Part 17

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.