Part 16

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.