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
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 quantities 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 passed 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 lassies 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
_débris_ 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 lassies, “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 Lassie 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.
A sweet little Angel that went o’er the sea,
With the emblem of God in her hand;
A wonderful Angel who brought there to me
The sweet of a war-furrowed land.
The crown on her head was a ribbon of red,
A symbol of all that’s divine;
Though she called each a brother she’s more like a mother,
Salvation Lassie of Mine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account