The War Romance of the Salvation Army

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Zone Headquarters

e hung a sign on an old h

s to spade up and carry away the filth from the bedrooms, and it took two women an entire week all but one day, scrubbing all day long until their shoulders ached, to scrub the place clean. But they got it clean. They were the kind of wome

ch else to be done besides cutting wood. Not that they could not do that, too, when the need offered. The sisters looked sleepily at one another, thinking simultaneously of the poor homesick doughboy who had told them the day before that chopping wood for them made him think of home and mother and that was why he liked to do it. Of course, it was he hard at work for them before they were up, and they smiled contentedly, with a lifted prayer for the poor fellow. They knew he had

ey rounded the corner of the kitchen and greeted the wood-chopper cheerily, he looked up, and lo! it was not the homesick doughboy as they had supposed, but the Colonel o

g about pies until one day a Lieutenant found an old French stove in some ruins. They had to half bury it in the earth to make it strong enough for use, but managed to make it work at last, and though m

baseball, for the week before this meeting two regimental baseball teams played seven innings of air-tight ball while the shells were falling not three hundred yards away at the roadside edge of their ball-ground. During the seven innings only eight hits were allowed by the two pitchers. The score was close and when at the end of the seventh a shell

questioned among them, a personal testimony meeting in which several soldiers and an officer had spoken of what Christ had done for them. Then there was a solo by one of the lassies, and

the Salvation Army people had appeared with good cold lemonade; and when they had no money they had given it to them just the same. Oh, they knew what that verse meant and their attention was held at once as the speak

s would have had a panic in no time, but this crowded audience sat perfectly quiet, l

side a screen, and now and then slipped in, so little attention did the audience pay to them. When all those who wished to accept this wonderful invitation were asked to come forward, seven men arose and stumbled through the darkness. The light from a bursting shell revealed for an instant the

to take care of eight hundred men at a time. This building was also used by the Y. M. C. A. as well as the Jews and the Cathol

re than half torn away from their young, wise eyes over there; and they found that earthly standards and earthly false-whisperings did not fit. They felt the spirit of the hour, they felt the spirit of the place, and of the people who were serving them patiently day by day; who didn't have to stay there and work; who might have kept in back of the li

ive hundred would get up and tell what Jesus had become to them. In one meeting in this glas

ery-day life at home became very dear, perhaps dearer than they had ever seemed before. They found out that the Salvation Army people had prayers every night after they closed the canteen at half-past nine and went to their rooms in a house not far away, and so they begged that they might share the worship with them. So every night they took home f

t means to us!" one of the m

d their Bibles for years would be found in little

y could look out over the spot in No Man's Land which w

che planes were flying everywhere, and went over across No Man's Land to see if there was a place where they could open up a hut. They were walking along quietly, talking, and had not noticed the German plane that approached. They were so accustomed to seeing t

brightly. "The Lord would

r eyes. They believed, those boys, they really did, that God protected those women; and they used to beg them to remain with their regiment when they were goi

efore it reached Baccarat the Americans trained

They also took possession of the two little girls of the family, nine and fourteen years of age, to wait upon them. And the first command that was given these children was that they should wait upon the men nude! The youngest chil

er, telling the Salvation Army women the story afterward, pointed with trembling lingers and streaming eyes to the two little graves in the yard

s came to the knowledge of

t. Her home had been several times struck by shells and was frequently the target for enemy bombing squ

she told a Salvation Army lassie who was billeted with he

several hundre

ent duty that would call men forth into full view of the enemy. But as soon, as the dark came on th

clearing off or just getting ready to rain again. Twenty minutes in the trenches and a man wa

lled a duck-board. Underneath this duck-board ran a continual stream of water. A man would go along the trench in a hurry, make a misstep on one end of t

ght, so the Salvation Army men and wo

t deep, and one must stoop to be safe, and get to the front-line trenches with their cans of coffee. They would touch a fellow on the shoulder, fill his mug with coffee, and slip him some doughnuts. At such times the things were always given

ttery positions. One gunner with tense, strained face eyed his full coffee mug with satisfa

the door. Just a prayer and singing. Then the boys would go to the girls and leave their little trinkets or letters, and say: "I'm goin

uld be ready with hot coffee and doughnuts. It was heart-breaking, back-aching, won

consecutive hours, aiding the doctors in caring for the wounded, and in a lull had found time to mi

replied eagerly. "I'm the

ks, and the drivers of those risked their lives daily to carry supplie

ot allowed to go in daytime except in case of great emergency. Sometimes in urgent c

an had no chance if he paused. Once he had been sighted by the enemy he was done for. A man driving on a hasty errand once dropp

ees parted and showed the sky; over rough, muddy roads, filled with shell-holes, the trucks went nightly. Just fall in line, keep to the right, and whistle softly when so

radiator watching the road and telling the driver where to go. The only li

ut of hundreds of miles, and the call for supplies might come from any point along that front. Sometimes the call meant the immediate shipment of tons of blankets, oranges, lemons, sugar, flour for doughnuts, lard,

in a snowstorm, mistook a river for the road for which he was searching, and turned from the real road to the snow-covered surface of the river, wh

r help, leaving him with his truck, for if it had been left unguarded it would have soon been stripped of every movable par

e thought the reason the Salvation Army was so popular with his

bread because he had no bread tickets, The local K. of C. man, observing his difficulty, supplied tickets, and, finding that he had no place to sleep, offered to share his own meagre accom

buildings, decided to do something for the boys, and on one occasion they fried fourteen thousand doughnuts and took them to the boys at the

lace to stay over night. Verdun was the only large city anywhere near but it had either been larg

ed beneath the city, sufficiently large to shelter the entire population. There are cross sections of galleries, between the longer passage ways, and winding stair

liged to stay over night, he arranged for their accommodation in the underground passage an

nly women ever permitted to rema