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The War Romance of the Salvation Army

by Evangeline Booth · English · Gutenberg #7811 · 598,148 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The War Romance of the Salvation Army

Author: Evangeline Booth
        Grace Livingston Hill


        
Release date: April 1, 2005 [eBook #7811]
                Most recently updated: June 21, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7811

Credits: Produced by Curtis A. Weyant and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR ROMANCE OF THE SALVATION ARMY ***




Produced by Curtis A. Weyant and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team

[Illustration]




The War Romance of the Salvation Army

by

Evangeline Booth

Commander-in-Chief,
The Salvation Army in America

and

Grace Livingston Hill

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

Copyright 1919, by J.B. Lippincott Company

Contents

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

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

Illustrations

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


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

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




Foreword


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




From the Commander’s Own Pen


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_Man is our life’s passion._

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

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

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

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

He that was made after God’s image.

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

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

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




Preface by the Writer


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Grace Livingston Hill]




The War Romance of the Salvation Army

I.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


It was the beginning of the dark days of 1917.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




II.
The Gondrecourt Area


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Illustration: She called the little company of workers together and
gave them such a charge as would make an angel search his heart]

[Illustration: The lassie who fried the first doughnut in France]

It was a bright, sunny afternoon, August 12th, when this first party of
American Salvation Army workers set sail for France.

No doubt there was many a smile of contempt from the bystanders as they
saw the little group of blue uniforms with the gold-lettered scarlet
hatbands, and noticed the four poke bonnets among the number. What did
the tambourine lassies know of real warfare? To those who reckoned the
Salvation Army in terms of bands on the street corner, and shivering
forms guarding Christmas kettles, it must have seemed the utmost
audacity for this “play army” to go to the front.

When they arrived at Bordeaux on August 21st they went at once to Paris
to be fitted out with French uniforms, as General Pershing had given
them all the rank of military privates, and ordered that they should
wear the regulation khaki uniforms with the addition of the red
Salvation Army shield on the hats, red epaulets, and with skirts for
the women.

A cabled message had reached France from the Commander saying that
funds to the extent of twenty-five thousand dollars had been arranged
for, and would be supplied as needed, and that a party of eleven
officers were being dispatched at once. After that matters began to
move rapidly.

A portable tent, 25 feet by 100 feet, was purchased and shipped to
Demange;—and a touring car was bought with part of the money advanced.

Purchasing an automobile in France is not a matter merely of money. It
is a matter for Governmental sanction, long delay, red tape—amazing
good luck.

At the start the whole Salvation Army transportation system consisted
of this one first huge limousine, heartlessly overdriven and
overworked. For many weeks it was Colonel Barker’s office and bedroom.
It carried all of the Salvation Army workers to and from their
stations, hauled all of the supplies on its roof, inside, on its
fenders, and later also on a trailer. It ran day and night almost
without end, two drivers alternating. It was a sort of super-car, still
in the service, to which Salvationists still refer with an affectionate
amazement when they consider its terrific accomplishments. It hauled
all of the lumber for the first huts and a not uncommon sight was to
see it tearing along the road at forty miles an hour, loaded inside and
on top with supplies, several passengers clinging to its fenders, and a
load of lumber or trunks trailing behind. For a long time Colonel
Barker had no home aside from this car. He slept wherever it happened
to be for the night—often in it, while still driven. One night he and a
Salvation Army officer were lost in a strange woods in the car until
four in the morning. They were without lights and there were no real
roads.

Later, of course, after long waiting, other trucks were bought and
to-day there are about fifty automobiles in this service. Chauffeurs
had to be developed out of men who had never driven before. They were
even taken from huts and detailed to this work.

In this first touring car Colonel Barker with one of the newly arrived
adjutants for driver, started to Demange.

Twenty kilometers outside of Paris the car had a breakdown. The two
clambered out and reconnoitered for help. There was nothing for it but
to take the car back to Paris. A man was found on the road who was
willing to take it in tow, but they had no rope for a tow line. Over in
the field by the roadside the sharp eyes of the adjutant discovered
some old rusty wire. He pulled it out from the tangle of long grass,
and behold it was a part of old barbed-wire entanglements!

In great surprise they followed it up behind the camouflage and found
themselves in the old trenches of 1914. They walked in the trenches and
entered some of the dugouts where the soldiers had lived in the
memorable days of the Marne fight. As they looked a little farther up
the hillside they were startled to see great pieces of heavy field
artillery, their long barrels sticking out from pits and pointing at
them. They went closer to examine, and found the guns were made of wood
painted black. The barrels were perfectly made, even to the breech
blocks mounted on wheels, the tires of which were made of tin. They
were a perfect imitation of a heavy ordnance piece in every detail.
Curious, wondering what it could mean, the two explorers looked about
them and saw an old Frenchman coming toward them. He proved to be the
keeper of the place, and he told them the story. These were the guns
that saved Paris in 1914.

The Boche had been coming on twenty kilometers one day, nineteen the
next, fourteen the next, and were daily drawing nearer to the great
city. They were so confident that they had even announced the day they
would sweep through the gates of Paris. The French had no guns heavy
enough to stop that mad rush, and so they mounted these guns of wood,
cut away the woods all about them and for three hundred meters in
front, and waited with their pitifully thin, ill-equipped line to
defend the trenches.

Then the German airplanes came and took pictures of them, and returned
to their lines to make plans for the next day; but when the pictures
were developed and enlarged they saw to their horror that the French
had brought heavy guns to their front and were preparing to blow them
out of France. They decided to delay their advance and wait until they
could bring up artillery heavier than the French had, and while they
waited the Germans broke into the French wine cellars and stole the
“vin blanche” and “vin rouge.” The French call this “light” wine and
say it takes the place of water, which is only fit for washing; but it
proved to be too heavy for the Germans that day. They drank freely, not
even waiting to unseal the bottles of rare old vintage, but knocked the
necks off the bottles against the stone walls and drank. They were all
drunk and in no condition to conquer France when their artillery came
up, and so the wooden French guns and the French wine saved Paris.

When the two men finally arrived in Demange the Military General
greeted them gladly and invited them to dine with him.

He had for a cook a famous French chef who provided delicious meals,
but for dessert the chef had attempted to make an American apple pie,
which was a dismal failure. The colonel said to the general: “Just wait
till our Salvation Army women get here and I will see that they make
you a pie that is a pie.”

The General and the members of his staff said they would remember that
promise and hold him to it.

The pleasure which the thought of that pie aroused furnished a
suggestion for work later on.

Within two or three days the hut had arrived. The question of a lot
upon which to place it was most important. The billeting officers
stated that none could be had within the town and insisted that the hut
would have to be placed in an inaccessible spot on the outskirts of the
town, but Colonel Barker asked the General if he would mind his looking
about himself and he readily assented. The indomitable Barker, true to
the “never-say-die” slogan of the Salvation Army, went out and found a
splendid lot on the main street in the heart of the town, which was
being partly used by its owner as a vegetable garden. He quickly
secured the services of a French interpreter and struck a bargain with
the owner to rent the lot for the sum of sixteen dollars a year, and on
his return with the information that this lot had been secured the
General was greatly impressed.

A wire had been sent to Paris instructing the men of the party to come
down immediately. A couple of tents were secured to provide temporary
sleeping accommodation and the men lined up in the chow line with the
doughboys at meal-time.

The six Salvationists pulled off their coats at once and went to work,
much to the amusement of a few curious soldiers who stood idly watching
them.

They discovered right at the start that the building materials which
had been sent ahead of them had been dumped on the wrong lot, and the
first thing they had to do was to move them all to the proper site.
This was no easy task for men who had but recently left office chairs
and clerical work. Unaccustomed muscles cried out in protest and weary
backs ached and complained, but the men stubbornly marched back and
forth carrying big timbers, and attracting not a little attention from
soldiers who wondered what in the world the Salvation Army could be up
to over in France. Some of them were suspicious. Had they come to try
and stuff religion down their throats? If so, they would soon find out
their mistake. So, half in belligerence, half in amusement, the
soldiers watched their progress. It was a big joke to them, who had
come here for _serious_ business and longed to be at it.

Steadily, quietly, the work went on. They laid the timbers and erected
the framework of their hut, keeping at it when the rain fell and soaked
them to the skin. They were a bit awkward at it at first, perhaps, for
it was new work to them, and they had but few tools. The hut was
twenty-five feet wide and a hundred feet long. The walls went up
presently, and the roof went on. One or two soldiers were getting
interested and offered to help a bit; but for the most part they stood
apart suspiciously, while the Salvation Army worked cheerily on and
finished the building with their own hands.

Colonel Barker meanwhile had gone back to Paris for supplies and to
bring the women overland in the automobile, because he was somewhat
fearful lest they might be held up if they attempted to go out by
train. The idea of women in the camps was so new to our American
soldiers, and so distasteful to the French, that they presented quite a
problem until their work fully justified their presence.

It got about that some real American girls were coming. The boys began
to grow curious. When the big French limousine carrying them arrived in
the camp it was greeted by some of the soldiers with the greatest
enthusiasm while others looked on in critical silence. But very soon
their influence was felt, for a commanding officer stated that his men
were more contented and more easily handled since the unprecedented
innovation of women in the camp than they had been within the
experience of the old Regular Army officers. Profanity practically
ceased in the vicinity of the hut and was never indulged in in the
presence of the Salvationists.

While the hut was being erected meetings were conducted in the open air
which were attended by great throngs, and after every meeting from one
to four or five boys asked for the privilege of going into the tent at
the back and being prayed with, and many conversions resulted from
these first open-air meetings. Boys walked in from other camps from a
distance as far away as five miles to attend these meetings and many
were converted. The hut was finally completed and equipped and was to
be formally opened on Sunday evening.

In the meantime the Y.M.C.A. was getting busy also establishing its
work in the camps; therefore, the Salvation Army tried to place their
huts in towns where the Y. was not operating, so that they might be
able to reach those who had the greatest need of them.

Officers had been appointed to take charge of the Demange hut and
immediately further operations in other towns were being arranged.

A Y.M.C.A. hut, however, followed quickly on the heels of the Salvation
Army at Demange and the night of the opening of the Salvation Army hut
someone came to ask if they would come over to the Y. and help in a
meeting. Sure, they would help! So the Staff-Captain took a cornetist
and two of the lassies and went over to the Y.M.C.A. hut.

It was early dusk and a crowd was gathered about where a rope ring
fenced off the place in which a boxing match had been held the day
before, across the road from the hut. The band had been stationed there
giving a concert which was just finished, and the men were sitting in a
circle on the ground about the ring.

The Salvationists stood at the door of the hut and looked across to the
crowd.

“How about holding our meeting over there?” asked the Staff-Captain of
the man in charge.

“All right. Hold it wherever you like.”

So a few willing hands brought out the piano, and the four
Salvationists made their way across to the ring. The soldiers raised a
loud cheer and hurrah to see the women stoop and slip under the rope,
and a spirit of sympathy seemed to be established at once.

There were a thousand men gathered about and the cornet began where the
band had left off, thrilling out between the roar of guns.

Up above were the airplanes throbbing back and forth, and signal lights
were flashing. It was a strange place for a meeting. The men gathered
closer to see what was going on.

The sound of an old familiar hymn floated out on the evening, bringing
a sudden memory of home and days when one was a little boy and went to
Sunday school; when there was no war, and no one dreamed that the sons
would have to go forth from their own land to fight. A sudden hush
stole over the men and they sat enthralled watching the little band of
singers in the changing flicker of light and darkness. Women’s voices!
Young and fresh, too, not old ones. How they thrilled with the
sweetness of it:

“Nearer, my God, to Thee,
   Nearer to Thee,
E’en though it be a cross
   That raiseth me.”

A cross! Was it possible that God was leading them to Him through all
this awfulness? But the thought only hovered above them and hushed
their hearts into attention as they gruffly joined their young voices
in the melody. Another song followed, and a prayer that seemed to bring
the great God right down in their midst and make Him a beloved comrade.
They had not got over the wonder of it when a new note sounded on piano
and cornet and every voice broke forth in the words:

“When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound
  And time shall be no more—”

How soon would that trumpet sound for many of them! Time should be no
more! What a startling thought!

Following close upon the song came the sweet voice of a young girl
speaking. They looked up in wonder, listening with all their souls. It
was like having an angel drop down among them to see her there, and
hear her clear, unafraid voice. The first thing that struck them was
her intense earnestness, as if she had a message of great moment to
bring to them.

Her words searched their hearts and found out the weak places; those
fears and misgivings that they had known were there from the beginning,
and had been trying hard to hide from themselves because they saw no
cure for them. With one clear-cut sentence she tore away all camouflage
and set them face to face with the facts. They were in a desperate
strait and they knew it. Back there in the States they had known it.
Down in the camps they had felt it, and had made various attempts to
find something strong and true to help them, but no one had seemed to
understand. Even when they went to church there had been so much talk
about the “supreme sacrifice” and the glory of dying for one’s country,
that they had a vague feeling that even the minister did not believe in
his religion any more. And so they had whistled and tried to be jolly
and forget. They were all in the same boat, and this was a job that had
to be done, they couldn’t get out of it; best not think about the
future! So they had lulled their consciences to sleep. But it was
there, back in their minds all the time, a looming big awful question
about the hereafter; and when the great guns boomed afar as a few were
doing tonight and they thought how soon they might be called to go over
the top, they would have been fools not to have recognized it.

But here at last was someone else who understood!

She was telling the old, old story of Jesus and His love, and every man
of them as he listened felt it was true. It had been like a vague tale
of childhood before; something that one outgrows and smiles at; but now
it suddenly seemed so simple, so perfect, so fitted to their desperate
need. Just the old story that everybody has sinned, and broken God’s
law: that God in His love provided a way of escape in the death of His
Son Jesus on the Cross, from penalty for sin for all who would accept
it; that He gave every one of us free wills; and it was up to us
whether we would accept it or not.

There were men in that company who had come from college classes where
they had been taught the foolishness of blood atonement, and who had
often smiled disdainfully at the Bible; there were boys from cultured,
refined homes where Jesus Christ had always been ignored; there were
boys who had repudiated the God their mothers trusted in; and there
were boys of lower degree whose lips were foul with blasphemy and whose
hearts were scarred with sin; but all listened, now, in a new way. It
was somehow different over here, with the thunder of artillery in the
near distance, the hovering presence of death not far away, the
flashing of signal lights, the hum of the airplanes, the whole
background of war. The message of the gospel took on a reality it had
never worn before. When this simple girl asked if they would not take
Jesus tonight as their Saviour, there were many who raised their hands
in the darkness and many more hearts were bowed whose owners could not
quite bring themselves to raise their hands.

Then a lassie’s voice began to sing, all alone:

“I grieved my Lord from day to day,
I scorned His love, so full and free,
And though I wandered far away,
My Mother’s prayers have followed me.
I’m coming home, I’m coming home,
To live my wasted life anew,
For Mother’s prayers have followed me,
Have followed me, the whole world through.

“O’er desert wild, o’er mountain high,
A wanderer I chose to be—-
A wretched soul condemned to die;
Still Mother’s prayers have followed me.

“He turned my darkness into light,
This blessed Christ of Calvary;
I’ll praise His name both day and night,
That Mother’s prayers have followed me!
I’m coming home, I’m coming home—-”

Only the last great day will reveal how many hearts echoed those words;
but the voices were all husky with emotion as they tried to join in the
closing hymn that followed.

There were those who lingered about the speakers and wanted to inquire
the way of salvation, and some knelt in a quiet corner and gave
themselves to Christ. Over all of them there was a hushed
thoughtfulness. When the workers started back to their own hut the
crowd went with them, talking eagerly as they went, hovering about
wistfully as if here were the first real thing they had found since
coming away from home.

Over at the Salvation Army hut another service had been going forward
with equal interest, the dedication of the new building. The place was
crowded to its utmost capacity, and crowds were standing outside and
peering in at the windows. Some of the French people of the
neighborhood, women and children and old men, had drifted over, and
were listening to the singing in open-eyed wonderment. Among them one
of the Salvation Army workers had distributed copies of the French “War
Cry” with stories of Christ in their own language, and it began to dawn
upon them that these people believed in the same Jesus that was
worshipped in their French churches; yet they never had seen services
like these. The joyous music thrilled them.

Before they slept that night the majority of the soldiers in that
vicinity had lost most of their prejudice against the little band of
unselfish workers that had dropped so quietly down into their midst.
Word was beginning to filter out from camp to camp that they were a
good sort, that they sold their goods at cost and a fellow could even
“jawbone” when he was “broke.”

Salvation Army huts gave the soldiers “jawbone,” this being the
soldier’s name for credit. No accounts were kept of the amount allowed
to each soldier. When a soldier came to the canteen and asked for
“jawbone,” he was asked how much he had already been allowed. If the
amount owed by him already was large, he was cautioned not to go too
deeply into his next pay check; but never was a man refused anything
within reason. Frequently one hut would have many thousands of francs
outstanding by the end of a month. But, although there was no check
against them, soldiers always squared their accounts at pay-day and
very little indeed was lost.

One man came in and threw 300 francs on the counter, saying: “I owe you
285 francs. Put the change in the coffee fund.”

One Salvation Army Ensign frequently loaned sums of money out of his
own pocket to soldiers, asking that, when they were in a position to
return it, they hand it in to any Salvation Army hut, saying that it
was for him. He says that he has never lost by doing this.

One day as he was driving from Havre to Paris he met six American
soldiers whose big truck had broken down. They asked him where there
was a Salvation Army hut; but there was none in that particular
section. They had no food, no money, and no place to sleep. He handed
them seventy francs and told them to leave it at any Salvation Army hut
for him when they were able. Five months passed and then the money was
turned in to a Salvation Army hut and forwarded to him. With it was a
note stating that the men had been with the French troops and had not
been able to reach a Salvation Army establishment. They were very
grateful for the trust reposed in them by the Salvationist. Undoubtedly
there are many such instances.

The Salvation Army officer who with his wife was put in charge of the
hut at Demange, soon became one of the most popular men in camp. His
generous spirit, no less than his rough-and-ready good nature, manful,
soldier-like disposition, coupled with a sturdy self-respect and a
ready humor, made him blood brother to those hard-bitten old regulars
and National Guardsmen of the first American Expeditionary Force.

The Salvation Army quickly became popular. Meetings were held almost
every night at that time with an average attendance of not less than
five hundred. Meetings as a rule were confined to wonderful song
services and brief, snappy talks. At first there were very few
conversions, but there have been more since the great drives in which
the Americans have taken so large a share. The Masons, the Moose and a
Jewish fraternity used the hut for fraternal gatherings. Catholic
priests held mass in it upon various occasions. The school for officers
and the school for “non-coms” met in it. The band practiced in it every
morning. Because of its popularity among the men it was known among the
officers as “the soldiers’ hut.” General Duncan once addressed his
staff officers in it upon some important matters.

It rained every day for three months. The hut was on rather low ground
and in back of it ran the river, considerably swollen by the rains. One
night the river rose suddenly, carried away one tent and flooded the
other two and the hut. The Salvation Army men spent a wild, wet,
sleepless night trying to salvage their scanty personal belongings and
their stock of supplies. When the river retreated it left the hut floor
covered with slimy black mud which the two men had to shovel out. This
was a back-breaking task occupying the better part of two days.

The first snow fell on the bitterest night of the year. It was preceded
by the rain and was damp and heavy. The soldiers suffered terribly,
especially the men on guard duty who had perforce to endure the full
blast of the storm. During the earlier hours of the night the girls
served all comers with steaming coffee and filled the canteens of the
men on guard (free). When they saw how severe the night would be they
remained up to keep a supply of coffee ready for the Salvation Army men
who went the rounds through the storm every half hour, serving the
sentries with the warming fluid.

That first Expeditionary Force wanted for many things, and endured
hardships unthought of by troops arriving later, after the war
industries at home had swung into full production. It was almost
impossible to secure stoves, and firewood was scarce. For every load
that went to the Salvation Army Hut, men of the American Expeditionary
Force had to do without, and yet wood was always supplied to the
Salvationists (it could not be bought).

At St. Joire, the wood pile had entirely given out and it looked as if
there was to be no heat at the Salvation Army hut that night. The
sergeant promised them half a load, but the wood wagon lost a wheel
about a hundred yards out of town.

“Never mind,” said the sergeant to the girls, “the boys will see that
you get some to-night.”

So he requested every man going up to the Salvation Army hut that
evening to carry a stick of wood with him (“a stick” may weigh anywhere
from 10 to 100 pounds). By eight o’clock there was over a wagon load
and a half stacked in back of the hut.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thus auspiciously did the work open in Montiers.

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

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

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

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

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

The first soldier the Staff-Captain questioned reassured him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was at Montiers, the home of the doughnut.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So it has proved.

In the meantime another hut was established at Houdelainecourt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Many amusing incidents occurred on the voyage.

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

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

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

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

When the first man died on board, the Captain commanding the soldiers
and the ship’s Captain requested a Salvation Army Adjutant to conduct
the funeral service.

At 4.30 P.M. the ship’s propeller ceased to turn and the steamer came
up into the wind. The United States destroyer acting as convoy also
came to a halt. The French flag on the steamer and the American flag on
the destroyer were at half-mast. Thirty-two men from the dead man’s
company lined up on the after-deck. The coffin (a rough pine box),
heavily weighted at one end, lay across the rail over the stern. Here a
chute had been rigged so that the coffin might not foul the ship’s
screws. The flags remained at half-mast for half an hour. The Salvation
Army Adjutant read the burial service and prayed. Passengers on the
promenade deck looked on. Then a bugler played taps. Every soldier
stood facing the stern with hat off and held across the breast. As the
coffin slipped down the chute and splashed into the sea a firing squad
fired a single rattling volley. The ship came about and, with a shudder
of starting engines, continued her voyage, the destroyer doing
likewise.

During the passage the Adjutant conducted six such funerals, two more
being conducted by a Catholic priest. Four more bodies of men who died
as they neared port were landed and buried ashore.

In the hospital the Envoy was undoubtedly the means of saving several
lives by her endless toil and by the encouragement of her cheerful face
in that depressing place. The sick men called her “Mother” and no
mother could have been more tender than she.

“You look so much like mother,” said one boy just before he died.
“Won’t you please kiss me?”

Another lad, with a great, convulsive effort, drew her hand to his lips
and kissed her just as he passed away.

All of the American officers and two French officers attended the
funerals in full dress uniform and ten sailors of the French navy were
also present.

The night before the ship docked at Bordeaux a letter signed by the
Captain of the ship and the American officers was handed to the Envoy
lady. It contained a warm statement of their appreciation of her
service. Officers of the Aviation Corps who were aboard the ship
arranged a banquet to be held in her honor when they should reach port;
but she told them that she was under orders even as they were and that
she must report to Paris Headquarters at once. And so the banquet did
not take place.

As she left the ship, the soldiers were lined up on the wharf ready to
march. When she came down the gangplank and walked past them to the
street, they cheered her and shouted: “Good-bye, mother! Good luck!”

As the fame of the doughnuts and pies spread through the camps a new
distress loomed ahead for the Salvation Army. Where were the flour and
the sugar and the lard and the other ingredients to come from wherewith
to concoct these delicacies for the homesick soldiers?

It was of no use to go to the French for white flour, for they did not
have it. They had been using war bread, dark mixtures with barley flour
and other things, for a long time. Besides, the French had a fixed idea
that everyone who came from America was made of money. Wood was
thirty-five dollars a load (about a cord) and had to be cut and hauled
by the purchaser at that. There was a story current throughout the
camps that some Frenchmen were talking together among themselves, and
one asked the rest where in the world they were going to get the money
to rebuild their towns. “Oh,” replied another; “haven’t we the only
battlefields in the world? All the Americans will want to come over
after the war to see them and we will charge them enough for the sight
to rebuild our villages!”

But even at any price the French did not have the materials to sell.
There was only one place where things of that sort could be had and
that was from the Americans, and the question was, would the commissary
allow them to buy in large enough quantities to be of any use? The
Salvation Army officers as they went about their work, were puzzling
their brains how to get around the American commissary and get what
they wanted.

Meantime, the American Army had slipped quietly into Montiers in the
night and been billeted around in barns and houses and outhouses, and
anywhere they could be stowed, and were keeping out of sight. For the
German High Council had declared: “As soon as the American Army goes
into camp we will blow them off the map.” Day after day the Germans lay
low and watched. Their airplanes flew over and kept close guard, but
they could find no sign of a camp anywhere. No tents were in sight,
though they searched the landscape carefully; and day after day, for
want of something better to do they bombarded Bar-lé-Duc. Every day
some new ravishment of the beautiful city was wrought, new victims
buried under ruins, new terror and destruction, until the whole region
was in panic and dismay.

Now Bar-lé-Duc, as everyone knows, is the home of the famous Bar-lé-Duc
jam that brings such high prices the world over, and there were great
quantities stored up and waiting to be sold at a high price to
Americans after the war. But when the bombardment continued, and it
became evident that the whole would either be destroyed or fall into
the hands of the Germans, the owners were frightened. Houses were blown
up, burying whole families. Victims were being taken hourly from the
ruins, injured or dying.

A Salvation Army Adjutant ran up there one day with his truck and found
an awful state of things. The whole place was full of refugees,
families bereft of their homes, everybody that could trying to get out
of the city. Just by accident he found out that the merchants were
willing to sell their jam at a very reasonable price, and so he bought
tons and tons of Bar-lé-Duc jam. That would help out a lot and go well
on bread, for of course there was no butter. Also it would make
wonderful pies and tarts if one only had the flour and other
ingredients.

As he drove into Montiers he was still thinking about it, and there on
the table in the Salvation Army hut stood as pretty a chocolate cake as
one would care to see. A bright idea came to the Adjutant:

“Let me have that cake,” said he to the lassie who had baked it, “and
I’ll take it to the General and see what I can do.”

It turned out that the cake was promised, but the lassie said she would
bake another and have it ready for him on his return trip; so in a few
days when he came back there was the cake.

Ah! That was a wonderful cake!

The lassie had baked it in the covers of lard tins, fourteen inches
across and five layers high! There was a layer of cake, thickly spread
with rich chocolate frosting, another layer of cake, overlaid with the
translucent Bar-lé-Duc jam, a third layer of cake with chocolate,
another layer spread with Bar-lé-Duc jam, then cake again, the whole
covered smoothly over with thick dark chocolate, top and sides, down to
the very base, without a ripple in it. It was a wonder of a cake!

With shining eyes and eager look the Adjutant took that beautiful cake,
took also twelve hundred great brown sugary doughnuts, and a dozen
fragrant apple pies just out of the oven, stowed them carefully away in
his truck, and rustled off to the Officers’ Headquarters. Arrived there
he took his cake in hand and asked to see the General. An officer with
his eye on the cake said the General was busy just now but he would
carry the cake to him. But the Adjutant declined this offer firmly,
saying: “The ladies of Montiers-sur-Saulx sent this cake to the
General, and I must put it into his hands”

He was finally led to the General’s room and, uncovering the great
cake, he said:

“The Salvation Army ladies of Montiers-sur-Saulx have sent this cake to
you as a sample of what they will do for the soldiers if we can get
flour and sugar and lard.”

The General, greatly pleased, took the cake and sent for a knife, while
his officers stood about looking on with much interest. It appeared as
if every one were to have a taste of the cake. But when the General had
cut a generous slice, held it up, observing its cunning workmanship,
its translucent, delectable interior, he turned with a gleam in his
eye, looked about the room and said: “Gentlemen, this cake will not be
served till the evening’s mess, and I pity the gentlemen who do not eat
with the officer’s mess, but they will have to go elsewhere for their
cake.”

The Adjutant went out with his pies and doughnuts and distributed them
here and there where they would do the most good, getting on the right
side of the Top Sergeant, for he had discovered some time ago that even
with the General as an ally one must be on the right side of the “old
Sarge” if one wanted anything. While he was still talking with the
officers he was handed an order from the General that he should be
supplied with all that he needed, and when he finally came out of
Headquarters he found that seven tons of material were being loaded on
his car. After that the Salvation Army never had any trouble in getting
all the material they needed.

After the tents in Montiers were all settled and the work fully
started, the Staff-Captain and his helpers settled down to a pleasant
little schedule of sixteen hours a day work and called it ease; but
that was not to be enjoyed for long. At the end of a week the Salvation
Army Colonel swooped down upon them again with orders to erect a hut at
once as the tents were only a makeshift and winter was coming on. He
brought materials and selected a site on a desirable corner.

Now the corner was literally covered with fallen walls of a former
building and wreckage from the last year’s raid, and the patient
workers looked aghast at the task before them. But the Colonel would
listen to no arguments. “Don’t talk about difficulties,” he said,
brushing aside a plea for another lot, not quite so desirable perhaps,
but much easier to clear. “Don’t talk about difficulties; get busy and
have the job over with!”

One big reason why the Salvation Army is able to carry on the great
machinery of its vast organization is that its people are trained to
obey without murmuring. Cheerfully and laboriously the men set to work.
Winter rains were setting in, with a chill and intensity never to be
forgotten by an American soldier. But wet to the skin day after day all
day long the Salvationists worked against time, trying to finish the
hut before the snow should arrive. And at last the hut was finished and
ready for occupancy. Such tireless devotion, such patient, cheerful
toil for their sake was not to be passed by nor forgotten by the
soldiers who watched and helped when they could. Day after day the
bonds between them and the Salvation Army grew stronger. Here were men
who did not have to, and yet who for the sake of helping them, came and
lived under the same conditions that they did, working even longer
hours than they, eating the same food, enduring the same privations,
and whose only pay was their expenses. At the first the Salvationists
took their places in the chow line with the rest, then little by little
men near the head of the line would give up their places to them,
quietly stepping to the rear of the line themselves. Finally, no matter
how long the line was the men with one consent insisted that their
unselfish friends should take the very head of the line whenever they
came and always be served first.

One day one of the Salvation Army men swathed in a big raincoat was
sitting in a Ford by the roadside in front of a Salvation Army hut,
waiting for his Colonel, when two soldiers stopped behind him to light
their cigarettes. It was just after sundown, and the man in the car
must have seemed like any soldier to the two as they chatted.

“Bunch of grafters, these Y.M.C.A. and Salvation Army outfits!”
grumbled one as he struck a match. “What good are the ‘Sallies’ in a
soldier camp?”

“Well, Buddy,” said the other somewhat excitedly, “there’s a whole lot
of us think the Salvation Army is about it in this man’s outfit. For a
rookie you sure are picking one good way to make yourself unpopular
_tout de suite!_ Better lay off that kind of talk until you kind of
find out what’s what. I didn’t have much use for them myself back in
the States, but here in France they’re real folks, believe me!”

So the feeling had grown everywhere as the huts multiplied. And the
huts proved altogether too small for the religious meetings, so that as
long as the weather permitted the services had to be held in the open
air. It was no unusual thing to see a thousand men gathered in the
twilight around two or three Salvation Army lassies, singing in sweet
wonderful volume the old, old hymns. The soldiers were no longer amused
spectators, bent on mischief; they were enthusiastic allies of the
organization that was theirs. The meeting was theirs.

“We never forced a meeting on them,” said one of the girls. “We just
let it grow. Sometimes it would begin with popular songs, but before
long the boys would ask for hymns, the old favorites, first one, then
another, always remembering to call for ‘Tell Mother I’ll Be There.’”

Almost without exception the boys entered heartily into everything that
went on in the organization. The songs were perhaps at first only a
reminder of home, but soon they came to have a personal significance to
many. The Salvation Army did not hare movies and theatrical singers as
did the other organizations, but they did not seem to need them. The
men liked the Gospel meetings and came to them better than to anything
else. Often they would come to the hut and start the singing
themselves, which would presently grow into a meeting of evident
intention. The Staff-Captain did not long have opportunity to enjoy the
new hut which he had labored so hard to finish at Montiers, for soon
orders arrived for him to move on to Houdelainecourt to help put up the
hut there, and leave Montiers in charge of a Salvation Army Major. The
Salvation Army was with the Eighteenth Infantry at Houdelainecourt.

It was an old tent that sheltered the canteen, and it had the
reputation of having gone up and down five times. When first they put
it up it blew down. It was located where two roads met and the winds
swept down in every direction. Then they put it up and took it down to
camouflage it. They got it up again and had to take it down to
camouflage it some more. The regular division helped with this, and it
was some camouflage when it was done, for the boys had put their
initials all over it, and then, had painted Christmas trees everywhere,
and on the trees they had put the presents they knew they never would
get, and so in all the richness of its record of homesickness the old
tent went up again. They kept warm here by means of a candle under an
upturned tin pail. The tent blew down again in a big storm soon after
that and had to be put up once more, and then there came a big rain and
flooded everything in the neighborhood. It blew down and drowned out
the Y.M.C.A. and everything else, and only the old tent stood for
awhile. But at last the storm was too much for it, too, and it
succumbed again.

After that the Salvation Army put up a hut for their work. A number of
soldiers assisted. They put up a stove, brought their piano and
phonograph, and made the place look cheerful. Then they got the
regimental band and had an opening, the first big thing that was
recognized by the military authorities. The Salvation Army
Staff-Captain in charge of that zone took a long board and set candles
on it and put it above the platform like a big chandelier. The Brigade
Commander was there, and a Captain came to represent the Colonel. A
chaplain spoke. The lassies who took part in the entertainment were the
first girls the soldiers had seen for many months.

Long before the hour announced for the service the soldier boys had
crowded the hutment to its greatest capacity. Game and reading tables
had been moved to the rear and extra benches brought in. The men stood
three deep upon the tables and filled every seat and every inch of
standing room. When there was no more room on the floor, they climbed
to the roof and lined the rafters. There was no air and the Adjutant
came to say there was too much light, but none of these things damped
the enthusiasm.

With the aid of the regimental chaplain, the Staff-Captain had arranged
a suitable program for the occasion, the regimental band furnishing the
music.

When the General entered the hutment all of the men stood and uncovered
and the band stopped abruptly in the middle of a strain. “That’s the
worst thing I ever did—stopping the music,” he exclaimed ruefully. He
refused to occupy the chair which had been prepared for him, saying:
“No, I want to stand so that I can look at these men.”

The records of the work in that hut would be precious reading for the
fathers and mothers of those boys, for the Fighting Eighteenth Infantry
are mostly gone, having laid their young lives on the altar with so
many others. Here is a bit from one lassie’s letter, giving a picture
of one of her days in the hut:

“Well, I must tell you how the days are spent. We open the hut at 7; it
is cleaned by some of the boys; then at 8 we commence to serve cocoa
and coffee and make pies and doughnuts, cup cakes and fry eggs and make
all kinds of eats until it is all you see. Well, can you think of two
women cooking in one day 2500 doughnuts, 8 dozen cup cakes, 50 pies,
800 pancakes and 225 gallons of cocoa, and one other girl serving it?
That is a day’s work in my last hut. Then meeting at night, and it
lasts two hours.”

A lieutenant came into the canteen to buy something and said to one of
the girls: “Will you please tell me something? Don’t you ever rest?”
That is how both the men and officers appreciated the work of these
tireless girls.

Men often walked miles to look at an American woman. Once acquainted
with the Salvation Army lassies they came to them with many and strange
requests. Having picked a quart or so of wild berries and purchased
from a farmer a pint of cream they would come to ask a girl to make a
strawberry shortcake for them. They would buy a whole dozen of eggs
apiece, and having begged a Salvation Army girl to fry them would eat
the whole dozen at a sitting. They would ask the girls to write their
love letters, or to write assuring some mother or sweetheart that they
were behaving themselves.

Soldiers going into action have left thousands of dollars in cash and
in valuables in the care of Salvation Army officers to be forwarded to
persons designated in case they are killed in action or taken prisoner.
In such cases it is very seldom that a receipt is given for either
money or valuables., so deeply do the soldiers trust the Salvation
Army.

One of the girl Captains wears a plain silver ring, whose intrinsic
value is about thirty cents, but whose moral value is beyond estimate.
The ring is not the Captain’s. It belongs to a soldier, who, before the
war, had been a hard drinker and had continued his habits after
enlisting. He came under the influence of the Salvation Army and swore
that he would drink no more. But time after time he fell, each time
becoming more desperate and more discouraged. Each time the young
lassie-Captain dealt with him. After the last of his failures, while
she was encouraging him to make another try, he detached the ring from
the cord from which it had dangled around his neck and thrust it at
her.

“It was my mother’s,” he explained. “If you will wear it for me, I
shall always think of it when the temptation comes to drink, and the
fact that someone really cares enough about my worthless hide to take
all of the trouble you have taken on my behalf, will help me to resist
it.”

“No one will misunderstand” he cried, seeing that the lassie was about
to decline, “not even me. I shall tell no one. And it would help.”

“Very well,” agreed the girl, looking steadily at him for a moment,
“but the first time that you take a drink, off will come the ring! And
you must promise that you will tell me if you do take that drink.”

The soldier promised. The lassie still wears the ring. The soldier is
still sober. Also he has written to his wife for the first time in five
years and she has expressed her delight at the good news.

On more than one occasion American aviators have flown from their camps
many miles to villages where there were Salvation lassies and have
returned with a load of doughnuts. On one occasion a bird-man dropped a
note down in front of the hut where two sisters were stationed,
circling around at a low elevation until certain that the girls had
picked up the note, which stated that he would return the following
afternoon for a mess of doughnuts for his comrades. When he returned,
the doughnuts were ready for him.

The Adjutant of the aerial forces attached to the American Fifth Army
around Montfaucon on the edge of the Argonne Forest, before that forest
was finally captured at the point of American bayonets, drove almost
seventy miles to the Salvation Army Headquarters at Ligny for supplies
for his men. He was given an automobile load of chocolate, candies,
cakes, cookies, soap, toilet articles, and other comforts, without
charge. He said that he _knew_ that the Salvation Army would have what
he wanted.

The two lassies who were in Bure had a desperate time of it. Things
were most primitive. They had no store, just an old travelling field
range, and for a canteen one end of Battery F’s kitchen. They were then
attached to the Sixth Field Artillery. This was the regiment that fired
the first shot into Germany.

The smoke in that kitchen was awful and continuous from the old field
range. The girls often made doughnuts out-of-doors, and they got
chilblains from standing in the snow. All the company had chilblains,
too, and it was a sorry crowd. Then the girls got the mumps. It was so
cold here, especially at night, they often had to sleep with their
clothes on. There was only one way they could have meetings in that
place and that was while the men were lined up for chow near to the
canteen. They would start to sing in the gloomy, cold room, the men and
girls all with their overcoats on, and fingers so cold that they could
hardly play the concertina, for there was no fire in the big room save
from the range at one end where they cooked. Then the girls would talk
to them while they were eating. Perhaps they did not call these
meetings, but they were a mighty happy time to the men, and they liked
it.

A minister who had taken six months’ leave of absence from his church
to do Y.M.C.A. work in France asked one of the boys why he liked the
Salvation Army girls and he said: “Because they always take time to
cheer us up. It’s true they do knock us mighty hard about our sins, but
while it hurts they always show us a way out.” The minister told some
one that if he had his work to do over again he would plan it along the
lines of the Salvation Army work.

You may hear it urged that one reason the boys liked the Salvation Army
people so much was because they did not preach, but it is not so. They
preached early and often, but the boys liked it because it was done so
simply, so consistently and so unselfishly, that they did not recognize
it as preaching.

In Menaucourt as Christmas was coming on some United States officers
raised money to give the little refugee children a Christmas treat.
There was to be a tree with presents, and good things to eat, and an
entertainment with recitations from the children. The school-teacher
was teaching the children their pieces, and there was a general air of
delightful excitement everywhere. It was expected that the affair was
to be held in the Catholic church at first, but the priest protested
that this was unseemly, so they were at a loss what to do. The
school-house was not large enough.

The Salvation Army Staff-Captain found this out and suggested to the
officers that the Salvation Army hut was the very place for such a
gathering. So the tree was set up, and the officers went to town and
bought presents and decorations. They covered the old hut with boughs
and flags and transformed it into a wonderland for the children. The
officers were struggling helplessly with the decorations of the tree
when the Salvation Army man happened in and they asked him to help.

“Why, sure!” he said heartily. “That’s my regular work!” So they
eagerly put it into his hands and departed. The Staff-Captain worked so
hard at it and grew go interested in it that he forgot to go for his
chow at lunch-time, and when supper-time came the hall was so crowded
and there was so much still to be done that he could not get away to
get his supper. But it was a grand and glorious time. The place was
packed. There were two American Colonels, a French Colonel, and several
French officers. The soldiers crowded in and they had to send them out
again, poor fellows, to make room for the children, but they hung
around the doors and windows eager to see it all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You call me brother! You know what I’m here for and you call me
brother! Why?”

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

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

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

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

“It’s true, what you said! Christ has pardoned me! Now I can die like a
man!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Salvation Army hut was a scene of constant activity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, it’s from mother!” Then impulsively, “She’s the nearest thing to
God I know!”

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

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

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

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

Dearest Little Mother of Mine:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Now, look at me!”

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

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

The officer looked, and listened, and was ashamed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The phonograph was soon forthcoming and brought much pleasure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But I can’t read!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One boy approached one of our men officers.

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

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

Two soldiers were walking along the dusty roadway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

First soldier: “Two American ladies there!”

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

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

Second so

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