Part 34

That day the rest of the outfits arrived, and they all pulled into Morte Fontaine.

Morte Fontaine was well named because there was no water in the town fit to use.

The girls felt they were needed nearer the front, so they went to Major Peabody and asked permission.

“I should say not!” he replied vigorously with yet a twinkle of admiration for the brave lassies. “But you can take anything you want in this town.”

So the girls went out and found an old building. It was very dirty but they went cheerfully to work, cleaned it up, and started their canteen.

There was a hospital in the town; they knew that by the many ambulances that were continually going back and forth; so they offered their services to the doctors, which were eagerly accepted. After that they took turns staying in the canteen and going to the hospital.

The hospital was fearfully crowded, though it was in no measure the fault of the hospital authorities, for they were doing their best, working with all their might; but it had not been expected that there would be so many wounded at this point and they had not adequate accommodations. Many of the wounded boys were lying on the ground in the sun, covered with blood and flies, and parched with thirst and fever. There were not enough ambulances to carry them further back to the base hospitals.

The girls stretched pieces of canvas over the heads of the poor boys to keep off the sun; they got water and washed away the blood; and they sent one of their indefatigable truck drivers after some water to make lemonade. The little Adjutant twinkled his nice brown eyes and set his firm merry lips when they told him to get the water, in that place of no water, but he took his little Ford car and whirled away without a word, and presently he returned with a barrel of ice-cold water from a spring he had found two miles away. How the girls rejoiced that it was ice cold! And then they started making lemonade. They had known that the Adjutant would find water somewhere. He was the man the doughboys called “one game little guy,” because he was so fearless in going into No Man’s Land after the wounded, so indefatigable in accomplishing his purpose against all odds, so forgetful of self.

They had but one crate of lemons, one crate of oranges and one bag of sugar when they began making lemonade, but before they needed more it arrived just on the minute. It was almost like a miracle. For a whole car load of oranges and lemons had been shipped to Beauvais and arrived a day too late—after the troops had gone. They were of no use there, so the Zone Major had them shipped at once to the railhead at Crepy, and got a special permit to go over with trucks and take them up to Morte Fontaine.

The Salvation Army never does things by halves. Colonel Barker sent to Paris to get some mosquito netting to keep the flies off those soldiers, and failing to find any in the whole city he bought $10,000 worth of white net, such as is used for ladies’ collars and dresses—ten thousand yards at a dollar a yard—and sent it down to the hospital where it was used over the wounded men, sometimes over a wounded arm or leg or head, sometimes over a whole man, sometimes stretched as netting in the windows. And no ten thousand dollars was ever better spent, for the flies occasioned indescribable suffering as well as the peril of infection.

Wonderful relief and comfort all these things brought to those poor boys lying there in agony and fever. How delicious were the cooling drinks to their parched lips! The doctors afterward said that it was the cool drinks those girls gave to the men that saved many a life that day.

There were some poor fellows hurt in the abdomen who were not allowed to drink even a drop and who begged for it so piteously. For these the girls did all in their power. They bathed their faces and hands and dipping gauze in lemonade they moistened their lips with it.

The other day, after the war was over and a ship came sailing into New York harbor, one of these same fellows standing on the deck looked down at the wharf and saw one of these same girls standing there to welcome him. As soon as he was free to leave the ship he rushed down to find her, and gripping her hand eagerly he cried out so all around could hear: “You saved my life that day. Oh, but I’m glad to see you! The doctor said it was that cold lemonade you gave me that kept me from dying of fever!”

In one base hospital lay a boy wounded at Chateau-Thierry. Of course, when wounded, he lost all his possessions, including a Testament which he very much treasured. The Salvation Army supplied him with another, but it did not comfort him as the old one had done. He said that it could never be the same as the one he had carried for so long. He worried so much about his Testament, that one of the lassies finally attempted to recover it, and, after much trouble, succeeded through the Bureau of Effects. The little book, which the soldier had always carried with him, was blood-soaked and mud-stained; but it was an unmistakable aid in the lad’s recovery.

But the honor of those days in Morte Fontaine was not all due to the Salvation Army lassies. The Salvation Army truck drivers were real heroes. They came with their ambulances and their trucks and they carried the poor wounded fellows back to the base hospitals. The hospitals were full everywhere near there, and sometimes they would go from one to another and have to drive miles, and even go from one town to another to find a place where there was room to receive the men they carried. Then back they would come for another load. They worked thus for three days and five nights steadily, before they slept, and some of them stripped to the waist and bared their breasts to the sharp night wind so that the cold air would keep them awake to the task of driving their cars through the black night with its precious load of human lives. They had no opportunity for rest of any kind, no chance to shave or wash or sleep, and they were a haggard and worn looking set of men when it was over.

While all this was going on the Zone Major kept out of sight of the Colonel who had told him he couldn’t go out on that drive; but two days later he saw his familiar car coming down the road and the Colonel seemed greatly agitated. He was shaking his fist in front of him.

The Zone Major pondered whether he would not better drive right on without stopping to talk, but he reflected that he would have to take his punishment some time and he might as well get it over with, so when the Colonel’s car drew near he stopped. The Colonel got out and the Zone Major got out, and it was apparent that the Colonel was very angry. He forgot entirely that the Zone Major was a Salvationist and he swore roundly: “I’m out with you for life” declared the Colonel angrily. “The General’s upset and I’m upset.”

“Why, what’s the matter, Colonel?” asked the Zone Major innocently.

“Matter enough! You had no business to bring those girls up here!”

The Colonel said more to the same effect, and then got into his car and drove off. The Zone Major wisely kept out of his way; but a few days later met him again and this time the Colonel was smiling:

“Dog-gone you, Major, where’ve you been keeping yourself? Why haven’t you been around?” and he put out his hand affably.

“Why, I didn’t want to see a man who bawled me out in the public highway that way,” said the Zone Major.

“Well, Major, you had no business to bring those girls up here and you know it!” said the Colonel rousing to the old subject again.

“Why not, Colonel, didn’t they do fine?”

“Yes, they did,” said the Colonel with tears springing suddenly into his eyes and a huskiness into his voice, “but, Major, think what if we’d lost one of them!”

“Colonel,” said the Zone Major gently, “my girls are soldiers. They come up here to share the dangers with the soldiers, and as long as they can be of service they feel this is the place for them.”

The Colonel struggled with his emotion for a moment and then said gruffly: “Had anything to eat? Stop and take a bite with me.” And they sat down under the trees and had supper together.

It was at this town that the girls slept in a German-dug cave, in which our boys had captured seven hundred Germans, the commanding officer of whom said that according to his rank in Germany he ought to have a car to take him to the rear. However, he was compelled to leg it at the point of an American bayonet in the hands of an American doughboy. The cave was of chalk rock made to store casks of wine.