She asked him his division and he told her he belonged to one that had been coöperating with the French.
"But how can that be?" she asked in surprise, "we have never worked with your division. How do you know about us?"
"I only saw the Salvation Army once," he replied, "but I'll never forget it. It was when I came back to consciousness in the Dressing Station at Cheppy, and the first thing I saw was a Salvation Army girl bending over me washing the blood and dirt off my face with cold water. She looked like an angel and she was that to me. She gave me a drink of cold lemonade when I was burning up with fever, and she lifted my head to pour it between my lips when I had not strength to move myself. No, I shall not forget!"
One bright young fellow with a bandaged eye turned a cheerful grin toward the Salvation Army visitor as she said with compassion: "Son, I'm sorry you've lost your eye."
"Oh, that's nothing," was the gay reply, "I can see everything out of the other eye. I've got seven holes in me, too, but believe me I'm not going home for the loss of an eye and seven holes! I'll get out yet and get into the fight!"
The Salvation Army officer and his wife who were stationed at Bonvillers visited every man in the local hospital every day, sleeping every night in the open fields. As they are quite elderly, this was no little hardship, especially in rainy weather.
Five lassies stationed at Noyers St. Martin were for several weeks forced by the nightly shelling and air-raids to take their blankets out into the fields at night and sleep under the stars. One of these girls was called "Sunshine" because of her smile.
On the eve of Decoration Day a military Colonel visited her in the hut. He seemed rather depressed, perhaps by the ceremonies of the day, and said that he had come to be cheered up. In parting he said, "Little girl, you had better get out of town early to-night; I feel as though something is going to happen." Less than an hour later, while the girls were just preparing for the night in a field half a mile distant, an aerial bomb dropped by an aviator on the house in which he was billeted killed him and two other Captains who were sitting with him at the time. He had been a great friend of the Salvation Army.