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.