The War Romance of the Salvation Army

by Evangeline Booth; Grace Livingston Hill

The Staff-Captain thanked him, but told him that he thought they would stay with the boys.

The boys, of course, heard of this and the Salvation Army people had another bond between them and the soldiers. The boys felt that the Salvationists were their very own. Nothing could have more endeared them to the boys than to share their life and hardships.

The Salvation Army had not been with the soldiers many hours before they discovered that the disease of homesickness which they had been sent to succor was growing more and more malignant and spreading fast.

The training under French officers was very severe. Trench feet with all its attendant suffering was added to the other discomforts. Was it any wonder that homesickness seized hold of every soldier there?

It had been raining steadily for thirty-six days, making swamps and pools everywhere. Depression like a great heavy blanket hung over the whole area.

The Salvation Army lassies at Montiers were in consultation. Their supplies were all gone, and the state of the roads on account of the rain was such that all transportation was held up. They had been waiting, hoping against hope, that a new load of supplies would arrive, but there seemed no immediate promise of that.

“We ought to have something more than just chocolate to sell to the soldiers, anyway,” declared one lassie, who was a wonderful cook, looking across the big tent to the drooping shoulders and discouraged faces of the boys who were hovering about the Victrola, trying to extract a little comfort from the records. “We ought to be able to give them some real home cooking!”

They all agreed to this, but the difficulties in the way were great. Flour was obtainable only in small quantities. Now and then they could get a sack of flour or a bag of sugar, but not often. Lard also was a scarce article. Besides, there were no stoves, and no equipment had as yet been issued for ovens. All about them were apple orchards and they might have baked some pies if there had been ovens, but at present that was out of the question. After a long discussion one of the girls suggested doughnuts, and even that had its difficulties, although it really was the only thing possible at the time. For one thing they had no rolling-pin and no cake-cutter in the outfit. Nevertheless, they bravely went to work. The little tent intended for such things had blown down, so the lassie had to stand out in the rain to prepare the dough.

The first doughnuts were patted out, until someone found an empty grape-juice bottle and used that for a rolling-pin. As they had no cutter they used a knife, and twisted them, making them in shape like a cruller. They were cooked over a wood fire that had to be continually stuffed with fuel to keep the fat hot enough to fry. The pan they used was only large enough to cook seven at once, but that first day they made one hundred and fifty big fat sugary doughnuts, and when the luscious fragrance began to float out on the air and word went forth that they had real “honest-to-goodness” home doughnuts at the Salvation Army hut, the line formed away out into the road and stood patiently for hours in the rain waiting for a taste of the dainties. As there were eight hundred men in the outfit and only a hundred and fifty doughnuts that first day, naturally a good many were disappointed, but those who got them were appreciative. One boy as he took the first sugary bite exclaimed: “Gee! If this is war, let it continue!”

The next day the girls managed to make three hundred, but one of them was not satisfied with a doughnut that had no hole in it, and while she worked she thought, until a bright idea came to her. The top of the baking-powder can! Of course! Why hadn’t they thought of that before? But how could they get the hole? There seemed nothing just right to cut it. Then, the very next morning the inside tube to the coffee percolator that somebody had brought along came loose, and the lassie stood in triumph with it in her hand, calling to them all to see what a wonderful hole it would make in the doughnut. And so the doughnut came into its own, hole and all.