I looked in
her face and saw the shining glory of her great spirit through those
wonderful, beautiful, wise, keen eyes, and all doubts vanished. I
studied the sincerity and beauty of her vivid face as we talked
together, and heard the thrilling tale she was giving me to tell
because she could not take the time from living it to write it, and I
trembled lest she would not find me worthy for so great a task. I knew
that I was being honored beyond women to have been selected as an
instrument through whom the great story of the Salvation Army in the
War might go forth to the world. That I wanted to do it more than any
work that had ever come to my hand, I was certain at once; and that my
whole soul was enmeshed in the wonder of it. It gripped me from the
start. I was over-joyed to find that we were in absolute sympathy from
the first.

One sentence from that earliest talk we had together stands clear in my
memory, and it has perhaps unconsciously shaped the theme which I hope
will be found running through all the book:

“Our people,” said she, flinging out her hands in a lovely embracing
movement, as if she saw before her at that moment those devoted workers
of hers who follow where she leads unquestioningly, and stay not for
fire or foe, or weariness, or peril of any sort:

“Our people know that Christ is a living presence, that they can reach
out and feel He is near: that is why they can live so splendidly and
die so heroically!”

As she spoke a light shone in her face that reminded me of the light
that we read was on Moses’ face after he had spent those days in the
mountain with God; and somewhere back in my soul something was
repeating the words: “And they took knowledge of them that they had
been with Jesus.”

That seems to me to be the whole secret of the wonderful lives and
wonderful work of the Salvation Army. They have become acquainted with
Jesus Christ, whom to know is life eternal; they feel His presence
constantly with them and they live their lives “as seeing Him who is
invisible.” They are a living miracle for the confounding of all who
doubt that there is a God whom mortals may know face to face while they
are yet upon the earth.

The one thing that these people seem to feel is really worth while is
bringing other people to know their Christ. All other things in life
are merely subservient to this, or tributary to it. All their
education, culture and refinement, their amazing organization, their
rare business ability, are just so many tools that they use for the
uplift of others. In fact, the word “others” appears here and there,
printed on small white cards and tacked up over a desk, or in a hallway
near the elevator, anywhere, everywhere all over the great building of
the New York Headquarters, a quiet, unobtrusive, yet startling reminder
of a world of real things in the midst of the busy rush of life.

Yet they do not obtrude their religion. Rather it is a secret joy that
shines unaware through their eyes, and seems to flood their whole being
with happiness so that others can but see. It is there, ready, when the
time comes to give comfort, or advice, or to tell the message of the
gospel in clear ringing sentences in one of their meetings; but it
speaks as well through a smile, or a ripple of song, or a bright funny
story, or something good to eat when one is hungry, as it does through
actual preaching. It is the living Christ, as if He were on earth again
living in them. And when one comes to know them well one knows that He
is!

“Go straight for the salvation of souls: never rest satisfied unless
this end is achieved!” is part of the commission that the Commander
gives to her envoys. It is worth while stopping to think what would be
the effect on the world if every one who has named the name of Christ
should accept that commission and go forth to fulfill it.

And you who have been accustomed to drop your pennies in the tambourine
of the Salvation Army lassies at the street corners, and look upon her
as a representative of a lower class who are doing good “in their way,”
prepare to realize that you have made a mistake. The Salvation Army is
not an organization composed of a lot of ignorant, illiterate, reformed
criminals picked out of the slums. There may be among them many of that
class who by the army’s efforts have been saved from a life of sin and
shame, and lifted up to be useful citizens; but great numbers of them,
the leaders and officers, are refined, educated men and women who have
put Christ and His Kingdom first in their hearts and lives. Their young
people will compare in every way with the best of the young people of
any of our religious denominations.

After the privilege of close association with them for some time I have
come to feel that the most noticeable and lovely thing about the girls
is the way they wear their womanhood, as if it were a flower, or a rare
jewel. One of these girls, who, by the way, had been nine months in
France, all of it under shell fire, said to me:

“I used to wish I had been born a boy, they are not hampered so much as
women are; but after I went to France and saw what a good woman meant
to those boys in the trenches I changed my mind, and I’m glad I was
born a woman. It means a great deal to be a woman.”

And so there is no coquetry about these girls, no little personal
vanity such as girls who are thinking of themselves often have. They
take great care to be neat and sweet and serviceable, but as they are
not thinking of themselves, but only how they may serve, they are blest
with that loveliest of all adorning, a meek and quiet spirit and a joy
of living and content that only forgetfulness of self and communion
with Jesus Christ can bring.

I feel as if I would like to thank every one of them, men and women and
young girls, who have so kindly and generously and wholeheartedly given
me of their time and experiences and put at my disposal their
correspondence to enrich this story, and have helped me to go over the
ground of the great American drives in the war and see what they saw,
hear what they heard, and feel as they felt. It has been one of the
greatest experiences of my life.

And she, their God-given leader, that wonderful woman whose wise hand
guides every detail of this marvellous organization in America, and
whose well furnished mind is ever thinking out new ways to serve her
Master, Christ; what shall I say of her whom I have come to know and
love so well?

Her exceptional ability as a public speaker is of the widest fame,
while comparatively few, beyond those of her most trusted Officers, are
brought into admiring touch with her brilliant executive powers. All
these, however, unite in most unstinted praise and declare that
functioning in this sphere, the Commander even excels her platform
triumphs. But one must know her well and watch her every day to
understand her depth of insight into character, her wideness of vision,
her skill of making adverse circumstances serve her ends. Born with an
innate genius for leadership, swallowed up in her work, wholly
consecrated to God and His service, she looks upon men, as it were,
with the eyes of the God she loves, and sees the best in everybody. She
sees their faults also, but she sees the good, and is able to take that
good and put it to account, while helping them out of their faults.
Those whom she has so helped would kiss the hem of her garment as she
passes. It is easy to see why she is a leader of men. It is easy to see
who has made the Army here in America. It is easy to see who has
inspired the brave men and wonderful women who went to France and
labored.

She would not have me say these things of her, for she is humble, as
such a great leader should be, knowing all her gifts and attainments to
be but the glory of her Lord; and this is her book. Only in this
chapter can I speak and say what I will, for it is not my book. But
here, too, I waive my privilege and bow to my Commander.

[Grace Livingston Hill]




The War Romance of the Salvation Army

I.


Into the heavy shadows that swathe the feet of the tall buildings in
West Fourteenth Street, New York, late in the evening there slipped a
dark form. It was so carefully wrapped in a black cloak that it was
difficult to tell among the other shadows whether it was man or woman,
and immediately it became a part of the darkness that hovered close to
the entrances along the way. It slid almost imperceptibly from shadow
to shadow until it crouched flatly against the wall by the steps of an
open door out of which streamed a wide band of light that flung itself
across the pavement.

Down the street came two girls in poke bonnets and hurried in at the
open door. The figure drew back and was motionless as they passed, then
with a swift furtive glance in either direction a head came cautiously
out from the shadow and darted a look after the two lassies, watched
till they were out of sight, and a form slid into the doorway, winding
about the turning like a serpent, as if the way were well planned, and
slipped out of sight in a dark corner under the stairway.

Half an hour or perhaps an hour passed, and one or two hurrying forms
came in at the door and sped up the stairs from some errand of mercy;
then the night watchman came and fastened the door and went away again,
out somewhere through a back room.

The interloper was instantly on the alert, darting out of its hiding
place, and slipping noiselessly up the stairs as quietly as the shadow
it imitated; pausing to listen with anxious mien, stepping as a cloud
might have stepped with no creak of stairway or sound of going at all.

Up, up, up and up again, it darted, till it came to the very top,
pausing to look sharply at a gleam of light under a door of some
student not yet asleep.

From under the dark cloak slid a hand with something in it. Silently it
worked, swiftly, pouring a few drops here, a few drops there, of some
colorless, odorless matter, smearing a spot on the stair railing,
another across from it on the wall, a little on the floor beyond, a
touch on the window seat at the end of the hall, some more on down the
stairs.

On rubbered feet the fiend crept down; halting, listening, ever working
rapidly, from floor to floor and back to the entrance way again. At
last with a cautious glance around, a pause to rub a match skilfully
over the woolen cloak, and to light a fuse in a hidden corner, he
vanished out upon the street like the passing of a wraith, and was gone
in the darkness.

Down in the dark corner the little spark brooded and smouldered. The
watchman passed that way but it gave no sign. All was still in the
great building, as the smouldering spark crept on and on over its
little thread of existence to the climax.

But suddenly, it sprang to life! A flame leaped up like a great tongue
licking its lips before the feast it was about to devour; and then it
sprang as if it were human, to another spot not far away; and then to
another, and on, and on up the stair rail, across to the wall, leaping,
roaring, almost shouting as if in fiendish glee. It flew to the top of
the house and down again in a leap and the whole building was enveloped
in a sheet of flame!

Some one gave the cry of Fire! The night watchman darted to his box and
sent in the alarm. Frightened girls in night attire crowded to their
doors and gasping fell back for an instant in horror; then bravely
obedient to their training dashed forth into the flame. Young men on
other floors without a thought for themselves dropped into order
automatically and worked like madmen to save everyone. The fire engines
throbbed up almost immediately, but the building was doomed from the
start and went like tinder. Only the fire drill in which they had
constant almost daily practice saved those brave girls and boys from an
awful death. Out upon the fire escapes in the bitter winter wind the
girls crept down to safety, and one by one the young men followed. The
young man who was fire sergeant counted his men and found them all
present but one cadet. He darted back to find him, and that moment with
a last roar of triumph the flames gave a final leap and the building
collapsed, burying in a fiery grave two fine young heroes. Afterward
they said the building had been “smeared” or it never could have gone
in a breath as it did. The miracle was that no more lives were lost.

So that was how the burning of the Salvation Army Training School
occurred.

The significant fact in the affair was that there had been sleeping in
that building directly over the place where the fire started several of
the lassies who were to sail for France in a day or two with the
largest party of war workers that had yet been sent out. Their trunks
were packed, and they were all ready to go. The object was all too
evident.

There was also proof that the intention had been to destroy as well the
great fireproof Salvation Army National Headquarters building adjoining
the Training School.

A few days later a detective taking lunch in a small German restaurant
on a side street overheard a conversation:

“Well, if we can’t burn them out we’ll blow up the building, and get
that damn Commander, anyhow!”

Yet when this was told her the Commander declined the bodyguard offered
her by the Civic Authorities, to go with her even to her country home
and protect her while the war lasted! She is naturally a soldier.

The Commander had stayed late at the Headquarters one evening to finish
some important bit of work, and had given orders that she should not be
interrupted. The great building was almost empty save for the night
watchman, the elevator man, and one or two others.

She was hard at work when her secretary appeared with an air of
reluctance to tell her that the elevator man said there were three
ladies waiting downstairs to see her on some very important business.
He had told them that she could not be disturbed but they insisted that
they must see her, that she would wish it if she knew their business.
He had come up to find out what he should answer them.

The Commander said she knew nothing about them and could not be
interrupted now. They must be told to come again the next day.

The elevator man returned in a few minutes to say that the ladies
insisted, and said they had a great gift for the Salvation Army, but
must see the Commander at once and alone or the gift would be lost.

Quickly interested the Commander gave orders that they should be
brought up to her office, but just as they were about to enter, the
secretary came in again with great excitement, begging that she would
not see the visitors, as one of the men from downstairs had ’phoned up
to her that he did not like the appearance of the strangers; they
seemed to be trying to talk in high strained voices, and they had very
large feet. Maybe they were not women at all.

The Commander laughed at the idea, but finally yielded when another of
her staff entered and begged her not to see strangers alone so late at
night; and the callers were informed that they would have to return in
the morning if they wished an interview.

Immediately they became anything but ladylike in their manner,
declaring that the Salvation Army did not deserve a gift and should
have nothing from them. The elevator man’s suspicions were aroused. The
ladies were attired in long automobile cloaks, and close caps with
large veils, and he studied them carefully as he carried them down to
the street floor once more, following them to the outer door. He was
surprised to find that no automobile awaited them outside. As they
turned to walk down the street, he was sure he caught a glimpse of a
trouser leg from beneath one of the long cloaks, and with a stride he
covered the space between the door and his elevator where was a
telephone, and called up the police station. In a few moments more the
three “ladies” found themselves in custody, and proved to be three men
well armed.

But when the Commander was told the truth about them she surprisingly
said: “I’m sorry I didn’t see them. I’m sure they would have done me no
harm and I might have done them some good.”

But if she is courageous, she is also wise as a serpent, and knows when
to keep her own counsel.

During the early days of the war when there were many important matters
to be decided and the Commander was needed everywhere, she came
straight from a conference in Washington to a large hotel in one of the
great western cities where she had an appointment to speak that night.
At the revolving door of the hotel stood a portly servitor in house
uniform who was most kind and noticeably attentive to her whenever she
entered or went out, and was constantly giving her some pointed little
attention to draw her notice. Finally, she stopped for a moment to
thank him, and he immediately became most flattering, telling her he
knew all about the Salvation Army, that he had a brother in its ranks,
was deeply interested in their work in France, and most proud of what
they were doing. He told her he had lived in Washington and said he
supposed she often went there. She replied pleasantly that she had but
just come from there, but some keen intuition began to warn this
wise-hearted woman and when the next question, though spoken most
casually, was: “Where are the Salvation Army workers now in France?”
she replied evasively:

“Oh, wherever they are most needed,” and passed on with a friend.

“I believe that man is a spy!” she said to her friend with conviction
in her voice.

“Nonsense!” the friend replied; “you are growing nervous. That man has
been in this hotel for several years.”

But that very night the man, with five others, was arrested, and proved
to be a spy hunting information about the location of the American
troops in France.

Now these incidents do not belong in just this spot in the book, but
they are placed here of intention that the reader may have a certain
viewpoint from which to take the story. For well does the world of evil
realize what a strong force of opponents to their dark deeds is found
in this great Christian organization. Sometimes one is able the better
to judge a man, his character and strength, when one knows who are his
enemies.


It was the beginning of the dark days of 1917.

The Commander sat in her quiet office, that office through which,
except on occasions like this when she locked the doors for a few
minutes’ special work, there marched an unbroken procession of men and
affairs, affecting both souls and nations.

Before her on the broad desk lay the notes of a new address which she
was preparing to deliver that evening, but her eyes were looking out of
the wide window, across the clustering roofs of the great city to the
white horizon line, and afar over the great water to the terrible scene
of the Strife of Nations.

For a long time her thoughts had been turning that way, for she had
many beloved comrades in that fight, both warring and ministering to
the fighters, and she had often longed to go herself, had not her work
held her here. But now at last the call had come! America had entered
the great war, and in a few days her sons would be marching from all
over the land and embarking for over the seas to fling their young
lives into that inferno; and behind them would stalk, as always in the
wake of War, Pain and Sorrow and Sin! Especially Sin. She shuddered as
she thought of it all. The many subtle temptations to one who is lonely
and in a foreign land.

Her eyes left the far horizon and hovered over the huddling roofs that
represented so many hundreds of thousands of homes. So many mothers to
give up their sons; so many wives to be bereft; so many men and boys to
be sent forth to suffer and be tried; so many hearts already
overburdened to be bowed beneath a heavier load! Oh, her people! Her
beloved people, whose sorrows and burdens and sins she bore in her
heart and carried to the feet of the Master every day! And now this
war!

And those young men, hardly more than children, some of them! With her
quick insight and deep knowledge of the world, she visualized the way
of fire down which they must walk, and her soul was stricken with the
thought of it! It was her work and the work of her chosen Army to help
and save, but what could she do in such a momentous crisis as this? She
had no money for new work. Opportunities had opened up so fast. The
Treasury was already overtaxed with the needs on this side of the
water. There were enterprises started that could not be given up
without losing precious souls who were on the way toward becoming
redeemed men and women, fit citizens of this world and the next. There
was no surplus, ever! The multifarious efforts to meet the needs of the
poorest of the cities’ poor, alone, kept everyone on the strain. There
seemed no possibility of doing more. Besides, how could they spare the
workers to meet the new demand without taking them from places where
they were greatly needed at home? And other perplexities darkened the
way. There were those sitting in high places of authority who had
strongly advised the Salvation Army to remain at home and go on with
their street meetings, telling them that the battlefield was no place
for them, they would only be in the way. They were not adapted to a
thing like war. But well she knew the capacity of the Salvation Army to
adapt itself to whatever need or circumstance presented. The same
standard they had borne into the most wretched places of earth in times
of peace would do in times of war.

Out there across the waters the Salvation Brothers and Sisters were
ministering to the British armies at the front, and now that the
American army was going, too, duty seemed very clear; the call was most
imperative!

The written pages on her desk loudly demanded attention and the
Commander tried to bring her thoughts back to them once more, but again
and again the call sounded in her heart.

She lifted her eyes to the wall across the room from her desk where
hung the life-like portrait of her Christian-Warrior father, the grand
old keen-eyed, wise-hearted General, founder of the movement. Like her
father she knew they must go. There was no question about it. No
hindrance should stop them. They must go! The warrior blood ran in her
veins. In this the world’s greatest calamity they must fulfill the
mission for which he lived and died.

“Go!” Those pictured eyes seemed to speak to her, just as they used to
command her when he was here: “You must go and bear the standard of the
Cross to the front. Those boys are going over there, many of them to
die, and some are telling them that if they make the supreme sacrifice
in this their country’s hour of need it will be all right with them
when they go into the world beyond. But when they get over there under
shell fire they will know that it is not so, and they will need Christ,
the only atonement for sin. You must go and take the Christ to them.”

Then the Commander bowed her head, accepting the commission; and there
in the quiet room perhaps the Master Himself stood beside her and gave
her his charge—just as she would later charge those whom she would send
across the water—telling her that He was depending upon the Salvation
Army to bear His standard to the war.

Perhaps it was at this same high conference with her Lord that she
settled it in her heart that Lieutenant-Colonel William S. Barker was
to be the pioneer to blaze the way for the work in France.

However that may be he was an out-and-out Salvationist, of long and
varied experience. He was chosen equally for his proved consecration to
service, for his unselfishness, for his exceptional and remarkable
natural courage by which he was afraid of nothing, and for his
unwavering persistence in plans once made in spite of all difficulties.
The Commander once said of him: “If you want to see him at his best you
must put him face to face with a stone wall and tell him he must get on
the other side of it. No matter what the cost or toil, whether hated or
loved, he would get there!”

Thus carefully, prayerfully, were each one of the other workers
selected; each new selection born from the struggle of her soul in
prayer to God that there might be no mistakes, no unwise choices, no
messengers sent forth who went for their own ends and not for the glory
of God. Here lies the secret which makes the world wonder to-day why
the Salvation Army workers are called “the real thing” by the soldiers.
They were hand-picked by their leader on the mount, face to face with
God.

She took no casual comer, even with offers of money to back them, and
there were some of immense wealth who pleaded to be of the little band.
She sent only those whom she knew and had tried. Many of them had been
born and reared in the Salvation Army, with Christlike fathers and
mothers who had made their homes a little piece of heaven below. All of
them were consecrated, and none went without the urgent answering call
in their own hearts.

It was early in June, 1917, when Colonel Barker sailed to France with
his commission to look the field over and report upon any and every
opportunity for the Salvation Army to serve the American troops.

In order to pave his way before reaching France, Colonel Barker secured
a letter of introduction from Secretary-to-the-President Tumulty, to
the American Ambassador in France, Honorable William G. Sharp.

In connection with this letter a curious and interesting incident
occurred. When Colonel Barker entered the Secretary’s office, he
noticed him sitting at the other end of the room talking with a
gentleman. He was about to take a seat near the door when Mr. Tumulty
beckoned to him to come to the desk. When he was seated, without
looking directly at the other gentleman, the Colonel began to state his
mission to Mr. Tumulty. Before he had finished the stranger spoke up to
Mr. Tumulty: “Give the Colonel what he wants and make it a good one!”
And lo! he was not a stranger, but a man whose reform had made no small
sensation in New York circles several years before, a former attorney
who through his wicked life had been despaired of and forsaken by his
wealthy relatives, who had sunk to the lowest depths of sin and poverty
and been rescued by the Salvation Army.

Continuing to Mr. Tumulty, he said: “You know what the Salvation Army
has done for me; now do what you can for the Salvation Army.”

Mr. Tumulty gave him a most kind letter of introduction to the American
Ambassador.

On his arrival in Liverpool Colonel Barker availed himself of the
opportunity to see the very splendid work being done by the Salvation
Army with the British troops, both in France and in England, visiting
many Salvation Army huts and hostels. He also put the Commander’s plans
for France before General Bramwell Booth in London.

As early as possible Colonel Barker presented his letter of
introduction to the American Ambassador, who in turn provided him with
a letter of introduction to General Pershing which insured a cordial
reception by him. Mr. Sharp informed Colonel Barker that he understood
the policy of the American army was to grant a monopoly of all welfare
work to the Y.M.C.A. He feared the Salvation Army would not be welcome,
but assured him that anything he could properly do to assist the
Salvation Army would be most gladly done. In this connection he stated
that he had known of and been interested in the work of the Salvation
Army for many years, that several men of his acquaintance had been
converted through their activities and been reformed from dissolute,
worthless characters to kind husbands and fathers and good business
men; and that he believed in the Salvation Army work as a consequence.

On many occasions during the subsequent months, Mr. Sharp was never too
busy to see the Salvation Army representatives, and has rendered
valuable assistance in facilitating the forwarding of additional
workers by his influence with the State Department.

It appeared that among military officers a kind feeling existed toward
the Salvation Army, though it was generally thought that there was no
opening for their service. Their conception of the Salvation Army was
that of street corner meetings and public charity. The officers at that
time could not see that the soldiers needed charity or that they would
be interested in religion. They could see how a reading-room, game-room
and entertainments might be helpful, but anything further than that
they did not consider necessary.

Colonel Barker presented his letter of introduction to General
Pershing, and on behalf of Commander Booth offered the services of the
Salvation Army in any form which might be desired.

General Pershing, who received the Colonel with exceptional cordiality,
suggested that he go out to the camps, look the field over, and report
to him. Calling in his chief of staff he gave instructions that a side
car should be placed at Colonel Barker’s disposal to go out to the
camps; and also that a letter of introduction to the General commanding
the First Division should be given to him, asking that everything
should be done to help him.

The first destination was Gondrecourt, where the First Division
Headquarters was established.




II.
The Gondrecourt Area


The advance guard of the American Expeditionary Forces had landed in
France, and other detachments were arriving almost daily. They were
received by the French with open arms and a big parade as soon as they
landed. Flowers were tossed in their path and garlands were flung about
them. They were lauded and praised on every hand. On the crest of this
wave of enthusiasm they could have swept joyously into battle and never
lost their smiles.

But instead of going to the front at once they were billeted in little
French villages and introduced to French rain and French mud.

When one discovers that the houses are built of stone, stuck together
mainly by this mud of the country, and remembers how many years they
have stood, one gets a passing idea of the nature of this mud about
which the soldiers have written home so often. It is more like Portland
cement than anything else, and it is most penetrative and hard to get
rid of; it gets in the hair, down the neck, into the shoes and it
sticks. If the soldier wears hip-boots in the trenches he must take
them off every little while and empty the mud out of them which somehow
manages to get into even hip-boots. It is said that one reason the
soldiers were obliged to wear the wrapped leggings was, not that they
would keep the water out, but that they would strain the mud and at
least keep the feet comparatively clean.


[Illustration: Lieutenant-Colonel William S. Barker
Director of War Work in France]

[Illustration: “Introduced to French Rain and French Mud”]

There were sixteen of these camps at this time and probably twelve or
thirteen thousand soldiers were already established in them.

There was no great cantonment as at the camps on this side of the
water, nor yet a city of tents, as one might have expected. The forming
of a camp meant the taking over of all available buildings in the
little French peasant villages. The space was measured up by the town
mayor and the battalion leader and the proper number of men assigned to
each building. In this way a single division covered a territory of
about thirty kilometers. This system made a camp of any size available
in very short order and also fooled the Huns, who were on the lookout
for American camps.

These villages were the usual farming villages, typical of eastern
France. They are not like American villages, but a collection of farm
yards, the houses huddled together years ago for protection against
roving bands of marauders. The farmer, instead of living upon his land,
lives in the village, and there he has his barn for his cattle, his
manure pile is at his front door, the drainage from it seeps back under
the house at will, his chickens and pigs running around the streets.

These houses were built some five or eight hundred years ago, some a
thousand or twelve hundred years. One house in the town aroused much
curiosity because it was called the “new” house. It looked just like
all the others. One who was curious asked why it should have received
this appellative and was told because it was the last one that was
built—only two hundred and fifty years ago.

There is a narrow hall or court running through these houses which is
all that separates the family from the horses and pigs and cows which
abide under the same roof.

The whole place smells alike. There is no heat anywhere, save from a
fireplace in the kitchen. There is a community bakehouse.

The soldiers were quartered in the barns and outhouses, the officers
were quartered in the homes of these French peasants. There were no
comforts for either soldier or officer. It rained almost continuously
and at night it was cold. No dining-rooms could be provided where the
men could eat and they lined up on the street, got their chow and ate
it standing in the rain or under whatever cover they could find. Few of
them could understand any French, and all the conditions surrounding
their presence in France were most trying to them. They were drilled
from morning to night. They were covered with mud. The great fight in
which they had come to participate was still afar off. No wonder their
hearts grew heavy with a great longing for home. Gloom sat upon their
faces and depression grew with every passing hour.

Into these villages one after another came the little military side-car
with its pioneer Salvationists, investigating conditions and inquiring
the greatest immediate need of the men.

All the soldiers were homesick, and wherever the little car stopped the
Salvation Army uniform attracted immediate and friendly attention. The
boys expressed the liveliest interest in the possibility of the
Salvation Army being with them in France. These troops composed the
regular army and were old-timers. They showed at once their respect for
and their belief in the Salvation Army. One poor fellow, when he saw
the uniform, exclaimed: “The Salvation Army! I believe they’ll be
waiting for us when we get to hell to try and save us!”

It appeared that the pay of the American soldier was so much greater
than that of the French soldier that he had too much money at his
disposal; and this money was a menace both to him and to the French
population. If some means could be provided for transferring the
soldier’s money home, it would help out in the one direction which was
most important at that time.

It will be remembered that the French habit of drinking wine was ever
before the American soldier, and with 165 francs a month in his pocket,
he became an object of interest to the French tradespeople, who
encouraged him to spend his money in drink, and who also raised the
price on other commodities to a point where the French population found
it made living for them most difficult.

The Salvation Army authorities in New York were all prepared to meet
this need. The Organization has one thousand posts throughout the
United States commanded by officers who would become responsible to get
the soldier’s money to his family or relatives in the United States. A
simple money-order blank issued in France could be sent to the National
Headquarters of the Salvation Army in New York and from there to the
officer commanding the corps in any part of the United States, who
would deliver the money in person.

In this way the friends and relatives of the soldier in France would be
comforted in the knowledge that the Salvation Army was in touch with
their boy; and if need existed in the family at home it would be
discovered through the visit of the Salvation Army officer in the
homeland and immediate steps taken to alleviate it.

Perhaps this has done more than anything else to bring the blessing of
parents and relatives upon the organization, for tens of thousands of
dollars that would have been spent in gambling and drink have been sent
home to widowed mothers and young wives.

This suggestion appealed very strongly to the military general, who
said that if the Salvation Army got into operation it could count upon
any assistance which he could give it, and if they conducted meetings
he would see that his regimental band was instructed to attend these
meetings and furnish the music.

Several chaplains, both Protestant and Catholic, expressed themselves
as being glad to welcome the Salvation Army among them.

Among the Regular Army officers there was rather a pessimistic
attitude. It was in nowise hostile, but rather doubtful.

One general said that he did not see that the Salvation Army could do
any good. His idea of the Salvation Army being associated altogether
with the slums and men who were down and out. But on the other hand, he
said that he did not see that the Salvation Army could do any harm,
even if they did not do any good, and as far as he was concerned he was
agreeable to their coming in to work in the First Division; and he
would so report to General Pershing.

St. Nazaire, the base, was being used for the reception of the troops
as they reached the shores of France. Here was a new situation. The men
had been cooped up on transports for several days and on their landing
at St. Nazaire they were placed in a rest camp with the opportunity to
visit the city. Here they were a prey to immoral women and the officer
commanding the base was greatly concerned about the matter and eagerly
welcomed the idea of having the Salvation Army establish good women in
St. Nazaire who would cope with the problem.

The report given to General Pershing resulted in an official
authorization permitting the Salvation Army to open their work with the
American Expeditionary Forces, and a suggestion that they go at once to
the American Training Area and see what they could do to alleviate the
terrible epidemic of homesickness that had broken out among the
soldiers.

In the meantime, back in New York, the Commander had not been idle.
Daily before the throne she had laid the great concerns of her Army,
and daily she had been preparing her first little company of workers to
go when the need should call.

There was no money as yet, but the Commander was not to be daunted, and
so when the report came from over the water, she borrowed from the
banks twenty-five thousand dollars.

She called the little company of pioneer workers together in a quiet
place before they left and gave them such a charge as would make an
angel search his heart. Before the Most High God she called upon them
to tell her if any of them had in his or her heart any motive or
ambition in going other than to serve the Lord Christ. She looked down
into the eyes of the young maidens and bade them put utterly away from
them the arts and coquetries of youth, and remember that they were sent
forth to help and save and love the souls of men as God loved them; and
that self must be forgotten, or their work would be in vain. She
commanded them if even at this last hour any faltered or felt himself
unfit for the God-given task, that he would tell her even then before
it was too late. She begged them to remember that they held in their
hands the honor of the Salvation Army, and the glory of Jesus Christ
their Saviour as they went out to serve the troops. They were to be
living examples of Christ’s love, and they were to be willing to lay
down their lives if need be for His sake.

There were tears in the eyes of some of those strong men that day as
they listened, and the look of exaltation on the faces of the women was
like a reflection from above. So must have looked the disciples of old
when Jesus gave them the commission to go into all the world and preach
the gospel. They were filled with His Spirit, and there was a look of
utter joy and self-forgetfulness as they knelt with their leader to
pray, in words which carried them all to the very feet of God and laid
their lives a willing sacrifice to Him who had done so much for them.
Still kneeling, with bowed heads, they sang, and their words were but a
prayer. It is a way these wonderful people have of bursting into song
upon their knees with their eyes closed and faces illumined by a light
of another world, their whole souls in the words they are
singing—“singing as unto the Lord!” It reminds one of the days of old
when the children of Israel did everything with songs and prayers and
rejoicing, and the whole of life was carried on as if in the visible
presence of God, instead of utterly ignoring Him as most of us do now.

The song this time was just a few lines of consecration:

“Oh, for a heart whiter than snow!
 Saviour Divine, to whom else can I go?
    Thou who hast died, loving me so,
    Give me a heart that is whiter than snow!”

The dramatic beauty of the scene, the sweet, holy abandonment of that
prayer-song with its tender, appealing melody, would have held a throng
of thousands in awed wonder. But there was no audience, unless,
perchance, the angels gathered around the little company, rejoicing
that in this world of sin and war there were these who had so given
themselves to God; but from that glory-touched room there presently
went forth men and women with the spirit in their hearts that was to
thrill like an electric wire every life with which it came in contact,
and show the whole world what God can do with lives that are wholly
surrendered to Him.

[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 was 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.

Two small stoves cast circles of heat in the big hut at Demange. Around
them the men crowded with their wet garments steaming so profusely that
the hut often took on the appearance of a steam-room in a Turkish bath.
The rest of the hut was cold; but compared to the weather outside, it
was heaven-like. For all of its size, the hut was frail, and the winter
wind blew coldly through its many cracks; but compared with the
soldier’s billets, it was a cozy palace. The Salvationists spent hours
each week sitting on the roof in the driving rain patching leaks with
tar-paper and tacks.

The life was a hard one for the girls. They nearly froze during the
days, and at nights they usually shivered themselves to sleep, only
sleeping when sheer exhaustion overcame them. There were no baths at
all. The experience was most trying for women and only the spirit of
the great enterprise in which they were engaged carried them through
the winter. Even soldiers were at times seen weeping with cold and
misery.

One night the gasoline tank which supplied light to the hut exploded
and set the place on fire. A whole regiment turned out of their
blankets to put out the blaze. This meant more hours for those in
charge repairing the roof in the snow. They also had to cut all of the
wood for the hut. Later details were supplied to every hut by the
military authorities to cut wood, sweep and clean up, carry water,
_etc_. Soldiers used the hut for a mess hall. There was no other place
where they could eat with any degree of comfort.

By this time the fact that the Salvation Army was established at
Demange was becoming known throughout the division.

One of the towns where there had been no arrangements made for welfare
workers at all was Montiers-sur-Saulx, where the First Ammunition Train
was established, and here the officer temporarily commanding the
ammunition train gave a most hearty welcome to the Salvation Army.

Two large circus tents had been sent on from New York and one of these
was to be erected until a wooden building could be secured.

The touring car went back to Demange, picked up a Staff-Captain, a
Captain, five white tents, the largest one thirty by sixty feet, the
others smaller, carried them across the country and dropped them down
at the roadside of the public square in Montiers.

There stood the Salvationists in the road wondering what to do next.

Then a hearty voice called out: “Are you locating with us?” and the
military officer of the day advanced to meet them with a hand-shake and
many expressions of his appreciation of the Salvation Army.

“We are going to stay here if you will have us,” said the
Staff-Captain.

“Have you! Well, I should say we would have you! Wait a minute and I’ll
have a detail put your baggage under cover for the night. Then we’ll
see about dinner and a billet.”

Thus auspiciously did the work open in Montiers.

In a few minutes they were taken to a French café and a comfortable
place found for them to spend the night.

Soon after the rising of the sun the next morning they were up and
about hunting a place for the tents which were to serve for a
recreation centre for the boys. The American Major in charge of the
town personally assisted them to find a good location, and offered his
aid in any way needed.

Before nightfall the five white tents were up, standing straight and
true with military precision, and the two officers with just pride in
their hard day’s work, and a secret assurance that it would stand the
hearty approval of the commanding officer whom they had not as yet met,
went off to their suppers, for which they had a more than usually
hearty appetite.

Suddenly the door of the dining-room swung open and a gruff voice
demanded: “Who put up those tents?” The Salvation Army Staff-Captain
stood forth saluting respectfully and responded: “I, sir.” “Well,” said
the Colonel, “they look mighty fine up on that hill—mighty fine!
Splendid location for them—splendid! But the enemy can spot them for a
hundred miles, so I expect you had better get them down or camouflage
them with green boughs and paint by tomorrow night at the latest. Good
evening to you, sir!”

The Staff-Captain and his helper suddenly lost their fine appetites and
felt very tired. Camouflage! How did they do that at a moment’s notice?
They left their unfinished dinner and hurried out in search of help.

The first soldier the Staff-Captain questioned reassured him.

“Aw, that’s dead easy! Go over the hill into the woods and cut some
branches, enough to cover your tents; or easier yet, get some green and
yellow paint and splash over them. The worse they look the better they
are!”

So the weary workers hunted the town over for paint, and found only
enough for the big tent, upon which they worked hard all the next
morning. Then they had to go to the woods for branches for the rest.
Scratched and bleeding and streaked with perspiration and dirt, they
finished their work at last, and the white tents had disappeared into
the green and the yellow and the brown of the hillside. Their beautiful
military whiteness was gone, but they were hidden safe from the enemy
and the work might now go forward.

Then the girls arrived and things began to look a bit more cheerful.

“But where is the cook stove?” asked one of the lassies after they had
set up their two folding cots in one of the smaller tents and made
themselves at home.

Dismay descended upon the face of the weary Staff-Captain.

“Why,” he answered apologetically, “we forgot all about that!” and he
hurried out to find a stove.

A thorough search of the surrounding country, however, disclosed the
fact that there was not a stove nor a field range to be had—no, not
even from the commissary. There was nothing for it but to set to work
and contrive a fireplace out of field stone and clay, with a bit of
sheet iron for a roof, and two or three lengths of old sewer pipe
carefully wired together for a stovepipe. It took days of hard work,
and it smoked woefully except when the wind was exactly west, but the
girls made fudge enough on it for the entire personnel of the
Ammunition train to celebrate when it was finished.

When the girls first arrived in Montiers the Salvation Army
Staff-Captain was rather at a loss to know what to do with them until
the hut was built. They were invited to chow with the soldiers, and to
eat in an old French barn used as a kitchen, in front of which the men
lined up at the open doorways for mess. It was a very dirty barn
indeed, with heavy cobwebs hanging in weird festoons from the ceiling
and straw and manure all over the floor; quite too barnlike for a
dining-hall for delicately reared women. The Staff-Captain hesitated
about bringing them there, but the Mess-Sergeant offered to clean up a
corner for them and give them a comfortable table.

“I don’t know about bringing my girls in here with the men,” said the
Staff-Captain still hesitating. “You know the men are pretty rough in
their talk, and they’re always cussing!”

“Leave that to me!” said the Mess-Sergeant. “It’ll be all right!”

There was an old dirty French wagon in the barnyard where they kept the
bread. It was not an inviting prospect and the Staff-Captain looked
about him dubiously and went away with many misgivings, but there
seemed to be nothing else to be done.

The boys did their best to fix things up nicely. When meal time arrived
and the girls appeared they found their table neatly spread with a dish
towel for a tablecloth. It purported to be clean, but there are degrees
of cleanliness in the army and there might have been a difference of
opinion. However, the girls realized that there had been a strenuous
attempt to do honor to them and they sat down on the coffee kegs that
had been provided _en lieu_ of chairs with smiling appreciation.

The Staff-Captain’s anxiety began to relax as he noticed the quiet
respectful attitude of the men when they passed by the doorway and
looked eagerly over at the corner where the girls were sitting. It was
great to have American women sitting down to dinner with them, as it
were. Not a “cuss word” broke the harmony of the occasion. The best
cuts of meat, the largest pieces of pie, were given to the girls, and
everybody united to make them feel how welcome they were.

Then into the midst of the pleasant scene there entered one who had
been away for a few hours and had not yet been made acquainted with the
new order of things at chow; and he entered with an oath upon his lips.

He was a great big fellow, but the strong arm of the Mess-Sergeant
flashed out from the shoulder instantly, the sturdy fist of the
Mess-Sergeant was planted most unexpectedly in the newcomer’s face, and
he found himself sprawling on the other side of the road with all his
comrades glaring at him in silent wrath. That was the beginning of a
new order of things at the mess.

The Colonel in charge of the regiment had gone away, and the commanding
Major, wishing to make things pleasant for the Salvationists, sent for
the Staff-Captain and invited them all to his mess at the chateau;
telling him that if he needed anything at any time, horses or supplies,
or anything in his power to give, to let him know at once and it should
be supplied.

The Staff-Captain thanked him, but told him that he thought they would
stay with the boys.

The boys, of course, heard of this and the Salvation Army people had
another bond between them and the soldiers. The boys felt that the
Salvationists were their very own. Nothing could have more endeared
them to the boys than to share their life and hardships.

The Salvation Army had not been with the soldiers many hours before
they discovered that the disease of homesickness which they had been
sent to succor was growing more and more malignant and spreading fast.

The training under French officers was very severe. Trench feet with
all its attendant suffering was added to the other discomforts. Was it
any wonder that homesickness seized hold of every soldier there?

It had been raining steadily for thirty-six days, making swamps and
pools everywhere. Depression like a great heavy blanket hung over the
whole area.

The Salvation Army lassies at Montiers were in consultation. Their
supplies were all gone, and the state of the roads on account of the
rain was such that all transportation was held up. They had been
waiting, hoping against hope, that a new load of supplies would arrive,
but there seemed no immediate promise of that.

“We ought to have something more than just chocolate to sell to the
soldiers, anyway,” declared one lassie, who was a wonderful cook,
looking across the big tent to the drooping shoulders and discouraged
faces of the boys who were hovering about the Victrola, trying to
extract a little comfort from the records. “We ought to be able to give
them some real home cooking!”

They all agreed to this, but the difficulties in the way were great.
Flour was obtainable only in small quantities. Now and then they could
get a sack of flour or a bag of sugar, but not often. Lard also was a
scarce article. Besides, there were no stoves, and no equipment had as
yet been issued for ovens. All about them were apple orchards and they
might have baked some pies if there had been ovens, but at present that
was out of the question. After a long discussion one of the girls
suggested doughnuts, and even that had its difficulties, although it
really was the only thing possible at the time. For one thing they had
no rolling-pin and no cake-cutter in the outfit. Nevertheless, they
bravely went to work. The little tent intended for such things had
blown down, so the lassie had to stand out in the rain to prepare the
dough.

The first doughnuts were patted out, until someone found an empty
grape-juice bottle and used that for a rolling-pin. As they had no
cutter they used a knife, and twisted them, making them in shape like a
cruller. They were cooked over a wood fire that had to be continually
stuffed with fuel to keep the fat hot enough to fry. The pan they used
was only large enough to cook seven at once, but that first day they
made one hundred and fifty big fat sugary doughnuts, and when the
luscious fragrance began to float out on the air and word went forth
that they had real “honest-to-goodness” home doughnuts at the Salvation
Army hut, the line formed away out into the road and stood patiently
for hours in the rain waiting for a taste of the dainties. As there
were eight hundred men in the outfit and only a hundred and fifty
doughnuts that first day, naturally a good many were disappointed, but
those who got them were appreciative. One boy as he took the first
sugary bite exclaimed: “Gee! If this is war, let it continue!”

The next day the girls managed to make three hundred, but one of them
was not satisfied with a doughnut that had no hole in it, and while she
worked she thought, until a bright idea came to her. The top of the
baking-powder can! Of course! Why hadn’t they thought of that before?
But how could they get the hole? There seemed nothing just right to cut
it. Then, the very next morning the inside tube to the coffee
percolator that somebody had brought along came loose, and the lassie
stood in triumph with it in her hand, calling to them all to see what a
wonderful hole it would make in the doughnut. And so the doughnut came
into its own, hole and all.

That was at Montiers, the home of the doughnut.

One of the older Salvation Army workers remarked jocularly that the
Salvation Army had to go to France and get linked up with the doughnut
before America recognized it; but it was the same old Salvation Army
and the same old doughnut that it had always been. He averred that it
wasn’t the doughnut at all that made the Salvation Army famous, but the
wonderful girls that the Salvation Army brought over there; the girls
that lay awake at night after a long hard day’s work scheming to make
the way of the doughboy easier; scheming how to take the cold out of
the snow and the wet out of the rain and the stickiness out of the mud.
The girls that prayed over the doughnuts, and then got the maximum of
grace out of the minimum of grease.

The young Adjutant lassie who fried the first doughnut in France says
that invariably the boys would begin to talk about home and mother
while they were eating the doughnuts. Through the hole in the doughnut
they seemed to see their mother’s face, and as the doughnut disappeared
it grew bigger and clearer.

The young Ensign lassie who had originated and _made_ the first
doughnut in France contrived to make many pies on a very tiny French
stove with an oven only large enough to hold two pies at a time.
Meanwhile, frying doughnuts on the top of the stove.

It wasn’t long before the record for the doughnut makers had been
brought up to five thousand a day, and some of the unresting workers
developed “doughnut wrist” from sticking to the job too long at a time.

It was the original thought that pie would be the greatest attraction,
but it was difficult to secure stoves with ovens adequate for baking
pies, and after the ensign’s experiment with doughnuts it was found
that they could more easily be made and were quite as acceptable to the
American boy.

Meantime, the pie was coming into its own, back in Demange also.

It was only a little stove, and only room to bake one pie at a time,
but it was a savory smell that floated out on the air, and it was a
long line of hungry soldiers that hurried for their mess kits and stood
hours waiting for more pies to bake; and the fame of the Salvation Army
began to spread far and wide. Then one day the “Stars and Stripes,” the
organ of the American Army, printed the following poem about the lassie
who labored so far forward that she had to wear a tin hat:

“Home is where the heart is”—
  Thus the poet sang;
But “home is where the pie is”
  For the doughboy gang!
Crullers in the craters,
  Pastry in abris—
This Salvation Army lass
  Sure knows how to please!


Tin hat for a halo!
  Ah! She wears it well!
Making pies for homesick lads
  Sure is “beating hell!”
In a region blasted
  By fire and flame and sword,
This Salvation Army lass
  Battles for the Lord!


  Call me sacrilegious
  And irreverent, too;
Pies? They link us up with home
  As naught else can do!
“Home is, where the heart is”—
  True, the poet sang;
But “home is where the pie is”—
  To the Yankee gang!

It was no easy task to open up a chain of huts, for there was an
amazing variety of details to be attended to, any one of which might
delay the work. A hundred and one unexpected situations would develop
during the course of a single day which must be dealt with quickly and
intelligently. The fact that the Salvation Army section of the American
Expeditionary Force is militarized and strictly accountable for all of
its action to the United States military authorities is complicated in
many places by the further fact that the French civil and military
authorities must also be taken into consideration and consulted at
every step. Nevertheless, in spite of all difficulties the work went
steadily forward. The patient officers who were seeing to all these
details worked almost night and day to place the huts and workers where
they would do the most good to the greatest number; and steadily the
Salvation Army grew in favor with the soldiers.

It was extremely difficult to obtain materials for the erection of
huts— in many cases almost impossible. Once when Colonel Barker found
troops moving, he discovered the village for which they were bound,
rushed ahead in his automobile, and commandeered an old French barracks
which would otherwise have been occupied by the American soldiers. When
the soldiers arrived they were overjoyed to find the Salvation Army
awaiting them with hot food. They were soaked through by the rain, and
never was hot coffee more welcome. There was a little argument about
the commandeered barracks. It was to have been used as headquarters,
but when the commanding officer went out into the rain and saw for
himself what service it was performing for his men, and how overjoyed
they were by the entertainment he said: “We’ll leave it to the men,
whether they will be billeted here or let the Salvation Army have the
place.” The men with one accord voted to give it to the Salvation Army.

In one town, after an animated discussion with a crowd of enlisted men,
a sergeant came to the Salvation Army Major as he worked away with his
hammer putting up a hut and said: “Captain, would it make you mad if we
offered our services to help?”


[Illustration: “Tin hat for a halo! Ah! She wears it well!”]

[Illustration: The patient officers who were seeing to all these
details worked out almost day and night]

After that the work went on in record time. In less than a week the hut
was finished and ready for business. Two self-appointed details of
soldiers from the regulars employed all their spare time in a friendly
rivalry to see which could accomplish the most work. When it was
dedicated the popularity of the hut was well assured. Later, in another
location, a hut 125 feet by 27 feet was put up with the assistance of
soldiers in six hours and twenty minutes.

More men and women had arrived from America, and the work began to
assume business-like proportions. There were huts scattered all through
the American training area.

As other huts were established the making of pies and doughnuts became
a regular part of the daily routine of the hut. It was found that a
canteen where candy and articles needed by the soldiers could be
obtained at moderate prices would fill a very pressing need and this
was made a part of their regular operation.

The purchase of an adequate quantity of supplies was a great problem.
It was necessary to make frequent trips to Paris, to establish
connections with supply houses there, and to attend to the shipping of
the supplies out to the camps. At first it was impossible to purchase
any quantity of supplies from any house. The demand for everything was
so great that wholesale dealers were most independent. Three hundred
dollars’ worth of supplies was the most that could be purchased from
any one house, but in course of time, confidence and friendly relations
being established, it became possible to purchase as much as ten
thousand dollars’ worth at one time from one dealer.

The first twenty-five thousand dollars, of course, was soon gone, but
another fifty thousand dollars arrived from Headquarters in New York,
and after a little while another fifty thousand; which hundred thousand
dollars was loaned by General Bramwell Booth from the International
Treasury. The money was not only borrowed, but the Commander had
promised to pay it back in twelve months (which guarantee it is
pleasant to state was made good long before the promised time), for the
Commander had said: “It is only a question of our getting to work in
France, and the American public will see that we have all the money we
want.”

So it has proved.

In the meantime another hut was established at Houdelainecourt.

The American boys were drilling from early morning until dark; the
weather was wet and cold; the roads were seas of mud and the German
planes came over the valleys almost nightly to seek out the position of
the American troops and occasionally to drop bombs. It was necessary
that all tents should be camouflaged, windows darkened so that lights
would not show at night, and every means used to keep the fact of the
Americans’ presence from the German observers and spies.

Another party of Salvation Army officers, men and women, arrived from
New York on September 23rd, and these were quickly sent out to Demange
which for the time being was used as the general base of supplies, but
later a house was secured at Ligny-en-Barrios, and this was for many
months the Headquarters.

One interesting incident occurred here in connection with this house.
One of its greatest attractions had been that it was one of the few
houses containing a bathroom, but when the new tenants arrived they
found that the anticipated bathtub had been taken out with all its
fittings and carefully stowed away in the cellar. It was too precious
for the common use of tenants.

All Salvation Army graduates from the training school have a Red Cross
diploma, and many are experienced nurses.

A Salvation Army woman Envoy sailed for France with a party of
Salvationists about the time that the epidemic of influenza broke out
all over the world. Even before the steamer reached the quarantine
station in New York harbor a number of cases of Spanish influenza had
developed among the several companies of soldiers who were aboard, a
number of whom were removed from the ship. So anxious were others of
these American fighting men to reach Prance that they hid away until
the steamer had left port.

Land was hardly out of sight before more cases of the disease were
reported—so many, in fact, that special hospital accommodations had to
be immediately arranged. The ship’s captain after consulting with the
American military officers, requested the Salvation Army Envoy to take
entire responsibility for the hospital, which responsibility, after
some hesitation, she accepted. Under her were two nurses, three
dieticians (Y.M.C.A. and Red Cross), a medical corps sergeant (U.S.A.),
and twenty-four orderlies. She took charge on the fourth day of a
thirteen day voyage, working in the sick bay from 12 noon to 8 P.M.,
and from 12 midnight to 8 A.M. every day. She had with her a mandolin
and a guitar with which, in addition to her sixteen hours of duty in
the sick bay, she every day spent some time (usually an hour or two) on
deck singing and playing for the soldiers who were much depressed by
the epidemic. To them she was a very angel of good cheer and comfort.

Many amusing incidents occurred on the voyage.

Stormy weather had added to the discomforts of the trip and most of the
passengers suffered from seasickness during the greater part of the
voyage.

On board there was also a woman of middle age who could not be
persuaded to keep her cabin porthole closed at night. Again and again a
ray of light was projected through it upon the surface of the water and
the quarter-master, whose duty it was to see that no lights were shown,
was at his wit’s end. His difficulty was the greater because he could
speak no English, and she no French. Finally, a passenger took pity on
the man, and, as the light was really a grave danger to the ship’s
safety, promised to speak to the woman, who insisted that she was not
afraid of submarines and that it was foolish to think they could see
her light.

“Madam,” he said, “the quartermaster here tells me that the sea in this
locality is infested with flying fish, who, like moths, fly straight
for any light, and he is afraid that if you leave your porthole open
they will dive in upon you during the night.”

If he had said that the sea was infested with flying mice, his
statement could not have been more effective. Thereafter the porthole
stayed closed.

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-lé-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-lé-Duc, as everyone knows, is the home of the famous Bar-lé-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-lé-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-lé-Duc jam, a third layer of cake with chocolate,
another layer spread with Bar-lé-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 be 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 soon 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.

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 Salvation 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.

I was on the road all of night before last and on guard last night and
I’m a wee bit tired so I’m making this kinder short; but it’s a little
reminder that the boy who is 5,000 miles away is thinking, “I love you
my ma,” same as I always did.

And, by gosh, don’t forget about that pumpkin pie!

Good-night, mother of mine; your soldier boy loves you a whole dollar’s
worth.


[Illustration: “Here during the day they worked in dugouts far below
the shell-tortured earth”]

[Illustration: They came to get their coats mended and their buttons
sewed on]

[Illustration: The Entrance to the Old Wine Cellar in Mandres.]

[Illustration: The Salvation Army Was Told that Ansauville Was Too Far
Front for Any Women To Be Allowed To Go.]

[Illustration: “L’Hermitage, nestled in the heart of a deep woods, was
no quiet refuge”]

[Illustration: L’Hermitage, inside the tent. Several of these boys were
killed a few days after the picture was taken]

The Salvation Army hut was home to the boys over there. They came to it
in sorrow or joy. They came to ask to scrape out the bowl where the
cake batter had been stirred because mother used to let them do it;
they came to get their coats mended and have their buttons sewed on.
Sometimes it seemed to the long-suffering, smiling woman who sewed them
on, as if they just ripped them off so she could sew them on again; if
so, she did not mind. They came to mourn when they received no word
from home; and when the mail came in and they were fortunate they came
first to the hut waving their letter to tell of their good luck before
they even opened it to read it. It is remarkable how they pinned their
whole life on what these consecrated American women said to them over
there. It is wonderful how they opened their hearts to them on
religious subjects, and how they flocked to the religious meetings,
seeming to really be hungry for them.

Word about these wonderful meetings that the soldiers were attending in
such numbers got to the ears of another commanding officer, and one day
there came a summons for the Salvation Army Major in charge at
Gondrecourt to appear before him. An officer on a motor cycle with a
side car brought the summons, and the Major felt that it practically
amounted to an arrest. There was nothing to do but obey, so he climbed
into the side car and was whirled away to Headquarters.

The Major-General received him at once and in brusque tones informed
him most emphatically:

“We want you to get out! We don’t want you nor your meetings! We are
here to teach men to fight and your religion says you must not kill.
Look out there!” pointing through the doorway, “we have set up dummies
and teach our men to run their bayonets through them. You teach them
the opposite of that. You will unfit my men for warfare!”

The Salvationist looked through the door at the line of straw dummies
hanging in a row, and then he looked back and faced the Major-General
for a full minute before he said anything.

Tall and strong, with soldierly bearing, with ruddy health in the glow
of his cheeks, and fire in his keen blue eyes, the Salvationist looked
steadily at the Major-General and his indignation grew. Then the good
old Scotch burr on his tongue rolled broadly out in protest:

“On my way up here in your automobile”—every word was slow and calm and
deliberate, tinged with a fine righteous sarcasm—“I saw three men
entering your Guard House who were not capable of directing their own
steps. They had been off on leave down to the town and had come home
drunk. They were going into the Guard House to sleep it off. When they
come out to-morrow or the next day with their limbs trembling, and
their eyes bloodshot and their heads aching, do you think they will be
fit for warfare?

“You have men down there in your Guard House who are loathsome with
vile diseases, who are shaken with self-indulgence, and weakened with
all kinds of excesses. Are they fit for warfare?

“Now, look at me!”

He drew himself up in all the strength of his six feet, broad
shoulders, expanded chest, complexion like a baby, muscles like iron,
and compelled the gaze of the officer.

“Can you find any man—” The Salvationist said “mon” and the soft Scotch
sound of it sent a thrill down the Major-General’s back in spite of his
opposition. “Can you find any mon at fifty-five years who can follow
these in your regiment, who can beat me at any game whatever?”

The officer looked, and listened, and was ashamed.

The Major rose in his righteous wrath and spoke mighty truths clothed
in simple words, and as he talked the tears unbidden rolled down the
Major-General’s face and dropped upon his table.

“And do you know,” said the Salvationist, afterward telling a friend in
earnest confidence, “do you _know_, before I left we _had prayer
together!_ And he became one of the best friends we have!”

Before he left, also, the Major-General signed the authority which gave
him charge of the Guard Houses, so that he might talk to the men or
hold meetings with them whenever he liked. This was the means of
opening up a new avenue of work among the men.

The Scotch Major had a string of hospitals that he visited in addition
to his other regular duties. He knew that the men who are gassed lose
all their possessions when their clothes are ripped off from them. So
this Salvationist made a delightful all-the-year-round Santa Claus out
of himself: dressing up in old clothes, because of the mud and dirt
through which he must pass, he would sling a pack on his back that
would put to shame the one Old Santa used to carry. Shaving things and
soap and toothbrushes, handkerchiefs and chocolate and writing
materials. How they welcomed him wherever he came! Sick men,
Protestants, Jews, Catholics. He talked and prayed with them all, and
no one turned away from his kindly messages.

Six miles from Neufchauteul is Bazoilles, a mighty city of hospital
tents and buildings, acres and acres of them, lying in the valley.
Whenever this man heard the rumbling of guns and knew that something
was doing, he took his pack and started down to go the rounds, for
there were always men there needing him.

Then he would hold meetings in the wards, blessed meetings that the
wounded men enjoyed and begged for. They all joined in the singing,
even those who could not sing very well. And once it was a blind boy
who asked them to sing “Lead Kindly Light Amid the Encircling Gloom,
Lead Thou Me On.”

One Sunday afternoon two Salvation Army lassies had come with their
Major to hold their usual service in the hospital, but there were so
many wounded coming in and the place was so busy that it seemed as if
perhaps they ought to give up the service. The nurses were heavy-eyed
with fatigue and the doctors were almost worked to death. But when this
was suggested with one accord both doctors and nurses were against it.
“The boys would miss it so,” they said, “and we would miss it, too. It
rests us to hear you sing.”

After the Bible reading and prayer a lassie sang: “There Is Sunshine in
My Heart To-day,” and then came a talk that spoke of a spiritual
sunshine that would last all the year. The song and talk drifted out to
another little ward where a doctor sat beside a boy, and both listened.
As the physician rose to go the wounded boy asked if he might write a
letter.

The next day the doctor happened to meet the lassie who sang and told
her he had a letter that had been handed to him for censorship that he
thought she would like to see. He said the writer had asked him to show
it to her. This was the letter:

Dear Mother: You will be surprised to hear that I am in the hospital,
but I am getting well quickly and am having a good time. But best of
all, some Salvation Army people came and sang and talked about
sunshine, and while they were talking the sunshine came in through my
window—not into my room alone, but into my heart and life as well,
where it is going to stay. I know how happy this will make you.

The hospital work was a large feature of the service performed by the
Salvation Army. In every area this testimony comes from both doctors,
nurses and wounded men. Yet it was nothing less than a pleasure for the
workers to serve those patient, cheerful sufferers.

A lassie entered a ward one day and found the men with combs and tissue
paper performing an orchestra selection. They apologized for the noise,
declaring that they were all crazy about music and that was the only
way they could get it.

“How would you like a phonograph?” she asked.

“Oh, Boy! If we only had one! I’ll tell the world we’d like it,” one
declared wistfully.

The phonograph was soon forthcoming and brought much pleasure.

A lassie offered to write a letter for a boy whose foot had just been
amputated and whose right arm was bound in splints. He accepted her
offer eagerly, but said:

“But when you write promise me you won’t tell mother about my foot. She
worries! She wouldn’t understand how well off I really am. Maybe you
had better let me try to write a bit myself for you to enclose. I guess
I could manage that.” So, with his left hand, he wrote the following:

Dearest Mother:—I am laid up in the hospital here with a very badly
sprained ankle and some bruises, and will be here two or three weeks.
Do not worry, I am getting along fine. Your loving Son.

Two automobiles, an open car and a limousine, were maintained in Paris
for the sole purpose of providing outings for wounded men who were able
to take a little drive. It was said by the doctors and nurses that
nothing helped a rapid recovery like these little excursions out into
an every-day beautiful world.

A boy on one of the hospital cots called to a passing lassie:

“I am going to die, I know I am, and I’m a Catholic. Can you pray for
me, Salvation Army girl, like you prayed for that fellow over there?”

The young lassie assured him that he was not going to die yet, but she
knelt by his cot and prayed for him, and soothed him into a sleep from
which he awoke refreshed to find that she was right, he was not going
to die yet, but live, perhaps, to be a different lad.

A sixteen-year-old boy who at the first declaration of war had run away
from home and enlisted was wounded so badly that he was ordered to go
back to the evacuation hospital. He was determined that he could yet
fight, and was almost crying because he had to leave his comrades, but
on the way back he discovered the entrance to a German dugout and
thought he heard someone down in there moving.

“Come out,” he shouted, “or I’ll throw in a hand grenade!”

A few minutes later he reached the evacuation hospital with thirty
prisoners of war, his useless arm hanging by his side. That is the kind
of stuff our American boys are made of, and those are the boys who are
praising the Salvation Army!

It was sunset at the Gondrecourt Officers’ Training Camp. On the big
parade ground in back of the Salvation Army huts three companies were
lined up for “Colors.” The sun was sinking into a black mass of storm
clouds, painting the Western sky a dull blood red with here and there a
thread of gleaming gold etched on the rim of a cloud. Three French
children trudged sturdily, wearily, back from the distant fields where
they had toiled all day. The elder girl pushed a wheelbarrow heavily
laden with plunder from the fields. All bore farming implements, the
size of which dwarfed them by comparison. They had almost reached the
end of the drill ground when the military band blared out the opening
notes of the “Star Spangled Banner,” and the flag slipped slowly from
its high staff. Instantly the farming tools were dropped and the three
childish figures swung swiftly to “attention,” hands raised rigidly to
the stiff French salute. So they stood until the last note had died.
Then on they tramped, their backs all bent and weary, over the hill and
down into the grey, evening-shadowed village of the valley.

In a shell-marred little village at the American front, the Salvation
Army once brought the United States Army to a standstill. Several
hundred artillerymen had gathered for the regular Wednesday night
religious service, held in the hutment, conducted by that organization
at this point, and, in closing, sang vigorously three verses of “The
Star Spangled Banner.” A Major who was passing came immediately to
attention, his example being followed by all of the men and officers
within hearing, and also by a scattering of French soldiers who were
just emerging from the Catholic church. By the time the second verse
was well under way three companies of infantry, marching from a rest
camp toward the front, had also come to a rigid salute, blocking the
road to a quartermaster’s supply train, who had, perforce, to follow
suit. The “Star Spangled Banner” has a deeper meaning to the man who
has done a few turns in the trenches.

They had a pie-baking contest in Gondrecourt one day, where the
renowned “Aunt Mary” was located, with her sweet face and sweeter
heart.

One of the other huts had baked two hundred and thirty-five pies in a
day. The people in Gondrecourt believed they could do better than that,
so they made their preparations and set to work.

The soldiers were all interested, of course. Who was to eat those pies?
The more pies the merrier! The engineers had constructed a rack to hold
them, so that they might be easily counted without confusion. The
soldiers had appointed a committee to do the counting with a
representative from the cooks to be sure that everything went right.
Even the officers and chaplain took an interest in it.

This hut was in one of the largest American sectors. It was so well
patronized that they used on an average fifty gallons of coffee every
evening and seventy-five or more gallons of lemonade every afternoon.
You can imagine the pies and doughnuts that would find a welcome here.
One day they made twenty-seven hundred sugar cookies, and another day
they fried eighteen hundred and thirty-six doughnuts, at the same time
baking cake and pies; but this time they were going to try to bake
three hundred pies between the rising and setting of the sun.

An army field oven only holds nine pies at a time, so every minute of
the day had to be utilized. The fires were started very early in the
morning and everything was ready for the girls to begin when the sun
peeped over the edge of the great battlefield. They sprang at their
task as though it were a delightful game of tennis, and not as though
they had worked hard and late on the day before, and the many days
before that.

It was very hot in the little kitchen as the sun waxed high. An army
range never tries to conserve its heat for the benefit of the cooks. In
fact that kitchen was often used for a Turkish bath by some poor wet
soldiers who were chilled to the bone.

But the heat did not delay the workers. They flew at their task with
fingers that seemed to have somehow borrowed an extra nimbleness. All
day long they worked, and the pies were marshalled out of the oven by
nines, flaky and fragrant and baked just right. The rack grew fuller
and fuller, and the soldiers watched with eager eyes and watering
mouths. Now and then one of the soldiers’ cooks would put his head in
at the door, ask how the score stood, and shake his head in wonder. On
and on they worked, mixing, rolling, filling, putting the little twists
and cuts on the upper crust, and slipping in the oven and out again!
Mixing, rolling, filling and baking without any let-up, until the sun
with a twinkle of glowing appreciation slipped regretfully down behind
the hills of France again as if he were sorry to leave the fun, and the
time was up. The committee gave a last careful glance over the filled
racks and announced the final score, three hundred and sixteen pies, in
shining, delectable rows!

By seven o’clock that evening the pie line was several hundred yards
long. It was eleven o’clock when the last quarter of a pie went over
the counter, with its accompanying mug of coffee. Think what it was
just to have to cut and serve that pie, and make that coffee, after a
long day’s work of baking!

One of the officers receiving his change after having paid for his pie
looked at it surprisedly:

“And you mean to tell me that you girls work so hard for such a small
return? I don’t see where you make any profit at all.”

“We don’t work for profit, Captain,” answered the lassie. “I don’t
think any amount of money would persuade us to keep going as we have to
here at times.”

“You mean you sort of work for the joy of working?” he asked, puzzled.

“I don’t know what you mean,” responded the lassie pleasantly, “but
when we are tired we look at the boys drilling in the sun and working
early and late. They are splendid and we feel we must do our part as
unreservedly as they do theirs.”

“No wonder my men have so many good things to say about the Salvation
Army!” said the Captain, turning to his companions. But as he went out
into the night his voice floated back in a puzzled sort of
half-conviction, as if he were thinking out something more than had
been spoken:

“It takes more than patriotism to keep refined women working like
that!”

These same girls were commissioned also to make frequent visits to the
hospitals and talk with the sick soldiers. Often they read the Bible to
them, and many a man through these little talks has found the way of
eternal life. This in addition to their other work.

One night after a meeting in the hut a lad wanted to come into the room
at the back and speak to one of the women about his soul. They knelt
and prayed together, and the boy when he rose had a light of real
happiness on his face. But suddenly the happiness faded and he
exclaimed:

“But I can’t read!”

“Read? What do you mean?” asked the lassie.

“My Bible. Nobody never learned me to read, and I can’t read my Bible
like you said in the meeting I should.”

The lassie thought for a minute, and then suggested that he come to the
hut every morning just before first call and she would teach him a
verse of scripture and read him a chapter. This meant that the lassie
must rise that much earlier, but what of that for a servant of the
King?

Just a month this program was carried out, and then came marching
orders for the boy, but by this time he had a rich store of God’s word
safe in his heart from the verses he had memorized. The last night when
he came to say good-bye he said to his teacher:

“Your kindness has meant a lot of trouble for you, miss, but for me it
has meant life! Before, I was afraid to fight; but now I don’t even
fear death. I know now that it can only mean a new life. Thank God for
your goodness to me!”

There was one soldier who went by the name of Scoop. He had been a
reporter back in the States and learned to love drink. When he joined
the army he did not give up his old habits. Whenever anybody
remonstrated with him he invariably replied gaily, “I’m out to enjoy
life.” On pay-days Scoop celebrated by drinking more than ever.

One day he happened into the Salvation Army hut. Whether the pie or the
doughnuts or the homeyness of the place first attracted him no one
knows. He said it was the pie. Something held him there. He came every
night. The spirit of the Lord that lived and breathed in those
consecrated men and girls began to work in his heart and conscience,
and speak to him of better things that might even be for him.

When he felt the desire for drink or gambling coming on he gave his
money to the girls to keep for him.

On the last pay-day before he was sent to another location he took a
paint-brush and some paint and made a little sign which he set up in a
prominent place in the hut, his silent testimony to what they had done
for him: “For the first time on pay-day Scoop is sober!”

One morning a lassie was frying some doughnuts in the Gondrecourt hut,
another was rolling and cutting, and both were very busy when a soldier
came in with the mail. The girls went on with their work, though one
could easily see that they were eager for letters. One was handed to
the lassie who was frying the doughnuts. When she opened it she found
it was an official dispatch. The others saw the change of her
expression and asked what was the matter, but she made no reply while
tears started down her cheeks. She, however, went on frying doughnuts.
The others asked again what was the trouble and for answer the girl
handed them the open dispatch, which stated briefly that one of her
three brothers, who were all in the service, had been killed in action
on the previous day. The others sympathetically tried to draw her away
from her work, but she said: “No, nothing will help me to bear my
sorrow like doing something for others.” This is the spirit of the
Salvation Army workers. Personal sorrows, personal feelings, personal
difficulties, hardships, dangers, are not allowed to interrupt their
labors of love. Fortunately, it was later discovered that this message
about her brother was unfounded.

A boy told this lassie one day that the next day was his birthday, and
she saw the homesickness and yearning in his eyes as he spoke.
Immediately she told him she would have a birthday party for him and
bake a cake for it.

She found some tiny candles in the village and placed nineteen upon the
pretty frosted cake. They had to use a white bed-quilt for a
tablecloth, and none of the cups and saucers matched, but the table
looked very pretty when it was set, with little white paper baskets of
almonds which the girls had made at each place, and all the candles lit
on the white cake in the middle. The boy brought three of his comrades,
and there were the Salvation Army Major in charge and the lassies. They
had a beautiful time. Of course it was quite a little extra work for
the lassie, but when someone asked her why she took so much trouble she
had a faraway look in her eyes, and said she guessed it was for the
sake of the boy’s mother, and those who heard remembered that her own
three brothers were in United States uniform somewhere facing the
enemy.

There are several instances in which American soldiers coming from
British and French Sectors, where they had been brigaded with armies of
those nations, have upon entering a Salvation Army hut for the first
time without noticing the sign over the door started to talk to the
girls in French—very fragmentary French at that. When they found the
girls to be Americans they were almost beside themselves with mingled
feelings of bashfulness and delight. Most of the soldiers exhibit the
former trait.

One boy approached one of our men officers.

“Can them girls speak American?” he asked, pointing at the girls.

On being assured that they could, he said: “Will they mind if I go up
and speak to them? I ain’t talked to an American woman in seven
months.”

Two soldiers were walking along the dusty roadway.

First soldier: “Let’s go to the Salvation Army hut.”

Second soldier: “No, I don’t want to.”

First soldier: “They’ve got a piano and a phonograph and lots of
records.”

Second soldier: “No, I don’t want to.”

First soldier: “They’ve got books and _beaucoup_ games.”

Second soldier: “No, I don’t want to.”

First soldier: “Two American ladies there!”

Second soldier: “No, I don’t want to.”

First soldier: “They’ve got swell coffee and doughnuts!”

Second soldier (angrily): “No! I said No!”

First soldier: “Aw, come on. They got real homemade pie!”

Second soldier: “I don’t care!”

First soldier: “They cut their own wood and do their own work!”

Second soldier: “Well, that’s different! Why didn’t you say that right
off, you bonehead? Come on. Where is it?”

And they entered the Salvation Army hut smiling.

One dear Salvation Army lady had a little hand sewing machine which she
took about with her and wherever she landed she would sit down on an
orange crate, put her machine on another and set up a tailor shop:
sewing up rips; refitting coats that were too large; letting out a seam
that was too tight; and helping the boys to be tidy and comfortable
again. A good many of our boys lost their coats in the Soissons fight,
and when they got new ones they didn’t always fit, so this little
sewing machine that went to war came in very handy. Sometimes the owner
would rip off the collar or rip out the sleeves, or almost rip up the
whole coat and with her mouthful of pins skillfully put it together
again until it looked as if it belonged to the laddie who owned it.
Then with some clever chalk marks replacing the pins she would run it
through her little machine, and off went another boy well-clothed. One
week she altered more than thirty-three coats in this way. The soldiers
called her “mother” and loved to sit about and talk with her while she
worked.

The men went in battalions to the Lunéville Sector for Trench Training
facing the enemy. Of course, the Salvation Army sent a detachment also.

Over here they had to give up huts. No huts at all were allowed so near
the front. No light of fire or even stove, no lights of any kind or
everything would be destroyed by shell fire at once. An order went out
that all huts near the front must be under ground. Yet neither did this
daunt the faithful men and women whom God Himself had sent to help
those boys at the front.

The work was extended to other camps in the Gondrecourt area and
finally the time came for the troops to move up to the front to occupy
part of a sector.




III.
The Toul Sector


Headquarters of the First Division were established at Menil-la-Tour
and that of the First Brigade at Ansauville. Information came on
leaving the Gondrecourt Area, that the district would be abandoned to
the French, so the wooden hut at Montiers was moved and set up again at
Sanzey, which then became the Headquarters of the First Ammunition
Train. Huts were established at Menil-la-Tour and other points in the
Toul Sector.

It took three days to erect the hut at Sanzey, but within an hour the
field range was set up, and a piece of tarpaulin stretched over it to
keep the rain off the girls and the doughnuts.

Hour after hour the girls stood there making doughnuts, and hour after
hour the line moved slowly along waiting patiently for doughnuts. The
Adjutant went away a little while and returned to find some of the same
boys standing in line as when he left. Some had been standing five
hours! It was the only pastime they had, just as soon as they were off
duty, to line up again for doughnuts.

The hut at Sanzey was used mostly by men of an Ammunition Train. As in
other places where the Salvation Army huts catered to the American
troops, an all-night service of hot coffee or chocolate and doughnuts
or cookies was provided for the men as they returned from their
dangerous nightly trips to the front. When men were killed their
comrades usually brought them back and laid them in this hut until they
could be buried. One night a man was killed and brought back in this
fashion. The chaplain was holding a service over his body in the hut.
The Salvation Army man was talking to the man who had been the dead
lad’s “buddie.” “I wish it was me instead of him, Cap,” said this
soldier, “he was his mother’s oldest son and she will take it hard.”

The Salvation Army was told that Ansauville was too far front for any
women to be allowed to go. They felt, however, that it was advisable
for women to be there and determined to bring it about if possible. On
scouting the town there was found no suitable place in any of the
buildings except one that was occupied as the General’s garage. The
Salvation Army was not permitted to erect any additional buildings as
it was feared they would attract the fire of the Germans, for
Ansauville was well within the range of the German guns.

After deciding that the General’s garage was the only logical place for
them the Salvation Army representative called upon the General, who
asked him where he would propose establishing a hut. The Salvationist
told him the only suitable place in the town was that used by him as a
garage. He immediately gave most gracious and courteous consent and
ordered his aide to find another garage.

The place in question was an old frame barn with a lofty roof which had
already been partly shot away and was open to the sky. They were not
permitted to repair the roof because the German airplane observers
would notice it and know that some activity was going on there which
would call for renewed shell fire. However, the top of one of the
circus tents was easily run up in the barn so as to form a ceiling.

Ansauville was between Mandres and Menil-la-Tour, not far from advanced
positions in the Toul Sector. Five hundred French soldiers had been
severely gassed there the night before the Staff-Captain and his helper
arrived, and every day people were killed on the streets by falling
shells. There was not a house in the village that had not suffered in
some way from shell fire; very few had a door or a window left, and
many were utterly demolished.

Approaching the town the roads were camouflaged with burlap curtains
hanging on wires every little way, so that it was impossible to see
down the streets very far in either direction. There were signs here
and there: “Attention! The enemy sees you!”

About midnight the Staff-Captain and his officer arrived and after some
difficulty found the old barn that the Colonel had told them was to be
their hut, but to their dismay there were half a dozen cars parked
inside, including the Commanding General’s, and it looked as if it were
being used for the Staff Garage. Looking up they could see the stars
peeping through the shell holes in the tiled roof. It was the first
time either of them had been in a shelled town and the experience was
somewhat awe-inspiring. Moreover they were both hungry and sleepy and
the situation was by no means a cheerful one. They had a large tent and
a load of supplies with them and were at a loss where to bestow them.

In the midst of their perturbation a courier arrived with a side car
and dismounted. He stumbled in on them and peered at them through the
darkness.

“As I live, it’s the Salvation Army!” he cried joyfully, shaking hands
with both of them at once. “All of the boys have been asking when you
were coming. Are you looking for a place to chow and sleep? There’s no
place in town for a billet, but we have a kitchen down the street. We
can give you some chow, and it’s warm there. You can roll up in your
blankets and sleep by the stove till morning. Come with me.”

The cook awakened them in the morning with his clatter of pots and pans
in preparation for breakfast. They arose and began to roll up their
blanket packs.

“Don’t worry about getting up yet,” said the chief cook kindly. “Sleep
a little longer. You are not in my way.” But the two men thanked him
and declined to rest longer.

“Where are you going to chow?” asked the chief cook.

The Salvationists allowed that they didn’t know.

“Well, you boys line up with this outfit, see?” insisted the chief
cook. “We eat three times a day and you’re welcome to everything we
have!”

This settled the question of board, and after a good breakfast the two
started out to report to the General in command.

He greeted them most kindly and made them feel welcome at once.

When they asked about the barn he smiled pleasantly:

“That Colonel of yours is a fine fellow,” he said. “He told me that
there was only one place in this town that would do for your hut and
that was my garage. He said he was afraid he would have to ask me to
move my car. Just as though my car were of more importance than the
souls of my men! Gentlemen, you can have anything you want that is mine
to give. The barn is yours! And if there’s anything I can do, command
me!”

It was a very dirty stable and needed a deal of cleaning, but the
strong workers bent to their task with willing hands, and soon had it
in fine order. There was no possibility of mending the roof, but they
camouflaged the old tent top and ran it up inside, and it kept the rain
and snow off beautifully. Of course, it was no protection against
shells, but when they commenced to arrive everybody departed in a hurry
to the nearby dugouts, returning quietly when the firing had ceased.
The nights were so cold that they had to sleep with all their clothes
on, even their overcoats. Often in the mornings their shoes were frozen
too stiff to put on until they were thawed over a candle. One soldier
broke his shoe in two trying to bend it one morning. Sometimes the men
would sleep with their shoes inside their shirts to keep the damp
leather from freezing. Two yards from the stove the milk froze!

A field range had been secured and the chimney extended up from the
roof for a distance of forty or fifty feet. It smoked terribly, but on
this range was cooked many a savory meal and tens of thousands of
doughnuts.

Among the doughboys who loved to help around the Salvation Army hut was
a quiet fellow who never talked much about himself, yet everybody liked
him and trusted him. No one knew much about him, or where he came from,
and he never told about his folks at home as some did. But he used to
come in from the trenches during the day and do anything he could to be
useful around the hut, which was run by two sisters. Even when he had
to stand watch at night he would come back in the daytime and help.
They could not persuade him to sleep when he ought. Other fellows came
and went, talked about their troubles and their joys, got their bit of
sympathy or cheer and went their way, but this fellow came every day
and worked silently, always on the job. They made him their chief
doughnut dipper and he seemed to love the work and did it well.

Then one day his company moved, and he came no more. The girls often
asked if anyone knew anything about him, but no one did. Once in a
while a brief note would come from him up at the front in the trenches
a few miles to the north, but never more than a word of greeting.

One morning the girls were making doughnuts, hard at work, and suddenly
the former chief doughnut dipper stumbled into the hut. He looked tired
and dusty and it was evident by the way he walked that he was footsore.

“Gee! It’s good to see you,” he said, sinking down in his old place by
the stove.

They gave him a cup of steaming coffee and all the doughnuts he could
eat and waited for his story, but he did not begin.

“Well, how are you?” asked one of the girls, hoping to start him.

“Oh, all right, thanks,” he said meekly.

“Where is your company?”

“Up the line in some woods.”

“How far is it?”

“About ten miles.”

The girls felt they were not getting on very fast in acquiring
information.

“Did you walk all that way in the dust and sun?”

“Most of it. Sometimes I was in the fields.”

“Were you on watch last night?”

“Ye-ah.”

“Then you didn’t have any sleep?”

“No.”

“Why did you come over here then?”

“I wanted to see you.” There was a sound of a deep hunger in his voice.

“Well, we’re awfully glad to see you, surely. Is there anything we can
do for you?”

“No, Just let me look at you”—there was frank honesty in his eyes, a
deep undertone of reverence in his voice, not even a hint of gallantry
or flattery, only a loyal homage.

“Just let me look at you—and——” he hesitated.

“And what?”

“And cook some doughnuts.”

“Why, of course!” said the girls cheerily, “but you must lie down and
sleep awhile first. We’ll fix a place for you.”

“I don’t want to lie down,” said the soldier determinedly, “I don’t
want to waste the time.”

“But it wouldn’t be wasted. You need the sleep.”

“No, that isn’t what I need. I want to look at you,” he reiterated.
“I’ve got a wife and a little baby at home, and I love them. I like to
be here because seeing you takes me back to them. This morning I knew I
ought to sleep, but I just couldn’t go over the top tonight without
seeing you again. That’s why I want to see you and fry a few doughnuts
for you. It takes me back to them.”

He finished with a far-away look in his eyes. He was not thinking what
impression his words would make, his thoughts were with his wife and
little baby.

He worked around for a couple of hours, saying very little, but seeming
quite content. Then he looked at his watch and said it was time to go,
as it was quite a walk back to his company. Just so quietly he took his
leave and went out to take his chance with Death.

The two girls thought much about him that night as they went about
their work, and later lay down and tried to sleep, and their prayers
went up for the faithful soul who was doing his duty out there under
fire, and for the anxious wife and little one who waited to know the
outcome. Sleep did not come soon to their eyes, as they lay in the
darkness and prayed.

“The next day about noon as the girls were dipping doughnuts the chief
doughnut dipper stumbled once more into the hut, tired, dirty, dusty
and worn, but with his eyes sparkling:

“Just thought I ought to come back and tell you I’m all right,” he
said. “I was afraid you’d be worried. My wife and baby would, anyway.”

The girls received him with exultant smiles. “You go out there under
the trees and go to sleep!” they ordered him.

“All right, I will,” he said. “I feel like sleeping now. Say, you don’t
think I’m crazy, do you? I just had to see you! It took me back to
them!”

It was one of those chill rainy nights which have caused the winter of
1917-1918 to be remembered with shudders by the men of the earlier
American Expeditionary Forces. A large part of the American forces were
billeted in the weathered, age-old little villages of the Gondrecourt
area. They slept in barns, haylofts, cowsheds and even in pig sties.
The roads were mere ditches running knee deep in sticky, clogging mud.
Shoes, soaked through from the muddy road, froze as the men slept and
in the morning had to be thawed out over a candle before they could be
drawn on. Frequently men were late at roll-call simply because their
shoes were frozen so stiff that they were unable to don them, and their
leggings so icy that they could not be wound. After sundown there were
no lights, because lights invited air-raids and might well expose the
position of troops to the enemy observers. Only in towns where there
were Salvation Army or Y.M.C.A. huts could men find any artificial
warmth, during the day or night, and only in these places were there
any lights after nightfall. Such huts afforded absolutely the only
available recreation facilities. But in countless villages where
Americans were billeted there was not even this small comfort to be
had.

On this particular night, in such a village, an eighteen-year-old boy
sat in the orderly room of a regimental headquarters, which was housed
in a once pretentious but now sadly decrepit house. Rain leaked through
the tiled roof and dribbled down into the room. Windows were long ago
shattered and through cracks in the rude board barricades which had
replaced the glass a rising wind was driving the rain. The boy sat at a
rough wooden table waiting orders. Two weeks previously a letter had
come, saying that his mother was seriously ill. Since that he had had
no further word. He was desperately homesick. There had been as yet
none of the danger and none of the thrill which seems to settle a man
down, to the serious business of war.

A passing soldier had just told him that in a village some twelve
kilometers distant two Salvation Army women were operating a hut. He
longed desperately for the comfort of a woman of his own people and,
sitting in the drafty, damp room, he wished that these two
Salvationists were not so far away—that he could talk with them and
confide in them. At last the wish grew so strong that he could no
longer resist it.

He got up quietly, and silently slipped out into the rainy night. The
darkness was so thick that he could not see objects six feet away.
Walking through the mud was out of the question. He stumbled down, the
street, once falling headlong into a muddy puddle, finally reaching the
horse-lines, where, saying that he had an errand for the Colonel, he
saddled a horse and slopped off into the night.

For a while he kept to the road, his horse occasionally taking fright,
as a truck passed clanking slowly in the opposite direction, or a staff
car turned out to pass him like a fleeting, ghostly shadow. By
following the trees which lined the road at regular intervals he was
fairly sure to keep the road. He was very tired and soon began to feel
sleepy, but the driving storm, which by this time had assumed the
proportions of a tempest, stung him to wakefulness. Once, at a
cross-roads a Military Police stopped and questioned him and gave him
directions upon his saying that he was carrying dispatches.

He went on. He dozed, only to be sharply awakened by a truck which
almost ran him down. He must be more careful, he thought to himself,
feeling utterly alone and miserable. But in spite of his resolution his
eyes soon closed again. He was awakened, this time by his horse
stumbling over some unseen obstacle. He could see nothing in any
direction. The blackness and rain shut him in like a fog. He turned at
right angles to find the trees which lined the road, but there were no
trees. He swung his horse around and went in the other direction, but
he found no trees—only an impenetrable darkness which pressed in upon
him with a heaviness which might almost have been weighed. He was
lost—utterly lost.

He guided his steed in futile circles, hoping to regain the road, but
all to no avail. Fear of the night fell upon him. He was wet to the
skin and chilled to the bone. He shivered with cold and with fright.
Dropping from his horse he pulled from his pocket an electric
flashlight and began throwing its slender beam in widening arcs over
the ground. The light revealed a stubble field. Surely there must be a
path which would lead to the road, thought the boy. Backward and
forward over the field he waved the light. His hands trembled so that
he could not hold the switch steady, and the lamp blinked on and off.

On the storm-swept, night-hidden hillside which overhung the field was
established an anti-aircraft battery.

The sound detectors had just registered the intermittent hum of an
enemy plane. It was unusual that an enemy aviator should fight his way
over the lines in the face of such a storm, but such things had
occurred before and the Captain in charge of the battery searched the
tempestuous skies for the intruder, waiting for the sound to grow until
he should know that the searchlights had at least a chance of locating
the venturesome plane instead of merely giving away their position.

Suddenly, cutting the night in the field below, a tiny ray of light cut
the darkness, sweeping back and forward, flashing on and off. For a
moment the officer watched it, then, with a muttered curse, he raced
down the hillside followed by one of his men. The noise of the storm
hid their approach. The boy collapsed into a trembling heap, as the
officer grasped him and wrested the flash-light from his chilled
fingers. He made no protest as they led him down into a dark, deserted
village. He followed his captors into a candle-lighted room where sat a
staff officer.

Briefly the Captain explained the situation.

“Caught him in the act of signaling to an enemy plane, sir,” he said.

The boy was too cold to venture a protest.

“Bring him to me again in the morning,” said the Colonel, shrugging his
shoulders. “Hold on, though! What are you going to do with him? He will
die unless you get him warmed up.”

“Don’t know what to do with him, sir, unless I take him down to the
Salvation Army... they have a fire there.”

“Very good, Captain, see that he is properly guarded and if they will
have him, leave him there for the night.” And so it came to pass that
the boy reached his destination. It was past closing time—long past;
but the motherly Salvationist in charge knew just what to do. Within
ten minutes, wrapped in a warm blanket, the boy sat with his feet in a
pan of hot water, with the Salvation Army woman feeding him steaming
lemonade. Between gulps, he told his story and was comforted. Soon he
was snugly tucked into an army cot, and still grasping the
Salvationist’s hand, was sleeping peacefully.

The next day a little investigation assured the Colonel that the boy’s
story was a true one, and with a reprimand for leaving his post without
orders he was allowed to return. The delay, however, had absented him,
of course, from morning roll-call, and he was sentenced to thirty days
repairing wire on the front-line trenches, which was often equivalent
to a death sentence, for as many men were shot during the performance
of this duty as came in safely.

He had done fifteen days of his time at this sentence when the
Salvation Army woman from the Ansauville hut which the boy had visited
that rainy night happened over to his Officers’ Headquarters, and by
chance learned of his unhappy fate. It took but a few words from her to
his commanding officer to set matters right; his sentence was revoked,
and he was pardoned.

Ansauville was a point of peculiar importance in that all the troops
passing into or out from the sector stopped there. It was here that
cocoa and coffee were first provided for the troops. Afterwards it came
to be the habit to serve them with the doughnuts and pie. It was when
the Twenty-sixth Division came into the line. They had marched for
hours and had been without any warm meal for a long time. Detachments
of them reached Ansauville at night, wet and cold, too late to secure
supper that night, and hearing they were coming, the lassies put on
great boilers of coffee and cocoa, and as the men arrived they were
given to them freely.

A hut was established at Mandres. This was some distance in advance of
Ansauville and lay in the valley. At first a wooden building was
secured. It had nothing but a dirt floor but lumber was hauled from
Newchateau by truck—a distance of sixty miles, and the place was made
comfortable.

For some little time the boys enjoyed this hut, but on one occasion the
Germans sent over a heavy barrage; they hit the hut, destroying one end
of it, scattering the supplies, ruining the victrola, and after that
the military authorities ordered that the men should not assemble in
such numbers.

When this order was given, the Salvation Army had no intention of
discontinuing work at Mandres and so found a cellar under a partially
destroyed building. This cellar was vaulted and had been used for
storing wine. It was wet and in bad condition, but with some labor it
was made fit to receive the men; and tables and benches were placed
there, the canteen established and a range set up. It was at this place
that a very wonderful work was carried on. The Salvation Army Ensign
who had charge, for a time, scoured the country for miles around to
purchase eggs, which he transferred to his hut in an old baby carriage.
The eggs were supplied to the men at cost and they fried them
themselves on the range, which was close at hand. This was considered
by the military authorities too far front for women to come and only
men were allowed here.

The Ensign also mixed batter for pan cakes and established quite a
reputation as a pan-cake maker. Here was a place where the soldiers
felt at home. They could come in at any time and on the fire cook what
they pleased.

They could purchase at the canteen such articles as were for sale and
it was home to them. Very wonderful meetings were held in this spot and
many men found Christ at the penitent-form, which was an old bench
placed in front of the canteen.

On the wharf in New York when the soldiers were returning home some
soldiers were talking about the Salvation Army. “Did you ever go to one
of their meetings?” asked one. “I sure did!” answered a big fine
fellow—a college man, by the way, from one of the well known New
England universities. “I sure did!—and it was the most impressive
service I ever attended. It was down in an old wine cellar, and the
house over it _wasn’t_ because it had been blown away. The meeting was
led by a little Swede, and he gave a very impressive address, and
followed it by a wonderful prayer. And it wasn’t because it was so
learned either, for the man was no college chap, but it stirred me
deeply. I used to be a good deal of a barbarian before I went to
France, but that meeting made a big change in me. Things are going to
be different now.

“The place was lit by a candle or two and the guns were roaring
overhead, but the room was packed and a great many men stood up for
prayers. Oh, I’ll never forget that meeting!”

That meeting was in the old wine cellar in Mandres.

The town of Mandres was shelled daily and it was an exceptional day
that passed without from one to ten men being killed as a result of
this shelling.

Here are some extracts from letters written by the Ensign from the old
wine cellar in Mandres:

“Somewhere in France,”
May 15, 1918.

I am still busy in my old wine-cellar in France. I must give you an
idea of my daily routine: Get up early and, go to my cellar. Get wood
and make fire; go for some water to put on stove. Take my mess kit,
helmet, gas mask and cane, walk about one block to the part of the
church standing by the artillery kitchen and get my hand-out mess, go
back to my cellar and have my breakfast, see to the fire, fuel, clean
and light the lamps, dip and carry out some water and mud (but have now
found a place to drain off the water by cutting through the heavy stone
wall and digging a ditch underneath). I dig whenever I have time. Then
the boys begin to come in—some right from the trenches, others who are
resting up after a siege in the trenches. They are all covered with mud
when they come in and have to talk, stand and even sleep in mud. Then I
must have the cocoa and coffee ready and serve also the candy, figs,
nuts, gum, chocolate, shaving-sticks, razors, watches, knives, gun oil,
paper, envelopes, _etc_. I mostly wear my rubber boots and stand in a
little boot “slouched” down so I can stand straight. Almost every
evening we have a little “sing-song” or regular service, and on Sunday
two or three services.

Our wine-cellar is supposed to be bomb-proof. First the roof, the
ceiling, the floor, then the three-feet stone and concrete under the
floor and along the wine-cellar. I am all alone for all this business.
Sometimes the boys help me to cut wood and keep the fire and carry
water, but the companies are changed so often that they go and come
every five days, and when they come from the trenches they are so tired
and sleepy they need all the rest they can get. Yesterday I had to
change the stove and stovepipes because it smoked so bad that it almost
smoked us out. So I had to run through the ruins and find old
stovepipes. I could not find enough elbows, so I had to make some with
the help of an old knife. We ran the pipes through the low window bars
and up the side of the house to the top, and plastered up poor joints
with mud, but it burns better and does not smoke. The boys claim I make
the best coffee they have had in France, and also cocoa. I am glad I
know something of cooking. You see, they don’t permit girls so near the
trenches and in the shell fire.

My dear Major:

Grace, love and peace unto you! Many thanks for the beautiful letter I
received from you full of love, Christian admonition and encouragement.
Such letters are much Appreciated over here.

I have been very busy. The last week, in addition to running the
ordinary business, I have used the pick and shovel and wheelbarrow in
lowering our wine-cellar floor (now used as a Salvation Army rest
room), so we can walk straight in. I have also done some white-washing
to brighten things up and have some flowers in bowls, large French wine
bottles and big brass shells, which makes a great improvement. I now
expect to pick up pieces and erect a range, so we can cook and make
things faster. I secured two hams and am having them cooked, and expect
to serve ham sandwiches by Decoration Day, two days hence, when there
is to be a great time in decorating the graves of our heroes. I am also
trying to get some lemons so that I can make lemonade for the boys
besides the coffee and cocoa. You can get an idea of the immensity of
our business when I tell you I got 999.25 francs worth of butter-scotch
candy alone with the last lot of goods, besides a dozen other kinds of
candy, nuts, toilet articles, _etc_., and this will be sold and given
out in a very few days.

We had very good meetings last Sunday. I spoke at night. A glorious
time we had, indeed. Praise God for the opportunity of working among
the New England braves!

At Menil-la-Tours the French forbade any huts at all to be put up at
first, but finally they gave permission for one hut. The Staff-Captain
wanted to put up two, but as that wasn’t allowed he got around the
order by building five rooms on each side of the one big hut and so had
plenty of room. It is pretty hard to get ahead of a Salvation Army
worker when he has a purpose in view. Not that they are stubborn,
simply that they know how to accomplish their purpose in the nicest way
possible and please everybody.

There were some American railroad engineers here, working all night
taking stuff to the front. They came over and asked if they could help
out, and so instead of taking their day for sleep they spent most of it
putting tar paper on the roof of the Salvation Army hut.

It was in this place that there seemed to be a strong prejudice among
some of the soldiers against the Salvation Army for some reason. The
soldiers stood about swearing at the Staff-Captain and his helper as
they worked, and saying the most abusive and contemptible things to
them. At last the Staff-Captain turned about and, looking at them, in
the kindliest way said:

“See here, boys, did you ever know anything about the Salvation Army
before?”

They admitted that they had not.

“Well, now, just wait a little while. Give us fair play and see if we
are like what you say we are. Wait until we get our hut done and get
started, and then if you don’t like us you can say so.”

“Well, that’s fair, Dad,” spoke up one soldier, and after that there
was no more trouble, and it wasn’t long before the soldiers were giving
the most generous praise to the Salvation Army on every side.

L’Hermitage, nestled in the heart of a deep woods, was no quiet refuge
from the noise of battle and the troubles of a war-weary world, as one
might suppose. It was surrounded by swamps everywhere. And it had been
raining, of course. It always seems to have been raining in France
during this war. There were duck boards over the swampy ground, and a
single mis-step might send one prone in the ooze up to the elbows.

It was a very dangerous place, also.

There was a large ammunition dump in the town, and besides that there
was a great balloon located there which the Boche planes were always
trying to get. It was the nearest to the front of any of our balloons
and, of course, was a great target for the enemy. There was a lot of
heavy coast artillery there, also, and there were monster shell holes
big enough to hold a good audience.

At last one day the enemy did get the ammunition dump, and report after
report rent the air as first one shell and then another would burst and
go up in flame. It was fourteen hours going off and the military
officer ordered the girls to their billets until it should be over. It
was like this: First a couple of shells would explode, then there would
be a second’s quiet and a keg of powder would flare; then some boxes of
ammunition would go off; then some more shells. It was a terrible
pandemonium of sound. Thirty miles away in Gondrecourt they saw the
fire and heard the terrific explosions.

The Zone Major and one of his helpers had been to Nancy for a truck
load of eggs and were just unloading when the explosions began.
Together they were carefully lifting out a crate containing a hundred
dozen eggs when the mammoth détonations began that rocked the earth
beneath them and threatened to shake them from their feet. They
staggered and tottered but they held onto the eggs. One of the sayings
of Commander Eva Booth is, “Choose your purpose and let no whirlwind
that sweeps, no enemy that confronts you, no wave that engulfs you, no
peril that affrights you, turn you from it.” The Zone Major and his
helper had chosen the purpose of landing those eggs safely, and eggs at
five francs a dozen are not to be lightly dropped, so they staggered
but they held onto the eggs.

The girls in the canteen went quietly about their work until ordered to
safety; but over in Sanzey and Menil-la-Tour their friends watched and
waited anxiously to hear what had been their fate.

The General who was in charge of the Twenty-sixth Division was
exceedingly kind to the Salvation Army girls. He acted like a father
toward them: giving up his own billet for their use; sending an escort
to take them to it through the woods and swamps and dangers when their
work at the canteen was over for a brief respite; setting a sentry to
guard them and to give a gas alarm when it became necessary; and doing
everything in his power for their comfort and safety.




IV.
The Montdidier Sector


Spring came on even in shell-torn France, lovely like the miracle it
always is. Bare trees in a day were arrayed in wondrous green. A
camouflage of beauty spread itself upon the valleys and over the
hillsides like a garment sewn with colored broidery of blossoms. Great
scarlet poppies flamed from ruined homes as if the blood that had been
spilt were resurrected in a glorious color that would seek to hide the
misery and sorrow and touch with new loveliness the war-scarred place.
Little birds sent forth their flutey voices where mortals must be
hushed for fear of enemies.

The British had been driven back by the Huns until they admitted that
their backs were against the wall, and it was an anxious time. Daily
the enemy drew nearer to Paris.

When the great offensive was started by the Germans in March, 1918, and
American troops were sent up to help the British and French, the
Division was located at Montdidier. Under the rules for the conduct of
war, they were not permitted to know where they were destined to go,
and so the Salvation Army could not secure that information. They knew
it was to be north of Paris, but where, was the problem.

The French were opposed to any relief organizations going into the
Sector, and rules and regulations were made which were calculated to
discourage or to keep them out altogether.

It was urgent that the Salvation Army should be there at the earliest
possible moment and as they could not secure permits, especially for
the women, they decided to get there without permits,

The first contingent was put into a big Army truck, the cover was put
down and they were started on the road, to a point from which they
hoped to secure information of the movements of their outfit. From
place to place this truck proceeded until, finally, detachments of the
troops were located in the vicinity of Gisors. Contact was immediately
established. The girls were received with the greatest joy and portable
tents were set up. It seemed as if every man in the Division must come
to say how glad he was to see them back. The men decided that if it was
in their power they would never again allow the Salvation Army to be
separated from them. A few days later when the Division was ordered to
move they took these same lassies with them riding in army trucks. The
troops were on their way to the front and seldom remained more than
three days in one place, and frequently only one day. On arrival at the
stopping-place, fifteen or twenty of the boys would immediately proceed
to erect the tent and within an hour or two a comfortable place would
be in operation, a field range set up, the phonograph going, and the
boys had a home.

At Courcelles the Salvation Army set up a tent, started a canteen, and
had it going four days in charge of two sisters just come from the
States. Then one morning they woke up and found their outfit gone, they
knew not where, and they had to pick up and go after them. An all-day
journey took them to Froissy, where they found their special outfit.

There was no place for a tent at Froissy, but there was an old dance
hall, where they had their canteen. The Division stayed there five
weeks-under a roar of guns. But in spite of this there were wonderful
meetings every night in Froissy.

This work was exceedingly trying on the girls. Permits were never
secured for any of the Salvation Army workers in this Sector. They were
applied for regularly through the French Army. About three months after
application was made, they were all received back with the statement
from the French that, seeing the workers were already there, it was not
now necessary that permits should be issued. It must be reported that
the French Army was opposed to the presence of women in any of the
camps of the soldiers. This prejudice existed for a long time, but it
was finally broken down because of the good work done by Salvation Army
women, which came to be fully recognized by the French Army.

The work in the Montdidier Sector was particularly hard. Permanent
buildings could not be established. The best that could be done was to
erect portable tents, which were about twenty feet wide and fifty-seven
feet long. Huts were established in partially destroyed buildings or
houses or stores that had been vacated by their owners, and on the
extreme front canteens were established in dugouts and cellars and the
entire district was under bombardment from the German guns as well as
from the airplane bombs. The Salvation Army had no place there that was
not under bombardment continually. The huts were frequently shelled and
there was imminent danger for a long time that the German Army would
break through, which, of course, added to the strain.

The Zone Major went back and forth bringing more men and more lassies
and more supplies from the Base at Paris to the front, and many a new
worker almost lost his life in a baptism of fire on his way to his post
of duty for the first time. But all these men and women, as a soldier
said, were made of some fine high stuff that never faltered at danger
or fatigue or hardship.

They rode over shell-gashed roads in the blackest midnight in a little
dilapidated Ford; made wild dashes when they came to a road upon which
the enemy’s fire was concentrated, looking back sometimes to see a
geyser of flame leap up from a bend around which they had just whirled.
Shells would rain in the fields on either side of them; cars would leap
by them in the dark, coming perilously close and swerving away just in
time; and still they went bravely on to their posts.

Everything would be blackest darkness and they would think they were
stealing along finely, when all of a sudden an incendiary bomb would
burst and flare up like a house-on-fire lighting up the whole country
for miles about, and there you were in plain sight of the enemy! And
you couldn’t turn back nor hesitate a second or you would be caught by
the ever watchful foe! You had to go straight ahead in all that blare
of light!

The S. A. Adjutant’s headquarters were fifty feet below the ground;
sometimes the earth would rock with the explosives. Two of the dugouts
were burrowed almost beneath the trenches and S. A. Officers here
looked after the needs of the men who were actually engaged in
fighting. Every night the shattered villages were raked and torn above
them. Such dugouts could only be left at night or when the firing
ceased. The two men who operated these lived a nerve-racking existence.
Of course, all pies and doughnuts for these places had to be prepared
far to the rear, and no fire could be built as near to the front as
this. It was no easy task to bring the supplies back and forth. It was
almost always done at the risk of life.

The Staff-Captain and the Adjutant were speeding over a shell-swept
road one cold, black, wet night at reckless speed without a light,
their hearts filled with anxiety, for a rumor had reached them that two
Salvation Army lassies had been killed by shell fire. The night was
full of the sound of war, the distant rumble of the heavy guns, the
nervous stutter of machine guns, the tearing screech of a barrage high
above the road.

Suddenly in front of them yawned a black gulf. The Adjutant jammed on
his brakes, but it was too late. The game little Ford sailed right into
a big shell hole, and settled down three feet below the road right side
up but tightly wedged in. The two travelers climbed out and
reconnoitered but found the situation hopeless. There had been many
sleepless nights before this one, and the men, weary beyond endurance,
rolled up in their blankets, climbed into the car, and went to sleep,
regardless of the guns that thundered all about them.

They were just lost to the land of reality when a soldier roused them
summarily, saying:

“This is a heck of a place for the Salvation Army to go to sleep! If
you don’t mind I’ll just pick your old bus out of here and send you on
your way before it’s light enough for Fritzy to spot you and send a
calling card.”

He was grinning at them cheerfully and they roused to the occasion.

“How are you going to do it?” asked the Adjutant, who, by the way, was
Smiling Billy, the same one the soldiers called “one game little guy.”
“It will take a three-ton truck to get us out of this hole!”

“I haven’t got a truck but I guess we can turn the trick all right!”
said the soldier.

He disappeared into the darkness above the crater and in a moment
reappeared with ten more dark forms following him, and another soldier
who patrolled the rim of the crater on horseback.

“How do you like ’em?” he chuckled to the Salvation Army men, as he
turned his flashlight on the ten and showed them to be big German
prisoners of war. Under his direction they soon had the little Ford
pushed and shouldered into the road once more. In a little while the
Salvationists reached their destination and found to their relief that
the rumor about the lassies was untrue.

At Mesnil-St.-Firmin one of the lassies, a young woman well known in
New York society circles, but a loyal Salvationist and in France from
the start, drove a little flivver carrying supplies for several nights,
accompanied only by a young boy detailed from the Army. Every mile of
the way was dark and perilous, but there was no one else to do the
work, so she did it.

Here they were under shell fire every night. The girls slept in an old
wine cellar, the only comparatively safe place to be found. It was
damp, with a fearful odor they will never forget—moreover, it was
already inhabited by rats. They frequently had to retire to the cellar
during gas attacks, and stay for hours, sometimes having only time to
seize an overcoat and throw it over their night-clothes. They were here
through ten counter-attacks and when Cantigny was taken.

There seemed to be big movements among the Germans one day. They were
bringing up reinforcements, and a large attack was expected. The
airplanes were dropping bombs freely everywhere and it looked as if
there would not be one brick left on the top of another in a few hours.
Then the military authorities ordered the two girls to leave town. When
the boys heard that the hut was being shelled and the girls were
ordered to leave they poured in to tell them how much they would miss
them. They well knew from experience that their staunch hardworking
little friends would not have left them if they could have helped it.
Also, they dreaded to lose these consecrated young women from their
midst. They had a feeling that their presence brought the presence of
the great God, with His protection, and in this they had come to trust
in their hour of danger. Often the boys would openly speak of this,
owning that they attributed their safety to the presence of their
Christian friends.

One young officer from the officers’ mess where the girls had dined
once at their invitation, brought them boxes of candy, and in
presenting them said:

“Gee! We shall miss you like the devil!”

The lassie twinkled up in a merry smile and answered: “That sure is
some comparison!” The officer blushed as red as a peony and tried to
apologize:

“Well, now, you know what I mean. I don’t know just how to say how much
we shall miss you!”

They left at midnight on foot accompanied by one of the Salvation Army
men workers who had been badly gassed and needed to get back of the
lines and have some treatment. It was brilliant moonlight as they hiked
it down the road, the airplanes were whizzing over their heads and the
anti-aircraft guns piling into them. They started for La Folie, the
Headquarters of the Staff-Captain of that zone, but they lost their way
and got far out of the track, arriving at last at Breteuil. Coming to
the woods a Military Police stationed at the crossroads told them:

“You can’t go into Breteuil because they have been shelling it for
twenty minutes. Right over there beyond where you are standing a bomb
dropped a few minutes ago and killed or wounded seven fellows. The
ambulance just took them away.”

However, as they did not know where else to go they went into Breteuil,
and found the village deserted of all but French and American Military
Police. They tried to get directions, and at last found a French mule
team to take them to La Folie, where they finally arrived at four
o’clock in the morning.

The next day they went on to Tartigny, where they were to be located
for a time.

One of the lassies left her sister with the canteen one day and started
out with another Officer to the Divisional Gas Officer to get a new gas
mask, for something had happened to hers. As they reached a crossroads
a boy on a wheel called out: “Oh, they’re shelling the road! Pull into
the village quick!”

When they arrived in the village there was a great shell just fallen in
the very centre of the town. The girl thought of her sister all alone
in the canteen, for the shells were falling everywhere now, and they
started to take a short cut back to Tartigny, but the Military Police
stopped them, saying they couldn’t go on that road in the daytime as it
was under observation, so they had to go back by the road they had
come. The canteen was at the gateway of a chateau, and when they
reached there they saw the shells falling in the chateau yard and
through the glass roof of the canteen. It was a trying time for the two
brave girls.

They had been invited out to dinner that evening at the Officers’ Mess.
As a rule, they did not go much among the officers, but this was a
special invitation. The shells had been falling all the afternoon, but
they were quite accustomed to shells and that did not stop the
festivities. During the dinner the soldier boys sang and played on
guitars and banjos. But when the dinner was over they asked the girls
to sing.

It was very still in the mess hall as the two lovely lassies took their
guitars and began to sing. There was something so strong and sweet and
pure in the glance of their blue eyes, the set of their firm little
chins, so pleasant and wholesome and merry in the very curve of their
lips, that the men were hushed with respect and admiration before this
highest of all types of womanhood.

It was a song written by their Commander that the girls had chosen,
with a sweet, touching melody, and the singers made every word clear
and distinct:

Bowed beneath the garden shades,
Where the Eastern—sunlight fades,
Through a sea of griefs He wades,
  And prays in agony.
His sweat is of blood,
His tears like a flood
  For a lost world flow down.
I never knew such tears could be—
  Those tears He wept for me!

Hung upon a rugged tree
On the hill of Calvary,
Jesus suffered, death, to be
    The Saviour of mankind.
His brow pierced by thorn,
His hands and feet torn,
  With broken heart He died.
I never knew such pain could be,
  This pain He bore for me!

Suddenly crashing into the midst of the melody came a great shell,
exploding just outside the door and causing everyone at the table to
spring to his feet. The singers stopped for a second, wavered, as the
reverberation of the shock died away, and then went on with their song;
and the officers, abashed, wondering, dropped back into their seats
marvelling at the calmness of these frail women in the face of death.
Surely they had something that other women did not have to enable them
to sing so unconcernedly in such a time as this!

Love which conquered o’er death’s sting,
Love which has immortal wing,
Love which is the only thing
    My broken heart to heal.
It burst through the grave,
It brought grace to save,
  It opened Heaven’s gate.
I never knew such love could be—
  This love He gave to me!

It needs some special experience to appreciate what Salvation Army
lassies really are, and what they have done. They are not just any good
sort of girl picked up here and there who are willing to go and like
the excitement of the experience; neither are they common illiterate
girls who merely have ordinary good sense and a will to work. The
majority of them in France are fine, well-bred, carefully reared
daughters of Christian fathers and mothers who have taught them that
the home is a little bit of heaven on earth, and a woman God’s means of
drawing man nearer to Him. They have been especially trained from
childhood to forget self and to live for others. The great slogan of
the Salvation Army is “Others.” Did you ever stop to think how that
would take the coquetry out of a girl’s eyes, and leave the sweet
simplicity of the natural unspoiled soul? We have come to associate
such a look with a plain, homely face, a dull complexion, careless,
severe hair-dressing and unbeautiful clothes. Why?

Righteousness from babyhood has given to these girls delicate beautiful
features, clear complexions that neither faded nor had to be renewed in
the thick of battle, eyes that seemed flecked with divine lights and
could dance with mirth on occasion or soften exquisitely in sympathy,
furtive dimples that twinkled out now and then; hands that were shapely
and did not seem made for toil. Yet for all that they toiled night and
day for the soldiers. They were educated, refined, cultured, could talk
easily and well on almost any subject you would mention. They never
appeared to force their religious views to the front, yet all the while
it was perfectly evident that their religion was the main object of
their lives; that this was the secret source of strength, the great
reason for their deep joy, and abiding calm in the face of calamities;
that this was the one great purpose in life which overtopped and
conquered all other desires. And if you would break through their sweet
reserve and ask them they would tell you that Jesus and the winning of
souls to Him was their one and only ambition.

And yet they have not let these great things keep them from the
pleasant little details of life. Even in the olive drab flannel shirt
and serge skirt of their uniform, or in their trim serge coats, the
exact counterpart of the soldier boy’s, except for its scarlet
epaulets, and the little close trench hat with its scarlet shield and
silver lettering, they are beautiful and womanly. Catch them with the
coat off and a great khaki apron enveloping the rest of their uniform,
and you never saw lovelier women. No wonder the boys loved to see them
working about the hut, loved to carry water and pick up the dishes for
washing, and peel apples, and scrape out the bowl after the cake batter
had been turned into the pans. No wonder they came to these girls with
their troubles, or a button that needed sewing on, and rushed to them
first with the glad news that a letter had come from home even before
they had opened it. These girls were real women, the kind of woman God
meant us all to be when He made the first one; the kind of woman who is
a real helpmeet for all the men with whom she comes in contact, whether
father, brother, friend or lover, or merely an acquaintance. There is a
fragrance of spirit that breathes in the very being, the curve of the
cheek, the glance of the eye, the grace of a movement, the floating of
a sunny strand of hair in the light, the curve of the firm red lips
that one knows at a glance will have no compromise with evil. This is
what these girls have.

You may call it what you will, but as I think of them I am again
reminded of that verse in the Bible about those brave and wonderful
disciples: “And they took knowledge of them that they had been with
Jesus.”

Two of the Salvation Army men went back to Mesnil-St.-Firmin the day
after the lassies had been obliged to leave, to get some of their
belongings which they had not been able to take with them, and one of
them, a Salvation Army Major, stayed to keep the place open for the
boys. He was the only Salvation Army man who is entitled to wear a
wound stripe. By his devotion to duty, self-sacrifice, and contempt of
danger, he won the confidence of the men wherever he was. He chiefly
worked alone and operated a canteen usually in a dugout at the front.

On one occasion a soldier was badly wounded at the door of a hut, by an
exploding gas-shell. He fell into the dugout and while the Major worked
over him, the Major himself was gassed and had to be removed to the
rear and undergo hospital treatment. For this service he was awarded a
wound stripe. During the St. Mihiel offensive he was appointed in the
Toul Sector and followed up the advancing soldiers, and later was
active in the Argonne. He is essentially a front-line man and always
takes the greatest satisfaction in being in the place of most danger.

The following is a brief excerpt from his diary when he manned the
dugout hut in Coullemelle:

May 12

“Arrived in Coullemelle Sunday night, May 12. Was busy with my work by
mid-day, Monday, 13. After cleaning our dugout, gave medicine to sick
man, who refused to sleep in my bed because he was not fit. However, I
made him feel fine, helped. I had a long talk with the boys.

_Tuesday, 14:_ Shell struck opposite to dugout and sent tiles down
steps. The Captain of E Battery visited me to-day, and then I visited
the Battery and had chow with them. Airplane fight: while batteries
were roaring, the Germans came down in flames.

_Wednesday, 15:_ No coming to dugout in the day-time on account of
shelling. I did good business in the evening and also had long services
by request of the boys. Received a letter from B—— here to-day, I slept
good.

_Thursday, 16:_ I visited army, the officers and men of F Battery.
Their chow kitchen is in a bad place, all men coming down sick. I had
an arrangement with the doughboys that they might come in my dugout any
hour in the night, whenever they wanted. I visited infantry officers
to-day, Capt. Cribbs and Capt. Crisp. I had a lovely talk with them. I
offered to go to the trenches with my goods, but Capt. Cribbs said I
would just be killed without doing what he knew I wanted to do, namely,
serve the boys with food and encourage them.

_Friday, 17:_ I was startled by a fearful barrage at four o’clock when
I got up, washed my clothes: was visited by the Y.M.C.A. Secretary: was
shelled from five o’clock till ten o’clock. I went for chow and found
shell ball gone through kitchen. High explosive, black smoke shells
bursting intermittently, tiles fell into my dugout. I took pick shovel
in with me; my kitten ran away but came back. A three-legged cat came
to the ruined home where I am; its leg evidently had been cut off by
shrapnel. Great air fight all day. Incendiary shells were fired into
the town and burnt for a long time. I visited Battery F, and gave the
fellows medicine. To-day both officers and men were in the gun pits and
I with them, while they were deviling with Fritzy. Big business in
evening with long service, gave out Testaments and held service in
dugout; got a Frenchman to interpret the scripture to his comrades.
Bequests for prayer. Doughboys came in 12:30, through a barrage, and
got sixty-five bars of chocolate, others got biscuits. I am very, very
tired; artillery is roaring as I go to sleep.

_Saturday, 18:_ Capt. Cribbs came down to dugout and said he was
worried to death over me (thought I was killed). I assured him I was
all 0. K., and that it was their end of the town that needed looking
after. He laughed and enjoyed it. My supplies are kept up by the
courage and devotion of the Staff-Captain and Billy, who, taking their
lives in their hands, bring the Ford with supplies along the shell-torn
road at great peril. Capt. Corliss also came.

During the day, the officer of Battery F wanted the Victrola and got
the use of it in their dugout for three days. In the meantime I had
furnished Battery D the use of the Victrola and the day I made the
promise, I found the boys without chow for twelve hours. When about to
serve it, the town was gassed and their food with it and no one was
permitted to touch a thing, they were blessing the Kaiser as only
soldiers can under such circumstances. When I arrived among them, after
finding out the way of things, I suggested to the officers that I
should be permitted to supply them with such food as I had. They
assured me it would be a mighty good thing for them if I would, and I
took four boxes of biscuits and six pots of jam and other things to
their trench in the rear of their batteries— they surely thought I was
an angel and I left them pretty happy. This was all done under fire and
at great risk. I chowed with Battery E and saw shell hole through
building which was new since my last visit—boys offer to teach me how
to work gun, their spirit is wonderful under the terrific strain which
they labor. I visited ruined church and went inside; here were some
graves of the French soldiers, some of the bodies being exposed. Could
not stay very long. Overtook soldier-boy limping, got him to stay
awhile and gave him hot chocolate; persuaded him to let his limb be
seen to, which he did, and was sent to hospital. I visited hospital
corps-fellows and arranged that in case of gas, they would visit and
rouse me at night. They are fine fellows. Doughboys bought lots of
goods and blessed the Salvation Army a thousand times. These lads come
in from the trenches and have some hair-raising stories to tell.

_Sunday, 19:_ Quiet till the afternoon when a gas barrage started. I
was driven out of my dugout. I had a narrow escape, while reaching the
hospital corps dugout. Lieut. Roolan (since promoted), of the Fifth
Field Artillery, was there for two hours and half. 480 shells, I was
informed, came down, averaging up three and four per minute. All night,
from 6 o’clock to 3 A.M., 3000 shells are sent into the town. I slept
in the Headquarters Signal Corps dugout with my gas mask on all night.

_Monday, 20:_ Visited Y.M.C.A. and found their dugout had been struck
and the Secretary’s eyes were gassed after a man took his place. I saw
Colonel Crane to try and get out of my dugout and get the one he had
left. He gave me permission, assuring me that it was not a very good
one at that. I took my Victrola with two of the battery boys from F
Battery. I carried the records and they the Victrola. We dodged the
shelling all the way and I had the pleasure of hearing the “Swanee
River” song at the same time as the firing of the big guns much to the
enjoyment of the boys. I understand that General Summerall visited and
heard the Victrola soon after I had taken it to the boys. I placed
about fifty books among officers of the Hospital Corps, Infantry
officers, Battery officers. They were highly appreciated. I slept with
Signal Corps boys again as Fritzy decided to continue the bombardment
of the town which he did from 5.30 P.M. to 5.30 A.M. I slept with mask
on and had no ill effects of the gas at all so far; but about five
o’clock a terrific crash just outside of my dugout followed by a man
shouting as he rushed down the dugout steps, “Oh, God, get me to the
doctor right away.” That shell nearly got me. I was only eight feet
from it. I sprung up and rushed him from the dugout over to the
hospital. I had to chase around from one dugout to another and finally
landed my man (his name was Harry), who was taken to the hospital.

_Tuesday, 21:_ After taking the man to the doctor, I went to my own
place and found a nine-inch gas shrapnel shell had burst 15 or 20 feet
from my dugout, about fifteen holes were torn through the door, the top
of the shell lay six feet from the top of the steps, pieces of the
shell were scattered down the steps, and my dugout to the gas curtain,
was full of gas. If Staff-Captain and Billy had been visiting me that
night, the shell would have hit the Ford right in the center. Fierce
bombardment all the day. Houses were struck on the entire street from
end to end. Shells fell in the yard, one struck the corner of the
house. The soldiers next door have gone, and my place can only be
opened in the evenings. Things are pretty hot, I started out visiting
the batteries to-day, but was driven back and could get out only by the
back entrance to the yard. I am told by a soldier of the Intelligence
Dept., that their bombardment is what is known as a “Million-Dollar
Barrage,” and that all were fortunate to have passed through it, he
also told me the number and nature of the shells. I served hot
chocolate this Tuesday night and noticed that my hands were very red.

_Wednesday, 22:_ I visited the Battery in their trenches again and took
them food. My eyes are affected by the gas, and I got treatment at the
Evacuating Hospital. Some shells come very close to my dugout—to-day
thirty feet, fifty feet and twenty feet. I gather up a box full of
remnants. I find I am gassed by a contact with the poor fellow coming
in whom I took to the doctor. I get treatment two or three times for my
eyes and throat. My hands begin to crack and smart. The flesh comes off
from my neck and other parts of my body. I had a fine meeting with boys
in dugout and am again visited by the doughboys and officers. I visit
the ruined church area again and get a few relics.

_Thursday, 23:_ My eyes are very red and becoming painful and also my
throat and nose, _etc_. I plan to move my dugout and pack up
accordingly. Things are quieter today; had services again in the
evening. French schoolmaster among the number, six requests for prayer.

_Friday, 24:_ Am all ready to move to a new dugout when Staff-Captain
arrives and tells me I am ordered out by the military.”

Here is the Military Order received by the Staff-Captain:

“To Major Coe,

“Salvation Army:

“(1) Major Wilson, Chief G1, directs that the Salvation Army evacuate
‘Coullemelle’ as soon as possible.

“(2) He desires that they leave to-night if possible.

“(3) This message was received by me from the office of G1.

“L. Johnson,
“1st Lieut., F. A.”

Orders also arrived soon for the removal of the Salvation Army workers
in Broyes:

“Headquarters, 1st Division, G-1.
“American Expeditionary Forces,
“June 3, 1919.

“Memorandum: To Mr. L. A. Coe, Salvation Army, La Folie.

“The hut, which it is understood the Salvation Army is operating in
Broyes, will, for military reasons, be removed from there as soon as
practicable.

“It is contrary to the desire of the Commanding General that women
workers be employed in huts or canteens east of the line
Mory-Chepoix-Tartigny, and if any are now so located they are to ’be
removed.

“The operations of technical services, Red Cross, Y.M.C.A., and other
similar agencies is a function of this section of the General Staff and
all questions pertaining to your movements and location of huts should
in the future be referred to G.-1.

“By command of Major General Bullard.

“G. K Wilson,
“Major, General Staff,
“A. C. of S., G.-1.”

In Tartigny they found a house with five rooms, one of them very large.
The billeting officer turned this over to the Salvation Army.

There was plenty of space and the girls might have a room to themselves
here, instead of just curtaining off a corner of a tent or making a
partition of supply boxes in one end of the hut as they often had to
do. There was also plenty of furniture in the house, and they were
allowed to go around the village and get chairs and tables or anything
they wanted to fix up their canteen. The girls had great fun selecting
easy-chairs and desks and anything they desired from the deserted
houses, and before long the result was a wonderfully comfortable, cozy,
home-like room.

“Gee! This is just like heaven, coming in here!” one of the boys said
when he first saw it.

Just outside Tartigny there was a large ammunition dump, piles of
shells and boxes of other ammunition. It was under the trees and well
camouflaged, but night after night the enemy airplanes kept trying to
get it. The girls used to sit in the windows and watch the airplane
battles. They would stay until an airplane got over the house and then
they would run to the cellar. They came so close one night that pieces
of shell from the anti-aircraft guns fell over the house.

Sometimes the airplanes would come in the daytime, and the girls got
into the habit of running out into the street to watch them. But at
this the boys protested.

“Don’t do that, you will get hit!” they begged. And one day the nose of
an unexploded shell fell in the street just outside the door. After
that they were more careful.

In this town one afternoon a whole truck-load of oranges arrived, being
three hundred crates, four hundred oranges to a crate, for the canteen,
and they were all gone by four o’clock!

The Headquarters of the Division Commander were in a beautiful old
stone chateau of a peculiar color that seemed to be invisible to the
airplanes. There were woods all around it and the house was never
shelled. It was filled with rare old tapestries and beautiful
furniture.

The Count who owned the chateau asked the Major General to get some
furniture that belonged to him out of the village that was being
shelled. Later the Count asked the General if he ever got that
furniture. The General asked his Colonel, “What did you do with that
furniture?” “Oh,” the Colonel said, “it’s down there all right!” “And
where is the piano?” “Oh, I gave that to the Salvation Army.”

In this area it was one lassie’s first bombardment; it came suddenly
and without warning. The soldiers in the hut decamped without ceremony
for the safety of their dugouts. One soldier who had been detailed to
help the lassie, shouted: “Come on! Follow me to your dugout!” Without
further talk he turned and started for cover. The girl had been baking.
A tray full of luscious lemon cream pies stood on the table. She did
not want to leave those pies to the tender mercies of a shell. Also she
had some new boots standing beneath the table, and she was not going to
lose those. Without stopping to think, she seized the shoes in one hand
and the tray in the other and rushed after the soldier. A little gully
had to be crossed on the way to the dugout and the only bridge was a
twelve-inch plank. The soldier crossed in safety and turned to look
after the girl. Just as she reached the middle of the plank a shell
burst not far away. The lassie was so startled that she nearly lost her
balance, swaying first one way and then the other. In an attempt to
stop the tray of pies from slipping, she almost lost the shoes, and in
recovering the shoes, the pies just escaped sliding overboard into the
thick mud below.

The soldier registered deep agitation.

“Drop the shoes!” he shouted. “I can clean the shoes, but for heaven’s
sake don’t drop them pies!” And the lassie obeyed meekly.

In the little town of Bonnet where the rest room was located in an old
barn connected with a Catholic convent, one Salvation Army Envoy and
his wife from Texas began their work. They soon became known to the
soldiers familiarly as “Pa” and “Ma.”

It was in this old barn that the tent top, later made famous at
Ansauville, was first used. Stoves were almost impossible to obtain at
that time, but “Ma” was determined that she would bake pies for the
men, so the Envoy constructed an oven out of two tin cake boxes and
using a small two-burner gasoline stove, “Ma” baked biscuits and pies
that made her name famous. Through her great motherly heart and her
willingness to serve the boys at all times, under all circumstances,
she won their confidence and love. One soldier said he would walk five
miles any day to look into “Ma’s” gray eyes.

From Bonnet they were transferred to command a hut at Ansauville, but
“Ma” could never rest so long as there was a soldier to be served in
any way. She worked early and late, and she made each individual
soldier who came to the hut her special charge as if he were her own
son. She could not sleep when they were going over the top unless she
prayed with each one before he went.

The meetings which she and her husband held were full of life and power
and were never neglected, no matter how hard the strain might be from
other lines of service.

It was not long before “Ma’s” strength gave out and it was necessary to
move her to a quieter place. She was transferred to Houdelainecourt.
She would not go until they carried her away.

Houdelainecourt at this time was on the main road travelled by trucks,
taking supplies by train from the railroad at Gondrecourt to the front.
Truck drivers invariably made it a point to stop at “Ma’s” hut and here
they were always sure to receive a welcome and the most delicious
doughnuts and pies and hot biscuit which loving hands could make.

Not satisfied with this service alone, she undertook to fry pancakes
for the officers’ breakfast. It was through these kindly services,
ungrudgingly done, at any time of the day or night, that her name was
established as one of the most potent factors in contributing to the
comfort and welfare of the men, and there was no hole or tear of the
men’s clothes that “Ma” could not mend.

A short time after the pie contest over at Gondrecourt, “Ma” and one of
her lassie helpers set out to break the record of 316 pies as a day’s
work. Their oven would hold but six pies at a time; their hut had but
just been opened and all their equipment had not yet arrived, so they
were short a rolling pin, which had to be carved from a broken
wagon-shaft with a jack-knife before they could begin; but they
achieved the baking of 324 pies between 6 A.M. and 6 P.M. that day. It
is fair to state for the sake of the doubter, however, that the pie
fillers, both pumpkin and apple, were all prepared and piping hot on
the stove ready to be poured into the pastry as it was put into the
oven, which, of course, helped a good deal.

A sign was put out announcing that pie would be served at seven
o’clock, but the lines formed long before that.

[Illustration: “Ma”]

[Illustration: “They had a pie-baking contest in Gondrecourt one
day”—the renowned “Aunt Mary” in the right-hand corner]

The pies were unusually large and cut into fifths, but even at that
they were much larger pieces than are usually served at the ordinary
restaurant.

By half-past eight some men were falling in for a second helping, but
“Ma” had been watching long a little company of men off to one side who
hovered about yet never dropped into line themselves, and made up her
mind that these were some of those who perhaps sent much of their money
home and found it a long time between pay-days. Casting her kindly eye
comprehendingly toward these men she mounted a chair and requested:

“All of the men who have already had pie, please step out of the line;
and all of those boys who want coffee and pie but have no money, step
into line and get some, _anyhow!_”

She gave the boys one of her beautiful motherly smiles and that made
them feel they had all got home, and they hesitated no longer. “Ma,”
however, was more deeply interested in her meetings than in mere pie.
The Sunday before this contest over five hundred soldiers had attended
the evening meeting, and almost as many had been present at the morning
service. Also, there had been twenty-eight members added to her Bible
class. Though the hut was a large one it had been crowded to its utmost
capacity in the evening, with men packed into the open doorways and
windows on either side, and forty of the men who announced their
determination to follow Christ that night could not get inside to come
forward. More than a dozen gave personal testimony of what Christ had
done for them. One notable testimony was as follows:

“I used to be a hard guy fellers,” he said, “and maybe I had some good
reasons when I used to say that nothing was ever going to scare me, but
when we lay out there with a six-hour barrage busting right in front of
us and ‘arrivals’ busting all around us, I did a whole lot of thinking.
It seemed as though every shell had my number on it! And when we went
over and ran square into their barrage, I’ll admit I was scared yellow
and was darned afraid I was going to show it! We were under a barrage
for ten hours. A shell buried me under about a foot of earth, and for
the first time I can remember, while my bunkie was digging me out, I
prayed to God. And I want to say that I believe He answered my prayer,
and that is the only reason I came out uninjured. I promised if I got
out I’d call for a new deal, and I want to say that I’m going to keep
that promise!”

A boy who had been converted in one of the meetings a few nights before
came into the hut and sought her out. He told her he was going over the
top that night, and he had something he wanted to confess before he
went. He had told a lie and he had felt terrible remorse about it ever
since he was converted. He had treated his mother badly, and gone and
enlisted, saying he was eighteen when he was only sixteen. “Now,” said
he with relief after he had told the story, “that’s all clear. And say,
if I’m killed, will you go through my pockets and find my Testament and
send it to mother? And will you tell my mother all about it and tell
her it is all right with me now? Tell mother I went over the top a
Christian. You’ll know what to say to her to help her bear up.”

She promised and the boy went away content. That night he was killed,
and, true to her promise, she went through his pockets when he was
brought back, and found the little Testament close over his heart; and
in it a verse was marked for his mother:

“The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

During the early days of the Salvation Army work in France, while the
work was still under inspection as to its influence on the men, and one
Colonel had sent a Captain around to the meetings to report upon them
to him, “Ma’s” was one of the meetings to which the Captain came.

She did not know that she was under suspicion, but that night she spoke
on obedience and discipline, taking as her text: “Take heed to the
law,” and urging the men to obey both moral and military laws so that
they might be better men and better soldiers. The Captain reported on
her sermon and said that he wished the regiment had a Salvation Army
chaplain for every company.

The hospital visitation work was started by “Ma” in the Paris hospitals
while she was in that city for several months regaining her strength
after a physical break-down at the front. She was idolized by the
wounded. If she walked along any hospital passageway or through any
ward, a crowd of men were sure to call her by name. They knew her as
“Ma,” and frequently, overworked nurses have called up the Paris
Salvation Army Headquarters asking if Ma could not find time to come
down and sit with a dying boy who was calling for her. She observed
their birthdays with books and other small presents, wrote to their
mothers, wives and sweethearts, and performed a multitude of
invaluable, precious little services of love. For weeks after she left
Paris, returning to the front, the wounded called for her. She is one
of the outstanding figures of the Salvation Army’s work with the
American Expeditionary Forces in France. She is indelibly enshrined in
the hearts of hundreds of American soldiers.

A Salvation Army lassie bent over the bed of a wounded boy recently
arrived in the Paris hospital from the front, and gave him an orange
and a little sack of candy.

“I know the Salvation Army,” he said with a faint smile, “I knew I
should find you here.”

She asked him his division and he told her he belonged to one that had
been coöperating with the French.

“But how can that be?” she asked in surprise, “we have never worked
with your division. How do you know about us?”

“I only saw the Salvation Army once,” he replied, “but I’ll never
forget it. It was when I came back to consciousness in the Dressing
Station at Cheppy, and the first thing I saw was a Salvation Army girl
bending over me washing the blood and dirt off my face with cold water.
She looked like an angel and she was that to me. She gave me a drink of
cold lemonade when I was burning up with fever, and she lifted my head
to pour it between my lips when I had not strength to move myself. No,
I shall not forget!”

One bright young fellow with a bandaged eye turned a cheerful grin
toward the Salvation Army visitor as she said with compassion: “Son,
I’m sorry you’ve lost your eye.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” was the gay reply, “I can see everything out of
the other eye. I’ve got seven holes in me, too, but believe me I’m not
going home for the loss of an eye and seven holes! I’ll get out yet and
get into the fight!”

The Salvation Army officer and his wife who were stationed at
Bonvillers visited every man in the local hospital every day, sleeping
every night in the open fields. As they are quite elderly, this was no
little hardship, especially in rainy weather.

Five lassies stationed at Noyers St. Martin were for several weeks
forced by the nightly shelling and air-raids to take their blankets out
into the fields at night and sleep under the stars. One of these girls
was called “Sunshine” because of her smile.

On the eve of Decoration Day a military Colonel visited her in the hut.
He seemed rather depressed, perhaps by the ceremonies of the day, and
said that he had come to be cheered up. In parting he said, “Little
girl, you had better get out of town early to-night; I feel as though
something is going to happen.” Less than an hour later, while the girls
were just preparing for the night in a field half a mile distant, an
aerial bomb dropped by an aviator on the house in which he was billeted
killed him and two other Captains who were sitting with him at the
time. He had been a great friend of the Salvation Army.

Out in a little village in Indiana there grew a fair young flower of a
girl. Her mother was a dear Christian woman and she was brought up in
her mother’s church, which she loved. When she was only twelve years
old she had a remarkable and thorough old-fashioned conversion, giving
herself with all her childish heart to the Saviour. She feels that she
had a kind of vision at that time of what the Lord wanted her to be, a
call to do some special work for Christ out in the world, helping
people who did not know Him, people who were sick and poor and
sorrowful. She did not tell her vision to anyone. She did not even know
that anywhere in the world were any people doing the kind of work she
felt she would like to do, and God had called her to do. She was shy
about it and kept her thoughts much to herself. She loved her own
church, and its services, but somehow that did not quite satisfy her.

One day when she was about fourteen years old the Salvation Army came
to the town where she lived and opened work, holding its meetings in a
large hall or armory. With her young companions she attended these
meetings and was filled with a longing to be one of these earnest
Christian workers.

Her mother, accustomed to a quiet conventional church and its way of
doing Christian work, was horrified; and in alarm sent her away to
visit her uncle, who was a Baptist minister. The daughter, dutiful and
sweet, went willingly away, although she had many a longing for these
new friends of hers who seemed to her to have found the way of working
for God that had been her own heart’s desire for so long.

Meantime her gay young brother, curious to know what had so stirred his
bright sister, went to the Salvation Army meetings to find out, and was
attracted himself. He went again and found Jesus Christ, and himself
joined the Salvation Army. The mother in this case did not object,
perhaps because she felt that a boy needed more safeguards than a girl,
perhaps because the life of publicity would not trouble her so much in
connection with her son as with her daughter.

The daughter after several months away from home returned, only to find
her longing to join the Salvation Army stronger. But quietly and
sweetly she submitted to her mother’s wish and remained at home for
some years, like her Master before her, who went down to His home in
Nazareth and was subject to His father and mother; showing by her
gentle submission and her lovely life that she really had the spirit of
God in her heart and was not merely led away by her enthusiasm for
something new and strange.

When she was twenty her mother withdrew her objections, and the
daughter became a Salvationist, her mother coming to feel thoroughly in
sympathy with her during the remaining years she lived.

This is the story of one of the Salvation Army lassies who has been
giving herself to the work in the huts over in France. She is still
young and lovely, and there is something about her delicate features
and slender grace that makes one think of a young saint. No wonder the
soldiers almost worshipped her! No wonder these lassies were as safe
over there ten miles from any other woman or any other civilian alone
among ten thousand soldiers, as if they had been in their own homes.
They breathed the spirit of God as they worked, as well as when they
sang and prayed. To such a girl a man may open his heart and find true
help and strength.

[Illustration: A letter of inspiration from the commander]

[Illustration: The Salvation Army boy truck driver who calmly went to
sleep in his truck in a shell hole under fire]

It was no uncommon thing for our boys who were so afraid of anything
like religion or anything personal over here, to talk to these lassies
about their souls, to ask them what certain verses in the Bible meant,
and to kneel with them in some quiet corner behind the chocolate boxes
and be prayed with, yes, and _pray!_ It is because these girls have let
the Christ into their lives so completely that He lives and speaks
through them, and the boys cannot help but recognize it.

Not every boy who was in a Salvation hut meeting has given himself to
Christ, of course, but every one of them recognizes this wonderful
something in these girls. Ask them. They will tell you “She is the real
thing!” They won’t tell you more than that, perhaps, unless they have
really grown in the Christian life, but they mean that they have
recognized in her spirit a likeness to the spirit of Christ.

Now and then, of course, there was a thick-headed one who took some
minutes to recognize holiness. Such would enter a hut with an oath upon
his lips, or an unclean story, and straightway all the men who were
sitting at the tables writing or standing about the room would come to
attention with one of those little noisy silences that mean, so much;
pencils would click down on the table like a challenge, and the
newcomer would look up to find the cold glances of his fellows upon
him.

The boys who frequented the huts broke the habit of swearing and
telling unclean stories, and officers began to realize that their men
were better in their work because of this holy influence that was being
thrown about them. One officer said his men worked better, and kept
their engines oiled up so they wouldn’t be delayed on the road, that
they might get back to the hut early in the evening. The picture of a
girl stirring chocolate kept the light of hope going in the heart of
many a homesick lad.

One ignorant and exceedingly “fresh” youth, once walked boldly into a
hut, it is said, and jauntily addressed the lassie behind the counter
as “Dearie.” The sweet blue eyes of the lassie grew suddenly cold with
aloofness, and she looked up at the newcomer without her usual smile,
saying distinctly: _“What did you say?_”

The soldier stared, and grew red and unhappy:

“Oh! I beg your pardon!” he said, and got himself out of the way as
soon as possible. These lassies needed no chaperon. They were young
saints to the boys they served, and they had a cordon of ten thousand
faithful soldiers drawn about them night and day. As a military Colonel
said, the Salvation Army lassie was the only woman in France who was
safe unchaperoned.

When this lassie from Indiana came back on a short furlough after
fifteen months in France with the troops, and went to her home for a
brief visit, the Mayor gave the home town a holiday, had out the band
and waited at the depot in his own limousine for four hours that he
might not miss greeting her and doing her honor.

Here is the poem which Pte. Joseph T. Lopes wrote about “Those
Salvation Army Folks” after the Montdidier attack:

Somewhere in France, not far from the foe,
There’s a body of workers whose name we all know;
Who not only at home give their lives to make right,
But are now here beside us, fighting our fight.
What care they for rest when our boys at the front,
Who, fighting for freedom, are bearing the brunt,
And so, just at dawn, when the caissons come home,
With the boys tired out and chilled to the bone,
The Salvation Army with its brave little crew,
Are waiting with doughnuts and hot coffee, too.
When dangers and toiling are o’er for awhile,
In their dugouts we find comfort and welcome their smile.
There’s a spirit of home, so we go there each night,
And the thinking of home makes us sit down and write,
So we tell of these folks to our loved ones with pride,
And are thanking the Lord to have them on our side.




V.
The Toul Sector Again


When the German offensive was definitely checked in the Montdidier
Sector, the First Division was transferred back to the Toul Sector and
the Salvation Army moved with it. They had in the meantime maintained
all the huts which had been established originally, and with the return
of the First Division, they established additional huts between Font
and Nancy. When the St. Mihiel drive came off, they followed the
advancing troops, establishing huts in the devastated villages, keeping
in as close contact with the extreme front as was possible, serving the
troops day and night, always aiming to be at the point where the need
was the greatest, and where they could be of the greatest service.

The first Americans to pay the supreme sacrifice in the cause of
liberty were buried in the Toul Sector.

As it drew near to Decoration Day there came a message from over the
sea from the Commander to her faithful band of workers, saying that she
was sending American flags, one for every American soldier’s grave, and
that she wanted the graves cared for and decorated; and at all the
various locations of Salvation Army workers they prepared to do her
bidding.

The day before the thirtieth of May they took time from their other
duties to clear away the mud, dead grass and fallen leaves from the
graves, and heap up the mounds where they had been washed flat by the
rains, making each one smooth, regular and tidy. At the head of each
grave was a simple wooden cross bearing the name of the soldier who lay
there, his rank, his regiment and the date of his death. Into the back
of each cross they drove a staple for a flag, and they swept and
garnished the place as best they could.

One Salvation Army woman writing home told of the plans they had made
in Treveray for Decoration Day; how Commander Booth was sending enough
American flags to decorate every American grave in France, and how they
meant to gather flowers and put with the flags, and have a little
service of prayer over the graves.

In the gray old French cemetery of Treveray five American boys lay
buried. The flowers upon their graves were dry and dead, for their
regiments had moved on and left them. The graves had been neglected and
only the guarding wooden crosses remained above the rough earth to show
that someone had cared and had stopped to put a mark above the places
where they lay. It was these graves the Salvation Army woman now
proposed to decorate on Memorial Day.

The letter went to the Captain for censorship, and soon the Salvation
Army woman had a call from him.

“I understand by one of your letters that you are thinking of
decorating the American graves,” he said. “We would like to help in
that, if you don’t mind. I would like the company all to be present.”

The day before Memorial Day this woman with two of the lassies from the
hut went to the cemetery and prepared for the morrow.

In the morning they gathered great armfuls of crimson poppies from the
fields, creamy snowballs from neglected gardens, and blue bachelor
buttons from the hillsides, which they arranged in bouquets of red,
white and blue for the graves. They had no vases in which to place the
flowers but they used the apple tins in which the apples for their pies
had been canned.

The centuries-old gray cemetery nestled in a curve of the road between
wheat fields on every side. A gray, moss-covered, lichen-hung wall
surrounded it. The five American graves were under the shadow of the
Western wall, and the sun was slowly sinking in his glory as the
company of soldiers escorted the women into the cemetery. They passed
between the ponderous old gray stones, and beaded wreaths of the French
graves; and the officers and men lined up facing the five graves. The
women placed the tricolored flowers in the cans prepared for them, and
planted the flags beside them. Then the elder woman, who had sons of
her own, stepped out and saluted the military commanding officer:
“Colonel” said she, “with your permission we would like to follow our
custom and offer a prayer for the bereaved.” Instantly permission was
given and every head was uncovered as the Salvationist poured out her
heart in prayer to the Everlasting Father, commending the dead into His
tender Keeping, and pleading for the sorrow-stricken friends across the
sea, until the soldiers’ tears fell unchecked as they stood with rifles
stiffly in front of them listening to the quiet voice of the woman as
she prayed. God seemed Himself to come down, and the living boys
standing over their five dead comrades could not help but be enfolded
in His love, and feel the sense of His presence. They knew that they,
too, might soon be sleeping even as these at their feet. It seemed but
a step to the other life. When the prayer was finished a firing squad
fired five volleys over the graves, and then the bugler played the taps
and the little service was over. The lassies lingered to take pictures
of the graves and that night they wrote letters describing the
ceremony, to be sent with the photographs to the War Department at
Washington with the request that they be forwarded to the nearest
relatives of the five men buried at Treveray.

[Illustration: The centuries-old gray cemetery in Treveray]

[Illustration: Colonel Barker placing the commander’s flowers on
Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt’s grave]

There were exercises at Menil-la-Tour and here they had built a simple
platform in the centre of the ground and erected a flagpole at one
corner.

When the morning came two regimental bands took up their positions in
opposite corners of the cemetery and began to play. The French populace
had turned out en masse. They took up their stand just outside the
little cemetery, next to them the soldiers were lined up, then the Red
Cross, then the Y.M.C.A. Beyond, a little hill rose sloping gently to
the sky line, and over it a mile away was the German front, with the
shells coming over all the time.

It was an impressive scene as all stood with bared heads just outside
the little enclosure where eighty-one wooden crosses marked the going
of as many brave spirits who had walked so blithely into the crisis and
given their young lives.

Some French officers had brought a large, beautiful wreath to do honor
to the American heroes, and this was placed at the foot of the great
central flagpole.

The bands played, and they all sang. It was announced that but for the
thoughtfulness and kindness of Commander Evangeline Booth in sending
over flags those graves would have gone undecorated that day.

The Commanding General then came to the front and behind him walked the
Salvation Army lassies bearing the flags in their arms.

Down the long row of graves he passed. He would take a flag from one of
the girls, slip it in the staple back of the cross, stand a moment at
salute, then pass on to the next. It was very still that May morning,
broken only by the awesome boom of battle just over the hill, but to
that sound all had grown accustomed. The people stood with that hush of
sorrow over them which only the majesty of death can bring to the
hearts of a crowd, and there were tears in many eyes and on the faces
of rough soldiers standing there to honor their comrades who had been
called upon to give their lives to the great cause of freedom.

A little breeze was blowing and into the solemn stillness there stole a
new sound, the silken ripple of the flags as one by one they were set
fluttering from the crosses, like a soft, growing, triumphant chorus of
those to come whose lives were to be made safe because these had died.
As if the flag would waft back to the Homeland, and the stricken
mothers and fathers, sisters and sweethearts, some idea of the
greatness of the cause in which they died to comfort them in their
sorrow.

Out through each line the General passed, placing the flags and
solemnly saluting, till eighty graves had been decorated and there was
only one left; but there was no flag for the eighty-first grave!
Somehow, although they thought they had brought several more than were
needed, they were one short. But the General stood and saluted the
grave as he had the others, and later the flag was brought and put in
place, so that every American grave in the Toul Sector that day had its
flag fluttering from its cross.

Then the General and the soldiers saluted the large flag. It was an
impressive moment with the deep thunder of the guns just over the hill
reminding of more battle and more lives to be laid down.

The General then addressed the soldiers, and facing toward the West and
pointing he said:

“Out there in that direction is Washington and the President, and all
the people of the United States, who are looking to you to set the
world free from tyranny. Over there are the mothers who have bade you
good-bye with tears and sent you forth, and are waiting at home and
praying for you, trusting in you. Out there are the fathers and the
sisters and the sweethearts you have left behind, all depending on you
to do your best for the Right. Now,” said he in a clear ringing voice,
“turn and salute America!” And they all turned and saluted toward the
West, while the band played softly “My Country ’Tis of Thee!”

It was a wonderful, beautiful, solemn sight, every man standing and
saluting while the flags fluttered softly on the breeze.

Behind the little French Catholic church in the village of Bonvilliers
there was quite a large field which had been turned over to the
Americans for a cemetery. The Military Major had caused an arch to be
made over the gateway inscribed with the words: “National Cemetery of
the American Expeditionary Forces.” There were over two hundred graves
inside the cemetery.

On Decoration Day the Regimental Band led a parade through the village
streets to the graveyard, the French women in black and little French
children, with wreaths made of wonderful beaded flowers cunningly
constructed from beads strung on fine wires, marching in the parade.
Arrived at the cemetery they all stood drawn up in line while the
Military Major gave a beautiful address, first in French and then in
English. He then told the French children and women to take their
places one at each grave, and lay down their tributes of flowers for
the Americans. Following this the Salvation Army placed flags on each
on behalf of the mothers of the boys who were lying there.

It was noon-day. The sun was very bright and every white cross bearing
the name of the fallen glittered in the sun. Even the worst little
hovel over in France is smothered in a garden and bright with myriads
of flowers, so everything was gay with blossoms and everybody had
brought as many as could be carried.

Over in one corner of the cemetery were two German graves, and one of
the lassies of that organization which proclaims salvation for all men
went and laid some blossoms there also.

At La Folie one of the Salvation Army lassies going across the fields
on some errand of mercy found three American graves undecorated and
bare on Memorial Day, and turning aside from the road she gathered
great armfuls of scarlet poppies from the fields and came and laid them
on the three mounds, then knelt and prayed for the friends of the boys
whose bodies were lying there.

The whole world was startled and saddened when the news came that
Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt had been shot down in his airplane in
action and fallen within the enemy’s lines.

He was crudely buried by the Germans where he fell, near Chambray, and
a rude cross set up to mark the place. All around were pieces of his
airplane shattered on the ground and left as they had fallen.

When the spot fell into the hands of the Allies, the grave was cared
for by the Salvation Army; a new white cross set up beside the old one,
and gentle hands smoothed the mound and made it shapely. On Decoration
Day Colonel Barker placed upon this grave the beautiful flowers
arranged for by cable by Commander Booth.

The girls went down to decorate the two hundred American graves at
Mandres, and even while they bent over the flaming blossoms and laid
them on the mounds an air battle was going on over their heads. Close
at hand was the American artillery being moved to the front on a little
narrow-gauge railroad that ran near to the graveyard, and the Germans
were firing and trying to get them.

But the girls went steadily on with their work, scattering flowers and
setting flags until their service of love was over. Then they stood
aside for the prayer and a song. One of the Salvation Army Captains
with a fine voice began to sing:

My loved ones in the Homeland
  Are waiting me to come,
Where neither death nor sorrow
  Invades their holy home;
O dear, dear native country!
    O rest and peace above!
Christ, bring us all to the Homeland
  Of Thy redeeming love.

Into the midst of the song came the engine on the little narrow track
straight toward where he stood, and he had to step aside onto a pile of
dirt to finish his song.

That same Captain went on ahead to the Home Land not long after when
the epidemic of influenza swept over the world; and he was given the
honor of a military funeral.




VI.
The Baccarat Sector


Baccarat was the Zone Headquarters for that Sector.

Down the Main street there hung a sign on an old house labeled “Modern
Bar.”

Inside everything was all torn up. It had never been opened since the
battles of 1914. The Germans had lived there and everything was in an
awful condition. One wonders how they endured themselves. The Military
detailed two men for two days to spade up and carry away the filth from
the bedrooms, and it took two women an entire week all but one day,
scrubbing all day long until their shoulders ached, to scrub the place
clean. But they got it clean. They were the kind of women that did not
give up even when a thing seemed an impossibility. This was the sort of
thing they were up against continually. They could have no meetings
that week because they had to scrub and make the place fit for a
Salvation Army hut.

Two of the lassies were awakened early one bright morning by the sound
of an axe ringing rhythmically on wood, just back of their canteen. It
was a cheerful sound to wake to, for the girls had been through a long
wearing day and night, and they knew when they went to sleep that the
wood was almost gone. It was always so pleasant to have someone offer
to cut it for them, for they never liked to have to ask help of the
soldiers if they could possibly avoid it. But there was so much else to
be done besides cutting wood. Not that they could not do that, too,
when the need offered. The sisters looked sleepily at one another,
thinking simultaneously of the poor homesick doughboy who had told them
the day before that chopping wood for them made him think of home and
mother and that was why he liked to do it. Of course, it was he hard at
work for them before they were up, and they smiled contentedly, with a
lifted prayer for the poor fellow. They knew he had received no mail
for four months and that only a few days before he had read in a paper
sent to one of his pals of the death of his sister. Of course, his
heart was breaking, for he knew what his widowed mother was suffering.
They knew that his salvation from homesickness just now lay in giving
him something to do, so they lingered a little just to give him the
chance, and planned how they would let him help with the doughnuts, and
fix the benches, later, when the wood was cut.

In a few minutes the girls were ready for the day’s work and went
around to the kitchen, where the sound of the ringing axe was still
heard in steady strokes. But when they rounded the corner of the
kitchen and greeted the wood-chopper cheerily, he looked up, and lo! it
was not the homesick doughboy as they had supposed, but the Colonel of
the regiment himself who smiled half apologetically at them, saying he
liked his new job; and when they invited him to breakfast he accepted
the invitation with alacrity.

After breakfast the girls went to work making pies. There had been no
oven in the little French town in which they were stationed, and so
baking had been impossible, but the boys kept talking and talking about
pies until one day a Lieutenant found an old French stove in some
ruins. They had to half bury it in the earth to make it strong enough
for use, but managed to make it work at last, and though much hampered
by the limitations of the small oven, they baked enough to give all the
boys a taste of pie once a week or so. Pie day was so welcomed that it
almost made a riot, so many boys wanted a slice.

They were having a meeting one night at Baccarat. There was a great
deal of noise going on outside the dugout. The shells were falling
around rather indiscriminately, but it takes more than shell fire to
stop a Salvation Army meeting at the front. There is only one thing
that will stop it, and that is a sudden troop movement. It is the same
way with baseball, for the week before this meeting two regimental
baseball teams played seven innings of air-tight ball while the shells
were falling not three hundred yards away at the roadside edge of their
ball-ground. During the seven innings only eight hits were allowed by
the two pitchers. The score was close and when at the end of the
seventh a shell exploded within fifty yards of the diamond and an
officer shouted: “Game called on account of shell fire!” there was
considerable dissatisfaction expressed because the game was not allowed
to continue. It is with the same spirit that the men attend their
religious meetings. They come because they want-to and they won’t let
anything interfere with it.

But on this particular night the meeting was in full force, and so were
the shells. It had been a meeting in which the men had taken part, led
by one of the women whose leadership was unquestioned among them, a
personal testimony meeting in which several soldiers and an officer had
spoken of what Christ had done for them. Then there was a solo by one
of the lassies, and the Adjutant opened his Bible and began to read. He
took as his text Isaiah 55:1. “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to
the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat.”

Those boys knew what it was to be thirsty, terrible thirst! They had
come back from the lines sometimes their tongues parched and their
whole bodies feverish with thirst and there was nothing to be had to
drink until the Salvation Army people had appeared with good cold
lemonade; and when they had no money they had given it to them just the
same. Oh, they knew what that verse meant and their attention was held
at once as the speaker went on to show plainly how Jesus Christ would
give the water of life just as freely to those who were thirsty for it.
And they were thirsty! They did not wish to conceal how thirsty they
were for the living water.

Just in the midst of the talk the lights went out. Many a church under
like conditions would have had a panic in no time, but this crowded
audience sat perfectly quiet, listening as the speaker went on, quoting
his Bible from memory where he could not read.

Over there in the corner on a bench sat the lassies, the women who had
been serving them all through the hard days, as quiet and calm in the
darkness as though they sat in a cushioned pew in some well-lit church
in New York. It was as if the guns were like annoying little insects
that were outside a screen, and now and then slipped in, so little
attention did the audience pay to them. When all those who wished to
accept this wonderful invitation were asked to come forward, seven men
arose and stumbled through the darkness. The light from a bursting
shell revealed for an instant the forms of these men as they knelt at
the rough bench in front, one of them with his steel helmet hanging
from his arm as he prayed aloud for his own salvation. No one who was
in that meeting that night could doubt but that Jesus Christ Himself
was there, and that those men all felt His presence.

In Bertrichamps the Salvation Army was given a large glass factory for
a canteen. It made a beautiful place, and there was room to take care
of eight hundred men at a time. This building was also used by the Y.
M. C. A. as well as the Jews and the Catholics for their services,
there being no other suitable place in town. But everybody worked
together, and got along harmoniously.

Here there were some wonderful meetings, and it was great to hear the
boys singing “When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder, I’ll Be There.”
Perhaps if some of the half-hearted Christians at home could have
caught the echo of that song sung with such earnestness by those boyish
voices they would have had a revelation. It seemed as if the earth-film
were more than half torn away from their young, wise eyes over there;
and they found that earthly standards and earthly false-whisperings did
not fit. They felt the spirit of the hour, they felt the spirit of the
place, and of the people who were serving them patiently day by day;
who didn’t have to stay there and work; who might have kept in back of
the lines and worked and sent things up now and then; but who chose to
stay close with them and share their hardships. They felt that
something more than just love to their fellow-men had instigated such
unselfishness. They knew it was something they needed to help them
through what was before them. They reached hungrily after the Christ
and they found Him.

Then they testified in the meetings. Often as many as twelve or more
before an audience of five hundred would get up and tell what Jesus had
become to them. In one meeting in this glass factory two hundred
soldiers pledged to serve the Lord, to read their Bibles, and to pray.

There were in this place some Christian boys who came from families
where they had been accustomed to family worship, and who now that they
were far away from it, looked back with longing to the days when it had
been a part of every day. Things look different over there with the
sound of battle close at hand, and customs that had been, a part of
every-day life at home became very dear, perhaps dearer than they had
ever seemed before. They found out that the Salvation Army people had
prayers every night after they closed the canteen at half-past nine and
went to their rooms in a house not far away, and so they begged that
they might share the worship with them. So every night they took home
fifteen or twenty men to the living-room of the house where they stayed
just as many as they could crowd in, and there they would have a little
Bible reading and prayer together. The Father only knows how many souls
were strengthened and how many feet kept from falling because of those
brief moments of worship with these faithful men and women of God.

“Oh, if you only knew what it means to us!” one of the men tried to
tell them one day.

Sometimes men who said they hadn’t prayed nor read their Bibles for
years would be found in little groups openly reading a testament to
each other.

When the girls opened their shutters in the morning they could look out
over the spot in No Man’s Land which was the scene of such frightful
German atrocities in 1914.

Our field artillery, stationed in the woods, sent over to the Salvation
Army to know if they wouldn’t come over and cook something for them,
they were starving for some home cooking. So two of the women put on
their steel helmets and their gas masks, for the Boche planes were
flying everywhere, and went over across No Man’s Land to see if there
was a place where they could open up a hut. They were walking along
quietly, talking, and had not noticed the German plane that approached.
They were so accustomed to seeing them by twos and threes that a single
one did not attract their attention. Suddenly almost over their heads
the Boche dropped a shell, trying to get them. But it was a dud and did
not explode. Two American soldiers came tearing over, crying: “Girls!
Are you hurt?”

“Oh, no,” said one of them brightly. “The Lord wouldn’t let that fellow
get us.”

The soldiers used strong language as they looked after the
fast-vanishing plane, but then they glanced back at the women again
with something unspoken in their eyes. They believed, those boys, they
really did, that God protected those women; and they used to beg them
to remain with their regiment when they were going near the front,
because they wanted their prayers as a protection. Some of the
regiments openly said they thought those girls’ prayers had saved their
lives.

That Boche plane, however, had not far to go. Before it reached
Baccarat the Americans trained their guns on it and brought it down in
flames.

The house occupied by the Salvation Army girls as a billet had a sad
story connected with it. When the Germans had come the father was soon
killed and four German officers had taken possession of the place for
their Headquarters. They also took possession of the two little girls
of the family, nine and fourteen years of age, to wait upon them. And
the first command that was given these children was that they should
wait upon the men nude! The youngest child was not old enough to
understand what this meant, but the older one was in terror, and they
begged and cried and pleaded but all to no purpose. The officer was
inexorable. He told them that if they did not obey they would be shot.

The poor old grandfather and grandmother, too feeble to do anything,
and powerless, of course, to aid, could only endure in agony. The
grandmother, telling the Salvation Army women the story afterward,
pointed with trembling lingers and streaming eyes to the two little
graves in the yard and said: “Oh, it would have been so much better if
he had shot them! They lie out there as the result of their infamous
and inhuman treatment.”

Some most amusing incidents came to the knowledge of the Salvation Army
workers.

An old French woman, over eighty years of age, lived in one of the
stricken villages on the Vosges front. Her home had been several times
struck by shells and was frequently the target for enemy bombing
squadrons. All through the war she refused to leave the home in which
she had lived from earliest childhood.

“It is not the guns, nor the bombs which can frighten me,” she told a
Salvation Army lassie who was billeted with her for a time, “but I am
very much afraid of the submarines.”

The village was several hundred miles inland.

The activity was all at night, for no one dared be seen about in the
daytime. It must be a very urgent duty that would call men forth into
full view of the enemy. But as soon, as the dark came on the men would
crawl into the trenches, stick their rifles between the sandbags and
get ready for work.

It seemed to be always raining. They said that when it wasn’t actually
raining it was either clearing off or just getting ready to rain again.
Twenty minutes in the trenches and a man was all over mud, wet, cold,
slippery mud. In his hair, down his neck, in his boots, everywhere.

Through the trenches just behind the standing place ran a deeper trench
or drain to carry the water away, and this was covered over with a
rough board called a duck-board. Underneath this duck-board ran a
continual stream of water. A man would go along the trench in a hurry,
make a misstep on one end of the duck-board and down he would go in mud
and freezing water to the waist. In these cold, wet garments he must
stay all night. The tension was very great.

As the soldiers had to work in the night, so the Salvation Army men and
women worked in the night to serve them.

The Salvation Army men would visit the sentries and bring them coffee
and doughnuts prepared in the dugouts by the girls. It was exceedingly
dangerous work. They would crawl through the connecting trenches, which
were not more than three feet deep, and one must stoop to be safe, and
get to the front-line trenches with their cans of coffee. They would
touch a fellow on the shoulder, fill his mug with coffee, and slip him
some doughnuts. At such times the things were always given, not sold.
They did not dare even to whisper, for the enemy listening posts were
close at hand and the slightest breath might give away their position.
The sermon would be a pat of encouragement on a man’s shoulder, then
pass on to the next.

One morning at three o’clock a Salvationist carried a second supply of
hot coffee to the battery positions. One gunner with tense, strained
face eyed his full coffee mug with satisfaction and said with a sigh:
“Good! That is all I wanted. I can keep going until morning now!”

When the men were lined up for a raid there would be a prayer-meeting
in the dugout, thirty inside and as many as could crowded around the
door. Just a prayer and singing. Then the boys would go to the girls
and leave their little trinkets or letters, and say: “I’m going over
the top, Sister. If I don’t come back—if I’m kicked off—you tell
mother. You will know what to say to her to help her bear up.”

Three-quarters of an hour later what was left of them would return and
the girls would be ready with hot coffee and doughnuts. It was
heart-breaking, back-aching, wonderful work, work fit for angels to do,
and these girls did it with all their souls.

“Aren’t you tired? Aren’t you afraid?” asked someone of a lassie who
had been working hard for forty consecutive hours, aiding the doctors
in caring for the wounded, and in a lull had found time to mix up and
fry a batch of doughnuts in a corner from which the roof had been
completely blown by shells.

“Oh, no! It’s great!” she replied eagerly. “I’m the luckiest girl in
the world.”

By this time the Salvation Army had acquired many great three-ton
trucks, and the drivers of those risked their lives daily to carry
supplies to the dugouts and huts that were taking care of the men at
the front.

There were signs all over everywhere: “Attention! The Enemy Sees You!”
Trucks were not allowed to go in daytime except in case of great
emergency. Sometimes in urgent cases day-passes would be given with the
order: “If you have to go, go like the devil!”

The enemy always had the range on the road where the trucks had to
pass, and especially in exposed places and on cross-roads a man had no
chance if he paused. Once he had been sighted by the enemy he was done
for. A man driving on a hasty errand once dropped his crank, and
stopped his truck, to pick it up. Even as he stooped to take it a shell
struck his truck and smashed it to bits.

Most of the travelling had to be done at night. Silently, without a
light over roads as dark as pitch, where the only possible guide was
the faint line above where the trees parted and showed the sky; over
rough, muddy roads, filled with shell-holes, the trucks went nightly.
Just fall in line, keep to the right, and whistle softly when something
got in the way. No claxon horns could be used, for that was the gas
alarm. A man could not even wear a radiolight watch on his wrist or a
driver smoke a cigarette.

One very dark night a truck came through with a man sitting away out on
the radiator watching the road and telling the driver where to go. The
only light would be from shells exploding or occasional signal lights
for a moment.

To get supplies from where they were to where they were needed was an
urgent necessity which often arose with but momentary
warning—frequently with no warning at all. The American front was a
matter not of miles, but of hundreds of miles, and the call for
supplies might come from any point along that front. Sometimes the call
meant the immediate shipment of tons of blankets, oranges, lemons,
sugar, flour for doughnuts, lard, chocolate and other materials, to a
point 200 miles distant. At times a railroad may supply a part of the
route, but always there is a long, dangerous truck haul, and usually
the entire route must be covered by truck.

During the winter there were many thrills added to the already
strenuous task of the Salvation Army truck drivers. One of them driving
late at night in a snowstorm, mistook a river for the road for which he
was searching, and turned from the real road to the snow-covered
surface of the river, which he followed for some little distance before
discovering his mistake. Fortunately, the ice was solid and the truck
unloaded-an unusual combination.

Another missed the road and drove into a field, where his wheels bogged
down. His fellow-traveller, driving a Ford, went for help, leaving him
with his truck, for if it had been left unguarded it would have soon
been stripped of every movable part by passing truck drivers. Here he
remained for almost forty-eight hours, during which time there was
considerable shelling.

A Catholic Chaplain told the Salvation Army Staff-Captain that he
thought the reason the Salvation Army was so popular with his men was
because the Salvation Army kept its promises to the men.

When the Salvation Army officer went to open work in the town of
Baccarat it was so crowded that he was unable to secure accommodations.
He was having dinner in the cafe, but could get no bread because he had
no bread tickets, The local K. of C. man, observing his difficulty,
supplied tickets, and, finding that he had no place to sleep, offered
to share his own meagre accommodations. For several nights he shared
his bed with him and the Salvation Army officer was greatly assisted by
him in many ways. The Salvation Army is popular not alone among the
soldiers.

While the offensive was on in Argonne and north of Verdun, those who
were in the huts in the old training area, which were then used as rest
buildings, decided to do something for the boys, and on one occasion
they fried fourteen thousand doughnuts and took them to the boys at the
front. They traveled in the trucks, and distributed the doughnuts to
the boys as they came from the trenches and sent others into the
trenches.

By the time they were through, the day was far spent and it was
necessary for them to find some place to stay over night. Verdun was
the only large city anywhere near but it had either been largely
destroyed or the civil population had long since abandoned it and there
was no place available.

Underneath the trenches, however, there had been constructed in ancient
times, underground passages. There are fifty miles of these underground
galleries honeycombed beneath the city, sufficiently large to shelter
the entire population. There are cross sections of galleries, between
the longer passage ways, and winding stairways here and there. Air is
supplied by a system of pumps. There are theatres and a church, also.
The Army protecting Verdun had occupied these underground passages.

When the officer commanding the French troops learned that the
Salvation Army girls were obliged to stay over night, he arranged for
their accommodation in the underground passage and here they rested in
perfect security with such comforts as cots and blankets could insure.

It was said that they were the only women ever permitted to remain in
these underground passages.




VII.
The Chateau-Thierry-Soissons Drive


When the trouble at Seicheprey broke out the Germans began shelling
Beaumont and Mandres, and things took on a very serious look for the
Salvation Army. Then the Military Colonel gave an order for the girls
to leave Ansauville, and loading them up on a truck he sent them to
Menil-la-Tour. They never allowed girls again in that town until after
the St. Mihiel drive.

That was a wild ride in the night for those girls sitting in an army
truck, jolted over shell holes with the roar of battle all about them;
the blackness of night on every side, shells bursting often near them,
yet they were as calm as if nothing were the matter; finally the car
got stuck under range of the enemy’s fire, but they never flinched and
they sat quietly in the car in a most dangerous position for twenty
minutes while the Colonel and the Captain were out locating a dugout.
Plucky little girls!

The Salvation Army Staff-Captain of that zone went back in the morning
to Ansauville to get the girls’ personal belongings, and when he
entered the canteen he stood still and looked about him with horror and
thankfulness as he realized the narrow escape those girls had had. The
windows and roof were full of shell holes. Shrapnel had penetrated
everywhere. He went about to examine and took pieces of shrapnel out of
the flour and sugar and coffee which had gone straight through the tin
containers. The vanilla bottles were broken and there was shrapnel in
the vanilla, shrapnel was embedded in the wooden tops of the tables,
and in the walls.

He went to the billet where two of the girls had slept. Opposite their
bed on the other side of the room was a window and over the bed was a
large picture. A shell had passed through the window and smashed the
picture, shattering the glass in fragments all over the bed. Another
shell had entered the window, passed over the pillows of the bed and
gone out through the wall by the bed. It would have gone through the
temples of any sleeper in that bed. After this they kept men in
Ansauville instead of girls.

The next day the girls opened up the canteen at Menilla-Tour as calmly
as if nothing had happened the day before.

The boys were going down to Nevillers to rest, and while they rested
the girls cooked good things for them and used that sweet God-given
influence that makes a little piece of home and heaven wherever it is
found.

The girls did not get much rest, but then they had not come to France
to rest, as they often told people who were always urging them to save
themselves. They did get one bit of luxury in the shape of passes down
to Beauvais. There it was possible to get a bath and the girls had not
been able to have that from the first of April to the first of July.
They had to stand in line with the officers, it is true, to take their
turn at the public bath houses, but it was a real delight to have
plenty of water for once, for their appointments at the front had been
most restricted and water a scarce commodity. Sometimes it had been
difficult to get enough water for the cooking and the girls had been
obliged to use cold cream to wash their faces for several days at a
time. Of course, it was an impossibility for them to do any laundry
work for themselves, as there was neither time nor place nor
facilities. Their laundry was always carried by courier to some near-by
city and brought back to them in a few days.

The Zone Major had supper with the Colonel, who told him that none of
the organizations would be allowed on the drive. The Zone Major asked
if they might be allowed to go as far as Crepy. The Colonel much
excited said: “Man, don’t you know that town is being shelled every
night?” The next morning a party of sixteen Salvation Army men and
women started out in the truck for Crepy. It was a beautiful day and
they rode all day long. At nightfall they reached the village of Crepy
where they were welcomed eagerly. The Zone Major had to leave and go
back and wanted them all to stay there, but they were unwilling to do
so because their own outfit was going over the top that night and they
wanted to be with them before they left. They started from Crepy about
five o’clock and got lost in the woods, but finally, after wandering
about for some hours, landed in Roy St. Nicholas where was the outfit
to which one of the girls belonged.

The Salvation Army boys had just pulled in with another truck and were
getting ready for the night, for they always slept in their trucks. The
girls decided to sit down in the road until the billeting officer
arrived, but time passed and no billeting officer came. They were
growing very weary, so they got into the Colonel’s car, which stood at
the roadside, and went to sleep. A little later the billeting officer
appeared with many apologies and offered to take them to the billet
that had been set aside for them. They took their rolls of blankets,
and climbed sleepily out of the car, following him two blocks down the
street to an old building. But when they reached there they found that
some French officers had taken possession and were fast asleep, so they
went back to the car and slept till morning. At daylight they went down
to a brook to wash but found that the soldiers were there ahead of
them, and they had to go back and be content with freshening up with
cold cream. Thus did these lassies, accustomed to daintiness in their
daily lives, accommodate themselves to the necessities of war, as
easily and cheerfully as the soldier boys themselves.

That day the rest of the outfits arrived, and they all pulled into
Morte Fontaine.

Morte Fontaine was well named because there was no water in the town
fit to use.

The girls felt they were needed nearer the front, so they went to Major
Peabody and asked permission.

“I should say not!” he replied vigorously with yet a twinkle of
admiration for the brave lassies. “But you can take anything you want
in this town.”

So the girls went out and found an old building. It was very dirty but
they went cheerfully to work, cleaned it up, and started their canteen.

There was a hospital in the town; they knew that by the many ambulances
that were continually going back and forth; so they offered their
services to the doctors, which were eagerly accepted. After that they
took turns staying in the canteen and going to the hospital.

The hospital was fearfully crowded, though it was in no measure the
fault of the hospital authorities, for they were doing their best,
working with all their might; but it had not been expected that there
would be so many wounded at this point and they had not adequate
accommodations. Many of the wounded boys were lying on the ground in
the sun, covered with blood and flies, and parched with thirst and
fever. There were not enough ambulances to carry them further back to
the base hospitals.

The girls stretched pieces of canvas over the heads of the poor boys to
keep off the sun; they got water and washed away the blood; and they
sent one of their indefatigable truck drivers after some water to make
lemonade. The little Adjutant twinkled his nice brown eyes and set his
firm merry lips when they told him to get the water, in that place of
no water, but he took his little Ford car and whirled away without a
word, and presently he returned with a barrel of ice-cold water from a
spring he had found two miles away. How the girls rejoiced that it was
ice cold! And then they started making lemonade. They had known that
the Adjutant would find water somewhere. He was the man the doughboys
called “one game little guy,” because he was so fearless in going into
No Man’s Land after the wounded, so indefatigable in accomplishing his
purpose against all odds, so forgetful of self.

They had but one crate of lemons, one crate of oranges and one bag of
sugar when they began making lemonade, but before they needed more it
arrived just on the minute. It was almost like a miracle. For a whole
car load of oranges and lemons had been shipped to Beauvais and arrived
a day too late—after the troops had gone. They were of no use there, so
the Zone Major had them shipped at once to the railhead at Crepy, and
got a special permit to go over with trucks and take them up to Morte
Fontaine.

The Salvation Army never does things by halves. Colonel Barker sent to
Paris to get some mosquito netting to keep the flies off those
soldiers, and failing to find any in the whole city he bought $10,000
worth of white net, such as is used for ladies’ collars and dresses—ten
thousand yards at a dollar a yard—and sent it down to the hospital
where it was used over the wounded men, sometimes over a wounded arm or
leg or head, sometimes over a whole man, sometimes stretched as netting
in the windows. And no ten thousand dollars was ever better spent, for
the flies occasioned indescribable suffering as well as the peril of
infection.

Wonderful relief and comfort all these things brought to those poor
boys lying there in agony and fever. How delicious were the cooling
drinks to their parched lips! The doctors afterward said that it was
the cool drinks those girls gave to the men that saved many a life that
day.

There were some poor fellows hurt in the abdomen who were not allowed
to drink even a drop and who begged for it so piteously. For these the
girls did all in their power. They bathed their faces and hands and
dipping gauze in lemonade they moistened their lips with it.

The other day, after the war was over and a ship came sailing into New
York harbor, one of these same fellows standing on the deck looked down
at the wharf and saw one of these same girls standing there to welcome
him. As soon as he was free to leave the ship he rushed down to find
her, and gripping her hand eagerly he cried out so all around could
hear: “You saved my life that day. Oh, but I’m glad to see you! The
doctor said it was that cold lemonade you gave me that kept me from
dying of fever!”

In one base hospital lay a boy wounded at Chateau-Thierry. Of course,
when wounded, he lost all his possessions, including a Testament which
he very much treasured. The Salvation Army supplied him with another,
but it did not comfort him as the old one had done. He said that it
could never be the same as the one he had carried for so long. He
worried so much about his Testament, that one of the lassies finally
attempted to recover it, and, after much trouble, succeeded through the
Bureau of Effects. The little book, which the soldier had always
carried with him, was blood-soaked and mud-stained; but it was an
unmistakable aid in the lad’s recovery.

But the honor of those days in Morte Fontaine was not all due to the
Salvation Army lassies. The Salvation Army truck drivers were real
heroes. They came with their ambulances and their trucks and they
carried the poor wounded fellows back to the base hospitals. The
hospitals were full everywhere near there, and sometimes they would go
from one to another and have to drive miles, and even go from one town
to another to find a place where there was room to receive the men they
carried. Then back they would come for another load. They worked thus
for three days and five nights steadily, before they slept, and some of
them stripped to the waist and bared their breasts to the sharp night
wind so that the cold air would keep them awake to the task of driving
their cars through the black night with its precious load of human
lives. They had no opportunity for rest of any kind, no chance to shave
or wash or sleep, and they were a haggard and worn looking set of men
when it was over.

While all this was going on the Zone Major kept out of sight of the
Colonel who had told him he couldn’t go out on that drive; but two days
later he saw his familiar car coming down the road and the Colonel
seemed greatly agitated. He was shaking his fist in front of him.

The Zone Major pondered whether he would not better drive right on
without stopping to talk, but he reflected that he would have to take
his punishment some time and he might as well get it over with, so when
the Colonel’s car drew near he stopped. The Colonel got out and the
Zone Major got out, and it was apparent that the Colonel was very
angry. He forgot entirely that the Zone Major was a Salvationist and he
swore roundly: “I’m out with you for life” declared the Colonel
angrily. “The General’s upset and I’m upset.”

“Why, what’s the matter, Colonel?” asked the Zone Major innocently.

“Matter enough! You had no business to bring those girls up here!”

The Colonel said more to the same effect, and then got into his car and
drove off. The Zone Major wisely kept out of his way; but a few days
later met him again and this time the Colonel was smiling:

“Dog-gone you, Major, where’ve you been keeping yourself? Why haven’t
you been around?” and he put out his hand affably.

“Why, I didn’t want to see a man who bawled me out in the public
highway that way,” said the Zone Major.

“Well, Major, you had no business to bring those girls up here and you
know it!” said the Colonel rousing to the old subject again.

“Why not, Colonel, didn’t they do fine?”

“Yes, they did,” said the Colonel with tears springing suddenly into
his eyes and a huskiness into his voice, “but, Major, think what if
we’d lost one of them!”

“Colonel,” said the Zone Major gently, “my girls are soldiers. They
come up here to share the dangers with the soldiers, and as long as
they can be of service they feel this is the place for them.”

The Colonel struggled with his emotion for a moment and then said
gruffly: “Had anything to eat? Stop and take a bite with me.” And they
sat down under the trees and had supper together.

It was at this town that the girls slept in a German-dug cave, in which
our boys had captured seven hundred Germans, the commanding officer of
whom said that according to his rank in Germany he ought to have a car
to take him to the rear. However, he was compelled to leg it at the
point of an American bayonet in the hands of an American doughboy. The
cave was of chalk rock made to store casks of wine.

The airplanes were bad in this place. One speaks of airplanes in such a
connection in the same way one used to mention mosquitoes at certain
Jersey seashore resorts. But they were particularly bad at Morte
Fontaine, and Major Peabody ordered the canteen to be moved out of the
village to the cave. More Salvation Army girls came to look after the
canteen leaving the first girls free for longer hours at the hospital.

One beautiful moonlight night the girls had just started out from the
hospital to go to their cave when they heard a German airplane, the
irregular chug, chug of its engine distinguishing it unmistakably from
the smooth whirr of the Allies’ planes. The girls looked up and almost
over their heads was an enemy plane, so low that they could see the
insignia on his machine, and see the man in the car. He seemed to be
looking down at them. In sudden panic they fled to a nearby tree and
hid close under its branches. Standing there they saw the enemy make a
low dip over the hospital tents, drop a bomb in the kitchen end just
where they had been working five minutes before, and slide up again
through the silvery air, curve away and dive down once more.

The scene was bright as day for the moon was full and very clear that
night, and the roads stretched out in every direction like white
ribbons. One block away the girls could see a regiment of Scotch
soldiers, the famous Highland Regiment called “The Ladies From Hell,”
marching up to the front that night, and singing bravely as they
marched, their skirling Scotch songs accompanied by a bagpipe. And even
as they listened with bated breath and straining eyes the airplane
dipped and dropped another bomb right into the midst of the brave men,
killing thirty of them, and slid up and away before it could be
stopped. These were the scenes to which they grew daily accustomed as
they plied their angel mission, and daily saw themselves preserved as
by a miracle from constant peril.

We had about eight or ten German prisoners here, who were employed as
litter bearers, and very good workers they were, tickled to death to be
there instead of over on their own side fighting. Most of the
prisoners, except some of the German officers, seemed glad to be taken.

These German prisoners were sitting in a row on the ground outside the
hospital one day when the Salvation Army girls and men were picking
over a crate of oranges. The Germans sat watching them with longing
eyes.

“Let’s give them each one,” proposed one of the girls.

“No! Give them a punch in the nose!” said the boys.

The girls said nothing more and went on working. Presently they stepped
away for a few minutes and when they came back the Germans sat there
contentedly eating oranges. Questioningly the girls looked at their
male coworkers and with lifted brows asked: “What does this mean?”

“Aw, well! The poor sneaks looked so longingly!” said one of the boys,
grinning sheepishly.

There in the hospital the girls came into contact with the splendid
spirit of the American soldier boys, “Don’t help me, help that fellow
over there who is suffering!” was heard over and over again when they
went to bring comfort to some wounded boy.

When the supplies in the canteen would run out, and the last doughnut
would be handed with the words: “That’s the last,” the boy to whom it
was given would say: “Don’t give it to me, give it to Harry. I don’t
want it.”

It was during that drive and there was a farewell meeting at one of the
Salvation Army huts that night for the boys who were going up to the
trenches. It was a beautiful and touching meeting as always on such
occasions. Starting with singing whatever the boys picked out, it
dropped quickly into the old hymns that the boys loved and then to a
simple earnest prayer, setting forth the desperate case of those who
were going out to fight, and appealing to the everlasting Saviour for
forgiveness and refuge. They lingered long about the fair young girl
who was leading them, listening to her earnest, plain words of
instruction how to turn to the Saviour of the world in their need, how
to repent of their sins and take Christ for their Saviour and
Sanctifier. No man who was in that meeting would dare plead ignorance
of the way to be saved. Many signified their desire to give their lives
into the keeping of Christ before they went to the front. The meeting
broke up reluctantly and the men drifted out and away, expecting soon
to be called to go. But something happened that they did not go that
night. Meantime, a company had just returned from the front, weary,
hungry, worn and bleeding, with their nerves unstrung, and their
spirits desperate from the tumult and horror of the hours they had just
passed in battle. They needed cheering and soothing back to normal. The
girls were preparing to do this with a bright, cheery entertainment,
when a deputation of boys from the night before returned. There was a
wistful gleam in the eyes of the young Jew who was spokesman for the
group as he approached the lassie who had led the meeting.

“Say, Cap, you see we didn’t go up.”

“I see,” she smiled happily.

“Say, Cap, won’t you have another farewell meeting to-night?” he asked
with an appealing glance in his dark eyes.

“Son, we’ve arranged something else just now for the fellows who are
coming back,” she said gently, for she hated to refuse such a request.

“Oh, say, Cap, you can have that later, can’t you? We want another
meeting now.”

There was something so pleading in his voice and eyes, so hungry in the
look of the waiting group, that the young Captain could not deny him.
She looked at him hesitatingly, and then said:

“All right. Go out and tell the boys.”

He hurried out and soon the company came crowding in. That hour the
very Lord came down and communed with them as they sang and knelt to
pray, and not a heart but was melted and tender as they went out when
it was over in the solemn darkness of the early morning. A little later
the order came and they “went over.”

It was a sharp, fierce fight, and the young Jew was mortally wounded.
Some comrades found him as he lay white and helpless on the ground, and
bending over saw that he had not long to stay. They tried to lift him
and bear him back, but he would not let them. He knew it was useless.

They asked him if he had any message. He nodded. Yes, he wanted to send
a message to the Salvation Army girls. It was this:

“Tell the girls I’ve gone West; for I will be by the time you tell
them; and tell them it’s all right for at that second meeting I
accepted Christ and I die resting on the same Saviour that is theirs.”

One of our wonderful boys out on the drive had his hand blown off and
didn’t realize it. His chum tried to drag him back and told him his
hand was gone.

“That’s nothing!” he cried. “Tie it up!”

But they forced him back lest he would bleed to death. In the hospital
they told him that now he might go home.

“Go home!” he cried. “Go home for the loss of a left hand! I’m not
left-handed. Maybe I can’t carry a gun, but I can throw hand grenades!”

He went to the Major and the Major said also that he must go home.

The boy looked him straight in the eye:

“Excuse me, Major, saying I won’t. But _I won’t let go your coat_ till
you say I can stay,” and finally the Major had to give in and let him
stay. He could not resist such pleading.

One poor fellow, wounded in his abdomen, was lying on a litter in a
most uncomfortable position suffering awful pain. The lassie came near
and asked if she could do anything for him. He told her he wanted to
lie on his stomach, but the doctor, when she asked him, said “No” very
shortly and told her he must lie on his back. She stooped and turned
him so that his position was more comfortable, put his gas mask under
his head, rolled his blanket so as to support his shoulders better, and
turned to go to another, and the poor suffering lad opened his eyes,
held out his hand and smiled as she went away.

The doctors said to the girls: “It is wonderful to have you around.”

The Red Cross men and their rolling kitchens came to the front, but no
women. Somehow in pain and sickness no hand can sooth like a woman’s.
Perhaps God meant it to be so. Here at Morte Fontaine was the first
time a woman had ever worked in a field hospital.

The Salvation Army women worked all that drive.

It was a sad time, though, for the division went in to stay until they
lost forty-five hundred men, but it stayed two days after reaching that
figure and lost about seventy-five thousand.

The doctor in charge of the evacuation hospital at Crepy spoke of the
effect of the Salvation Army girls, not alone upon the wounded, but
also upon the medical-surgical staff and the men of the hospital corps
who acted as nurses in that advanced position. “Before they came,” he
said, “we were overwrought, everyone seemed at the breaking point, what
with the nervous tension and danger. But the very sight of women
working calmly had a soothing effect on everyone.”

When the drive was over orders came to leave. The following is the
official notice to the Salvation Army officers:

G-1 Headquarters, 1st Division, American Expeditionary Forces, July 26,
1918.

_Memorandum._

To Directors, Y.M.C.A., Red Cross, Salvation Army Services, 1st
Division.

1. This division moves by rail to destination unknown beginning at 6.00
A.M., July 28th. Motor organizations of the Division move overland.
Your motorized units will accompany the advanced section of the
Division Supply Train, and will form a part of that train.

2. Time of departure and routes to be taken will be announced later.

3. Secretaries attached to units may accompany units, if it is so
desired.

By command of Major-General Summerall.

P. E. Peabody,
Captain, Infantry,
G-1

Copies:
YMCA
Red Cross
Salvation Army
G-3
C. of S.
File

The girls stowed themselves and their belongings into the big truck.
Just as they were about to start they saw some infantry coming, seven
men whom they knew, but in such a plight! They were unshaven, with
white, sunken faces, and great dark hollows under their eyes. They were
simply “all in,” and could hardly walk.

Without an instant’s hesitation the girls made a place for those poor,
tired, dirty men in the truck, and the invitation was gratefully
accepted.

There were more poor forlorn fellows coming along the road. They kept
meeting them every little way, but they had no room to take in any more
so they piled oranges in the back end of the truck and gave them to all
the boys they passed who were walking.

Now the girls were on their way to Senlis, where they had planned to
take dinner at a hotel in which they had dined before. It was one of
the few buildings remaining in the town for the Germans, when they left
Senlis, had set it on fire and destroyed nearly everything. But as the
girls neared the town they began to think about the boys asleep in the
back of the truck, who probably hadn’t had a square meal for a week,
and they decided to take them with them. So they woke them up when they
arrived at the hotel. Oh, but those seven dirty, unshaven soldiers were
embarrassed with the invitation to dinner! At first they declined, but
the girls insisted, and they found a place to wash and tidy up
themselves a bit. In a few minutes into the big dining-room filled with
French soldiers and a goodly sprinkling of French officers, marched
those two girls, followed by their seven big unshaven soldiers with
their white faces and hollow eyes, sat proudly down at a table in the
very centre and ordered a big dinner. That is the kind of girls
Salvation Army lassies are. Never ashamed to do a big right thing.

After the dinner they took the boys to their divisional headquarters,
where they found their outfit.

They went on their way from Senlis to Dam-Martin to stay for a week
back of the lines for rest.

There was a big French cantonment building here built for moving
pictures, which was given to them for a canteen, and they set up their
stove and went to work making doughnuts, and doing all the helpful
things they could find to do for the boys who were soon to go to the
front again.

Then orders came to move back to the Toul Sector.

Those were wonderful moonlight nights at Saizerais, but the Boche
airplanes nearly pestered the life out of everybody.

“Gee!” said one of the boys, “if anybody ever says ’beautiful moonlight
nights’ to me when I get home I don’t know what I’ll do to ’em!”

The boys were at the front, but not fighting as yet. Occasional shells
would burst about their hut here and there, but the girls were not much
bothered by them. The thing that bothered them most was an old “Vin”
shop across the street that served its wine on little tables set out in
front on the sidewalk. They could not help seeing that many of the boys
were beginning to drink. Poor souls! The water was bad and scarce,
sometimes poisoned, and their hearts were sick for something, and this
was all that presented itself. It was not much wonder. But when the
girls discovered the state of things they sent off three or four boys
with a twenty-gallon tank to scout for some water. They found it after
much search and filled the big tank full of delicious lemonade, telling
the boys to help themselves.

All the time they were in that town, which was something like a week,
the girls kept that tank full of lemonade close by the door. They must
have made seventy-five or a hundred gallons of lemonade every day, and
they had to squeeze all the lemons by hand, too! They told the boys:
“When you feel thirsty just come here and get lemonade as often as you
want it!” No wonder they almost worship those girls. And they had the
pleasure of seeing the trade of the little wine shop decidedly
decrease.

However near the front you may go you will always find what is known
over there in common parlance as a “hole in the wall” where “vin
blanche” and “vin rouge” and all kinds of light wines can be had. And,
of course, many soldiers would drink it. The Salvation Army tried to
supply a great need by having carloads of lemons sent to the front and
making and distributing lemonade freely.

One cannot realize the extent of this proposition without counting up
all the lemons and sugar that would be required, and remembering that
supplies were obtained only by keeping in constant touch with the
Headquarters of that zone and always sending word immediately when any
need was discovered. There is nothing slow about the Salvation Army and
they are not troubled with too much red tape. If necessity presents
itself they will even on occasion cut what they have to help someone.

The airplanes visited them every night that week, and sometimes they
did not think it worth while to go to bed at all; they had to run to
the safety trenches so often. It was just a little bit of a village
with dugouts out on the edge.

One night they had gone to bed and a terrific explosion occurred which
rocked the little house where they were. They thought of course the
bomb had fallen in the village, but they found it was quite outside. It
had made such a big hole in the ground that you could put a whole truck
into it.

The trenches in which they hid were covered over with boards and sand,
and were not bomb proof, but they were proof against pieces of shell
and shrapnel.

It was a very busy time for the girls because so many different outfits
were passing and repassing that they had to work from morning early
till late at night.

At Bullionville the hut was in a building that bore the marks of much
shelling. The American boys promptly dubbed the place “Souptown.”

The Division moved to Vaucouleurs for rest and replacements. At
Vaucouleurs there was a great big hut with a piano, a victrola, and a
cookstove.

They started the canteen, made doughnuts and pies, and gave
entertainments.

But best of all, there were wonderful meetings and numbers of
conversions, often twenty and twenty-five at a time giving themselves
to Christ. The boys would get up and testify of their changed feelings
and of what Christ now meant to them, and the others respected them the
more for it.

They stayed here two weeks and everybody knew they were getting ready
for a big drive. It was a solemn time for the boys and they seemed to
draw nearer to the Salvation Army people and long to get the secret of
their brave, unselfish lives, and that light in their eyes that defied
danger and death. In the distance you could hear the artillery, and the
night before they left, all night long, there was the tramp, tramp,
tramp of feet, the boys “going up.”

The next day the girls followed in a truck, stopping a few days at
Pagny-sur-Meuse for rest.




VIII.
The Saint Mihiel Drive


The hut in Raulecourt was an old French barracks. Outside in the yard
was an old French anti-aircraft gun and a mesh of barbed wire
entanglement. The woods all around was filled with our guns. To the
left was the enemy’s third line trench. Three-quarters of the time the
Boche were trying to clean us up. Less than two miles ahead were our
own front line trenches.

The field range was outside in the back yard.

One hot day in July a Salvation Army woman stood at the range frying
doughnuts from eleven in the morning until six at night without
resting, and scarcely stopping for a bite to eat. She fried seventeen
hundred doughnuts, and was away from the stove only twice for a few
minutes. She claims, however, that she is not the champion doughnut
fryer. The champion fried twenty-three hundred in a day.

One day a soldier watching her tired face as she stood at the range
lifting out doughnuts and plopping more uncooked ones into the fat,
protested.

“Say, you’re awfully tired turning over doughnuts. Let me help you. You
go inside and rest a while. I’m sure I can do that.”

She was tired and the boy looked eager, so she decided to accept his
offer. He was very insistent that she go away and rest, so she slipped
in behind a screen to lie down, but peeped out to watch how he was
getting on. She saw him turn over the first doughnuts all right and
drain them, but he almost burned his fingers trying to eat one before
it was fairly out of the fat; and then she understood why he had been
so anxious for her to “_go away_” and rest.

Often the boys would come to the lassies and say: “Say, Cap, I can help
you. Loan me an apron.” And soon they would be all flour from their
chin to their toes.

They would come about four o’clock to find out what time the doughnuts
would be ready for serving, and the girls usually said six o’clock so
that they would be able to fry enough to supply all the regiment. But
the men would start to line up at half-past four, knowing that they
could not be served until six, so eager were they for these delicacies.
When six o’clock came each man would get three doughnuts and a cup of
delicious coffee or chocolate. A great many doughnut cutters were worn
out as the days went by and the boys frequently had to get a new cutter
made. Sometimes they would take the top of quite a large-sized can or
anything tin that they could lay hands on from which to make it. One
boy found the top of an extra large sized baking powder tin and took it
to have a smaller cutter soldered in the centre. Sometimes they used
the top of the shaving soap box for this. When he got back to the hut
the cook exclaimed in dismay: “Why, but it’s too big!”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said the doughboy nonchalantly.

“That’ll be all the better for us. We’ll get more doughnut. You always
give us three anyway, you know. The size don’t count.”

They were always scheming to get more pie and more doughnuts and would
stand in line for hours for a second helping. One day the Salvation
Army woman grew indignant over a noticeably red-headed boy who had had
three helpings and was lining up for a fourth. She stood majestically
at the head of the line and pointed straight at him: “You! With the red
head down there! Get out of the line!”

“She’s got my number all right!” said the red-headed one, grinning
sheepishly as he dropped back.

The town of Raulecourt was often shelled, but one morning just before
daybreak the enemy started in to shell it in earnest. Word came that
the girls had better leave as it was very dangerous to remain, but the
girls thought otherwise and refused to leave. One might have thought
they considered that they were real soldiers, and the fate of the day
depended upon them. And perhaps more depended upon them than they knew.
However that was they stayed, having been through such experiences
before. For the older woman, however, it was a first experience. She
took it calmly enough, going about her business as if she, too, were an
old soldier.

On the evening of June 14th they made fudge for the boys who were going
to leave that night for the front lines.

For several hours the tables in the hut were filled with men writing
letters to loved ones at home, and the women and girls had sheets of
paper filled with addresses to which they had promised to write if the
boys did not come back.

At last one of the men got up with his finished letter and quietly
removed the phonograph and a few of its devotees who were not going up
to the front yet, placing them outside at a safe distance from the hut.
A soldier followed, carrying an armful of records, and the hut was
cleared for the men who were “going in” that night.

For a little while they ate fudge and then they sang hymns for another
half hour, and had a prayer. It was a very quiet little meeting. Not
much said. Everyone knew how solemn the occasion was. Everyone felt it
might be his last among them. It was as if the brooding Christ had made
Himself felt in every heart. Each boy felt like crying out for some
strong arm to lean upon in this his sore need. Each gave himself with
all his heart to the quiet reaching up to God. It was as if the eating
of that fudge had been a solemn sacrament in which their souls were
brought near to God and to the dear ones they might never see on this
earth again. If any one had come to them then and suggested the
Philosophy of Nietzsche it would have found little favor. They knew,
here, in the face of death, that the Death of Jesus on the Cross was a
soul satisfying creed. Those who had accepted Him were suddenly taken
within the veil where they saw no longer through a glass darkly, but
with a face-to-face sense of His presence. They had dropped away their
self assurance with which they had either conquered or ignored
everything so far in life, and had become as little children, ready to
trust in the Everlasting Father, without whom they had suddenly
discovered they could not tread the ways of Death.

Then came the call to march, and with a last prayer the boys filed
silently out into the night and fell into line. A few minutes later the
steady tramp of their feet could be heard as they went down the street
that led to the front.

Later in the night, quite near to morning, there came a terrific shock
of artillery fire that heralded a German raid. The fragile army cots
rocked like cradles in the hut, dishes rolled and danced on the shelves
and tables, and were dashed to fragments on the floor. Shells wailed
and screamed overhead; and our guns began, until it seemed that all the
sounds of the universe had broken forth. In the midst of it all the gas
alarm sounded, the great electric horns screeching wildly above the
babel of sound. The women hurried into their gas masks, a bit flustered
perhaps, but bearing their excitement quietly and helping each other
until all were safely breathing behind their masks.

The next day several times officers came to the hut and begged the
women to leave and go to a place of greater safety, but they decided
not to go unless they were ordered away. On June 19th one of them wrote
in her diary: “Shells are still flying all about us, but our work is
here and we must stay. God will protect us.” Once when things grew
quiet for a little while she went to the edge of the village and
watched the shells falling on Boucq, where one of her friends was
stationed, and declared: “It looks awfully bad, almost as bad as it
sounds.”

The next morning as the firing gradually died away, Salvation Army
people hurried up to Raulecourt from near-by huts to find out how these
brave women were, and rejoiced unspeakably that every one was safe and
well.

That night there was another wonderful meeting with the boys who were
going to the front, and after it the weary workers slept soundly the
whole night through, quietly and undisturbed, the first time for a
week.

It was a bright, beautiful Sunday morning, June 23, 1918, when a little
party of Salvationists from Raulecourt started down into the trenches.
The muddy, dirty, unpleasant trenches! Sometimes with their two feet
firmly planted on the duck-board, sometimes in the mud! Such mud! If
you got both feet on it at once you were sure you were planted and
would soon begin to grow!

As soon as they reached the trenches they were told: “Keep your heads
down, ladies, the snipers are all around!” It was an intense moment as
they crept into the narrow housings where the men had to spend so much
time. But it was wonderful to watch the glad light that came into the
men’s eyes as they saw the women.

“Here’s a real, honest-to-goodness American woman in the trenches!”
exclaimed a homesick lad as they came around a turn.

“Yes, your mother couldn’t come to-day,” said the motherly
Salvationist, smiling a greeting, “so I’ve come in her place.”

“All right!” said he, entering into the game. “This is Broadway and
that’s Forty-second Street. Sit down.”

Of course there was nothing to sit down on in the trenches. But he
hunted about till he found a chow can and turned it up for a seat, and
they had a pleasant talk.

“Just wait,” he said. “I’ll show you a picture of the dearest little
girl a fellow ever married and the darlingest little kid ever a man was
father to!” He fumbled in his breast pocket right over his heart and
brought out two photographs.

“I’d give my right arm to see them this minute, but for all that,” he
went on, “I wouldn’t leave till we’ve fought this thing through to
Berlin and given them a dose of what they gave little Belgium!”

They went up and down the trenches, pausing at the entrances to dugouts
to smile and talk with the men. Once, where a grassy ridge hid the
trench from the enemy snipers, they were permitted to peep over, but
there was no look of war in the grassy, placid meadow full of flowers
that men called “No Man’s Land.” It seemed hard to believe, that sunny,
flower-starred morning, that Sin and Hate had the upper hand and Death
was abroad stalking near in the sunlight.

It was a twelve-mile walk through the trenches and back to the hut, and
when they returned they found the men were already gathering for the
evening meeting.

That night, at the close of a heart-searching talk, eighty-five men
arose to their feet in token that they would turn from the ways of sin
and accept Christ as their Saviour, and many more raised their hands
for prayers. One of the women of this party in her three months in
France saw more than five hundred men give themselves to Christ and
promise to serve Him the rest of their lives.

A little Adjutant lassie who was stationed at Boucq went away from the
town for a few hours on Saturday, and when she returned the next day
she found the whole place deserted. A big barrage had been put over in
the little, quiet village while she was away and the entire inhabitants
had taken refuge in the General’s dugout. Her husband, who had brought
her back, insisted that she should return to the Zone Headquarters at
Ligny-en-Barrios, where he was in charge, and persuaded her to start
with him, but when they reached Menil-la-Tour and found that the
division Chaplain was returning to Boucq she persuaded her husband that
she must return with the Chaplain to her post of duty.

That night she and the other girls slept outside the dugout in little
tents to leave more room in the dugout for the French women with their
little babies. At half-past three in the morning the Germans started
their shelling once more. After two hours, things quieted down somewhat
and the girls went to the hut and prepared a large urn of coffee and
two big batches of hot biscuits. While they were in the midst of
breakfast there was another barrage. All day they were thus moving
backward and forward between the hut and the dugout, not knowing when
another barrage would arrive. The Germans were continually trying to
get the chateau where the General had his headquarters. One shell
struck a house where seven boys were quartered, wounding them all and
killing one of them. Things got so bad that the Divisional Headquarters
had to leave; the General sent his car and transferred the girls with
all their things to Trondes. This was back of a hill near Boucq. They
arrived at three in the afternoon, put up their stove and began to
bake. By five they were serving cake they had baked. The boys said:
“What! Cake already?” The soldiers put up the hut and had it finished
in six hours.

While all this was going on the Salvation Army friends over at
Raulecourt had been watching the shells falling on Boueq, and been much
troubled about them.

These were stirring times. No one had leisure to wonder what had become
of his brother, for all were working with all their might to the one
great end.

Up north of Beaumont two aviators were caught by the enemy’s fire and
forced to land close to the enemy nests. Instead of surrendering the
Americans used the guns on their planes and held off the Germans until
darkness fell, when they managed to escape and reach the American
lines. This was only one of many individual feats of heroism that
helped to turn the tide of battle. The courage and determination, one
might say the enthusiasm, of the Americans knew no bounds. It awed and
overpowered the enemy by its very eagerness. The Americans were having
all they could do to keep up with the enemy. The artillerymen captured
great numbers of enemy cannon, ammunition, food and other supplies,
which the trucks gathered up and carried far to the front, where they
were ready for the doughboys when they arrived. One of the greatest
feats of engineering ever accomplished by the American Army was the
bridging of the Meuse, in the region of Stenay, under terrible shell
fire, using in the work of building the pontoons the Boche boats and
materials captured during the fighting at Chateau-Thierry and which had
been brought from Germany for the Kaiser’s Paris offensive in July. The
Meuse had been flooded until it was a mile wide, yet there was more
than enough material to bridge it.

As the Americans advanced, village after village was set free which had
been robbed and pillaged by the Germans while under their domination.
The Yankee trucks as they returned brought the women and children back
from out of the range of shell fire, and they were filled with wonder
as they heard the strange language on the tongues of their rescuers.
They knew it was not the German, but they had many of them never seen
an American before. The Germans had told them that Americans were wild
and barbarous people. Yet these men gathered the little hungry children
into their arms and shared their rations with them. There were three
dirty, hungry little children, all under ten years of age, Yvonne,
Louisette and Jeane, whose father was a sailor stationed at Marseilles.
Yvonne was only four years of age, and she told the soldiers she had
never seen her father. They climbed into the big truck and sat looking
with wonder at the kindly men who filled their hands with food and
asked them many questions. By and by, they comprehended that these big,
smiling, cheerful men were going to take the whole family to their
father. What wonder, what joy shone in their eager young eyes!

Strange and sad and wonderful sights there were to see as the soldiers
went forward.

A pioneer unit was rushed ahead with orders to conduct its own campaign
and choose its own front, only so that contact was established with the
enemy, and to this unit was attached a certain little group of
Salvation Army people. Three lassies, doing their best to keep pace
with their own people, reached a battered little town about four
o’clock in the morning, after a hard, exciting ride.

The supply train had already put up the tent for them, and they were
ordered to unfold their cots and get to sleep as soon as possible. But
instead of obeying orders these indomitable girls set to work making
doughnuts and before nine o’clock in the morning they had made and were
serving two thousand doughnuts, with the accompanying hot chocolate.

The shells were whistling overhead, and the doughboys dropped into
nearby shell holes when they heard them coming, but the lassies paid no
heed and made doughnuts all the morning, under constant bombardment.

Bouconville was a little village between Raulecourt and the trenches.
In it there was left no civilian nor any whole house. Nothing but
shot-down houses, dugouts and camouflages, Y.M.C.A., Salvation Army and
enlisted men.

Dead Man’s Curve was between Mandres and Beaumont. The enemy’s eye was
always upon it and had its range.

Before the St. Mihiel drive one could go to Bouconville or Raulecourt
only at night. As soon as it was dark the supply outfits on the trucks
would be lined up awaiting the word from the Military Police to go.

Everyone had to travel a hundred yards apart. Only three men would be
allowed to go at once, so dangerous was the trip.

Out of the night would come a voice:

“Halt! Who goes there? Advance and give the countersign.”

Every man was regarded as an enemy and spy until he was proven
otherwise. And the countersign had to be given mighty quick, too. So
the men were warned when they were sent out to be ready with the
countersign and not to hesitate, for some had been slow to respond and
had been promptly shot. The ride through the night in the dark without
lights, without sound, over rough, shell-plowed roads had plenty of
excitement.

Bouconville for seven months could never be entered by day. The dugout
wall of the hut was filled with sandbags to keep it up. It was at
Bouconville, in the Salvation Army hut, that the raids on the enemy
were organized, the men were gathered together and instructed, and
trench knives given out; and here was where they weeded out any who
were afraid they might sneeze or cough and so give warning to the
enemy.

Not until after the St. Mihiel drive when Montsec was behind the line
instead of in front did they dare enter Bouconville by day.

Passing through Mandres, it was necessary to go to Beaumont, around
Dead Man’s Curve and then to Rambucourt, and proceed to Bouconville.
Here the Salvation Army had an outpost in a partially destroyed
residence. The hut consisted of the three ground floor rooms, the
canteen being placed in the middle. The sleeping quarters were in a
dugout just at the rear of these buildings. It was in the building
adjoining this hut that three men were killed one day by an exploding
shell, and gas alarms were so frequent in the night that it was very
difficult for the Salvation Army people to secure sufficient rest as on
the sounding of every gas alarm it was necessary to rise and put on the
gas mask and keep it on until the “alerte” was removed. This always
occurred several times during the night.

Map

It was just outside of Bouconville that the famous doughnut truck
experience occurred. The supply truck, driven by two young Salvation
Army men, one a mere boy, was making its rounds of the huts with
supplies and in order to reach Raulecourt, the boy who was driving
decided to take the shortest road, which, by the way, was under
complete observation of the Germans located at Montsec. The truck had
already been shelled on its way to Bouconville, several shells landing
at the edge of the road within a few feet of it. They had not noticed
the first shell, for shells were a somewhat common thing, and the old
truck made so much noise that they had not heard it coming, but when
the second one fell so close one of the boys said: “Say, they must be
shooting at _us!_” as though that were something unexpected.

They stepped on the accelerator and the truck shot forward madly and
tore into the town with shells breaking about it. Having escaped thus
far they were ready to take another chance on the short cut to
Raulecourt.

They proceeded without mishaps for some distance. Just outside of
Bouconville was a large shell hole in the road and in trying to avoid
this the wheels of the truck slipped into the ditch, and the driver
found he was stuck. It was impossible to get out under his own power.
While working with the truck, the Germans began to shell him again. At
first the two boys paid little heed to it, but when more began to come
they knew it was time to leave. They threw themselves into a
communicating trench, which was really no more than a ditch, and
wiggled their way up the bank until they were able to drop into the
main trenches, where they found safety in a dugout.

The Germans meantime were shelling the truck furiously, the shells
dropping all around on either side, but not actually hitting it. This
was about two o’clock in the afternoon.

[Illustration: “It was just outside of Bouconville that the famous
doughnut truck experience occurred”—and this is the Salvation Army boy
who drove it]

[Illustration: Bullionville, promptly dubbed by the American boys
“Souptown”]

At Headquarters they were becoming anxious about the non-appearance of
the truck and started out in the touring car to locate it. Commencing
at Jouey-les-Côtés they went from there to Boucq and Raulecourt, which
were the last places the truck was to visit. Not hearing of it at
Raulecourt, the search was continued out to Bouconville, again, by a
short road. Montsec was in full view. There were fresh shell holes all
along the road since the night before. Things began to look serious.

A short distance ahead was an army truck, and even as they got abreast
of it a shell went over it exploding about twenty-five feet away, and
one hit the side of the road just behind them. It seemed wise to put on
all speed.

But when they reached Bouconville and found that the truck they had
passed was the Salvation Army truck, they were unwilling to leave it to
the tender mercies of the enemy as everybody advised. That truck cost
fifty-five hundred dollars, and they did not want to lose it.

As soon as it was dark a detail of soldiers volunteered to go with the
Salvation Army officers to attempt to get it out, but the Germans heard
them and started their shelling furiously once more, so that they had
to retreat for a time; but later, they returned and worked all night
trying to jack it up and get a foundation that would permit of hauling
it out. Every little while all night the Germans shelled them. About
half-past four in the morning it grew light enough for the enemy to
see, and the top was taken off the truck so that it would not be so
good a mark.

That day they went back to Headquarters and secured permission for an
ammunition truck to come down and give them a tow, as no driver was
permitted out on that road without a special permit from Headquarters.
The journey back was filled with perils from gas shells, especially
around Dead Man’s Curve, but they escaped unhurt. That night they
attached a tow line to the front of the truck, started the engine
quietly, and waited until the assisting truck came along out of the
darkness. They then attached their line without stopping the other
truck and with the aid of its own power the old doughnut truck was
jerked out of the ditch at last and sent on its way. In spite of the
many shells for which it had been a target it was uninjured save that
it needed a new top. The knowledge that the truck was stuck in the
ditch and was being shelled aroused great excitement among all the
troops in the Toul Sector and it was thereafter an object of
considerable interest. Newspaper correspondents telegraphed reports of
it around the world.

In most of the huts and dugouts Salvation Army workers subsist entirely
upon Army chow. At Bouconville the chow was frequently supplemented by
fresh fish. The dugout here was very close to the trenches, less than
five minutes’ walk. Just behind the trenches to the left was a small
lake. When there was sufficient artillery fire to mask their attack,
soldiers would toss a hand grenade into this lake, thus stunning
hundreds of fish which would float to the surface, where they were
gathered in by the sackful. The Salvation Army dugout was never without
its share of the spoils.

Before the soldiers began to think, as they do now, that being detailed
to the Salvation Army hut was a privilege, an Army officer sent one of
his soldiers, who seemed to be in danger of developing a yellow streak,
to sweep the hut and light the fires for the lassies. “You are only fit
to wash dishes, and hang on to a woman’s skirts,” he told the soldier
in informing him that he was detailed. That night the village was
bombed. The boy, who was really frightened, watched the two girls,
being too proud to run for shelter while they were so calm. He trembled
and shook while they sat quietly listening to the swish of falling
bombs and the crash of anti-aircraft guns. In spite of his fright, he
was so ashamed of his fears that he forced himself to stand in the
street and watch the progress of the raid. The next day he reported to
his Captain that he had vanquished his yellow streak and wanted a
chance to demonstrate what he said. The demonstration was ample. The
example of these brave lassies had somehow strengthened his spirit.

Back of Raulecourt the woods were full of heavy artillery. Raulecourt
was the first town back of the front lines. The men were relieved every
eight days and passed through here to other places to rest.

The military authorities sent word to the Salvation Army hut one day
that fifty Frenchmen would be going through from the trenches at five
o’clock in the morning who would have had no opportunity to get
anything to eat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then up spoke the other man:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Salvation Lassie of Mine

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

CHORUS.

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

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

_By “Jack” Caddigan and “Chick” Stoy._

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

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




IX.
The Argonne Drive


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 them.]

[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.




X.
The Armistice


After the Armistice was signed, on November 11th, it was a great
question what disposition would be made of the troops. It was concluded
that they would be sent home as rapidly as possible and that the three
ports—Brest, St. Nazaire and Bordeaux—would be used for that purpose.
Immediately arrangements were made for the opening of Salvation Army
work at the base ports with a view to letting the boys have a last
sight of the Salvation Army as they left the shores of France. The
Salvation Army had served them in the training area and at the front
and were still serving them as they left the shores of the old world
and it would meet them again when they arrived on the shores of the
home-land. In this way the contact of the Salvation Army would be
continuous, so that when they returned, it would be able to reach their
hearts and affect their lives with the Gospel of Christ.

The problem of buildings was, of course, the first one and a very
difficult one. To secure buildings of adequate size, which could be
constructed in a short space of time, was almost out of the question,
but it occurred to the officers that the aviation section would be
demobilizing and that they had brought over portable steel buildings,
for use as hangars. The matter was taken up at once with the military
authorities and twenty of these steel buildings were secured—each of
them sixty-six feet wide by one hundred feet long. It was planned to
place eight of them at Bordeaux, six at St. Nazaire and six at Brest.
By placing two of them end to end it was possible to secure one
auditorium sixty-six feet wide by two hundred feet long—capable of
seating three thousand men. Adjoining that could be another building
sixty-six feet by one hundred feet, to be used for canteen and rest
room.

It was planned to proceed with a religious campaign at these Base
Ports, holding Salvation meetings in these extensive departments.

When the Army of Occupation was started for Germany, two Salvation Army
trucks were assigned to go along with the Army. Whenever the Army of
Occupation stopped for a space of two or three days, places were
secured where doughnuts could be fried, pies made, and at all times hot
coffee and chocolate were available for the men.

When the American soldiers marched through the villages of
Alsace-Lorraine the Salvationists marched with them. At Esch and
Luxemburg they were in all the rejoicing and triumph of the parade,
bringing succor and comfort wherever they could find an opportunity.

When the men arrived at Coblenz the Salvation Army was there before
them, and on their crossing the Rhine, arrangements had been made for
the location of the Salvation Army work at the principal points in the
Rhine-head. They are now conducting Salvation Army operations with the
Army of Occupation.

One of the occasions when President Wilson clapped for the Salvation
Army was at the inauguration of the Soldiers’ Association in Paris. The
Y had invited all the other organizations to be present. The meeting
was held in the Palais de Glace, which seats about ten thousand people.

President and Mrs. Wilson were present, accompanied by many prominent
American officials. Representatives of the various War Work
Organizations spoke.

The Salvationist who had been selected to represent the Army at this
meeting had been in the United States Navy for twelve years and was a
chaplain.

When he was called upon to speak the boys with one accord as if by
preconcerted action arose to their feet and gave him an ovation. Of
course, it was not given to the man but to the uniform.

A soldier of the Rainbow Division sitting next to one of the Salvation
Army workers over there, kept telling him what the boys thought of the
Salvation Army, and when the cheering began he poked the Salvationist
in the ribs and whispered joyously:

“I told you! I told you! We’ve just been waiting for eight months to
pull this off! Now, you see!”

The speaker when given opportunity did not attempt to make a great
speech. He told in simple, vivid sentences of the services of the
Salvation Army just back of the trenches under fire; and President
Wilson sat listening and applauding with the rest.

The chaplain paid a tribute to President Wilson, finishing with these
words:

“President Wilson was not man-elected, but God-selected!”

Chaplains.

For some little time after the War started it was a question as to
whether the Salvation Army was entitled to any representation in the
realm of Chaplaincies of the United States forces. During the progress
of the consideration Adjutant Harry Kline secured an appointment with
the Nebraska National Guard, and his regiment being made a part of the
National Army, he was received as an officer of the same and thus
became our first Army Chaplain.

The War Office decided favorably with regard to the question of our
general representation, and shortly thereafter Adjutant John Allan, of
Bowery fame, was given a first lieutenancy and then followed, in the
order given, Captain Ernest Holz, Adjutant Ryan and Captain Norman
Marshall.

The exceptional service that these men have rendered is of sufficient
importance to have a much wider notice than where only the barest of
reference is possible. Shortly after arrival in France Chaplain Allan
was being very favorably noticed because of the character of the work
which he was doing, and it was gratifying to learn that this confidence
was reflected in his appointment as Senior Chaplain of his regiment and
his assignment to special service where probity and wisdom were
essential. Shortly thereafter he was taken to the Army Headquarters,
where up to the present time he is most highly esteemed as a co-laborer
with Bishop Brent, the Chaplain-General of the overseas forces.

Typical of the enthusiasm of each of the five men appointed as
Chaplains, the following story is told of First Lieutenant Ernest Holz,
who was inducted into his office as Senior Chaplain of his regiment
right at the commencement of his career.

At the beginning of the year, when Chaplain Holz knew his Salvation
Army comrades would, as usual, be engaged in special revival work, he
thought it would be a worthy thing to time a similar effort among the
men of his regiment. Approaching the Colonel, he found him in hearty
agreement concerning the effort, and so securing the assistance of his
fellow chaplains they arranged for a series of meetings nightly for one
week, with the result that two hundred of the men of the regiment
confessed Christ and practically all of them were deeply interested.

The effort was wholly directed to the uplift of the men and God
commanded His blessing in a most gratifying manner.




XI.
Homecoming


The boat docked that morning, and one soldier at least, as he stood on
the deck and watched the shores of his native land draw nearer, felt
mingling with the thrill of joy at his return a vague uneasiness. He
was coming back, it is true, but it had been a long time and a lot of
things had happened. For one thing he had lost his foot. That in itself
was a pretty stiff proposition. For another thing he was not wearing
any decorations save the wound stripes on his sleeve. Those would have
been enough, and more than enough, for his mother if she were alive,
but she had gone away from earth during his absence, and the girl he
had kissed good-bye and promised great things was peculiar. The
question was, would she stand for that amputated foot? He didn’t like
to think it of her, but he found he wasn’t sure. Perhaps, if there had
been a croix de guerre! He had promised her to win that and no end of
other honors, when he went away so buoyant and hopeful; but almost on
his first day of real battle he had been hurt and tossed aside like a
derelict, to languish in a hospital, with no more hope of winning
anything. And now he had come home with one foot gone, and no
distinction!

He hadn’t told the girl yet about the foot. He didn’t know as he
should. He felt lonely and desolate in spite of his joy at getting back
to “God’s Country.” He frowned at the hazy outline of the great city
from which tall buildings were beginning to differentiate themselves as
they drew nearer. There was New York. He meant to see New York, of
course. He was a Westerner and had never had an opportunity to go about
the metropolis of his own country. Of course, he would see it all.
Perhaps, after he was demobilized he would stay there. Maybe he
wouldn’t send word he had come back. Let them think he was killed or
taken prisoner, or missing, or anything they liked. There were things
to do in New York. There were places where he would be welcome even
with one foot gone and no cross of war. Thus he mused as the boat drew
nearer the shore and the great city loomed close at hand. Then,
suddenly, just as the boat was touching the pier and a long murmur of
joy went up from the wanderers on board, his eyes dropped idly to the
dock and there in her trim little overseas uniform, with the sunlight
glancing from the silver letters on the scarlet shield of her trench
cap and the smile radiating from her sweet face, stood the very same
Salvation Army lassie who had bent over him as he lay on the ground
just back of the trenches waiting to be put in the ambulance and taken
to the hospital after he had been wounded. He could feel again the
throbbing pain in his leg, the sickening pain of his head as he lay in
the hot sun, with the flies swarming everywhere, the horrible din of
battle all about, and his tongue parched and swollen with fever from
lying all night in pain on the wet ground of No Man’s Land. She had
laid a soft little hand on his hot forehead, bathed his face, and
brought him a cold drink of lemonade. If he lived to be a hundred years
old he would never taste anything so good as that lemonade had been.
Afterward the doctor said it was the good cold drink that day that
saved the lives of those fever patients who had lain so long without
attention. Oh, he would never forget the Salvation lassie! And there
she was alive and at home! She hadn’t been killed as the fellows had
been afraid she would. She had come through it all and here she was
always ahead and waiting to welcome a fellow home. It brought the tears
smarting to his eyes to think about it, and he leaned over the rail of
the ship and yelled himself hoarse with the rest over her, forgetting
all about his lost foot. It was hours before they were off the ship.
All the red tape necessary for the movement of such a company of men
had to be unwound and wound up again smoothly, and the time stretched
out interminably; but somehow it did not seem so hard to wait now, for
there was someone down there on the dock that he could speak to, and
perhaps—just perhaps—he would tell her of his dilemma about his girl.
Somehow he felt that she would understand.

He watched eagerly when he was finally lined up on the wharf waiting
for roll-call, for he was sure she would come; and she did, swinging
down the line with her arms full of chocolate, handing out telegraph
blanks and postal cards, real postal cards with a stamp on them that
could be mailed anywhere. He gripped one in his big, rough hand as if
it were a life preserver. A real, honest-to-goodness postal card! My it
was good to see the old red and white stamp again! And he spoke
impulsively:

“You’re the girl that saved my life out there in the field, don’t you
remember? With the lemonade!” Her face lit up. She had recognized him
and somehow cleared one hand of chocolate and telegrams to grasp his
with a hearty welcome: “I’m so glad you came through all right!” her
cheery voice said.

All right! _All right!_ Did she call it all right? He looked down at
his one foot with a dubious frown. She was quick to see. She
understood.

“Oh, but that’s nothing!” she said, and somehow her voice put new heart
into him. “Your folks will be so glad to have you home you’ll forget
all about it. Come, aren’t you going to send them a telegram?” And she
held out the yellow blank.

But still he hesitated.

“I don’t know,” he said, looking down at his foot again. “Mother’s
gone, and——”

Instantly her quick sympathy enveloped his sore soul, and he felt that
just the inflection of her voice was like balm when she said: “I’m so
sorry!” Then she added:

“But isn’t there somebody else? I’m sure there was. I’m sure you told
me about a girl I was to write to if you didn’t come through. Aren’t
you going to let her know? Of course you are.”

“I don’t know,” said the boy. “I don’t think I am. Maybe I’ll never go
back now. You see, I’m not what I was when I went away.”

“Nonsense!” said the lassie with that cheerful assurance that had
carried her through shell fire and made her merit the pet name of
“Sunshine” that the boys had given her in the trenches. “Why, that
wouldn’t be fair to her. Of course, you’re going to let her know right
away. Leave it to me. Here, give me her address!”

Quick as a flash she had the address and was off to a telephone booth.
This was no message that could wait to go back to headquarters. It must
go at once.

He saw her again before he left the wharf. She gave him a card with two
addresses written on it:

“This first is where you can drop in and rest when you are tired,” she
explained. “It’s just one of our huts; the other is where you can find
a good bed when you are in the city.”

Then she was off with a smile down the line, giving out more telegraph
blanks and scattering sunshine wherever she went. He glanced back as he
left the pier and saw her still floating eagerly here and there like a
little sister looking after more real brothers.

The next day, when he was free and on a few days leave from camp, he
started out with his crutch to see the city, but the thought of her
kept him from some of the places where his feet might have strayed. Yet
she had not said a word of warning. Her smile and the look in her eyes
had placed perfect confidence in him, and he could remember the prayer
she had uttered in a low tone back there at the dressing station behind
the trenches in the ear of a companion who was not going to live to get
to the Base Hospital, and who had begged her to pray with him before he
went. Somehow it lingered with him all day and changed his ideas of
what he wanted to see in New York.

But it was a long hard tramp he had set for himself to see the town
with that one foot. He hadn’t much money for cars, even if he had known
which cars to take, so he hobbled along and saw what he could. He was
all alone, for the fellows he started with went so fast and wanted to
do so many things that he could not do, that he had made an excuse to
shake them off. They were kind. They would not have left him if they
had known; but he wasn’t going to begin his new life having everybody
put out on his account, so he was alone. And it was toward evening. He
was very tired. It seemed to him that he couldn’t go another block. If
only there were a place somewhere where he could sit down a little
while and rest; even a doorstep would do if there were only one near at
hand. Of course, there were saloons, and there would always be soldiers
in them. He would likely be treated, and there would be good cheer, and
a chance to forget for a little while; but somehow the thought of that
Salvation lassie and the cheery way she had made him send that telegram
kept him back. When a girl with painted cheeks stopped and smiled in
his face he passed her by, and half wondered why he did it. He must go
somewhere presently and get a bite to eat, but it couldn’t be much for
he wanted to save money enough and hunt up that lodging house where
there were nice beds. How much he wanted that bed!

[Illustration: Right in the midst of the busy hurrying throng of Union
Square]

[Illustration: “Smiling Billy” “One Game Little Guy”]

It was quite dark now. The lights were lit everywhere. He was coming to
a great thoroughfare. He judged by his slight knowledge of the city
that it might be Broadway. There would likely be a restaurant somewhere
near. He hurried on and turned into the crowded street. How cold it
was! The wind cut him like a knife. He had been a fool to come off
alone like this! Just out of the hospital, too. Perhaps he would get
sick and have to go to another hospital. He shivered and stopped to
pull his collar up closer around his neck. Then suddenly he stood still
and stared with a dazed, bewildered expression, straight ahead of him.
Was he getting a bit leary? He passed his hand over his eyes and looked
again. Yes, there it was! Right in the midst of the busy, hurrying
throng of Union Square! He made sure it was Union Square, for he looked
up at the street sign to be certain it wasn’t Willow Vale—or
Heaven—right there where streets met and crossed, and cars and trolleys
and trucks whirled, and people passed in throngs all day, just across
the narrow road, stood the loveliest, most perfect little white
clapboard cottage that ever was built on this earth, with porches all
around and a big tree growing up through the roof of one porch. It
stood out against the night like a wonderful mirage, like a heavenly
dove descended into the turmoil of the pit, like home and mother in the
midst of a rushing pitiless world. He could have cried real tears of
wonder and joy as he stood there, gazing. He felt as though he were one
of those motion pictures in which a lone Klondiker sits by his campfire
cooking a can of salmon or baked beans, and up above him on the screen
in one corner appears the Christmas tree where his wife and baby at
home are celebrating and missing him. It seemed just as unreal as that
to see that little beautiful home cottage set down in the midst of the
city.

The windows were all lit up with a warm, rosy light and there were
curtains at the windows, rosy pink curtains like the ones they used to
have at the house where his girl lived, long ago before the War spoiled
him. He stood and continued to gaze until a lot of cash-boys, let loose
from the toil of the day, rushed by and almost knocked his crutch from
under him. Then he determined to get nearer this wonder. Carefully
watching his opportunity he hobbled across the street and went slowly
around the building. Yes, it was real. Some public building, of course,
but how wonderful to have it look so like a home! Why had they done it?

Then he came around toward the side, and there in plain letters was a
sign: “Soldiers and Sailors in Uniform Welcome.” What? Was it possible?
Then he might go in? What kind of a place could it be?

He raised his eyes a little and there, slung out above the neatly
shingled porch, like any sign, swung an immense fat brown doughnut a
foot and a half in diameter, with the sugar apparently still sticking
to it, and inside the rough hole sat a big white coffee cup. His heart
leaped up and something suddenly gave him an idea. He fumbled in his
pocket, brought out a card, saw that this was the Salvation Army hut,
and almost shouted with joy. He lost no time in hurrying around to the
door and stepping inside.

There revealed before him was a great cozy room, with many easy-chairs
and tables, a piano at which a young soldier sat playing ragtime, and
at the farther end a long white counter on which shone two bright
steaming urns that sent forth a delicious odor of coffee. Through an
open door behind the counter he caught a glimpse of two Salvation Army
lassies busy with some cups and plates, and a third enveloped in a
white apron was up to her elbows in flour, mixing something in a yellow
bowl. By one of the little tables two soldier boys were eating
doughnuts and coffee, and at another table a sailor sat writing a
letter. It was all so cozy and homelike that it took his breath away
and he stood there blinking at the lights that flooded the rooms from
graceful white bowl-like globes that hung suspended from the ceiling by
brass chains. He saw that the rosy light outside had come from soft
pink silk sash curtains that covered the lower part of the windows, and
there were inner draperies of some heavier flowered material that made
the whole thing look real and substantial. The willow chairs had
cushions of the same flowered stuff. The walls were a soft pearly gray
below and creamy white above, set off by bands of dark wood, and a dark
floor with rush mats strewn about. He looked around slowly, taking in
every detail almost painfully. It was such a contrast to the noisy,
rushing street, a contrast to the hospital, and the trenches and all
the life with which he had been familiar during the past few dreadful
months. It made him think of home and mother. He began to be afraid he
was going to cry like a great big baby, and he looked around nervously
for a place to get out of sight. He saw a fellow going upstairs and at
a distance he followed him. Up there was another bright, quiet room,
curtained and cushioned like the other, with more easy willow chairs,
round willow tables, and desks over by the wall where one might write.
The soldier who had come up ahead of him was already settled writing
now at a desk in the far corner. There were bookcases between the
windows with new beautifully bound books in them, and there were
magazines scattered around, and no rules that one must not spit on the
floor, or put their feet in the chairs, or anything of the sort. Only,
of course, no one would ever dream of doing anything like that in such
a place. How beautiful it was, and how quiet and peaceful! He sank into
a chair and looked about him. What rest!

And now there were real tears in his eyes which he hastened to brush
roughly away, for someone was coming toward him and a hand was on his
shoulder. A man’s voice, kindly, pleasant, brotherly, spoke:

“All in, are you, my boy? Well, you just sit and rest yourself awhile.
What do you think of our hut? Good place to rest? Well, that’s what we
want it to be to you, Home. Just drop in here whenever you’re in town
and want a place to rest or write, or a bite of something homelike to
eat.”

He looked up to the broad shoulders in their well-fitting dark blue
uniform, and into the kindly face of the gray-haired Colonel of the
Salvation Army who happened to step in for a minute on business and had
read the look on the lonesome boy’s face just in time to give a word of
cheer. He could have thrown his arms around the man’s neck and kissed
him if he only hadn’t been too shy. But in spite of the shyness he
found himself talking with this fine strong man and telling him some of
his disappointments and perplexities, and when the older man left him
he was strengthened in spirit from the brief conversation. Somehow it
didn’t look quite so black a prospect to have but one foot.

He read a magazine for a little while and then, drawn by the delicious
odors, he went downstairs and had some coffee and doughnuts. He saw
while he was eating that the front porch opened out of the big lower
room and was all enclosed in glass and heated with radiators. A lot of
fellows were sitting around there in easy-chairs, smoking, talking, one
or two sleeping in their chairs or reading papers. It had a dim, quiet
light, a good place to rest and think. He was more and more filled with
wonder. Why did they do it? Not for money, for they charged hardly
enough to pay for the materials in the food they sold, and he knew by
experience that when one had no money one could buy of them just the
same if one were in need.

Later in the evening he took out the little card again and looked up
the other address. He wanted one of those clean, sweet beds that he had
been hearing about, that one could get for only a quarter a night, with
all the shower-bath you wanted thrown in. So he went out again and
found his way down to Forty-first Street.

There was something homelike about the very atmosphere as he entered
the little office room and looked about him. Beyond, through an open
door he could see a great red brick fireplace with a fire blazing
cheerfully and a few fellows sitting about reading and playing
checkers. Everybody looked as if they felt at home.

When he signed his name in the big register book the young woman behind
the desk who wore an overseas uniform glanced at his signature and then
looked up as if she were welcoming an old friend:

“There’s a telegram here for you,” she said pleasantly. “It came last
night and we tried to locate you at the camp but did not succeed. One
of our girls went over to camp this afternoon, but they said you were
gone on a furlough, so we hoped you would turn up.”

She handed over the telegram and he took it in wonder. Who would send
him a telegram? And here of all places! Why, how would anybody know he
would be here? He was so excited his crutch trembled under his arm as
he tore open the envelope and read:

“Dear Billy (It was a regular letter!):
    “I am leaving to-night for New York. Will meet you at Salvation
    Hostel day after to-morrow morning. What is a foot more or less?
    Can’t I be hands and feet for you the rest of your life? I’m proud,
    proud, proud of you!

Signed “Jean”

He found great tears coming into his eyes and his throat was full of
them, too. It didn’t matter if that Salvation Army lassie behind the
counter did see them roll down his cheeks. He didn’t care. She would
understand anyway, and he laughed out loud in his joy and relief, the
first joy, the first relief since he was hurt!

Some one else was coming in the door, another fellow maybe, but the
lassie opened a door in the desk and drew him behind the counter in a
shaded corner where no one would notice and brought him a cup of tea,
which she said was all they had around to eat just then. She didn’t pay
any attention to him till he got his equilibrium again.

She was the kind of woman one feels is a natural-born mother. In fact,
the fellows were always asking her wistfully: “May we call you Mother?”
Young enough to understand and enter into their joys and sorrows, yet
old enough to be wise and sweet and true. She mothered every boy that
came.

A sailor boy once asked if he might bring his girl to see her. He said
he wanted her to see her so she could tell his mother about her.

“But can’t you tell her about your girl?” she asked.

“Oh, yes, but I want you to tell her.” he said. “You see, whatever you
say mother’ll know is true.”

So presently she turned to this lonely boy and took him upstairs
through the pleasant upper room with its piano and games, its sun
parlor over the street, lined with trailing ferns, with cheery canaries
in swinging tasseled cages, who looked fully as happy and at home as
did the soldier boys who were sitting about comfortably reading. She
found him a room with only one other bunk in it. Nice white beds with
springs like air and mattresses like down. She showed him where the
shower-baths were, and with a kindly good-night left him. He almost
wanted to ask her to kiss him good-night, so much like his own mother
she seemed.

Before he got into that white bed he knelt beside it, all clean and
comfortable and happy like a little child that had wandered a long way
from home and got back again, and he told God he was sorry and ashamed
for all the way he had doubted, and sinned, and he wanted to live a new
life and be good. Then he lay down to sleep. To-morrow morning Jean
would be there. And she didn’t mind about the foot! She didn’t mind!
How wonderful!

And then he had a belated memory of the little Salvation Army lassie on
the wharf who had brought all this about, and he closed his eyes and
murmured out loud to the clean, white walls: “God bless her! Oh, God
bless her!”

This is only one of the many stories that might be told about the boys
who have been helped by the various activities of the Salvation Army,
both at home and abroad.

It would be well worth one’s while to visit their Brooklyn Hospital and
their New York Hospital and all their other wonderful institutions. In
several of them are many little children, some mere infants, belonging
to soldiers and sailors away in the war. In some instances the mother
is dead, or has to work. If she so desires she is given work in the
institution, which is like a real home, and allowed to be with her
child and care for it. Where both mother and father are dead the child
remains for six years or until a home elsewhere is provided for it.
Here the little ones are well cared for, not in the ordinary sense of
an institution, but as a child would be cared for in a home, with
beauty and love, and pleasure mingling with the food and shelter and
raiment that is usually supplied in an institution. These children are
prettily, though simply, dressed and not in uniform; with dainty bits
of color in hair ribbon, collar, necktie or frock; the babies have wee
pink and blue wool caps and sacks like any beloved little mites, they
ride around on Kiddie Cars, play with doll houses and have a fine
Kindergarten teacher to guide their young minds, and the best of
hospital service when they are ailing. But that is another story, and
there are yet many of them. If everybody could see the beautiful
life-size painting of Christ blessing the little children which is
painted right on the very wall and blended into the tinting, they could
better comprehend the spirit which pervades this lovely home.

The New York Hospital, which has just been rebuilt and refurnished with
all the latest appliances, is in charge of a devoted woman physician,
who has given her life to healing, and has at the head of its Board one
of the most noted surgeons in the city, who gives his services free,
and boasts that he enjoys it best of all his work. Here those of small
means or of no means at all, especially those belonging to soldiers and
sailors, may find healing of the wisest and most expert kind, in
cheery, airy, sanitary and beautiful rooms. But here, too, to
understand, one must see. Just a peep into one of those dainty white
rooms would rest a poor sick soul; just a glance at the room full of
tiny white basket cribs with dainty blue satin-bound blankets—real wool
blankets—and white spreads, would convince one.

And what one sees in New York in the line of such activities is
duplicated in most of the other large cities of the United States.

Not the least of the Salvation Army service for the returning soldiers
is the work that is done on the docks by the lassies meeting returning
troop ships. They send telegrams free, not C.O.D., for them, give the
men stamped postal cards, hunt up relatives, answer questions, and give
them chocolate while they wait for the inevitable roll call before they
can entrain. Often these girls will sit up half the night after having
met boats nearly all day, to get the telegrams all off that night. It
is interesting to note that on one single day, April 20th, 1919, the
Salvation Army Headquarters in New York sent 2900 such free telegrams
for returning soldiers.

The other day the father of a soldier came to Headquarters with an
anxious face, after a certain unit from overseas had returned. It was
the unit in which his boy had gone to France, but he had written saying
he was in the hospital without stating what was the matter or how
serious his wound. No further word had been received and the father and
mother were frenzied with grief. They had tried in every way to get
information but could find out nothing. The Salvation Army went to work
on the telephone and in a short time were able to locate the missing
boy in a Casual Company soon to return, and to report to his anxious
father that he was recovering rapidly.

Another soldier arrived in New York and sent a Salvation Army telegram
to his father and mother in California who had previously received
notification that he was dead. A telegram came back to the Salvation
Army almost at once from the West stating this fact and begging some
one to go to the camp where the boy’s Casual Company was located and
find out if he were really living. One of the girls from the office
went over to the Debarkation Hospital immediately and saw the boy, and
was able to telegraph to his parents that he was perfectly recovered
and only awaiting transportation to California. He was overjoyed to see
someone who had heard from his parents.

A portion of one troop ship had been reserved for soldiers having
influenza. These men were kept on board long after all the others had
left the ship. A Salvation Army worker seeing them with the white masks
over their faces went on board and served them with chocolate,
distributing post cards and telegraph blanks. When she was leaving the
ship a Captain said to her rather brusquely: “Don’t you realize that
you have done a foolish thing? Those men have influenza and your
serving them might mean your death!”

Looking up into the man’s eyes the Salvationist said: “I am ready to
die if God sees fit to call me.”

The officer laughed and told her that was the first time in his life he
had known anyone to say they were ready to die and would willingly
expose themselves to such a contagious disease.

“Aren’t you ready to die?” asked the girl. “Certainly not,” replied the
Captain. “Sometimes I think I am hardly fit to live, much less die.”

“Don’t you realize that there is a Power which can enable you to live
in such a way as to make you ready to die?”

“Oh, well, I don’t bother about going to church, in fact, I don’t
bother about religion at all, although I must say once or twice when I
was up the line over there I wished I did know something about
religion, that is, the kind that makes a fellow feel good about dying;
but I don’t want to go to church and go through all that business.”

“It is possible to accept Christ here and now on this very spot—on this
ship—if you’ll only believe,” said the girl wistfully.

The Captain could not help being interested and thoughtful. When she
left, after a little more talk he put out his hand and said:

“Thank you. You’ve done me more good than any sermon could have done
me, and believe me, I am going to pray and trust God to help me live a
different life.”

Sad things are seen on the docks at times when the ships come into
port, and the boys are coming home.

A soldier in a basket, with both arms and both legs gone and only one
eye, was being carried tenderly along.

“Why do you let him live?” asked one pityingly of the Commanding
Officer.

The gruff, kindly voice replied:

“You don’t know what life is. We don’t live through our arms and legs.
We live through our hearts.”

Some of our boys have learned out there amid shell fire to live through
their hearts.

One of these lying on a litter greeted the lassie from Indiana, just
come back to New York from France to meet the boys when they landed:

“Hello, Sister! _You here?_”

Her eyes filled with tears as she recognized one of her old friends of
the trenches, and noticed how helpless he was now, he who had been the
strongest of the strong. She murmured sympathetically some words of
attempted cheer:

“Oh, that’s all right, Sister,” he said, “I know they got me pretty
hard, but I don’t mind that. I’m not going to feel bad about it. I got
something better than arms and legs over in one of your little huts in
France. I found Jesus, and I’m going to live for Him. I wanted you to
know.”

A few days later she was talking with another boy just landed. She
asked him how it seemed to be home again, and to her surprise he turned
a sorrowful face to her:

“It’s the greatest disappointment of my life,” he said sadly, “the
folks here don’t understand. They all want to make me forget, and I
don’t want to forget what I learned out there. I saw life in a
different way and I knew I had wasted all the years. I want to live
differently now, and mother and her friends are just getting up dances
and theatre parties for me to help me to forget. They don’t
understand.”

Forty miles west of Chicago is Camp Grant and there the Salvation Army
has put up a hut just outside of the camp.

During the days when the boys were being sent to France, and were under
quarantine, unable to go out, no one was allowed to come in and there
was great distress. Mothers and sisters and friends could get no
opportunity to see them for farewells.

The Salvation officer in charge suggested to the military authorities
that the Salvation Army hut be the clearing place for relatives, and
that he would come in his machine and bring the boys to the hut, taking
them back again afterwards, that they might have a few hours with their
friends before leaving for France.

This offer was readily accepted by the authorities, and so it was made
possible for hundreds and hundreds of mothers to get a last talk with
their boys before they left, some of them forever.

One day a young man came to the Salvation Army officer and told him
that his regiment was to depart that night and that he was in great
distress about his wife who on her way to see him had been caught in a
railroad wreck, and later taken on her way by a rescue train. “I think
she is in Rockford somewhere,” he said anxiously, “but I don’t know
where, and I have to leave in three hours!”

The Ensign was ready with his help at once. He took the young soldier
in his car to Rockford, seven miles away, and they went from hotel to
hotel seeking in vain for any trace of the wife. Then suddenly as they
were driving along the street wondering what to try next the young
soldier exclaimed: “There she is!” And there she was, walking along the
street!

The two had a blessed two hours together before the soldier had to
leave. But it was all in the day’s work for the Salvation Army man, for
his main object in life is to help someone, and he never minds how much
he puts himself out. It is always reward enough for him to have
succeeded in bringing comfort to another.

One of the Salvation Army Ensigns who was assigned to work at Camp
Grant hut had been an all-round athlete before he joined the Salvation
Army, a boxer and wrestler of no mean order.

The fame of the Ensign went abroad and the doctor at the Base Hospital
asked him to take charge of athletics in the hospital. He was also
appointed regularly as chaplain in the hospital. Every day he drilled
the five hundred women nurses in gymnastics, and put the men attendants
and as many of the patients as were able through a set of exercises.
Thus mingling his religion with his athletics he became a great power
among the men in the hospital.

The Salvation Army asked the hospital if there was anything they could
do for the wounded men. The reply was, that there were eighty wards and
not a graphophone in one of them, nothing to amuse the boys. The need
was promptly filled by the Salvation Army which supplied a number of
graphophones and a piano. Then, discovering that the nurses who were
getting only a very small cash allowance out of which they had to
furnish their uniforms, were short of shoes, the indefatigable good
Samaritan produced a thousand dollars to buy new shoes for them. The
Salvation Army has always been doing things like that.

The Salvation Army built many huts, locating them wherever there was
need among the camps. They have a hut at Camp Grant, one at Camp
Funston, one at Camp Travis, San Antonio, one at Camp Logan, Houston,
Texas, one at Camp Bowie, Fort Worth, one at Camp Cody, Deming, New
Mexico, one at Camp Lewis, Tacoma, a Soldiers’ Club at Des Moines, a
Soldiers’ Club with Sitting Room, Dining Room, and rooms for a hundred
soldiers just opened at Chicago. There is a charge of twenty-five cents
a night and twenty-five cents a meal for such as have money. No charge
for those who have no money. There is such a Soldiers’ Club at St.
Louis, Kansas City, St. Paul and Minneapolis. All of these places at
the camps have accommodations for women relatives to visit the
soldiers, and all of the rooms are always full to the limit.

In Des Moines the Army has an interesting institution which grew out of
a great need.

The Federal authorities have placed a Woman’s Protective Agency in all
Camp towns. At Des Moines the woman representative of the Federal
Government sent word to the Salvation Army that she wished they would
help her. She said she had found so many young girls between the ages
of fourteen and sixteen who were being led into an immoral life through
the soldiers, and she wished the Salvation Army would open a home to
take care of such girls.

With their usual swiftness to come to the rescue the Salvation Army
opened such a home. The Brigadier up in Chicago gave up his valued
private secretary, a lovely young girl only twenty-four years old, to
be at the head of this home. It may seem a pretty big undertaking for
so young a girl, but these Salvation Army girls are brought up to be
wonderfully wise and sweet beyond others, and if you could look into
her beautiful eyes you would have an understanding of the consecration
and strength of character that has made it possible for her to do this
work with marvellous success, and reach the hearts and turn the lives
of these many young girls who have come under her influence in this
way. In her work she deals with the individual, always giving immediate
relief for any need, always pointing the way straight and direct to a
better life. The young girls are kept in the home for a week or more
until some near relative can be sent for, or longer, until a home and
work can be found for them. Every case is dealt with on its own merits;
and many young girls have had their feet set upon the right road, and a
new purpose in life given to them with new ideals, from the young
Christian girl whom they easily love and trust.

So great has been the success of the Salvation Army hut and women’s
hostel at Camp Lewis that the United States Government has asked the
Salvation Army to put up a hundred thousand dollar hotel at that camp
which is located twenty miles out of Tacoma. The Salvation Army hut at
this place was recently inspected by Secretary of War Baker and Chief
of Staff who highly complimented the Salvationists on the good work
being done.

A Christmas box was sent by the Salvation Army to each soldier in every
camp and hospital throughout the West. Each box contained an orange, an
apple, two pounds of nuts, one pound of raisins, one pound of salted
peanuts, one package of figs, two handkerchiefs in sealed packets, one
book of stamps, a package of writing paper, a New Testament, and a
Christmas letter from the Commissioner at Headquarters in Chicago.

No Officer in the Salvation Army has been more successful in ingenious
efforts to further all activities connected with the work than
Commissioner Estill in command of the Western forces. He is an
indefatigable and tireless worker, is greatly beloved, and his efforts
have met with exceptional success.

It was a new manager who had taken hold of the affairs of the Salvation
Army Hostel in a certain city that morning and was establishing family
prayers. A visitor, waiting to see someone, sat in an alcove listening.

There in the long beautiful living-room of the Hostel sat a little
audience, two black women-the cooks-several women in neat aprons and
caps as if they had come in from their work, a soldier who had been
reading the morning paper and who quietly laid it aside when the Bible
reading began, a sailor who tiptoed up the two low steps from the café
beyond the living-room where he had been having his morning coffee and
doughnuts—the young clerk from behind the office desk. They all sat
quiet, respectful, as if accorded a sudden, unexpected privilege.


[Illustration: Thomas Estill Commissioner of the Western Forces]

[Illustration: The hut at Camp Lewis]

The reading was a few well-chosen verses about Moses in the mount of
vision and somehow seemed to have a strange quieting influence and
carried a weight of reality read thus in the beginning of a busy day’s
work.

The reader closed the book and quite familiarly, not at all pompously,
he said with a pleasant smile that this was a lesson for all of them.
Each one should have his vision for the day. The cook should have a
vision as she made the doughnuts—and he called her by her name—to make
them just as well as they could be made; and the women who made the
beds should have a vision of how they could make the beds smooth and
soft and fine to rest weary comers; and those who cleaned must have a
vision to make the house quite pure and sweet so that it would be a
home for the boys who came there; the clerk at the desk should have a
vision to make the boys comfortable and give them a welcome; and
everyone should have a vision of how to do his work in the best way, so
that all who came there for a day or a night or longer should have a
vision when they left that God was ruling in that place and that
everything was being done for His praise.

Just a few simple words bringing the little family of workers into
touch with the Divine and giving them a glimpse of the great plan of
laboring with God where no work is menial, and nothing too small to be
worth doing for the love of Christ. Then the little company dropped
upon their knees, and the earnest voice took up a prayer which was more
an intimate word with a trusted beloved Companion; and they all arose
to go about that work of theirs with new zest and—a vision!

In her alcove out of sight the visitor found refreshment for her own
soul, and a vision also.

This is the secret of this wonderful work that these people do in
France, in the cities, everywhere; they have a vision! They have been
upon the Mountain with God and they have not forgotten the injunction:

“See that thou do all things according to the pattern given thee in the
Mount”

But the stories multiply and my space is drawing to a close. I am
minded to say reverently in words of old:

“And there are also many other things which these disciples of Jesus
did, the which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even
the world itself could not contain the books that should be written;”
but are they not graven in the hearts of men who found the Christ on
the battlefield or the hospital cot, or in the dim candle-lit hut,
through these dear followers of His?




XII.
Letters of Appreciation


My Dear Miss Booth:

You may be sure that your telegram of November fifteenth warmed my
heart and brought me very real cheer and encouragement. It is a message
of just the sort that one needs in these trying times, and I hope that
you will express to your associates my profound appreciation and my
entire confidence in their loyalty, their patriotism, and their
enthusiasm for the great work they are doing.

Cordially and sincerely yours,
Woodrow Wilson.
Nov. 30,1917.

My Dear Miss Booth:

I am very much interested to hear of the campaign the Salvation Army
has undertaken for money to sustain its war activities, and want to
take the opportunity to express my admiration for the work that it has
done and my sincere hope that it may be fully sustained.

(Signed) Woodrow Wilson.
The President of the United States of America.

Commander Evangeline Booth,
Paris, 7 April, 1919.
122 W. 14th Street, New York, U.S.A.

I am very much interested to know that the Salvation Army is about to
enter into a campaign for a sustaining fund.

I feel that the Salvation Army needs no commendation from me. The love
and gratitude it has elicited from the troops is a sufficient evidence
of the work it has done and I feel that I should not so much commend as
congratulate it.

Cordially and sincerely yours,
Woodrow Wilson.

British Delegation, Paris, 8th April, 1919.

Dear Madam:

I have very great pleasure in sending you this letter to say how highly
I think of the great work which has been done by the Salvation Army
amongst the Allied Armies in France and the other theatres of war. From
all sides I hear the most glowing accounts of the way in which your
people have added to the comfort and welfare of our soldiers. To me it
has always been a great joy to think how much the sufferings and
hardships endured by our troops in all parts of the world have been
lessened by the self-sacrifice and devotion shown to them by that
excellent organization, the Salvation Army.

Yours faithfully,
W. Lloyd George.

General J. J. Pershing, France.

The Salvation Army of America will never cease to hail you with devoted
affection and admiration for your valiant leadership of your valiant
army. You have rushed the advent of the world’s greatest peace, and all
men honor you. To God be all the glory!

Commander Evangeline Booth.

Commander Evangeline Booth, New York City.

“Many thanks for your cordial cable. The American Expeditionary Forces
thank you for all your noble work that the Salvation Army has done for
them from the beginning.”

General Pershing.

With deep feeling of gratitude for the enormous contribution which the
Salvation Army has made to the moral and physical welfare of this
expedition all ranks join me in sending heartiest Christmas greetings
and cordial best wishes for the New Year.

(Signed) Pershing.

Salvation, New York.
Paris, April 22, 1919.

The following cable received, Colonel William S. Barker, Director of
the Salvation Army, Paris: My dear Colonel Barker—I wish to express to
you my sincere appreciation, and that of all members of the American
Expeditionary Forces, for the splendid services rendered by the
Salvation Army to the American Army in France. You first submitted your
plans to me in the summer of 1917, and before the end of that year you
had a number of Huts in operation in the Training Area of the First
Division, and a group of devoted men and women who laid the foundation
for the affectionate regard in which the workers of your organization
have always been held by the American soldiers. The outstanding
features of the work of the Salvation Army have been its disposition to
push its activities as far as possible to the Front, and the trained
and experienced character of its workers whose one thought was the
well-being of its soldiers they came to serve. While the maintenance of
these standards has necessarily kept your work within narrow bounds as
compared to some of the other welfare agencies, it has resulted in a
degree of excellence and self-sacrifice in the work performed which has
been second to none. It has endeared your organization and its
individual men and women workers to all those Divisions and other units
to which they have been attached and has published their good name to
every part of the American Expeditionary forces. Please accept this
letter as a personal message to each one of your workers. Very
sincerely,

John J. Pershing.

Marshal Foch, Paris, France:

Your brilliant armies, under blessing of God, have triumphed. The
Salvation Army of America exults with war-worn but invincible France.
We must consolidate for God of Peace all the good your valor has
secured. Commander Evangeline Booth.

Western Union cablegram

WESTERN UNION
ANGLO-AMERICAN DIRECT UNITED STATES
CABLEGRAM
34 Broadway N.Y.
Received at 16 BROAD STREET, NEW YORK

193 F8 PZ FRANCE 31

EVANGELINE BOOTH
COMMANDER SALVATION ARMY
IN AMERICA NEW YORK


TRÈS TOUCHÉ DU SENTIMENT ÉLEVÉ QUI A INSPIRÉ VOTRE
TÉLÉGRAMME JE VOUS ADRESSE AINSI QU’À VOS ADHÉRENTS MES
SINCÈRES REMERCIEMENTS


MARECHAL FOCH

I am deeply touched by the high sentiment which inspired your
cablegram, and I tender you and your adherents sincere thanks.

MARSHAL FOCH

Letter from Sir Douglas Haig

Just before leaving London on Thursday for his provincial campaigns,
General Booth received the following letter from Field Marshal Sir
Douglas
Haig. The generous tribute will be read with intense satisfaction by
Salvationists the world over:

General Headquarters, British Armies in France.
March 27, 1918.

I am glad to have the opportunity of congratulating the Salvation Army
on the service which its representatives have rendered during the past
year to the British Armies in France.

The Salvation Army workers have shown themselves to be of the right
sort and I value their presence here as being one of the best
influences on the moral and spiritual welfare of the troops at the
bases. The inestimable value of these influences is realized when the
morale of the troops is afterwards put to the test at the front.

The huts which the Salvation Army has staffed have besides been an
addition to the comfort of the soldiers which has been greatly
appreciated.

I shall be glad if you will convey the thanks of all ranks of the
British Expeditionary Forces in France to the Salvation Army for its
continued good work.

D. Haig, Field Marshal,
Commanding British Armies in France.

The Following Message from Marshal Joffre:

Miss Evangeline Booth,
Apr. 9, 1919.
New York City.

“President Wilson has said that the work of the Salvation Army on the
Franco-American front needs no praise in view of the magnificent
results obtained and remains only to be admired and congratulated. I
cannot do better than to use the same words which I am sure express the
sentiments of all French soldiers. “J. Joffre.”

From Field Marshal Viscount French.

“Of all the organizations that have come into existence during the past
fifty years none has done finer work or achieved better results in all
parts of the Empire than the Salvation Army. In particular, its
activities have been of the very greatest benefit to the soldiers in
this war.”

June 16, 1918.

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, writing from Oyster Bay, Long Island, under
date of April 11, 1918, has the following to say to the War Work
Executive of the Salvation Army:

“I was greatly interested in your letter quoting the letter from my son
now with Pershing in France. His testimony as to the admirable work
done by the Salvation Army agrees with all my own observations as to
what the Salvation Army has done in war and in peace. You have had to
enlarge enormously your program and readjust your work in order to meet
the need of the vast number of soldiers and sailors serving our country
overseas; and you must have funds to help you. I am informed that over
40,000 Salvationists are in the ranks of the Allied armies. I can
myself bear testimony to the fact that you have a practical social
service, combined with practical religion, that appeals to multitudes
of men who are not reached by the regular churches; and I know that you
were able to put your organization to work in France before the end of
the first month of the World War. I am glad to learn that you do not
duplicate or parallel the work done by any other organization, and that
you are in constant touch with the War Work Councils of such
organizations as the Y. M. C. A. and the Bed Cross. I happen to know
that you are now maintaining and operating 168 huts behind the lines in
France, together with 70 hostels, and that you have furnished 46
ambulances, manned and officered by Salvationists. I am particularly
interested to learn that 6000 women are knitting under the direction of
the Salvation Army, and with materials furnished by this organization
here in America, in order to turn out garments and useful articles for
the soldiers at the Front.

“Faithfully yours,

“(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt.”

April 21st, 1919.

Commander Evangeline Booth,
120 West 14th Street, New York, N. Y.

Dear Commander Booth:

I have known the Salvation Army from its beginning.

The mother of the Salvation Army was Mrs. Catherine Booth, and her
common sense and Christian spirit laid the foundations; while her
husband, General William Booth, in his impressive frame, fertility of
ideas, and invincible spirit of evangelism always seemed to me as if he
were closely related to St. Peter, the fisherman—the man of ideas and
many questions, of the Lord’s family.

General William Booth was of a discipleship that kept him always on the
“long, long trail” with a self-sacrificing spirit, but with a
cheerfulness that heard the nightingales in the early mornings that
awakened him to duty and service. He was never tired. The Salvation
Army under the present leadership of your brother, Bramwell Booth, has
“carried on” along the same roads, and with the same methods, as the
great General who has passed into the Beyond.

The Salvation Army has been itself true to the spirit of its mighty
originator during the present war. No work was too hard; no day was
long enough; no duty too simple, no self-denial was too great.

Prom my personal knowledge, the Salvation Army workers were consecrated
to their work. Just as the brave boys who carried the Flag, they were
soldiers fighting a battle, to find comforts, and a song to put music
into the hearts of the noble fellows that now lie sleeping on the
ridges of the Marne, with their graves unmarked save with a cross.

The sleepless vigilance of the Salvation Army extended from their
kitchens where they cooked for the boys, to the hospitals where they
prayed with them to the last hour when life ended in a silence, the
stillest of all slumbers.

The Armies of every country in which they labored have a record of
their faithfulness and devotion which will be sealed in the hearts of
the many thousands they helped in the days of the struggle for peace.

The question is, what can we do now to perpetuate the Salvation Army
and its work, and my reply is, that there is nothing they ask or want
that should be refused to them. They are worthy; they are competent;
they can be trusted with responsibility; and their splendid leader
seems to have almost a miraculous power for management in the work
which her father committed to her so far as America is concerned.

Very sincerely yours,

(Signed) John Wanamaker.

Cardinal’s Residence, 408 Charles Street, Baltimore.
April 16, 1919.

Hon. Charles S. Whitman, New York City.

Honorable and Dear Sir:

I have been asked by the local Commander of the Salvation Army to
address a word to you as the National Chairman of the Campaign about to
be launched in behalf of the above named organization. This I am happy
to do, and for the reason that, along with my fellow American citizens,
I rejoice in the splendid service which the Salvation Army rendered our
Soldier and Sailor Boys during the war. Every returning trooper is a
willing witness to the efficient and generous work of the Salvation
Army both at the Front, and in the camps at home. I am also the more
happy to commend this organization because it is free from sectarian
bias. The man in need of help is the object of their effort, with never
a question of his creed or color.

I trust, therefore, your efforts to raise $13,000,000 for the Salvation
Army will meet with a hearty response from our generous American
public.

Faithfully yours,
James, Cardinal, Gibbons.

Commissioner Plenipotentiary of the United States of America.

Paris, April 7th, 1919.

My Dear Commander Booth:

Those of us who have been fortunate enough to see something of the work
of the Salvation Army with the American troops have been made proud by
the devotion and self-sacrifice of the workers connected with your
organization.

I congratulate you and, through you, your associates, and I wish you
the best of fortune in the continuance of your splendid work.

Very sincerely yours,
L. M. House.

Commander Evangeline Booth, Salvation Army.

Evangeline Booth,
Salvation Army Headquarters, New York.

I have seen the work of the Salvation Army in France and consider it
very helpful and valuable. I trust you will be able to secure the means
not only for its maintenance but for the enlargement of its scope. It
is a good work and should be encouraged.

Leonard Wood.
Camp Funston, Kansas.

Brigadier-General Duncan wrote to Colonel Barker the
following letter:

December 7, 1917.

The Salvation Army in this its first experience with our troops has
stepped very closely into the hearts of the men. Your huts have been
open to them at all times. They have been cordially received in a
homelike atmosphere and many needs provided in religious teachings.
Your efforts have the honest support of our chaplains. I have talked
with many of our soldiers who are warm in their praise and satisfaction
in what is being done for them. For myself I feel that the Salvation
Army has a real place for its activities with our Army in France and I
offer you and your workers, men and women, good wishes and thanks for
what you have done and are doing for our men.

G. B. Duncan, Brigadier-General.

The Salvation Army is doing a great work in France and every soldier
bears testimony to the fact.

Omar Bundy, Major-General.

Headquarters First Division,
American Expeditionary Forces.

France, September 15, 1918.

From: Chief of Staff.

To: Major L. Allison Coe, Salvation Army.

Subject: Service in Operation against St. Mihiel Salient.

1. The Division Commander desires me to express to you his appreciation
of the particularly valuable service that the Salvation Army, through
you and your assistants, has rendered the Division during the recent
operation against the St. Mihiel salient.

2. You have furnished aid and comfort to the American soldier
throughout the trying experiences of the last few days, and in
accomplishing this worthy mission have spared yourself in nothing.

3. The Division Commander wishes me to thank you for the Division and
for himself.

CK/T. Campbell King, Chief of Staff.

CABLEGRAM.

Paris, December 17,1917.

Commander Miss E, Booth, 120 W. 14th St., New York.

I am glad to be able to express my appreciation of the work done by the
Salvation Army in the way of providing for the comfort and welfare of
the Command. I think the efforts of the Salvation Army are admirable
and deserving of appreciation and commendation, and I consider the
effort is made without advertisement and that it reaches and is
appreciated by those for whom it is most needed.

L. P. Murphy, Lieut.-Colonel of Cavalry.

CABLEGRAM.

Paris, December 17,1917.

Commander Miss E. Booth,
120 W. 14th Street, New York City.

I wish to express my most sincere appreciation of the work of your
organization with my regiment. Your Officer has done everything that
could be expected of any organization in carrying on his work with the
soldiers of this command, and has surpassed any such expectations. He
has assisted the soldiers in every way possible and has gained their
hearty good will. He has also shown himself willing and anxious to
carry out regulations and orders affecting his organization. As a
matter of fact, all the officers and soldiers of this command are most
enthusiastic about the help of the Salvation Army, and you can hear
nothing but praise for its work. The work of your organization, both
religious and material, has been wholesome and dignified, and I desire
you to know that it is appreciated.

J. L. Hines,
Colonel, Sixteenth Infantry.

In sending a contribution toward the expenses of the War Work, Colonel
George B. McClellan wrote:

Treasurer, Salvation Army, July 24, 1918.
120 West 14th Street, New York City.

Dear Sir:

All the Officers I have talked with who have been in the trenches have
enthusiastically praised the work the Salvation Army is doing at the
front. They are agreed that for coolness under fire, cheerfulness under
the most adverse conditions, kindness, helpfulness and real efficiency,
your workers are unsurpassed.

Will you accept the enclosed check as my modest contribution to your
War
Fund, and believe me to be

Yours very truly,
Geo. B. McClelland Lt.-Col. Ord. Dept., N. A.

CABLEGRAM.

Paris, December 17,1917.

Commander Miss B. Booth,
120 West 14th Street, New York City, N. Y.

I have carefully observed the work of the Salvation Army from their
first arrival in Training Area First Division American Expeditionary
Force to date. The work they have done for the enlisted men of the
Division and the places of amusement and recreation that they have
provided for them, are of the highest order. I unhesitatingly state
that, in my opinion, the Salvation Army has done more for the enlisted
men of the First Division than any other organization or society
operating in France.

F. G. Lawton,
Colonel, Infantry, National Army.

To Whom It May Concern:

The work of the Salvation Army as illustrated by the work of Major S.
H. Atkins is duplicated by no one. He has been Chaplain and more
besides. He has the confidence of officers and men. Major Atkins, as
typifying the Salvation Army, has been forward at the very front with
what is even more important than the rear area work.

Theodore Roosevelt.

The following letter was sent to Major Atkins of the Salvation Army:

Headquarters, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry,
France, December 26, 1917.

I wish to thank you for the great work you have been doing here among
the men of this battalion. You have added greatly to the happiness and
contentment of us all; giving, as you have, an opportunity for good,
clean entertainment and pleasure.

In religious work you have done much. As you know, this regiment has no
chaplain, and you have to a large extent taken the place of one here.

For myself, and on behalf of the officers stationed here, I wish to
express my appreciation of the work that you have been doing here, and
the hope that you can accompany the battalion wherever the fortune of
war may lead us.

Wishing you a very happy and successful New Year, I am

Yours sincerely,
(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.,
Major (U.S.R.), 26th Infantry.

When Captain Archibald Roosevelt was lying wounded in Red Cross
Hospital No. 1 he wrote the following letter to the same officer:

Red Cross Hospital No. 1.

July 10, 1918.

“You have, by your example, helped the men morally and physically. By
your continued presence in the most dangerous and uncomfortable
periods, you have made yourself the comrade and friend of every officer
and man in our battalion. It is in this way that you have filled a
position which the other charitable organizations had left vacant.

“Let me also mention that, perfect Democrat that you are, you have
realized the necessity of discipline, and have helped make the
discipline understood by these men and officers.

“If all the Salvation Army workers are like you, I sincerely hope to
see the time when there is a Salvation Army officer with each battalion
in the camp.”

Before leaving France for the United States, two Salvation
Army lassies received the following letter:

I was very sorry to hear that you had been taken from this division,
and desire to express my appreciation of the excellent assistance you
have been to us.

In all of our “shows” you have been with us, and I wish that I knew of
the many sufferers you have cheered and made more comfortable. They are
many and, I am positive, will always have grateful thoughts of you.

I have seen you enduring hardships—going without food and sleep,
working day and night, sometimes under fire, both shell and avion—and
never have you been anything but cheerful and willing.

I thank you and your organization for all of this, and assure you of
the respect and gratitude of the entire division.

J. I. Mabee, Colonel, Medical Corps,
Division Surgeon.

CABLE.

January 17, 1918.

The Salvation Army, New York:

As Inspector General of the First Division I have inspected all the
Salvation Army huts in this Division area and I am glad to inform you
that your work here is a well-earned success. Your huts are warm, dry,
light, and, I believe, much appreciated by all the men in this
Division. To make these huts at all homelike under present conditions
requires energy and ability. I know that the Salvation Army men in this
Division have it and am very willing to so testify.

Conrad S. Babcock, Lieut.-Colonel,
Inspector General, First Division.

“The Salvation Army keeps open house, and any time that a body of men
come back from the front lines, in from a convoy, there is hot coffee
and sometimes home-made doughnuts (all free to the men). I was in
command of a town where the hut never closed till 3 or 4 in the
morning, and their girls baked pies and made doughnuts up to the front,
under shell fire, for our infantrymen. A Salvation Army lassie is safe
without an escort anywhere in France where there is an American
soldier. That speaks for itself. I am for any organization that is out
to do something for my men, and I think that it is the idea of the
American people when they give their money. What we want is someone who
is willing to come over here and do something for the boys, regardless
of the fact that it may not net any gain—in fact, may not help them to
gather enough facts for a lecture tour when they return home.”

Headquarters, Third Division,
September 5,1918.

My Dear Mr. Leffingwell:

Your letter of July 22d just received. It has, perhaps, been somewhat
delayed in reaching me, owing to the fact that I have recently been
transferred to another division. I only wish things had been so that I
might have granted you or a representative of the Salvation Army an
interview when I was in the States recently, but, being under orders, I
could wait for nothing. Whatever I may have said, in a casual way, of
the work of the Salvation Army in France, I assure you was all
deserved. Your organization has been doing a splendid work for the men
of my former division and other troops who have come in contact with
it. I have often remarked, as have many of the officers, that after the
war the Salvation Army is going to receive such a boom from the boys
who have come in touch with it over here that it will seem like a
veritable propaganda! Why shouldn’t it? For your work has been
conducted in such a quiet, unostentatious, unselfish way that only a
man whose sensibilities are dead can fail to appreciate it. I have
found several of your workers, whose names at this moment I am unable
to recall, putting up with all sorts of hardships and inconveniences,
working from daylight until well into the night that the boys might be
cheered in one way or another. Your shacks have always been at the
disposal of the chaplains for their regimental services. Whether Mass
for the Catholic chaplains or Holy Communion for an Episcopalian
chaplain, they always found a place to set up their altars in the
Salvation Army huts; and the Protestant chaplains, also the Jewish,
always, to my knowledge, were given its use for their services. I have
found your own services have been very acceptable to the boys, in
general, but perhaps your doughnut program, with hot coffee or
chocolate, means as much as anything. Not that, like those of old, we
follow the Salvation Army because we can get filled up, but we all like
their spirit. More than on one occasion do I know of troops moving at
night—and pretty wet and hungry—that have been warmed and fed and sent
on their way with new courage because of what some Salvation Army
worker and hut furnished. And as they went their way many fine things
were said about the Salvation Army. I am sure, as a result of this
work, you have won the favor and confidence of hundreds of these
soldier lads, and, if I am not terribly mistaken, when we get home the
Salvation tambourine will receive greater consideration than
heretofore.

I am glad to express my feelings for your work. God bless you in it,
and always!

Sincerely yours,

Lyman Bollins, Division Chaplain,
Headquarters, Third Division, A. E. F., via New York.

At the Front in France, June 12, 1918.

Commissioner Thomas Estill,
Salvation Army, Chicago.

My Dear Commissioner:

We are engaged in a great battle. My time is all taken with our wounded
and dead. Still I cannot resist the temptation to take a few moments in
which to express our appreciation of the splendid aid given our
soldiers by the Salvation Army.

The work of the Salvation Army is not in duplication of that of any
other organization. It is entirely original and unique. It fills a
long-felt want. Some day the world will know the aid that you have
rendered our soldiers. Then you will receive every dollar you need.

Your work is also greatly appreciated by the French people. I have
never heard a single unfavorable comment on the Salvation Army. They
are respected everywhere. Their unselfish devotion to our well, sick,
wounded and dead is above any praise that I can bestow. God will surely
greatly reward them.

I heartily congratulate you on the class of workers you have sent over
here. I pray that your invaluable aid may be extended to our troops
everywhere. God bless you and yours,

In His name,
(Signed) Thomas J. Dickson,
Chaplain with rank of Major,
Sixth Field Artillery, First Division, U. S. Army.

An appreciation written concerning the first Salvation
Army chaplain that was appointed after the war started:

Camp Cody, New Mexico,

January 16, 1918.

Major E. C. Clemans,
136th Infantry, Camp Cody, N. M.

Commissioner Thomas Estill, Chicago, Ill.

I have been associated with the chaplain now for nearly four months. I
have found him a Christian soldier and gentleman. He is “on the job”
all the time and no Chaplain in this Division is doing more faithful
and effective work. He is thoroughly evangelistic, is burdened for the
souls of his men and is working for their salvation not in but from
their sins. He is a “man’s man,” knows how to approach men and knows
how and does get hold of their affections in such a way that he is a
help and a comfort to them. He brings things to pass.

The Salvation Army may be well pleased that it is so well represented
in the Army as it is by Chaplain Kline.

Sincerely yours,

(Signed) Ezra C. Clemans,
Senior Chaplain, 34th Division.

July 11, 1918.

I have been familiar with the work of the Salvation Army for years, and
the organization from the beginning of the war has been doing a
wonderful work with the Allied forces and since the entering of the
United States into the struggle has given splendid aid and coöperation
not only in connection with the war activities at home but also with
our forces abroad. Their work is entitled to the sincere admiration of
every American citizen.

Major Edwin F. Glenn.

To Whom It May Concern:

It gives me the greatest pleasure to testify to the very excellent work
of the Salvation Army as I have seen it in this division. I have seen
the work done by this organization for ten months, under all sorts of
conditions, and it has always been of the highest character. At the
start, the Salvation Army was handicapped by lack of funds, but even
under adverse conditions, it did most valuable work in maintaining
cheerful recreation centres for the men, often in places exposed to
hostile shell-fire. The doughnut and pie supply has been maintained.
This seems a little thing, but it has gone a long way to keep the men
cheerful. All the Salvation Army force has been untiring in its work
under very trying conditions, and as a result, I believe it has gained
the respect and affection of officers and men more than any similar
organization.

Albert J. Myers, Jr., Major, National Army.
1st Div., A. E. F. (Captain, Cavalry, U.S.A.)

Extract from letter from Captain Charles W. Albright:
Q. M., R. C., France.

“As to the Salvation Army, well, if they wanted our boys to lie down
for them to walk on, to keep their feet from getting muddy, the boys
would gladly do so.

“From everyone, officers and men alike, nothing but the highest praise
is given the Salvation Army. They are right in the thick of danger,
comforting and helping the men in the front line, heedless of shot,
shell or gas, the U. S. Army in France, as a unit, swears by the
Salvation Army.

“I am proud to have a sister in their ranks.”

An old regular army officer who returned to Paris last week said:

“I wish every American who has stood on street corners in America and
sneered at the work of the Salvation Army could see what they are doing
for the boys in France.

“They do not proclaim that they are here for investigation or for
getting atmosphere for War romances. They have not come to furnish
material for Broadway press agents. They do not wear, ‘Oh, such
becoming uniforms,’ white shoes, dainty blue capes and bonnets, nor do
they frequent Paris tea rooms where the swanky British and American
officers put up.

“Take it from me, these women are doing almighty fine work. There are
twenty-two of them here in France. We army men have given them
shell-shattered and cast-off field kitchens to work with, and oh, man,
the doughnuts, the pancakes and the pies they turn out!

“I’m an old army officer, but what I like about the Salvation Army is
that it doesn’t cater to officers. It is for the doughboys first, last
and all the time. The Salvation Army men do not wear Sam Browne belts;
they do as little handshaking with officers as possible.

“They cash the boys’ checks without question, and during the month of
April in a certain division the Salvation Army sent home $20,000 for
the soldiers. The Rockefeller Foundation hasn’t as yet given the
Salvation Army a million-dollar donation to carry on its work. Fact is,
I don’t know just how the Salvation Army chaplains and lassies do get
along. But get along they do.

“Perhaps some of the boys and officers give them a lift now and then
when the sledding is rough. They don’t aim to make a slight profit as
do some other organizations.

“Ever since Cornelius Hickey put up ‘Hickey’s Hut,’ the first Salvation
Army hut in France, they have been working at a loss. I saw an American
officer give a Salvation Army chaplain 500 francs out of his pay at a
certain small town in France recently.

“The work done in ‘Hickey’s Hut’ did much to endear the Salvation folks
to the doughboys. When a letter arrived in France some months ago
addressed only to ‘Hickey’s Hut, France,’ it reached its destination
_toute de suite_, forty-eight hours after it arrived.

“The French climate has hit our boys hard. It is wet and penetratingly
cold. Goes right to the marrow, and three suits of underwear are no
protection against it. When the lads returned from training camp or the
trenches, wet, cold, hungry and despondent, they found a welcome in
‘Hickey’s Hut.’

“Not a patronizing, holier-than-thou,
we-know-we-are-doing-a-good-work-and-hope-you-doughboys-appreciate-it
sort of a welcome, but a good old Salvation Army, Bowery Mission
welcome, such as Tim Sullivan knew how to hand out in the old days.

“Around a warm fire with men who spoke their own language and who did
not pretend to be above them in the social scale the doughboys forgot
that they were four thousand miles from home and that they couldn’t
’sling the lingo.’

“I saw a group of lads on the Montdidier front who had not been paid in
three months, standing cursing their luck. They had no money,
therefore, they could not buy anything.

“The Salvation Army had been apprised by telegraph that the doughboys
were playing in hard luck. Presto! Out from Paris came a truck loaded
with everything to eat. The truck was unloaded and the boys paid for
whatever they wanted with slips of paper signed with their John
Hancocks. The Salvation Army lassies asked no questions, but accepted
the slips of paper as if they were Uncle Sam’s gold.

“And one of the most useful institutions in Europe where war rages is
one that has no publicity bureau and has no horns to toot. This is the
Salvation Army. In the estimation of many, the Salvation Army goes way
ahead of the work of many of the other war organizations working here.
I see brave women and young women of the Salvation Army every day in
places that are really hazardous.”

First Lieutenant Marion M. Marcus, Jr., Field Artillery, wrote to one
of our leading officers:

October 9, 1918.

“If the people at home could see the untiring and absolute devotion of
the workers of the Salvation Army, in serving and caring for our men,
they would more than give you the support you ask. The way the men and
women expose themselves to the dangers of the front lines and hardships
has more than endeared them to every member of the American
Expeditionary Forces, and they are always in the right spot with cheer
of hot food and drink when it is most appreciated.”

Extract From Letter.

“Away up front where things break hard and rough for us, and we are
hungry and want something hot, we can usually find it in some old
partly destroyed building, which has been organized into a shack
by—well, guess —the Salvation Army.

“They are the soldier’s friend. They make no display or show of any
kind, but they are fast winning a warm corner in the heart of
everyone.”

“I feel it is my duty to drop you a few lines to let you know how the
boys over here appreciate what the Salvation Army is doing for them. It
is a second home to us. There is always a cheerful welcome awaiting us
there and _I have yet to meet a sour-faced cleric behind the counter_.
One Salvation Army worker has his home in a cellar, located close to
the front-line trenches. He cheerfully carries on his wonderful work
amid the flying of shells and in danger of gas. He is one fine fellow,
always greeting you with a smile. He serves the boys with hot coffee
every day, free of charge, and many times he has divided his own bread
with the tired and hungry boys returning from the trenches. In the
evening he serves coffee and doughnuts at a small price. Say, who
wouldn’t be willing to fight after feasting on that?

“In the many rest camps you will find the Salvation Army girls. They
are located so close to the front-line trenches that they have to wear
their gas masks in the slung position, and they also have their tin
hats ready to put on. The girls certainly are a fine, jolly bunch, and
when it comes to baking pies and doughnuts they are hard to beat. The
boys line up a half hour before time so as to be sure they get their
share. I had the pleasure of talking to a mother and her daughter and
they told me they had sold out everything they had to the boys with the
exception of some salmon and sardines on which they were living—salmon
for dinner and sardines for supper. They stood it all with big smiles
and those smiles made me smile when I thought of my troubles.

“In the trenches the boys become affected with body lice, known as
cooties. A good hot bath is the only real cure for them. While on the
way to a bath-house a Salvation Army worker overtook us. He was riding
in a Ford which had seen better days. The springs on it were about all
in and it made a noise like someone calling for mercy. The Salvation
Army worker pulled up in front of us and with a broad smile on his face
said: “Room for half a ton!” We did not need a second invitation and we
soon had poor Henry loaded down. I thought sure it would give out, but
the worker only laughed about it and kept on feeding the machine more
gas as we cheered until it started away with us.

“I want to tell you what the Salvation Army does for the moral side of
the soldier. The American soldier needs the guidance of God over here
more than he ever did in his whole life. Away from home and in a
foreign land in every corner, one must have Divine guidance to keep him
on the narrow path of life. If it was not for the _workers of God over
here the boys would gradually break away and then I’m afraid we would
not have the right kind of fighters to hold up our end_. Of course,
prayers alone won’t satisfy the appetite of the American soldier, and
the Salvation Army girls get around that by baking for the boys. They
believe in satisfying the cravings of the stomach as well as the
craving of the soul and mind. I always enjoy the sermons at the
Salvation Army. A good, every-day sermon is always appreciated. The
Salvation Army helps you along in their good old way, and they don’t
believe in preaching all day on what you should do and what you
shouldn’t do. The girls are a fine bunch of singers and their singing
is enjoyed very much by all of the boys. It is a treat to see an
American girl so close to the front and a still better treat to listen
to one sing.

“The Salvation Army does much good work in keeping the boys in the
right spirit so that they are glad to go back to the trenches when
their turn comes. There is no Salvation Army hut on this front. I often
wish there was one on every front. I believe the Salvation Army does
not get its full credit over in the States. Perhaps the people over
there do not understand the full meaning of the work it is doing over
here. I want the Salvation Army to know that it has all of the boys
over here back of it and we want to keep up the good work. We will go
through hell, if necessary, because we know the folks back home are
back of us. We want the Salvation Army to feel the same way. The _boys
over here are really back of it and we want you to continue your good
work_.”

“There is just one thing more I wish to speak of, and that is the
little old Salvation Army. You will never see me, nor any of the other
boys over here, laugh at their street services in the future, and if I
see anyone else doing that little thing that person is due for a busted
head! I haven’t seen where they are raising a tenth the money some of
the other societies are, but they are the topnotchers of them all as
the soldiers’ friend, and their handouts always come at the right time.
Some of those girls work as hard as we do.”

“The Salvation Army over here is doing wonderful work. _They haven’t
any shows or music, but they certainly know what pleases the boys
most_, and feed us with homemade apple pie or crullers, with lemonade—a
great big piece of pie or three crullers, with a large cup of lemonade,
for a franc (18-1/2 cents).

“These people are working like beavers, and the people in the States
ought to give them plenty of credit and appreciate their wonderful help
to the men over here.” “We were in a bomb-proof semi-dugout, in the
heart of a dense forest, within range of enemy guns, my Hebrew comrade
and I. We were talking of the fate that brought us here—of the
conditions as we left them at home. There was the thought of what
‘might’ happen if we were to return to America minus a limb or an eye;
we were discussing the great economic and moral reform which is a
certainty after the war, when through the air came the harmonious
strumming of a guitar accompanying a sweet, feminine voice, and we
heard:

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom;
  Lead Thou me on;
The night is dark and I am far from home,
  Lead Thou me on.
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
  The distant scene—
One step enough for me.

“It was the Salvation Army! In a desert of human hearts, many of them
wounded with heartache, these brave, brave servants of the Son of David
came to cheer us up and make life more bearable.

“In our outfit are Greeks, Italians, Bohemians, Irish, Jews—all of them
loyal Americans—and the Salvation Army serves each with an impartial
self-sacrifice which should forever still the voices of critics who
condemn sending Army lassies over here.

“Those in the ranks are men. The Salvation Army women are
admired—almost worshipped—but respected and safe. Men by the thousands
would lay down their lives for the Salvationists, and not till after
the war will the full results of this sacrifice by Salvation Army
workers bear fruit. But now, with so many strong temptations to go the
wrong way, here are noble girls roughing it, smiling at the hardships,
singing songs, making doughnuts for the doughboys, and always reminding
us, even in danger, that it is not all of ‘life to live,’ bringing to
us recollections of our mothers, sisters, and sweethearts, and if
anyone questions, ’Is it worth while?’ the answer is: ‘A thousand times
yes!’ and I cannot refrain from sending my hearty thanks for all this
service means to us.

“A few miles in back of us now, a half dozen Connecticut girls
representing the Salvation Army are doing their bit to make things
brighter for us, and say, maybe those girls cannot bake. Every day they
furnish us with real homemade crullers and pies at a small cost, and
their coffee, holy smoke! it makes me homesick to even write about it.
The girls have their headquarters in an old tumble-down building and
they must have some nerve, for the Boche keeps dropping shells all
around them day and night, and it would only take one of those shells
to blow the whole outfit into kingdom come.”

In a letter from a private to his mother while he was lying wounded in
the hospital, he says of the Salvation Army and Red Cross:

“Most emphatically let me say that they both are giving real service to
the men here and both are worthy of any praise or help that can be
given them. This is especially so of the Salvation Army, because it is
not fully understood just what they are doing over here. They are the
only ones that, regardless of shells or gas, feed the boys in the
trenches and bear home to them the realization of what God really is at
the very moment when our brave lads are facing death. Their timely
phrases about the Christ, handed out with their doughnuts and coffee,
have turned many faltering souls back to the path and they will never
forget it. ’Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity’ surely holds good
here. You may not realize or think it possible, but a large majority of
the boys carry Bibles and there are often heated arguments over the
different phrases.

“I have just turned my pockets inside out and the tambourine could hold
no more, but it was all I had and I am still in debt to the Salvation
Army.

“For hot coffee and cookies when I was shivering like an aspen, for
buttons and patches on my tattered uniform, for steering me clear of
the camp followers; but more than all for the cheery words of solace
for those ‘gone West,’ for the blessed face of a woman from the
homeland in the midst of withering blight and desolation—for these I am
indebted to the Salvation Army.”

CABLEGRAM.

Paris, December 17, 1917.

Commander Miss E. Booth,
120 W. 14th Street, New York, N. Y.

Being a Private, I am one of the many thousands who enjoy the
kindnesses and thoughtful recreation in the Salvation hut. The huts are
always crowded when the boys are off duty, for ’tis there we find
warmth of body and comradeship, pleasures in games and music, delight
in the palatable refreshments, knowledge in reading periodicals,
convenience in the writing material at our disposal, and other
home-like touches for enjoyment. The courtesy and good-will of the hut
workers, combined with these good things, makes the huts a resort of
real comfort with the big thought of salvation in Christ predominating
over all. Appreciation of these huts, and all they mean to the soldier
in this terrible war, rises full in all our hearts.

Clinton Spencer,
Private, Motor Action.

“I just used to love to listen to the Salvation Army at 6th and Penn
Streets, but I never dreamed of seeing them over here. And when I first
saw four girls cooking and baking all day I wondered what it was all
about.

“But I didn’t have long to find out, for that night I saw these same
girls put on their gas masks at the alert and start for the trenches.
Then I started to ask about them. I never spoke to the girls, but
fellows who had been in the trenches told me that they came up under
shell fire to give the boys pies or doughnuts or little cakes or cocoa
or whatever they had made that day. I thought that great of the
Salvation Army. And many a boy who got help through them has a warm
spot in his heart for them.

“You can see by the paper I write on who gave it to us. It is Salvation
Army paper. Altogether I say give three hearty cheers for the Salvation
Army and the girls who risk their own lives to give our boys a little
treat.”

“I am going to crow about our real friends here—and it is the verdict
of all the boys—it is the Salvation Army, Joe. _That is the boys’
mother and father here. It is our home_. They have a treat for us boys
every night—that is, cookies, doughnuts or pie—about 9 o’clock. But
that is only a little of them. The big thing is the spirit—the feeling
a boy gets of being home when he enters the hut and meets the lassies
and lads who call themselves the soldiers of Christ, and we are proud
to call them brother soldiers. We think the world of them! So, Joe,
whenever you get a chance to do the Salvation Army a good turn, by word
or deed, do so, as thereby you will help us. When we get back we are
going to be the Salvation Army’s big friend, and you will see it become
one of the United States’ great organizations.”

“My life as a soldier is not quite as easy as it was in Rochester, but
still I am not going to give up my religion, and I am not ashamed to
let the other fellows know that I belong to the Salvation Army.
Sometimes they try to get me to smoke or go and have a glass of beer
with them, but I tell them that I am a Salvationist. There are twenty
fellows in a hut, so they used to make fun at me when I used to say my
prayers. Once in awhile I used to have a _pair of shoes_ or a coat or
something, thrown at me. I used to think what I could do to stop them
throwing things at me, so I thought of a plan and waited. It was two or
three nights before they threw anything again. One night, as I was
saying my prayers, someone threw his shoes at me. After I got through I
picked up the shoes and took out my shoe brushes and polished and
cleaned the shoes thrown at me, and from that night to now I have never
had a thing thrown at me. The fellow came to me in a little while and
said he was sorry he had thrown them. There are four or five
Salvationists in our company—one was a Captain in the States. The
Salvation Army has three big huts here among the soldier boys. We have
some nice meetings here, and they have reading-rooms and writing and
lunch-rooms, so I spend most of my time there.”

Letter of Commendation RE Salvation Army.

U.S.S. Point Bonita, 15 October, 1918.

Miss Evangeline Booth, Commander,
Care of Salvation Army Headquarters,
14th Street, New York City.

Dear Miss Booth:—

We want to thank you for presenting our crew with an elegant phonograph
and 25 records. We are all going to take up a collection and buy a lot
of records and I guess we will be able to pass the time away when we
are not on watch.

We have a few men in the crew who have made trips across on transports
and they say that every soldier and sailor has praised the Salvation
Army way-up-to-the-sky for all the many kindnesses shown them.

We also want to thank you for the kindness shown to one of our crew.
The Major who gave us the present was the best yet and so was the
gentleman who drove the auto about ten miles to our ship. That is the
Salvation Army all over. During the war or in times of peace, your
organization reaches the hearts of all.

We all would like to thank Mr. Leffingwell for his great kindness in
helping us.

The undersigned all have the warmest sort of feeling for you and the
Salvation Army.

Many, many thanks, from the ship’s crew.

“I was down to the Salvation Army the other day helping them cook
doughnuts and they sure did taste good, and the fellows fairly go crazy
to get them, too. Anything that is homemade don’t last long around
here, and when they get candy or anything sweet there is a line about a
block long.

“Notice the paper this is written on? Well, I can’t say enough about
them. They sure are a treat to us boys, and almost every night they
have good eats for us. One night it is lemonade, pies and coffee, and
the next it is doughnuts and coffee, and they are just like mother
makes. There are two girls here that run the place, and they are real
American girls, too. The first I have seen since I have been in France,
and I’ll say they are a treat!

“Hogan and I have been helping them, and now I cook pies and doughnuts
as well as anyone. We sure do have a picnic with them and enjoy helping
out once in awhile. One thing I want you to do is to help the Salvation
Army all you can and whenever you get a chance to lend a helping hand
to them do it, for they sure have done a whole lot for your boy, and if
you can get them a write-up in the papers, why do it and I will be
happy.”

From Lord Derby.

“The splendid work which the Salvation Army has done among the soldiers
during the war is one for which I, as Secretary of State for War,
should like to thank them most sincerely; it is a work which is
deserving of all support.”

State of New Jersey
Executive Department
Trenton.

My Dear Mr. Battle: December 27, 1917.

I have learned of the campaign of the Salvation Army to raise money for
its war activities. The work of the Salvation Army is at all times
commendable and deserving, but particularly so in its relation to the
war.

I sincerely hope that the campaign will be very successful.
Cordially yours,

(Signed) Walter B. Edge,

Mr. George Gordon Battle, Governor.
General Chairman, 37 Wall Street, New York City.

Governor Charles S. Whitman’s Address at Luncheon at Hotel Ten Eyck,
Albany, New York, December 8, 1917.

“I take especial pleasure in offering my tribute of respect and
appreciation to the Salvation Army. I have known of its work as
intimately as any man who is not directly connected with the
organization. In my position as a judge and a district attorney of New
York City for many years, I always found the Salvation Army a great
help in solving the various problems of the poor, the criminal and
distressed.

“Frequently while other agencies, though good, hesitated, there was
never a case where there was a possibility that relief might be
brought—never was a case of misery or violence so low, that the
Salvation Army would not undertake it.

“The Salvation Army lends its manhood and womanhood to go ‘Over There’
from our States, and our State, to labor with those who fight and die.
There is very little we can do, but we can help with our funds.”

“The Salvation Army is worthy of the support of all right-thinking
people. Its main purpose is to reclaim men and women to decency and
good citizenship. This purpose is being prosecuted not only with energy
and enthusiasm but with rare tact and judgment.

“The sphere of the Army’s operations has now been extended to the
battlefields of Europe, where its consecrated workers will coöperate
with the Y.M.C.A., K. of C., and kindred organizations.

“It gives me pleasure to commend the work of this beneficent
organization, and to urge our people to remember its splendid service
to humanity.

“Very truly yours,
“ Albert E. Sleeper,
“Governor.”

Endorsement of January 25, 1918.
Governor Hugh M. Dorsey, of Georgia.

The Salvation Army has been a potent force for good everywhere, so far
as I know. They are rendering to our soldiers “somewhere in France” the
most invaluable aid, ministering not only to their spiritual needs, but
caring for them in a material way. This they have done without the
blare of trumpets.

Many commanding officers certify to the fact that the Salvation Army is
not only rendering most effective work, but that this work is of a
distinctive character and of a nature not covered by the activities of
other organizations ministering to the needs of the soldier boys. In
other words, they are filling that gap in the army life which they have
always so well filled in the civil life of our people.

State of Utah Executive Office

Salt Lake City, January 21, 1918.

“I have learned with a great deal of interest of the splendid work
being done by the Salvation Army for the moral uplift of the soldiers,
both in the training camps and in the field. I am very glad to endorse
this work and to express the hope that the Salvation Army may find a
way to continue and extend its work among the soldiers.”

(Signed) Simon Bamberg,
Governor.

From a Proclamation by Governor Brumbaugh.

To the People of Pennsylvania:

I have long since learned to believe in the great, good work of the
Salvation Army and have given it my approval and support through the
years. This mighty body of consecrated workers are like gleaners in the
fields of humanity. They seek and succor and save those that most need
and least receive aid. Now, THEREFORE, I, Martin G. Brumbaugh, Governor
of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, do cordially commend the work of
the Salvation Army and call upon our people to give earnest heed to
their call for assistance, making liberal donations to their
praiseworthy work and manifesting thus our continued and resolute
purpose to give our men in arms unstinted aid and to support gladly all
these noble and sacrificing agencies that under God give hope and help
to our soldiers.

[SEAL]

Given under my hand and the great seal of the State, at the City of
Harrisburg, this seventh day of February, in the year of our Lord one
thousand nine hundred and eighteen, and of the Commonwealth the one
hundred and forty-second.

By the Governor:
Secretary of the Commonwealth.
copy/h

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
Executive Department,
State House, Boston, February 15, 1918.

It gives me pleasure to add my word of approval to the very noble work
that is being done by the Salvation Army for the men now serving the
country. The Salvation Army has for many years been doing very valuable
work, and the extension of its labors into the ranks of the soldiers
has not lessened in any degree its power of accomplishment. The
Salvation Army can render most efficient service. It should be the aim
of every one of us in Massachusetts to assist in every way the work
that is being done for the soldiers. We cannot do too much of this kind
of work for them—they deserve and need it all. I urge everybody in
Massachusetts to assist the Salvation Army in every way possible, to
the end that Massachusetts may maintain her place in the forefront of
the States of the Union who are assisting the work of the Army.

(Signed) Samuel W. McCall,
Governor.

Proclamation.

To the People of the State of Maryland:

I have been very much impressed with the good work which is being done
in this country by the Salvation Army, and I am not at all surprised at
the great work which it is doing at the front, upon or near the
battlefields of Europe. It is doing not only the same kind of work
being done by the Y.M.C.A. and the Knights of Columbus, but work in
fields decidedly their own.

It is now undertaking to raise $1,000,000 for the National War Service
and it is preparing a hutment equipped with libraries, daily
newspapers, games, light refreshments, _etc_., in every camp in France.

Now, therefore, I, Emerson C. Harrington, Governor of Maryland,
believing that the effect and purposes for which the Salvation Army is
asking this money, are deserving of our warmest support, do hereby call
upon the people of Maryland to respond as liberally as they can in this
war drive being made by the Salvation Army to enable them more
efficiently to render service which is so much needed.

[The Great Seal of the State of Maryland]

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused to be
hereto affixed the Great Seal of Maryland at Annapolis, Maryland, this
fourteenth day of February, in the year one thousand nine hundred and
eighteen.

Emerson C. Harrington.

By the Governor,
Thos. W. Simmons, Secretary of State.

“The Salvation Army is peculiarly equipped for this kind of service. I
have watched the career of this organization for many years, and I know
its leaders to be devoted and capable men and women.

“Of course, any agency which can in any way ameliorate the condition of
the boys at the front should receive encouragement.”

(Signed) Frank C. Lowden,
Governor of Illinois.

“I join with thousands of my fellow citizens in having a great
admiration for the splendid work which has already been accomplished by
the Salvation Army in the alleviation of suffering, the spiritual
uplift of the masses, and its substantial and prayerful ministrations.

“The Salvation Army does its work quietly, carefully, persistently and
effectively. Our patriotic citizenry will quickly place the stamp of
approval upon the great work being done by the Salvation Army among the
private soldiers at home and abroad.”

(Signed) Governor Brough of Arkansas.

Lansing, Michigan, June 13, 1918.

To Whom It May Concern:

Among the various organizations doing war work in connection with the
American Army, none are found more worthy of support than the Salvation
Army. Entering into its work with the whole-hearted zeal which has
characterized its movement in times of peace, it has won the highest
praise of both officers and soldiers alike.

It is an essential pleasure to commend the work of the Salvation Army
to the people of Michigan with the urgent request that its war
activities be given your generous support.

Albert E. Sleeper,
Governor of the State of Michigan.

Mark E. McKee,
Secretary, Counties Division, Michigan War Board.

State of Kansas
Arthur Capper, Governor,
Topeka

August 8, 1917.

I have been greatly pleased with the war activities of the Salvation
Army and want to express my appreciation of the splendid service
rendered by that organization on the battlefield of Europe ever since
the war began. It is a most commendable and a most patriotic thing to
do and I hope the people of Kansas will give the enterprise their
generous support.

Very respectfully,
(Signed) Arthur Capper, Governor.

“Best wishes for the success of your work. As the Salvation Army has
done so much good in time of peace, it has multiplied opportunities to
do good in the horrors of war, if given the necessary means.”

(Signed) Miles Poindexter,
Senator from Washington.
House of Representatives
Washington, D. C.

January 8, 1918.

Colonel Adam Gifford, Salvation Army,
8 East Brookline Street, Boston, Mass.

My Dear Colonel Gifford:

I desire to write you in highest commendation of the work the Salvation
Army is doing in France. During last November I was behind the French
and English fronts, and unless one has been there they cannot realize
the assistance to spirit and courage given to the soldiers by the “hut”
service of the Salvation Army.

The only particular in which the Salvation Army fell short was that
there were not sufficient huts for the demands of the troops. The huts
I saw were crowded and not commodious.

Behind the British front I heard several officers state that the
service of the Salvation Army was somewhat different from other
services of the same kind, but most effective.

With kindest regards, I remain,
Very sincerely yours,

(Signed) George Holden Tinkham,
Congressman.

This Condolence Card conveyed the sympathy of the Commander to the
friends of the fallen. Forethought had prepared this some time before
the first American had made the supreme sacrifice.

Looking

Greater Love Hath No Man Than This, That a Man Lay Down His Life for
His Friends

122 W. 14th Street New York

My dear Friend:

I must on behalf of The Salvation Army, take this opportunity to say
how deeply and truly we share your grief at this time of your
bereavement. It will be hard for you to understand how anything can
soothe the pain made by your great loss, but let me point you to the
one Jesus Christ, who acquainted Himself with all our griefs so that He
might heal the heart’s wounds made by our sorrows and whose love for us
was so vast that He bled and died to save us.

It may be some solace to think that your loved one poured out his life
in a War in which high and holy principles are involved, and also that
he was quick to answer the call for men.

Believe me when I say that we are praying and will pray for you.

Yours in sympathy.

(Signed) Evangeline Booth
Commander


“ Commander Evangeline Booth:

“The comfort and solace contained in the beautiful card of sympathy I
recently received from you is more than you can ever know. With all my
heart I am very grateful to you and can only assure you feebly of my
deep appreciation.

“It has made me realize more than ever before the fundamental
principles of Christianity upon which your Army is built and organized,
for how truly does it comfort the widow and fatherless in their
affliction.

“Tucked away as my two babies and I are in a tiny Wisconsin town, we
felt that our grief, while shared in by our good friends, was just a
passing emotion to the rest of the world. But when a card such as yours
comes, extending a heart of sympathy and prayer and ferrets us out in
our sorrow in our little town, you must know how much less lonely we
are because of it. It surely shows us that a sacrifice such as my dear
husband made is acknowledged and lauded by the entire world.

“I am, oh! so proud of him, so comforted to know I was wife to a man so
imbued with the principles of right and justice that he counted no
sacrifice, not even his life, too great to offer in the cause. Not for
anything would I ask him back or rob him of the glory of such a death.
Yet our little home is sad indeed, with its light and life taken away.

“The good you have done before and during the war must be a very great
source of gratification for you, and I trust you may be spared for many
years to stretch out your helping hand to the sorrowing and make us
better for having known you.

With deepest gratitude,”

“ Commander Evangeline Booth:

“I have just seen your picture in the November _Pictorial Review_ and I
do so greatly admire your splendid character and the great work you are
doing.

“I want to thank you for the message of Christian love and sympathy you
sent to me upon the death of my son in July, aeroplane accident in
England.

“Without the Christian’s faith and the blessed hope of the Gospel we
would despair indeed. A long time ago I learned to pray Thy will be
done for my son—and I have tested the promises and I have found them
true.

“May the Lord bless you abundantly in your own heart and in your world
wide influence and the splendid Salvation Army.”

“ Dear Friends:

“Words fall far short in expressing our deep appreciation of your
comforting words of condolence and sympathy. Will you accept as a small
token of love the enclosed appreciation written by Professor ————- of
the Oberlin College, and a quotation from a letter written August 25th
by our soldier boy, and found among his effects to be opened only in
case of his death, and forwarded to his mother?

I am
Yours truly,”

Enclosure:

“November 16, 1918.

“If by any chance this letter should be given to you, as something
coming directly from my heart; you, who are my mother, need have no
fear or regret for the personality destined not to come back to you.

“A mother and father, whose noble ideals they firmly fixed in two sons
should rather experience a deep sense of pride that the young chap of
nearly twenty-one years does not come back to them; for, though he was
fond of living, he was also prepared to die with a faith as sound and
steadfast as that of the little children whom the Master took in His
arms.

“And more than that, the body you gave to me so sweet and pure and
strong, though misused at times, has been returned to God as pure and
undefiled as when you gave it to me. I think there is nothing that
should please you more than that.

“In My Father’s House are many mansions,
I go to prepare a place for you;
If it were not so, I would have told you.
“Your Baby boy,”


(Signed) Paul.
Chatereaux, France.
August, 1918.

N. B.—Written on back of the envelope:
“To be opened only in case of accident.”

“ Commander Evangeline Booth:

“Permit me to express through you my deep appreciation of the consoling
message from the Salvation Army on the loss of my brother, Clement, in
France. I am indeed grateful for this last thought from an organization
which did so much to meet his living needs and to lessen the hardships
of his service in France. I shall always feel a personal debt to those
of you who seemed so near to him at the end.”

“Miss Evangeline Booth:

“I was greatly touched by the card of sympathy sent me in your name on
the occasion of my great sorrow—and my equally great glory. The death
of a husband for the great cause of humanity is a martyrdom that any
soldier’s wife, even in her deep grief, is proud to share.

“Thanking you for your helpful message,”

“Miss Evangeline Booth:

“Of the many cards of condolence received by our family upon the death
of my dear brother, none touched us more deeply than the one sent by
you.

“We do indeed appreciate your thoughtfulness in sending words of
comfort to people who are utter strangers to you.

“Accept again, the gratitude of my parents as well as the other members
of our family, including myself.

“May our Heavenly Father bless you all and glorify your good works.”

Miss Evangeline Booth,

Commander of the Salvation Army, New York City,
N. Y.

Dear Miss Booth:

I beg of you to pardon me for writing you this letter, but I feel that
I must. On the 17th day of March I received a letter from my boy in
France, and it reads as follows:

“Somewhere in France, Jan. 15, 1918.
“My Dear Mother:

“I must write you a few lines to tell you that you must not worry about
me even though it is some time since I wrote you. We don’t have much
time to ourselves out here. I have just come out of the trenches, and
now it is mud, mud, mud, up to one’s knees. I often think of the
fireplace at home these cold nights, but, mother, I must tell you that
I don’t know what we boys would do if it was not for the Salvation
Army. The women, they are just like mothers to the boys. God help the
ones that say anything but good about the Army! Those women certainly
have courage, to come right out in the trenches with coffee and cocoa,
_etc_., and they are so kind and good. Mother, I want you to write to
Miss Booth and thank her for me for her splendid work out here. When I
come home I shall exchange the U. S. uniform for the S.A. uniform, and
I know, ma, that you will not object. Well, the Germans have been
raining shells to-day, but we were unharmed. I passed by an old shack
of a building—a poor woman sat there with a baby, lulling it to sleep,
when a shell came down and the poor souls had passed from this earthly
hell to their heavenly reward. Only God knows the conditions out here;
it is horrible. Well, I must close now, and don’t worry, mother, I will
be home some day.

“Your loving son,”

Well, Miss Booth, I got word three weeks ago that Joseph had been
killed in action. I am heart-broken, but I suppose it was God’s will.
Poor boy! He has his uniform exchanged for a white robe. I am all alone
now, as he was my only boy and only child. Again I beg of you to pardon
me for sending you this letter.

December 10, 1917.

Commander Evangeline C. Booth, New York City.

My Dear Commander:

I have just read in the New York papers of your purpose and plan to
raise a million dollars for your Salvation Army work carried on in the
interests of the soldiers at home and abroad, and I cannot refrain from
writing to you to express my deep interest, and also the hope that you
may be successful in raising this fund, because I know that it will be
so well administered.

From all that I have heard of the Salvation Army work in connection
with the soldiers carried on under your direction, I think it is simply
wonderful, and if there is any service that I can render you or the
Army, I should be exceedingly pleased.

I have read “Souls in Khaki,” and I wish that everyone might read it,
for could they do so, your million-dollar fund would be easily raised.

With ever-increasing interest in the Salvation Army, I am, Cordially
yours,

(Signed) J. Wilbur Chapman.
Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church in the U.S.A.

Salvation Army Is the Most Popular Organization in France.

Raymond B. Fosdick, chairman of the War Recreation Commission, on his
return from a tour of investigation into activities of the relief
organizations in France, gave out the following:

“Somewhat to my surprise I found the Salvation Army probably the most
popular organization in France with the troops. It has not undertaken
the comprehensive program which the Y.M.C.A. has laid out for itself;
that is, it is operating in three or four divisions, while the Y. M. C.
A. is aiming to cover every unit of troops.

“But its simple, homely, unadorned service seems to have touched the
hearts of our men. The aim of the organization is, if possible, to put
a worker and his wife in a canteen or a centre. The women spend their
time making doughnuts and pies, and sew on buttons. The men make
themselves generally useful in any way which their service can be
applied.

“I saw such placed in dugouts way up at the front, where the German
shells screamed over our heads with a sound not unlike a freight train
crossing a bridge. Down in their dugouts the Salvation Army folks
imperturbably handed out doughnuts and dished out the ‘drink.’”

War Department Commission on Training Camp Activities, Washington

45, Avenue Montaigne, Paris.

Commander Evangeline Booth, Apr. 8, 1919.
Salvation Army, New York City.

My Dear Commander Booth:

The work of the Salvation Army with the armed forces of the United
States does not need any word of commendation from me. Perhaps I may be
permitted to say, however, that as a representative of the War and Navy
Departments I have been closely in touch with it from its inception,
both in Europe and in the United States. I do not believe there is a
doughboy anywhere who does not speak of it with enthusiasm and
affection. Its remarkable success has been due solely to the unselfish
spirit of service which has underlain it. Nothing has been too humble
or too lowly for the Salvation Army representative to do for the
soldier. Without ostentation, without advertising, without any emphasis
upon auspices or organization, your people have met the men of the Army
as friends and companions-in-arms, and the soldiers, particularly those
of the American Expeditionary Force, will never forget what you have
done.

Faithfully yours,
(Signed) Raymond B. Fosdick.

From Honorable Arthur Stanley,
Chairman British Red Cross Society.

British Red Cross Society
Joint War Committee

83 Pall Mall, London, S. W.,

December 22, 1917.

General Bramwell Booth.

Dear General Booth:

I enclose formal receipt for the cheque, value £2000, which was handed
to me by your representative. I note that it is a contribution from the
Salvation Army to the Joint Funds to provide a new Salvation Army Motor
Ambulance Unit on the same conditions as before.

I cannot sufficiently thank you and the Salvation Army for this very
generous donation.

I am indeed glad to know that you are providing another twenty drivers
for service with our Ambulance Fleet in France. This is most welcome
news, as whenever Salvation Army men are helping we hear nothing but
good reports of their work. Sir Ernest Clarke tells me that your
Ambulance Sections are quite the best of any in our service, and the
more Salvation Army men you can send him, the better he will be
pleased. I would again take this opportunity of congratulating you,
which I do with all my heart, upon the splendid record of your Army.

Yours sincerely,

(Signed) Arthur Stanley.

Extract from Judge Ben Lindsey’s picture of the Salvation Army at the
Front:

“A good expression for American enthusiasm is: ’I am crazy about’—this,
or that, or the other thing that excites our admiration. Well, ’I am
crazy about the Salvation Army’—the Salvation Army as I saw it and
mingled with it and the doughboys in the trenches. And when I happened
to be passing through Chicago to-day and saw an appeal in the _Tribune_
for the Salvation Army, I remembered what our boys so often shouted out
to me as I passed them in the trenches and back of the lines: ’Judge,
when you get back home tell the folks not to forget the Salvation Army.
They’re the real thing.’

“And I know they are the real thing. I have shared with the boys the
doughnuts and chocolate and coffee that seemed to be so much better
than any other doughnuts or coffee or chocolate I have ever tasted
before. And when it seemed so wonderful to me after just a mild sort of
experience down a shell-swept road, through the damp and cold of a
French winter day, what must it be to those boys after trench raids or
red-hot scraps down rain-soaked trenches under the wet mists of No
Man’s Land?... Listen to some of the stories the boys told me: ’You
see, Judge, the good old Salvation Army is the real thing. They don’t
put on no airs. There ain’t no flub-dub about them and you don’t see
their mugs in the fancy magazines much. Why, you never would see one of
them in Paris around the hotels. You’d never know they existed, Judge,
unless you came right up here to the front lines as near as the Colonel
will let you!’

“And one enthusiastic urchin said: ’Why, Judge, after the battle
yesterday, we couldn’t get those women out of the village till they’d
seen every fellow had at least a dozen fried cakes and all the coffee
or chocolate he could pile in. We just had to drag ’em out—for the boys
love ’em too much to lose ’em—we weren’t going to take no chances—not
much— for our Salvation ladies!’”

Harry Lauder’s Endorsement.

In speaking of the Salvation Army’s work before the Rotary Club of San
Francisco, Harry Lauder said:

“There is no organization in Europe doing more for the troops than the
Salvation Army, and the devotion of its officers has caused the
Salvation Army to be revered by the soldiers.”

Mr. Otto Kahn, one of America’s most prominent bankers, upon his return
to this country after a tour through the American lines in France,
writes, among other things:

“I should particularly consider myself remiss if I did not refer with
sincere admiration to the devoted, sympathetic, and most efficient work
of the Salvation Army, which, though limited in its activities to a few
sectors only, has won the warm and affectionate regard of those of our
troops with whom it has been in contact.”


Mr. David Lawrence, special Washington correspondent of the _New York
Evening Post_ and other influential papers, in an article in which he
comments on the work of all the relief agencies, says of the Salvation
Army in France:

“Curiously enough the Salvation Army is spoken of in all official
reports as the organization most popular with the troops. Its
organization is the smallest of all four. Its service is simple and
unadorned. It specializes on doughnuts and pie, which it gives away
free whenever the ingredients of the manufacture of those articles are
at hand.

“_The policy of the organization_ is to place a worker and his wife, if
possible, with a unit of troops. The woman makes doughnuts and sews on
buttons, while the man helps the soldiers in any way he can.

“_The success of the Salvation Army_ is attributed by commanding
officers to the fact that the workers know how to mix naturally. _In
other cases there had been sometimes an air of condescension not unlike
that of the professional settlement house worker_.”


In a recent issue of the _Saturday Evening Post_, Mr. Irvin Cobb, who
has just returned from France, has this to say of the Salvation Army:

“Right here seems a good-enough place for me to slip in a few words of
approbation for the work which another organization has accomplished in
France since we put our men into the field. Nobody asked me to speak in
its favor because, so far as I can find out, it has no publicity
department. I am referring to the Salvation Army. May it live forever
for the service which, without price and without any boasting on the
part of its personnel, it is rendering to our boys in France!

“A good many of us who hadn’t enough religion, and a good many more of
us who, mayhap, had too much religion, looked rather contemptuously
upon the methods of the Salvationists. Some have gone so far as to
intimate that the Salvation Army was vulgar in its methods and lacking
in dignity and even in reverence. Some have intimated that converting a
sinner to the tap of a bass drum or the tinkle of a tambourine was an
improper process altogether. Never again, though, shall I hear the
blare of the cornet as it cuts into the chorus of hallelujah whoops,
where a ring of blue-bonneted women and blue-capped men stand exhorting
on a city street-corner under the gaslights, without recalling what
some of their enrolled brethren—and sisters—have done, and are doing,
in Europe!

“The American Salvation Army in France is small, but, believe me, it is
powerfully busy! Its war delegation came over without any fanfare of
the trumpets of publicity. It has no paid press agents here and no
impressive headquarters. There are no well-known names, other than the
names of its executive heads, on its rosters or on its advisory boards.
None of its members are housed at an expensive hotel and none of them
have handsome automobiles in which to travel about from place to place.
No campaigns to raise nation-wide millions of dollars for the cost of
its ministrations overseas were ever held at home. I imagine it is the
pennies of the poor that mainly fill its war chest. I imagine, too,
that sometimes its finances are an uncertain quantity. Incidentally, I
am assured that not one of its male workers here is of draft age unless
he holds exemption papers to prove his physical unfitness for military
service. The Salvationists are taking care to purge themselves of any
suspicion that potential slackers have joined their ranks in order to
avoid the possibility of having to perform duties in khaki.

“Among officers, as well as among enlisted men, one occasionally hears
criticism—which may or may not be based on a fair judgment—for certain
branches of certain activities of certain organizations. But I have yet
to meet any soldier, whether a brigadier or a private, who, if he spoke
at all of the Salvation Army, did not speak in terms of fervent
gratitude for the aid that the Salvationists are rendering so
unostentatiously and yet so very effectively. Let a sizable body of
troops move from one station to another, and hard on its heels there
came a squad of men and women of the Salvation Army. An army truck may
bring them, or it may be they have a battered jitney to move them and
their scanty outfits. Usually they do not ask for help from anyone in
reaching their destinations. They find lodgment in a wrecked shell of a
house or in the corner of a barn. By main force and awkwardness they
set up their equipment, and very soon the word has spread among the
troops that at such and such a place the Salvation Army is serving free
hot drinks and free doughnuts and free pies. It specializes in
doughnuts—the Salvation Army in the field does—the real old-fashioned
home-made ones that taste of home to a homesick soldier boy!

“I did not see this, but one of my associates did. He saw it last
winter in a dismal place on the Toul sector. A file of our troops were
finishing a long hike through rain and snow over roads knee-deep in
half-thawed icy slush. Cold and wet and miserable they came tramping
into a cheerless, half-empty town within sound and range of the German
guns. They found a reception committee awaiting them there—in the
person of two Salvation Army lassies and a Salvation Army Captain. The
women had a fire going in the dilapidated oven of a vanished villager’s
kitchen. One of them was rolling out the batter on a plank, with an old
wine-bottle for a rolling pin, and using the top of a tin can to cut
the dough into circular strips; the other woman was cooking the
doughnuts, and as fast as they were cooked the man served them out,
spitting hot, to hungry, wet boys clamoring about the door, and nobody
was asked to pay a cent!

“At the risk of giving mortal affront to ultradoctrinal practitioners
of applied theology, I am firmly committed to the belief that by the
grace and the grease of those doughnuts those three humble benefactors
that day strengthened their right to a place in the Heavenly Kingdom.”

My Dear Colonel Jenkins:

I take pleasure in sending you a copy of my report as Commissioner to
France, in which I made reference to the work of the Salvation Army
with our American Expeditionary Forces.

I cannot recall ever hearing the slightest criticism of the work of the
Salvation Army, but I heard many words of enthusiastic appreciation on
the part not only of the Generals and officers but of the soldiers.

I saw many evidences showing that the unselfish, sometimes reckless,
abandon of your workers had a great effect upon our men.

I am sure that the Salvation Army also stands in high respect for its
religious influence upon the men.

It was pleasant still further to hear such words of appreciation as I
did from General Duncan regarding the work of Chaplain Allan, the
divisional chaplain of General Duncan’s unit. He has evidently risen to
his work in a splendid way. It is a pleasure to have this opportunity
of rendering this testimony to you.

Faithfully yours,

Charles S. MacFarland,
General Secretary.

The _New York Globe_ printed the following:

Huns Don’t Stop Salvation Army. Meeting Held in Deep Dugout Under
Ruined Village—Mandolin Supplants the Organ.

By Herbert Corey.

Just behind the Somme front, May 31.—Somewhere in the tangle of smashed
walls there was a steely jingle. At first the sound was hard to
identify, so odd are acoustics in this which was once a little town.
There were stub ends of walls here and there—bare, raw snags of walls
sticking up—and now and then a rooftree tilted pathetically against a
ruin, or a pile of dusty masonry that had been a house. A little path
ran through this tangle, and under an arched gateway that by a miracle
remained standing and down the steps of a dugout. The jingling sound
became recognizable. Some one was trying to play on a mandolin:

“Jesus, Lover of My Soul.”

It was grotesque and laughable. The grand old hymn refused its cadences
to this instrument of a tune-loving bourgeoise. It seemed to stand
aloof and unconquered. This is a hymn for the swelling notes of an
organ or for the great harmonies of a choir. It was not made to be
debased by association with this caterwauling wood and wire, this
sounding board for barbershop chords, this accomplice of sick lovers
leaning on village fences. Then there came a voice:

“By gollies, brother, you’re getting it! I actually believe you’re
getting it, brother. We’ll have a swell meeting to-night.”

I went down the steps into the Salvation Army man’s dugout. A large
soldier, cigarette depending from his lower lip, unshaven, tin hat
tipped on the back of his head, was picking away at the wires of the
mandolin with fingers that seemed as thick and yellow as ears of corn.
As I came in he stated profanely, that these dam’ things were not made
to pick out condemn’ hymn tunes on. The Salvation Army man encouraged
him:

“You keep on, brother,” said he, “and we’ll have a fine meeting for the
Brigadier when he comes in to-night.”

Taking His Chances.

Another boy was sitting there, his head rather low. The mandolin player
indicated him with a jerk. “He got all roughed up last night,” said he.
“We found a bottle of some sweet stuff these Frogs left in the house
where we’re billeted. Tasted a good deal like syrup. But it sure put
Bull out.”

Bull turned a pair of inflamed eyes on the musician.

“You keep on a-talkin’, and I’ll hang somep’n on your eye,” said Bull,
hoarsely.

Then he replaced his head in his hands. The Salvation Army man laughed
at the interlude and then returned to the player.

“See,” said he, “it goes like this——” He hummed the wonderful old hymn.

The floor of the dugout was covered with straw. The stairs which led to
it were wide, so that at certain hours the sun shone in and dried out
the walls. There were few slugs crawling slimily on the walls of the
Salvation Army’s place. Rats were there, of course, and bugs of sorts,
but few slugs. On the whole it was considered a good dugout, because of
these things. The roof was not a strong one, it seemed to me. A
77-shell would go through it like a knife through cheese. I said so to
the Salvation Army man.

“Aw, brother,” said he. “We’ve got to take our chances along with the
rest.”

At the foot of the stairs was a table on which were the few things the
Salvation Army man had to sell, up here under the guns. There were some
figs and a handful of black licorice drops and a few nuts. Boys kept
coming in and demanding cookies. Cookies there were none, but there was
hope ahead. If the Brigadier managed to get in to-night with the fliv,
there might be cookies.

No Money, But Good Cheer.

“Just our luck,” said some morose doughboy, “if a shell hit the fliv.
It’s a hell of a road——”

“No shell has hit it yet, brother,” said the Salvation Army man,
cheerily.

Fifteen dollars would have bought everything he had in stock. One could
have carried away the whole stock in the pockets of an army overcoat.
The Salvation Army has no money, you know. It is hard to buy supplies
for canteens over here, unless a pocket filled with money is doing the
buying. The Salvation Army must pick up its stuff where it can get it.
Yesterday there had been sardines and shaving soap and tin watches.
To-day there were only figs and licorice drops and nuts.

“But if the Brigadier gets in,” said the Salvation Army man, “there
will be something sweet to eat. And we’ll have a little meeting of song
and praise, brother—just to thank God for the chance he has given us to
help.”

Here there is no one else to serve the boys. Other organizations have
more money and more men, but for some reason they have not seen fit to
come to this which was once a town. Shells fall into it from six
directions all day and all night long. Now and then it is gassed. A few
kilometres away is the German line. One reaches town over a road which
is nightly torn to pieces by high explosives. No one comes here
voluntarily, and no one stays willingly—except the Salvation Army man.
He’s here for keeps.

Men come down into his little dugout to play checkers and dominoes and
buy sweet things to eat. He is here to help them spiritually as well as
physically and they know it, and yet they do not hear him. He talks to
them just as they talk to each other, except that he does not swear and
he does not tell stories that have too much of a tang. He never
obtrudes his religion on them. Just once in a while—on the nights the
Brigadier gets in—there is a little song and praise meeting. They thank
God for the chance they have to help.

That night the Brigadier got in with his cookies and chocolates and his
message that salvation is free. Perhaps a dozen men sat around
uncomfortably in the little dugout and listened to him. The man of the
mandolin had refused at the last moment. He said he would be dam’ if he
could play a hymn tune on that thing. But the old hymn quavered
cheerily out of the little dugout into the shell-torn night. The husky
voices of the Brigadier and the Ensign and Holy Joe carried it on,
while the little audience sat mute.

While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high.

Then there was a little prayer and a few straight, cordial words from
the Brigadier and then, somewhere in that perilous night outside,
“taps” sounded and the men were off to bed. They had no word of thanks
as they shook hands on parting. They did not speak to each other as
they picked their way along the path through the ruins. But when they
reached the street some one said very profanely and very earnestly:

“I can lick any man’s son who says they ain’t all right.”

“I have just received your letter of the 30th of July, and it has
cheered my heart to know you take an interest in a poor Belgian
prisoner of war.

“Since I wrote to you last we have been changed to another camp; the
one we are now in is quite a nice camp, with lots of flowers, and we
are allowed more freedom, but it is very bad regarding food. We have so
very little to eat, it is a pity we can’t eat flowers! We rise up
hungry and go to bed hungry, and all day long we are trying to still
the craving for food. So you will understand the longing there is in
our hearts to once again be free—to be able to go to work and earn our
daily bread! But the one great comfort that I find is since I learned
to know Jesus as my Saviour and Friend I can better endure the trials
and even rejoice that I am called to suffer for His sake, and while
around me I see many who are in despair—some even cursing God for all
the misery in which we are surrounded, some trying to be brave, some
giving up altogether—yet to a number of us has come the Gospel message,
brought by the Salvation Army, and I am so glad that I, for one,
listened and surrendered my life to this Jesus! Now I have real peace,
and He walks with me and gives me grace to conquer the evil.

“When I lived in Belgium I was very worldly and sinful—I lived for
pleasure and drink and sin. I did not then know of One who said, ’Come
unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you
rest.’ I did not know anything about living a Christian life, but now
it is all changed and I am so thankful! Salvation Army officers visit
us and bring words of cheer and blessing and comfort. You will be glad
to know that I have applied to our Commissioner to become a Salvation
Army officer when the war is over. I want to go to my poor little
stricken country and tell my people of this wonderful Saviour that can
save from all sin!

“On behalf of my comrades and myself, I want to thank the American
nation for all they have done, and are still doing, for my people. May
God bless you all for it, and may He grant that before long there will
be peace on earth!

“I remain, faithfully yours,

“ Remy Meersman.”

The “Stars and Stripes” Speaks from France for The Salvation Army.

A copy of the “Stars and Stripes,” the official publication of the
American Expeditionary Forces published in Prance by the American
soldiers themselves, just received in Chicago, contains the following:

“Perhaps in the old days when war and your home town seemed as far
apart as Paris, France, and Paris, Ill., you were a superior person who
used to snicker when you passed a street corner where a small Salvation
Army band was holding forth. Perhaps—Heaven forgive you—you even
sneered a little when you heard the bespectacled sister in the
poke-bonnet bang her tambourine and raise a shrill voice to the strains
of ’Oh death, where is thy sting-a-ling.’ Probably—unless you yourself
had known the bitterness of one who finds himself alone, hungry and
homeless in a big city—you did not know much about the Salvation Army.

Well, we are all homeless over here and every American soldier will
take back with him a new affection and a new respect for the Salvation
Army. Many will carry with them the memories of a cheering word and a
friendly cruller received in one of the huts nearest of all to the
trenches. There the old slogan of ‘Soup and Salvation’ has given way to
‘Pies and Piety.’ It might be ‘Doughnuts and Doughboys.’ These huts
pitched within the shock of the German guns, are ramshackle and bare
and few, for no organization can grow rich on the pennies and nickels
that are tossed into the tambourines at the street-corners of the
world. But they are doing a work that the soldiers themselves will
never forget, and it is an especial pleasure to say so here, because
the Salvation Army, being much too simple and old-fashioned to know the
uses of advertisement, have never asked us to. You, however, can
testify for them. Perhaps you do in your letters home. And surely when
you are back there and you pass once more a ‘meeting’ at the curb, you
will not snicker. You will tarry awhile—and take off your hat.”

We have received a letter from Mr. Lewis Strauss, Secretary to Mr.
Herbert Hoover, who has just returned from France, and he says that Mr.
Hoover’s time while in Europe was spent almost wholly in London and
Paris, and that he had no opportunity for observing our War Relief Work
at the front. The concluding paragraph of the letter, however, is as
follows:

“Mr. Hoover has frequently heard the most complimentary reports of the
invaluable work which your organization is performing in invariably the
most perilous localities, and he is filled with admiration for those
who are conducting it at the front.”

The Chicago Tribune (May 17, 1918), Quoting from the Above, also Speaks
Editorially.

The acid test of any service done for our soldiers in France is the
value the men themselves place upon it. No matter how excellent our
intentions, we cannot be satisfied with the result if the soldiers are
not satisfied. Without suggesting any invidious distinctions among
organizations that are working at the front, it is nevertheless a
pleasure to record that the Salvation Army stands very high in the
regard of American soldiers.

The evidence of the Salvation Army’s excellent work comes from many
sources.




Appendix.


A Few Facts about the Salvation Army

It has been truly said that within four days after the German Army
entered Belgium, another Army entered also—the Salvation Army! One came
to destroy, the other to relieve distress and minister to the wounded
and dying.

The British Salvation Army furnished a number of Red Cross Ambulances,
manned by Salvationists when the Red Cross was in great need of such.
When these arrived in France and people first saw the big cars with the
“Salvation Army” label it attracted a good deal of attention. The
drivers wore the Red Cross uniform, and were under its military rules,
but wore on their caps the red band with the words, “Salvation Army.”

There is a story of a young officer in sportive mood who left a group
of his companions and stepped out into the street to stop one of these
ambulances:

“Hello! Salvation Army!” he cried. “Are you taking those men to
heaven?”

Amid the derisive laughter of the officers on the sidewalk the
Salvationist replied pleasantly:

“I cannot say I am taking them to heaven, but I certainly am taking
them away from the other place.”

One of the good British Salvationists wrote of meeting our American
boys in England. He said:

“Oh, these American soldiers! One meets them in twos and threes, all
over the city, everlastingly asking questions, by word of mouth and by
wide-open trustful eyes, and they make a bee-line for the Salvation
Army uniform on sight. I passed a company of them on the march across
London, from one railroad station to another, the other, day. They were
obviously interested in the sights of the city streets as they passed
through at noon, but as they drew nearer one of the boys caught sight
of the red band around my cap among the hate crowning the sidewalk
crowd. My! but that one man’s interest swept over the hundred odd men!
Like the flame of a prairie fire, it went with a zip! They all knew at
once! They had no eyes for the crowd any more; they did not stare at
the façade of the railway terminus which they were passing; they saw
nothing of the famous ‘London Stone’ set in the wall behind its grid on
their right hand. What they saw was a Salvation Army man in all his
familiar war-paint, and it was a sight for sore eyes! Here was
something they could understand! This was an American institution, a
tried, proved and necessary part of the life of any community. All this
and much more those wide-open eyes told me. It was as good to them as
if I was stuck all over with stars and stripes. I belonged—that’s
it—belonged to them, and so they took off the veil and showed their
hearts and smiled their good glad greeting.

“So I smiled and that first file of four beamed seraphic. Two at least
were of Scandinavian stock, but how should that make any difference?
Again and again I noticed their counterpart in the column which
followed.... It was all the same; file upon file those faces spread out
in eager particular greeting; those eyes, one and all, sought mine
expecting the smile I so gladly gave. And then when the last was past
and I gazed upon their swaying forms from the rear I wondered why my
eyes were moist and something had gone wrong with my swallowing
apparatus. Great boys! Bonny boys!”

The Salvation Army was founded July 5, 1865, as a Christian Mission in
East London by the Reverend William Booth, and its first Headquarters
opened in Whitechapel Road, London. Three years later work was begun in
Scotland.

In 1877 the name of the Christian Mission was altered to the Salvation
Army, and the Reverend William Booth assumed the title of General.

December 29, 1879, the first number of the official organ, “The War
Cry,” was issued and the first brass band formed at Consett.

In 1880 the first Training School was opened at Hackney, London, and
the first contingent of the Salvation Army officers landed in the
United States. The next year the Salvation Army entered Australia, and
was extended to France. 1882 saw Switzerland, Sweden, India and Canada
receiving their first contingent of Salvation Army officers. A London
Orphan Asylum was acquired and converted into Congress Hall, which,
with its large Auditorium, with a seating capacity of five thousand,
still remains the Mammoth International Training School for Salvation
Army officers, for missionary and home fields all over the world. The
first Prison-Gate Home was opened in London in this same year.

The Army commenced in South Africa, New Zealand and Iceland in 1883.

In 1886 work was begun in Germany and the late General visited France,
the United States and Canada. The First International Congress was held
in London in that year.

The British Slum work was inaugurated in 1887, and Officers sent to
Italy, Holland, Denmark, Zululand, and among the Kaffirs and
Hottentots. The next year the Army extended to Norway, Argentine
Republic, Finland and Belgium, and the next ten years saw work extended
in succession to Uruguay, West Indies, Java, Japan, British Guiana,
Panama and Korea, and work commenced among the Lepers.

The growing confidence of the great of the earth was manifested by the
honors that were conferred upon General Booth from time to time. In
1898 he opened the American Senate with prayer. In 1904 King Edward
received him at Buckingham Palace, the freedom of the City of London
and the City of Kirkcaldy were conferred upon him, as well as the
degree of D. C. L. by Oxford, during 1905. The Kings of Denmark,
Norway, the Queen of Sweden, and the Emperor of Japan were among those
who received him in private audience.

On August 20, 1912, General William Booth laid down his sword.

He lay in state in Congress Hall, London, where the number of visitors
who looked upon his remains ran into the hundreds of thousands.

His son, William Bramwell Booth, the Chief of the Staff, by the
appointment of the late General, succeeded to the office and came to
the position with a wealth of affection and confidence on the part of
the people of the nations such as few men know.

Salvation Army War Activities.

77 Motor ambulances manned by Salvationists.

87 Hotels for use of Soldiers and Sailors.

107 Buildings in United States placed at disposal of Government for war
relief purposes.

199 Huts at Soldiers’ Camps used for religious and social gatherings
and for dispensing comfort to Soldiers and Sailors.

300 Rest-rooms equipped with papers, magazines, books, _etc_., in
charge of Salvation Army Officers.

1507 Salvation Army officers devote their entire time to religious and
social work among Soldiers and Sailors.

15,000 Beds in hotels close to railway stations and landing points at
seaport cities for protection of Soldiers and Sailors going to and from
the Front.

80,000 Salvation Army officers fighting with Allied Armies.

100,000 Parcels of food and clothing distributed among Soldiers and
Sailors.

100,000 Wounded Soldiers taken from battlefields in Salvation Army
ambulances.

300,000 Soldiers and Sailors daily attend Salvation Army buildings.

$2,000,000 Already spent in war activities.

45 Chaplains serving under Government appointment.

40 Camps, Forts and Navy Yards at which Salvation Army services are
conducted or which are visited by Salvation Army officers.

2184 War Widows assisted (legal and other aid, and visited).

2404 Soldiers’ wives cared for (including medical help).

442 War children under our care.

3378 Soldiers’ remittances forwarded (without charge).

$196,081.05 Amount remitted.

600 Parcels supplied Prisoners of War.

1300 Cables sent for Soldiers.

275 Officers detailed to assist Soldiers’ wives and relatives; number
assisted, 275.

40 Military hospitals visited.

360 Persons visiting hospitals.

147 Boats met.

324,052 Men on board,

35,845 Telegrams sent.

24 Salvationists detailed for this work.

20 Salvationists detailed for this work outside of New York City.

Salvation Army Work in United States of America.

1218 Buildings in use at present.

2953 Missing friends found.

6125 Tons of ice distributed.

12,000 Officers and non-commissioned officers actively employed.

11,650 Accommodations in institutions.

68,000 Children cared for in Rescue Homes and Slum Settlements.

22,161 Women and girls cared for in Rescue Homes.

30,401 Tons of coal distributed.

175,764 Men cared for in Industrial Homes.

342,639 Poor families visited.

399,418 Outings given poor people.

668,250 Converted to Christian life.

984,426 Jobs found for unemployed poor.

1,535,840 Hours spent in active service in slum districts.

6,900,995 Poor people given temporary relief.

40,522,990 Nights’ shelter and beds given to needy poor.

52,674,308 Meals supplied to needy poor. Constituency reached with
appeal for Christian citizenship.

132,608,087 Out-door meeting attendance.

134,412,564 In-door meeting attendance.

National War Board.

Commander Evangeline C. Booth, President.

East.
Peart, Col. William, Chairman.
Reinhardsen, Col. Gustave S., Sec’y and Treas.
Damon, Col. Alexander M.,
Parker, Col. Edward J.,
Jenkins, Lt.-Col. Walter F.,
Stanyon, Lt.-Col. Thomas,
Welte, Brigadier Charles

West
Estill, Commissioner Thos., Chairman
Gauntlett, Col. Sidney,
Brewer, Lt.-Col. Arthur T.,
Eynn, Lt.-Col. John T.,
Dart, Brigadier Wm. J., Sec’y.

France.
Barker, Lt.-Col. William S., Director of War Work.

As indicated in the above list, the National War Board functions in two
distinct territories—East and West—the duty of each being to administer
all War Work in the respective territories. The closest supervision is
given by each War Board over all expenditure of money and no scheme is
sanctioned until the judgment of the Board is carried concerning the
usefulness of the project and the sound financial proposals associated
therewith. After any plan is initiated, the Board is still responsible
for the supervision of the work, and for the Eastern department Colonel
Edward J. Parker is the Board’s representative in all such matters and
Lieut-Colonel Arthur T. Brewer fills a similar office in the Western
department. Each section of the National Board takes responsibility in
connection with the overseas work, under the presidency of Commander
Evangeline C. Booth for the raising, equipping and sending of
thoroughly suitable people in proper proportion. Joint councils are
occasionally necessary, when it is customary for proper representatives
of each section of the Board to meet together.

The National Board is greatly strengthened through the adding to its
special councils all of the Provincial Officers of the country. 




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