The General’s face softened, and the twinkle flashed across to his eyes, with something like a tear behind its fire. Somehow he didn’t look like a Commanding Officer who had just been defied. A wonderful light broke over his face and he said:
“Well, if the Salvation Army wants to stay let them stay!” And so they stayed.
It was in a German-dug cave that they had their headquarters, cut out of the side of a hill and opening into the hospital yard. It was a work of art, that cave. There was a passage-way a hundred feet long with avenues each side and places for cots, room enough to accommodate a hundred men.
The German airplanes came in droves. When the bugle sounded every one must get under cover. There must be nobody in sight for the Germans were out to get individuals, and even one person was not too insignificant for them to waste their ammunition upon. They had a mistaken idea, perhaps, that this sort of thing destroyed our morale. The tents, of course, were no protection against shells and bombs, and presently the Boche began to shell the town in good earnest, especially at night. Gas alarms, also, would sound out in the middle of the night and everybody would have to rush out and put on their gas masks. They would not last long at a time, of course, but it broke up any rest that might have been had, and it was only too evident that the enemy was trying to get the range on the hospital.
One morning, standing by the window making cocoa for the boys, one of the lassies saw an eight-inch shell land between the hospital tents, ten feet in front of the window, and only five feet from the door of the place where the severely wounded were lying. These shells always kill at two hundred feet. All that saved them was that the shell buried itself deep in the soft earth and was a dud.
The shells were coming every twenty minutes and there was no time to lose for now the enemy had their range. At once all hands got busy and began to evacuate the wounded men into the Salvation Army cave. The cave would accommodate seventy men, but they managed to get a hundred men inside, most of them on litters. They were all safe and the girls heard the whistle of the next shell and made haste toward safety themselves. But someone had carelessly dropped a whole outfit of blankets and things across the passageway of the dugout and the first woman to enter fell across it, shutting out the other two. Before anything could be done the next shell struck the doorway, partly burying the fallen young woman. Inside the dugout rocks came down on some of the men on litters, and anxious hands extricated the lassie from the débris that had fallen upon her, and lifted her tenderly. She was pretty badly bruised and lamed, besides being wounded on her leg, but the brave young woman would not claim her wound, nor let it become known to the military authorities lest they would forbid the girls to stay at the front any longer. So for three weeks she patiently limped about and worked with the rest, quietly bearing her pain, and would not go to the hospital. One lassie outside was struck on the helmet by a piece of falling rock. If she had not had on her helmet she would have been killed.
The shelling continued for six hours.
The hospital was all the time filled with wounded men and there was plenty to be done twenty-four hours out of every day. The women moved about among the men as if they were their own brothers.
A poor shell-shocked boy lay on his cot talking wildly in delirium, living over the battle again, charging his men, ordering them to advance.
“Company H. Advance! See that hill over there? It’s full of Germans, but we’ve got to take it!”