Then the frightened young woman became convinced that her visitors were not spies; all the same, they were not going to leave her any the wiser for any information she would give.
Several times men would come to the town and find no place to sleep. On such occasions the Salvation Army hut was turned over to them and they would sleep on the floor.
The St. Mihiel drive came on and the hut was turned over to the hospital.
The supplies were taken to a dugout and the canteen kept up there. Then the military authorities insisted that the girls should leave town, but the girls refused to go, begging, "Don"t drive us away. We know we shall be needed!" The Staff-Captain came down and took some of the girls away, but left two in the canteen, and others in the hospital.
It rained for two weeks in Roulecourt. The soldiers slept in little dog tents in the woods.
The meetings held the boys at the throne of G.o.d each night, they were the power behind the doughnut, and the boys recognized it.
"One hesitated to ask them if they wanted prayers because we knew they did," said one sweet woman back from the front, speaking about the time of the St. Mihiel drive. "We couldn"t say how many knelt at the altar because they all knelt. Some of them would walk five miles to attend a meeting."
It poured torrents the night of the drive and nearly drowned out the soldiers in their little tents.
They came into the hut to shake hands and say goodbye to the girls; to leave their little trinklets and ask for prayers; and they had their meeting as always before a drive.
But this was an even more solemn time than usual, for the boys were going up to a point where the French had suffered the fearful loss of thirty thousand men trying to hold Mt. Sec for fifteen minutes. They did not expect to come back. They left sealed packages to be forwarded if they did not return.
One boy came to one of the Salvation Army men Officers and said: "Pray for me. I have given my heart to Jesus."
Another, a Sergeant, who had lived a hard life, came to the Salvation Army Adjutant and said: "When I go back, if I ever go, I"m going to serve the Lord."
After the meeting the girls closed the canteen and on the way to their room they pa.s.sed a little sort of shed or barn. The door was standing open and a light streaming out, and there on a little straw pallet lay a soldier boy rolled up in his blanket reading his Testament. The girls breathed a prayer for the lad as they pa.s.sed by and their hearts were lifted up with gladness to think how many of the American boys, fully two- thirds of them, carried their Testaments in the pockets over their hearts; yes, and read them, too, quite openly.
Two young Captains came one night to say good-bye to the girls before going up the line. The girls told them they would be praying for them and the elder of the two, a doctor, said how much he appreciated that, and then told them how he had promised his wife he would read a chapter in his Testament every day, and how he had never failed to keep his promise since he left home.
Then up spoke the other man:
"Well, I got converted one night on the road. The sh.e.l.ls were falling pretty thick and I thought I would never reach my destination and I just promised the Lord if He would let me get safely there I would never fail to read a chapter, and I never have failed yet!" This young man seemed to think that--the whole plan of redemption was comprised in reading his Bible, but if he kept his promise the Spirit would guide him.
On the way back to the hut one morning the girls picked marguerites and forget-me-nots and put them in a vase on the table in the hut, making it look like a little oasis in a desert, and no doubt, many a soldier looked long at those blossoms who never thought he cared about flowers before.
Within thirty-six hours after the first gun was fired in the St. Mihiel drive seven Salvation Army huts were established on the territory.
Three days before the drive opened twenty Salvation Army girls reached Raulecourt, which was a little village half a mile from Montsec. They had been travelling for hours and hours and were very weary.
The Salvation Army hut had been turned over to the hospital, so they found another old building.
That night there was a gas alarm sounded and everybody came running out with their gas masks on. The officer who had them in charge was much worried about his la.s.sies because some of them had a great deal of hair, and he was afraid that the heavy coils at the back of their heads would prevent the masks from fitting tightly and let in the deadly gas, but the la.s.sies were level-headed girls, and they came calmly out with their masks on tight and their hair in long braids down their backs, much to the relief of their officer.
It had been raining for days and the men were wet to the skin, and many of them had no way to get dry except to roll up in their blankets and let the heat of their body dry their clothes while they slept. It was a great comfort to have the Salvation Army hut where they could go and get warm and dry once in awhile.
The night of the St. Mihiel drive was the blackest night ever seen. It was so dark that one could positively see nothing a foot ahead of him. The Salvation Army la.s.sies stood in the door of the canteen and listened. All day long the heavy artillery had been going by, and now that night had come there was a sound of feet, tramping, tramping, thousands of feet, through the mud and slush as the soldiers went to the front. In groups they were singing softly as they went by. The first bunch were singing "Mother Machree."
There"s a spot in me heart that no colleen may own, There"s a depth in me soul never sounded or known; There"s a place in me memory, me life, that you fill, No other can take it, no one ever will; Sure, I love the dear silver that shines in your hair, And the brow that"s all furrowed and wrinkled with care.
I kiss the dear fingers, so toil-worn for me; O, G.o.d bless you and keep you!
Mother Machree!
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 sh.e.l.ls bursting.
First a sh.e.l.l 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.e.l.l holes which American road makers were busily filling up and bridging as they pa.s.sed.
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 sh.e.l.led. They pa.s.sed through grim skeletons of villages shattered and torn by sh.e.l.l 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 pa.s.sed 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 la.s.sies 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 a.n.a.lyzed it to make sure it was not poisoned they fried doughnuts with it. In one wall was a great sh.e.l.l hole, and the village was still under sh.e.l.l fire as they unloaded their truck and got to work. One la.s.sie 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 la.s.sies 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 quant.i.ties 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 pa.s.sed 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 la.s.sies 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 _debris_ 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 la.s.sies, "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 La.s.sIE 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.