Part 41

The simple pathos of the voices, many of them tramping forward to their death, and thinking of mother, brought the tears to the eyes of the girls who had been mothers and sisters, as well as they could, to these boys during the days of their waiting.

Then the song would die slowly away and another group would come by singing: “Tell mother I’ll be there!” Always the thought of mother. A little interval and the jolly swing of “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile!” came floating by, and then sweetly, solemnly, through the chill of the darkness, with a thrill in the words, came another group of voices:

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide, The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide!’

There had been rumors that Montsec was mined and that as soon as a foot was set upon it it would blow up.

The girls went and lay down on their cots and tried to sleep, praying in their hearts for the boys who had gone forth to fight. But they could not sleep. It was as though they had all the burden of all the mothers and wives and sisters of those boys upon them, as they lay there, the only women within miles, the only women so close to the lines.

About half-past one a big naval gun went off. It was as though all the noises of the earth were let loose about them. They could lie still no longer. They got up, put on their rain-coats, rubber boots, steel helmets, took their gas masks and went out in the fields where they could see. Soon the barrage was started. Darkness took on a rosy hue from shells bursting. First a shell fell on Montsec. Then one landed in the ammunition dump just back of it and blew it up, making it look like a huge crater of a volcano. It seemed as if the universe were on fire. The noise was terrific. The whole heavens were lit up from end to end. The beauty and the horror of it were indescribable.

At five o’clock they went sadly back to the hut.

The hospital tents had been put up in the dark and now stood ready for the wounded who were expected momentarily. The girls took off their rain-coats and reported for duty. It was expected there would be many wounded. The minutes passed and still no wounded arrived. Day broke and only a few wounded men had been brought in. It was reported that the roads were so bad that the ambulances were slow in getting there. With sad hearts the workers waited, but the hours passed and still only a straggling few arrived, and most of those were merely sick from explosives. There were almost no wounded! Only ninety in all.

Then at last there came one bearing a message. There were no wounded! The Germans had been taken so by surprise, the victory had been so complete at that point, that the boys had simply leaped over all barriers and gone on to pursue the enemy. Quickly packing up seven outfits a little company of workers started after their divisions on trucks over ground that twenty-four hours before had been occupied by the Germans, on roads that were checkered with many shell holes which American road makers were busily filling up and bridging as they passed.

One of the Salvation Army truck drivers asked a negro road mender what he thought of his job. He looked up with a pearly smile and a gleam of his eyes and replied: “Boss, I’se doin’ mah best to make de world safe foh Democrats!”

They had to stop frequently to remove the bodies of dead horses from the way so recently had that place been shelled. They passed through grim skeletons of villages shattered and torn by shell fire; between tangles of rusty barbed wire that marked the front line trenches. Then on into territory that had long been held by the Huns. More than half of the villages they passed were partially burned by the retreating enemy. All along the way the pitiful villagers, free at last, came out to greet them with shouts of welcome, calling “Bonnes Americaines! Bonnes Americaines!” Some flung their arms about the Salvation Army lassies in their joy. Some of the villagers had not even known that the Americans were in the war until they saw them.

In the village of Nonsard a little way beyond Mt. Sec they found a building that twenty-four hours before had been a German canteen. Above the entrance was the sign “Kamerad, tritt’ ein.”

The Salvation Army people stepped in and took possession, finding everything ready for their use. They even found a lard can full of lard and after a chemist had analyzed it to make sure it was not poisoned they fried doughnuts with it. In one wall was a great shell hole, and the village was still under shell fire as they unloaded their truck and got to work. One lassie set the water to heat for hot chocolate, while another requisitioned a soldier to knock the head off a barrel of flour and was soon up to her elbows mixing the dough for doughnuts. Before the first doughnut was out of the hot fat several hundred soldiers were waiting in long, patient, ever-growing lines for free doughnuts and chocolate. These things were always served free after the men had been over the top.

The lassies had had no sleep for thirty-six hours, but they never thought of stopping until everybody was served. In that one day their three tons of supplies entirely gave out.

The Red Cross was there with their rolling kitchen. They had plenty of bread but nothing to put on it. The Salvation Army had no stove on which to cook anything, but they had quantities of jam and potted meats. They turned over ten cases of jam, some of the cases containing as many as four hundred small jars, to the Red Cross, who served it on hot biscuits. Some one put up a sign: “This jam furnished by the Salvation Army!” and the soldiers passed the word along the line: “The finest sandwich in the world, Red Cross and Salvation Army!” The first day two Salvation Army girls served more than ten thousand soldiers in their canteen. They did not even stop to eat. The Red Cross brought them over hot chocolate as they worked.

Evening brought enemy airplanes, but the lassies did not stop for that and soon their own aerial forces drove the enemy back.

That night the girls slept in a dirty German dugout, and they did not dare to clean up the place, or even so much as to move any of the débris of papers and old tin and pasteboard cracker boxes, or cans that were strewn around the place until the engineer experts came to examine things, lest it might be mined and everything be blown up. The girls set up their cots in the clearest place they could find, and went to sleep. One of the women, however, who had just arrived, had lost her cot, and being very weary crawled into a sort of berth dug by the Germans in the wall, where some German had slept. She found out from bitter experience what cooties are like.

The next morning they were hard at work again as early as seven o’clock. Two long lines of soldiers were already patiently waiting to be served. The girls wondered whether they might not have been there all night. This continued all day long.

“We had to keep on a perpetual grin,” said one of the lassies, “so that each soldier would think he had a smile all his own. We always gave everything with a smile.” Yet they were not smiles of coquetry. One had but to see the beautiful earnest faces of those girls to know that nothing unholy or selfish entered into their service. It was more like the smile that an angel might give.

Here is one of the many popular songs that have been written on the subject which shows how the soldiers felt:

Salvation Lassie of Mine

“They say it’s in Heaven that all angels dwell, But I’ve come to learn they’re on earth just as well; And how would I know that the like could be so, If I hadn’t found one down here below?

CHORUS.

A sweet little Angel that went o’er the sea, With the emblem of God in her hand; A wonderful Angel who brought there to me The sweet of a war-furrowed land. The crown on her head was a ribbon of red, A symbol of all that’s divine; Though she called each a brother she’s more like a mother, Salvation Lassie of Mine.

Perhaps in the future I’ll meet her again, In that world where no one knows sorrow or pain; And when that time comes and the last word is said, Then place on my bosom her band of red.”

By “Jack” Caddigan and “Chick” Stoy.

That day a shell fell on the dugout where they had slept the night before, and a little later one dropped next door to the canteen; another took seven men from the signal corps right in the street near by, and the girls were ordered out of the village because it was no longer safe for them.

One of the boys had been up on a pole putting up wires for the signal corps. These boys often had to work as now under shell fire in daytime because it was necessary to have telephone connections complete at once. A shell struck him as he worked and he fell in front of the canteen. They had just carried him away to the ambulance when his chum and comrade came running up. A pool of blood lay on the floor in front of the canteen, and he stood and gazed with anguish in his face. Suddenly he stooped and patted the blood tenderly murmuring, “My Buddy! My Buddy!” Then like a flash he was off, up the pole where his comrade had been killed to finish his work. That is the kind of brave boys these girls were serving.