The War Romance of the Salvation Army Part 41

In a recent issue of the _Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_, Mr. Irvin Cobb, who has just returned from France, has this to say of the Salvation Army:

"Right here seems a good-enough place for me to slip in a few words of approbation for the work which another organization has accomplished in France since we put our men into the field. n.o.body asked me to speak in its favor because, so far as I can find out, it has no publicity department. I am referring to the Salvation Army. May it live forever for the service which, without price and without any boasting on the part of its personnel, it is rendering to our boys in France!

"A good many of us who hadn't enough religion, and a good many more of us who, mayhap, had too much religion, looked rather contemptuously upon the methods of the Salvationists. Some have gone so far as to intimate that the Salvation Army was vulgar in its methods and lacking in dignity and even in reverence. Some have intimated that converting a sinner to the tap of a ba.s.s drum or the tinkle of a tambourine was an improper process altogether. Never again, though, shall I hear the blare of the cornet as it cuts into the chorus of hallelujah whoops, where a ring of blue- bonneted women and blue-capped men stand exhorting on a city street-corner under the gaslights, without recalling what some of their enrolled brethren--and sisters--have done, and are doing, in Europe!

"The American Salvation Army in France is small, but, believe me, it is powerfully busy! Its war delegation came over without any fanfare of the trumpets of publicity. It has no paid press agents here and no impressive headquarters. There are no well-known names, other than the names of its executive heads, on its rosters or on its advisory boards. None of its members are housed at an expensive hotel and none of them have handsome automobiles in which to travel about from place to place. No campaigns to raise nation-wide millions of dollars for the cost of its ministrations overseas were ever held at home. I imagine it is the pennies of the poor that mainly fill its war chest. I imagine, too, that sometimes its finances are an uncertain quant.i.ty. Incidentally, I am a.s.sured that not one of its male workers here is of draft age unless he holds exemption papers to prove his physical unfitness for military service. The Salvationists are taking care to purge themselves of any suspicion that potential slackers have joined their ranks in order to avoid the possibility of having to perform duties in khaki.

"Among officers, as well as among enlisted men, one occasionally hears criticism--which may or may not be based on a fair judgment--for certain branches of certain activities of certain organizations. But I have yet to meet any soldier, whether a brigadier or a private, who, if he spoke at all of the Salvation Army, did not speak in terms of fervent grat.i.tude for the aid that the Salvationists are rendering so unostentatiously and yet so very effectively. Let a sizable body of troops move from one station to another, and hard on its heels there came a squad of men and women of the Salvation Army. An army truck may bring them, or it may be they have a battered jitney to move them and their scanty outfits. Usually they do not ask for help from anyone in reaching their destinations. They find lodgment in a wrecked sh.e.l.l of a house or in the corner of a barn. By main force and awkwardness they set up their equipment, and very soon the word has spread among the troops that at such and such a place the Salvation Army is serving free hot drinks and free doughnuts and free pies. It specializes in doughnuts--the Salvation Army in the field does--the real old-fas.h.i.+oned home-made ones that taste of home to a homesick soldier boy!

"I did not see this, but one of my a.s.sociates did. He saw it last winter in a dismal place on the Toul sector. A file of our troops were finis.h.i.+ng a long hike through rain and snow over roads knee-deep in half-thawed icy slush. Cold and wet and miserable they came tramping into a cheerless, half-empty town within sound and range of the German guns. They found a reception committee awaiting them there--in the person of two Salvation Army la.s.sies and a Salvation Army Captain. The women had a fire going in the dilapidated oven of a vanished villager's kitchen. One of them was rolling out the batter on a plank, with an old wine-bottle for a rolling pin, and using the top of a tin can to cut the dough into circular strips; the other woman was cooking the doughnuts, and as fast as they were cooked the man served them out, spitting hot, to hungry, wet boys clamoring about the door, and n.o.body was asked to pay a cent!

"At the risk of giving mortal affront to ultradoctrinal pract.i.tioners of applied theology, I am firmly committed to the belief that by the grace and the grease of those doughnuts those three humble benefactors that day strengthened their right to a place in the Heavenly Kingdom."

MY DEAR COLONEL JENKINS:

I take pleasure in sending you a copy of my report as Commissioner to France, in which I made reference to the work of the Salvation Army with our American Expeditionary Forces.

I cannot recall ever hearing the slightest criticism of the work of the Salvation Army, but I heard many words of enthusiastic appreciation on the part not only of the Generals and officers but of the soldiers.

I saw many evidences showing that the unselfish, sometimes reckless, abandon of your workers had a great effect upon our men.

I am sure that the Salvation Army also stands in high respect for its religious influence upon the men.

It was pleasant still further to hear such words of appreciation as I did from General Duncan regarding the work of Chaplain Allan, the divisional chaplain of General Duncan's unit. He has evidently risen to his work in a splendid way. It is a pleasure to have this opportunity of rendering this testimony to you.

Faithfully yours,

CHARLES S. MACFARLAND, General Secretary.

The _New York Globe_ printed the following:

HUNS DON'T STOP SALVATION ARMY. MEETING HELD IN DEEP DUGOUT UNDER RUINED VILLAGE--MANDOLIN SUPPLANTS THE ORGAN.

By Herbert Corey.

JUST BEHIND THE SOMME FRONT, May 3l.--Somewhere in the tangle of smashed walls there was a steely jingle. At first the sound was hard to identify, so odd are acoustics in this which was once a little town. There were stub ends of walls here and there--bare, raw snags of walls sticking up--and now and then a rooftree tilted pathetically against a ruin, or a pile of dusty masonry that had been a house. A little path ran through this tangle, and under an arched gateway that by a miracle remained standing and down the steps of a dugout. The jingling sound became recognizable.

Some one was trying to play on a mandolin:

"Jesus, Lover of My Soul."

It was grotesque and laughable. The grand old hymn refused its cadences to this instrument of a tune-loving bourgeoise. It seemed to stand aloof and unconquered. This is a hymn for the swelling notes of an organ or for the great harmonies of a choir. It was not made to be debased by a.s.sociation with this caterwauling wood and wire, this sounding board for barbershop chords, this accomplice of sick lovers leaning on village fences. Then there came a voice:

"By gollies, brother, you're getting it! I actually believe you're getting it, brother. We'll have a swell meeting to-night."

I went down the steps into the Salvation Army man's dugout. A large soldier, cigarette depending from his lower lip, unshaven, tin hat tipped on the back of his head, was picking away at the wires of the mandolin with fingers that seemed as thick and yellow as ears of corn. As I came in he stated profanely, that these dam' things were not made to pick out condemn' hymn tunes on. The Salvation Army man encouraged him:

"You keep on, brother," said he, "and we'll have a fine meeting for the Brigadier when he comes in to-night."

TAKING HIS CHANCES.

Another boy was sitting there, his head rather low. The mandolin player indicated him with a jerk. "He got all roughed up last night," said he.

"We found a bottle of some sweet stuff these Frogs left in the house where we're billeted. Tasted a good deal like syrup. But it sure put Bull out."

Bull turned a pair of inflamed eyes on the musician.

"You keep on a-talkin', and I'll hang somep'n on your eye," said Bull, hoa.r.s.ely.

Then he replaced his head in his hands. The Salvation Army man laughed at the interlude and then returned to the player.

"See," said he, "it goes like this----" He hummed the wonderful old hymn.

The floor of the dugout was covered with straw. The stairs which led to it were wide, so that at certain hours the sun shone in and dried out the walls. There were few slugs crawling slimily on the walls of the Salvation Army's place. Rats were there, of course, and bugs of sorts, but few slugs. On the whole it was considered a good dugout, because of these things. The roof was not a strong one, it seemed to me. A 77-sh.e.l.l would go through it like a knife through cheese. I said so to the Salvation Army man.

"Aw, brother," said he. "We've got to take our chances along with the rest."

At the foot of the stairs was a table on which were the few things the Salvation Army man had to sell, up here under the guns. There were some figs and a handful of black licorice drops and a few nuts. Boys kept coming in and demanding cookies. Cookies there were none, but there was hope ahead. If the Brigadier managed to get in to-night with the fliv, there might be cookies.

NO MONEY, BUT GOOD CHEER.

"Just our luck," said some morose doughboy, "if a sh.e.l.l hit the fliv. It's a h.e.l.l of a road----"

"No sh.e.l.l has. .h.i.t it yet, brother," said the Salvation Army man, cheerily.

Fifteen dollars would have bought everything he had in stock. One could have carried away the whole stock in the pockets of an army overcoat. The Salvation Army has no money, you know. It is hard to buy supplies for canteens over here, unless a pocket filled with money is doing the buying.

The Salvation Army must pick up its stuff where it can get it. Yesterday there had been sardines and shaving soap and tin watches. To-day there were only figs and licorice drops and nuts.

"But if the Brigadier gets in," said the Salvation Army man, "there will be something sweet to eat. And we'll have a little meeting of song and praise, brother--just to thank G.o.d for the chance he has given us to help."

Here there is no one else to serve the boys. Other organizations have more money and more men, but for some reason they have not seen fit to come to this which was once a town. Sh.e.l.ls fall into it from six directions all day and all night long. Now and then it is ga.s.sed. A few kilometres away is the German line. One reaches town over a road which is nightly torn to pieces by high explosives. No one comes here voluntarily, and no one stays willingly--except the Salvation Army man. He's here for keeps.

Men come down into his little dugout to play checkers and dominoes and buy sweet things to eat. He is here to help them spiritually as well as physically and they know it, and yet they do not hear him. He talks to them just as they talk to each other, except that he does not swear and he does not tell stories that have too much of a tang. He never obtrudes his religion on them. Just once in a while--on the nights the Brigadier gets in--there is a little song and praise meeting. They thank G.o.d for the chance they have to help.

That night the Brigadier got in with his cookies and chocolates and his message that salvation is free. Perhaps a dozen men sat around uncomfortably in the little dugout and listened to him. The man of the mandolin had refused at the last moment. He said he would be dam' if he could play a hymn tune on that thing. But the old hymn quavered cheerily out of the little dugout into the sh.e.l.l-torn night. The husky voices of the Brigadier and the Ensign and Holy Joe carried it on, while the little audience sat mute.

While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high.

Then there was a little prayer and a few straight, cordial words from the Brigadier and then, somewhere in that perilous night outside, "taps"

sounded and the men were off to bed. They had no word of thanks as they shook hands on parting. They did not speak to each other as they picked their way along the path through the ruins. But when they reached the street some one said very profanely and very earnestly:

"I can lick any man's son who says THEY ain't all right."