Part 43

Then they asked the girls to sing and the room was very still as two sweet voices thrilled out in a tender melody, speaking every word distinctly:

Beautiful Jesus, Bright Star of earth! Loving and tender from moment of birth, Beautiful Jesus, though lowly Thy lot, Born in a manger, so rude was Thy cot!

Beautiful Jesus, gentle and mild, Light for the sinner in ways dark and wild, Beautiful Jesus, O save such just now, As at Thy feet they in penitence bow!

Beautiful Christ! Beautiful Christ! Fairest of thousands and Pearl of great price! Beautiful Christ! Beautiful Christ! Gladly we welcome Thee, Beautiful Christ!

Before they had finished many eyes had turned instinctively toward the picture in the weirdly flickering light.

Then the young Captain-lassie asked her sister to read the Ninety-first Psalm, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty,” and she told them that was a promise for those who trusted in God, and she wished they would think about it while they were going to sleep.

“This evening has made me think so much of home,” she said thoughtfully, drooping her lashes and then raising them with a sweeping glance that included the whole group, while the firelight flickered up and lit her lovely serious face, and touched her hair with lights of gold, “I suppose it has made every one else feel that way,” she went on; “I mean especially the evenings at home when the family gathered in the parlor, with one at the piano and brothers with their horns, and the rest with some kind of instrument, and we had a good ‘sing;’ and afterward father took the Bible and read the evening chapter, and then we had family prayers and kissed Mamma and Papa good night and went to bed. I shouldn’t wonder if many of you used to have homes like that?”

The lassie raised her eyes again and looked on them. Many of the men nodded. It was beautiful to see the look that came into their faces at these recollections.

“And you used to have family prayers, too, didn’t you?” she asked eagerly.

They nodded once more but some of them turned their faces away from the light quickly and brushed the back of their hands across their eyes.

“To-night has been a family gathering,” she went on, “We girls are little sisters to all you big brothers, and we have had a delightful time with just the family, and the evening chapter has been read, and now I think it would not be complete if we did not have the family prayers before we separate and go to sleep.”

Down went the heads in response, with reverent mien, and the place was very still while the lassie prayed. Afterward the boys joined their gruff voices, husky now with emotion, into the universal prayer with which she closed: “Our Father which are in heaven——”

They were all sorts and conditions of men gathered around the little fire in that old shell-torn church in Neuvilly that night. To quote from a letter written by a military officer, Lt-Col. Frederick R. Fitzpatrick, to his wife:

“There was the lad who was willing but not strong enough for field work, who was in the rear with the office; the walking wounded who had stopped for something to eat; the big, strong mule skinner who could throw a mule down or lift a case of ammunition, who was rough in appearance and speech and who would deny that the moisture in his eye was anything but the effects of the cold. There were the men who had been facing death a thousand times an hour for the last three days, who had not had a wash or a chance to take off their shoes and had been lying in mud in shell holes —men who looked as though they were chilled through and through; men on their way to the front, well knowing all the hardships and dangers which were ahead of them, but who were worried only about the delay in the traffic; doctors who had been working for three days without rest; men off ammunition and ration trucks, who had been at the wheel so long that they had forgotten whether it was three or four days and nights; wounded on their stretchers enjoying a smoke. And as I stepped in the door there were the feminine voices singing the good old tunes we all know so well, and not a sound in the church but as an accompaniment the distant booming of big guns, the rattle of small arms, the whirl of air craft, the passing of the ever-present column of trucks with rations and ammunition going up, and the wounded coming back; the shouted directions of the traffic police, the sound of the ammunition dump just outside the door and the rattle of the kitchens which surround the church, and which are working twenty-four hours a day.

There was the crowd of men, each uncovered, giving absolute undivided attention to the good, brave girls who were not making a meeting of it; it was just a meeting which grew—men who in their minds were back with mother and sister. The girls sang the good old songs, and then one of them offered a short prayer, in which all the men joined in spirit, and as I tip-toed out of the church it seemed to me that the four candles at the altar did not give all the light that was shown on the picture of Christ our Saviour. Every man in the building that night was in the very presence of God. It was not a religious meeting; it was a meeting full of religion. And it was a picture that will ever stand fresh in my memory and which will be an inspiration in time of doubt. There was nothing there but the real things, absolutely no sham of any kind. Oh, it was wonderful! I hope you can get just a little idea of what it was. I wish you would keep this letter. I want to be able to read it in future years.”

In what remained of another village not far distant from Neuvilly, the lassies had a tent erected. The rain was endless—a driving drizzle which quickly soaked through everything but the staunchest raincoats in a very few moments. The ground was so thickly covered by shell craters that they could find no clear space wide enough for the tent. It so happened that almost in the centre of the tent there was a big shell crater. In this the girls lighted a fire. All through the night, and through nights to follow, wounded men limping back through the rain and mud to the dressing stations came in to warm themselves around the fire in the shell hole, and to drink of the coffee prepared by the girls. As they sat around the blazing wood, the fire cast strange shadows on the bleached brown canvas of the tent. In spite of their wounds, they were very cheerful, singing as lightly as though they were safe at home.

Everybody had worked hard at Neuvilly, but they felt they must get to their own outfit as soon as possible at the Field Hospital up in Cheppy where the wounded were coming in droves and the boys were pouring in from the front half-starved, having been fighting all night with nothing to eat except reserve rations. Some had been longer with only such rations as they took from their dead comrades. The need was most urgent, but the puzzle was how to get there. The roads had been shelled and ploughed by explosives until there was no possible semblance of a way, and there were no conveyances to be had. The Zone Major had gone back for supplies, telling the girls to get the first conveyance possible going up the road. That was enough for the girls. “We’ve got to get there” they said, and when they said that one knew they would. They searched diligently and at last found a way. One girl rode on a reel cart, one on a mule team and one went with an old wagon. They went over roads that had to be made ahead of them by the engineers, and late in the night, bruised and sore from head to foot, they arrived at their destination.

The next morning they reported at the hospital for work and the Major in charge said: “I never was so glad to see anybody in my life!”

They went straight to work and served coffee and sandwiches to the poor half-starved men. The Red Cross men were there, also, with sandwiches, hot chocolate and candy.

The wounded men continued to pour in, later to be evacuated to the base hospital; they kept coming and coming, a thousand men where two hundred had been expected. There was plenty to be done. The girls were put in charge of different wards. They were under shell fire continually, but they were too busy to think of that as they hurried about ministering to the brave soldiers, who gave never a groan from their white lips no matter what they suffered.

The girls worked about eighteen hours a day, and slept from about one or two at night to five or six in the morning. The hospital was in front of the artillery and every shell that went over to Germany passed over their heads. When they had been there five days under continual shell fire from the enemy the General gave orders that they must leave, that it was no fit place for women so near to the front.

When the Salvation Army Zone Major brought this order to the girls rebellion shone in their eyes and they declared they would not leave! They knew they were needed there, and there they would stay! The Zone Major surveyed them with intense satisfaction. He turned on his heel and went back to the General:

“General,” he said, with a twinkle, “my girls say they won’t go.”

The General’s face softened, and the twinkle flashed across to his eyes, with something like a tear behind its fire. Somehow he didn’t look like a Commanding Officer who had just been defied. A wonderful light broke over his face and he said:

“Well, if the Salvation Army wants to stay let them stay!” And so they stayed.

It was in a German-dug cave that they had their headquarters, cut out of the side of a hill and opening into the hospital yard. It was a work of art, that cave. There was a passage-way a hundred feet long with avenues each side and places for cots, room enough to accommodate a hundred men.

The German airplanes came in droves. When the bugle sounded every one must get under cover. There must be nobody in sight for the Germans were out to get individuals, and even one person was not too insignificant for them to waste their ammunition upon. They had a mistaken idea, perhaps, that this sort of thing destroyed our morale. The tents, of course, were no protection against shells and bombs, and presently the Boche began to shell the town in good earnest, especially at night. Gas alarms, also, would sound out in the middle of the night and everybody would have to rush out and put on their gas masks. They would not last long at a time, of course, but it broke up any rest that might have been had, and it was only too evident that the enemy was trying to get the range on the hospital.

One morning, standing by the window making cocoa for the boys, one of the lassies saw an eight-inch shell land between the hospital tents, ten feet in front of the window, and only five feet from the door of the place where the severely wounded were lying. These shells always kill at two hundred feet. All that saved them was that the shell buried itself deep in the soft earth and was a dud.