The War Romance of the Salvation ArmyHill, Grace Livingston
History
The War Romance of the Salvation Army
Hill, Grace Livingston
World War, 1914-1918 -- War work -- Salvation Army
In the morning they gathered great armfuls of crimson poppies from the
fields, creamy snowballs from neglected gardens, and blue bachelor
buttons from the hillsides, which they arranged in bouquets of red,
white and blue for the graves. They had no vases in which to place the
flowers but they used the apple tins in which the apples for their pies
had been canned.
The centuries-old gray cemetery nestled in a curve of the road between
wheat fields on every side. A gray, moss-covered, lichen-hung wall
surrounded it. The five American graves were under the shadow of the
Western wall, and the sun was slowly sinking in his glory as the
company of soldiers escorted the women into the cemetery. They passed
between the ponderous old gray stones, and beaded wreaths of the French
graves; and the officers and men lined up facing the five graves. The
women placed the tricolored flowers in the cans prepared for them, and
planted the flags beside them. Then the elder woman, who had sons of
her own, stepped out and saluted the military commanding officer:
“Colonel” said she, “with your permission we would like to follow our
custom and offer a prayer for the bereaved.” Instantly permission was
given and every head was uncovered as the Salvationist poured out her
heart in prayer to the Everlasting Father, commending the dead into His
tender Keeping, and pleading for the sorrow-stricken friends across the
sea, until the soldiers’ tears fell unchecked as they stood with rifles
stiffly in front of them listening to the quiet voice of the woman as
she prayed. God seemed Himself to come down, and the living boys
standing over their five dead comrades could not help but be enfolded
in His love, and feel the sense of His presence. They knew that they,
too, might soon be sleeping even as these at their feet. It seemed but
a step to the other life. When the prayer was finished a firing squad
fired five volleys over the graves, and then the bugler played the taps
and the little service was over. The lassies lingered to take pictures
of the graves and that night they wrote letters describing the
ceremony, to be sent with the photographs to the War Department at
Washington with the request that they be forwarded to the nearest
relatives of the five men buried at Treveray.
[Illustration: The centuries-old gray cemetery in Treveray]
[Illustration: Colonel Barker placing the commander’s flowers on
Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt’s grave]
There were exercises at Menil-la-Tour and here they had built a simple
platform in the centre of the ground and erected a flagpole at one
corner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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