Then the song would die slowly away and another group would come by singing: “Tell mother I’ll be there!” Always the thought of mother. A little interval and the jolly swing of “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile!” came floating by, and then sweetly, solemnly, through the chill of the darkness, with a thrill in the words, came another group of voices:
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide!’
There had been rumors that Montsec was mined and that as soon as a foot was set upon it it would blow up.
The girls went and lay down on their cots and tried to sleep, praying in their hearts for the boys who had gone forth to fight. But they could not sleep. It was as though they had all the burden of all the mothers and wives and sisters of those boys upon them, as they lay there, the only women within miles, the only women so close to the lines.
About half-past one a big naval gun went off. It was as though all the noises of the earth were let loose about them. They could lie still no longer. They got up, put on their rain-coats, rubber boots, steel helmets, took their gas masks and went out in the fields where they could see. Soon the barrage was started. Darkness took on a rosy hue from shells bursting. First a shell fell on Montsec. Then one landed in the ammunition dump just back of it and blew it up, making it look like a huge crater of a volcano. It seemed as if the universe were on fire. The noise was terrific. The whole heavens were lit up from end to end. The beauty and the horror of it were indescribable.
At five o’clock they went sadly back to the hut.
The hospital tents had been put up in the dark and now stood ready for the wounded who were expected momentarily. The girls took off their rain-coats and reported for duty. It was expected there would be many wounded. The minutes passed and still no wounded arrived. Day broke and only a few wounded men had been brought in. It was reported that the roads were so bad that the ambulances were slow in getting there. With sad hearts the workers waited, but the hours passed and still only a straggling few arrived, and most of those were merely sick from explosives. There were almost no wounded! Only ninety in all.
Then at last there came one bearing a message. There were no wounded! The Germans had been taken so by surprise, the victory had been so complete at that point, that the boys had simply leaped over all barriers and gone on to pursue the enemy. Quickly packing up seven outfits a little company of workers started after their divisions on trucks over ground that twenty-four hours before had been occupied by the Germans, on roads that were checkered with many shell holes which American road makers were busily filling up and bridging as they passed.
One of the Salvation Army truck drivers asked a negro road mender what he thought of his job. He looked up with a pearly smile and a gleam of his eyes and replied: “Boss, I’se doin’ mah best to make de world safe foh Democrats!”
They had to stop frequently to remove the bodies of dead horses from the way so recently had that place been shelled. They passed through grim skeletons of villages shattered and torn by shell fire; between tangles of rusty barbed wire that marked the front line trenches. Then on into territory that had long been held by the Huns. More than half of the villages they passed were partially burned by the retreating enemy. All along the way the pitiful villagers, free at last, came out to greet them with shouts of welcome, calling “Bonnes Americaines! Bonnes Americaines!” Some flung their arms about the Salvation Army lassies in their joy. Some of the villagers had not even known that the Americans were in the war until they saw them.