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By Ian Hay


  THE LAST MILLION. How They Invaded France—and England.

  ALL IN IT: K I CARRIES ON.

  PIP: A ROMANCE OF YOUTH.

  GETTING TOGETHER.

  THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND.

  SCALLY: THE STORY OF A PERFECT GENTLEMAN. With frontispiece.

  A KNIGHT ON WHEELS.

  HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. Illustrated by Charles E. Brock.

  A SAFETY MATCH. With frontispiece.

  A MAN’S MAN. With frontispiece.

  THE RIGHT STUFF. With frontispiece.


HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK




THE LAST MILLION




                            The Last Million

                       How They Invaded France—and
                                 England

                                   BY
                                 IAN HAY

                             [Illustration]

                           BOSTON AND NEW YORK
                        HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
                      The Riverside Press Cambridge
                                  1919

                    COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY IAN HAY BEITH

                           ALL RIGHTS RESERVED




TO THAT BORN FIGHTER AND MODERN CRUSADER

THE AMERICAN DOUGHBOY




CONTENTS


           A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE              ix

       I. THE ARGONAUTS                          1

      II. SHIP’S COMPANY                        10

     III. THE LOWER DECK                        21

      IV. THE DANGER ZONE                       29

       V. TERRA INCOGNITA                       36

      VI. SOCIAL CUSTOMS OF THE ISLANDS         46

     VII. THREE MUSKETEERS IN LONDON            58

    VIII. THE PROMISED LAND                     78

      IX. THE EXILES                            91

       X. S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE                 104

      XI. THE LINE                             125

     XII. CHASING MONOTONY                     138

    XIII. AN EXCURSION AND AN ALARUM           148

     XIV. THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE            164

      XV. THE ELEVENTH HOUR                    174

     XVI. GALLIA VICTRIX                       193




A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE

[_Note: The following is the substance of a little “Welcome” which
the author was requested to write to American soldiers and sailors
visiting England for the first time during the fateful days of 1918.
It was distributed upon the transports and in various American
centres in England. Its purpose is to set forth some of our national
peculiarities—and incidentally the author’s Confession of Faith. It has
no bearing upon the rest of the story, and may be skipped by the reader
without compunction._]


I. A WORD OF EXPLANATION

I write this welcome to you American soldiers and sailors because I know
America personally and therefore I know what the word “welcome” means.
And I see right away from the start that it is going to be a difficult
proposition for us over here to compete with America in that particular
industry. However, we mean to try, and we hope to succeed. Anyway, we
shall not fail from lack of good-will.

Having bid you welcome to our shores, I am next going to ask you to
remember just one thing.

We are very, very short-handed at present. During the past four years
the people of the British Isles have contributed to our common cause
more than six million soldiers and sailors. On a basis of population,
the purely British contribution to the forces of the British Empire
should have been seventy-six per cent. The actual contribution has been
eighty-four per cent; and when we come to casualties, not eighty-four
but eighty-six per cent of the total have been borne by those two
little islands, Great Britain and Ireland, which form the cradle of our
race. You can, therefore, imagine the strain upon our man-power. Every
man up to the age of fifty is now liable to be drafted. The rest of our
male population—roughly five millions—are engaged night and day in such
occupations as shipbuilding, coal-mining, munition-making, and making two
blades of corn grow where one grew before. They are assisted in every
department, even in the war zone, by hundreds and thousands of devoted
women.

So we ask you to remember that the England which you see is not England
as she was, and as she hopes to be again. You see England in overalls;
all her pretty clothes are put away for the duration. Some day we hope
once again to travel in trains where there is room to sit down; in motor
omnibuses and trolley cars for which you have not to wait in line. We
hope again to see our streets brightly lit, our houses freshly painted,
flower boxes glowing in every window, and fountains playing in Trafalgar
Square. We hope to see the city once again crowded with traffic as
thick as that on Fifth Avenue at Forty-second Street, and the uncanny
silence of our present-day streets banished by the cheerful turmoil of
automobiles and taxis. And above all we hope to see the air-raid shelters
gone, and the hundreds of crippled men in hospital blue no longer visible
in our streets, and the long lines of motor ambulances, which assemble
every evening outside the stations to meet the hospital trains, swept
away forever.

That is the old London—London as we would have you see it—London as
we hope you will see it when you come back to us as holiday visitors.
Meanwhile, we know you will make allowances for us.

Also, you may not find us very hilarious. In some ways we are strangely
cheerful. For instance, you will see little mourning worn in public. That
is because, if black were worn by all those who were entitled to wear it,
you would see little else. Again, you will find our theatres packed night
after night by a noisy, cheerful throng. But these are not idle people,
nor are they the same people all the time. They are almost entirely
hard-worked folks enjoying a few days’ vacation. The majority of them are
soldiers on leave from the Front. Few of them will be here next week;
some of them will never see a play again. The play goes on and helps the
audience to forget for a while, but it is a different audience every time.

And you will hear little talk about the War. We prefer to talk of
almost anything else. Probably you will understand why. There is hardly
a house in this country which has not by this time made a personal
contribution to our cause. In each of these houses one of two trials is
being endured—bereavement, the lesser evil, or suspense, the greater. We
cannot, therefore, talk lightly of the War, and being determined not to
talk anxiously about it, we compromise—we do not talk about it at all.

We want you to know this. To know is to understand.


II. FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Meanwhile, let us ask for your impressions of our country. It is only
fair that we should be allowed to do this, for you know what happens to
visitors in the United States when the reporters get their hooks into
them.

So far as I have been able to gather, your impressions amount to
something like this:

There is no ice-water, no ice-cream, no soda-fountains, no pie. It is
hard to get the old familiar eats in our restaurants.

Our cities are planned in such a way that it is impossible to get to any
place without a map and compass.

Our traffic all keeps to the wrong side of the street.

Our public buildings are too low.

There are hardly any street-car lines in London.

Our railroad cars are like boxes, and our locomotives are the smallest
things on earth.

Our weather is composed of samples.

Our coinage system is a practical joke.

Nobody, whether in street, train or tube, ever enters in conversation
with you. If by any chance they do, they grouch all the time about the
Government and the general management of the country.

Let us take the eats and drinks first. There is no ice-water. I admit it.
I am sorry, but there it is. There never was much, but now that ammonia
is mostly commandeered for munition work, there is less than ever. As a
nation we do not miss it. In this country our difficulty is not to get
cool, but to keep warm. Besides, it is possible that our moist climate,
and the absence of steam-heat in our houses, saves us from that parched
feeling which I have so often experienced in the United States. Anyway,
that familiar figure of American domestic life, the iceman, is unknown
to us. We drink our water at ordinary temperature—what you would call
tepid—and we keep our meat in a stone cellar instead of the ice chest. As
for ice-cream and soda-fountains, we have never given ourselves over to
them very much. As a nation, we are hot-food eaters—that is, when we can
get anything to eat! We are living on strict war rations here, just as
you are beginning to do in the States. So you must forgive our apparent
want of hospitality.


III. THE LAND WE LIVE IN

Next, our cities. After your own straight, wide, methodically-numbered
streets and avenues, London, Liverpool, Glasgow, and the rest must seem
like a Chinese puzzle. I can only say in excuse that they have been there
a very long time, and the people who started in to build them did not
foresee that they would ever extend more than a few blocks. If Julius
Cæsar had known that London was ultimately going to cover an area of
seven hundred square miles, and house a population of seven and a half
millions, I dare say he would have made a more methodical beginning. But
Julius Cæsar never visited America, and the science of town-planning was
unknown to him.

The narrow, winding streets of London are not suited to trolley-car
lines. This fact has given us the unique London motor ’bus, driven with
incredible skill, and gay with advertisements. There are not so many
of these ’buses to-day as there might be, and such as there are are
desperately full. But—_c’est la guerre!_ Hundreds of our motor ’buses are
over in France now. You will meet them when you get there, doing their
bit—hurrying reënforcements to some hard-pressed point, or running from
the back areas to the railhead, conveying happy, muddy Tommies home on
leave.

And while we are discussing London, let me recommend you to make a point
of getting acquainted with the London policeman. He is a truly great man.
Watch him directing the traffic down in the City, or where Wellington
Street, on its way to Waterloo Bridge, crosses the Strand. He has no
semaphore, no whistle; but simply extends an arm, or turns his back,
and the traffic swings to right or left, or stops altogether. Foreign
cities, even New York, are not ashamed to send their police to London
to pick up hints on traffic control from the London “Bobby.” Watch him
handle an unruly crowd. He is unarmed, and though he carries a club, you
seldom see it. If you get lost, ask him to direct you, for he carries a
map of London inside his head. He is everybody’s friend. By the way, if
he wears a helmet he is one of the regular force. A flat cap is a sign
of a “Special”—that is, a business man who is giving his spare time, by
day or night, to take the place of those policemen who have joined the
Colours. But, “Regular” or “Special,” he is there to help you.

There are no skyscrapers in England. The fact is, London is no place for
skyscrapers. It was New York which set the fashion. That was because
Manhattan Island, with the Hudson on one side and the East River on the
other, is physically incapable of expansion, and so New York, being
unable to spread out, shot upwards. Moreover, New York is built on solid
rock—you ask the Subway contractors about that!—while the original London
was built on a marsh, and the marsh is there still. So it will not
support structures like the Woolworth Building.

Most of our national highways start from London. There is one, a Roman
road, called Watling Street, which starts from the Marble Arch and runs
almost as straight as a rod from London to Chester, nearly two hundred
miles; and it never changes its name after the first few miles, which are
called the Edgware Road. Another, the Great North Road, runs from London
to Edinburgh, and is four hundred miles long. One hundred years ago the
mail coaches thundered along that road night and day, and highwaymen
had their own particular pitches where no other highwaymen dreamed of
butting in. Five years ago that road was a running river of touring
automobiles. Now, strings of grey military motor lorries rumble up and
down its entire length. Perhaps you will ride on some of them.

London, easy-going London, has her short cuts, too. That is where she
differs from the methodical, rectangular, convenient cities of the United
States. She is full of cunning by-ways, and every street has a character
of its own. The Strand was called “The Strand” a thousand years ago,
because it _was_ a strand—a strip of beach which ran alongside the Thames
at the foot of a cliff (which has long since been smoothed and sloped
out of existence) and was submerged each high tide. The English fought a
great battle with Danish pirates near by, and to-day the dead Danes sleep
their last sleep in St. Clement Danes’ Church, right in the middle of the
Strand.

Charing Cross, again, is the last of a great chain of such Crosses,
stretching from London to Scotland, each a day’s march from the next.
They were set up at the end of the thirteenth century by King Edward
the First of England, to commemorate the last journey of his beloved
Queen—his _Chère Reine_—who died while accompanying him upon a campaign
against the Scots. At each stopping-place on his homeward journey the
King erected one of these crosses to mark the spot where the Queen’s body
lay that night. Many have perished, but you can still trace some of them
along the Great North Road—Neville’s Cross, Waltham Cross, and finally
_Chère Reine_ Cross, or Charing Cross. That strikes the imagination. So
do Aldgate, Aldersgate, Moorgate, London Wall, and other streets which go
back to the days when London really was a walled city.

But a walk around London repays itself. There is Cleopatra’s Needle
on the Embankment—the veteran among all monuments of the world, except
perhaps its sister in Central Park, New York. It was in existence fifteen
hundred years before Christ, in the city of Heliopolis. It looked down
upon the Palace and Court of Queen Cleopatra in Alexandria. After that
it lay prostrate in the sands of the Egyptian desert for another fifteen
hundred years. It was finally presented to the British Government by the
Khedive of Egypt. It was towed to England on a raft, and was nearly lost
during a storm in the Bay of Biscay. Recently, the Zeppelins have tried
dropping bombs on it, as you can see for yourself. But a mere bomb or two
is nothing to a veteran with a constitution like that.

In Warwickshire, around Stratford and the Forest of Arden, you will
find yourself in Shakespeare’s country. At Gerrard’s Cross William Penn
is buried. In the old days a watch was kept on the grave, as certain
patriotic Americans considered that the proper place for William Penn to
be buried was Pennsylvania, and tried to give practical effect to this
pious opinion.

Scotland, if you happen to find yourself there, is entirely different
from England. England is flat or undulating, and except in the
manufacturing districts, is given up mainly to cornfields and pasture
land. Scotland, especially in the north, is cut up into hills and glens.
Not such hills as you possess in Colorado, or Nevada, or the Northwest.
There is no Pike’s Peak, no Shasta, no Rainier. The highest mountain in
the British Isles—Ben Nevis—is only a little over four thousand feet
high, but naturally Scotsmen think a good deal of it.

Scotland is a great battle-ground. The Scot has always been fighting some
one. There was perpetual warfare upon the border from the earliest days.
The Romans, who were business men, built a wall right across England
from Newcastle to Carlisle, to keep the Scots out. They failed, as you
will find out for yourself, when you study a list of British Cabinet
Ministers; but you can see parts of the wall still. Later, there were
everlasting border raids, from one side or the other, maintained as a
tradition by the great families of that region—the Percys, the Douglases,
the Maxwells, the Elliotts. Besides this, various English kings tried to
conquer Scotland. Sometimes one side would win a battle, sometimes the
other, but no victory was lasting. At last, in 1707, the Act of Union
was passed, and Scotland and England came under one central Government.
Unfortunately, the Highlanders of the north were not consulted in the
arrangement, and they put up two rebellions of their own. Prince Charles
Edward, the last of the Stuarts, actually invaded England, and got as
far as Derby. He was defeated, but the rebellion smouldered on for years
among the Highland glens. The chain of forts along the Caledonian Canal
to-day—Fort George, Fort Augustus, Fort William, now peaceful holiday
resorts—is a reminder of that time. But those days are all over now, and
for nearly two centuries English and Scottish soldiers have fought side
by side all over the world. Ireland was united to England and Scotland
by a similar Act of Union in 1800. This event, as you may possibly have
heard, has provided a fruitful topic of conversation ever since.


IV. OUR CLIMATE

Then there is our weather. An Englishman never knows on going to work
in the morning whether to take a palm-leaf hat, or a fur overcoat, or a
diving-suit. The trouble is that our weather arrives too suddenly. We
are an island in the middle of the ocean, and most of our weather comes
in from the Atlantic, where there is no one to watch it. Our weather
prophets simply have to take a chance. That is all. With you it is
different. Your weather travels across a continent three thousand miles
wide. You can see it coming, and telegraph to the next State what to
expect.

So, if you are spending a day’s leave in London, and walk out of blazing
sunshine at one end of the street into a thunderstorm at the other—well,
have a heart, and put it down to the War. We will try to fix things for
you when peace comes. But we cannot promise. Anyway, in peace-time we can
always wear rubbers.

That is all about British weather.


V. OUR TRANSPORTATION

Then there are our railroads. These, like our boxed-in passenger coaches
and little four-wheel freight cars, tickle you to death, I know. The
compartment system is a national symptom. An Englishman loves one thing
above all others, and that is to get a railway compartment to himself.
Nobody knows why, but he does. Probably the craving arises from his
inability to converse easily with strangers. That inability is passing
away. I shall speak of it later. But the three-class system is a relic of
antiquity. Fifty years ago there were three grades of comfort in British
railroad travelling. You could have your family horse-coach lashed upon
an open railroad truck and attached to the train. You thus travelled in
your own carriage, or chaise. I do not know what happened to the horses.
This was the usual custom of the grand folk of those days. Or you could
travel by ordinary railway coaches, without cushions or windows. Or you
could pack yourself into an open freight truck, much as soldiers on the
Western Front are packed to-day, and so reach your destination with other
merchandise.

That has all gone now. Practically the only difference between first,
second, and third class in these days is a difference of price—which
means elbow-room. (Second class, by the way, has almost entirely died
out.) The three classes are almost equal in comfort, especially just
now, when the War has abolished nearly all dining-cars and sleepers. Our
sleeping-car system never amounted to much, anyway. The journeys were too
short to make it necessary for such as were travelling by night (and they
were comparatively few) to go to bed. The lordly Pullman car is almost
unknown here.

I said just now that we used to be proud of our railroads in time of
peace. We are doubly proud of them to-day in the stress of War. They
passed automatically into Government hands the day the War broke out, and
they have given our whole country a lesson in the art of carrying on.
Thousands of their employees are away in the trenches; hundreds of their
locomotives and freight cars are in France or Mesopotamia or Palestine,
enlisted for the duration. You will notice them when you get over, marked
R.O.D. (Railway Operating Department). They have all come from England.
Miles of tracks here have been torn up and conveyed bodily overseas.
There is little labour available to execute repairs, and none to build
new stock. There is a shortage of coal, a shortage of oil, and no paint.
Passenger services have been cut down by a half, and fares raised fifty
per cent; yet the traffic is still enormous, and the strain on the
depleted staffs is immense. But they manage somehow. Men who have long
earned their retirement remain in service, while boys and women do the
rest. Carry on!


VI. OUR GOPHER RUNS

Then comes our substitute for your Subway, and street-car system
generally. In London you will notice that there are two kinds of
Subway—the so-called Underground, or shallow transit, and the deep Tubes.
The system is so complicated, owing to the shape of London, that it
has been found impossible to have a one-price ticket such as prevails
everywhere in the United States.

The Underground is the oldest underground railroad in the world.
You probably gathered that for yourself the first time you saw
it. Twenty-five years ago its trains were drawn by ordinary steam
locomotives, which were supposed to consume their own smoke. Perhaps they
did, but it must have leaked out again somewhere.

The old Underground Railway of London got nearer to the ordinary
conception of hell than anything yet invented. Stations and trains were
lit by feeble gas or oil lamps; all glass was covered over with a film
of soot, and the brightest illumination was provided by the glow of the
locomotive furnaces as the train rumbled asthmatically into a station.
The atmosphere was a mixture of soot, smoke, sulphur, and poison gas.
The trains were on the box-compartment system, and small compartments
at that. The train usually waited two or three minutes in each station
(instead of ten seconds as now), and it required a full hour to travel
from King’s Cross to Charing Cross. It was impossible to see to read a
newspaper, so that passengers, to pass the time, used to rob, assault,
and occasionally murder one another. With the coming of electric traction
the old Underground was cleaned up and refurnished. At the same time, the
Tubes were constructed away down in the London clay, where there could
be no interference from oozy gravel, or gas mains, or sewers.

The chief trouble about the Tubes is that no one knows where they are.
Of course, every one knows where the _stations_ are. For instance, every
Londoner knows where Piccadilly Circus Station is—the surface station.
But where is the actual subterranean station? Or rather, where are the
two stations, because at this point two roads cross, and each has its
own subterranean station. Ah! They certainly are not where simple folk,
like you and me, would expect them to be—under Piccadilly Circus. If they
were, you would find them at the foot of the elevator. But that would be
too easy. It would make Londoners fat and lazy, leading the sedentary
life they do, to step straight into the train. So they have to walk about
a mile. Where to, no one knows. But there is a school of philosophers
which believes that a good many of the Tube stations have no subterranean
stations at all. One subterranean is shared jointly by several surface
stations. A short circular train ride is provided, just to furnish the
necessary illusion, and the passenger, having really walked to his
destination, steps out of the train well satisfied, and goes up the right
elevator under the impression that he has been carried there. That is
our Tube system as far as modern research has been able to fathom it. Of
course, an Englishman could never have thought out such a good practical
joke as these Tubes. The entire system was projected and constructed by
an American.


VII. OUR NATIONAL JOKE

But we have a sense of humour all the same. Our money system, like our
joint system of weights and measures, is, as you very properly observe,
a practical joke. It dates back to the time when an Englishman bought
his Sunday dinner with a pound of rock. It is bound to go soon, and make
way for the decimal system, just as inches and feet and yards are already
making way in this country for metres and centimetres. Meanwhile we have
got to put up with it.

The main points for an American to remember are—firstly, that a shilling
over here, despite war scarcity, will still buy rather more than a
quarter will buy in New York; and secondly, the necessity of keeping
clearly in mind the difference between a half-crown and a two-shilling
piece. Even taxi-drivers do not always know the difference. If you give
them half a crown they will frequently hand you change for a two-shilling
piece.


VIII. OURSELVES

Lastly, ourselves. This chapter is going to be the most difficult.

Last year I met an American soldier in London. He was one of the first
who had come over. I asked his impressions. He said:

“I have been in London three days, and not a soul has spoken to me.”

And therein was summed up the fundamental difference between our two
nations. In the United States people like to see one another and talk
to one another, and meet fresh people. If a stranger comes to town,
reporters interview him as he steps off the train. Americans prefer when
travelling to do so in open cars. At home their living-room doors are
usually left open. Every room stands open to every other. In their clubs
and hotels there are few private rooms. In their business houses the head
of the firm, the staff, and the clerks, frequently work together in one
great hall. If any partitions exist they are only table-high or they are
made of glass. Plenty of light, plenty of air, plenty of publicity. That
is America.

Now over here, somehow, we are different. I said before that an
Englishman’s ambition in life was to get a compartment to himself. That
principle, for good or ill prevails through all our habits. On the
railroad we travel in separate boxes. At home all our rooms have doors,
and we keep them shut. (This by the way, is chiefly in order to get warm,
for there is no central heating.) In most of our clubs there are rooms
where no one is allowed to speak. They are crowded with Englishmen. Only
a few years ago one never thought of dining in a restaurant except when
travelling. If he did, he always asked for a private room. If you dine at
Simpson’s in the Strand to-day you will still see a relic of the custom
in the curious boxed-in compartments which enclose some of the tables. In
our business houses the head of the department is concealed in one hutch,
the partners in another. The chief clerk has one too. The other clerks
may have to work in one room; but each clerk cherishes just one ambition,
and that is to rise high enough in the business to secure honourable
confinement in a hutch of his own.

For the same reason every Englishman keeps a fence round his garden—be
it castle or cottage garden—just to show that it is his garden and no
one else’s. And if you look into any old English parish church you will
see the same thing. Every family has its own pew; the humblest pew has
a door, and when the family gets inside the pew it shuts the door. Some
of the pews have curtains around them as well. The occupant can see the
minister, and the minister can see him. The rest of the congregation are
as invisible to him as he is to them. No one in the congregation resents
this at all. They are rather proud of the custom. It represents to them
only what is right and proper, the principle of a compartment to one’s
self.

And so a nation which has lived for centuries upon this plan is not a
nation which enters readily or easily into conversation outside its
own particular compartment. But how was I to explain or excuse such a
state of mind to my American soldier friend? Let me say right here that
this constrained behaviour does not arise from churlishness, or want of
good-will. Even the Germans admit that. A German philosopher once said,
with considerable truth for a German: “The Englishman is a cold friend,
but a good neighbour. He may shut himself up with his property, but he
will never dream of invading yours.” This statement is only partially
correct. The Englishman is one of the warmest-hearted and most hospitable
of men. But he is a bad starter—a bad starter in War, Love, Business,
and, above all, Conversation. Once get him started, and he refuses to
leave off. But you must start him first. And you are doing it.

The Englishman’s passion for his own compartment goes back a very, very
long way, right into the centuries. It goes back to the days when we
lived in tribes and every tribe kept to itself, and an Englishman’s
house was his castle—especially if the house were a one-room mud hut.
That makes us what we are to this day. Also we are cooped up in a small
island, and most of us have never left it. No Englishman ever speaks
to another Englishman if he can help it. This is partly the old tribal
instinct, partly laziness, and partly fear of a rebuff. Also, it may
involve explanations, and an Englishman would rather be scalped than
explain. So he saves trouble all round by burying himself in a newspaper
and saying nothing.

That by the way. But the main object of this little book is to make you
welcome to England, whoever you may be, and to show you why it is that
in our inarticulate and undemonstrative English way, we love our small
country just as you love your big continent.

    “This fortress built by Nature by herself
    Against infection and the hand of war;
    This happy breed of men, this little world;
    This precious stone set in a silver sea;
    This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”

That is how William Shakespeare felt about this “right little tight
little island” three hundred years ago, in days when our nation was
fighting for its life, neither for the first nor for the last time,
against overwhelmingly superior forces. And we hope that when you go
back safe and victorious, as we pray God you may, to your own beautiful
land, you will carry with you a little of that same feeling, and a real
understanding of the passionate sentiment that lies beneath it.

So we bid you welcome. And we ask you, our honoured guests, to do all
you can to get into close touch with the habits and point of view of our
country, both here and upon that battle-front whither you are bound, to
play your own splendid part in the Great Game.

We are never going back to the old days when Englishmen, Scotsmen,
Irishmen, Canadians, Australians, and Americans sat each in their
own compartment, and thanked God that they had it to themselves. We
English-speaking races have got together over this War. We have lost
terribly, but we are gaining much. We are rubbing shoulders in London,
and Paris, and countless other places, and we are rubbing the knobs
and the angles off one another, good and plenty. It is not always easy
or comfortable to have knobs rubbed off you, and the process sometimes
involves a little friction; but we must be prepared for that.

For instance, we all speak English, but we all pronounce it in different
ways. Well, why not? Hitherto we have been inclined to assume that the
other man was talking like that to annoy us. That is one of the knobs
that has to be rubbed off—intolerance of trivial matters of taste and
habit. To-day, under the most searching test in the world—the test of
comradeship in the face of battle and sudden death—we are acquiring a
profound respect for one another. When we have acquired just one other
thing—tolerance for one another’s point of view—we shall have laid the
foundation of an understanding which is going to hold us all up through
some difficult times hereafter. Getting this old world back on to a
peace basis, after the Kaiser has been put where he belongs, is going to
call for all our courage, sincerity, and loyalty to our common ideals.
When that period of Reconstruction comes—and it may come sooner than
we think—the first plank in its platform must be a solid understanding
between the two English-speaking races. They, at least, must speak with
one voice, or the whole fabric will fall to the ground.

Our two nations can never hope entirely to understand one another.
Neither can they expect always to see eye to eye. Their national
personalities are too robust. But to-day their sons are learning to know
the worst of one another and the best of one another and the invincible
humanity of one another. With that knowledge will come—if we have the
will—tolerance of one another’s point of view. We must get that. There
are thousands of reasons why, but to you, soldiers and sailors, I am only
going to mention one.

When the Victory comes, we shall enjoy its rewards. But all the while we
shall be conscious that we have not won these entirely by ourselves. We
shall in great measure have inherited them from men who have not lived
to enjoy the fruits of their own sacrifice—men whom we have left behind,
in France, Belgium, and Italy; in Asia and Africa; whose bones cover the
ocean floor—men who gave everything that the Cause might live. To these
we shall desire to raise a lasting memorial. We can best do that by
building up a fabric of understanding on the foundation which they laid,
so truly, with their own lives. If we do that—and only if we do that—our
Dead can sleep in peace; for they will know that what they died for was
worth while, and above all that we, their heritors, _have kept faith with
them_—

              “… Famous men
    From whose bays we borrow—
    They that put aside To-day,
    All the joys of their To-day,
    And with toil of their To-day
    Bought for us To-morrow.”

                             IAN HAY

London, July, 1918




The Last Million




CHAPTER ONE

THE ARGONAUTS


A ship is sailing on the sea—a tall ship, with several masts and an
imposing array of smokestacks. She is moving at a strictly processional
pace, with a certain air of professional boredom. In fact, the
disconsolate hissing of her steam escape-pipes intimates quite plainly
that she is accustomed to a livelier life than this. But a convoy belongs
to the straitest sect of Labour-Unionism: its pace is regulated to that
of the slowest performer; so ocean greyhounds in such company must
restrain themselves as best they may.

All around her steam other ships. They are striped, spotted, and
ringstraked as to their hulls, smokestacks, and spars in a manner highly
gratifying to that school of unappreciated geniuses, the Futurists,—or
Cubists, or Vorticists, or whatever the malady is called,—but
exasperating to the submerged Hun, endeavouring to calculate knottage and
obtain ranging-points through a perplexed periscope. On the outer fringe
of the flotilla fuss the sheep-dogs—the escorting warships.

If you seek to ascertain the nationality of our tall ship, by internal
evidence, you will probably begin by observing certain notices painted
up about the decks and cabins, requesting you to keep off the bridge,
or to refrain from throwing cigar-ends on the deck, or not to leave this
tap running. You will next observe that these notices are inscribed in
English, French, and another language. What language, it is impossible to
say, for some one has pasted a strip of blank paper over the inscription
in every case. But it is easy to guess. In the depths, here and there,
German is still spoken; but upon the face of the broad ocean it is a dead
language.

Talking of nationalities, you will further observe that these ships all
fly the Union Jack. But they are crowded with American soldiers. There
must be thousands of these soldiers. They swarm everywhere—bunched
on deck, peering through portholes, or plastering the rigging like
an overflow of mustard sauce, which in truth they are. They are
more than that. They are a portent. They are a symbol. They are a
testimonial—to the Kaiser; for has not that indefatigable bungler by his
own efforts brought about a long-overdue understanding between all the
English-speaking people in the world?

Above all, they are a direct answer to a particular challenge.

A few weeks ago the Men at the Top in Germany got together and held what
is known in military circles as a pow-wow. A condensed report of their
deliberations would have read something like this:

“Yes, Majesty, the Good Old German God is undoubtedly on the side of our
Army. Still, the fact remains that we have not yet achieved anything,
after three-and-a-half years of war, really worth while.… _Belgium_,
_Serbia_, _Roumania_, _Russia_? Yes, no doubt. Each of those countries
has now received the true reward of her stupidity and presumption; but
none of them ever offered any serious difficulty from a military point
of view, except Russia; and the credit for her collapse was due far more
to our internal agents than to our external military pressure.… No,
Hindenburg, I haven’t forgotten Tannenberg; but you haven’t done very
much _since_ then (except get gold nails knocked into yourself), and
what you have accomplished has been chiefly under—ahem!—_my_ direction.…
No, no, I am not really pinning orchids on myself—not yet, anyway. I
am merely trying to be candid and frank: in short, I am reminding you
that you are only a figurehead. You know what irreverent people call
you—‘General What-do-you-Say!’

“… Yes, Your Imperial Highness, your consummate generalship at Verdun
undoubtedly achieved an historic victory over the French; but you will
forgive me for pointing out that your casualties were at least twice as
numerous as theirs, and that the ground which you captured has since been
regained.… _Submarines_? My good Von Capelle, your submarines are as
obsolete as our late lamented friend Von Tirpitz. _Justify my statement?_
In a moment.… Yes, Majesty, the British Army failed utterly to break our
line at the Somme, but they and the French took seventy thousand of our
best troops prisoner, and we had to execute a ‘strategic’ retirement
which lost us about a thousand square miles of French soil. Not much of
a performance for the German Army—the _German Army_—to put up against a
mob of half-trained mercenaries! We managed to delude our people into the
belief that we had scored a great military triumph in so doing, but the
German nation, excellent though their discipline is, are not likely to
go on swallowing that stuff forever. _You_ know that, better than most,
Hertling! Bethmann-Hollweg knew it too: he was no match for Liebknecht,
although he did lock him up.…

“And what of the situation since the Somme? Haig is within ten miles
of Ostend, and has captured practically the whole of the Paschendaele
Ridge.… _The Eastern Front?_ Nothing matters in this war except the
_Western_ Front. What are we going to do about that?… _Your Majesty
will assume supreme command?_ Splendid!… _And break the Western Front?_
Colossal! That was just what I was about to suggest. Now for the plan of
campaign, which I do not doubt Your Majesty has already sketched out.…
Perhaps Your Majesty will permit Hindenburg and myself to remain here a
few moments longer, while you unfold it? We need not detain His Imperial
Highness the Crown Prince. He is the man of Action: his task will come
later. (_For Heaven’s sake, Von Hertling, get him out of here, or our two
military geniuses will be at loggerheads in five minutes!_)

“… And now, Majesty, you suggest—?… That is a superb plan; but it
appears to me—I mean, to Hindenburg—that you—we—are rating one of the
nations opposed to us too lightly.… Yes, Your Majesty, I know you
are going to stand no nonsense from them _after_ the War,—in fact,
you warned their Ambassador, most properly, if I may say so, to that
effect,—but would it not be a good move, just as a preliminary, to
stand no nonsense from them _during_ the War?… _Too far away? They
can’t get over?_ Well—here are the approximate numbers of the American
troops already in France. And there are a lot of them in England too.…
_Rather surprising?_ Yes. Indeed, quite a creditable feat for an
unwarlike nation. I shall show these figures to Von Capelle: it will
justify what I said about his submarines: in fact, it will annoy him
extremely. And there are more coming. They are pouring over faster
and faster. I shall tell him that too.… _But the Americans have had
no experience of intensive warfare? And they have fallen behind with
their constructive programme—aeroplanes and artillery?_ Quite so. And,
therefore, taking these facts into consideration, I—Hindenburg—Your
Majesty will doubtless decide that our only chance is to concentrate
in overwhelming strength, here and now, against _one_ of the two enemy
forces at present opposed to us, and destroy that force in detail before
the Americans can throw any considerable body of troops into the line.…
_Expensive?_ Undoubtedly.… _No one has ever succeeded during this War
in breaking a properly organized trenchline?_ Agreed; but only because
no one has yet been able or willing to pay the necessary price. The
British might have done it on the Somme, but Haig was too squeamish
about the lives of his men. British generals are handicapped in their
military dispositions by a public opinion which happily does not exist
in our enlightened Fatherland. I—Hin—Your Majesty can afford to do it.
With all these unemployed Divisions from the Russian Front, we can go
to the limit in the matter of casualties.… _How many?_ Well, I think we
can afford to lose a million men—say a million.… Yes, indeed, Majesty,
your heart must bleed at the prospect; but after all, it is for the
ultimate good of Humanity.… ‘_One cannot make omelettes without breaking
eggs?_’ Admirable! Your Majesty’s felicity of phrase shows no falling
off, I perceive. And yet the Americans talk of their Woodrow Wilson!
Besides, it will be a million less to make trouble for Us after the
War. Now, I suppose we are all agreed on the foe to be crushed?… _The
British?_ Naturally. The British! The time has come to drive them into
the sea. Haig has recently extended his line twenty-eight miles—rather
reluctantly, too. He has had to send troops to Italy, and he had heavy
casualties in Belgium last autumn. Twenty-seven thousand killed, in
fact. Still, without a supreme commander, you cannot blame the various
Allied leaders for ‘passing the buck’ to one another, as the Yankees say.
We can accumulate troops on his front—veterans from Russia—sufficient
to outnumber him by at least three to one. That should suffice, if we
stand by our decision about casualties. We will strike hard at his new
positions, before his artillery has had time to register thoroughly. We
will annihilate his front system of trenches by an intensive bombardment,
while our new long-range gas-shells take his rest-billets by surprise and
demoralize his Divisional and Corps Reserves. And I think, Majesty, that
we have been a little punctilious about things like the Red Cross. After
all, hospitals are a mere sentimental handicap to the efficient waging of
war. Our new bombing aeroplanes might be instructed to deal faithfully
with these, especially as the fool English have organized no preparation
for their defence. Yes, I—we—Your Majesty will drive the whole pack of
them into the sea this time! The French, isolated, can then be handled at
leisure; and with Calais, Boulogne, and Havre in our hands the Americans
will find that they have come too late. In fact, we can pick them off
as they arrive. Thus it is that Your Majesty, like Cæsar and Napoleon,
separates his enemies and then destroys them one by one.… _Divide et
Impera!_ Exactly! Most happily put, Your Majesty!”

       *       *       *       *       *

And it was so—up to a point. Ludendorff’s plan was adopted. The necessary
concentration of troops was effected with admirable secrecy and
promptitude, and the parallel enterprises of sweeping the British Army
into the sea and expending a million German lives were duly inaugurated.
The latter undertaking succeeded better than the former: the line sagged
and wavered; it was pushed here and there; but it never broke. Still,
the strain was terrible, as news arrived of Monchy gone, Wytschaete
gone, Messines gone, Kemmel gone; of Bapaume, Albert, Armentières,
Bailleul, all gone—little hills and little towns all of them, but big
and precious in certain unimportant eyes because of their associations.
But the worst news never arrived. Instead, there came one morning the
tale of an all-day assault by the Hun, delivered in mass from Meteren
to Voormezeele, every wave of which had been broken and hurled back by
impregnable rocks of French and British infantry. So disastrous was the
failure of that tremendous lunge that the enemy drew off with his dead
and his shame for several weeks, and the non-stop run to Calais was
withdrawn from the time-table until further notice.

But the matter could not be left here. The Boche had laid a terrible
stake on the table, and was bound to redeem it or perish. Plainly he
would try again—maybe at some fresh point; but again. Already there
were mutterings of trouble on the French Front. That he would break the
line—the line which he had failed to break at Verdun in 1916, and at
Ypres in 1914—seemed incredible; but he might succeed in straining it
beyond the limits of perfect recovery; and if that happened, Ludendorff’s
boast that America would arrive too late might be justified.

Hence the present Armada. It is only one of many. Transports have been
crossing the Atlantic for months now, but never upon such a scale as
this. There are thousands of soldiers in this convoy alone—men physically
splendid, with nearly a year’s training behind them. They are going
over—Over There—in answer to the call. Russia has stepped out of the
scale, so America must step in at once if Prussianism is to kick the
beam. Here they are—a sight to quicken the pulse—the New World hastening
to redress the balance of the Old.




CHAPTER TWO

SHIP’S COMPANY


However, we have not reached our destination yet; which is just as
well, for at present we are fully occupied in assimilating our new
surroundings. To tell the truth, some of us have a good deal to
assimilate. There is young Boone Cruttenden, for instance.

Little more than a year ago he was preparing to settle down in his
ancestral home in Kentucky, there to prop the declining years of an
octogenarian parent, Colonel Harvey Cruttenden, known in far-back
Confederate days as one of General Sam Wheeler’s hardest-riding
disciples. But President Wilson had upset the plans of Boone Cruttenden
for all time, by inviting him and certain others to step forward and help
make the World Safe for Democracy. Boone was one of the first to accept
the invitation.

Several strenuous months at a training-camp of the Reserve Officers’
Training Corps followed, and in due course he found himself, with
a gilded metal strip on either shoulder, communicating his slender
knowledge of the art of war to drafted persons who possessed no knowledge
of the subject at all—just as thousands of other young men of the right
spirit were doing all over the country, and just as thousands of other
young men of similar spirit had been doing for more than three years in
another country three thousand miles away.

“It was something fierce at first,” he confided to Miss Frances Lane, a
United States Army nurse, proceeding, in company with ninety-nine others,
to a Base Hospital in France.

By rights Miss Lane and her companions should not have been taking
chances on a transport at all. She should have been crossing the Atlantic
in a stately white-painted hospital ship, with the Red Cross emblazoned
on its sides, immune by all the laws of God and Man from hostile attack.
But the Red Cross makes the Hun see red. Therefore it is found safer
in these days to adjust life-jackets over the splints and bandages of
wounded men and send them across the water, together with the indomitable
sisterhood which tends them, protected by something that makes a more
intelligible appeal to _Kultur_ than the mere symbol of Christianity.

“It was something fierce,” repeated Boone Cruttenden.

“Tell me!” commanded Miss Lane, with an air of authority which Boone
found extremely attractive.

“Well, in the training-camps the main proposition was to make the boys
understand what they were there for. They were full of enthusiasm, but
very few of them had taken any interest in the early part of the war,
and we were all a long way from Europe, anyhow. They were willing enough
to fight, but naturally they wanted to know what they were fighting for.
Even when we told them, they weren’t too wise. Two or three men of my
company could neither read nor write; another man knew the name of his
home town, but not the name of his State. The map of Europe was nothing
in his young life. Then, lots of them thought we were going to fight the
Yankees again, and whip them this time!”

Boone’s eyes flashed, and for a moment he forgot all about European
complications. He was his father’s son all through. But a certain tensity
in the atmosphere recalled him to realities.

“I guess you aren’t a Southerner?” he observed apologetically.

“Massachusetts,” replied Miss Lane coldly.

Boone Cruttenden offered a laboured expression of regret, and proceeded:

“Then they didn’t like saluting, or obeying orders on the jump. Neither
did I, for that matter. It seemed undemocratic.”

“So it is,” affirmed Miss Lane sturdily.

“Well, I don’t know. We certainly made much quicker progress with
our training once we had gotten the idea. Our instructors were very
particular about it, too—both French and British. There was an English
sergeant—well, the boys used to come running a hundred yards to see him
salute an officer. I tell you, it tickled them to death, at first. Next
thing, they were all trying to do it too.”

“What was it like?”

Boone rose from his seat upon the deck, stiffened his young muscles, and
offered a very creditable reproduction of the epileptic salute of the
British Guardsman.

“Like that,” he said.

“I’m not surprised they ran,” commented Miss Lane.

“Still,” continued Boone appreciatively, “that sergeant was a bird. At
the start, we regarded him as a pure vaudeville act. He talked just like
a stage Englishman, for one thing. For another, a German bullet had
gone right through his face—in at one cheek and out at the other—and
that didn’t help make a William Jennings Bryan of him. But William J.
had nothing on him; neither had Will Rogers, for that matter. He would
stand there in front of us and put over a line of stuff that made
everybody weak with laughing—everybody, that is, except the fellow he was
talking to. I shall never forget the first morning we held an Officers’
Instruction Class. There were about forty of us. Old man Duckett—that
was his name; Sergeant Instructor Duckett—marched us around, and put us
through our paces. We meant to show him something—we were a chesty bunch
in those days—so we gave him what we imagined was a first-class West
Point show. (Not that any of us had been at West Point.) When we had done
enough, he lined us up, and said: ‘Well, gentlemen, I have run over your
points, and before dismissin’ the parade I should like to say that I only
wish the President of the United States was here to see you. If he _did_
catch sight of you, I know that his first words would be—”Thank Gawd,
from the bottom of my heart, we’ve got a Navy!“’”

To Boone and Miss Lane now enter others. (This is a trial to which
Master Boone is growing accustomed, for Miss Lane is quite the prettiest
girl on the ship.) Among them we note one Jim Nichols, who, previous to
America’s entry into the War, has worked upon the New Orleans Cotton
Exchange “ever since he can remember.” There is also Major Powers,
wearing the ribbon of the Spanish War medal. There are two Naval
officers, crossing over to pursue submarines. Until they begin, Miss
Lane makes a very pleasant substitute. And there is a British officer
who walks with a limp—Captain Norton—returning from a spell of duty as
Military Instructor in a Texas training-camp.

Miss Lane, with the instinct of a true hostess, turns to the stranger.

“We were talking about our rookies, Captain,” she announces. “How did
they compare with your Kitchener’s Army?”

“Very much the same, Miss Lane, in the early days. Fish out of the
water, all of them. We had all sorts—miners, shipbuilders, farm-hands,
railway-men, newspaper-boys—and not one of them knew the smallest thing
about soldiering. They knew pretty well everything else, I admit. The
ranks were chock-full of experts—engineers, plumbers, electricians,
glass-blowers, printers, musicians. I remember one of my men put himself
down as an ‘egg-tester’—whatever that may be! An actor, perhaps. But
hardly one of them knew his right foot from his left when it came to
forming fours.”

“Same here,” said Major Powers. “My first consignment of drafted men
was a mixture of mountaineers from Tennessee—moonshiners, most of
them—and East-Side Jews from New York. (I wonder who the blue-eyed boy
at Washington was who mixed ’em!) The moonshiners looked the hardest lot
of cases you ever set eyes on: they hated discipline worse than poison;
and an officer was about as popular with them as a skunk at a picnic.
But they were as easy as pie: they were scared to death half the time,
by—what do you think?”

“The water-wagon?” suggested a voice.

“No—of getting lost! They could have found their way blindfold over their
own hills back home; but they had never lived on a street before, and
those huge camps had them paralyzed. They said the huts were all exactly
alike—which was true enough—and not one of them would stray fifty yards
from his own for fear he would not find it again. Curious, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Almost exactly what happened with our Scottish Highlanders,” said
Norton. “But they took quite kindly to city life in the end. Regular
clubmen, in fact. What about your East-Siders?”

“They were a more difficult proposition,” said Powers. “In the first
place, they didn’t want to fight at all, whereas the moonshiners did.
In fact, the moonshiners didn’t care whom they fought, so long as
they fought somebody. They were like the Irishman who asked: ‘Is this
a private fight, or can anybody join in?’ But the East-Siders were
different. Their discipline was right enough: in fact, the average
East-Side rookie usually acted towards an officer as if he wanted to sell
_him_ something. But they were city birds, born and bred. They were
accustomed to behave well when a cop was in sight; but once around the
corner you could not have trusted them with their own salary. They didn’t
like country life, and they didn’t like the dark. They were never really
happy away from a street with illuminated signs on it—and there aren’t
many of those in Texas. If you put one of the bunch on sentry duty by
himself in a lonely place, like as not he’d get so scared he’d go skating
around the outskirts of the camp looking for cover. I once rounded up
four of my sentries from different posts, all together in one pool-room.
But discipline has them nicely fixed now. By the way, you heard the story
of the Jew doughboy whose friends recommended him to take a Commission?”

“No. Tell me!” commanded Miss Lane.

“He refused, on the ground that it would be too difficult to collect. He
said he might not be able to keep tally of all the Germans he killed:
besides, his General might not believe him. Anyway, he preferred a
straight salary! Tell us some more of your experiences, Captain.”

“They were much the same as yours,” said Norton. “The trouble with
Kitchener’s Army was that practically every member of the rank-and-file
enlisted under the firm belief that Kitchener would simply hand him a
rifle and ammunition and pack him off right away to the Front—whatever
that might be—to shoot the Kaiser. Their experiences during the first six
months—chiefly a course of instruction in obedience and sobriety—was a
bit of a jolt to them. But discipline told in the end. To-day I believe
most of them would rather have a strict officer than an officer they
could do what they liked with. Leniency usually means inefficiency; and
inefficiency at the top of things usually means irregular meals and
regular casualties for the men underneath!”

“What do you include under discipline, Captain?” enquired that upholder
of personal liberty, Miss Lane, suspiciously.

“Little things, chiefly—things that don’t seem to matter much. Shaving,
and tidiness—”

“What, in a trench?” asked several young officers. But Major Powers
nodded his head approvingly.

“That is just what most of us ask who don’t know,” he said. “But I have
seen enough service to have learned one thing, and that is that a dirty
soldier is a bad soldier, all the world over. If a man is encouraged
to neglect his personal appearance, he starts to neglect his work—gets
careless with the cleaning of his rifle, and so forth. If a man takes no
pride in his appearance, he takes no pride in his duty. The other way
round, the best soldier is the soldier who keeps himself smart.”

“That is just what I think,” interpolated Miss Lane, virtuously. (She
had succeeded during the Major’s homily in surreptitiously powdering her
nose, and felt ready to take Florence Nightingale’s place at a moment’s
notice.)

“We certainly found it so,” said Norton. “In fact, after a short
experience of trench warfare we revived all the old peace-time stunts.
The order was given that every man in the trenches was to be shaved by
a certain hour each day. (Of course, if the Boche attacked in mass,
the ceremony was liable to postponement.) In billets behind the line
every one was expected to make himself as smart as possible—brush his
uniform, shine his shoes, and so on. The band played for an hour every
evening. Saluting and other little ceremonies like that were insisted
on. These things all together had a tremendous effect. I don’t know
why, but it was so. For one thing, it made life behind the lines more
tolerable—more refreshing. In the line itself, it made officers more
concise in giving their orders, and men more alert and intelligent in
carrying them out. In fact, the greater the fuss a regiment made about
its appearance—‘eye-wash,’ we called it—the better its work in the field.”

“Things worked out that way with us too, even in home training,”
corroborated Powers.

“So I noticed. I was in four or five big camps, in different States, and
I found that the rate of progress in training varied almost directly with
the discipline.”

“Which camp did you like best?”

The British officer turned to Miss Lane, and shook his head. “No, you
don’t, Miss Lane!” he replied. “I belong to the most tactless race in the
world, but I know enough to keep out of trouble of that kind! I had a
gorgeous time in _all_ of them.”

At this point a timely bugle blew for boat drill, and the harassed
veteran stumped off.

Boat drill occurs at frequent intervals, and is still sufficient of a
novelty to be regarded as an amusement.

By all, that is, except the _habitués_—the crew, the stewards, and
that anæmic race of troglodytes which only emerges from the lower
depths of the ship under the stress of great emergency—the army of
dish-washers and potato-peelers. These fall in at their posts with the
half-ashamed self-consciousness of big boys who have been compelled by an
undiscriminating hostess to participate in children’s games. They grin
sheepishly, shiver ostentatiously in the fresh breeze, and offer profane
but amusing comments in an undertone to one another.

But few of the present passengers have ever been on board a ship before.
Indeed, many of us never saw the ocean until last week. War and its
appurtenances are for the present a game, full of interesting surprises
and wonderful thrills. It is surprising, for instance, however good your
appetite may have been in camp, to find how much more you can eat on
board ship; and it is thrilling, if you happen to be a rustic beauty from
a very small town in Central Iowa, to find yourself dancing the one-step,
in a life-jacket, with a total stranger in uniform, upon an undulating
deck to the music of a full military band.

So most of us have entered upon the business with all the misguided
enthusiasm of the gentleman who once blacked himself all over to play
“Othello.” Some of us sleep in our clothes; others carry all their
valuables about their person; not a few donned patent life-saving
contraptions before we cleared Sandy Hook. But no one appears the least
nervous: there is a pleasurable excitement about everything. And we
listen with intense respect to the blood-curdling reminiscences of
the crew, particularly the stewards. All our cabin stewards have been
torpedoed at least three times, and every single one of them was on board
the _Lusitania_ when she was sunk. The survivors of the _Lusitania_ must
be almost as numerous by this time as the original ship’s company of the
_Mayflower_.




CHAPTER THREE

THE LOWER DECK


If you clamber down the accommodation ladder on to the well-deck
amidships, you will find yourself in a world which will enable you to
contemplate War from yet another angle.

For a guide and director I can confidently recommend Mr. Al Thompson,
late of Springfield, Illinois—“No, _sir_, not Massachusetts!” he will be
careful to inform you—now a seasoned ornament of a Trench Mortar Battery.

“We sure are one dandy outfit,” he observes modestly. “Two hundred
roughnecks! I’ll make you known to a few. There’s Eddie Gillette: you
seen him box last night, out on the forward deck there? Yep? Well, you
certainly seen something!”

We certainly had. Boxing is an ideal pastime for a large, virile, and
closely packed community, for several reasons. In the first place,
it requires very little space. A twelve-foot ring will do: indeed,
towards the end of an exciting bout the combatants can—or must—make
shift with mere elbow-room. In the second, the novice extracts quite
as much exercise and excitement from the sport as the expert—possibly
more. Thirdly and most important, boxing fulfils the cardinal principle
of providing for the greatest good of the greatest number, because it
affords far more undiluted happiness to the spectators than to the
performers. Last night, for instance, when Mr. Hank Magraw (weight two
hundred pounds), a gladiator mainly conspicuous for unruffled urbanity
and entire ignorance of the rules of boxing, growing a trifle restive
under the cumulative effect of three consecutive taps upon the point
of the chin from an opponent half his size, suddenly gathered that
gentleman into his arms and endeavoured to stuff him down one of those
trumpet-mouthed ventilators which lead to the stokehold, the spectators
voiced their appreciation by a vociferous encore.

A wonderful sight these spectators are. They are banked up all around the
well-deck, forming a deep pit, in the bottom of which two boxers gyrate,
clash, and recoil like nutshells in a whirlpool. Tier upon tier they
rise—with their long, lean, American bodies, and tense, brown, American
faces—seated in concentric circles on the deck itself, perched on hatches
and deck-houses and sky-lights, clinging to davits and ventilators, or
hanging in clusters from the rigging—all yelling themselves hoarse.

The “announcer”—one Buck Stamper—stands for the moment at the bottom of
the vortex. With each of his muscular arms he encircles the shrinking
figure of a competitor, and introduces the pair to the audience.

“Boys,” he bellows, in a voice which must be easily audible in the
surrounding transports, “one of the English officers up there has
come across with—with—a ten-shilling certificate”—he releases one of
his _protégés_ in order to display a pink-and-white British treasury
note—“to be awarded to the winner of this bout.”

There is a little polite applause. Then a stentorian voice enquires:

“How much is that—in money?”

There is a great roar of laughter. The announcer retires, to seek an
expert financier. A British marine enlightens him, and he announces:

“’Bout two dollars-and-a-half. On my right I have Ikey Zingbaum, of the
Field Ambulance—”

The immediate conjunction of Ikey Zingbaum and two-and-a-half dollars
appeals to the crowd’s sense of humour. When they have recovered, Buck
Stamper proceeds:

“On my left”—he thrusts forward a smooth-chinned, pink-cheeked, lusty,
country lad—“Miss Sissy Smithers, what has got in among the boys by
mistake!”

Amid yells of delight the blushing Sissy shakes hands with his
tallow-faced opponent, and falls promptly upon his neck. The pair, locked
in a complicated embrace, circle slowly round the ring, feebly patting
one another on the back. At the urgent suggestion of the spectators the
referee separates them, caustically observing that this is a fight and
not a fox-trot. For a short time they stand uneasily apart; then Ikey
Zingbaum, stimulated possibly by his supporters’ constant references
to the ten-shilling certificate, leans suddenly forward and boxes his
opponent’s ears. Miss Sissy, stung into indignant activity, lunges
out with all his strength and counters fairly and squarely in the pit
of Ikey’s stomach. Mr. Zingbaum shuts up like a footrule, and shoots
stern-foremost into the thick of the audience. He is extracted amid
shouts of laughter, groaning horribly, and receives first aid from a
dozen willing but inexperienced hands. Presently he recovers sufficiently
far to be informed that he has been awarded the match—on a foul. Miss
Sissy, not ill-pleased with himself, modestly disappears.

“Yes,” continued Al Thompson, “you seen something. Was you there when
Eddie Gillette fit that duck what we call Coca-Kola? No? I’m sorry.
Coca-Kola’s a Turk. Comes from Turkey, I mean. Las’ winter, when he was
fighting around the Bowery, he would eat raw meat whenever he could get
it. Said it kept him kinder fit. Anyway, he was put up las’ night against
Eddie Gillette. We picked on Ed because he was the best man in the Trench
Mortar Section, and Coca-Kola had been winning out all the time for the
Machine Gunners, where he belonged, and they was blowing some. Ed was
giving away more than seventeen pounds of weight, besides which the Turk
was the sort of guy that if he was short of money he would go up to a
person an’ say: ‘You give me two bits and I’ll let you hit me on the jaw
any place you like!’ That was the kind of lobster Coca-Kola was, and
gives you some sort of an idea what Ed was up against!

“The match was to be ten rounds of two minutes each. There was five
dollars donated by an officer for the winner, and some powerful
side-bets. But it was all over in one round. Eddie started by rushing in
and giving the Turk a silly little tap on the nose. That seemed to get
the Turk’s goat, for he went for Eddie like a cyclone, and rushed him
all around the ring for maybe a minute. At the end of that he gave him a
blow on the body that laid him flat on the deck. We all thought Eddie was
gone for sure. The time-keeper had counted up to five before he come to
life at all. Then he began to recover, very slow. At ‘seven’ he rolled
over on his face. The Turk, reckoning that Eddie was too dopy to go on
any more, just straddled around in the middle of the ring, looking up to
the deck above for the officer that was donating the five bucks. But at
‘nine’ Eddie was on his feet again, like a streak. No one hardly saw him
get up. All they did see was Eddie _soak_ the Turk under the point of the
jaw—which was well up in the air at the time. Coca-Kola fairly knocked a
groan out of the deck when he struck it. It took them two hours to bring
him round. Gee, but it was some soak! Some of the Machine Gun boys cut
open Eddie’s glove after, because they suspicioned he might have a chunk
of lead there. But there weren’t nothing there. No, _sir_! Nothing but
Eddie’s little old punch!”

We are presented both to the victorious Eddie and the dethroned
masticator of raw meat. The latter is inclined to be taciturn; but the
former, true to national use and custom, is quite ready to be interviewed.

Yes, this is his first trip across, but he is not seasick, and does not
expect to be. Reason; he has spent twelve years on the Great Lakes, and
a man that can stand the up-and-down convulsions of, say, Lake Michigan
during a winter storm, need not fear the spacious roll of the Atlantic.

“There’s a ten-thousand-ton ship has went down there before now,” says
Eddie, referring apparently to Lake Michigan, “just because them twisty
seas has sheered the heads clean off her bolts and opened her up. Kinder
ripped her, I guess. Every October owners raises the pay of all hands on
them ships fifteen per cent—raises it voluntary.”

“Why?”

“Because the whole bunch would quit if they didn’t!”

This does not sound like a very convincing example of the voluntary
system; but the great are permitted to be inconsistent. Mr. Gillette,
proceeding, considers that life on board this ship is tolerable, but
the food monotonous. Another gentleman, chewing tobacco, now joins the
symposium. He is introduced as Joe McCarthy, of Oklahoma.

“You said it!” he announces, referring apparently to the food question.
“Especially the coffee. The stuff they serve on board this packet ain’t
got no kick to it.”

He is reminded that he has passed out of the coffee belt, and that he is
approaching a land of tea-drinkers.

“Tea or coffee,” he rejoins, with the dogged persistence of the
professional grumbler, “it don’t make no difference to me. And another
thing. This yer travelling by sea is a lonesome business. Give me a
railroad! There you can look out of the window of the car and see folks
waving their hands to you; and presents of candy at the deepo, and
everything. While this”—he flings a disparaging glance over the heaving
Atlantic—“this is all the same, all the time!”

“Well, Joe,” explains the fair-minded Al Thompson, “I guess we
_got_ to travel to Europe this way, seeing there ain’t no railroad
across—leastways not at present.”

But Mr. McCarthy refuses to be comforted.

“Europe!” he exclaims. “There y’ are! Europe—four thousand miles from
America! Some folks must be darned anxious for war, if they got to send
us four thousand miles to find it!”

This last sentiment produces a distinct sensation. It is adjudged by
those who hear it to border on pro-Germanism. Heads turn sharply in Joe’s
direction. A certain licence is permitted to professional grouchers; but
“knocking” the Cause is the one thing that the New Crusaders will not
permit.

That simple-hearted American, Al Thompson, conveys the necessary reproof,
in a manner which more highly-placed diplomatists might envy.

“Listen, Joe,” he remarks: “that stuff don’t go here. I know you been
mighty seasick, and you’re sore on the food, and the monotony, and the
other little glooms that come around on a slow trip like this. But
whenever _I_ git sore on things just now, like we all do, I just remember
them dirty bums over there marching through Belgium with little babies
on their bayonets; and then—well, all I care about is _getting_ over
there and killing any guy that calls himself a Dutchman. Let me kill a
few of them first—and, even if they kill me after, I should worry!”




CHAPTER FOUR

THE DANGER ZONE


There are many other types on board. Here is one at your elbow. He is
a sentry, on Number Nine post. His duties appear to be confined to
scrutinizing the ocean for periscopes. This is not a very arduous task,
for we are not in the danger zone at present. Indeed, a good deal of this
sentry’s time appears to be spent in gazing over the taffrail towards the
setting sun—towards America. Possibly he ought to be straining his eyes
towards France. But we are all human, especially the American soldier
boy, and this boy is unaffectedly and avowedly homesick. Jim Cleaver’s
thoughts at the present moment are nowhere near Number Nine post; they
are centred upon a little township called Potsdam, far away. This sounds
good and blood-thirsty: unfortunately this particular Potsdam is not
in Prussia, but “way up” somewhere in the State of New York; and Jim’s
imagination is concerned less with the House of Hohenzollern than with
the House of Cleaver—particularly the feminine portion thereof. Moreover,
it happens to be Sunday evening; and we all know what that means.

At the other corner of the deck stands Antonio. That is not his real
name, but no matter. He will inform you that he has already crossed
the ocean—once. A brief exercise in mental arithmetic will presently
cause you to realize that Antonio cannot have been born in America. This
is so. He crossed over ten years ago, in the steerage of an Austrian
Lloyd liner, outward bound from Trieste, on his way from the sunny but
unremunerative plains of Lombardy, in search of a mysterious Eldorado
called Harlem, New York. And now here he is, aged twenty-six, picked out
by the groping hand of the Selective Draft, on his way back again, to
help rend those same plains (among others) from the Hun and restore them
to their rightful owners. He is quite cheerful at the prospect, though he
would sooner be with the Italian Army than with the American. Not that he
is lacking in patriotism towards the land of his adoption, but—

“I gotta two brother over there,” he explains. “Besides, here I gotta
talka da Ingleese. Alla same, I feela fine!”

Antonio is not the only man who is going back with a personal interest in
the European situation. On a coil of rope on the well-deck, broad-faced
and Turanian, sits another young man. If Antonio’s real name is difficult
to pronounce, this man’s is out of range altogether; for he is a Russian.
He is addressed indifferently as Clambakovitch or Roughneckski.

“I live fifty miles from German border,” he says. “I come over here seven
years ago: I go through Berlin and sail from Hamburg. Now the Germans
have my home. I do not hear from my people for three years. So now I go
home—through Berlin again!”

“And after that?”

After that, Clambakovitch Roughneckski’s plans are perfectly definite. He
is coming back to America—for good. Already he is wedded to the soil of
Pennsylvania. Antonio’s views are the same.

The affection of her children for America is a wonderful thing. Domestic
or imported, it makes no matter. To the native-born American, America is
still the little country—the little strip of coastline—which stood up
successfully to a dunder-headed monarch in days when men did not govern
themselves: to the naturalized American, America is the land which gave
him his first real taste of personal liberty. Each cherishes America
to-day—the one because he helped to make her free, the other because she
has made him free.

We are in the danger zone now. It is difficult to realize that thrilling
circumstance, because no one seems to worry at all.

The same games of shuffle-board, bull-board, chess, checkers, and bridge
are in progress; each day sees the same guard-mountings, parades, and
inspections; off duty, the same quantity of tobacco and chewing-gum is
being consumed. Only if the ship is brought up short by a heavy sea, or
an iron door clangs suddenly in some distant stokehold, are we conscious
of any tension at all. For a moment heads are turned, or conversation
breaks. But that is all. A year ago, old hands tell us, things were
different. There really was cause for nervousness. But now, we are
escorted, we are well-armed, and the worst we need fear is a few hours in
the boats.

There is much speculation as to our destination. Is it the Mersey; the
Clyde; Queenstown? Or France direct? Where are we now, anyway? Each noon,
when the ship’s officers appear upon the bridge in a body, and perform
mysterious sun-worshipping rites with sextants, the amateur experts
look knowing, and refer darkly to probable latitudes and longitudes.
One, diagnosing the present commotion of billows as a “ground-swell,”
announces positively that we are just off the Bay of Biscay. Another,
basing his conclusions upon the lengthening hours of daylight and the
presence in our wake of certain sea-birds (herring-gulls, really) which
he describes as “penguins,” announces confidently that we are now well
within the Arctic Circle and will ultimately fetch a compass to Aberdeen,
_via_ Iceland. The battle rages between these two extremes: probably a
carefully worked-out average of opinion would bring us somewhere near
the truth. Gunners are quite familiar with the process: they call it
“bracketing.” But it does not matter. The real fun will begin when we
sight land, and the authorities upon the subject start in to identify it.

Another night has passed, and the question is settled. We have sighted
land, and are informed that we may expect to make our port to-night. It
is a breathless summer morning, and our great ships, which looked forlorn
and insignificant amid the ocean wastes, appear to have swelled a good
deal during the night. Certainly we form a stately pageant, for our
escorting forces have been augmented. Destroyers are beating the bounds,
nosey little patrol-boats thread their way in and out of the flotilla;
silver-grey monsters float above our heads in the blue, occasionally
descending to dip a suspicious nose towards the glittering wavelets. One
of them dives down gracefully to within hailing distance of our own ship.
It is a sublime moment. A thousand Stetsons are waved in welcome, and an
earnest query—the spontaneous greeting of Young America to Old England—is
roared from one of our portholes:

“Say, you got any _beer_ up there?”

At the forward end of the boat-deck Boone Cruttenden and Miss Lane were
leaning over the rail, in that confidential conjunction invariable in
all young couples, whether in war or peace, on the last day of a voyage.
Boone’s blue eyes surveyed the scene around him, and glowed.

“It makes you think a bit!” he exclaimed. “Here we are, thousands of us
Americans, on board British ships, being convoyed into a British port by
the British Navy. I wish the old Kaiser was here! And I wish some of our
folks at home who are asking what the British Navy is doing in this war
could be here too! They might learn then what is meant by the freedom of
the seas!”

“Still,” complained the youthful seeker after sensation, Miss Lane, “I
did hope that we might have seen just one little submarine.”

It is hard to refuse some people anything—especially American girls of
twenty-three. Miss Lane’s wish was promptly gratified. A few hundred
yards away, right in the middle of the convoy, there was suddenly
protruded from the unruffled surface of the ocean a few feet of something
grey, slender, and perpendicular—something which, after a hurried and
perfunctory survey of the situation, retired unobtrusively whence it
came. But not before it had been seen, and welcomed. For a brief minute
shells burst around it, machine guns pattered imprecations over it, bombs
descended upon it from the heavens above, and depth-charges detonated
in the waters beneath. The convoy altered its formation, as prudence
dictated. But nothing further happened. Calm reigned once more upon the
face of the waters.

“Some little surprise for him, I guess,” said Cruttenden. “Lying on the
bottom, and just came up for a look around! He did not expect to poke his
periscope into this hornet’s nest, I should say. I wonder if anything hit
him. I guess not: he was too slick. But you had your thrill right enough,
Miss Lane!”

Miss Lane sighed rapturously.

“The censor has just _got_ to pass that when I write home,” she announced.

       *       *       *       *       *

Late that evening we made our port. On our way in we passed a British
cruiser, coaling. The band was playing, as is usual during coaling.
Our tall ship slid past in the dusk, undemonstratively, almost
surreptitiously. One of the tragedies of modern warfare lies in its
anonymity. You may not display your true colours or advertise your
presence anywhere—even to your friends. So we crept past. But a sailor
can read ships as a landsman reads books. The cruiser’s band stopped
suddenly, right in the middle of a tune, and in two minutes the cruiser’s
sides, rigging, and tops were crowded with half-naked, coal-grimed
humanity yelling themselves hoarse to the roaring multitude on the liner.

“Listen!” shouted Boone Cruttenden into his companion’s ear, as a fresh
burst of sound added itself to the tumult; “their band has struck up
again. Can you hear it?”

“No! Yes, I do now. I guess it’s ‘God Save the King,’ or one of those
tunes.”

But Miss Lane was wrong. Suddenly the cheering died away for a moment,
and the band made itself heard, joyfully and triumphantly, for the first
time.

And the tune it played was “Over There.”

“Oh, _gee!_” said Miss Lane, with a sob in her voice. “Oh, gee!”




CHAPTER FIVE

TERRA INCOGNITA


We have not yet reached France, but we have discovered England. It
is a small island, and the visitor must be prepared for a primitive
civilization—for instance, _The Saturday Evening Post_ costs at least
fifteen cents—but it offers a fruitful and interesting field for
exploration.

Our debarkation was not attended by any marked popular demonstration.
Some of us were inclined to resent the omission as savouring of insular
aloofness. But now we know the real reason. _We are not supposed to be
here._ We are a dead secret. The port in which we disembarked has no
name. Its inhabitants are plunged into an official trance. Therefore it
would hardly be reasonable to expect the insensible population of an
anonymous city to proffer a civic welcome to American soldiers who are
officially invisible anyway.

However, by a fortunate accident at the moment of our arrival, a band
of musicians happened to be discoursing melody on the wharf, including
such airs as “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Dixie.” Moreover, a group of
British Staff Officers groped their way on board our imperceptible vessel
and greeted us cordially. They furthermore presented to every man of us
copies of a letter written by King George with his own hand, bidding us
welcome to his realm and expressing a wish that it were possible for him
to shake hands with each one of us in person. Scores of copies of that
letter are now already on their way home to America—the first souvenir of
the War.

Thereafter we were packed into a child’s train, drawn by a toy engine,
and conveyed at a surprising pace through a country of green fields,
cut up into checker-board squares by hedges and narrow lanes, populated
mainly by contemplative cows and dotted with red-roofed farms and
villages.

Occasionally we passed a camp. The tents were toylike and tidy, like the
country. They fitted the landscape, just as a great four-square American
Army tent, with its wooden walls and dust-coloured canvas top, fits in
with a Texan horizon. In these camps were men in khaki—some drilling,
some performing ablutions in buckets, some kicking a football. Mr. Joe
McCarthy’s passion for being waved at was at length gratified.

Occasionally we stopped at the station of some town. These were always
crowded, as were the trains. The strange little compartments in which the
English confine themselves when travelling were packed with humanity—some
of it standing up and clinging to the luggage-rack—all of it encumbered
with much personal property in the shape of bundles and babies. Evidently
the War has cut down transportation. At either end of these trains a
seething mob contended, with surprising good temper, around a mountain of
heavy baggage piled upon the platform beside the express-van.

“Ain’t they got no Red Caps in this country?” enquired Mr. McCarthy in
disparaging tones.

“Their Red Caps are all wearing tin helmets over in France,” replied the
well-informed Al Thompson. “Everybody here up to fifty is drafted. Folks
have to tote their own grips. I notice quite a few women porters around.
I guess their husbands are in France, and these are holding down their
jobs for them.”

In which Al spoke no more than the truth.

Meanwhile, in another part of the train, our friend Jim Nichols, Major
Powers, and one Bond, a stout, comfortable representative of the Medical
Service, together with Boone Cruttenden—the latter somewhat _distrait_,
for Miss Frances Lane had been swept away with the other ninety-and-nine,
by a different train, to be no more seen—were sharing a compartment with
Captain Norton and a British Staff Officer—a youthful Major. The Major’s
name was Floyd; he had materialized during the chaos of debarkation.
Norton had introduced him to the American officers; stately salutes had
been exchanged; gentlemen had stated in a constrained manner that they
were pleased to know one another; the whole party had crowded into one
compartment, and the train had started.

For nearly an hour almost total silence reigned. Americans are sensitive
folk, and Floyd’s melancholy visage and paralyzing monocle fulfilled our
friends’ most pessimistic anticipations of the British Staff Officer.
After a few laboured commonplaces the conversation lapsed altogether, and
the Americans devoted their attention to the flying landscape.

Norton, a little uncomfortable, glanced occasionally in the direction of
his brother officer. Major Floyd sat bolt upright in his seat, his gaze
focussed upon infinity. Norton, who was a man of warm heart and quick
temper, was conscious of a vague feeling of resentment.

“I wonder,” he mused, “why an image like this should have been sent as
conducting officer. No wonder Americans think us unsociable and rude. And
people over there were so good to us—”

At this moment Floyd removed his monocle and addressed his right-hand
neighbour—Boone Cruttenden.

“And now, Lieutenant, what are your impressions of our country?”

Boone Cruttenden smiled. “You have not given me much time to formulate
any, Major,” he said, glancing at his wrist-watch. “Just an hour!”

“That is fifty-nine minutes longer than the _World_ reporter gave me when
I landed at West Twenty-Third Street ten years ago,” replied Floyd.

“You know America?” Four homesick Americans spoke simultaneously.

Floyd’s eyes twinkled.

“Some of it,” he said. “I was with the General Electric Company
at Schenectady for three years. After that I worked on various
electrical-engineering jobs for about four years; I got as far west as
Cincinnati. I’m not a professional warrior, like Norton there.”

“Still, you have seen service in this War?” said Major Powers.

“Oh, yes, I managed to get home from America just in time for the start
of things.”

“Have you served in France, or on one of your other fronts?” asked
Cruttenden. “The British Army has such a large selection.”

“France all the time—_and_ Belgium. Most of us have taken a course of the
Ypres Salient.”

“I guess those ribbons the Major is wearing would give us details, if we
could read them,” observed Jim Nichols. “What do they stand for, Major?”

Floyd laughed.

“As a traditional Englishman,” he said, “I suppose I ought to hang my
head confusedly and decline to answer. But I have spent ten years outside
my own country, so I will tell you. This little fellow with the rainbow
effect you probably know: Norton has it too. It means that we were both
in Flanders in Nineteen Fourteen. The khaki, red, and blue is the Queen’s
Medal for the South African War. By the way, Major Powers, I notice that
you have the Spanish War ribbon. What is your other one—the yellow and
blue?”

“That relates to our Mexican Border troubles,” replied Powers. “More
discomfort than danger getting that. What is that third ribbon of
yours—the red with the blue edges?”

“That? Oh, that is the D.S.O.”

“What does that stand for?” asked Boone.

“Well, before the War it was popularly supposed to stand for ‘Dam Silly
Officer!’ Since then, however, the military profession has risen in the
eyes of the world; so it now means ‘Done Something or Other’!”

“And what did you get it for?” pursued the insatiable Boone.

Floyd laughed.

“Counting jam-tins at the Base!” he said.

“I suppose it was while counting jam-tins you lost your arm,” suggested
the quiet voice of Major Bond.

Floyd laughed again.

“You are too sharp for me, Doctor,” he said. “I plead guilty. My left
arm is an understudy. The original is astray somewhere around Beaumont
Hamel. I have had to stay at home since then. But now I want to get
back to my first question, Lieutenant. What are your impressions of
this country—your first impressions? I really do want to know. I have
been aching to ask you for the last hour, but I felt that I had to play
up a little first. Monocle—vacant stare, and all that! The traditional
Englishman, in fact. I felt you were entitled to meet one,” continued
this eccentric man; “and I took especial pains to give you a good
impersonation, because you may experience some difficulty in finding
another. The fact is, the traditional Englishman is getting rare. We have
all been shaken out of ourselves these days. After the War he may come
back—perhaps. Perhaps not.” He sighed gently. “But at present I am here
to supply you with information about the customs and institutions of
this country. I am detailed for the job. I am paid for it. Please ask me
questions, somebody?”

No one could resist this solemn appeal. First one query was proffered,
then another. Presently the American passion for getting to the root of
the matter was in full play.

“Why did the English travel in closed boxes? Why were the locomotives so
small, and why did they burn soft coal? Why were there so many overhead
bridges when a grade-crossing would suffice? What would be the wages of
that old man working in that field? What was that bright yellow crop
growing in that section? Why did vehicles in a street keep to the left?
Was there any organized system of irrigation, that the country was all so
green? Was there game in those woods, and who had the right to hunt it?”

Norton, a professional soldier from his school days, knew nothing of many
of these things. He was also a typical Englishman, and had been brought
up to accept matters as he found them. But he was the son of an English
country squire, and he was able to name the various crops—meadow-grass,
hay-grass, wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, beans—whose variegated colours
impart to an English landscape its curious crazy-quilt effect. He was
well-versed, too, in agricultural economics and the hoary traditions of
the feudal system, and discussed voluminously, as an Englishman will when
started upon his own subject, upon farm-labourers’ wages, the rotation of
crops, and the Ground Game Act.

Floyd, who agreed with Dr. Samuel Johnson in regarding one green field
as very like another green field, recked nothing of these things. But he
was a mine of information on railroad management. To a deeply interested
audience he traced the origin of the standard railway gauge of the world
back to an obscure English colliery road of George Stephenson’s days:
he ascribed the multitude of overhead bridges and tightly locked level
crossings to the benevolent fussiness of the Board of Trade. He even
knew—to the frank amazement of Captain Norton—the maximum height from
rail-level to which a British locomotive, by reason of the aforesaid
bridges, can aspire—thus accounting for the stunted appearance of the
same by comparison with its American brother, which in an atmosphere
of greater freedom is permitted to soar some nine feet higher. Greatly
daring, he even justified the British custom of keeping to the left, on
the ground that it dated back to the days when men rode on horseback, and
riders and postilions, to mount or dismount, must perforce draw in to the
near side of the road.

An American is forever battling between two instincts—native appreciation
of what is modern and efficient, and inherited veneration for what is
ancient and inconvenient. Common sense usually compels him to favour the
former; but he is never so happy as when he can conserve or justify the
latter.

Major Floyd gratified this instinct. He carried his hearers back to
the days of stage-coaches. He told of the opening of the Stockton and
Darlington Railway; of Brunel and the Broad Gauge; of the railway races
in the nineties, when the Scottish Express ran four hundred miles in
seven hours. Altogether, in his able hands, “Romance brought up the Nine
Fifteen.”

The locomotive gave a shriek, and the train began to slow down. Major
Powers turned from the contemplation of a tiny English town nestling
in a shallow valley a mile away. With its red roofs and square church
tower set against a background of living green, it looked the embodiment
of uneventful drowsiness. Certainly a little imagination was required
to realize that under nearly every one of these same roofs there stood
at least one empty chair—a chair that might or might not be occupied
again—and that beneath that ancient tower for four long years, week
by week, in good times and in bad, women, children, and old men had
congregated to pray that those whose names were inscribed upon the
illuminated scroll in the church porch—squire’s son, parson’s son,
farmer’s son, poacher’s son—might in God’s good time come home again,
having achieved the purpose for which they had set out.

Powers possessed the requisite imagination. He had been reared in
Kentucky—that land of fair women and noble horses. This toy town,
which could have been transported bodily into his native State without
materially affecting either the landscape or the census, appealed to him,
as small children appeal to large people.

He turned to Norton, and said simply:

“Captain, I have never been outside of America before. I have been
looking over this little island of yours, and I want to tell you, right
now, that I think it is worth fighting for!”

“Thanks awfully,” said Norton gravely, and offered an unexpected hand.




CHAPTER SIX

SOCIAL CUSTOMS OF THE ISLANDERS


We are now at a rest-camp, recharging our batteries after the fatigues of
sea travel before proceeding to the conquest of Germany.

The camp is situated deep in rural England. At our feet, in a valley,
lies an ancient city, dominated by a mighty cathedral. It was once a
walled city, but only the gates remain now—King’s Gate and West Gate. At
the top of the High Street stands a great rough-hewn statue of Alfred
the Great—dead for more than a thousand years. He makes a fine figure,
with his coat of mail and uplifted broadsword. Mr. Eddie Gillette,
among whose sterling virtues sentiment finds no place, compares him,
not unfavourably, with a New York traffic cop. Mr. Joe McCarthy, still
dyspeptic from the effects of prolonged ocean travel, describes the
deceased monarch as a tough guy, and adds further that in his opinion
this is a dead town. Al Thompson, of finer clay, inspects the statue
approvingly, then passes on with a handful of interested spectators to
the cathedral, whose grey walls keep eternal vigil over the dust of
Saxon, Norman, and English dead—much of it ancestral American dust.

Elderly gentlemen in maroon dressing-gowns conduct the party round,
and in piping tones introduce the New World to the Old. But not all
Old. In one nook of the great fabric, guarded by Old Glory itself,
gleaming brightly in the twilight, stands an Innovation—a temporary
shrine dedicated to fallen American soldiers, particularly those who
have died in English hospitals from wounds received in France. After
the War the memorial is to take the form of a permanent stained-glass
window. At present in England people are not manufacturing stained-glass
windows—only earning them.

The countryside is full of camps—typically English—not spacious and
bewildering such as those which scared the mountaineer from Tennessee,
but prim and tidy, like an English kitchen-garden. The white conical
tents are set out in close, level rows, like cabbages. The Headquarters
tent and the Officers’ Mess are fenced in by a ring of curious
boundary-stones, set a few feet apart and carefully whitewashed. The
district is full of English soldiers. We have never seen them before, and
we regard them with interest. We note with gratification that they are
in the main smaller than ourselves and not so well set-up, though sturdy
enough. Their teeth appear to require attention: gold teeth have not
yet reached this country. They wear ragged mustaches, and smoke eternal
cigarettes. The language that they speak is entirely incomprehensible.

Their officers, on the other hand, present a decidedly gay and frivolous
appearance. They look very young; they wear their caps at a rakish angle;
they carry canes. They are secretly regarded by many of us as verging
upon the Clarence class. But the old stagers of our camp warn us not to
form our judgments too hastily. When we are able to read the biography
which every British soldier carries upon his sleeve or breast—scraps of
ribbon, service chevrons, wound stripes, and the like—we will realize
that things, especially in England, are not always what they seem.

In fact, we have begun to realize this already. They are not
communicative, the people we meet here. They talk little of the War,
except possibly to belittle their own conduct thereof or disparage their
own leaders; but we are dimly conscious that England is not making a
display of company manners at present. Her luxurious private parks are
scarred by horse-lines; her golf-courses are growing potatoes. Her
great country-houses, badly in need of paint and plaster, are flying
Red Cross flags, and convalescent soldiers in hospital blue lounge upon
balustraded terraces where peacocks were wont to strut. Her automobiles
appear to have enlisted in the Army: they wear a businesslike uniform
of grey paint, and are driven by attractive young women in khaki. Every
one appears to wear a uniform of some kind—certainly no one wears
mourning—and all seem too busy to worry about ceremony.

When we arrived in this town, after our long cross-country journey
from our landing port, we were conscious of a pleasant feeling of
anticipation. We thought of the folk who had seen us off at home—cramming
the railway stations, cheering, waving, weeping—and though we naturally
did not expect such a demonstration, we did expect something. Well, it
did not turn out that way. We arrived almost furtively, in the dead of
night, in a station where one gas-lamp in six was burning. We were warned
to fall in quietly, and to refrain from noise as we marched through the
town.

“Not a very overwhelming display of cordiality, I’m afraid,” said Major
Floyd; “but we are up against official secrets again. A lady called
Dora:[1] you will become well acquainted with her. It is not officially
known to any one—except the Boche, of course—that this is an American
Rest Depot, so we are concealing the fact from the inhabitants. The
streets are a bit dark, I’m afraid; but we are precious short of
coal—supplying France and Italy as well as ourselves—and that hits our
lighting arrangements rather hard. Besides, we have the Gothas to think
of. Are your men ready to move off, Colonel? Very good: I’ll lead the
way. You will notice our solitary attempt at the glad-hand business just
outside the station.”

The “solitary attempt” proved to be a discreetly illuminated notice
spanning the street on the _façade_ of an arch. It said: WELCOME, AMERICA!

As an emotional outburst the greeting was perhaps open to criticism on
the score of reticence; but to some of us, who knew our stiff, angular,
inarticulate England better than others, there was something rather
moving about the whole idea.

We tramped under the sign. Those who had the fancy to turn and look up at
the other face of the arch found another notice: GOD-SPEED!

“‘God-speed’! That’s a bit sudden,” observed a young machine-gunner to a
grizzled English sergeant who was acting as assistant shepherd. “We’ve
hardly arrived yet.”

“That ain’t meant for you, my lad,” replied the veteran. “You ain’t
supposed to read that—yet. That’s for another lot of your boys what are
starting off to-night for France. You’ll likely meet ’em coming down the
’ill as you goes up.”

We did. And when the event took place—when the two bands of tramping
American exiles brushed hands for a moment in the soft summer darkness
of a strange land—I fear there was some transgression of official
regulations on the subject of silent and secret night marching. But,
after all, there are limits to human virtue.

Yes, everybody here appears decidedly busy—especially the women. That
shrewd observer of humanity, Al Thompson, does not fail to remark upon
the fact in a letter to his wife:

    _You get kind of used here to see a woman do all the chores
    that we all considered a man’s job. Driving automobiles, or
    cleaning windows high up in the air, or delivering mails, or
    tending a street-car, or despatching trains. They have boys,
    quite little fellers, to help them with the trains. The woman
    does the work and the boy blows a whistle, like what you would
    expect of a boy. I seen a whole bunch of girls one day outside
    a factory, with their faces and hands stained yellow. That was
    picric acid: they make shells with it. It spoils their looks
    some, but they should worry. They just waved their hands and
    laughed at us when we tried to josh them. I reckon the girls at
    home are all doing that too now; but don’t you go for to stain
    yourself yellow, my dear._

But the Islanders are not too busy to make an attempt to entertain
us. Some of these attempts are rather formidable. To boys like Second
Lieutenant Sam Richards and his crony Jim Hollis, in whose pleasant
little home town far west of the Alleghenies every one knows every one
else, and young men and maidens usually exchange invitations over the
telephone (which instrument is practically unknown in English rural
districts), and that awful shibboleth of English society, the language
of the third person, is happily extinct, it is a little alarming to find
upon the bulletin-board in the Mess a stiff square of white pasteboard
bearing the legend:

    +--------------------------------------+
    |       _Col. Adams and Officers_      |
    |                                      |
    |         LADY WYVERN-GRYPHON          |
    |                                      |
    |                AT HOME               |
    |                                      |
    |  SATURDAY, JULY 6TH, 3:30 P.M.-7:00  |
    |                                      |
    |                  AT                  |
    |             BROADOAK PARK            |
    |                                      |
    |  LAWN TENNIS                R.S.V.P. |
    +--------------------------------------+

Jim Hollis scrutinized this document whimsically. Then he turned to his
companion.

“We must get this right,” he said. “Who is Lady Wy-Wy—?”

“Never mind,” said Sam. “Call her Lady Whiskey-Syphon—I bet the name
isn’t pronounced the way it’s spelled, anyway.”

“Well,” continued Jim, “who _is_ Lady Whiskey-Syphon, and what does this
‘ad.’ mean?”

“It means,” replied Sam, whose sense of humour was always stimulated by
the contemplation of British National institutions, “that this Lady has
been away and now she’s back home.”

“For three and a half hours?”

“Yes. These people have a bunch of homes, like our millionaires. They own
real-estate lots all over the country, and it stands to reason they have
a home in each.”

“And why does she put ‘Lawn Tennis’ down there in that corner?”

“Because she’s going to _play_ lawn tennis, from three-thirty to seven.
That’s easy.”

“But what does she want to tell us for? We are nothing in her young life.”

“She wants us to go play with her,” explained Sam gently. “Nobody can
play lawn tennis by themselves. She wants _you_, boy.”

“Where does it say that?” enquired the incredulous James.

“It doesn’t say it. The English don’t say it. It would sound too eager.
They just mention the event casually, and if you want to go you can.”

“But I don’t want to go.”

“Well, write and say so.”

“Why? It doesn’t tell me to do that on the card.”

“Doesn’t it? Jim Hollis, haven’t you got any sisters to tell you
what things mean? Look at that R.S.V.P. down there! That’s the
reference-number of the file, and you quote it in replying.”

Jim paled.

“Listen, how do you address anybody like that?” he enquired, despairingly.

Sam’s eyes twinkled.

“Ask the Adjutant,” he advised.

Reference to that overworked official elicited the information that the
invitation had already been accepted by the Colonel on behalf of the
Mess, and that if the regiment were still in England on July the sixth
two or three officers would be detailed to accompany him to Broadoak Park.

“Me for the backwoods on the sixth!” murmured Master Hollis fervently.

But the very next day, as Jim and Sam were toiling up the hill to the
camp after inspecting the cathedral, they were overtaken by an elderly
automobile. It drew up beside them, and a rather gruff voice enquired:

“Won’t you get in and let me drive you up to the camp? I am going that
way, anyhow.”

They accepted gratefully—it was a blazing hot day—and presently found
themselves chatting composedly, with the American’s natural instinct for
easy conversation, with a high-nosed, deep-voiced old lady in black.

“One ought to be thankful to be able to drive anywhere these days,”
remarked their hostess—“let alone give any one a lift. Do you know how
much petrol the Controller allows me? Ten gallons a month! And I live
five miles from a railway station! It used to be six gallons, but I get
a little more now because I am taking in more patients. My house is a
hospital, you know.”

They did not know; but it did not seem to matter, for the old lady
continued:

“I hope you are coming to my tennis-party on the sixth. You will meet
some charming girls—mostly V.A.D.’s. You got a card, I suppose?”

Jim, shrinking back into the cushions, pressed uneasily upon the toe of
his brother officer. But Lady Wyvern-Gryphon swept on:

“I realized afterwards how stupid I had been to send out the cards at
all. It would have been much simpler and more considerate to do what I am
doing now—pay an informal call on your Colonel and ask him to bring along
any officers who might have nothing better to do on the day, instead of
bothering busy men to answer silly written invitations. But one can never
do a thing except in the way one has done it for forty years—even with
a War on. You must have thought me very tiresome.” (She pronounced it
“tarsome.”) “What quaint experiences you must be having among us!”

“We are having very pleasant experiences,” said Jim.

“That’s nice of you. You said it much more promptly than an Englishman
would have done, too. Do you know,” continued this most informal _grande
dame_, rounding suddenly upon the speaker, “that when you smile you are
amazingly like my second son?”

“He is in France, I suppose?” hazarded Jim.

“Yes—he is in France. And—he is not coming back to me, I fear.” The old
lady’s voice was as gruff as ever. “It happened at Le Cateau, nearly four
years ago. He was mentioned in Despatches, though. One will always feel
glad of that.”

“And proud,” added Sam Richards.

“Oh, yes—proud too. Pride is the greatest boon bestowed on mothers in
war-time. I don’t know why the clergy are always preaching against it.
Before this War I possessed four sons, and a certain modicum of pride.
Now I have only one son, but I have four times as much pride. One finds
it very sustaining. Have you boys mothers?”

Both boys nodded assent.

“Well, if you will give me their addresses I will write to them both, and
say I have seen you. Mothers like first-hand information, you know.”

Visiting-cards were produced shyly, and disappeared into a little black
bag.

“I have never been in America,” continued Lady Wyvern-Gryphon. “But one
of my daughters-in-law is American. She came from Philadelphia. Is that
anywhere near your homes? You know it, at any rate.”

They confessed that they lived some fifteen hundred miles from
Philadelphia.

“Indeed!” remarked her ladyship, not at all perturbed. “That is
interesting. We have no conception of distance in this country. Now tell
me, how does an American country town differ from a town like this? What
does a street look like, compared with one of ours?”

“Wider, and straighter,” said Jim.

“With maple trees growing along,” added Sam.

“The houses are wooden,” continued Jim, warming up—“painted white, with a
piazza, and wire doors to keep the flies out in—”

“And no fences between the houses,” continued Sam, almost shouting. “And
none in front. You just step right down on the street.”

“And in summer-time,” interrupted Jim, with eyes closed rapturously,
“when the sun strikes down through the maple trees, an’—oh, _gee_, I wish
I was there now!”

After that our two lieutenants took entire charge of the conversation.
They conducted Lady Wyvern-Gryphon, street by street, block by block,
through their home town. They described the railroad station, where
the great trunk track runs through and the mail trains pause for brief
refreshment on their long journey to the Pacific Coast. They described
the Pullman cars; the porters with their white jackets and black faces;
they related, with affectionate relish, one or two standard anecdotes
aimed at that common target of American sarcasm, the upper berth. They
described the street-car system, and explained carefully that to get from
Sam’s house to Jim’s you had to change cars at the corner of M Street and
Twenty-first—

“There’s a drug-store on the corner,” mentioned Jim. (Whether as a
topographical pointer or in wistful reference to far-distant ice-cream
soda, is not known.)

They passed on to the million-dollar Insurance Building downtown; the
State University on the hill above; the Country Club, with its summer
games and winter dances. Finally, being American and not English,
they spoke frankly, naturally, and appreciatively of their womenkind.
Altogether, being but boys, and homesick boys at that, they spoke all
that was in their hearts, and incidentally conveyed considerable warmth
to the heart of a rather formidable, extremely lonely, old lady.

They saluted politely when the time came to part, and informed their new
friend that they were very pleased to have known her.

“And I am very pleased to have known _you!_” replied her ladyship, with a
heartiness which would have surprised some of her friends. “Don’t bother
about that tennis invitation. You probably won’t be here, anyway, to
judge from the speed with which you all scuttle through this country.
Come to lunch to-morrow instead, and tell me more.”

They went.

[1] D.O.R.A. Defence of the Realm Act.




CHAPTER SEVEN

THREE MUSKETEERS IN LONDON


Our stay in England has been prolonged beyond the usual time, chiefly
because that impartial foe of the just and the unjust, the Spanish
Influenza, has opened a campaign against us, and it is manifestly foolish
to attack Germany before you have settled accounts with Spain.

Pending the time when our invalids shall be convalescent, we have had
some interesting experiences. We have explored the countryside, and
studied and analyzed the structure of insular society. We have consorted
with Barons, Squires, and Knights of the Shire; with Bishops, Priests,
and Deacons; with Waacs, Wrens, and V.A.D.’s; with Farmers, Hedgers,
and Land Girls; with Mayors and Corporations. They are all interesting;
most of them are quite human; and all, once you know them, are extremely
friendly and anxious to entertain us.

For instance, there was the Fourth of July, officially celebrated in
London. British Official—not American. The Americans are a patriotic
people; but it certainly had not occurred to us, sojourning in Great
Britain, to undertake, this year of all years, any ostentatious
celebration of the foundation of our national liberties.

But John Bull would have none of this false delicacy.

“My dear fellow,” he said in effect, “of _course_ you must celebrate the
Fourth of July. We know it is one of your greatest national festivals.
We will help you. We will put up flags, arrange a demonstration, and
devise special features for the day. Let me see—you usually have
fireworks, don’t you? Sorry! I’m afraid we can’t quite manage fireworks
this year. You see, they might be misconstrued into an air-raid warning.
But anything else—bands, processions, baseball? My boy, you shall have
them all! What else? Won’t you require pumpkin-pie, or cranberry sauce,
or something of that kind? Oh—that’s _Thanksgiving_? I beg your pardon.
Stupid of me to mix ’em. Anyway, you must have a jolly good time.
We should never forgive ourselves if we didn’t give you a chance to
celebrate an occasion like that. I know how _we_ should feel if we had to
cut out Christmas, old man!”

We forbore to explain that Christmas is also, to a certain extent, a
recognized festival in the United States, and merely accepted John Bull’s
invitation in the spirit in which it was offered—that is to say, with
great heartiness but some vagueness as to the probable course of events.

However, everything worked out right on the day. On the Fourth of July,
nineteen eighteen, London was turned over to the Americans. In the
morning, parties of American soldiers and sailors proceeded to explore
the town. They enquired politely of passers-by for the Tower of London;
the Old Curiosity Shop; the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey;
Buckingham Palace. The passers-by, though cordially disposed, did not
always know where these places were. The Londoner takes his national
monuments, like the British Constitution and the British Navy, for
granted, and is seldom concerned with the Why and Wherefore thereof.
However, we succeeded in discovering most of these places for ourselves,
and were gratified to observe that Old Glory was amicably sharing a
flagpole over the Palace of Westminster with the Union Jack.

By high noon most of us had squeezed ourselves into Central Hall,
Westminster, where all the Americans in London seemed to be gathered,
together with a goodly percentage of the native element. A solid wedge of
convalescent soldiers in hospital blue supplied the necessary reminder of
the Thing which had brought us together. The speakers included a British
ex-Ambassador, venerated on both sides of the Atlantic, a British Cabinet
Minister, an American Admiral, and an American General. Altogether, an
affair to write home about.

Thereafter, refreshment, at the Eagle Hut, the Beaver Hut, Washington
Inn, and other recently opened hospitality centres. At one of these Ikey
Zingbaum succeeded during the rush of business in cashing a Confederate
twenty-dollar bill, which had been “wished on” him one dark night some
years previously, and which he had carried in his pocket, faint yet
pursuing, ever since. He got four pounds sterling for it—a rate of
interest more indicative of International amity than financial condition.

Al Thompson, Ed Gillette, and that captious critic Joe McCarthy (not yet
entirely recovered from dyspepsia incurred upon his maiden ocean voyage),
pushed their way out of the crowded Hall into the blazing July sunshine,
and enquired of one another simultaneously:

“Where do we eat?”

In a spirit of appropriate independence they decided to elude the special
arrangements made for their entertainment and forage for themselves. From
the moment of their embarkation from their native land their daily diet
had been selected and provided by a paternal but unimaginative Department
of State, and their stomachs cried out for something unusual, unexpected,
and, if possible, unwholesome. But London has an area of seven hundred
and fifty square miles. This offers an embarrassing choice of places of
refreshment. They swung on their heels undecided.

“I guess we better ask some guy,” suggested Ed Gillette.

The motion was seconded by Al Thompson.

“There’s a Jock,” he said. “Let’s go ask him.”

They approached their quarry—a squat figure in a kilt, with a round and
overheated countenance beaming like a vermilion haggis under a voluminous
khaki bonnet—and addressing him as “friend,” enquired:

“Where do folks eat around here?”

The Scot smiled affably.

“I’m no varra weel acquent with this toon,” he admitted. “If it was
Airdrie, now, or Coatbridge! I’m awa’ there to-night. I’m just on leave,
like yourselves. But I doot we’ll no be goin’ far wrong if we keep along
toward The Strand. Will I come with you?”

“Sure!” replied Ed Gillette heartily.

“This is on us,” Al Thompson hastened to add.

The Scotsman led the way. Whether he had grasped the implied offer of
hospitality is doubtful. However, that hardened cynic Joe McCarthy
cherished no illusions on the subject. He sniffed contemptuously.

Their walk towards The Strand—it is to be feared that their guide’s sense
of direction was once or twice at fault—gave them further opportunities
of studying the habits and customs of the strange race upon whom they had
descended. In one quiet street—there are many such in London these days,
for traffic is down to a minimum—they beheld a middle-aged lady hail
a crawling taxi-cab. The driver of the vehicle took not the slightest
notice, but slid upon his way.

“There’s jest twa-three o’ they taxis nowadays where formerly there was
a hunnerd in a street,” explained that man-about-town, Private Andrew
Drummond. “Consequently, they can pick and choose. They’ll no tak’ a body
that looks ower carefu’ of their money. There’s another yin! He’ll give
the auld wife the go-bye too, I’m thinking. She doesna look like yin o’
the extravagant soort.”

He was right. A second taxi sauntered past the gesticulating lady. This
time the driver, after a single fleeting glance, condescended to flip
his right hand in the air, in a gesture which may have been intended to
indicate that he had particular business elsewhere, but more probably
expressed his contempt for the pedestrian world in general.

The gesture was observed by a passing citizen—an elderly gentleman with
white whiskers and spats—who, at first appropriating it to himself,
stopped and glared at the offender. Then noting beauty in distress upon
the sidewalk, he assailed the taxi with indignant cries.

“Hi, there! Taxi! Stop! Stop, there! Don’t you see the lady hailing you?”

The taxi-driver perfectly impassive, pressed his accelerator.

“Stop, confound you!” yelled the old gentleman, waving his umbrella.
“Stop, you blackguard! Don’t you hear—”

This time the taxi-driver replied with a gesture quite unmistakable, and
disappeared from sight round the corner.

The old gentleman turned apologetically to his Ariadne.

“Intolerable! Monstrous!” he announced. “If you will allow me, madam, I
will stay and secure the next taxi for you, or give the man in charge.”

“Boys,” murmured the dreamy voice of that bonny fighter, Ed Gillette,
“I guess we’ll stay an’ see this through. We’re nootral, of course, but
maybe we can hand the taxi-driver a Note!”

Without further pressure our four friends anchored in a favourable
position on the opposite side of the sunny street, and awaited
developments. One or two vehicles sped through, but they were either
military automobiles or taxis carrying passengers. Once or twice a
tradesman’s delivery-van passed by, rendered top-heavy in appearance by a
bloated gas-bag billowing upon the roof. But nothing else.

“’Nother dead town!” murmured Joe McCarthy, not without satisfaction.

As he spoke, another taxi, with flag up, swung round the corner. The old
gentleman, taking up a frontal position in the middle of the street,
waved his umbrella. The taxi, with a swerve that would have done credit
to a destroyer avoiding a mine, eluded him, and resumed its normal
course. This manœuvre accomplished, it slackened speed again.

But the British are a tenacious race. The elderly champion of the fair
turned and ran with surprising swiftness after the receding vehicle. He
overtook it. He took a flying leap upon the footboard beside the driver,
and grasping that astonished malefactor by the collar with one hand laid
hold of the side brake with the other. Employing the driver’s neck as
fulcrum, he pulled the lever with all his strength and jammed the brakes
on hard. His baffled victim having automatically thrown open the throttle
of the engine, the whirring back wheels, caught in the full embrace of
the brake, skidded violently; the cab described a semicircle, and ran to
a full stop on the sidewalk with its radiator (which had narrowly missed
Joe McCarthy) pressed affectionately against some one’s area railings.

After this all concerned got into action with as little delay as
possible. The old gentleman, descending from his perch, opened upon his
opponent at a range of about three feet. Such phrases as “Ruffian!”
“Bandit!” “Thug!” “Yahoo!” “Police!” “War on, too!” flew from him like
hail. The driver, though obviously rattled by the complete unexpectedness
of the attack, and further hampered by having swallowed the glowing stub
of a cigarette, reacted (as they say in the official _communiqué_) with
creditable promptness.

“Call yourself a gentleman?” he coughed. “’Ard-workin’ man like me!… Over
milingtary age!… Carryin’ on as well as I can till the boys comes ’ome!…
Disgrace, that’s what you are!… Got a job in the War Office, I’ll lay a
tanner!… I’ll summons you for assault and damagin’ my keb!… The first
copper I sees…”

And so on. Meanwhile the lady in the case, much to her own surprise,
found herself propelled by four pairs of willing hands into the cab.
This done, the door was shut upon her, and a soothing Scots-American
chorus assured her through the window-glass that the entire matter would
straightway be adjusted. (“Fixed” was the exact term employed.)

But now a new figure added itself to the tableau—a slightly nervous
individual in blue, with silver buttons and flat peaked cap. He coughed
in a deprecating fashion, and produced a notebook.

“That a cop?” enquired Ed Gillette of the Scot.

“No jist exactly. He’s a ‘Special.’ I doot he’ll no be a match for the
taxi-man.”

But the Special Constable, though his lack of stolidity betrayed the
amateur, had been well-drilled in his part.

“Now, then, now, then,” he demanded sternly, “what’s all this? Driver,
what is your cab doing up against these railings? You are causing an
obstruction.”

These questions were promptly answered by the old gentleman in a
sustained passage, supported by a soprano _obbligato_ from the interior
of the taxi. The “Special” listened judicially, and finally held up his
hand.

“That’ll do,” he intimated, and turned to the taxi-driver.

“What have you got to say?”

The taxi-driver, having by this time cleared his larynx of cigarette-ash,
shrugged his shoulders.

“Me? Oh, nothink! What I say don’t matter. I’m a poor man: I don’t count
for anythink. That old garrotter only tried to murder me—that’s all!
Flew at me, he did, out of the middle of the road like a laughin’ hyena,
and nearly broke my neck, besides wreckin’ my keb. But of course I don’t
matter. Let ’im ’ave it ’is own way. One law for the rich, and another—”

“Do you charge this gentleman with assault?” interpolated the Special,
who had evidently come to the conclusion that it was time to get down to
the rigid official formula provided for such occasions as this.

“Charge ’im? And waste ’alf a workin’ day at a blinkin’ police court,
waitin’ for the case to come on? Not me!” replied the taxi-man, with
evident sincerity. “Oh, no, I’m only a pore—”

“Constable, will you _please_ tell this man to drive me to Half-moon
Street?” demanded a high-pitched voice from the interior of the cab.

“I have no power to compel him to drive you anywhere, madam,” replied the
Special, with majestic humility.

“Well, what powers _have_ you got?” shouted the old gentleman.

“At your request, sir, I can take his name and number, and you can charge
him with declining to ply for hire when called upon to do so,” chanted
the limb of the Law. “Do you wish to charge him?”

“_Wish?_” shrieked the old gentleman. “Of course I wish! I mean”—as he
met the cold and steady eye of the Special—“I shall be obliged if you
will charge this man, officer.”

“Very good,” was the gracious reply. “Now I can _act_.” The Special
turned to the cabman, with pencil poised. “Your name?”

“Most certainly you shell ’ave my name!” retorted the other, with the
air of a master-tactician who at last sees his opponent walk into a
long-prepared trap. “_And_ my number, too! And you’ll oblige me,
Constable, by takin’ _his_ name and address as well. I don’t intend for
to—”

“Your name?” suggested the Special unfeelingly.

“Henery Mosscockle, Number Five-oh-seven-oh—”

Details followed, all duly noted. Then came the turn of the old
gentleman. He proffered a visiting-card, and gave another to the cabman,
who apologized for being unable to reciprocate, on the ground that he
had left his card-case on the Victrola in his drawing-room. Our Three
Musketeers, together with their D’Artagnan, were moved to audible
chuckles. The old gentleman, aware of their presence for the first time,
swung round and addressed them.

“American soldiers!” he exclaimed. “Good-morning, gentlemen. I am
sorry that you should have witnessed such a poor specimen of British
patriotism. None of that sort in your country, I’ll be bound!”

Our friends saluted politely, and cast about for an answer which should
be both candid and equally agreeable to all parties—not, when you come
to think of it, a particularly easy task. But it was that ill-used
individual, the taxi-driver, who replied. He thrust a bristling chin
towards the old gentleman.

“Patriotism?” he barked. “As man to man, tell me—’ow old are you?”

“That,” snapped the old gentleman, “is my business!”

“Well,” announced the taxi-driver, with the air of a man who has been
awarded a walk-over, “I’m fifty-seven. Any sons?”

“Two.”

“Two? Well, I got two too—one in the East Surreys and the other in the
Tanks. (’E was a machine-gunner in the first place.) Both bin in the
War four years. Both bin wounded. What are yours in? The Circumloosion
Office, or the Conchies’ Battalion?”[2]

“One is in the Coldstream Guards. The other was a Gunner, but he was
killed.”

The cabman became human at once.

“I’m sorry for that—sir! May I ask where?”

“First Battle of Ypres.”

“Epray? That was where our Bert stopped his first one.”

“I have a son too,” interpolated the Special eagerly—“in the—”

But no one took any notice of him. The cabman and the old gentleman had
entirely forgotten the existence of the rest of the party.

“Not badly wounded, I hope?”

“Nothing to signify—a couple of machine-gun bullets in the forearm. The
second time was worser. That was at a place somewhere in the ’Indenburg
line, spring of last year. ’En-in-’Ell, or some such name. Bert copped
a sweet one that time—bit o’ shell-splinter as big as me ’and. It was
nearly a year before ’e was fit to go back. You see—”

But the old gentleman had laid an indignant hand on the other father’s
shoulder.

“You mean to tell me,” he demanded, “that your son, twice badly wounded,
has been sent back to the firing-line again?”

“I do. He’s there now.”

For the second time that day the old gentleman began to shake his fist.

“It’s monstrous!” he shouted. “It’s damnable! They did the same thing
to my boy—my only surviving boy! It’s this infernal system of throwing
all the burden on the willing horse—this miserable cringing to so-called
Labour!” He choked. “The Government.… If I were Lloyd George.…” He
exploded. “_Pah!_”

“Never mind,” said a soothing voice from the interior of the cab. “If
he won’t go, he won’t. Besides, it’s no use making him violent. I dare
say I shall be able to get another taxi. Will you please open this door,
Constable? It seems to have stuck.”

The two parents stopped short, guiltily conscious of having strayed from
their text. Al Thompson addressed the driver.

“Say, friend,” he enquired, “ain’t you got enough gas to take this lady
where she belongs?”

“Gas?” The taxi-driver glared suspiciously.

“He means petrol,” interpreted the Special.

“I got about an inch-and-a-’alf in me tank,” replied the taxi-driver,
half-resuming his professional air of martyrdom. “I been on this box
since eight this mornin’, and ain’t ’ad a bite o’ dinner; but I’ll take
the lady anywheres in reason. She ain’t _arst_ me yet. I don’t want to be
disobligin’ to nobody. ’Elp everybody, and everybody’ll ’elp you! That’s
my motto. Give us a ’and, matey”—to Al Thompson—“and back my keb off the
curb. Crank ’er up, Jock! Thanks! Good-mornin’, all! Good-mornin’, sir!”

“Good-morning!” called the old gentleman. “You have my card. Come and
tell me how your sons are doing. Meanwhile I’ll tackle those rascals.
We’ll get something done! Twice wounded! The same old story! Oh,
criminal! Monstrous! Da—”

The cab rattled away, leaving the old gentleman to apostrophize His
Majesty’s Government. The Special, with the air of a man who has
performed a difficult and delicate task with consummate tact, packed up
his pocket-book and resumed his beat.

“And now,” enquired the peevish voice of Joe McCarthy, “_Where do we
eat?_”

They dined at a red plush restaurant somewhere off the Strand, and were
introduced to some further War economies.

First, the waitress. By rights she should have been a waiter.

“Bin here nearly two years, now,” she informed them. “The last man here
was called up in March. Sorry for the Army if there’s many more like him
in it. Flat feet, something cruel. Anyhow, there’s only us girls now.”

“And varra nice, too!” ventured Andrew Drummond.

“None of your sauce, Scottie,” came the reply, promptly, but without
rancour.

“You’re married, ma’m, I see,” said Al Thompson deferentially with a
glance at her left hand.

“Widow,” said the girl briefly. “Since the Somme, two years ago.”

“That’s too bad,” observed Al, painfully conscious of the inadequacy of
the remark.

“Most of us has lost some one. In the house where my sister’s in service
there’s three gone—all officers. I’m not one to ask for sympathy when
there’s others needs it more,” replied this sturdy little city sparrow.
“Carry on—that’s my motto! He was in the Field Artillery: just bin
promoted bombardier. Got any meat coupons?”

They shook their heads. As regularly rationed soldiers they were free
from such statutory fetters.

“Better have bacon and eggs,” announced Hebe. “They’re not rationed.” She
dealt them each a slice of War bread. Butter they found was unobtainable;
so was sugar. Andrew suggested that the party should solace itself with
beer; but his companions, like most Americans, whether of the dry habit
or the wet, preferred to drink water with their actual meals. The fact
that the water when served was tepid received due comment from Joe
McCarthy.

“That’s the way folks always tak’ it here,” explained Andrew. “I dinna
often drink it mysel’, I canna see what other kind o’ water ye could
expect.”

“You could put ice in it,” grunted Joe.

“Ice?” The Scottish soldier explained the omission with elaborate
tact. “In this country,” he pointed out, “ice is no obtainable in the
summer-time. We are situated here in the Temperate Zone, and if a body
needs ice, he has tae wait till the winter for it. Oot in Amerikey I doot
ye’ll be able tae gather it all the year roond. Aye! couldna fancy iced
watter mysel’. It must be sair cauld tae the stomach.”

Ice being unobtainable, it was obviously futile to ask for ice-cream.
Sweet corn the waitress had never heard of: the mention of waffles merely
produced an indulgent shake of the head. However, a timid enquiry for
pie—after Andrew had amended the wording to “tart”—was more successful.
It was obvious War-pie, but it satisfied.

“And,” enquired their conductor, as they shouldered their way, full-fed,
into the Strand, “where are you boys for now?”

They were bound, it seemed, for a great Ball Game between the American
Navy and Army, at a place called Stamford Bridge. This was outside the
ken of Andrew Drummond, but a policeman directed their attention to the
Underground Railway System of London.

Presently they found themselves at the great football ground, converted
for the time being into American territory. It is true that King George
himself sat in the Grand Stand, surrounded by Generals, Admirals, and
Councillors. It is true that thousands of British soldiers, sailors,
and civilians lined the ground, and that British brass bands made
indefatigable music. But it was America’s day. From the moment when the
teams lined up, and the two captains were presented to the King by an
American Vice-Admiral and an American Major-General, the proceedings were
controlled by the fans and rooters of the American Navy and Army.

How far the British contingent followed the intricacies of the combat
it is difficult to say. When Al Thompson pointed out a sturdy but
medium-sized player, and announced that he had once been a Giant, Andrew
Drummond merely wondered vaguely why he had shrunk. When another player
was uproariously identified as a late Captain of the Red Socks, the
English spectators mentally registered the Red Socks as some obsolescent
Indian tribe—like the Blackfeet.

But you cannot, as has been well said during this War, remain neutral on
a moral issue. Within twenty minutes every one on the ground was shouting
“Attaboy!” or consigning the umpire to perdition, or endeavouring to
imitate the concerted war-songs of the rival sides. When the sailors won
the game by a narrow margin every soldier present, American or British,
lamented to heaven.

“This is the End of a Perfect Day, I guess,” remarked that most
satisfactory guest, Al Thompson, as the trio made their way arm in arm
along the crowded Strand in the cool of the evening. “What do you say,
Ed?”

“Sure!” replied Mr. Gillette. “Fine!”

“You all right, Joe?” enquired Al.

The carper made no reply, but looked about him with a dissatisfied air.

“Seems to me,” he remarked querulously, “that this War ain’t such a
fierce proposition as folks made out. Look at these people all enjoying
themselves.”

“Well, I guess they done their day’s work,” said Gillette pacifically.
“Besides, most of them are in khaki—or else that hospital uniform”—as a
string of _char-à-bancs_ conveying convalescents to the theatre rattled
cheerfully past.

But the misanthrope would not be denied.

“These here wounded don’t appear to be wounded so bad,” he grumbled. “You
don’t never see no seriously wounded men in the streets of this town.”

“No,” rapped out Al Thompson, ruffled for once, “and you don’t see no
dead laying around neither! I guess if you was to take a walk through a
hospital, Joe McCarthy—No, you can cancel the hospital. This will do.”

They had reached Charing Cross Station. From the farther gate streamed
a slow-moving procession of loaded Red Cross ambulances. Another
procession, empty, was moving in at the nearer gate, to disappear inside
the station. Down an adjacent street stretched a line of more ambulances,
and more yet. But the busy crowd in the Strand gave little heed to the
spectacle. They had witnessed it, or could have witnessed it, at this
hour and in this place, among others, any evening during the past four
years.

Our friends halted, waiting for an opening in the close-moving stream.
Presently it slowed down and stopped, and Joe McCarthy led the way
across. But he paused curiously, as did the others, at the open back of
an ambulance, and peered in.

The car contained four passengers. Each lay very still upon his
stretcher—two upon the floor, and the other two packed neatly on shelves
overhead. All were rolled up in brown Army blankets. From the end of one
of these protruded a heavily splinted and bandaged foot. Another man
had his arm strapped across his chest. The third lay on his face, his
back torn by shrapnel. The fourth lay on his back. His head was swathed
in bandages, and only one eye was visible. It was closed. One hand was
bandaged; the other clasped to his bosom a German sniper’s helmet.

As they gazed, another figure edged in beside them—a London flower-girl,
in the usual dilapidated shawl and deplorable hat, with her fragrant
stock-in-trade clasped in the hollow of her left arm. She plucked a
couple of pink carnations from a bundle, and flung them to the man with
the bandaged head.

“For you, ole sport,” she announced, “with my love. So long!”

The wounded man opened his visible eye and smiled his thanks; and the
girl was passing on to the next ambulance, there to squander more of her
sole means of livelihood, when a hand of iron fell upon her shoulder. On
the defensive in a moment, she whirled round.

“Nar, then! You stop pawin’ me! I never done no—”

But Joe McCarthy, misanthrope, merely deprived her of the bundle of
pink carnations, placing in her grimy palm in exchange all the money he
happened to have with him. It was roughly three days’ pay—no mean sum in
the most highly paid Army in the world. Then leaning into the ambulance,
which had begun to move again, he deposited the flowers beside the
wounded soldier, and said gruffly:

“Say, Tommy!”

The solitary eye opened again, and a voice replied:

“Tommy yourself! I’m from Elizabeth, New Jersey. We’re all Doughboys in
here.”

The Three Musketeers, thrilled to the core, broke into a trot, and panted:

“You don’t say? Where you been fighting?”

“Place called Belleau Wood. Good-night, boys!”

It was their first contact with actuality.

[2] “Conchies,” being interpreted, means “Conscientious Objectors.”




CHAPTER EIGHT

THE PROMISED LAND


We have now discovered France. Our first impression of that fair but
voluble land is one of amazement that the inhabitants should be able to
speak such a difficult language so fluently. Even the children can do it.

Later, we modified that opinion—either because we found that the French
tongue was not so difficult as we had imagined, or more probably
because we had learned that in France a knowledge of French is not so
indispensable—at any rate, in war-time—as we had imagined. Indeed, we
found the French language quite as intelligible as some of the English
rural dialects. Contrariwise, the French appeared to understand our mode
of expression much more readily than some of our English hosts.

For instance, if you ask an English railway porter for such a simple
thing as the check-room or the news-stand, he will simply gape at you;
whereas, if you stride into a French country hotel and hold up one
finger—naturally one has to employ gesture just a little with the Latin
races—and say “Oon room!” in a firm voice, the proprietor will comprehend
at once, and smilingly hand you a key right away. One can only ascribe
this instant sympathy to the freemasonry of a common democratic ideal. Or
it may be that a room is the only thing which a hotel proprietor could
expect a stranger carrying a grip to ask for.

However, this by the way. The main point is that we are at last in
France—France, the land of the Great Adventure, for which our ardent
dreams and hard training have been shaping us for months past.

Still, at first sight it is not too easy to realize that we are there at
all; for the surroundings in which we found ourselves on landing might
have been lifted bodily from Hoboken.

Speaking of Hoboken, we note that the prevailing slogan of the moment,
posted on barrack walls, painted on transport wagons, even blazoned in
stencilled letters across the wind-shields of Staff automobiles, is:
_Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken by Christmas!_ To this pious aspiration one
ardent spirit has added, in smaller lettering: _But let it be Hoboken,
please, via Berlin!_

Certainly, the Armies of Invasion, both friendly and hostile, have
transformed France, each in its own way. The Hun in the east has effected
his share of the transformation in his own way, by fire, rapine, and
pillage. But the British and Americans in the west have left a mark
just as unmistakable and, it is to be hoped, more enduring. A great
army cannot disembark upon the soil of another people’s country without
importing a great deal of its own personality at the same time. That
accounts for the foregoing reference to Hoboken. The amount of portable
property that we have brought with us is enormous. There were days, not
far distant, when a soldier subsisted upon the country wherein he found
himself. During the Shenandoah Valley campaign Stonewall Jackson’s men
lived on unripe corn and green apples, for the very good reason that
there existed no means of providing them with anything else. Throughout
the centuries this fact has kept expeditionary forces down to reasonable
numbers; the size of an army was limited to the capacity of the country
to support it. But modern science has changed all that. Canned meat
has revolutionized warfare far more surely and permanently than the
aeroplane or the submarine. It is now possible, by modern methods of food
preservation and transportation, to arm practically a whole nation and
maintain it continuously and comfortably in the field thousands of miles
from its base of supplies. That is why France is the most overcrowded and
best-fed country in the world to-day.

Modern transportation has also made possible—which in warfare means
indispensable—the intensive employment of heavy artillery. We use
siege guns to-day where yesterday we employed eighteen-pounders and
seventy-fives. That involves the construction of complicated railroad
systems—tracks, sidings, locomotives, ammunition-wagons—all over
the country, operating forward and sideways behind the line. Two
years ago—twelve months ago—the spot where we find ourselves was a
sleepy third-rate seaport, whose very existence was known to few
English-speaking people, save the captains of Channel coasters. To-day
that port still slumbers in the Brittany sunshine, but it has thrown out
an _annexe_ many times larger than itself, comprising a complete system
of docks and basins, two hundred and fifty miles of railroad siding,
and enough storage accommodation to house two million tons of military
supplies.

But American activity has not halted there. To secure a provision of
fair drinking-water for the huge population of this mushroom city the
Engineers have constructed a great reservoir among the foothills a few
miles away—an enterprise which frankly astonishes the natives, to whom,
in common with the rest of their countrymen, water as a beverage is
unknown.

One other item—an inevitable item—swells the population of the district.
This is the great American Base Hospital, which has been erected by the
side of the main road leading inland from the coast. The hospital is a
city in itself. Its buildings, cunningly isolated one from another, cover
many acres, and contain twenty-four thousand beds. Thank God, these have
never yet all been occupied at one time.

And this great base port is only one of several. That fact is borne in
upon us at every turn by the prevalence of large printed signs, headed,
_Race to Berlin!_ which plaster the town. Upon these signs are printed
in column down the left-hand side the names of all the base ports used
by American troops—our own port among the number. At the opposite edge
of the sign there is a great black splash, marked BERLIN. The splash is
connected to each of the base ports by a straight black line. On each
line, at varying distances from the base ports, stands a small movable
flag. The big idea, any passer-by will tell you, is to stimulate activity
among the units forming the Service of Supply by means of healthy
competition. Every good day’s work in any port sets the flag of that port
an inch or two nearer Berlin. A port is not called upon to compete with
other ports (which would be manifestly unfair, for some are larger and
better equipped than others), but only with its own previous record in
the matter of unloading ships, and the like.

Attached to each diagram is a printed notice, pointing out in simple
language that hard work at the base is just as indispensable as hard
fighting at the front, and that when Victory comes the credit will
be shared equally by both departments. The notice is signed _John J.
Pershing_, and it has roused the dusky warriors at the various base ports
to a fever of emulation.

Certainly there is much to unload. An army carries as much personal
baggage as a prima donna. Observe these wharves. Here are great naval
guns—fourteen-inch. They are like millionaires, because each requires a
private railway train of its own. In fact they are super-millionaires,
because each requires a private track as well. There are great
motor-lorries, some from America, some from England. There is a fleet of
rolling kitchens—or “soup-guns,” as the Doughboy calls them-awaiting
horse-traction. At present they are hitched one behind another like a
string of ducks, and are attached to a road engine for transference to
the forward areas. There are mighty Mogul locomotives, shipped bodily
from the United States, together with the appurtenances thereof—even that
mysterious tolling bell on top of the boiler.

The American locomotive bell impresses Europeans enormously. They wonder
what it is for. On the whole they regard it with reverence; it confers a
sort of ecclesiastical sanctity upon American railroad travel. A Scotsman
once told me that whenever he visited America he used frequently to wake
up in the sleeping-car, standing in some great railroad junction in the
small hours, under the firm impression that he was back in his native
town on a Sunday morning.

As for the ordinary military stores, they come in one unceasing cataract.
Gasoline tanks; water-tanks; cold-storage carcasses; bags of flour;
canned meat; canned fruit; bales of clothing; consignments of tobacco;
chewing-gum, books, and other comforts. Liberty motors; aeroplanes;
machine guns; spare parts. The dingy, oddly painted ships come sliding
down from the horizon, deposit them all in mountain ranges upon dock and
wharf, then turn round and steal back to America for more.

Shells are not landed here. They are touchy and inflammable folk, and
have a private and exclusive place of debarkation of their own, higher up
the river.

But there is human freight to be deposited too. Here are two liners,
newly docked. Each, despite her great size, is heeling over towards the
wharf, as the biggest ships will when the whole cargo hangs over one
side. One cargo is white, the other coloured.

“Where yo’ from?” shrieks a stevedore, to the dusky grinning human
mountain above him.

“Seventy fo’, Fo’teen Street, Lebanon, Illinois!” pipes a solitary voice
far up the height, before any one else can answer the question. There
is a roar of laughter at this egotism, and another voice from the wharf
enquires:

“What camp?”

“Camp Dodge! Labour Battalion!” roars an answering chorus.

“Step right down, boys! We got lots of labour for you heah!” yells the
humorist on the wharf.

The white contingent on the other ship proves to be from Camp Sherman.
What is of far more importance, however, is the fact that both ships
possess clean bills of health, only nine cases of sickness being reported
altogether. This is good news, for influenza and pneumonia have been
rampant. Troops on the great transports have been saddened of late by
the continuous spectacle of eager young hearts committed to the deep
without ever having beheld their Promised Land. There have been rumours,
too, of hundreds of stretcher-cases landed in Liverpool from a single
convoy. But apparently the plague is stayed. We shall have a chance now
to be killed—which is a very different matter from dying like a common
civilian.

In due course the gentleman from Fourteenth Street, Lebanon, Illinois,
set foot upon the soil of France—to his own profound relief. His name
was Joseph Williams. His calling, up to date, had been that of elevator
attendant in the leading—in fact, the only—hotel in his native town.
He had never been from home in his life, and when the long arm of the
Selective Draft reached out from Washington, D.C., and pounced upon
Joseph in Lebanon and dropped him into the maelstrom of Camp Dodge, it
launched him upon a series of experiences so novel and so surprising that
his eyes had never quite regained their sockets, nor had his mouth been
completely closed, since. American negroes vary a good deal in tint,
but there were no half-measures about Joseph. He was coal-black; and
as his teeth and the whites of his eyes were china-white, he furnished
a most effective colour-scheme. He was, moreover, a youth of cheerful
countenance, and performed the most ordinary military duties with an air
of rapturous enjoyment.

But the voyage across had been a severe trial. Joseph had never seen
the ocean before, and his introduction to that element had not been
auspicious. For fifteen long days the convoy had tumbled and lurched
through the Atlantic wastes. The weather had been contrary; fogs
numerous. The lame ducks of the party had been more than usually
dilatory. Joseph and his brethren—possibly with some long-dormant
ancestral chord of recollection astir within them—had been first scared,
then demoralized, and finally had given up hope. After the first week
they abandoned all expectation of ever seeing land again. Late one night
the officer on duty, going his rounds amid the Chinese opium-den of
close-packed bunks in the ship’s hold, overheard Joseph’s voice, uplifted
above the creaking of timbers and the snores of his associates, imploring
Providence for the sight of “jus’ one li’l’ lone pine-tree—no mo’ dan
dat!”—as a divine guarantee that the deep waters of the Atlantic had not
entirely submerged the habitable globe.

But now, Joseph had arrived. He was “right there.” The sun shone warmly
upon him, and the good brown earth lay firm beneath his large feet—the
soil of France, which he had come to save. His smile expanded: his
soul burgeoned. He would explore this town, and fraternize with the
inhabitants.

Leave obtained, he set forth. He observed with approval, as a member of a
family which had derived its income for generations from the taking-in of
other people’s washing, the elaborately starched and frilled caps of the
Normandy fisherwomen. He returned with interest the shy smiles of little
French girls in wooden sabots. When a bullet-headed little French boy in
a long black pinafore stood to attention upon his approach and exclaimed,
“_Américain, Salu-u-u-ut!_” Joseph Williams beamed from ear to ear.

Presently, emerging from the town, he made for the open country—a
country of undulating sand-dunes, with here and there a windmill atop,
feverishly churning. To these succeeded green fields, dotted with
humble farms and homesteads. Joseph observed that all these buildings
were of stone or brick, wood being doubtless unobtainable in this
sterile country. The inhabitants were not numerous—able-bodied men were
conspicuously absent—and every one within sight appeared to be working.
In the nearest field a small boy was directing the movements of two
placid horses by means of that peculiar agonized howl with which a
Frenchman always conducts business of an urgent nature, whether he be
reviling a political opponent or selling evening papers. Farther away an
oldish man in French Territorial uniform was cutting hay, assisted by two
strapping young women.

Even the very old and the very young were employed. And in this
connection Joseph stumbled upon the ideal occupation for persons who
possess those twin adjuncts of the philosopher—a contemplative mind and a
dislike for work.

Hitherto the summit of his ambition had been to stand one day in glorious
apparel upon the tessellated flooring of a great New York hotel, opposite
the elevators, and nod his head in Jove-like fashion whenever he thought
it desirable that another elevator should go up. But now another and more
restful career presented itself to him.

Every French peasant possesses a cow or two—peradventure half a dozen.
To feed these, pastureland is required. But no thrifty Frenchman would
set aside valuable arable land for this purpose, when the roadside is
free to all. A properly educated French cow can always be relied upon
to extract a meal from the strip of dusty herbage that runs between
the roadway and the ditch in every country lane in France. The trouble
is that such a pasture is considerably longer than it is broad—three
feet by Infinity is the dimension—and a cow of epicurean temperament
may be inclined to wander too far, or even lose herself. Therefore,
an escort must be provided—usually for each individual cow, for the
collective convoy system is of little practical use here. So the
Landsturm is called out. At early dawn Grandpère totters off up the road
escorting, let us say, Rosalie; while Toinette, aged six, departs in the
opposite direction, with the inevitable huge umbrella under one arm and
Victorine’s leading-string under the other. Thus the day is spent. It is
a day without haste, without heat; for the pace is that of a browsing
cow. Moreover, it is a day without supervision—grateful and comforting
to an enlisted man of six months’ standing—and its responsibilities
are limited to steering the cow out of the way of approaching traffic,
either by personal appeal from the shade of a neighbouring tree, or in
extreme cases with the umbrella. It is not necessary to observe a course
or take bearings: you may simply drift, because the cow always knows the
way home. Decidedly, said Joseph Williams to himself, this was the life.
Elevator-starting was a sociable and decorative calling, but made too
severe a demand upon the faculties. After the war he would settle right
here in France and chaperon a cow.

It was at this point that Joseph went finally to sleep, in the shadow
of the cow which had started his train of thought. He awoke greatly
refreshed—he had arrears of sleep to make up after the discomforts of the
voyage—and set out for the town, with his mind a luxurious blank, except
for two small matters. First, the entire absence of any suggestion of
war. Joseph had half expected to find his landing disputed by the full
strength of the German Army. Conversation on board had tended that way,
and he had promised himself a happy hour writing home to describe how he,
followed by his devoted adherents, had triumphantly overcome the foe’s
resistance. In fact, he had written the letter already. Second, every one
in this country appeared to be white—French soldiers, French sailors,
French civilians. He longed for the sight of one ebony face. Even a
mahogany one would do.

And on the outskirts of the town the latter wish was gratified. A sudden
turn in the road brought him face to face with his own double—or very
nearly. The double was attired in what Joseph took to be a French uniform
of some kind, the most conspicuous and enviable items of which were
immensely baggy trousers and a red fez.

The double, after one glance at Joseph’s modest khaki uniform and homely
features, broke into a dazzling smile. The pair advanced rapidly upon one
another and shook hands with enormous enthusiasm. Both broke into speech
simultaneously.

Then befell the tragedy. Each spoke a tongue entirely incomprehensible to
the other!

Each paused, incredulous; then, convinced there must be some mistake,
began again. Then came another pause. A look of almost pathetic
bewilderment appeared upon each honest countenance—countenances almost
identical in shade and feature. Then Joseph exclaimed:

“Why, nigger, what so’t of fancy nigger does yo’ think yo’ is?”

The gentleman in the fez retaliated with a query which, to judge by sound
and intonation, was very similar to Joseph’s.

The look of bewilderment on Joseph’s face gave place to a severe frown,
which was immediately reflected in that of his double. Each of these
children of Ham now darkly suspected the other of imposture.

“Don’ yo’ go an’ get fresh with _me_, nigger!” said Joseph, in a warning
voice.

“_Yakki-wakki-hikki-doolah!_” growled the other—or words to that effect.

Joseph lost all patience. His voice suddenly shot up an octave higher,
and he screamed:

“You ain’t no nigger at all! You’re only a Af’ican!”

       *       *       *       *       *

Possibly it was in self-compensation for this disillusioning encounter
that Joseph promptly mailed to his affianced in distant Lebanon,
Illinois, the letter which has been mentioned above. It began:

    _Well, honey, we has arrived in France, and this war sure is
    fierce. Every time I steps outside my dugout I wades up to my
    knees in blood.…_




CHAPTER NINE

THE EXILES


So tremendous was America’s response when in the spring of this year the
call came to her from the Western Front to hurry, so overwhelming the
host which she sent over, that our chief difficulty to-day is not to
withstand the Hun, but to find a vacant spot on his carcass to hit.

We have been in France for over a month now, but so far our services as
a unit have not been required in the Line. But we are acclimatized by
this time. The days of our green youth in the big camps back home have
faded away as though they never had been. In this Old-World, constricted
country it requires quite an effort of memory to recall those spacious
days upon our own open, rolling plains and hillsides. Gone are the great
streets of wooden two-storey huts, with their electric light, steam heat,
and hot showers; the various social centres; the roaring Liberty Theatre
and the Hostess House; the candy-stores and the shoe-shine parlours. They
are but a memory, blurred by four months of incredibly novel experience.

To-day we sleep in French barracks—bleak, cheerless buildings, redolent
of floor-soap and whitewash; or in billets up and down a little village;
or in some great barn, on straw, or under the summer stars in our
dog-tents. We perform our ablutions in the open air, mainly at a farm
pump or street hydrant, to the diversion of the female population. For
recreation we still play baseball; for creature comforts we can turn
to the Red Cross, or the Y.M.C.A., or the Knights of Columbus, or the
Salvation Army, or the Jewish Welfare Board. There is also a French
institution, known as _Le Foyer du Soldat_, where we consort with
grave-faced, courteous _poilus_. We have encountered no British troops
so far. They are farther north: several of our units have gone up to be
brigaded with them.

So here we are—right here in France—absorbing new atmosphere through our
pores. We are on a strict war footing, too. Everything, as the Colonel
has explained to us, must be “just so.” If you are ordered to be at a
certain cross-road ten miles away, with your company, at 9 A.M. to-morrow
morning, with picks and shovels and two days’ rations, you have to be
there—just there—not at 9.05, with picks but no shovels, or with one
day’s rations instead of two, but at 9 precisely, with the exact outfit
prescribed. The accomplishment of this feat is not so easy as it sounds:
it involves much study, and occasional weariness of the flesh. You
must be able not only to read a map correctly, but to visualize from a
scrutiny of the same the exact nature of the country through which you
are going to lead your company—whether it is hilly or no; whether the
hill runs up or down; whether there are grade crossings or narrow bridges
or one-way roads to be considered; whether a ford marked “Passable for
troops” is also passable for the wheeled transport which carries your
picks and shovels. All these possibilities make for delay—sometimes most
excusable delay. But excuses are not accepted in war-time. Either you
succeed or you fail: there is no intermediate stage. Boone Cruttenden’s
plan—and a very good one too—is to try experiments, not upon his men,
but upon himself. In his spare moments he is accustomed to figure out,
with the aid of the map and a mekometer, how long it would take a body of
armed men to cover some given distance on the map, having regard to the
possibility of—

(1) Unexpectedly heavy going.

(2) Roads blocked by other troops.

(3) Having to scatter or take cover, owing to enemy aeroplanes.

(4) The cussedness of transport mules.

(5) Other visitations of Providence.

He then enlists the services of a friend—usually Jim Nichols—and the pair
proceed to test their own theories by performing the journey in person,
at the pace of a marching company, correcting their calculations as they
proceed. It is upon such painful foundations that your true soldier is
built up.

And discipline is rigid. If the top sergeant instructs Mr. Joe McCarthy
to empty certain buckets of kitchen garbage, and that right speedily, Joe
no longer explains that he is here not to empty garbage, but to make the
world safe for Democracy. He simply departs with the buckets, somewhat
dazed at his own alacrity. War has her victories, no less than Peace.

Saluting is universal now. We take a pride in it. Formerly we did not.
Our independent natures rebelled against its suggestion of servility. But
we have recently realized that a slave is a man who bends his knee and
bows his head. A soldier does neither. He holds himself erect, looks his
brother in arms straight in the face, and exchanges with him the proudest
of all masonic signs.

We are much interested in the saluting methods of our Allies. The
Frenchman salutes with the open hand, palm forward and fingers pointing
upward. The Britisher brings his elbow into play, and salutes with
horizontal forearm. Both French and British officers salute in different
fashion from their men.

The British practise strange refinements of their own. Bond, the stout
medical Major whom last we met travelling in a railway compartment from
Liverpool,—yes, we may as well divulge it; it was Liverpool,—was one
of the first Americans to make a serious attempt to grapple with the
fundamental laws of the subject. Almost immediately on arrival he was
sent to Belgium, with other members of the craft, to render invaluable
assistance at a British Casualty Clearing-Station not far from Ypres—that
graveyard of British soldiers and German hopes. He observed with approval
the punctilious, if complicated, fashion in which all ranks greeted one
another in public places, and set himself to take notes and master the
combination. Two months later, a prey to overstrain, he took a week’s
leave in Paris, where he encountered that eccentric but companionable
Anglo-American, Major Floyd.

They exchanged greetings and news. Floyd, it seemed, was now attached
to the American Army, having been appointed a liaison officer. Then
Bond said: “Floyd, I am glad I met you. You are one of the most lucid
exponents of British institutions in captivity, and I want you to explain
to me just half a dozen or so of the most common variations of the
British military salute.”

Floyd nodded sympathetically.

“I know,” he said. “It seems complicated, but all you have to do is to
get hold of the fundamental idea. Here it is. The one thing a British
soldier must never do is to remove his cap.”

“Why?”

“If he takes it off, he is ‘improperly dressed’; and that practically
disqualifies him from ‘getting on with the war’ for the time being.
So he remains covered, indoors and out, except in church and during
certain portions of the burial service. In fact, at moments of ceremonial
intensity, such as the playing of the National Anthem, when civilians are
reverently baring their heads, the soldier has to grab his cap and put it
on quickly.”

“Otherwise he cannot come to the salute?”

“Cannot? Must not! It is a military crime to salute bareheaded. It says
so in the book.”

“I see,” said Bond musingly. “That accounts for the fact that if I
happened to meet a hospital orderly around the Casualty Clearing-Station
without his cap, he never saluted me?”

“Precisely.”

“Then why—” Bond hesitated.

“I know your trouble,” said Floyd, fixing his melancholy gaze upon the
Major’s puzzled face. “Instead of saluting you, he gave you a glare of
withering contempt?”

“He certainly did. But how did you know?”

“Because that was what it looked like—to you. In reality the poor fellow
was only doing what the Book says. He was turning his head ‘smartly
towards the officer, while passing.’”

“That explains quite a lot. I was afraid it was I who was in wrong in
some way, and he wanted to tell me so, but was prevented by the bonds of
discipline from doing more than give me a good fierce look.”

“His proceeding was perfectly regular,” said Floyd gravely. “But that
is not all. A British soldier is debarred from saluting not only when
bareheaded, but whenever he is occupied in such a manner as to prevent
him doing the thing in proper style. For instance, if you meet Tommy
carrying a bucket or riding a bicycle, he merely gives his celebrated
head-jerk, without employing his hand at all.”

“That is a good notion,” said Bond. “I shall adopt it. Last week I was
riding a bicycle myself, and I nearly broke my collar-bone through
letting go with one hand in order to salute a Brigadier-General in a
muddy lane. Luckily I fell soft!”

“It’s a carefully thought-out system,” agreed Floyd, “and perfectly
sound. Nearly everything in the British Drill Book is—so far as it goes.
In nineteen fourteen that Drill Book put into the field the finest army
that has ever fought under the British flag. Unfortunately very few of
the nation had read it. When the War broke out there were still some
forty millions of us who regarded it as a purely humorous publication.
If they had listened to Lord Roberts and absorbed its gritty contents,
instead of lapping up predigested pap from the politicians, perhaps
there would have been no War. Anyway, some of my best friends would have
been alive to-day. Those were the fellows, Bond! In the First Battle of
Ypres three divisions of them, dead beat after eight weeks’ continuous
fighting, stopped four fresh German Army Corps. The Drill Book taught
them how to do that. They have mostly gone West now; but I for one will
salute their memory so long as I live, cap or no cap!”

       *       *       *       *       *

We are marching up the Loire now, getting nearer the front of things
every day. Nantes is behind us—an ancient city astride the river, its
historic quays crowded with American shipping and its wharves piled
high with the products of those two mighty Allied bases, Chicago and
Minneapolis.

The Loire is a pleasant stream. It is neither so broad as the Mississippi
nor so deep as the Hudson, but it will serve. Shoals and sand-bars are
frequent upon its surface, but on the opposite side the bank rises up to
a quite respectable height, pleasantly reminiscent, at one or two points,
of the Palisades.

And the towns we pass through are fascinating. For one thing, they
come upon you suddenly. American towns absorb you gradually. First an
outlying suburb, with maybe the terminus of the street-car system.
Then an untidy No Man’s Land, neither cultivated nor inhabited—mainly
vacant building lots—decorated along the route with huge advertisements,
chiefly of automobile accessories. Here and there you pass a gasoline
station or roadhouse. After that, by degrees, trim white wooden houses,
with shady piazzas; increasing traffic; and finally, fifteen-storey
office-buildings, shops, hotels, and the roar of the town.

But in Central France these premonitory symptoms are lacking. Your
company tramps along the winding road beside the river, through country
cultivated to its last yard—a country of hedges and ditches and enclosed
fields. A bend in the stream, and lo! before you rises a venerable city,
piled up on the ground rising from the river, with ancient bridges
spanning the stream and a grey cathedral crowning the whole. There are no
suburbs, no advertising boards, no gasoline stations. The sea of green
turf continues to the edge of the city, and very often laps against
ramparts a thousand years old. You march in under the resounding arch of
an ancient gateway.

The streets are narrow; the gradient is frequently such as to discommode
any one save a native of Lynchburg, Virginia. The shops are small, and
the proprietors thereof appear to transact most of their business upon
the doorstep. The inhabitants are friendly, especially the children. But
most welcome sight of all, wherever we march, and through whatever town
or village we pass, there are familiar greetings awaiting us, in the form
of signs over doorways or at street-corners, thus—_A.E.F. Commanding
General’s Headquarters_; or, _To A.P.M.’s Office_; or, _American Red
Cross Headquarters_. And at each street-crossing, upright, sunburned,
and immensely alert, stands an American Military Policeman, directing
the tide of country carts, errant cows, antediluvian street-cars,
despatch-riders, motor-cycles, and marching troops, with all the solemn
austerity of a New York Traffic Cop.

If the American soldier has one characteristic which singles him out
from the rest of the Allies, it is that Home is seldom absent from his
thoughts—possibly because he is farther away from home than any one else.
It is true that more water rolls between, say, France and Australia, than
between France and America. But then to the Australian England itself
is Home. In his own land he still refers to her as such. The true exile
in this war is the American-born Doughboy. In most cases he has never
been outside his own great and beautiful land before, for the simple
reason that he has always found abundant elbow-room therein; and if the
desire to roam has ever possessed him, he has been able to gratify it
without stepping off the soil of his country or even beyond the border
of his own State. Therein he is in different case from the inhabitants
of those congested islets, Great Britain and Ireland, many of whose
younger sons are thrust out in early life by the concomitant forces of
natural increase and external pressure from the land of their birth to
seek a living in distant portions of the globe—and in so doing have quite
inadvertently created that unmethodical, loosely connected organization
known as the British Empire, which is either a federation of free
communities, providing decent government where otherwise there would be
no government at all, or else a voracious octopus, according to the way
you look at it.

But the American soldier, being for the most part familiar with no
country but his own, adapts himself less happily to foreign conditions
than Britons who have been schooled by stern necessity to make themselves
equally comfortable in Wei-Hai-Wei or Wigan. Add to this the natural
outspoken American affection for, and belief in, American institutions
and mode of life, and you will understand why American troops on the
march through Europe will cheer themselves hoarse at the sight of such
reminders of Home as an American policeman directing the traffic in a
French town, or an imported American locomotive puffing along a French
railroad.

And there is one other American institution for which the American soul
thirsts in this barren land—the American newspaper. Behold us billeted
for a day or two in the little town of Crapaudville-sur-Loire. Existence
there is a series of _queues_. In the morning we arise right early and
make a careful toilet. For this purpose we form a _queue_, or water-line,
at the town pump. This is not a lengthy business, because it does not
take long to fill a pannikin with water: the only interruptions which
occur are due to natural gallantry, as when an attractive Ally arrives to
fill her family kettle. After that comes breakfast-time, which entails
standing in another _queue_, or chow-line. After that as many of us as
can contrive to do so hurry off to stand in the most important _queue_ of
the day—the news-line. A train from Paris, of arthritic tendencies and
irregular habits, is due about noon, bearing newspapers, which are doled
out at a price of twenty-five centimes.

There are, of course, sharp degrees of comparison. The great Paris
morning journals are nothing in our young lives. They are written in
a language which we do not know, and their headlines are lacking in
enterprise. The Paris issue of the _London Daily Mail_ is better. It
reaches us in the form of a special American edition, which caters
generously to our national predilection for type several inches high.
But beyond that it does not go. _Blossom and blossom and blossom, but
never the promise of fruit!_ The reading matter below the headlines is
constrained, lacking in pep—dead stuff. At least, so Joe McCarthy says.
The Paris editions of the _New York Herald_ and _Chicago Tribune_ furnish
more nourishment, although in these days of paper famine they are sadly
attenuated affairs—mere single sheets, sometimes. Then there is our own
A.E.F. weekly—_The Stars and Stripes_. It is ably conducted and full of
meat; but at the best it is only an official publication, mainly about
the War. And it was not printed in America. What we crave for is home
news—home gossip—home advertisements. A single copy of an American Sunday
newspaper, with comic supplement complete, would fetch its weight in
dollar bills over here. Our spirits yearn to participate once more in the
Bringing up of Father, or the fratricidal rivalries of Mutt and Jeff;
or to witness the perennial discomfitures of those two intensely human
impostors, Percy and Ferdy. Even those nasty little Boche abortions, the
Katzenjammer Kids, would be something.

The happiest man is he who receives once in a while a copy of his local
newspaper from home. These come rarely enough, for second-class mail
matter is incurring mysterious casualties these days.

However, one of these priceless packages arrived not long ago for Eddie
Gillette, all the way from a little town in the Northwest. Eddie tore
off the wrapper, and almost set his teeth into the paper. Everything was
there for which his soul hungered—news about America, about his own town,
about people whom he knew personally—conveyed by means of the arresting
headline, the pointed phrase, and the intellectual pemmican of the
heavily leaded summary. The War news, of course, was weeks old, but Ed
devoured it rapturously. He knew now how the War was really going.

“This guy Allenby must be some dandy fighter,” he observed to Al
Thompson, looking up.

“Sure, Ed!” replied Al pleasantly. “Why?”

“He’s been doing fine in the Holy Land. See what it says here.”

Ed held up the newspaper for Al to see, and pointed to the head of a
column:

    BRITISH CRUSADERS IN NAZARETH

    ALLENBY WINS JESUS CHRIST’S HOME TOWN FROM TURKS

“That’s the goods!” remarked Ed approvingly, as he folded the paper
with reverent care and tucked it inside his shirt. “The feller that
writes that stuff has gotten the real idea for a story. The others over
here”—designating apparently the editors of the London _Times_ and Paris
_Matin_—“ain’t got nothing _to_ them. No, _sir_! They don’t write nothing
but small-town stuff!”

“You said it, Ed!” agreed Al.

“All the same,” observed the critic, rising and stretching his giant
limbs, “this yer reading the papers from home may give a feller a grand
and glorious feeling, but it makes him feel mighty lonesome and homesick
too.” He raised a pair of great fists heavenward. “Oh, _Boy_! when I get
back home after this War, if the Statue of Liberty ever wants to see Ed
Gillette again, she’ll have to turn around to do it!”




CHAPTER TEN

S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE


To most of us hitherto the letters _S.O.S._ have signified calamity of
some kind—appeals for succour from sinking liners, and the like. Our
British liaison officers, too, tell us that S.O.S. is the epithet applied
to the rockets which are always kept in position in British front-line
trenches, to be discharged as an urgent intimation to the gunners behind
that the enemy are attacking in mass.

But in the American Army S.O.S. means “Service of Supply.” It denotes,
not panic, but order, and control, and abundance. It covers the
whole chainwork of activity known in most armies as the “Lines of
Communication.” The town where we find ourselves to-day is a great S.O.S.
centre. On its outskirts lie mushroom cities of huts and sheds. Here
is a great cold-storage depot: there are eight thousand tons of frozen
beef in this single building. Here is a big station for assembling
aeroplanes, where de Haviland planes of British design are being fitted
with Liberty engines. Through the town itself there flows by night and by
day a never-failing stream of food and munitions and replacement troops.
Needless to say the town lies upon one of the main roads along which the
Race to Berlin is being run.

Back along that road, alas! streams another current—a counter-current—of
wastage, material and human. Upon its surface is borne all the
dreadful litter of the battlefield—rusty rifles, damaged equipment,
blood-soaked uniforms. Here is a mighty depot, which handles and repairs
such wreckage. These buildings have all been constructed within the
past few months. It would take you half a day to walk through them.
In at one end of the establishment goes a squalid torrent of torn
clothing, unmated shoes, leaky rubber trench boots, odds and ends of
equipment. In due course, after a drastic series of laundering, sorting,
patching, stitching, or vulcanizing experiences—mainly at the hands of
a twittering army corps of Frenchwomen—each item in this melancholy
jumble finds itself reincarnated in various storehouses in the form of
properly assorted pairs of boots and shoes, neat second-hand uniforms,
and complete sets of equipment. Nothing is wasted. Stetson hats damaged
beyond repair are cut up into soles for hospital slippers. Uniforms too
badly ripped for decent renovation are patched, dyed grass-green, and
issued to German prisoners.

There are some thousands of these prisoners, with more coming. When
they arrive, their prevailing tint is grey. Their uniforms are grey,
by nature; their knee-high boots are grey, with dust; their faces are
grey, with exhaustion and grime. These human derelicts are submitted to
very much the same process of restoration as the damaged uniforms and
equipment. They are paraded, stripped, and marched into the first of a
series of renovation chambers. They pass under hot showers; they spend
a salutary period in what is delicately described as the “delousing
chamber”; they are then provided, first with underwear, then with shoes,
then with one of the grass-green uniforms aforesaid, and finally with
a cooking and toilet outfit. They are shaved and their hair is cut;
they are medically examined; they are card-indexed; a register is made
of their trades; they are housed in comfortable wooden huts within a
great barbed-wire enclosure; and within a few days they are at work upon
whatever tasks they happen to be best qualified for, earning twenty
centimes a day. They are fed upon the rations of American and British
soldiers, including white bread—the only white bread in Europe.

Perhaps some of them, before they came here, saw the Allied prisoners
in Germany—starved, robbed, beaten, and forced to work in salt-mines
or shell-areas until death made an end of their afflictions. These
languishing grass-green captives must bless the Geneva Convention, and
marvel at the uncultured folk who still stand by its provisions.

A camp of German prisoners practically runs itself. Fritz knows when he
is well off. There is no insubordination. Men come rigidly to attention
when an officer passes. The routine work is supervised by German
sergeants. In this particular camp you may enter one large hut and
behold some fifty German prisoners engaged upon clerical work connected
with camp administration—ration indents, card-indexes, and the like.
It is a task after the German heart. Each prisoner is absorbed in his
occupation. He can hardly bring himself to rise to his feet when the door
is thrown open for the Officer of the Day, and _Achtung!_ is called. His
pig’s eyes gleam contentedly behind his spectacles. And well they may! A
German delivered from the German Army and permitted to sit all day and
make a card index of himself may be excused for imagining that he has got
as near Heaven as a German is ever likely to get.

“When this War is over,” observes Mr. Joe McCarthy, gazing meditatively
through the barbed wire, “I guess someb’dy will have to chase these ducks
back to Germany with a gun!”

       *       *       *       *       *

Frenchwomen are not the only representatives of their sex in the American
Expeditionary Force. There are hundreds of American women too, from every
walk of American life. There are the hospital nurses, the stenographers,
the telephone operators, the motor-drivers—all duly enrolled members
of the Regular Service. Then there are the women of the Auxiliary
Forces—the Red Cross, and its sister organizations—all doing a man’s
share, and something over. Their work is not supposed, of course, to take
them up into the battle zone. They serve at the Base, or on Lines of
Communication. But in these days of Big Berthas and promiscuous bombing
raids, no one is safe. The battle zone is the extent of ground which an
aeroplane can cover, as the inhabitants of London know to their cost.
Some of the worst devastation in France may be witnessed at certain
British hospital bases on the French coast, miles from any battle-line.

Still, women have been known to find their way into the Line. As some
student of nature has told us, “It is hard to keep a squirrel off the
ground.”

One summer morning an old acquaintance of ours, Miss Frances Lane, and
her crony, or accomplice, Miss Helen Ryker, came off night duty at their
hospital and sniffed the fresh air luxuriously. They had twelve hours of
complete freedom from responsibility before them—a circumstance not in
itself calculated to correct Miss Lane’s natural lightness of ballast.

In most hospitals nurses coming off night duty are not unreasonably
expected to spend at least some portion of the following day in bed. But
youthful vitality, abetted by summer sunshine and a martial atmosphere,
make a formidable combination against the forces of common sense. This
particular hospital was only thirty miles from the Line. On still days
the turmoil of the guns could be heard quite plainly.

After breakfasting, Miss Lane took her friend by the elbow and led her to
the great military map on the wall, with the position of the battle-line
clearly defined upon it by an irregular frontier of red worsted, and said:

“Helen, listen! Just where are we on this little old map?”

Miss Ryker, who possessed the unusual feminine accomplishment of being
able to read maps and railroad time-tables, laid a slender finger-tip
upon the blue chalk-mark which designated the geographical position of
the hospital.

“There,” she said.

“And,” pursued Miss Lane, in a low voice, “_where do we go from here_?”

Miss Ryker, who was a girl of few words, began to measure out distances
with her finger and thumb.

“The nearest point to us,” she announced at last, “is a place called
Delficelles.”

“Delficelles? Our boys captured it not long ago,” said Frances in
confirmation. “I guess the trenches must lie just beyond.”

On one point she was right: Delficelles had been captured by an American
Division a fortnight previously. On the other she was wrong, for a reason
which will presently appear.

“We are going to visit them,” continued Miss Lane.

“How do we get there?” enquired her practical friend.

Miss Lane looked stealthily round, as a precaution against eavesdroppers.
Then she smiled seraphically.

“I guess we can do it on our faces,” she remarked.

       *       *       *       *       *

To get up into the Line—that tortured strip of territory, some five miles
wide, which winds from the North Sea to the Alps, and within which two
solid walls of men have faced one another for nearly four years—there
are two recognized courses of procedure. One is to be a member of an
armed party—an Infantry Battalion, say, going up to take over a sector of
trenches. There is no doubting the _bona fides_ of such an excursion.

The other course is incumbent upon solitary individuals like
despatch-riders and unchaperoned civilians. These must have a much-signed
and countersigned pass. Even Staff Officers are not exempt from this law.
That lesson was learned as far back as nineteen fourteen, when German
officers, arrayed in the uniform of the British General Staff, kindly
accompanied the British Army during the retreat from Mons and added to
the already considerable difficulties of a hectic situation by directing
troops down wrong roads and issuing orders of a demoralizing nature.

So now it is almost as difficult for an unauthorized person to get into
the fighting area as into the Royal Yacht Squadron, or the New York
Subway at 6 P.M. Mesdames Lane and Ryker were obviously neither an
armed party nor chaperoned civilians. But young and attractive females
have means of attaining their ends which are denied to the rest of
creation. Ask not how the feat was achieved. Enquire not the names of the
susceptible lorry-drivers who succumbed, nor of the tall young military
policeman at Dead Dog Corner who melted incontinently beneath the appeal
of Miss Lane’s blue eyes. Let it suffice that by early afternoon our
two runagates found themselves safely deposited in what was left of the
village of Delficelles. (By the way, the local soldiery pronounced it
“Dillpickle,” so we will let it go at that.)

Having reached the haven of their desire, they found, to their extreme
satisfaction and relief, that it seemed to be no part of any one’s duty
to turn them out. Indeed, such officers as they encountered punctiliously
saluted their uniform, while the rank and file addressed friendly and
appreciative greetings to them. One enthusiast produced a pocket camera,
and insisted upon performing a ceremony which he described as “spoiling a
film” upon the precious pair.

The village itself lay in a hollow behind a low ridge, and was in what
may be described as moderate ruins. One learns to make these distinctions
in the shell-area. Roughly, there are three grades. Villages whose roofs
are riddled by shrapnel and whose windows have ceased to exist, but
whose walls are still standing, may be regarded as practically intact,
and are much sought after as places of residence. At the other end of
the scale come the villages which were deliberately obliterated by
Brother Boche during one of his great retreats. There are many such in
the neighbourhood of Bapaume and Péronne. To-day not one stone of these
remains upon another. Not a tree is to be seen. It is only by accepting
the evidence of the map that you are able to realize that you are in a
village at all. The main street runs between high banks, overgrown by
weeds and nettles. If you part these and look underneath, you will find a
subsoil of brick rubble.

At the cross-roads in the centre, where once the church stood, you will
find a military sign-board giving the map-reference of the village,
followed perhaps by a postscript, thus:

    +-------------------+
    |    Z.17.c.25.     |
    |                   |
    |     THIS WAS      |
    |                   |
    | VILLERS CARBONNEL |
    +-------------------+

_Fuit!_

The village of Dillpickle occupied an intermediate position between these
two extremes. Some of the houses were standing; others were merely a
pile of disintegrated bricks and mortar. Where one of these ruins had
overflowed into the street and obstructed the fairway, the _débris_ had
been cleared away and built up into a neat wall, guarding the sidewalk
from further irruption. Such houses as still stood were inhabited,
chiefly in the lower regions, by American artillerymen and the Infantry
Brigade in reserve. The village was rich in German notice-boards—black
stencilling on plain wood—announcing that here was the residence of the
_Kommandant_, or here a shelter from bombardment for so many _Männer_, or
that here it was _Verboten_ for the common herd to go. Most of these were
now pasted over with notices and orders in a different, and healthier,
language.

Our friends collected a German notice-board apiece as a souvenir, and
proceeded to ransack the village for further booty. Miss Ryker, who
was domestically minded, gleaned two forks, a spoon, and some cups and
saucers. Miss Lane, caring for none of these things, appropriated a
small mirror. Presently she announced:

“I guess we’ll go up to the trenches now, Helen. They must be just over
the hill, beyond that wood on the sky-line.”

But Miss Lane, as already noted, was wrong. The trenches did not lie just
over the hill, for the very good reason that there were no trenches. We
have grown so accustomed during this War to employing “trenches” as a
synonym for “battle-line” that we are apt to overlook the fact that it is
possible to fight upon the surface of the earth. For a long time both the
Allies and the Hun suffered from a disease called “Trenchitis,” induced
by an intensive experience of high explosive and machine-gun bullets.
If a force wished to defend itself, it produced picks and shovels and
dug itself in. If it wished to attack, it dug an advanced “jumping-off”
trench in the dead of night, approached by saps and tunnels, and so
made the open space to be covered in the assault as narrow as possible.
This is a useful and economical way of fighting, especially when your
troops are not sufficiently numerous to warrant prodigality. But it
wastes much valuable time; and since the day when the entire American
Nation was placed at the disposal of the Allies as a reinforcement, it
has been found possible to employ other methods. Down South, on the
Alsace-Lorraine front, where a lightly held outpost line runs for more
than a hundred miles toward Belfort, trench warfare is still fashionable.
But in the Argonne, where most of the fighting takes place in closely
wooded country, we remain more or less above ground, maintaining touch
with one another as best we can by means of an irregular chain of
grass-pits or fortified shell-craters.

So when our pair of truants reached the wood on the sky-line, and
penetrated cautiously to the other side, they beheld no trenches.

At their feet the road dropped steeply into a little valley, filled with
woods which ran right up the slope beyond and disappeared into a smoky
mist on the opposite crest. The sun had not fulfilled its early promise,
and had disappeared by noon. A small drizzling rain was beginning to fall.

Helen Ryker, who loved her personal comforts, drew her blue cloak more
closely round her, and shivered.

“They don’t have any trenches _here_,” she announced, in aggrieved tones.

“They are in the woods down in the valley,” Miss Lane assured her. “You
can hear the firing.”

You certainly could. Up to their ears from the undergrowth on every side
rose the mutterings of warfare—solitary rifle-shots, and the intermittent
pup-pupping of machine guns. Down in the valley, at the foot of the road,
they could see a stream. The road had once crossed it by a bridge; but
the bridge was now a ruin, and the road had been diverted so as to cross
higher up, by some sort of pontoon.

Not a human being was in sight. One of the strangest characteristics
of modern warfare—warfare in which millions of men are employed where
formerly hundreds sufficed—is the entire invisibility of the combatants.
In these days of aeroplanes and magnifying periscopes no man ever makes
himself more conspicuous than need be. A hundred years ago soldiers went
into action in brightly coloured coats and flashing accoutrements. Now
their uniforms imitate the colours of nature—the colours of grass and
earth. Guns are painted to look like logs of wood. If a sniper wishes to
do a little business from a tree-top or a thicket, he not infrequently
paints himself green as a preliminary.

“It’s lonesome here!” continued Miss Ryker.

“I expect we shall find the boys presently,” replied the undefeated
Frances. “My gracious, Helen, what was that?”

Over their heads—quite close, it seemed—sailed something invisible, with
a weary sigh. It was a howitzer shell fired from an American battery five
miles behind them. The sound of its passage ceased, but almost directly
afterward a column of greenish-grey smoke spouted up from the wooded
hillside opposite, followed a few seconds later by a heavy detonation.

Helen and Frances found themselves unaffectedly gripping hands.

“What is it?” asked Helen tremulously.

One of Miss Lane’s most compelling characteristics was that she was never
at a loss for an answer.

“That? That’s artillery fire, I guess. That over there is the smoke of a
big gun.”

As usual, she was partially correct. What they saw and heard was,
indeed, artillery fire, but it was not the smoke of the gun, but the
smoke of the shell bursting among the German machine-gun nests.

“German or American?” asked Helen.

“American, sure. Let’s go on down this road, and see some more. It’s a
nice quiet road. There can’t be any danger.”

In the shell-area on the Western Front the fact that a road is quiet
does not by any means guarantee that it is “nice.” But the people who
really enjoy war are those who have not been there before. The pair of
adventurers set boldly off down the hill. As they started, a second
contribution from the howitzer battery passed over their heads, with the
lazy rustle which characterizes the descent of high-angle shells, and
burst in the woods opposite, fifty yards to the right of the first.

“There’s another gun firing!” exclaimed Miss Lane, clasping her hands
rapturously. “My, but I’m excited! C’m along, Helen!”

They hurried down the road, observing with a pleasant thrill that the
surface thereof was pitted with shell-holes. More experienced fire-eaters
would have noted that some of these holes were of extremely recent
origin—a few hours old, in fact. Once or twice they paused to collect
more souvenirs—shell-fuses and empty cartridge-cases.

Distances viewed across a valley are deceptive, and their stroll down the
road took longer than they expected. The rain was coming down harder than
ever.

“We ought to hit those trenches soon,” said Miss Lane.

“What are trenches like, anyway?” enquired Miss Ryker, a little
peevishly. She was beginning to make heavy weather of the expedition
under her cargo of crockery and expended ammunition.

Miss Lane, whose acquaintance with trench warfare had been derived mainly
from the Movies, made no reply. She had stopped by the roadside to read a
notice-board, nailed to what was left of a tree. It said:

    _This road must NOT be used by troops during daylight._

She nodded her head sagely.

“That’s why there is no one around,” she remarked. “What were you saying
just now, Helen?”

Miss Ryker had discovered a fresh grievance.

“It seems to me that some of the firing has gotten _behind_ us!” she said.

The girls stood still, and listened. A third American shell swung over
their heads and burst in the woods opposite. Simultaneously came a sharp
outburst of machine-gun fire from the right—the right rear, in fact.

“Maybe we have walked into a sort of bend in the line,” suggested
Frances. “They call it a salient,” she added professionally. “Why, if
there aren’t some of our boys at last! There … crossing that bridge!”

She was right. As she spoke, two khaki-clad figures emerged from the
woods upon the opposite side of the stream below them and trotted
briskly across the pontoon bridge, in single file a few yards apart.
Once across, they joined forces, and began to climb the hill in a more
leisurely fashion. But it was noticeable that instead of coming up the
road they kept a course roughly parallel to its direction—perhaps a
hundred yards away.

“Why should they go hiking through that mushy long grass, wetting
themselves, when there is a good road right here? Aren’t men just
_children_?” observed Miss Ryker.

“Perhaps they don’t know about the road,” said Miss Lane charitably,
“We’ll call them. Oh—Boys!”

Her syren call had the desired effect—as well it might. The gentlemen
addressed, both of whom were labouring up the slippery slope with bent
heads, stopped suddenly, and looked about them. Next moment they were
doubling heavily through the long grass in the direction of the road,
making signals as they ran. They appeared agitated about something.

“Come off that road!” shouted one of them, who was leading by ten
yards, to the two female figures in the mist. “_Quittez le chemin!
C’est dangereux!_ Beat it for here! _Dépêchez-vous!_ As hard as
you—well—I’ll—be—” he swallowed something—“_Frances Lane?_”

With a final bound, Boone Cruttenden, with a steel helmet on his head,
a gas apparatus slung on his chest, and acute fear in his eyes, landed
squarely in the ditch; then scrambled out upon the road.

“Why—Boone?” began Frances affably. But, a grasp of iron fastened on her
arm just above the elbow, and a badly frightened young man proceeded to
propel her, without ceremony, across the ditch and away from the road.

“You fetch the other one, Major!” he called over his shoulder.

“I shall be charmed,” replied an unmistakable English drawl.

“Boone, listen!” protested Miss Lane breathlessly, as she was towed
sideways across the hillside. “What are you—?”

But her escort merely muttered to himself, as they ran:

“Can you beat it? Can you _beat_ it?”

Presently, having placed a distance of more than a hundred yards between
itself and the road, the panting convoy was permitted to halt.

“We will now continue our excursion up the hill,” announced the English
Major. “But we will keep off the road, if you ladies don’t object. It is
registered from top to bottom, you know.”

“Just what does that mean?” enquired Miss Lane, whose natural curiosity
was coming back with her breath.

“It means,” replied the Major, removing a shining monocle from his
right eye and wiping it with a khaki handkerchief, “that the Boche has
the range to every yard of it. As he usually searches it with H.E. and
shrapnel every few hours, it is healthier to keep on the grass when
going up and down this hill. Are we far enough away now, do you think,
Cruttenden?”

“Ye-es. But it would be better to split into two parties, I should say.
Less conspicuous—eh?”

The Major readjusted his monocle, and replied solemnly:

“By all means. This young lady and I will extend another hundred yards
to the left. Cruttenden, considering your tender years, you display a
promising acquaintance with tactics. Also diplomacy. So long!”

So by force of tactical exigency, Frances Lane and Boone Cruttenden
walked up the hillside in the rain together. Major Floyd and Miss Ryker
were discernible in the failing daylight, keeping station on the left
flank.

“Now, tell me!” Boone and Frances began together. Then they stopped.
Boone smiled.

“Ladies first!” he said.

But for once Frances preferred to be a listener.

“No, Boone Cruttenden—you!” she said. “Tell me what you are doing here,
anyway.”

“I got a chance,” explained Boone, “to come here with Major Floyd—he’s
our liaison officer with the British Mission back of the line—and have a
look at this sector. The regiment may take it over next month. The Major
knows the ground, and he took me down there”—he pointed backwards over
his shoulder—“to see our advanced posts.”

“Where are the trenches?”

“Trenches? There are none. This is open warfare. The Yanks and the Huns
are mixed up together in those woods, watching one another like cat and
dog. We hold the stream, and some of the ground beyond. That pontoon
bridge is covered by a concealed machine-gun post of ours, in case the
Hun tries to rush it. It’s probable he had direct observation on it: that
is why the Major and I did not linger much as we came across. We’re in a
sort of pocket here. The German line bends around us. Some of their posts
up in the woods have a clear view of the road, all the way up. Luckily
visibility is bad to-day, or you might have been spotted. Now tell me
what _you_ are doing here!”

Frances told him—as much as she thought he need know.

“And where is your hospital located?” demanded Boone.

Miss Lane informed him.

“That is more than thirty miles back!” cried Boone.

“About that,” agreed Miss Lane meekly.

“Does any one know you are here?”

“I hope not! I mean, no one—except you, Boone,” replied Frances softly.

The conscientious Boone made a last effort to maintain a judicial
attitude.

“Do you know you have committed a serious military offence?” he demanded
fiercely. “Trying to get past sentries, and traffic police! Did you know
that no women are allowed anywhere in the battle zone?”

“Yes,” said Miss Lane demurely. “That was why we came—to break a record!”

“And do you know that all this valley is liable to be searched with gas,
and you have no gas-mask?”

“I didn’t know that,” confessed the delinquent, “but I might have guessed
it, I suppose. But I was dead tired of that old hospital, Boone, and I
was just crazy to see the fighting!”

“Crazy? That’s just the word. You crazy, crazy child!” said Boone
affectionately. “Didn’t you know the chances you were taking?”

“Yes,” said Frances Lane. “But”—her eyes were raised to his for one
devastating moment—“I knew I was safe the moment I saw _you_, Boone!”

“Oh, _Francie_!” murmured that utterly demoralized youth.

       *       *       *       *       *

“And where are your headquarters located, Major?” enquired Miss Ryker
brightly. The conversation had harped so far upon her own misdemeanours,
and she was anxious to introduce a fresh topic.

“I live chiefly with the Division holding this sector,” replied Major
Floyd. “I am liaison officer.”

“Don’t drop those cups. Just what does a liaison officer do?”

“I act as bell-hop between the local British Mission and the Americans. I
go around paging Generals and Staff Officers—and everything,” replied the
Major.

“There are no Generals here,” Miss Ryker pointed out.

“No. To-day I am having a vacation. Boone Cruttenden’s Division are in
Corps Reserve near by, so I undertook to bring him up here and give him
his first view of the Line.”

“How did you get here?” enquired Miss Ryker, who had not initiated the
present conversation for nothing.

“On a Staff car.”

“An automobile?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“Behind that wood at the top of the hill.”

“Then,” announced Miss Ryker, coming to the point, “you will be able to
give us two poor girls a ride home.”

“It’s—it’s twenty-five miles out of our way,” said Floyd feebly.
“Besides, Boone and I have our reputations to consider. He is young, and
might live it down, but think of me! People would say I was old enough to
know better.”

“Think of _us_!” countered Miss Ryker; “if we can’t get back, and the
Matron finds that Frances and I have been playing hookey!” She followed
up her appeal by a faint sob.

Major Floyd dropped the teacups and raised his hands above his head.

“Kamerad!” he groaned.

_Whoo-oo-oo-oo-UMP!_

A long overdue shell from a German field battery came shrieking over the
tree-tops behind them and landed squarely in the road, two hundred yards
to their right.

“You’re quite safe,” announced the Major, patting four fingers which he
had suddenly discovered on the sleeve of his Burberry. “That one is too
far away to hurt us. There will probably be more, but Fritz won’t shell
away from the road. His imagination is not elastic.”

“What about Frances and Captain Cruttenden?” said Helen. “They are nearer
the road than we are. Would that shell be able—?”

Major Floyd rubbed his misty monocle and examined the two figures to his
right.

“They don’t appear to have heard it,” he announced, and shook his head
mournfully.




CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE LINE


Most of us in our extreme youth, before we leave home and adventure upon
the Great Unknown of school life—the most formidable ordeal, by the way,
that the majority of us ever have to face—endeavour to prepare ourselves
for what we imagine lies before us by a course of study.

We devour stories about schools and schoolboys, with an application
most unusual in the young. We have all the tenderfoot’s fear of being
considered a tenderfoot, so we take pains to acquire the schoolboy tone;
schoolboy atmosphere; schoolboy slang. The exploits of the hero after he
becomes “Cock of the School”—whatever that may be—and leads the football
team to victory, are dismissed by us as too lofty and distant for our
achievement. We are much more interested—more painfully interested—in his
experiences as a freshman or fag. We endeavour to pick up tips as to what
a boy entering school for the first time should do, and more particularly
what he should not do, in order to avoid being tossed in a blanket or
sent to Coventry, or labelled “sissy,” or “cry-baby”—and all the other
vague terrors which have kept prospective Cocks of the School awake at
night since the dawn of Education.

This intensive course of self-preparation has one drawback. None of
the things described in the books ever happen at the school to which
we are ultimately sent. We have plenty of surprises, plenty of rough
experiences; but none quite of the kind anticipated.

American soldiers, arriving on the Western Front in the fourth year
of the War, feel themselves in very much the same position as the
self-conscious adventurer described above.

Ever since—in some cases, before—our country came in, we have been
schooling ourselves for the day when we should find ourselves Over
Here, among veteran soldiers. Methods have varied, of course. Some of
us have followed every turn of the operations in official summaries
and technical articles. To such, the War has been a glorified game,
we will say, of scientific football. Others—Miss Sissy Smithers, for
instance—have educated themselves upon more popular lines—from the Sunday
newspapers, or illustrated magazines of the domestic variety, in which
healthy patriotism and “heart interest” are not fettered by any petty
considerations of technical possibility.

Over here, Disillusionment awaits both these enthusiasts. The student
of tactics soon realizes the difference between fighting a battle in
imagination and in reality. Imagination cannot bring home to any human
brain the extent to which the chess-board dispositions of modern strategy
are tempered by the actualities of modern fighting—in other words, by the
strain upon the human machine. All the five senses are affected—hearing,
by the appalling din; seeing, by the spectacle of a whole group of human
beings blown to shreds; smelling, by the reek of gas and explosives;
touching, by the feel of dead men’s faces everywhere under your hand in
the darkness; and tasting, by the unforgettable flavour of meat in the
mouth after forty-eight hours’ continuous fighting in an atmosphere of
human blood. The War is going to be won, not by the strategists, but by
the man who can endure these things most steadfastly.

Miss Sissy Smithers need not be taken so seriously. He may be
disappointed at first to find that Red Cross nurses follow their calling
in Base Hospitals and not in No Man’s Land; and that performing dogs,
loaded with secret despatches and medical comforts, are not such a
prominent feature of modern warfare as the lady novelist would have us
believe. But no enterprise, however grim, was ever the worse for a touch
of glamour. Sissy will soon settle down.

Still, we have come to school knowing more than most new boys—far more,
indeed, than our seasoned French and British companions knew when they
embarked upon their martial education. The American soldier takes
the field to-day, thanks to the recorded experiences of others, with
a serviceable knowledge of the routine of trench warfare. Gas is no
surprise to him, and he is familiar with the tactical handling of bombs,
machine guns, and trench-mortars.

Up to date, however, we have not by any means drunk deep of warlike
experience, for the good reason that the authorities are breaking us in
by degrees. We are now in trenches, holding what is described as a quiet
sector of the Line, recently taken over from the French, and hitherto
very lightly held.

For the past two years, the Intelligence people tell us, the trenches
opposite have been manned by only one German to every four yards of
front. Eddie Gillette has already announced that when he has finished
doing what he came out here to do the number of Germans opposite may be
the same, but the method of distribution will be different. “Not one
Dutchman to four yards,” he explains, “but a quarter of a Dutchman to
every one yard. Yes, _sir_!”

Every Army has its own system of conducting trench warfare, founded
largely upon national characteristics. The Germans, it used to be said,
hold their trenches with machine guns, the British with men, the French
with artillery. Certainly in nineteen-fifteen, when stationary warfare
was the order of the day upon the Western Front, the Germans kept few
men in the front trenches—except perhaps at night—leaving the line very
much to the protection of barbed wire and machine guns, the latter laid
and trained in such a fashion as to create if need be a continuous and
impenetrable horizontal lattice-work of bullets in front of every section
of the line. The British, having at that time more men than munitions—a
battalion was lucky if it possessed four Vickers guns and a single
trench-mortar—filled their trenches with as many defenders as they would
hold, and trusted, not altogether vainly, to the old British tradition
of rapid rifle fire and close work with the bayonet to keep the line
intact.

The French temperament called for more elasticity than this. The one
thing a Frenchman hates to do in warfare is keep still. He prefers active
counter-measures to dogged resistance. So in nineteen-fifteen, whenever
a sector of the French trenches was heavily bombarded, the garrison was
promptly withdrawn to a position of comparative safety—where, the story
goes, they seized the opportunity to cook an extra-elaborate dinner. If
the Germans followed up their bombardment with an infantry attack, that
attack was met mainly with an intensive barrage from that amazingly rapid
and accurate piece of scrap-iron, the _soixante-quinze_ field gun. When
the German attack fizzled out, as it usually did, the incident ended,
and the French infantry returned to their place in the line. But if it
penetrated the barrage and occupied the French trenches, the Frenchman
finished his coffee, adjusted Rosalie, his bayonet, and prized Brother
Boche out of his new quarters.

But all that was in nineteen-fifteen. In warfare your best teacher
is your opponent. Nowadays we have, on each side of No Man’s Land,
assimilated one another’s methods. Moreover, trench warfare of to-day
has developed into a fluid affair. For one thing, trench-mortars, tanks,
and intensive artillery bombardments can make hay of the most elaborate
defensive works. You can no longer surround yourself with barbed wire and
go comfortably to bed, secure in the knowledge that your opponent cannot
possibly get at you without a long and laborious artillery preparation.
In nineteen-sixteen, before the First Battle of the Somme, British and
French guns pounded the German trenches night and day for three weeks.
It was a great pounding, but it cannot be said that the subsequent
attack came as a surprise to the enemy. Under such prolonged and pointed
attentions even a German is apt to suspect that something is in the wind.
But to-day we have other methods. Three minutes of pandemonium from
massed trench-mortars—a rush of tanks—and your defences are gone and the
Philistine is upon you.

So in nineteen-eighteen we live perpetually upon the _qui vive_, and
our methods have been elaborated and standardized to the common measure
of our joint experience. Our artillery has the whole front registered.
At a given signal it can let down a barrage—a Niagara of shrapnel and
high-explosive—upon the strip of earth that separates the enemy’s front
line from our own. This can be stationary, to annihilate an enemy attack,
or “creeping,” to form a protective screen for an attack of our own. We
have machine guns too, set, _à la_ Boche, at fixed angles to maintain a
continuous band of fire along each line of our trenches—more especially
along the second line; for it is a waste of life and energy to-day to
treat the front trench as anything more than a close chain of outposts,
screening the real dispositions behind.

And the rifle and bayonet have come back to their own. Two years ago
they were in danger of being discarded as obsolete. Every one was bomb
mad. It was claimed that a rifle and bayonet are useless against an
experienced opponent feeling his way along a zigzag trench in your
direction. True; but a bomb is equally useless—or rather, equally
dangerous—in the presence of an opponent rushing upon you in the open. So
now we have adjusted our perspectives, and each device of war is put to
its proper use.

So much for what the author of that little classic, “Dere Mable,” would
describe as “Tecknickle stuff.”

Needless to say, we are burning to play with all these new toys
simultaneously, like a small boy on Christmas morning. But we have had
little opportunity so far. To vary the metaphor, we must eat up our bread
and butter before we are allowed cake. We are busy at present learning
trench routine. Taking over trenches from another unit, for instance.
This is a complicated and exasperating pastime. It usually has to be
performed in the dark; otherwise enemy aeroplanes might observe unusual
activity behind our line, and advise their artillery to that effect. This
involves much night-marching along roads pitted with shell-holes; and
the trouble about a shell-hole three feet deep is that in wet weather it
looks like a perfectly innocent puddle. Frequently, to avoid congested
wheel traffic, we have to march across country in single file, under the
leadership of a faltering guide. Not a light must be shown, not a word
spoken. Each man, loaded with rifle, equipment, gas apparatus, and a few
extra and unauthorized comforts, has to follow the ghostly form of the
man immediately in front of him. It is discouraging work, for the simple
reason that if you set one hundred men to march in single file in the
dark, though the leader may be groping his way forward at the rate of one
mile per hour, the last man in the _queue_ is always running, and _has_
to run if he is not to be left behind. No one knows why this should be
so, but the uncanny fact remains.

Once you have descended into the communication trenches it is less easy
to lose yourself—unless the guide sets the example—but your progress
becomes slower than ever. Possibly—probably—you meet a procession going
in the opposite direction—a ration-party, maybe, or stretcher-bearers
with their patient, cheery freight. The fact that they have no right to
be there at all—practically all communication-trenches here are supposed
to be one-way thoroughfares—makes matters no easier, though it affords
relief in the form of argumentative profanity as you struggle together in
the constricted fairway like stout matrons loaded with market-produce in
a street-car.

Arrived in the actual trenches, the congestion is even greater, for now
there are just twice as many men in the trench as it was constructed
to hold, and the outgoing party must never budge until the incoming
party have arrived and “taken over.” Taking over is no mere formality
either. Officers, machine-gunners, bombers, chemical experts, and
other specialists must seek out their “opposite numbers” in the gross
darkness and take receipt in due form of ammunition, observation-posts,
gas-alarms, and situation reports, amid the crackling of rifle-fire and
the sputtering of the illuminating flares.

At last the relief is complete. The word is passed along. The outgoing
unit, after communicating sundry items of information as to the habits
and customs—mostly unpleasant—of the local Boche, coupled with sundry
warnings as to his favourite targets and own tender spots, fades
away down the communication-trenches, with whispered expressions of
good-will—and you are left alone, wondering what would happen if the
enemy were to make a surprise attack _now_.

Trench life is never comfortable at any time, but the first night in
a strange trench is the most uncomfortable of all. For one thing, the
trench feels unnaturally crowded. Moreover, we are young troops—the
youngest troops in the world to-day—and that means much. We have no
Mulvaneys or Learoyds among us. If we had, we should be taught a number
of things—how to boil a canteen over a couple of glowing chips; how to
hollow out a bed in hard soil; where to find water in an apparently dry
trench—trifles small in themselves, but making all the difference between
misery and comfort.

But that by the way. With daylight comes a new spirit—or rather, the old
spirit—of confidence. Eager persons peer over the parapet, to observe
where the enemy is, and what he is like. They see little enough. Two
hundred yards away an irregular ripple of sandbags—some white, some
black—looking like a dirty wave-crest on a brown sea, marks the position
of the German fire-trenches. This mixture of colours is thoughtful. If
the sandbags were all of one tint, like our own, loopholes would be hard
to conceal: under the German system, you never know at a distance whether
you are looking at a loophole or merely a black sandbag. The intervening
space is a wilderness of shell-holes, splintered tree-stumps, and rusty
barbed wire. Further observation is cut short by a sniper’s bullet, which
travels past enquiring heads with a vicious crack. We have learned our
first lesson. In trench warfare, by daylight at least, curiosity must be
satisfied through peepholes or periscopes.

In the trench itself there is plenty to occupy us. There are watches
to be kept and manual work to be done. A trench system is eternally
throwing out annexes and undergoing repairs, for the artillery on the
other side is always busy. There are supplies to be brought up. There is
cooking to be done: that occupies much time, for firing-trenches to-day
are equipped, like the fashionable lady’s vanity-bag, with everything
except the kitchen stove. And no bad thing either. Trench life has been
described by competent authorities as “Weeks of Monotony tempered by
Half-Hours of Hell.” Nothing dispels monotony like the necessity of
practising the primitive domestic virtues. At home we hire expensive
menials—or expect our wives—to light our fires and cook our dinners,
because we are too busy or too civilized to do it ourselves. Over here
we like doing it, because it is our actual instinct to do so, and also
passes the time.

As for the Half-Hours of Hell, these mainly take the form of short,
furious bombardments and midnight raids. But the German artillery is not
very busy in this sector. Guns, and more guns, are urgently required
farther north, where the Allied line, after stretching back and back
during those anxious days in the spring of the year, has now reacted like
a released bowstring and has shot the Boche back to the Meuse.

So far as we can gather from the sources at our disposal—official
bulletins, intermittent newspapers, and trench gossip (personified in
the American Expeditionary Force by a supposititious individual of great
erudition but small reliability, whose Christian name is “Joe”)—our cause
is prospering from the North Sea to the Alps. Germany shot her bolt with
her third great offensive on the twenty-seventh of May, when German arms
once more crossed the Marne and penetrated to within twenty-eight miles
of Paris. There they were stayed, in a battle where at least one third
of the Allied troops were American, and where the young American Army
got its first real chance, and took it. In this operation the Second and
Third American Divisions were sent to stiffen the French line. Of these,
the Third successfully held a vital bridge-head opposite Château Thierry:
the Second captured Bouresches, Belleau Wood, and Vaux.

So much we know for certain, for these things happened before we left
England, and official information was available. The work of the Marines,
in the Second Division, has already passed into American history. But
for news of subsequent happenings we have had to depend too much upon
our friend Joe. All we know for certain is that on the fifteenth of July
the enemy launched just one more offensive—his fourth and as it proved,
his very last. This time, so far as we can gather, the Allies, instead
of contenting themselves with defensive tactics, took the business into
their own hands and bit suddenly and deeply into the side of the huge,
distended, pocketful of Germans which hung down from Soissons over Paris.
The pocket promptly contracted itself: the enemy disgorged himself from
its mouth, and began to retreat. From all accounts he has been retreating
ever since.

French, British, and American troops were all engaged in this, the final
and triumphant redressing of the balance. And each were represented by
their best. One of our liaison officers tells us of a memorial set up by
French soldiers in honour of the dead of the famous Fifty-first Division
of the British Army—the Highland Territorials—and of an inscription
carved thereon which proclaimed that hereafter the Thistle of Scotland
would forever flourish beside the Lilies of France. In that great fight
not merely unity of command, but unity of sentiment, seem to have come to
their own at last.

The Allied counter-attack struck deep along the whole line. Soissons and
Montdidier, we hear, are once more in our hands; while farther north, in
Flanders, the British Third and Fourth Armies are sweeping forward for
the last time in the blood-soaked valley of the Lys.

As for the American share, we have not heard too much, but what we have
heard is enough to make us tingle. We hear of great work by the Regulars
of the First, Second, and Third Divisions; by the Twenty-sixth—the
Yankees of New England—and by the Forty-second Rainbow Division, from
Yaphank. It is also reported that other American Divisions made no
small impression upon Brother Boche—the Fourth, the Twenty-eighth; the
Thirty-second, and the Seventy-seventh.

The Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth, we understand, are somewhere with the
British opposite the Hindenburg Line near Cambrai. Doubtless we shall
hear something of them too, in due course. Great days, great days! But to
what a fever of exasperation are we aroused, who are not there ourselves!




CHAPTER TWELVE

CHASING MONOTONY


At present the authorities are engaged in impressing upon us the truth
of the maxim which says that you must not run before you can walk. Our
immediate duty is to show that we can stand the test of ordinary trench
warfare.

First, such every-day nuisances as the German sniper. And here we have a
pleasant little success to record.

When we took over these trenches, snipers were numerous and vigilant.
If you raised your head above the parapet, one of two things happened.
Either you heard a sound like the crack of a whip-lash close to your ear;
or you did not. If you did, you were lucky. If you did not, you were
buried at dusk.

There is one piece of slightly rising ground in the enemy’s line which
commands an oblique view of a stretch of our front trenches. For a
week we have been pestered by a sniper concealed somewhere along this
eminence, about three hundred yards away, on our right front. We have
scrutinized its whole expanse with periscopes and through loopholes,
but there is no sign of trench or emplacement where the sniper might be
concealed.

Yesterday that untutored but resourceful fire-eater, Eddie Gillette,
turned his attention to the matter, the urgency of which had been
impressed upon him by the fact that a sniper’s bullet, travelling
sidewise down the trench, had chipped a groove in Eddie’s own “tin derby”
that very morning, Eddie’s head being inside at the time.

“We got to locate that lobster,” he observed. And he did.

In a field behind the support line there grows, or rather, rots, a
crop of derelict and much-bombarded turnips. Last night Eddie, after a
conference with his officer, Boone Cruttenden, and the top machine-gun
sergeant, disappeared for an hour into the _hinterland_, and brought
back with him an armful of selected esculents. The largest of these
he proceeded this morning to spear upon a flat lath of wood. Upon the
top of this eminence he perched his own steel helmet, at a jaunty
angle. Attended by a respectfully interested cohort of disciples, or
rubbernecks, he next selected a suitable spot in the front-line trench,
and with the help of a length of rope and a little ingenuity succeeded in
lashing the turnip-laden lath to the revetment of the parapet in such a
fashion as to make it possible to slide the lath up and down.

It was a still, sunny, September morning, and the whole line was quiet,
except for an occasional rifle-shot, and the intermittent boom of
artillery beyond the next hill-crest to the south. Eddie’s preliminary
adjustments were barely completed when Boone Cruttenden arrived, carrying
a periscope and attended by the machine-gun sergeant.

“Got everything fixed, Gillette?” enquired Boone.

“Yes, _sir_,” replied Eddie, ignoring the cynical smiles of Joe McCarthy,
who was present in the capacity of dramatic critic.

“Right,” said Boone. “Go to it!”

The inventor cautiously slid the lath up in its groove, until the
helmet-crowned turnip stood some six inches above the parapet, offering
a goodly mark against the sky. Then crouching down, he waited. The
spectators, with remarkable unanimity, followed his example.

_Crack!_

A bullet shaved the top sandbag and buried itself with a vicious thud in
the back wall of the trench.

“Missed!” announced Gillette calmly. “We better let him try again.”

“Lower the turnip a couple of minutes first,” advised Boone. “A real man
wouldn’t keep his head up there all the time—unless it was a bone one!”

Gillette complied, and waited.

“What’s the big idea, Ed?” enquired Al Thompson respectfully.

“The big idea,” replied Eddie, “is first of all to let that Dutchman over
there drill a hole in this turnip. Then, if we peek through the hole, we
shall be looking along the track of the bullet—at this range it would
travel on a pretty-nigh flat line—and we shall see the exact place the
bullet started from, which is what we are after. In case we don’t get the
exact location, we will put up another turnip some other place in the
trench, and get a cross-bearing from that. That’s the big idea, boys!”

“And who,” enquired the grating voice of Mr. Joe McCarthy, “is the poor
fish who’s gonna put his bean up above the parapet and peek through the
hole?”

Eddie Gillette forbore to reply, but resumed his operations with added
dignity, sliding his turnip-head once more into the enemy’s view. There
was another crack, and the steel helmet oscillated sharply.

“Right through the nose!” announced Eddie, with ghoulish satisfaction.
“Now, Captain—quick!”

Already Boone Cruttenden, crouching low, was applying his periscope to
the hole in the back of the turnip. The machine-gun sergeant, stationed
at a tiny observation loophole in a steel plate close by, waited eagerly
for instructions.

Boone, with his magnifying periscope, took a rapid observation of the
constricted field of view afforded by the narrow tunnel through the
turnip; then another, over the open parapet this time; then another,
through the turnip again. He spoke rapidly.

“Sergeant, do you see two stunted willows on the sky-line, half-right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Below them, a single small bush?”

“Yes, sir. I got it.”

“Well, lay a machine gun to cover the ground about five yards to the
right of that. Call the range three-fifty. I guess he is somewhere around
there. I can’t see any loophole or anything, but maybe he is lying right
out in the open, covered in grass, or—”

_Crack!_ The conscientious artist over the way was growing restive at his
own want of success. This time he chipped the top of the steel helmet.

“That will do,” said Boone. “Lower away that turnip, Gillette, and we’ll
take a second bearing farther along.”

Mr. Gillette collected his paraphernalia with the solemn dignity of an
acolyte taking part in a mystery. But he unbent to human level for a
moment.

“You see,” he observed caustically, “we don’t require no poor fish here,
Joe McCarthy!”

In due course a second turnip was hoisted and perforated, a second
bearing taken, and another machine gun laid. The machine-gun teams took
station; the first cartridges were fed into the chambers.

“Let ’em go the moment he snipes again,” was Boone’s order.

A third spot was selected, and a third turnip exposed. This time it
wagged itself provokingly, and the sniper responded at once. It was a
beautiful shot, but it was his last. Next moment two converging streams
of machine-gun bullets were spattering his lair. What happened we shall
never know, but we were never again troubled from that particular
locality.

“We certainly got to hand it to you, Ed,” announced Joe McCarthy, in an
unusual fit of self-abasement.

Next, artillery fire. The Boche bombards our trenches twice a day,
and searches the back areas with shrapnel at night. He is not very
persistent, and a little sharp retaliation from our gunners usually
brings his performance to a conclusion. Still, it is unpleasant while it
lasts.

To be shelled for the first time must fairly rank with the first
cigarette, the first shave, and the first kiss as one of the
unforgettable experiences of life. Opinions vary as to the best place to
be during a bombardment—assuming that one has to be anywhere at all. Jim
Nichols considers a shell-hole a good place.

“It is well known,” he points out, “that no two bullets ever hit the same
spot. Nelson, or some other historical gink, once said that the safest
place for a man to put his head during a sea-fight was a hole made in a
ship’s side by a cannon-ball. Me for a shell-hole, every time!”

Boone Cruttenden thinks an ordinary trench dugout would be best. Else
what are dugouts for?

“It depends on who made them,” replies the veteran Major Powers. “The
German officer’s idea is all right. He turns on a squad of men, and they
construct for him a combined club and restaurant somewhere near the
centre of the earth. But even that is liable to have its exits blocked.
Personally, if I were under bombardment, I should stay out in the trench.
I am more likely to be hit, but less likely to be buried; and I don’t
intend to go putting the cart before the horse at _my_ funeral!”

All had an opportunity to test their theories—and their nerve—the first
afternoon after taking over the trenches. Boone and Jim shared a dugout
in the front line, sunk below the forward parapet, under the sandbags.
Having contracted the British habit of afternoon tea, they were occupied
towards five o’clock in brewing that beverage in a mess-tin, when
suddenly, with a whizz and a rush, a German shell passed over the trench
and burst amid a cloud of flying clods fifty yards beyond it.

“This is the afternoon bombardment that we were warned about,” said Jim,
pouring out two cups of tea. “Now we shall know whether we are shell-shy
or not!”

Boone took his aluminum teacup in his hand, and held it to his lips.
Simultaneously another shell landed outside—fifty yards short of the
parapet this time. The earth shook. Fragments of dirt and grit fell from
the sandbag ceiling into the tea. Boone regarded the hand which was
holding the teacup. He noted with secret satisfaction that though his
heart was bumping slightly, the hand was as steady as a rock.

“That is what is known as ‘bracketing,’ I guess,” said Nichols. “The next
shell will strike an average between the ranges of the first two and get
this happy home of ours just where the cork got the bottle.”

He was right—or nearly. Next moment, with a triumphant shriek, a shell
landed fairly in the trench, fifteen yards to their right. They felt
little concussion, for the trench was provided with stout earthen
traverses, which limited the radius of the explosion and blanketed its
force.

“The question before the House,” said Boone, “is whether we stay where we
are or go away from here. Hallo, what’s that?”

A hoarse cry was passing down the trench from mouth to mouth—a cry which
never fails to tug at a soldier’s heart, for he knows not what comrade
may be involved:

“Stretcher-bearers!”

Both officers scrambled out of their shelter. Three men, crouching
inside the entrance to a neighbouring dugout, had been hit by fragments
of shell—all in the legs. In due course the stretchers arrived, and
the trio—our first actual casualties—were borne off upon that long and
tortuous journey which starts in a communication-trench and ends possibly
at Home. They were followed by the mingled chorus of sympathy and
congratulation always accorded in these days to those who are taken, by
those who are left.

More German shells arrived. The parapet was hit in two places, and burst
sandbags flew in the air. But it was not “heavy stuff”—so the artillery
officer remarked, busy in his forward observing-station with periscope
and telephone—and the actual damage was slight.

“I am calling for retaliation now,” he explained to Boone and Jim. He
gabbled a formula to the telephone orderly, who repeated it into a
portable instrument before him. Presently the man looked up.

“Battery fired!” he announced. And a few moments later—

_Whish!_ _Whish!_ _Whish!_ _Whish!_

Four hissing streaks of sound passed over the trench from the rear. Next
moment four heavy detonations shook the earth. A hundred pairs of eager
eyes, peeping cautiously over the parapet, observed four fountains of
earth and smoke spring up in No Man’s Land.

“Short!” muttered the gunner officer, and issued a corrective order.

So the duel went on. It was a typical artillery fight, in that each
side endeavoured to dissuade its opponent from further participation by
bombarding, not one another, but one another’s friends in the trenches.
The German fire did not slacken; if anything it increased. Probably
Brother Boche was well aware that a fresh division had taken over the
line, and desired to make a good first impression. But there were no more
casualties.

“I’m tired of this. What about finishing our tea?” enquired Boone
Cruttenden of Jim Nichols.

“Sure thing,” said Jim. “Come on!”

       *       *       *       *       *

But no. As they rounded the traverse leading into their own particular
bay, there came a roar and a bang—and their home was not. When the smoke
cleared away they saw, instead of a rugged and workmanlike parapet, a
jumbled heap of disintegrated sandbags and twisted timber-work.

Jim Nichols turned to his companion, with his slow smile.

“There!” he said. “Do you still hold that the best place during a
bombardment is a dugout?”

“I’m stung, I admit,” said Boone. “But now you can test _your_ theory.
You can sit in the middle of that mess that the shell has made. It’s in
full view of the enemy, but of course you’ll be safe!”

The rival theorist smiled again.

“I confess I have died on that proposition,” he said.




CHAPTER THIRTEEN

AN EXCURSION AND AN ALARUM


We now regard ourselves, justifiably, as initiated.

We have been bombarded fairly regularly. We do not like it, but we can
stand it, which is all that matters—as eels probably remark while being
skinned. We are getting used, also, to the sight of sudden death and
human blood. These things affect us less than we expected. It is all a
matter of environment. If you were to see a man caught and cut in two
between a street-car and a taxi-cab in your own home town, the spectacle
would make you physically sick and might haunt you for weeks, because
such incidents are not part of the recognized routine of home town life.
But here, they are part of the day’s work: we are prepared for them: they
are what we are in the War for. And, curiously and providentially, it
seldom occurs to any of us to suspect that it may be his turn next. Thus
all-wise Nature maintains our balance for us.

We have made another interesting discovery about Nature, and that is
that habit can be stronger than instinct, and pride than either. The
first law of Nature is said to be the instinct of self-preservation. Yet
the average soldier, even in the inferno of modern warfare, gives less
trouble to his leaders when under shell-fire than when his dinner does
not come up to the usual standard, or he has run out of cigarettes.

Pride, again. This morning, two machine-gunners, namely, one Sam Gates
and our old friend Miss Sissy Smithers, observed through their loophole a
derelict German helmet lying amid the hedge of rusty barbed wire outside
the trench. The passion for souvenirs is inborn in the human race, but
most strongly developed in soldiers taking their first turn in the
trenches.

“Me for that lid!” announced Sissy.

“How are you gonna get it?” enquired his friend.

“The only way I know of. Going over the top and fetching it.”

Sam stared meditatively through the loophole, and remarked carelessly:

“You’ll wait till it gets dark, I guess.”

Human nature is a curious thing. Sissy Smithers was reckoned a quiet
youth. In civil life he earned a romantic but unheroic livelihood by
selling ladies’ hosiery. But his friend’s perfectly casual and reasonable
observation stung him to the roots of his being. His face flamed. Without
a word he scrambled upon the firing-step, heaved himself over the
parapet, walked quite deliberately to the barbed wire, and brought back
the helmet. The helmet had a chip in it. The chip was made by a German
sniper as Sissy lifted the helmet out of the wire.

The Boche employs other vehicles of frightfulness besides artillery. The
Flying Pig, for example. This engaging animal is really an aerial mine,
about six feet long. It appears suddenly high in the air above No Man’s
Land, propelled thither by some invisible and inaudible agency behind
the German line, and descends upon us in a series of amusing somersaults.
Having reached its destination it explodes, with results disastrous
to the landscape. A single Flying Pig can do more damage than a whole
artillery bombardment. But it possesses one redeeming feature. _You can
see it coming._ When you do, the correct procedure is to decide quickly
where it is going to come down, and then go somewhere else. It is an
exhilarating pastime, but attended by complications when played by a
large number of persons in a narrow trench—especially when differences of
opinion exist as to where the animal really intends to alight.

Then there is gas. But gas is more of a nuisance than a danger in these
days, since we are all—even the horses—equipped with a special breathing
apparatus, and carry the same night and day. Our newest mask, too, is
a great advance on its predecessors. The chief trouble about gas-masks
hitherto has been the formation of mist on the inside of the goggles.
Now, by the happy inspiration of some nameless benefactor in the Service
of Supply, the breathing tubes are so arranged that the filtered air,
when it arrives, passes right over the inner surface of the eye-pieces,
clearing the glass at every intake of breath.

Mustard gas is another story, because it attacks the skin—unless you
happen to be a coloured gentleman, and then apparently you do not mind so
much.

But our busy time is at night. Supplies come up; casualties go back.
Trench repairs have to be executed in places inaccessible by daylight.
Sandbags innumerable have to be filled and set in position.

“This yer War,” observes Joe McCarthy, bitterly, “will be finished when
all the dirt in France has been shovelled into sandbags—by you an’ me!
Then they’ll have to quit, or fall through!”

But the most thrilling experiences of trench warfare are trench raids.
These are not necessarily elaborate affairs. Some of them are quite
informal. Their objects are twofold—the first, to keep the enemy
guessing, the second, to obtain information. The second is the most
important. It is vitally necessary to know just where every one of your
enemy’s Divisions is located. The simplest method of finding out is to
send over armed deputations in the dead of night, with instructions
to bring back a few assorted Germans. These, when they arrive, are
interrogated, and their equipment and shoulder-straps are examined,
for clues as to their identity. In this way it is usually possible to
discover what Divisions are in station opposite, and how much front each
holds. If a Division is spread out widely, you may be tolerably sure
that the enemy has no serious designs upon your sector of the line. But
if Divisions are “distributed in depth”—that is, with narrow fronts and
long tails—the wise commander begins to accumulate ammunition and draft
reserves into his back areas. Before the great German drive in March,
against the attenuated British line at St. Quentin, Sir Douglas Haig was
made aware, by this and other means, of the cheering intelligence that
he had opposite to a comparatively short sector of his front sixty-four
German Divisions—or six more Divisions than there were British Divisions
in the whole of France and Belgium! That was a case in which nothing
could be done except put up the best defence possible with the troops
available, for equally overwhelming odds were being massed against the
rest of the British line. But in normal cases, to be forewarned is to be
forearmed.

Trench raids are intermittent affairs. Patrols, on the other hand,
must be organized every night. These excursions are not necessarily
belligerent. Their main object is to collect information, and to make
sure that the enemy keeps to his own side of the street. If two patrols
do meet, and feel constrained to “start something,” the one thing no one
ever does is to pull a gun or throw a bomb. To do so would be to invite
impartial participation in the game by the machine guns of both sides.
It must be cold steel or nothing. As often as not, it is nothing. Two
patrols may meet, and cut one another dead, like rival beauties on Fifth
Avenue.

One night Boone Cruttenden found himself detailed for patrol duty, with a
sergeant and four men. The party were to scale the parapet, pass through
a gap in the wire, and make a tour of a certain section of No Man’s Land.
The whole operation, which was by this time a familiar one, was expected
to occupy about an hour. Orders were given to the trench garrison that
there must be no firing during this period.

Just before midnight, in the soft September darkness, Boone led his
followers over the sandbags. It was a quiet night—suspiciously quiet—and
there was little to be heard save some impatient rips of machine-gun
fire farther south, and the soft explosion of the Verey pistols on both
sides. There are three impressions of nocturnal trench warfare which
never fade from the memory of those who have served their apprenticeship
therein—one, the endless vista of bursting star-shells sinking from the
sky along that tortuous, dolorous way that calls itself No Man’s Land;
two, the eternal _plop-plop!_ of the Verey pistols; three, the mingled
smell of fresh earth, decaying matter, and disinfectants.

Boone’s first objective was a deep shell-crater some fifteen yards
outside the wire. He had discovered it two nights previously, and it
had struck him as a useful location for an advanced patrolling base. He
gathered his henchmen around him and addressed them in a low voice.

“Sergeant, you stay here with McCarthy. Gillette and Thompson, crawl
along our own front in that direction”—he pointed south—“until you come
to the row of willow stumps that runs across from our line to theirs.
(It’s an old turnpike, really.) Examine our wire all the way along, and
see if it has been monkeyed with. If you catch sight of an enemy patrol,
Gillette will stay and watch while Thompson gets back here and reports
to the sergeant. Gillette, you will _not_ take any notice of them”—Eddie
sighed brokenly—“unless they show signs of wanting to come too close
to our trenches.” (Eddie’s spirits rose again.) “Then use your own
judgment. Your best plan will probably be to get home by the shortest
route and warn the officer in charge. But don’t start any trouble if you
can help it, because I shall be over on the other side with Gogarty, and
we want to get home too! In any case we must all be back in an hour,
because the artillery have a date with the German back areas at two,
and we don’t want to get mixed up in any retaliation that may be going.
Gogarty, follow me up this dry ditch. It leads right to the German wire,
and we may find a German sentry-post halfway across. So come quietly.”

The two little expeditions crept away, on routes at right angles to one
another. We will follow Boone and Mr. James Gogarty, who has not hitherto
been introduced to the reader.

Jimmy Gogarty was twenty years of age, of wizened appearance, and raucous
voice. He looked and sounded exactly like what he was—a bell-hop. He had
exchanged livery for uniform at the first breath of hostilities, and was
now reckoned one of the smartest scouts in Boone’s Company. He was a
New Yorker born and bred, and had fought his way steadily up the social
ladder of Second Avenue by the exercise of five remarkably sharp wits and
two unpleasantly hard fists. He was devoted to Boone Cruttenden.

The trenches were about two hundred yards apart. Progress along the ditch
was not easy, for it was choked with undergrowth and refuse. Moreover,
there were here and there unburied Germans whom it were wiser to avoid.
Occasionally the ditch was intersected by other routes—old trenches,
and the like. Here they Stopped, Looked, and Listened, as they had been
warned to do all their lives at more peaceful cross-roads far away. But
all was quiet. Too quiet, Boone thought. On his previous excursions
he had usually been aware of much life—furtive, guttural, inquisitive
life—all around him. But to-night No Man’s Land seemed a desert.

Boone whispered his suspicions to his squire.

“I guess dat means de bums is goin’ to start somethin’,” observed Mr.
Gogarty hoarsely. (He was regrettably tough in his speech. The thin
veneer of hotel civilization had long been rubbed off him.)

“We are fairly close to their wire now,” whispered Boone. “I am going to
get out of this drain and prospect along their front. You go straight
ahead, and watch out in case they come crawling down the ditch. If
they do, give a whistle—just one—to warn me, and then beat it for the
Sergeant. Otherwise, expect me here in ten minutes.”

“I get you,” said James agreeably.

Ten minutes later the pair met in the appointed spot. Boone was covered
with mud and panting heavily; Gogarty was quiescent, except that he was
emitting a peculiar noise. If he had been a cat, you would have said he
was purring.

“Seen anything?” asked Boone.

“Yep.”

“What?”

“Two Dutchmen! Dey was in dis ditch—’bout thoity yards along. Keepin’
watch, I guess. _Some_ watch!”

“Where are they now?”

“Still there. Quite still—there!”

“You mean,—?”

“Well, I ain’t one to blow, but—I’m here, and dey are not! You seen
anything, Captain?”

“Yes; listen! There’s a German raiding-party, or something, mustering
outside their wire. I saw them creeping into line, one by one, when the
moon came out just now. They are coming across, and soon!”

“How are dey going to get through our wire?” enquired practical James.

“Either break it up with a five-minute trench-mortar bombardment, or
creep forward and blow a few gaps with dynamite torpedoes. Now, I am
going to wait here until they start moving. Then I shall get back, quick.
Meanwhile”—Boone tugged at his field despatch-book—“I want you to take a
note to Major Powers.”

Flat on his stomach, Boone was squirming deep into the rank undergrowth
of the ditch.

“Hold this electric torch right down over the paper,” he said, “while I
write. Keep a good look-out at the same time, and if you see any one,
switch it off.”

For two minutes Boone scribbled frantically. The fighting blood of all
the Cruttendens was coursing in his veins. He forgot the official form of
address: he omitted certain prescribed formulæ—the date, the hour, his
own geographical position but he overlooked nothing else. The despatch,
when completed, read:

    _Dear Major, the Hun is going to raid you. So far as I can see
    it will be between the points A and B on attached sketch. I
    suggest you send out a m.-g. to shell-hole marked X, from which
    you can enfilade whole front in danger. Come to shell-hole
    yourself, or send some one, and I will come along and warn you
    as soon as I see them start._

“Take that to Major Powers right away,” he said. “As you pass through the
shell-hole warn the Sergeant, and tell him to expect a machine gun there.
But whatever you do, find the Major! Try Battalion Headquarters first—in
the support-line. If he is not there, he’ll be in the firing-trench. But
find him, whatever you do, and quick!”

“I’ll find him,” replied the retired bell-hop, confidently. “Why, I found
people in the Biltmore before now!”

He began to creep away.

“Come back here, of course,” added Boone.

Mr. Gogarty chuckled hoarsely.

“Cap,” he replied, “you betcher!”

       *       *       *       *       *

Ten minutes passed. Boone, tingling like an induction coil, watched
the progress of the raiding-party. They were moving very methodically,
keeping a beautiful line. Whenever a Verey light burst above them, or the
moon asserted herself, they were flat on their faces in a moment; but
during the next period of darkness they always seemed to cover another
twenty yards. They were halfway across now, almost exactly opposite to
Boone.

[Illustration]

Another ten minutes. Still no Gogarty.

“I wonder where he is,” muttered Boone restlessly. “We ought to have a
watch on the far end of this ditch. If they come creeping along it, as
they _ought_ to do—Gee whizz!”

From behind the German line came a chorus of sharp discharges; then a
whirring and a humming over Boone’s head. Then the earth rocked beneath
the tremendous detonation, and the skies were lit up with the flash of a
barrage of German trench-mortar bombs, exploding along two hundred yards
of American wire.

The barrage lasted just one minute. Directly after, three things
happened, almost simultaneously. The line of raiders rose to its feet
and dashed with a yell through the writhing remnants of the wire. The
voice of a machine gun—nay, a pair of machine guns—broke into steady
reverberation from the shell-crater, seventy yards to Boone’s right.
Lastly, a rocket shot up from the American support-line.

“That’s for our artillery,” said Boone to himself. “They’ll be putting
down a heavy barrage on No Man’s Land in a moment—right here. Good-night,
nurse!”

He began to run swiftly back along the ditch, crouching low. In this
posture he rounded a slight bend, and two steel helmets clashed together.
Boone, standing up to massage his ringing head, realized that the
faithful Gogarty had returned to duty.

“We got dem guys fixed this time!” announced the scout triumphantly.
“_Two_ Vickers guns in de shell-hole, to give ’em hell comin’ and goin’!”

It was true. Major Powers had done marvels in the twenty scant minutes
at his disposal. He had decided to send two machine guns over to the
shell-hole; for ammunition-belts sometimes jam, and it was essential
that a continuous stream of bullets should be maintained along the wire
during the fateful moment of attack. He had also warned the Artillery
and Brigade Headquarters of impending events. Finally, he had withdrawn
his trench garrison from the front line as a precaution against a
trench-mortar bombardment, and had aligned them, with bayonets fixed, in
the support-trench behind, with orders to dash forward to their original
positions the moment the signal was given.

They were hasty preparations, but six weeks’ rehearsal could not have
made their success more complete. It was just such an undertaking as
suits the American soldier—without cohesion or direct leadership,
and depending almost entirely upon quick grasp of the situation and
spontaneous team-work. The German attacking party, plunging forward
through the broken defences, came right into line with the Vickers guns,
with the result that it found itself wading through a river of lead
flowing at the rate of five hundred bullets per minute at a distance
of eighteen inches from the ground. Many went down at once: the others
stumbled on gallantly enough, and reached the American trench just in
time to see a wave of yelling American soldiers break into it from the
ground behind.

Some of the raiders leapt down into the trench, and were submerged at
once. A few threw bombs, most of which were deftly caught and thrown back
before they could explode. Others were engaged upon the parapet itself.
The rest, making heavy weather in the wire and tortured by the stream
of bullets, broke back, only to find that the second machine gun was
maintaining a steady enfilade fire across their line of retreat.

At the height of the turmoil the sky far behind the American lines was
suddenly illuminated by flashes. Next moment, with a rush and a roar, the
American retaliatory barrage was tearing up No Man’s Land and the German
fire-trenches beyond. The raiders were completely isolated.

For four minutes the tempest of shells raged. Then, with stunning
suddenness, came silence, grim as death, broken only by a few hoarse
cries and a little sympathetic uneasiness farther down the line. The raid
was over. How it had fared the Germans over the way never knew, for not a
single raider came back to tell them.

The dead and wounded enemy were disentangled from the wire, where most of
them had fallen. American casualties, thanks to Boone’s warning and Major
Powers’s dispositions, had been comparatively slight, though the bombs
had taken a certain gruesome toll. Eddie Gillette, who with Al Thompson
had returned from his tour of inspection just in time to take part in
the defence of the trench, was suffering from abraded knuckles, due to an
encounter with a set of Teutonic teeth. Otherwise, none of our particular
friends had received a scratch, though Boone and Gogarty had escaped
their own artillery barrage by four seconds.

An hour later the life of the line had reverted once more from Hell to
Monotony. A working-party was out in front, repairing wire and replacing
sandbags. Patrols were out again, in case the enemy should feel disposed
to throw good money after bad. The artillery stood to, prepared to resume
the argument if need be. But not a German gun cheeped all night. Possibly
they were surprised about something.

Meanwhile a string of prisoners was filing back to Regimental
Headquarters, down a communication-trench—or _boyau_, to employ the
expressive phrase of its Gallic constructors—muddy, dishevelled, and
sulky. German prisoners in these days are not usually sulky: most of them
are frankly delighted to be counted out of the War. But this particular
consignment were distinguished, under their grime, by a certain peculiar
and awful air of outraged majesty.

On arrival at Headquarters the mystery was revealed. An American Staff
Officer, an expert linguist, took charge of the party, and issued the
usual orders.

“Sergeant, find out if there are any officers among them, and put them by
themselves. Then search the others.”

He was answered—in tolerable English—by a lanky youth who stood at the
end of the long line of prisoners.

“We are _all_ officers!” he announced, with dignity.

It was a simple enough explanation, really. This was no common or
vulgar raiding-party. It was a junior officers’ Instruction Class, sent
over to gain a little experience and confidence in the delicate art of
trench-raiding on this “quiet sector of the line.” It was a genuine and
painful shock to them to find that the line was held by the Americans
in force—the Americans, who, according to the Great General Staff at
Headquarters, were still at home, chasing buffaloes down Broadway. Too
bad!

       *       *       *       *       *

But already these small diversions are swept into the limbo of the Things
that do not Matter. Word has just come that our period of trench warfare
is over, and that we are to proceed to the Argonne, to take part in the
Great Offensive.

Evidently some one at the top has decided that this War has gone on long
enough.




CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE


During the past fortnight we have been learning the difference between
Warfare of Position and Warfare of Movement, and we are very, very tired.
Moreover, the end of our labour is not yet. But we have made good. The
Divisional General himself has informed us of the fact, in an official
Order. So has the enemy, in an even more flattering fashion. He has
fallen back—steadily and stubbornly—but back.

The fighting began more than a fortnight ago. But first of all we had
to get to the scene of action. That involved endless marches, through
undulating, heavily wooded, exhausting country. It is the fall of the
year. Rain is abundant, roads are not too numerous, and these are packed
from end to end with traffic so close that it is sometimes impossible for
a vehicle to find turning-space in ten miles.

These roads, though well constructed and constantly reënforced, are
none too good. They were never built to carry such traffic as this,
and since the inevitable ditch on either side deprives them of lateral
support, the effect of a constant stream of monstrously heavy vehicles
upon the surface of one of them is that of a rolling-pin upon a strip of
dough—it makes it wider. Not only wider, but thinner; for the edges of
the road are squeezed out into the ditch, and the whole fabric loses
cohesion. Almost anywhere, but in particular near the sides, a wheel is
apt suddenly to find a soft spot and sink up to the axle, with consequent
congestion and tumult.

It is a double tide of traffic. Both streams are made up of similar
constituents, with certain necessary contrasts. There are bodies of
infantry, either going up into action or else coming out. There is no
mistaking the latter. Their uniforms are splashed, their faces are caked,
and their eyes are red for lack of sleep. They are obviously “all in,”
but they hobble manfully along, with the comfortable satisfaction of men
who have left behind them a task well and truly performed. They exchange
ironic greetings with the full-fed, boisterous bands of adventurers whom
they encounter hastening in the opposite direction.

Ambulances, again. Those going forward are empty and trim: those
returning are travel-stained and crowded. It is rumoured that the
American Army has suffered over a hundred thousand casualties during the
past few weeks. The fighting in the Argonne Forest has been terrific.
Grandpré, through which we expect to pass, has been taken and lost
half a dozen times. Each of the ambulances carries a full complement
of stretcher-cases; and usually beside the driver sits a gaunt, miry
statue with his arm in a sling, or a blood-soaked rag about his head.
Occasionally, too, there occurs a civilian farm-wagon, containing a
dozen or so less serious cases, with tickets tied to their buttons, on
their way to an Evacuation Station. There are also women and children
passengers; for the battle zone is extending daily, and it is needful,
from sheer humanity, to remove the civil population to safer ground. On
the box-seat of one of these wagons sits a small French boy. Perhaps he
is eight years old. He is easily the proudest and happiest person in all
this dolorous procession, for his right wrist is swathed in a slightly
encrimsoned bandage, gloriously conspicuous.

Then there are motor wagons, also full. Those going up contain
ammunition, barbed wire, galvanized iron sheeting, engineering
material, or rations. Those returning are heaped with salvage of every
kind—furniture, the property of the refugees; battlefield _dèbris_,
and, wherever an available chink presents itself, men—footsore men,
stragglers, or regular working-parties. The latter are usually coloured,
and, with steel helmets balanced at every angle upon their woolly pates,
smile upon the seething activity beneath them with the simple enjoyment
of a child at its first circus.

These wagons—or camions—are of two types. There are big Thorneycroft
lorries, holding three tons and made in England, and smaller vehicles
of American design, known as “Quads.” These possess the unusual feature
of a drive upon either axle; so that if your rear wheels slip backwards
into a ditch or quagmire, your front wheels will continue to function and
will extricate you in no time. Heaven knows how these contraptions are
steered, but steered they are, and with remarkable skill.

Then there are guns—and more guns. These are mainly French seventy-fives
and hundred-and-fifty-fives, with American gun teams. Those going up are
workmanlike, but inconspicuous. They are newly painted with the usual
red, green, and yellow splashes. The fishing-nets which will be spread
above them when they get into action, intersticed with grass, leaves, and
twigs, are at present neatly furled and lashed along the barrels. The
gunners sprawl anywhere but upon their hard little iron seats. The guns
coming out look different. All are plastered with mud; some are on the
casualty list, and are being towed upon trolleys by fussy little traction
engines.

Here and there in the procession wallow British tanks. These are either
“Heavies,” weighing nearly thirty tons and carrying a crew of seven or
eight, or “Whippets,” which only require three men and can move at the
rate of twelve miles an hour.

The tank is the humourist of this unhumorous War. Its method of joining
a close-packed procession of road traffic is characteristic. It appears
suddenly out of a wood in a field beside the road, obliterates thirty
yards of a hedge, squeezes a ditch flat, and insinuates itself sideways,
with jolly _abandon_, into that part of the procession which happens
to be passing at the moment—the whole in a manner reminiscent of that
heavy-footed and determined individual who is accustomed by similar
tactics to secure for himself a good place in the queue outside a movie
pay-box. On the other hand, should you be ditched or disabled in any
way, to your own discomfort and the congestion of traffic, a tank is
always willing to swing good-humouredly out of the line, scramble across
country for a field or so, lurch heavily into the roadway again, harness
itself to a tow-rope, and extract you from your present predicament as
easily and as suddenly as a mastodon might extract a cork from a bottle.

Certainly our march gave us a comprehensive view of the ingredients of
modern warfare. American soldiers, white and black—mostly cheerful;
French refugees—all sad. Guns, limbers, camions, carts, ambulances,
tanks—all moving in an endless, tumultuous, profane stream. At
cross-roads, traffic policeman struggling manfully with an impossible
job. Automobiles everywhere—Cadillacs, Fords, and Dodges—all trying to
make openings and steal a march upon the rest of Creation. Above us, the
sky of France, weeping for her lost children. Around us, the undulating,
rain-blurred hillsides of the Argonne Forest. Beneath our feet, Mud, Mud,
Mud.

Day after day we tramped—through Toul, the northwest corner of the great
rectangle of French soil which has been an American military colony since
the summer of nineteen-seventeen; across the trench lines of the old days
of stationary warfare, where Frenchmen faced the Boches for three long
years. American troops have fought there too. Here, in what was once No
Man’s Land, stand the ruins of Seicheprey, famed as having been the scene
of the first clash between American and German troops. (It was a raid,
and we lost our first prisoners there. Well, we have plenty of Germans
now to barter for them, when the time comes—and then some!) Then on past
Montfaucon, the Crown Prince’s headquarters at the Battle of Verdun, now
an American stronghold; through miles and miles of devastated country,
with here and there a little American graveyard (to which we pay due
reverence), to Grandpré. This is a mere fragment of a village, clinging
to the face of a rock looking south, and is shelled out of recognition.
Then on, through the Bois des Loges, following the tide of victory
northward, towards Mézières and Sedan. Somewhere to our right lies
Verdun, garrisoned by American soldiers—all, that is, save the Citadel,
a wondrous Gibraltar dug into the interior of a hill, containing miles
of illuminated passageways; barracks, a bakery, an arsenal, a chapel, a
theatre. Here the French maintain their own garrison—and maybe their own
secrets. Secrets or no, it was that Citadel and that garrison which broke
the back of the German assault in the critical days of nineteen-sixteen.

Somewhere on our left marches the Army of the French General Gouraud,
keeping pace with our own in the great enveloping movement of which our
attack forms the extreme right.

       *       *       *       *       *

And there we were sent into the battle. It being our first, our
impressions are somewhat confused. In theory, our own particular part
in the enterprise was a simple one. A wood lay upon our front, and we
were ordered to capture it. And we did so—all save the far edge. But
at a price. When our barrage lifted in the early dawn, and we dashed
forward to the assault which we had rehearsed so often, our consciousness
was mainly of barbed wire and machine-gun bullets. These were in unholy
alliance everywhere, and took grievous toll. Buck Stamper, the biggest
man in the Battalion, was the first one to go down. He was shot in
the legs, and another bullet passed through his heart as he struggled
forward, crippled but game, on his hands and knees. But a hundred men had
seen him die, and the gun which had knocked him out was in their hands
three minutes later. Still, formations were broken up, communication with
the rear was cut, and the brunt of the battle began to fall upon the
individual. Now it is as an individual fighter that the American soldier
excels. He has his faults. To-day attacks have to be carefully rehearsed;
battles are fought on a strict time-table. The eager young fighter is
too apt to jump off the mark before the signal is given, and overrun
his objective when he reaches it. This gets him into trouble with his
best friend, the Gunner; for under these circumstances the latter must
either forbear to fire or else risk hitting his own Infantry. But it is
a fault on the right side, and is soon corrected by painful experience.
On the other hand, it develops in its owner that most priceless quality
of the soldier, initiative. Some of the finest work in this War has
been accomplished by small bodies of troops—particularly British and
American—working forward under a young officer, or a sergeant, or very
often under no leader at all, to the capture of some vital point long
after they have lost touch with the directing force behind.

The upshot of it all was that after a week of hand-to-hand fighting and
bloody murder we cleared the tenacious Hun right out of the wood—at this
point more than a mile thick—leaving him possessed of nothing but the far
edge. We are terribly exhausted, and our losses do not bear thinking of;
but we have begged, before we are withdrawn, to be permitted to capture
that far edge and consolidate the whole position. Our prayer has been
granted. We attack to-morrow, refreshed by a lull of four days.

“And,” observed Colonel Graham to his assembled officers, “if we
Americans on the right can do our part, and swing our horn of the line
clear around through Metz and Sedan, we shall have the whole German Army
in a pocket. And then—may the Lord have mercy on them, for we will not!”

Colonel Graham is a comparatively new arrival among us, but we are
children in his sight when it comes to experience of actual fighting.
Our own commander has gone home sick, and Colonel Graham reigns in his
stead. He is a regular of the old school. Soldiering is the breath of
his nostrils, and the Army is his father and mother. He has been over
here more than twelve months, and has seen much service with our Allies
farther north.

Behold him in his headquarters, lately the property of some German
gentlemen compelled for business reasons to move farther east—thick-set,
hard as nails, and twinkling humorously through his spectacles upon his
battle-stained disciples. Most of our friends are present—but not all.
Jim Nichols is there; so is Major Floyd, who has no particular call to be
there at all, for we are within a few hundred yards of the German front
line, and we are to attack at dawn. It is now nearly four o’clock in the
morning.

Another transient visitor is present—a young officer of the Air Service,
by name Harvey Blane. His present duty is to maintain connection between
the forces on the ground and the forces of the air. He has come into
the line to-night in order to inform the Colonel of the arrangements
concluded between the Artillery and the aeroplanes for the protection of
the Infantry in the coming attack. Aviators do not vary much as a class.
They are all incredibly young; they are all endowed with the undefinable
but clear-cut individuality which comes to earth-dwellers who have
learned to maintain themselves in some other element—sailors possess it
in similar degree—and they are all intensely reticent in the presence of
laymen about their experiences in the air. Such an one was young Harvey
Blane.

There was a full muster of officers in the crowded dugout, for the
Colonel was outlining the morrow’s operations, and pencils were busy. But
Major Powers, that wise and kindly Ulysses, was not there. He was lying
in one of a cluster of newly made American graves at the back of the wood
which he had helped to capture.

Neither was Boone Cruttenden.




CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE ELEVENTH HOUR


The Colonel was speaking.

“Now listen to what the Intelligence Report has to say about the enemy’s
defensive arrangements.

“_The road leading into the Wood on the west side is said to be furnished
with tank traps._ Well, we don’t have any tanks to-day, so we should
worry about that. (By the way, boys, remind me to tell you a story
afterwards about a tank.) _All indications point to the fact that the
enemy battalion occupying the north side of Lapin Wood_—that’s where we
are now—_has received orders to hold the position to the last._ Well,
the last will come, we hope, about five-fifteen this morning. _When
dislodged, it is probable that the enemy will fall back nearly two
kilometres, in order to occupy prepared positions on a newly constructed
line south of the village of Ventreuil._ That need not worry us, because
we shall be relieved as soon as we fire him out of here.… Now for machine
guns! _Nine machine guns have been located between points A and B on
the northern edge of Lapin Wood-_-that is delightful—_distributed as
follows_—Company Officers, get these down on your maps.… _Wire._ H’m-m-m!
_Three lines interwoven in the trees on north side of wood, at distance
of three metres._ Well, wire is the business of the Trench Mortar folks.
_Trenches. Enemy’s fire-trenches are situated along northern edge of
wood._ We have noticed them! _Elements of trenches are visible on open
ground behind, at points.…_ Take this down, please.… _Miscellaneous.
Bois des Loups. Flashes have been observed in this wood._ They certainly
have! _Careful observation of the angle of fall and sound-ranging reports
lead to the conclusion that there are at least three batteries of
Seventy-sevens there, together with two or three heavy mortars._ Well, I
guess our Artillery will take care of _that_.”

The Colonel looked up from the Report and wiped his spectacles, which had
grown dim in the humid atmosphere of the dugout.

“Machine guns will be our chief snag, I guess,” he observed. “Talking of
machine guns, just how badly was Boone Cruttenden hit last week?”

“Shrapnel in the right shoulder, sir,” replied Jim Nichols. “Not very
serious, I believe.”

“He was gotten away all right, I hope?”

“Yes. His own men brought him back.”

“He did a fine piece of work,” said the Colonel. “But I want the names of
_all_ concerned, for citation. How did Boone and his bunch manage to get
into that machine-gun nest at all? I have had no time to go through the
official report yet. Did he creep around behind and catch them napping,
or what?”

“Partly that, sir. But what helped most was the action of a single
enlisted man. We were lying in a belt of trees. A clearing lay between
us and the German line, which was less than two hundred yards away. The
machine-gun nest was on our left front, and commanded the clearing.”

“Yes, yes, I get that. Go on!”

“Boone and his party,” continued Jim, “had been gone about twenty minutes
on their detour through the undergrowth which was to cut out this nest.
We were lying along the edge of the clearing, ready to make a supporting
bayonet rush if Boone got in among them. At what I thought was the right
moment I passed the word down the line for the men to be ready. And
then—and then—”

“Well?”

“And then, sir, the _darndest_ thing you ever saw!” proclaimed Jim,
breaking away from strict technicalities in his emotion. “One of my
men jumped suddenly to his feet and charged out into the middle of the
clearing. He had a little flag—our flag—on the end of his bayonet, and he
acted like he was stark insane.”

“Who was the man?”

“His name was Smithers. Miss Sissy Smithers, the boys called him. He was
a sissy, in his ways, usually.”

“And what did he do?”

“He stood there shouting to the enemy to come out and fight. He
yelled,—‘I see you, you Dutchmen! You Squareheads! You Slobs! Look at me!
Look at this li’l old Flag! Fire on that if you dare!’ Then he held his
rifle up high, with the Stars and Stripes on the end of it.”

There ran a sudden thrill around the crowded table. The American
venerates his Flag in a fashion hardly comprehended by the Englishman.
Every nation must worship some totem. In the Englishman this impulse
finds vent in loyalty to the Crown. We love the Union Jack, and we
salute it upon state occasions. But we take off our hats to the King, and
pray God to save him, because he stands for a tradition that goes right
back a thousand years and more. The American pins everything—national
honor, national tradition, personal loyalty, everything—to Old Glory.

“Well?” enquired the Colonel—presently.

“For a moment,” pursued Nichols, “the enemy did nothing. He was kind of
paralyzed, I guess. Then the machine guns in that nest spoke up, and poor
Smithers went down. Even then he was only hit in the legs. He sat up, and
waved his flag again. Then they got him in the body, and he fell on his
back. But he managed to keep his rifle erect for another fifteen seconds
or so. He shouted, too, as he lay—calling them cowards, and daring them
to come and take the Flag. By that time the guns were trained right on
him, and—he passed out. But”—Nichols’s voice rose again exultantly—“they
had been so busy trying to fix poor Sissy that they never thought to look
around behind them; and right then Boone and his bunch jumped in on their
necks, and the nest was out of business for keeps! We went across with
the supporting party and helped them clean up. Turned their own machine
guns on them too, until a German field battery got to work on us.”

“I suppose that was when you got most of your casualties?” said the
Colonel.

“Yes, sir. Two men killed, besides Smithers, and Boone and seven others
wounded. The men were all fine. After the shelling died down at dusk,
and we were settling into our new positions, two or three Huns who knew
a little English started to josh us; explained how they were coming over
presently to turn us out, and beat us up, and show themselves a time
generally. Finally one of our men, called McCarthy, pushed his head over
the sandbags, and yelled: ‘Aw, what’s the use of pulling that stuff?
Is this a War, or a Chautauqua?’ That fixed them. I guess McCarthy had
stepped right outside their vocabulary!”

“Great boys, great boys!” chuckled the Colonel. “They were just the same
on the Hindenburg Line.” He turned to Floyd. “Our idioms there puzzled
some of our British friends, Major. But between us we got the goods on
old man Hindenburg, I fancy.”

“I have heard rumours to that effect, Colonel,” replied Floyd. “The
coöperation was pretty good, eh?”

“It was great,” said the Colonel. “French, British, or American, it did
not seem to matter who was in command. We all kept touch, and we all
made our objectives. And team-work! Here is a letter I received from an
Australian commander under whom we worked for quite a while. He was a
busy man, but he found time to write me this.”

The Colonel produced a frayed field-despatch from the breast pocket of
his tunic, and read:

    _I desire to take the opportunity of tendering to you, as their
    immediate commander, my earnest thanks for the assistance and
    service of the four companies of Infantry who participated
    in yesterday’s brilliant operations. The dash, gallantry, and
    efficiency of these American troops left nothing to be desired,
    and my Australian soldiers speak in the very highest terms in
    praise of them._

“There is some more,” added the Colonel, “but that will be sufficient to
show you what that General thought of my boys. The Australians have a
pretty high standard of their own, and they don’t pin orchids on other
people unnecessarily. So we appreciated _this_.” He tapped the despatch.
“The fact is, we were a band of brothers. The only occasion upon which
we indulged in anything like ceremony or company manners was on the
Fourteenth of July. (Corresponds to our Fourth.) I went along with a
few others to represent the Americans at a swell lunch which was to be
given in the Town Hall of Amiens in honor of the occasion. Amiens was
under shell-fire at the time—right in view of the enemy, who were up on
the high ground back of Villers Brettoneux, not ten miles away. But no
one worried. We had our lunch in a cellar—French, British, Australian,
and American officers. Some lunch! There were flowers on the table, too.
_Flowers!_ God knows where they came from. But that’s France—just France!
They had to have them! Speeches, too, by Senators from Paris. _Speeches_,
with German shells bursting in the street outside! They’re a great
nation!”

“How did the British Tommy and the Doughboy get along?” inquired Floyd.

Colonel Graham’s frosty eyes twinkled.

“Each took a little while,” he said, “to get the combination of the
other. You see, Major, we Americans consider ourselves the greatest
nation on earth; and being Americans, we have to say so. Perhaps you have
noticed that?”

“I have,” assented Floyd, “and I have lived in America long enough to
learn to like hearing you say so. I like the young American’s passionate
affection for his country and all her institutions, and his fixed
determination to boost everything connected with her. The other day I was
waiting in a village for an American Staff car which was being sent for
me from Chaumont. I found one standing at the corner of the street, so I
asked the chauffeur, thinking he might be from headquarters,—‘Where are
you from?’ And he sat up, and replied, all in one breath, as if I had
pressed a button,—‘Sir, I am from Marion, Ohio, the Greatest Steam-Shovel
Producing Centre in the World!’—Just like that. That is what I call the
right spirit. But I am interrupting you, Colonel.”

“You British, on the other hand,” resumed the Colonel, “also consider
yourselves the greatest nation upon earth, but you do not say so to
people, because you take it for granted that they know already!”

“A palpable hit, sir!” conceded Floyd, amid laughter.

“Well,” continued the Colonel, “those two points of view required quite
a little adjustment, in the first place. Then again, there was a certain
amount of ‘We-have-come-to-win-this-War-for you’ stuff from our boys,
and a certain amount of ‘You-have-been-a-darned-long-while-making-up
your-minds-about-it’ stuff from yours; and all these little corners had
to be rounded off. On top of that there was a lot of very insidious,
very clever work by German agencies, to make trouble between them. But
you know about that. Then, they suffered from the handicap of a common
language. Believe me, it’s a darned sight easier to keep on clubby terms
with an ally whose language you don’t know than an ally whose language
you do! But they are wise to one another now. Each has learned to respect
and tolerate the other’s point of view. Of course they don’t _understand_
one another; and never will. In that respect they are three thousand
miles and several centuries apart. So they tacitly agreed to regard one
another as crazy, but likeable—and leave it at that. In my view that
is about as far as Anglo-American sentiment will ever get; and I shall
be glad and satisfied if we here, who _know_, can maintain it at that
standard—and it’s a higher standard than would appear at first sight. But
I am talking too much. Where was I?”

“You were going to tell us a story about a tank, sir,” announced a
respectful voice.

“Was I? Well, I might as well, for we can do nothing at this moment but
wait. Up north, in September, my outfit were attacking day after day,
with an escort of British tanks. The Germans were scared to death of
those tanks. They did everything to stop them—brought up field guns to
point-blank range; dug deep ditches, sprung land mines, and everything.
The tanks suffered; but they never weakened, and most of them arrived
at their objective. Their crews were marvels, and as for the children
who commanded them, they were the cunningest little things you ever
saw. One day we were detailed to carry a village, lying just back of
a wood. We got there in the course of time, rather more easily than I
had expected. When our men reached the little market-square, the reason
revealed itself, in the form of a British tank, squatting plumb in the
centre, having beaten us to it by four minutes. The usual infant was in
charge, sitting on the top and twirling the place where he hoped one
day to raise a mustache. When he saw our senior Major doubling down the
street at the head of our men, he scrambled down and saluted very smart
and proper, and said: ‘Major, I hereby hand over this village to you,
as my superior officer, with cordial compliments, world without end,
Amen!’—or words to that effect. The Major saluted back, very polite, and
thanked him. Then the child said, kind of thoughtfully, jerking his head
towards the grinning Tommies who were peeking out of the inside of the
machine: ‘Still, we wish somehow, don’t you know, that we had something
to show—just to show, sir, that we were here first.’ The Major thought a
minute. Then he said, ‘I can fix that for you. I’ll give you a receipt
for the village.’ And he did!” concluded the Colonel, amid a rising tide
of laughter: “_Received from officer commanding British Tank, ‘Bing Boy,’
one village—in poor condition._”

A salvo of German five-point-nine shells detonated amid the tree-roots
far above their heads.

“Enemy getting nervous,” commented the Colonel. “Let him wait! Our
artillery preparation isn’t due for an hour or more. Now, do you boys
understand your orders? Any questions to ask? If so, shoot! That’s what
I’m here for.”

He answered one or two eleventh-hour inquiries, and added: “Make the most
of this attack. You may not have another opportunity.”

“You mean,” suggested Floyd, “that this battle is going to peter out?”

“I mean,” replied Colonel Graham deliberately, “that this war is going
to peter out! And,” he added, with sudden concentrated bitterness, “if
it does—_now_—we Americans are going to regret it for the rest of our
history!”

The figures round the table sat up—quite literally. But one or two of the
older men nodded their heads.

“If only we could be allowed to go on for another three months!” pursued
the Colonel earnestly. “If only this great beautiful machine of an
American Army could be given a chance to climb to its top speed! Then
we should be functioning in proper shape—with our own guns, and our own
tanks, plenty of horse-transport, and sufficient airplanes to direct
our own fire and locate the enemy’s. We should be employing acquired
experience instead of borrowed experience. We should have a trained
Staff. We could send these great-hearted boys of ours into action
adequately protected by a perfectly timed barrage. We could cut down
our casualties seventy-five per cent, and make future victories a real
matter for rejoicing. Of course it won’t matter to the folks at home.
They have no opportunity to discriminate. They would cheer themselves
hoarse over us if we were a Sanitary Section from the Base. But—we should
like to show our friends over here what the American Army really is and
not merely what it is going to be. And—we could extract some sort of
adequate interest from the capital—the capital of our men’s lives—that we
have been sinking in this year’s campaign. But there isn’t time! There
isn’t time!” The old soldier’s gnarled fist dropped despairingly upon the
trestle table. “We are still on our second speed, and however hard we may
step on the gas, we can’t get real results for a little while to come.
There isn’t time!”

There was a pause, while another salvo burst overhead. Then Jim Nichols
asked:—

“Colonel, just why are you so sure? Is Peace really on the way?”

(Certainly, the question was worth asking. Within the past five days the
following rumours have reached us, _seriatim_, supported by every variety
of unreliable testimony:—

(1) Austria is trying to quit.

(2) The German Fleet has come out and surrendered.

(3) Kiel is in the hands of mutineers.

(4) The Kaiser and the Crown Prince have abdicated.

(5) Germany has asked for Peace, and Foch has given her seventy-two hours
to accept his terms.)

“Not peace,” replied the Colonel, “nor anything like it. But an armistice
may come any day. From all accounts the Hun is willing to submit to
almost any terms so long as he can get out now, while the going is any
good at all. That looks as if his military discipline were growing
shaky—or else his civilian morale. Perhaps both. Anyway, he seems
suspiciously anxious to quit. The real question is, What are we going to
do about it?”

“I fancy we are going to accede to his request,” said Floyd. “In all
probability, if we hammered him for another six weeks or so, we should
have him in such a state that only a vacuum-cleaner could clear up the
mess. We should probably take a million prisoners. We could sit down
upon the Boche’s prostrate carcass and dictate any terms we pleased.
But—but—but—well, there _might_ be a miscarriage. We might find ourselves
committed to another year’s campaigning. Labour, so-called, is getting
fed up, and, though we are driving the Huns before us like sheep, an
avoidable casualty-list might produce a crisis in that quarter. As you
say, Colonel, the big American machine is running more smoothly and
powerfully every day; but France and Britain are down to a pretty fine
edge now.”

“But your men and the French are all veterans, Major,” exclaimed Jim
Nichols: “the finest material—”

“That is just the trouble,” said Floyd, shaking his head. “In this crazy
war veterans are no use. To-day experience simply means loss of nerve.
The most effective—the only effective—troops in this kind of warfare
are young, green, ignorant recruits, and the British and French have
precious few of that type left. They all know too much now! Moreover, the
people at home are suffering badly. They have not too much to eat, and
the casualty-list is approaching the three-million mark. They are not
kicking: they are prepared to go on for another twenty years if national
security demands it: but it is the sacrifice of the last few lives in
a war at which national conscience boggles, and I fancy that if our
statesmen see a chance of a victorious peace they will grab it.”

“I am afraid you are right, Major,” sighed the Colonel. “Looks as if we
were going to weaken on the proposition of the knock-out blow. If we do,
two things are going to happen. First, hundreds and thousands of American
boys over at home are going to break their hearts. Think of it! Months
and months of hard training and feverish anticipation in those big dreary
camps. Then—on their top note of anticipation—Peace! Demobilization!
Reaction! Instead of soldiers—and remember the title ‘soldier’ is the
proudest in the world!—with a record of duty done and victory achieved,
we shall have created a few million disgruntled, unemployed, unemployable
might-have-beens—robbed, _robbed_, of their fair share in the greatest
Adventure that life can offer!”

“Still,” rejoined Floyd, “you can honestly tell them this: When the
credit for the victories of this summer comes to be apportioned, a big
share must go to troops which have never set foot in France—which have
never even had the chance to leave America: because it was the promise
of their presence that enabled Foch to take the offensive right away—to
take chances, in fact, which would have been utterly impossible if he had
not known that he had the whole trained manhood of America behind him. So
their labour was not altogether in vain, you see!”

But the old war-horse refused to be comforted.

“We _ought_ to go on, Major,” he said doggedly. “That brings me to the
other thing I said was going to happen. America, as a whole, has not yet
felt this War: and she _must_, if she is to extract from it the benefit
that belongs to her by right. What are a quarter of a million casualties
to a nation the size of ours? We _ought_ to suffer some more, if only to
save us from unreadiness and mismanagement in the future. If we stop now,
all that we shall have won will be the opportunity—and you know how our
orators and patriotism-mongers will use it—to announce that America just
stepped in, and the War was won! It may be true; it may not; but that
line of talk never did any good to any nation. We here round this table
all know that, and there are thousands of folk at home who know it too.
Yes, we ought to get deeper in. God knows, no one wants to make widows
and orphans. But a war, however bloody, which teaches a nation its own
weaknesses, is worth while. Individuals suffer, as individuals must and
do; but the commonwealth gains. It is true we are losing good Americans
by the hundred to-day; but we are making thousands more. Listen. A few
weeks ago I was in a Field Dressing-Station, talking to the wounded.
One man replied to my enquiries in a strong foreign accent. He was a
splendid-looking boy—a Dane, I guess. I asked him: ‘What nationality are
you?’ He looked just the least bit surprised, and replied: ‘American,
sure!’ I said: ‘I can see that, son: but tell me, what _made_ you an
American?’ And he laid his hand on a great whale of a wound in his side,
and he said, quite simply: ‘_That_ made me an American!’ And that is
what this War is doing for our big, beloved, half-grown country—making
Americans! And now we’ve got to quit!”

“Still,” smiled Floyd, “you have made a good many. You have a couple of
million of them over here now, and they will form a very useful leaven
when they get home again. He is a great man, your Doughboy, Colonel. I
have been privileged to make his acquaintance, and I have seen him fight:
and I take off my tin hat to him, because I know what his difficulties
have been. When he gets home he will no doubt be smothered in praise—by
people incapable of discriminating between the easy and the difficult
things that he did. But he will deserve all that he gets, and more, on
account of the difficulties he overcame which people at home know nothing
about—the things that never get into the papers.”

There was a sympathetic murmur from the company. The Colonel nodded.

“You are right, Major,” he said cheerfully. “Meanwhile, I wish to report
that I feel much better. I needed that outburst badly. Moreover, I don’t
say that I have any particular _personal_ objection to a spell of Peace.
I guess we can all do with a vacation. How will you celebrate your first
day, Major?”

“I don’t know,” replied Floyd thoughtfully. “The idea of Peace does not
particularly appeal to me in my present frame of mind. More than three
quarters of a million of my fellow-countrymen have been killed during the
past four years—most of them in their early twenties—and at my time of
life I feel almost ashamed to be alive. And the idea of ‘settling down’
does not altogether attract me, either. As you very rightly observe,
Colonel, the community may benefit by a good searching war, but, by God!
individuals suffer. Especially if they happen to be of that misguided
type which hastens to get into the scrap first, while wiser persons are
deciding whether to volunteer or be fetched. That was when I lost my
friends—in nineteen-fourteen and fifteen. That stratum of our community
has almost ceased to exist. My own Battalion has been replaced—which
means wiped out—thirteen times in four years, and I, even I, only am
left. So I view the prospect of settling down with mixed feelings.
Tell us how _you_ propose to spend the first day of the Armistice,
Colonel—when it comes!”

“I?” said the Colonel. “I shall start by sending a cable to the best
little woman in America, in a little town in Tennessee that you never
heard of, Major; telling her that I have come through, and that she and
the bunch of marauders that belong to both of us—we have two boys and two
girls—can quit worrying. Then I shall sit down and amplify my sentiments
in a letter. But I am old and sentimental. What will you do, Jim Nichols?”

“I guess I’ll muster the Battalion,” replied the newly promoted and
zealous second in command, “and have them clean up their rifles and
equipment. They’re in a terrible mess, after the time we’ve been having.”

“Well, well! We’ll try some one less wedded to his duty!” laughed the
Colonel. “What will you do, boy?” He turned to the youthful aviator.

Master Harvey Blane meditated. He had twice been wounded, once brought
down in flames, and several times driven down out of control.

“I guess,” he said at last, “I shall go along down to the airdrome, and
order out my machine, and have the boys tune her up very carefully. Then
I shall have her wheeled out, and I shall climb on board and test all the
contacts. Then I shall run the engine for a spell, and maybe take a turn
around the airdrome, along the ground. Then I shall load up with bombs.
Then I shall look up in the sky, and say: ‘Boys, I don’t think after all
I feel like going out to-day. Run her back and put her to bed!’”

There was appreciative laughter at this, and Floyd said:

“That reminds me of an English subaltern of my acquaintance who came
home for a week’s leave after four continuous months in the Salient, in
nineteen-fifteen—and after that experience one required a little leave!
He took a room at the Savoy and left certain explicit instructions with
the night clerk about the time he was to be called. In due course, at
three o’clock in the morning, the telephone beside his bed rang, and our
friend sat up and answered it. The voice of the clerk said: ‘Colonel’s
compliments, sir, and he wants you in the firing-trench immediately.’ And
the child replied: ‘Give _my_ compliments to the Colonel, and request him
to go to Hell!’ Then he rolled over and slept till the afternoon. His
real leave had begun! He was an artist like yourself, Blane!”

As Floyd concluded this highly probable anecdote, in his usual sepulchral
tone, a signal orderly came down the steps that led to the regions above,
and handed a despatch to the Adjutant.

Colonel Graham glanced affectionately around the table.

“I hope you boys will all be in a position soon to send me such a
message!” he said. “But only for a week or two, mind! Leave, not
Demobilization. We haven’t finished the War yet.”

The Adjutant handed him the despatch. Colonel Graham adjusted his
glasses, read it, and looked up.

“Yes, we have,” he said. “The rumours were true. German delegates are
to meet Allied delegates at five o’clock this morning, when the Allied
terms will be dictated. _Dictated_, not discussed!” He glanced at his
wrist-watch. “They are being dictated at this moment. Boys, we are
through! For better or worse, we are through with this War! Countermand
the attack.”




CHAPTER SIXTEEN

GALLIA VICTRIX


Lastly, two friends of ours in Paris.

This is an unsatisfactory world, and our destinies are not always
controlled as we could wish. But occasionally—just once or twice, maybe,
in a lifetime—something happens (or is arranged for us) which so utterly
transcends our own dreams and deserts as to restore our faith in an
All-Wise and All-Benevolent Providence once and for all.

Frances Lane had been transferred to a military hospital in Paris. Here
she discharged, cheerfully and efficiently, those minor and unheroic
duties which the professional healer is accustomed to depute to the
amateur.

One morning, during the last week in October, she was called upon in the
ordinary course of business to sit by the bedside of a young officer
who had just been wheeled from the operating-room, until such time as
he should “come out of the ether.” And the young officer was Boone
Cruttenden. Hence the foregoing appreciative reference to the workings of
Providence.

Boone duly emerged from one form of oblivion to enter upon another,
hardly less complete. In the first, he had been oblivious to everything.
In the second, he was oblivious to everything and everybody save Frances.
The malady proved catching, and both patients imagined, as usual, that
their symptoms were undetected by the outside world. So the War had to
take care of itself for a while.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of
the year nineteen-eighteen these twain found themselves wandering
side by side—with Frances on the right, ferociously interposing her
slim person between Boone’s strapped and bandaged arm and the rest of
humanity—through the congested Boulevards; waiting, waiting, like every
one else, for Something Official to be announced.

During the previous day _tout Paris_, in Sabbath attire, had roamed
restlessly, silently, expectantly, about the streets. Night had fallen,
and the throng had not abated. The great city was as murky as ever. Peace
might be hovering in the air, but War precautions still prevailed on
earth. Small, ghostly, electric lights, encased in dark-blue glass, still
indicated rather than illuminated the wayfarer’s path. At intervals a
discreet, faintly luminous sign, bearing the legend _Abri_, proffered a
refuge from the terror that flies by night. Through this gross darkness,
silently, furtively, the great concourse drifted and groped. Only over La
Place de la Concorde, like the promise of victorious Dawn, the sky was
bright with the lights newly unveiled to illuminate the great array of
trophies—German guns, German aeroplanes, festoons of German helmets—set
up for the advancement of the latest War Loan—“The Loan of the Last
Quarter of an Hour,” as the posters happily described it.

On Monday morning the crowd was still there. It had contrived to slip
home and put on its working-clothes, but that was all. The shops were
open, but no one appeared to be buying anything. There was little sound.
Occasionally the most unlikely-looking persons were accosted and asked,
“_On a signé?_” But it did not matter, as no one ever stayed for an
answer. Paris was waiting.

Then in a moment, about the stroke of eleven, the electric discharge
came. Cries arose from various parts of the city. The newspaper offices
and information bureaux broke into simultaneous, preconcerted animation.

In the Boulevard des Italiens, Boone and Frances, standing amid a vast
throng facing the office of _Le Matin_, suddenly became aware, between
two intervals of whispered confidences, that the huge map of the Western
Front which covered the outer wall of the building, upon whose surface,
through months of alternate agony and triumph, the ebb and flow of
battle had been recorded by an undulating array of tiny flags, was being
obliterated by a series of great printed slips, set one above another.
The first of these had already been put in position. It said:

    L’ARMISTICE EST SIGNÉE!

There came a buzz of excitement from the crowd, but little noise. The
second slip was going up:—

“_A-a-a-ah!_” Here was a new thought. “We have won—_won!_ We have beaten
him—beaten the Boche! _Enfin!_” Men and women began to grip one another’s
hands. The confused, uncertain buzzing rose higher, and the third slip
went up:—

    VIVE LA FRANCE!

That settled it. Next moment every hat was in the air. _This_ was what
everybody had been waiting for. Every French man, woman, and child
was shouting, or crying, or embracing his neighbour. France! France!
France—safe, free, victorious! France!

The last strip was unrolled:—

    VIVENT LES ALLIÉS!

This time it was a different demonstration. Mingled with it were the
enthusiastic cheers of the Parisian—the glowing, grateful tribute of
the principal sufferer to the friends from all over the globe who had
stood by her so stoutly. But in the main it was a deep, full-throated,
Anglo-Saxon roar. In that crowd stood scores of British and hundreds of
American soldiers. Higher and higher rose the cheering. They were not
blind cheers. They were cheers of realization. A job of work well and
truly completed! No more trenches! No more mud! No more Hell! No more
death! Victory! Peace! Home! Sweethearts and Wives!

It was at this point, for the first time, that Boone Cruttenden kissed
Frances Lane.

Thereafter, a brief period of uncertainty; then Paris settled down to
rejoice in earnest.

It is not easy to rejoice suddenly—after four and a half years of stoical
endurance. Still, by noon, Paris had settled down into her stride. The
_midinettes_ and _ouvrières_ had come out for their dinner-hour, and none
manifested any intention of returning to their labours. In the balconies
outside the great millinery shops of the Rue de la Paix lovely creatures
in kimonos, of the _mannequin_ tribe, forgetful of the whole duty of a
_mannequin_, which is to languish and glide, were hanging far out over
the seething street, waving, weeping, and screaming like common persons.

The city had broken out into flags. Every window sported one. Every
person carried one. None of your miniature, buttonhole affairs; but a
good, flapping tricolour, or Union Jack, or Stars and Stripes, three feet
square, carried over the shoulder on a pole six feet long.

Every one felt it incumbent upon him to show some slight civility to his
neighbour. Soldiers saluted civilians; civilians embraced soldiers. Young
military gentlemen kissed young ladies of the dressmaking persuasion.
Exuberant daughters of Gaul joined hands and danced in a ring round
embarrassed Anglo-Saxon officers, or tweaked the tails of the Glengarry
bonnets of passing “Jocks.” At each _porte-cochère_ snuffy concierges
were phlegmatically tearing down the printed signs tacked upon the outer
doors—_Abri, 25 places_—with an almost genial, “_Et voilà!_” A spirit
of brotherly love prevailed: Boone and Frances saw a Paris taxi-driver
distinctly slow down to avoid running over two young ladies whose
cavaliers were playfully endeavouring to push them under his front wheels.

Presently an aged man in a blue blouse and a species of yachting-cap
accosted them.

“_Américain?_” he demanded.

“_Oui_,” admitted Boone cautiously. He had already stalled off more than
one would-be kisser.

“_Blessé!_” added Frances proudly.

The old gentleman shook hands with both of them, several times. Tears
were running down his cheeks.

“_Et maintenant_,” he told them, “_mon fils reviendra!_”

And he hobbled off, to spread the great news elsewhere.

       *       *       *       *       *

By the afternoon Paris had resolved itself into processions, mainly of
soldiers and girls intertwined. Nearly everybody was singing. The French
sang the _Marseillaise_, or _Madelon_. The English-speaking races devoted
their energy, which was considerable, to a ditty with the mysterious
refrain—

    _Would you rather be a Colonel, with an eagle on your shoulder,_
    _Or a private, with a chicken on your knee?_

Ordinary vehicular traffic had almost entirely removed itself from the
streets—probably from the instinct of self-preservation; for the few
taxis which still survived carried never less than fifteen passengers,
mostly on the roof. But huge military motor-trucks were ubiquitous.
They were mainly British and American, but they bore a cargo completely
representative of the Franco-Italo-Anglo-American _entente_, from the
impromptu jazz-band of some thirty artistes perched upon the canvas roof,
to the quartette of Australian soldiers and their lady friends sitting
astride the radiator, bob-sleigh fashion, and wearing one another’s hats.
It is needless to add that small French boys adhered like flies to all
the less accessible parts of the vehicle.

As evening approached, and the electric arc-lamps awoke sizzling and
sputtering from their enforced sleep of many gloomy months, one question
began to exercise the collective faculties of the celebrants:—

“Where shall we go to-night?”

In most cases the answer was simple enough. At moments of intense mental
exaltation the Anglo-Saxon in Paris turns to the Folies Bergères as
simply and spontaneously as your true Moslem turns towards Mecca at the
call of the muezzin. But Boone and Frances cared for none of these things.

“Listen, dear,” said Boone. “Let’s go to some place that’s _quiet_, where
we can get by ourselves!”

“That will be too lovely,” agreed the other optimist, as she struggled
panting through the press. “But _where_, darling?”

“Well, anyway, some place where we won’t meet any one we know,” said
Boone, with the first instinct of the newly affianced; and Frances
concurred.

After dinner, at a restaurant whose proprietor had exuberantly decided
to celebrate the cessation of hostilities by trebling prices all round—a
dinner at which purely private and domestic plans were raptly discussed
amid an atmosphere of riotous publicity—they went to a _revue_.

It was not the usual French war-time _revue_ for Anglo-Saxon
consumption—with syncopated melodies and Cockney chorus-girls,
imperfectly disguised as Parisiennes. It was a _revue intime_, intended
for Paris alone, and was full of delicate fancies, and esoteric jokes,
and mysterious topical allusions. Boone and Frances understood possibly
one third of the dialogue and one in a hundred of the allusions. But they
enjoyed the _revue_ exceedingly. In their present frame of mind they
would have enjoyed a Greenwich Village mystery-play, or _Hamlet_ without
cuts.

The audience was almost exclusively Parisian—officers in uniform; fair
women wearing their jewels for the first time in months; stout, bald,
bearded citizens of the bourgeoisie; here and there a British uniform.
But so far as our own particular pair of truants could see, they were the
only Americans present.

From the boulevard outside came the muffled tramp of feet; shouts of
triumph; coy feminine shrieks; the honking of motor-horns; the clink of
cow-bells—all suggestive of New Year’s Eve on Broadway. But inside the
theatre the _revue_ flowed smoothly on. No one on the stage made any
allusion to the matter which was bursting all hearts. Not that there
was no tension, both on the stage and in the auditorium. In theatre-land
it is an understood thing that upon occasions of public rejoicing the
actors and the play take second place, while the audience, for one night
only, steps into the spot-light and plays “lead.” For instance, at this
moment, not many blocks away, upon the stage of the Folies Bergères a
self-appointed band of khaki-clad enthusiasts were assisting a hysterical
_corps de ballet_ in the execution of its duty.

But the _revue intime_ pursued its intimate course. The piece was too
delicately planned and executed to admit of unauthorized “gags” or
inartistic interpolations. The audience, being Parisian, realized this,
and waited. A time would come. Meanwhile, they leaned back in their
seats, fanned themselves, and laughed at the jokes. But the fans moved
very rapidly, and the laughs sounded rather breathless—rather like sobs.

Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, at the end of the second act, came the
cracking-point.

The scene was laid in a restaurant. (Not that that mattered; a
sewing-circle would have served equally well.) The glittering little
company were already gathered upon the stage for the _finale_. They were
headed by the leading lady—young, blonde, lovely; a shimmering vision in
silver—prepared to burst into song. The orchestra gave her a preliminary
chord; she opened her carmine lips. And then, to her entered from the
wings, apparently without cue or authorization, the principal comedian,
in the rôle of the head waiter of the restaurant—preposterous weeping
whiskers and all.

He walked to the footlights, turned to the audience, and announced, quite
simply:—

“_L’Armistice est signée!_”

The thing came with such consummate unexpectedness—the thing they had
been expecting all evening—that for a moment no one stirred. Then, with
a rush, the audience were on their feet; so were the orchestra. One
long-drawn, triumphant electrifying chord sprang—apparently of its own
volition—from their instruments, and a tremor ran through the theatre.
The girl in silver stepped forward, and broke into the _Marseillaise_,
with tears raining down her face.…

“Name of a name of a name!” An old French colonel, standing beside Boone,
was muttering brokenly to himself. Boone could see his fingernails whiten
as he grasped the back of the seat in front of him. Boone contented
himself with Frances’s hand, and together they gazed up at the singer.
There she stood—slender, radiant, beautiful, with not too much on,
shedding abundant, genuine tears over an artificial complexion. She _was_
Paris—Paris personified—Paris unclothed and in her right mind—Paris come
to her own again.

The curtain fell—rose—fell—rose—while the storm of cheers raged. About
the tenth time it rose again, to stay. The girl had both her hands
pressed to her face, and her body was shaking. But another chord from
the orchestra—the same chord—steadied her. She dropped her hands by her
sides, uplifted her limpid voice, and sang the _Marseillaise_ once more.

But this time her _entourage_ had increased. Upon the outskirts of the
stage—sidling in from the wings, peeping round the proscenium, mingling
bodily with the glittering, shimmering company—there appeared another
throng. Scene-shifters; dressers; lusty firemen; brown-faced _poilus_;
gendarmes; mysterious individuals in decayed dress-suits; little boys and
girls, indicative of the fact that even _revue_ artists contract domestic
ties—they all edged on, and sang the _Marseillaise_ too. If the girl in
the centre was Paris, this shining, grimy, patient, cheerful, wistful,
triumphant throng around her was France. France—with the black shadow of
forty years rolled away from her horizon! France—the much-enduring, the
all-surviving, the indomitable; with her beloved capital inviolate still,
and her lost provinces coming back to her! _Gallia Victrix._ No wonder
they sang. _La Guerre est gagnée_—at last!

There let us leave them all—on the crest of the wave. _La Guerre est
gagnée._ God send that we tackle _La Paix_ as successfully!


                                 THE END

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