After that the Salvation Army put up a hut for their work. A number of soldiers assisted. They put up a stove, brought their piano and phonograph, and made the place look cheerful. Then they got the regimental band and had an opening, the first big thing that was recognized by the military authorities. The Salvation Army Staff-Captain in charge of that zone took a long board and set candles on it and put it above the platform like a big chandelier. The Brigade Commander was there, and a Captain came to represent the Colonel. A chaplain spoke. The lassies who took part in the entertainment were the first girls the soldiers had seen for many months.
Long before the hour announced for the service the soldier boys had crowded the hutment to its greatest capacity. Game and reading tables had been moved to the rear and extra benches brought in. The men stood three deep upon the tables and filled every seat and every inch of standing room. When there was no more room on the floor, they climbed to the roof and lined the rafters. There was no air and the Adjutant came to say there was too much light, but none of these things damped the enthusiasm.
With the aid of the regimental chaplain, the Staff-Captain had arranged a suitable program for the occasion, the regimental band furnishing the music.
When the General entered the hutment all of the men stood and uncovered and the band stopped abruptly in the middle of a strain. "That's the worst thing I ever did--stopping the music," he exclaimed ruefully. He refused to occupy the chair which had been prepared for him, saying: "No, I want to stand so that I can look at these men."
The records of the work in that hut would be precious reading for the fathers and mothers of those boys, for the Fighting Eighteenth Infantry are mostly gone, having laid their young lives on the altar with so many others. Here is a bit from one lassie's letter, giving a picture of one of her days in the hut:
"Well, I must tell you how the days are spent. We open the hut at 7; it is cleaned by some of the boys; then at 8 we commence to serve cocoa and coffee and make pies and doughnuts, cup cakes and fry eggs and make all kinds of eats until it is all you see. Well, can you think of two women cooking in one day 2500 doughnuts, 8 dozen cup cakes, 50 pies, 800 pancakes and 225 gallons of cocoa, and one other girl serving it? That is a day's work in my last hut. Then meeting at night, and it lasts two hours."