Part 65

The floor of the dugout was covered with straw. The stairs which led to it were wide, so that at certain hours the sun shone in and dried out the walls. There were few slugs crawling slimily on the walls of the Salvation Army’s place. Rats were there, of course, and bugs of sorts, but few slugs. On the whole it was considered a good dugout, because of these things. The roof was not a strong one, it seemed to me. A 77-shell would go through it like a knife through cheese. I said so to the Salvation Army man.

“Aw, brother,” said he. “We’ve got to take our chances along with the rest.”

At the foot of the stairs was a table on which were the few things the Salvation Army man had to sell, up here under the guns. There were some figs and a handful of black licorice drops and a few nuts. Boys kept coming in and demanding cookies. Cookies there were none, but there was hope ahead. If the Brigadier managed to get in to-night with the fliv, there might be cookies.

No Money, But Good Cheer.

“Just our luck,” said some morose doughboy, “if a shell hit the fliv. It’s a hell of a road——”

“No shell has hit it yet, brother,” said the Salvation Army man, cheerily.

Fifteen dollars would have bought everything he had in stock. One could have carried away the whole stock in the pockets of an army overcoat. The Salvation Army has no money, you know. It is hard to buy supplies for canteens over here, unless a pocket filled with money is doing the buying. The Salvation Army must pick up its stuff where it can get it. Yesterday there had been sardines and shaving soap and tin watches. To-day there were only figs and licorice drops and nuts.

“But if the Brigadier gets in,” said the Salvation Army man, “there will be something sweet to eat. And we’ll have a little meeting of song and praise, brother—just to thank God for the chance he has given us to help.”

Here there is no one else to serve the boys. Other organizations have more money and more men, but for some reason they have not seen fit to come to this which was once a town. Shells fall into it from six directions all day and all night long. Now and then it is gassed. A few kilometres away is the German line. One reaches town over a road which is nightly torn to pieces by high explosives. No one comes here voluntarily, and no one stays willingly—except the Salvation Army man. He’s here for keeps.

Men come down into his little dugout to play checkers and dominoes and buy sweet things to eat. He is here to help them spiritually as well as physically and they know it, and yet they do not hear him. He talks to them just as they talk to each other, except that he does not swear and he does not tell stories that have too much of a tang. He never obtrudes his religion on them. Just once in a while—on the nights the Brigadier gets in—there is a little song and praise meeting. They thank God for the chance they have to help.

That night the Brigadier got in with his cookies and chocolates and his message that salvation is free. Perhaps a dozen men sat around uncomfortably in the little dugout and listened to him. The man of the mandolin had refused at the last moment. He said he would be dam’ if he could play a hymn tune on that thing. But the old hymn quavered cheerily out of the little dugout into the shell-torn night. The husky voices of the Brigadier and the Ensign and Holy Joe carried it on, while the little audience sat mute.

While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high.

Then there was a little prayer and a few straight, cordial words from the Brigadier and then, somewhere in that perilous night outside, “taps” sounded and the men were off to bed. They had no word of thanks as they shook hands on parting. They did not speak to each other as they picked their way along the path through the ruins. But when they reached the street some one said very profanely and very earnestly:

“I can lick any man’s son who says they ain’t all right.”

“I have just received your letter of the 30th of July, and it has cheered my heart to know you take an interest in a poor Belgian prisoner of war.

“Since I wrote to you last we have been changed to another camp; the one we are now in is quite a nice camp, with lots of flowers, and we are allowed more freedom, but it is very bad regarding food. We have so very little to eat, it is a pity we can’t eat flowers! We rise up hungry and go to bed hungry, and all day long we are trying to still the craving for food. So you will understand the longing there is in our hearts to once again be free—to be able to go to work and earn our daily bread! But the one great comfort that I find is since I learned to know Jesus as my Saviour and Friend I can better endure the trials and even rejoice that I am called to suffer for His sake, and while around me I see many who are in despair—some even cursing God for all the misery in which we are surrounded, some trying to be brave, some giving up altogether—yet to a number of us has come the Gospel message, brought by the Salvation Army, and I am so glad that I, for one, listened and surrendered my life to this Jesus! Now I have real peace, and He walks with me and gives me grace to conquer the evil.

“When I lived in Belgium I was very worldly and sinful—I lived for pleasure and drink and sin. I did not then know of One who said, ’Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.’ I did not know anything about living a Christian life, but now it is all changed and I am so thankful! Salvation Army officers visit us and bring words of cheer and blessing and comfort. You will be glad to know that I have applied to our Commissioner to become a Salvation Army officer when the war is over. I want to go to my poor little stricken country and tell my people of this wonderful Saviour that can save from all sin!

“On behalf of my comrades and myself, I want to thank the American nation for all they have done, and are still doing, for my people. May God bless you all for it, and may He grant that before long there will be peace on earth!

“I remain, faithfully yours,

“ Remy Meersman.”

The “Stars and Stripes” Speaks from France for The Salvation Army.

A copy of the “Stars and Stripes,” the official publication of the American Expeditionary Forces published in Prance by the American soldiers themselves, just received in Chicago, contains the following:

“Perhaps in the old days when war and your home town seemed as far apart as Paris, France, and Paris, Ill., you were a superior person who used to snicker when you passed a street corner where a small Salvation Army band was holding forth. Perhaps—Heaven forgive you—you even sneered a little when you heard the bespectacled sister in the poke-bonnet bang her tambourine and raise a shrill voice to the strains of ’Oh death, where is thy sting-a-ling.’ Probably—unless you yourself had known the bitterness of one who finds himself alone, hungry and homeless in a big city—you did not know much about the Salvation Army.

Well, we are all homeless over here and every American soldier will take back with him a new affection and a new respect for the Salvation Army. Many will carry with them the memories of a cheering word and a friendly cruller received in one of the huts nearest of all to the trenches. There the old slogan of ‘Soup and Salvation’ has given way to ‘Pies and Piety.’ It might be ‘Doughnuts and Doughboys.’ These huts pitched within the shock of the German guns, are ramshackle and bare and few, for no organization can grow rich on the pennies and nickels that are tossed into the tambourines at the street-corners of the world. But they are doing a work that the soldiers themselves will never forget, and it is an especial pleasure to say so here, because the Salvation Army, being much too simple and old-fashioned to know the uses of advertisement, have never asked us to. You, however, can testify for them. Perhaps you do in your letters home. And surely when you are back there and you pass once more a ‘meeting’ at the curb, you will not snicker. You will tarry awhile—and take off your hat.”

We have received a letter from Mr. Lewis Strauss, Secretary to Mr. Herbert Hoover, who has just returned from France, and he says that Mr. Hoover’s time while in Europe was spent almost wholly in London and Paris, and that he had no opportunity for observing our War Relief Work at the front. The concluding paragraph of the letter, however, is as follows:

“Mr. Hoover has frequently heard the most complimentary reports of the invaluable work which your organization is performing in invariably the most perilous localities, and he is filled with admiration for those who are conducting it at the front.”

The Chicago Tribune (May 17, 1918), Quoting from the Above, also Speaks Editorially.

The acid test of any service done for our soldiers in France is the value the men themselves place upon it. No matter how excellent our intentions, we cannot be satisfied with the result if the soldiers are not satisfied. Without suggesting any invidious distinctions among organizations that are working at the front, it is nevertheless a pleasure to record that the Salvation Army stands very high in the regard of American soldiers.