The War Romance of the Salvation Army Part 18

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

"I used to be a hard guy fellers," he said, "and maybe I had some good reasons when I used to say that nothing was ever going to scare me, but when we lay out there with a six-hour barrage busting right in front of us and 'arrivals' busting all around us, I did a whole lot of thinking. It seemed as though every sh.e.l.l had my number on it! And when we went over and ran square into their barrage, I'll admit I was scared yellow and was darned afraid I was going to show it! We were under a barrage for ten hours. A sh.e.l.l buried me under about a foot of earth, and for the first time I can remember, while my bunkie was digging me out, I prayed to G.o.d.

And I want to say that I believe He answered my prayer, and that is the only reason I came out uninjured. I promised if I got out I'd call for a new deal, and I want to say that I'm going to keep that promise!"

A boy who had been converted in one of the meetings a few nights before came into the hut and sought her out. He told her he was going over the top that night, and he had something he wanted to confess before he went.

He had told a lie and he had felt terrible remorse about it ever since he was converted. He had treated his mother badly, and gone and enlisted, saying he was eighteen when he was only sixteen. "Now," said he with relief after he had told the story, "that's all clear. And say, if I'm killed, will you go through my pockets and find my Testament and send it to mother? And will you tell my mother all about it and tell her it is all right with me now? Tell mother I went over the top a Christian. You'll know what to say to her to help her bear up."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One bright young fellow with a bandaged eye turned a cheerful grin toward the Salvation Army visitor as she said with compa.s.sion: "Son, I'm sorry you've lost your eye."

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

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

Five la.s.sies stationed at Noyers St. Martin were for several weeks forced by the nightly sh.e.l.ling and air-raids to take their blankets out into the fields at night and sleep under the stars. One of these girls was called "Sunshine" because of her smile.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: A letter of inspiration from the commander]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Salvation Army boy truck driver who calmly went to sleep in his truck in a sh.e.l.l hole under fire]

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

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

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

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

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

The soldier stared, and grew red and unhappy:

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

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

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

Somewhere in France, not far from the foe, There's a body of workers whose name we all know; Who not only at home give their lives to make right, But are now here beside us, fighting our fight.

What care they for rest when our boys at the front, Who, fighting for freedom, are bearing the brunt, And so, just at dawn, when the caissons come home, With the boys tired out and chilled to the bone, The Salvation Army with its brave little crew, Are waiting with doughnuts and hot coffee, too.

When dangers and toiling are o'er for awhile, In their dugouts we find comfort and welcome their smile.

There's a spirit of home, so we go there each night, And the thinking of home makes us sit down and write, So we tell of these folks to our loved ones with pride, And are thanking the Lord to have them on our side.

V.

The Toul Sector Again

When the German offensive was definitely checked in the Montdidier Sector, the First Division was transferred back to the Toul Sector and the Salvation Army moved with it. They had in the meantime maintained all the huts which had been established originally, and with the return of the First Division, they established additional huts between Font and Nancy.

When the St. Mihiel drive came off, they followed the advancing troops, establishing huts in the devastated villages, keeping in as close contact with the extreme front as was possible, serving the troops day and night, always aiming to be at the point where the need was the greatest, and where they could be of the greatest service.

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

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

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

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

In the gray old French cemetery of Treveray five American boys lay buried.