The War Romance of the Salvation Army Part 23

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At Bullionville the hut was in a building that bore the marks of much sh.e.l.ling. The American boys promptly dubbed the place "Souptown."

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

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

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

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

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

VIII.

The Saint Mihiel Drive

The hut in Raulecourt was an old French barracks. Outside in the yard was an old French anti-aircraft gun and a mesh of barbed wire entanglement.

The woods all around was filled with our guns. To the left was the enemy's third line trench. Three-quarters of the time the Boche were trying to clean us up. Less than two miles ahead were our own front line trenches.

The field range was outside in the back yard.

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

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

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

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

Often the boys would come to the la.s.sies and say: "Say, Cap, I can help you. Loan me an ap.r.o.n." And soon they would be all flour from their chin to their toes.

They would come about four o'clock to find out what time the doughnuts would be ready for serving, and the girls usually said six o'clock so that they would be able to fry enough to supply all the regiment. But the men would start to line up at half-past four, knowing that they could not be served until six, so eager were they for these delicacies. When six o'clock came each man would get three doughnuts and a cup of delicious coffee or chocolate. A great many doughnut cutters were worn out as the days went by and the boys frequently had to get a new cutter made.

Sometimes they would take the top of quite a large-sized can or anything tin that they could lay hands on from which to make it. One boy found the top of an extra large sized baking powder tin and took it to have a smaller cutter soldered in the centre. Sometimes they used the top of the shaving soap box for this. When he got back to the hut the cook exclaimed in dismay: "Why, but it's too big!"

"Oh, that's all right," said the doughboy nonchalantly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Here's a real, honest-to-goodness American woman in the trenches!"

exclaimed a homesick lad as they came around a turn.

"Yes, your mother couldn't come to-day," said the motherly Salvationist, smiling a greeting, "so I've come in her place."

"All right!" said he, entering into the game. "This is Broadway and that's Forty-second Street. Sit down."

Of course there was nothing to sit down on in the trenches. But he hunted about till he found a chow can and turned it up for a seat, and they had a pleasant talk.

"Just wait," he said. "I'll show you a picture of the dearest little girl a fellow ever married and the darlingest little kid ever a man was father to!" He fumbled in his breast pocket right over his heart and brought out two photographs.