Part 30

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

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

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

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

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

The soldier stared, and grew red and unhappy:

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

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

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

Somewhere in France, not far from the foe, There’s a body of workers whose name we all know; Who not only at home give their lives to make right, But are now here beside us, fighting our fight. What care they for rest when our boys at the front, Who, fighting for freedom, are bearing the brunt, And so, just at dawn, when the caissons come home, With the boys tired out and chilled to the bone, The Salvation Army with its brave little crew, Are waiting with doughnuts and hot coffee, too. When dangers and toiling are o’er for awhile, In their dugouts we find comfort and welcome their smile. There’s a spirit of home, so we go there each night, And the thinking of home makes us sit down and write, So we tell of these folks to our loved ones with pride, And are thanking the Lord to have them on our side.

V. The Toul Sector Again

When the German offensive was definitely checked in the Montdidier Sector, the First Division was transferred back to the Toul Sector and the Salvation Army moved with it. They had in the meantime maintained all the huts which had been established originally, and with the return of the First Division, they established additional huts between Font and Nancy. When the St. Mihiel drive came off, they followed the advancing troops, establishing huts in the devastated villages, keeping in as close contact with the extreme front as was possible, serving the troops day and night, always aiming to be at the point where the need was the greatest, and where they could be of the greatest service.

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

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

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

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

In the gray old French cemetery of Treveray five American boys lay buried. The flowers upon their graves were dry and dead, for their regiments had moved on and left them. The graves had been neglected and only the guarding wooden crosses remained above the rough earth to show that someone had cared and had stopped to put a mark above the places where they lay. It was these graves the Salvation Army woman now proposed to decorate on Memorial Day.

The letter went to the Captain for censorship, and soon the Salvation Army woman had a call from him.

“I understand by one of your letters that you are thinking of decorating the American graves,” he said. “We would like to help in that, if you don’t mind. I would like the company all to be present.”

The day before Memorial Day this woman with two of the lassies from the hut went to the cemetery and prepared for the morrow.

In the morning they gathered great armfuls of crimson poppies from the fields, creamy snowballs from neglected gardens, and blue bachelor buttons from the hillsides, which they arranged in bouquets of red, white and blue for the graves. They had no vases in which to place the flowers but they used the apple tins in which the apples for their pies had been canned.

The centuries-old gray cemetery nestled in a curve of the road between wheat fields on every side. A gray, moss-covered, lichen-hung wall surrounded it. The five American graves were under the shadow of the Western wall, and the sun was slowly sinking in his glory as the company of soldiers escorted the women into the cemetery. They passed between the ponderous old gray stones, and beaded wreaths of the French graves; and the officers and men lined up facing the five graves. The women placed the tricolored flowers in the cans prepared for them, and planted the flags beside them. Then the elder woman, who had sons of her own, stepped out and saluted the military commanding officer: “Colonel” said she, “with your permission we would like to follow our custom and offer a prayer for the bereaved.” Instantly permission was given and every head was uncovered as the Salvationist poured out her heart in prayer to the Everlasting Father, commending the dead into His tender Keeping, and pleading for the sorrow-stricken friends across the sea, until the soldiers’ tears fell unchecked as they stood with rifles stiffly in front of them listening to the quiet voice of the woman as she prayed. God seemed Himself to come down, and the living boys standing over their five dead comrades could not help but be enfolded in His love, and feel the sense of His presence. They knew that they, too, might soon be sleeping even as these at their feet. It seemed but a step to the other life. When the prayer was finished a firing squad fired five volleys over the graves, and then the bugler played the taps and the little service was over. The lassies lingered to take pictures of the graves and that night they wrote letters describing the ceremony, to be sent with the photographs to the War Department at Washington with the request that they be forwarded to the nearest relatives of the five men buried at Treveray.

There were exercises at Menil-la-Tour and here they had built a simple platform in the centre of the ground and erected a flagpole at one corner.

When the morning came two regimental bands took up their positions in opposite corners of the cemetery and began to play. The French populace had turned out en masse. They took up their stand just outside the little cemetery, next to them the soldiers were lined up, then the Red Cross, then the Y.M.C.A. Beyond, a little hill rose sloping gently to the sky line, and over it a mile away was the German front, with the shells coming over all the time.

It was an impressive scene as all stood with bared heads just outside the little enclosure where eighty-one wooden crosses marked the going of as many brave spirits who had walked so blithely into the crisis and given their young lives.

Some French officers had brought a large, beautiful wreath to do honor to the American heroes, and this was placed at the foot of the great central flagpole.

The bands played, and they all sang. It was announced that but for the thoughtfulness and kindness of Commander Evangeline Booth in sending over flags those graves would have gone undecorated that day.

The Commanding General then came to the front and behind him walked the Salvation Army lassies bearing the flags in their arms.