The War Romance of the Salvation Army. Evangeline Booth
sunny afternoon, August 12th, when this first party of American Salvation Army workers set sail for France.
No doubt there was many a smile of contempt from the bystanders as they saw the little group of blue uniforms with the gold-lettered scarlet hatbands, and noticed the four poke bonnets among the number. What did the tambourine lassies know of real warfare? To those who reckoned the Salvation Army in terms of bands on the street corner, and shivering forms guarding Christmas kettles, it must have seemed the utmost audacity for this “play army” to go to the front.
When they arrived at Bordeaux on August 21st they went at once to Paris to be fitted out with French uniforms, as General Pershing had given them all the rank of military privates, and ordered that they should wear the regulation khaki uniforms with the addition of the red Salvation Army shield on the hats, red epaulets, and with skirts for the women.
A cabled message had reached France from the Commander saying that funds to the extent of twenty-five thousand dollars had been arranged for, and would be supplied as needed, and that a party of eleven officers were being dispatched at once. After that matters began to move rapidly.
A portable tent, 25 feet by 100 feet, was purchased and shipped to Demange;--and a touring car was bought with part of the money advanced.
Purchasing an automobile in France is not a matter merely of money. It is a matter for Governmental sanction, long delay, red tape--amazing good luck.
At the start the whole Salvation Army transportation system consisted of this one first huge limousine, heartlessly overdriven and overworked. For many weeks it was Colonel Barker’s office and bedroom. It carried all of the Salvation Army workers to and from their stations, hauled all of the supplies on its roof, inside, on its fenders, and later also on a trailer. It ran day and night almost without end, two drivers alternating. It was a sort of super-car, still in the service, to which Salvationists still refer with an affectionate amazement when they consider its terrific accomplishments. It hauled all of the lumber for the first huts and a not uncommon sight was to see it tearing along the road at forty miles an hour, loaded inside and on top with supplies, several passengers clinging to its fenders, and a load of lumber or trunks trailing behind. For a long time Colonel Barker had no home aside from this car. He slept wherever it happened to be for the night--often in it, while still driven. One night he and a Salvation Army officer were lost in a strange woods in the car until four in the morning. They were without lights and there were no real roads.
Later, of course, after long waiting, other trucks were bought and to-day there are about fifty automobiles in this service. Chauffeurs had to be developed out of men who had never driven before. They were even taken from huts and detailed to this work.
In this first touring car Colonel Barker with one of the newly arrived adjutants for driver, started to Demange.
Twenty kilometers outside of Paris the car had a breakdown. The two clambered out and reconnoitered for help. There was nothing for it but to take the car back to Paris. A man was found on the road who was willing to take it in tow, but they had no rope for a tow line. Over in the field by the roadside the sharp eyes of the adjutant discovered some old rusty wire. He pulled it out from the tangle of long grass, and behold it was a part of old barbed-wire entanglements!
In great surprise they followed it up behind the camouflage and found themselves in the old trenches of 1914. They walked in the trenches and entered some of the dugouts where the soldiers had lived in the memorable days of the Marne fight. As they looked a little farther up the hillside they were startled to see great pieces of heavy field artillery, their long barrels sticking out from pits and pointing at them. They went closer to examine, and found the guns were made of wood painted black. The barrels were perfectly made, even to the breech blocks mounted on wheels, the tires of which were made of tin. They were a perfect imitation of a heavy ordnance piece in every detail. Curious, wondering what it could mean, the two explorers looked about them and saw an old Frenchman coming toward them. He proved to be the keeper of the place, and he told them the story. These were the guns that saved Paris in 1914.
The Boche had been coming on twenty kilometers one day, nineteen the next, fourteen the next, and were daily drawing nearer to the great city. They were so confident that they had even announced the day they would sweep through the gates of Paris. The French had no guns heavy enough to stop that mad rush, and so they mounted these guns of wood, cut away the woods all about them and for three hundred meters in front, and waited with their pitifully thin, ill-equipped line to defend the trenches.
Then the German airplanes came and took pictures of them, and returned to their lines to make plans for the next day; but when the pictures were developed and enlarged they saw to their horror that the French had brought heavy guns to their front and were preparing to blow them out of France. They decided to delay their advance and wait until they could bring up artillery heavier than the French had, and while they waited the Germans broke into the French wine cellars and stole the “vin blanche” and “vin rouge.” The French call this “light” wine and say it takes the place of water, which is only fit for washing; but it proved to be too heavy for the Germans that day. They drank freely, not even waiting to unseal the bottles of rare old vintage, but knocked the necks off the bottles against the stone walls and drank. They were all drunk and in no condition to conquer France when their artillery came up, and so the wooden French guns and the French wine saved Paris.
When the two men finally arrived in Demange the Military General greeted them gladly and invited them to dine with him.
He had for a cook a famous French chef who provided delicious meals, but for dessert the chef had attempted to make an American apple pie, which was a dismal failure. The colonel said to the general: “Just wait till our Salvation Army women get here and I will see that they make you a pie that is a pie.”
The General and the members of his staff said they would remember that promise and hold him to it.
The pleasure which the thought of that pie aroused furnished a suggestion for work later on.
Within two or three days the hut had arrived. The question of a lot upon which to place it was most important. The billeting officers stated that none could be had within the town and insisted that the hut would have to be placed in an inaccessible spot on the outskirts of the town, but Colonel Barker asked the General if he would mind his looking about himself and he readily assented. The indomitable Barker, true to the “never-say-die” slogan of the Salvation Army, went out and found a splendid lot on the main street in the heart of the town, which was being partly used by its owner as a vegetable garden. He quickly secured the services of a French interpreter and struck a bargain with the owner to rent the lot for the sum of sixteen dollars a year, and on his return with the information that this lot had been secured the General was greatly impressed.
A wire had been sent to Paris instructing the men of the party to come down immediately. A couple of tents were secured to provide temporary sleeping accommodation and the men lined up in the chow line with the doughboys at meal-time.
The six Salvationists pulled off their coats at once and went to work, much to the amusement of a few curious soldiers who stood idly watching them.
They discovered right at the start that the building materials which had been sent ahead of them had been dumped on the wrong lot, and the first thing they had to do was to move them all to the proper site. This was no easy task for men who had but recently left office chairs and clerical work. Unaccustomed muscles cried out in protest and weary backs ached and complained, but the men stubbornly marched back and forth carrying big timbers, and attracting not a little attention from soldiers who wondered what in the world the Salvation Army could be up to over in France. Some of them were suspicious. Had they come to try and stuff religion down their throats? If so, they would soon find out their mistake. So, half in belligerence, half in amusement, the soldiers watched their progress. It was a big joke to them, who had come here for serious business and longed to be at it.
Steadily, quietly, the work went on. They laid the timbers and erected the framework of their hut, keeping at it when the rain fell and soaked them to the skin. They were a bit awkward at it at first, perhaps, for it was new work