The town of Mandres was sh.e.l.led daily and it was an exceptional day that pa.s.sed without from one to ten men being killed as a result of this sh.e.l.ling.
Here are some extracts from letters written by the Ensign from the old wine cellar in Mandres:
"Somewhere in France," May 15, 1918.
I am still busy in my old wine-cellar in France. I must give you an idea of my daily routine: Get up early and, go to my cellar. Get wood and make fire; go for some water to put on stove. Take my mess kit, helmet, gas mask and cane, walk about one block to the part of the church standing by the artillery kitchen and get my hand-out mess, go back to my cellar and have my breakfast, see to the fire, fuel, clean and light the lamps, dip and carry out some water and mud (but have now found a place to drain off the water by cutting through the heavy stone wall and digging a ditch underneath). I dig whenever I have time. Then the boys begin to come in- some right from the trenches, others who are resting up after a siege in the trenches. They are all covered with mud when they come in and have to talk, stand and even sleep in mud. Then I must have the cocoa and coffee ready and serve also the candy, figs, nuts, gum, chocolate, shaving- sticks, razors, watches, knives, gun oil, paper, envelopes, etc. I mostly wear my rubber boots and stand in a little boot "slouched" down so I can stand straight. Almost every evening we have a little "sing-song" or regular service, and on Sunday two or three services.
Our wine-cellar is supposed to be bomb-proof. First the roof, the ceiling, the floor, then the three-feet stone and concrete under the floor and along the wine-cellar. I am all alone for all this business. Sometimes the boys help me to cut wood and keep the fire and carry water, but the companies are changed so often that they go and come every five days, and when they come from the trenches they are so tired and sleepy they need all the rest they can get. Yesterday I had to change the stove and stovepipes because it smoked so bad that it almost smoked us out. So I had to run through the ruins and find old stovepipes. I could not find enough elbows, so I had to make some with the help of an old knife. We ran the pipes through the low window bars and up the side of the house to the top, and plastered up poor joints with mud, but it burns better and does not smoke. The boys claim I make the best coffee they have had in France, and also cocoa. I am glad I know something of cooking. You see, they don"t permit girls so near the trenches and in the sh.e.l.l fire.
My dear Major:
Grace, love and peace unto you! Many thanks for the beautiful letter I received from you full of love, Christian admonition and encouragement.
Such letters are much Appreciated over here.
I have been very busy. The last week, in addition to running the ordinary business, I have used the pick and shovel and wheelbarrow in lowering our wine-cellar floor (now used as a Salvation Army rest room), so we can walk straight in. I have also done some white-washing to brighten things up and have some flowers in bowls, large French wine bottles and big bra.s.s sh.e.l.ls, which makes a great improvement. I now expect to pick up pieces and erect a range, so we can cook and make things faster. I secured two hams and am having them cooked, and expect to serve ham sandwiches by Decoration Day, two days hence, when there is to be a great time in decorating the graves of our heroes. I am also trying to get some lemons so that I can make lemonade for the boys besides the coffee and cocoa. You can get an idea of the immensity of our business when I tell you I got 999.25 francs worth of b.u.t.ter-scotch candy alone with the last lot of goods, besides a dozen other kinds of candy, nuts, toilet articles, etc., and this will be sold and given out in a very few days.
We had very good meetings last Sunday. I spoke at night. A glorious time we had, indeed. Praise G.o.d for the opportunity of working among the New England braves!
At Menil-la-Tours the French forbade any huts at all to be put up at first, but finally they gave permission for one hut. The Staff-Captain wanted to put up two, but as that wasn"t allowed he got around the order by building five rooms on each side of the one big hut and so had plenty of room. It is pretty hard to get ahead of a Salvation Army worker when he has a purpose in view. Not that they are stubborn, simply that they know how to accomplish their purpose in the nicest way possible and please everybody.
There were some American railroad engineers here, working all night taking stuff to the front. They came over and asked if they could help out, and so instead of taking their day for sleep they spent most of it putting tar paper on the roof of the Salvation Army hut.
It was in this place that there seemed to be a strong prejudice among some of the soldiers against the Salvation Army for some reason. The soldiers stood about swearing at the Staff-Captain and his helper as they worked, and saying the most abusive and contemptible things to them. At last the Staff-Captain turned about and, looking at them, in the kindliest way said:
"See here, boys, did you ever know anything about the Salvation Army before?"
They admitted that they had not.
"Well, now, just wait a little while. Give us fair play and see if we are like what you say we are. Wait until we get our hut done and get started, and then if you don"t like us you can say so."
"Well, that"s fair, Dad," spoke up one soldier, and after that there was no more trouble, and it wasn"t long before the soldiers were giving the most generous praise to the Salvation Army on every side.
L"Hermitage, nestled in the heart of a deep woods, was no quiet refuge from the noise of battle and the troubles of a war-weary world, as one might suppose. It was surrounded by swamps everywhere. And it had been raining, of course. It always seems to have been raining in France during this war. There were duck boards over the swampy ground, and a single mis- step might send one p.r.o.ne in the ooze up to the elbows.
It was a very dangerous place, also.
There was a large ammunition dump in the town, and besides that there was a great balloon located there which the Boche planes were always trying to get. It was the nearest to the front of any of our balloons and, of course, was a great target for the enemy. There was a lot of heavy coast artillery there, also, and there were monster sh.e.l.l holes big enough to hold a good audience.
At last one day the enemy did get the ammunition dump, and report after report rent the air as first one sh.e.l.l and then another would burst and go up in flame. It was fourteen hours going off and the military officer ordered the girls to their billets until it should be over. It was like this: First a couple of sh.e.l.ls would explode, then there would be a second"s quiet and a keg of powder would flare; then some boxes of ammunition would go off; then some more sh.e.l.ls. It was a terrible pandemonium of sound. Thirty miles away in Gondrecourt they saw the fire and heard the terrific explosions.
The Zone Major and one of his helpers had been to Nancy for a truck load of eggs and were just unloading when the explosions began. Together they were carefully lifting out a crate containing a hundred dozen eggs when the mammoth detonations began that rocked the earth beneath them and threatened to shake them from their feet. They staggered and tottered but they held onto the eggs. One of the sayings of Commander Eva Booth is, "Choose your purpose and let no whirlwind that sweeps, no enemy that confronts you, no wave that engulfs you, no peril that affrights you, turn you from it." The Zone Major and his helper had chosen the purpose of landing those eggs safely, and eggs at five francs a dozen are not to be lightly dropped, so they staggered but they held onto the eggs.
The girls in the canteen went quietly about their work until ordered to safety; but over in Sanzey and Menil-la-Tour their friends watched and waited anxiously to hear what had been their fate.
The General who was in charge of the Twenty-sixth Division was exceedingly kind to the Salvation Army girls. He acted like a father toward them: giving up his own billet for their use; sending an escort to take them to it through the woods and swamps and dangers when their work at the canteen was over for a brief respite; setting a sentry to guard them and to give a gas alarm when it became necessary; and doing everything in his power for their comfort and safety.
IV.
The Montdidier Sector
Spring came on even in sh.e.l.l-torn France, lovely like the miracle it always is. Bare trees in a day were arrayed in wondrous green. A camouflage of beauty spread itself upon the valleys and over the hillsides like a garment sewn with colored broidery of blossoms. Great scarlet poppies flamed from ruined homes as if the blood that had been spilt were resurrected in a glorious color that would seek to hide the misery and sorrow and touch with new loveliness the war-scarred place. Little birds sent forth their flutey voices where mortals must be hushed for fear of enemies.
The British had been driven back by the Huns until they admitted that their backs were against the wall, and it was an anxious time. Daily the enemy drew nearer to Paris.
When the great offensive was started by the Germans in March, 1918, and American troops were sent up to help the British and French, the Division was located at Montdidier. Under the rules for the conduct of war, they were not permitted to know where they were destined to go, and so the Salvation Army could not secure that information. They knew it was to be north of Paris, but where, was the problem.
The French were opposed to any relief organizations going into the Sector, and rules and regulations were made which were calculated to discourage or to keep them out altogether.
It was urgent that the Salvation Army should be there at the earliest possible moment and as they could not secure permits, especially for the women, they decided to get there without permits,
The first contingent was put into a big Army truck, the cover was put down and they were started on the road, to a point from which they hoped to secure information of the movements of their outfit. From place to place this truck proceeded until, finally, detachments of the troops were located in the vicinity of Gisors. Contact was immediately established.
The girls were received with the greatest joy and portable tents were set up. It seemed as if every man in the Division must come to say how glad he was to see them back. The men decided that if it was in their power they would never again allow the Salvation Army to be separated from them. A few days later when the Division was ordered to move they took these same la.s.sies with them riding in army trucks. The troops were on their way to the front and seldom remained more than three days in one place, and frequently only one day. On arrival at the stopping-place, fifteen or twenty of the boys would immediately proceed to erect the tent and within an hour or two a comfortable place would be in operation, a field range set up, the phonograph going, and the boys had a home.
At Courcelles the Salvation Army set up a tent, started a canteen, and had it going four days in charge of two sisters just come from the States.
Then one morning they woke up and found their outfit gone, they knew not where, and they had to pick up and go after them. An all-day journey took them to Froissy, where they found their special outfit.
There was no place for a tent at Froissy, but there was an old dance hall, where they had their canteen. The Division stayed there five weeks-under a roar of guns. But in spite of this there were wonderful meetings every night in Froissy.
This work was exceedingly trying on the girls. Permits were never secured for any of the Salvation Army workers in this Sector. They were applied for regularly through the French Army. About three months after application was made, they were all received back with the statement from the French that, seeing the workers were already there, it was not now necessary that permits should be issued. It must be reported that the French Army was opposed to the presence of women in any of the camps of the soldiers. This prejudice existed for a long time, but it was finally broken down because of the good work done by Salvation Army women, which came to be fully recognized by the French Army.
The work in the Montdidier Sector was particularly hard. Permanent buildings could not be established. The best that could be done was to erect portable tents, which were about twenty feet wide and fifty-seven feet long. Huts were established in partially destroyed buildings or houses or stores that had been vacated by their owners, and on the extreme front canteens were established in dugouts and cellars and the entire district was under bombardment from the German guns as well as from the airplane bombs. The Salvation Army had no place there that was not under bombardment continually. The huts were frequently sh.e.l.led and there was imminent danger for a long time that the German Army would break through, which, of course, added to the strain.
The Zone Major went back and forth bringing more men and more la.s.sies and more supplies from the Base at Paris to the front, and many a new worker almost lost his life in a baptism of fire on his way to his post of duty for the first time. But all these men and women, as a soldier said, were made of some fine high stuff that never faltered at danger or fatigue or hardship.
They rode over sh.e.l.l-gashed roads in the blackest midnight in a little dilapidated Ford; made wild dashes when they came to a road upon which the enemy"s fire was concentrated, looking back sometimes to see a geyser of flame leap up from a bend around which they had just whirled. Sh.e.l.ls would rain in the fields on either side of them; cars would leap by them in the dark, coming perilously close and swerving away just in time; and still they went bravely on to their posts.
Everything would be blackest darkness and they would think they were stealing along finely, when all of a sudden an incendiary bomb would burst and flare up like a house-on-fire lighting up the whole country for miles about, and there you were in plain sight of the enemy! And you couldn"t turn back nor hesitate a second or you would be caught by the ever watchful foe! You had to go straight ahead in all that blare of light!
The S. A. Adjutant"s headquarters were fifty feet below the ground; sometimes the earth would rock with the explosives. Two of the dugouts were burrowed almost beneath the trenches and S. A. Officers here looked after the needs of the men who were actually engaged in fighting. Every night the shattered villages were raked and torn above them. Such dugouts could only be left at night or when the firing ceased. The two men who operated these lived a nerve-racking existence. Of course, all pies and doughnuts for these places had to be prepared far to the rear, and no fire could be built as near to the front as this. It was no easy task to bring the supplies back and forth. It was almost always done at the risk of life.
The Staff-Captain and the Adjutant were speeding over a sh.e.l.l-swept road one cold, black, wet night at reckless speed without a light, their hearts filled with anxiety, for a rumor had reached them that two Salvation Army la.s.sies had been killed by sh.e.l.l fire. The night was full of the sound of war, the distant rumble of the heavy guns, the nervous stutter of machine guns, the tearing screech of a barrage high above the road.
Suddenly in front of them yawned a black gulf. The Adjutant jammed on his brakes, but it was too late. The game little Ford sailed right into a big sh.e.l.l hole, and settled down three feet below the road right side up but tightly wedged in. The two travelers climbed out and reconnoitered but found the situation hopeless. There had been many sleepless nights before this one, and the men, weary beyond endurance, rolled up in their blankets, climbed into the car, and went to sleep, regardless of the guns that thundered all about them.
They were just lost to the land of reality when a soldier roused them summarily, saying:
"This is a heck of a place for the Salvation Army to go to sleep! If you don"t mind I"ll just pick your old bus out of here and send you on your way before it"s light enough for Fritzy to spot you and send a calling card."
He was grinning at them cheerfully and they roused to the occasion.
"How are you going to do it?" asked the Adjutant, who, by the way, was Smiling Billy, the same one the soldiers called "one game little guy." "It will take a three-ton truck to get us out of this hole!"
"I haven"t got a truck but I guess we can turn the trick all right!" said the soldier.