The War Romance of the Salvation Army Part 22

"Aw, well! The poor sneaks looked so longingly!" said one of the boys, grinning sheepishly.

There in the hospital the girls came into contact with the splendid spirit of the American soldier boys, "Don't help me, help that fellow over there who is suffering!" was heard over and over again when they went to bring comfort to some wounded boy.

When the supplies in the canteen would run out, and the last doughnut would be handed with the words: "That's the last," the boy to whom it was given would say: "Don't give it to me, give it to Harry. I don't want it."

It was during that drive and there was a farewell meeting at one of the Salvation Army huts that night for the boys who were going up to the trenches. It was a beautiful and touching meeting as always on such occasions. Starting with singing whatever the boys picked out, it dropped quickly into the old hymns that the boys loved and then to a simple earnest prayer, setting forth the desperate case of those who were going out to fight, and appealing to the everlasting Saviour for forgiveness and refuge. They lingered long about the fair young girl who was leading them, listening to her earnest, plain words of instruction how to turn to the Saviour of the world in their need, how to repent of their sins and take Christ for their Saviour and Sanctifier. No man who was in that meeting would dare plead ignorance of the way to be saved. Many signified their desire to give their lives into the keeping of Christ before they went to the front. The meeting broke up reluctantly and the men drifted out and away, expecting soon to be called to go. But something happened that they did not go that night. Meantime, a company had just returned from the front, weary, hungry, worn and bleeding, with their nerves unstrung, and their spirits desperate from the tumult and horror of the hours they had just pa.s.sed in battle. They needed cheering and soothing back to normal.

The girls were preparing to do this with a bright, cheery entertainment, when a deputation of boys from the night before returned. There was a wistful gleam in the eyes of the young Jew who was spokesman for the group as he approached the la.s.sie who had led the meeting.

"Say, Cap, you see we didn't go up."

"I see," she smiled happily.

"Say, Cap, won't you have another farewell meeting to-night?" he asked with an appealing glance in his dark eyes.

"Son, we've arranged something else just now for the fellows who are coming back," she said gently, for she hated to refuse such a request.

"Oh, say, Cap, you can have that later, can't you? We want another meeting now."

There was something so pleading in his voice and eyes, so hungry in the look of the waiting group, that the young Captain could not deny him. She looked at him hesitatingly, and then said:

"All right. Go out and tell the boys."

He hurried out and soon the company came crowding in. That hour the very Lord came down and communed with them as they sang and knelt to pray, and not a heart but was melted and tender as they went out when it was over in the solemn darkness of the early morning. A little later the order came and they "went over."

It was a sharp, fierce fight, and the young Jew was mortally wounded. Some comrades found him as he lay white and helpless on the ground, and bending over saw that he had not long to stay. They tried to lift him and bear him back, but he would not let them. He knew it was useless.

They asked him if he had any message. He nodded. Yes, he wanted to send a message to the Salvation Army girls. It was this:

"Tell the girls I've gone West; for I will be by the time you tell them; and tell them it's all right for at that second meeting I accepted Christ and I die resting on the same Saviour that is theirs."

One of our wonderful boys out on the drive had his hand blown off and didn't realize it. His chum tried to drag him back and told him his hand was gone.

"That's nothing!" he cried. "Tie it up!"

But they forced him back lest he would bleed to death. In the hospital they told him that now he might go home.

"Go home!" he cried. "Go home for the loss of a left hand! I'm not left- handed. Maybe I can't carry a gun, but I can throw hand grenades!"

He went to the Major and the Major said also that he must go home.

The boy looked him straight in the eye:

"Excuse me, Major, saying I won't. But _I won't let go your coat_ till you say I can stay," and finally the Major had to give in and let him stay. He could not resist such pleading.

One poor fellow, wounded in his abdomen, was lying on a litter in a most uncomfortable position suffering awful pain. The la.s.sie came near and asked if she could do anything for him. He told her he wanted to lie on his stomach, but the doctor, when she asked him, said "No" very shortly and told her he must lie on his back. She stooped and turned him so that his position was more comfortable, put his gas mask under his head, rolled his blanket so as to support his shoulders better, and turned to go to another, and the poor suffering lad opened his eyes, held out his hand and smiled as she went away.

The doctors said to the girls: "It is wonderful to have you around."

The Red Cross men and their rolling kitchens came to the front, but no women. Somehow in pain and sickness no hand can sooth like a woman's.

Perhaps G.o.d meant it to be so. Here at Morte Fontaine was the first time a woman had ever worked in a field hospital.

The Salvation Army women worked all that drive.

It was a sad time, though, for the division went in to stay until they lost forty-five hundred men, but it stayed two days after reaching that figure and lost about seventy-five thousand.

The doctor in charge of the evacuation hospital at Crepy spoke of the effect of the Salvation Army girls, not alone upon the wounded, but also upon the medical-surgical staff and the men of the hospital corps who acted as nurses in that advanced position. "Before they came," he said, "we were overwrought, everyone seemed at the breaking point, what with the nervous tension and danger. But the very sight of women working calmly had a soothing effect on everyone."

When the drive was over orders came to leave. The following is the official notice to the Salvation Army officers:

G-1 Headquarters, 1st Division, American Expeditionary Forces, July 26, 1918.

_Memorandum._

To Directors, Y.M.C.A., Red Cross, Salvation Army Services, 1st Division.

1. This division moves by rail to destination unknown beginning at 6.00 A.M., July 28th. Motor organizations of the Division move overland. Your motorized units will accompany the advanced section of the Division Supply Train, and will form a part of that train.

2. Time of departure and routes to be taken will be announced later.

3. Secretaries attached to units may accompany units, if it is so desired.

By command of Major-General Summerall.

P. E. Peabody, Captain, Infantry, G-1

Copies: YMCA Red Cross Salvation Army G-3 C. of S.

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The girls stowed themselves and their belongings into the big truck. Just as they were about to start they saw some infantry coming, seven men whom they knew, but in such a plight! They were unshaven, with white, sunken faces, and great dark hollows under their eyes. They were simply "all in,"

and could hardly walk.

Without an instant's hesitation the girls made a place for those poor, tired, dirty men in the truck, and the invitation was gratefully accepted.

There were more poor forlorn fellows coming along the road. They kept meeting them every little way, but they had no room to take in any more so they piled oranges in the back end of the truck and gave them to all the boys they pa.s.sed who were walking.

Now the girls were on their way to Senlis, where they had planned to take dinner at a hotel in which they had dined before. It was one of the few buildings remaining in the town for the Germans, when they left Senlis, had set it on fire and destroyed nearly everything. But as the girls neared the town they began to think about the boys asleep in the back of the truck, who probably hadn't had a square meal for a week, and they decided to take them with them. So they woke them up when they arrived at the hotel. Oh, but those seven dirty, unshaven soldiers were embarra.s.sed with the invitation to dinner! At first they declined, but the girls insisted, and they found a place to wash and tidy up themselves a bit. In a few minutes into the big dining-room filled with French soldiers and a goodly sprinkling of French officers, marched those two girls, followed by their seven big unshaven soldiers with their white faces and hollow eyes, sat proudly down at a table in the very centre and ordered a big dinner.

That is the kind of girls Salvation Army la.s.sies are. Never ashamed to do a big right thing.

After the dinner they took the boys to their divisional headquarters, where they found their outfit.

They went on their way from Senlis to Dam-Martin to stay for a week back of the lines for rest.

There was a big French cantonment building here built for moving pictures, which was given to them for a canteen, and they set up their stove and went to work making doughnuts, and doing all the helpful things they could find to do for the boys who were soon to go to the front again.

Then orders came to move back to the Toul Sector.

Those were wonderful moonlight nights at Saizerais, but the Boche airplanes nearly pestered the life out of everybody.