Part 17 (1/2)
_Friday, 24:_ Am all ready to move to a new dugout when Staff-Captain arrives and tells me I am ordered out by the military.”
Here is the Military Order received by the Staff-Captain:
”To Major Coe,
”Salvation Army:
”(1) Major Wilson, Chief G1, directs that the Salvation Army evacuate 'Coullemelle' as soon as possible.
”(2) He desires that they leave to-night if possible.
”(3) This message was received by me from the office of G1.
”L. JOHNSON, ”1st Lieut., F. A.”
Orders also arrived soon for the removal of the Salvation Army workers in Broyes:
”Headquarters, 1st Division, G-1.
”American Expeditionary Forces, ” June 3, 1919.
”Memorandum: To Mr. L. A. Coe, Salvation Army, La Folie.
”The hut, which it is understood the Salvation Army is operating in Broyes, will, for military reasons, be removed from there as soon as practicable.
”It is contrary to the desire of the Commanding General that women workers be employed in huts or canteens east of the line Mory-Chepoix-Tartigny, and if any are now so located they are to 'be removed.
”The operations of technical services, Red Cross, Y.M.C.A., and other similar agencies is a function of this section of the General Staff and all questions pertaining to your movements and location of huts should in the future be referred to G.-1.
”By command of Major General Bullard.
”G. K Wilson, ”Major, General Staff, ”A. C. of S., G.-1.”
In Tartigny they found a house with five rooms, one of them very large.
The billeting officer turned this over to the Salvation Army.
There was plenty of s.p.a.ce and the girls might have a room to themselves here, instead of just curtaining off a corner of a tent or making a part.i.tion of supply boxes in one end of the hut as they often had to do.
There was also plenty of furniture in the house, and they were allowed to go around the village and get chairs and tables or anything they wanted to fix up their canteen. The girls had great fun selecting easy-chairs and desks and anything they desired from the deserted houses, and before long the result was a wonderfully comfortable, cozy, home-like room.
”Gee! This is just like heaven, coming in here!” one of the boys said when he first saw it.
Just outside Tartigny there was a large ammunition dump, piles of sh.e.l.ls and boxes of other ammunition. It was under the trees and well camouflaged, but night after night the enemy airplanes kept trying to get it. The girls used to sit in the windows and watch the airplane battles.
They would stay until an airplane got over the house and then they would run to the cellar. They came so close one night that pieces of sh.e.l.l from the anti-aircraft guns fell over the house.
Sometimes the airplanes would come in the daytime, and the girls got into the habit of running out into the street to watch them. But at this the boys protested.
”Don't do that, you will get hit!” they begged. And one day the nose of an unexploded sh.e.l.l fell in the street just outside the door. After that they were more careful.
In this town one afternoon a whole truck-load of oranges arrived, being three hundred crates, four hundred oranges to a crate, for the canteen, and they were all gone by four o'clock!
The Headquarters of the Division Commander were in a beautiful old stone chateau of a peculiar color that seemed to be invisible to the airplanes.