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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14457-0.txt b/14457-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1ecfa1 --- /dev/null +++ b/14457-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11241 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14457 *** + +[Illustration: MARY ROBERTS RINEHART RETURNING FROM THE WAR-ZONE +AND CAPTAIN FINCH ON S.S. "ARABIC."] + + + + + + KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS + + _An American Woman at the Front_ + + BY + MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + AUTHOR OF + "K" + + + NEW YORK + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + 1915 + + + + +CONTENTS + + FOR KING AND COUNTRY + + I. TAKING A CHANCE + + II. "SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE" + + III. LA PANNE + + IV. "'TWAS A FAMOUS VICTORY" + + V. A TALK WITH THE KING OF THE BELGIANS + + VI. THE CAUSE + + VII. THE STORY WITH AN END + + VIII. THE NIGHT RAID ON DUNKIRK + + IX. NO MAN'S LAND + + X. THE IRON DIVISION + + XI. AT THE HOUSE OF THE BARRIER + + XII. NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES + + XIII. "WIPERS" + + XIV. LADY DECIES' STORY + + XV. RUNNING THE BLOCKADE + + XVI. THE MAN OF YPRES + + XVII. IN THE LINE OF THE "MITRAILLEUSE" + + XVIII. FRENCH GUNS IN ACTION + + XIX. "I NIBBLE THEM" + + XX. DUNKIRK: FROM MY JOURNAL + + XXI. TEA WITH THE AIR-FIGHTERS + + XXII. THE WOMEN AT THE FRONT + + XXIII. THE LITTLE "SICK AND SORRY" HOUSE + + XXIV. FLIGHT + + XXV. VOLUNTEERS AND PATRIOTS + + XXVI. A LUNCHEON AT BRITISH HEADQUARTERS + + XXVII. A STRANGE PARTY + +XXVIII. SIR JOHN FRENCH + + XXIX. ALONG THE GREAT BETHUNE ROAD + + XXX. THE MILITARY SECRET + + XXXI. QUEEN MARY OF ENGLAND + + XXXII. THE QUEEN OF THE BELGIANS + +XXXIII. THE RED BADGE OF MERCY + + XXXIV. IN TERMS OF LIFE AND DEATH + + XXXV. THE LOSING GAME + + XXXVI. HOW AMERICANS CAN HELP + +XXXVII. AN ARMY OF CHILDREN + + + + +KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS + + + + + +KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS + +FOR KING AND COUNTRY + + +March in England is spring. Early in the month masses of snowdrops +lined the paths in Hyde Park. The grass was green, the roads hard and +dry under the eager feet of Kitchener's great army. For months they +had been drilling, struggling with the intricacies of a new career, +working and waiting. And now it was spring, and soon they would be +off. Some had already gone. + +"Lucky beggars!" said the ones who remained, and counted the days. + +And waiting, they drilled. Everywhere there were squads: Scots in +plaid kilts with khaki tunics; less picturesque but equally imposing +regiments in the field uniform, with officers hardly distinguishable +from their men. Everywhere the same grim but cheerful determination to +get over and help the boys across the Channel to assist in holding +that more than four hundred miles of battle line against the invading +hosts of Germany. + +Here in Hyde Park that spring day was all the panoply of war: bands +playing, the steady tramp of numberless feet, the muffled clatter of +accoutrements, the homage of the waiting crowd. And they deserved +homage, those fine, upstanding men, many of them hardly more than +boys, marching along with a fine, full swing. There is something +magnificent, a contagion of enthusiasm, in the sight of a great +volunteer army. The North and the South knew the thrill during our own +great war. Conscription may form a great and admirable machine, but it +differs from the trained army of volunteers as a body differs from a +soul. But it costs a country heavy in griefs, does a volunteer army; +for the flower of the country goes. That, too, America knows, and +England is learning. + +They marched by gaily. The drums beat. The passers-by stopped. Here +and there an open carriage or an automobile drew up, and pale men, +some of them still in bandages, sat and watched. In their eyes was the +same flaming eagerness, the same impatience to get back, to be loosed +against the old lion's foes. + +For King and Country! + +All through England, all through France, all through that tragic +corner of Belgium which remains to her, are similar armies, drilling +and waiting, equally young, equally eager, equally resolute. And the +thing they were going to I knew. I had seen it in that mysterious +region which had swallowed up those who had gone before; in the +trenches, in the operating, rooms of field hospitals, at outposts +between the confronting armies where the sentries walked hand in hand +with death. I had seen it in its dirt and horror and sordidness, this +thing they were going to. + +War is not two great armies meeting in a clash and frenzy of battle. +It is much more than that. War is a boy carried on a stretcher, +looking up at God's blue sky with bewildered eyes that are soon to +close; war is a woman carrying a child that has been wounded by a +shell; war is spirited horses tied in burning buildings and waiting +for death; war is the flower of a race, torn, battered, hungry, +bleeding, up to its knees in icy water; war is an old woman burning a +candle before the Mater Dolorosa for the son she has given. For King +and Country! + + + + +CHAPTER I + +TAKING A CHANCE + + +I started for the Continent on a bright day early in January. I was +searched by a woman from Scotland Yard before being allowed on the +platform. The pockets of my fur coat were examined; my one piece of +baggage, a suitcase, was inspected; my letters of introduction were +opened and read. + +"Now, Mrs. Rinehart," she said, straightening, "just why are you +going?" + +I told her exactly half of why I was going. I had a shrewd idea that +the question in itself meant nothing. But it gave her a good chance to +look at me. She was a very clever woman. + +And so, having been discovered to be carrying neither weapons nor +seditious documents, and having an open and honest eye, I was allowed +to go through the straight and narrow way that led to possible +destruction. Once or twice, later on, I blamed that woman for letting +me through. I blamed myself for telling only half of my reasons for +going. Had I told her all she would have detained me safely in +England, where automobiles sometimes go less than eighty miles an +hour, and where a sharp bang means a door slamming in the wind and not +a shell exploding, where hostile aeroplanes overhead with bombs and +unpleasant little steel darts, were not always between one's eyes and +heaven. She let me through, and I went out on the platform. + +The leaving of the one-o'clock train from Victoria Station, London, is +an event and a tragedy. Wounded who have recovered are going back; +soldiers who have been having their week at home are returning to that +mysterious region across the Channel, the front. + +Not the least of the British achievements had been to transport, +during the deadlock of the first winter of the war, almost the entire +army, in relays, back to England for a week's rest. It had been done +without the loss of a man, across a channel swarming with hostile +submarines. They came in thousands, covered with mud weary, eager, +their eyes searching the waiting crowd for some beloved face. And +those who waited and watched as the cars emptied sometimes wept with +joy and sometimes turned and went away alone. + +Their week over, rested, tidy, eyes still eager but now turned toward +France, the station platform beside the one-o'clock train was filled +with soldiers going back. There were few to see them off; there were +not many tears. Nothing is more typical of the courage and patriotism +of the British women than that platform beside the one-o'clock train +at Victoria. The crowd was shut out by ropes and Scotland Yard men +stood guard. And out on the platform, saying little because words are +so feeble, pacing back and forth slowly, went these silent couples. +They did not even touch hands. One felt that all the unselfish +stoicism and restraint would crumble under the familiar touch. + +The platform filled. Sir Purtab Singh, an Indian prince, with his +suite, was going back to the English lines. I had been a neighbour of +his at Claridge's Hotel in London. I caught his eye. It was filled +with cold suspicion. It said quite plainly that I could put nothing +over on him. But whether he suspected me of being a newspaper writer +or a spy I do not know. + +Somehow, considering that the train was carrying a suspicious and +turbaned Indian prince, any number of impatient officers and soldiers, +and an American woman who was carefully avoiding the war office and +trying to look like a buyer crossing the Channel for hats, the whistle +for starting sounded rather inadequate. It was not martial. It was +thin, effeminate, absurd. And so we were off, moving slowly past that +line on the platform, where no one smiled; where grief and tragedy, in +that one revealing moment, were written deep. I shall never forget the +faces of the women as the train crept by. + +And now the train was well under way. The car was very quiet. The +memory of those faces on the platform was too fresh. There was a brown +and weary officer across from me. He sat very still, looking straight +ahead. Long after the train had left London, and was moving smoothly +through the English fields, so green even in winter, he still sat in +the same attitude. + +I drew a long breath, and ordered luncheon. I was off to the war. I +might be turned back at Folkstone. There was more than a chance that I +might not get beyond Calais, which was under military law. But at +least I had made a start. + +This is a narrative of personal experience. It makes no pretensions, +except to truth. It is pure reporting, a series of pictures, many of +them disconnected, but all authentic. It will take a hundred years to +paint this war on one canvas. A thousand observers, ten thousand, must +record what they have seen. To the reports of trained men must be +added a bit here and there from these untrained observers, who without +military knowledge, ignorant of the real meaning of much that they +saw, have been able to grasp only a part of the human significance of +the great tragedy of Europe. + +I was such an observer. + +My errand was primarily humane, to visit the hospitals at or near the +front, and to be able to form an opinion of what supplies were needed, +of conditions generally. Rumour in America had it that the medical and +surgical situation was chaotic. Bands of earnest and well-intentioned +people were working quite in the dark as to the conditions they hoped +to relieve. And over the hospital situation, as over the military, +brooded the impenetrable silence that has been decreed by the Allies +since the beginning of the war. I had met everywhere in America tales +from both the German and the Allies' lines that had astounded me. It +seemed incredible that such conditions could exist in an age of +surgical enlightenment; that, even in an unexpected and unprepared-for +war, modern organisation and efficiency should have utterly failed. + +On the steamer crossing the Atlantic, with the ship speeding on her +swift and rather precarious journey windows and ports carefully closed +and darkened, one heard the same hideous stories: of tetanus in +uncounted cases, of fearful infections, of no bandages--worst of all, +of no anæsthetics. + +I was a member of the American Red Cross Association, but I knew that +the great work of the American Red Cross was in sending supplies. The +comparatively few nurses they had sent to the western field of war +were not at the front or near it. The British, French, Belgian and +Dutch nursing associations were in charge of the field hospitals, so +far as I could discover. + +To see these hospitals, to judge and report conditions, then, was a +part of my errand. Only a part, of course; for I had another purpose. +I knew nothing of strategy or tactics, of military movements and their +significance. I was not interested in them particularly. But I meant +to get, if it was possible, a picture of this new warfare that would +show it for the horror that it is; a picture that would give pause to +that certain percentage of the American people that is always so eager +to force a conservative government into conflict with other nations. + +There were other things to learn. What was France doing? The great +sister republic had put a magnificent army into the field. Between +France and the United States were many bonds, much reciprocal good +feeling. The Statue of Liberty, as I went down the bay, bespoke the +kindly feeling between the two republics. I remembered Lafayette. +Battle-scarred France, where liberty has fought so hard for life--what +was France doing? Not saying much, certainly. Fighting, surely, as the +French have always fought. For certainly England, with her gallant but +at that time meagre army, was not fighting alone the great war. + +But there were three nations fighting the allied cause in the west. +What had become of the heroic Belgian Army? Was it resting on its +laurels? Having done its part, was it holding an honorary position in +the great line-up? Was it a fragment or an army, an entity or a +memory? + +The newspapers were full of details that meant nothing: names of +strange villages, movements backward and forward as the long battle +line bent and straightened again. But what was really happening beyond +the barriers that guarded the front so jealously? How did the men live +under these new and strange conditions? What did they think? Or fear? +Or hope? + +Great lorries and transports went out from the French coast towns and +disappeared beyond the horizon; motor ambulances and hospital trains +came in with the grim harvest. Men came and, like those who had gone +before, they too went out and did not come back. "Somewhere in +France," the papers said. Such letters as they wrote came from +"somewhere in France." What was happening then, over there, beyond the +horizon, "somewhere in France"? + +And now that I have been beyond the dead line many of these questions +have answered themselves. France is saying nothing, and fighting +magnificently, Belgium, with two-thirds of her army gone, has still +fifty thousand men, and is preparing two hundred thousand more. + +Instead of merely an honorary position, she is holding tenaciously, +against repeated onslaughts and under horrible conditions, the flooded +district between Nieuport and Dixmude. England, although holding only +thirty-two miles of front, beginning immediately south of Ypres, is +holding that line against some of the most furious fighting of the +war, and is developing, at the same time, an enormous fighting machine +for the spring movement.[A] + +[Footnote A: This is written of conditions in the early spring of +1915. Although the relative positions of the three armies are the +same, the British are holding a considerably longer frontage.] + +The British soldier is well equipped, well fed, comfortably +transported. When it is remembered that England is also assisting to +equip all the allied armies, it will be seen that she is doing much +more than holding the high seas. + +To see the wounded, then; to follow the lines of hospital trains to +that mysterious region, the front; to see the men in the trenches and +in their billets; to observe their _morale_, the conditions under +which they lived--and died. It was too late to think of the cause of +the war or of the justice or injustice of that cause. It will never be +too late for its humanities and inhumanities, its braveries and its +occasional flinchings, its tragedies and its absurdities. + +It was through the assistance of the Belgian Red Cross that I got out +of England and across the Channel. I visited the Anglo-Belgian +Committee at its quarters in the Savoy Hotel, London, and told them of +my twofold errand. They saw at once the point I made. America was +sending large amounts of money and vast quantities of supplies to the +Belgians on both sides of the line. What was being done in interned +Belgium was well known. But those hospital supplies and other things +shipped to Northern France were swallowed up in the great silence. The +war would not be ended in a day or a month. + +"Let me see conditions as they really are," I said. "It is no use +telling me about them. Let me see them. Then I can tell the American +people what they have already done in the war zone, and what they may +be asked to do." + +Through a piece of good luck Doctor Depage, the president, had come +across the Channel to a conference, and was present. A huge man, in +the uniform of a colonel of the Belgian Army, with a great military +cape, he seemed to fill and dominate the little room. + +They conferred together in rapid French. + +"Where do you wish to go?" I was asked. + +"Everywhere." + +"Hospitals are not always cheerful to visit." + +"I am a graduate of a hospital training-school. Also a member of the +American Red Cross." + +They conferred again. + +"Madame will not always be comfortable--over there." + +"I don't want to be comfortable," I said bravely. + +Another conference. The idea was a new one; it took some mental +readjustment. But their cause was just, and mingled with their desire +to let America know what they were doing was a justifiable pride. They +knew what I was to find out--that one of the finest hospitals in the +world, as to organisation, equipment and results, was situated almost +under the guns of devastated Nieuport, so close that the roar of +artillery is always in one's ears. + +I had expected delays, a possible refusal. Everyone had encountered +delays of one sort and another. Instead, I found a most courteous and +agreeable permission given. I was rather dazed. And when, a day or so +later, through other channels, I found myself in possession of letters +to the Baron de Broqueville, Premier and Minister of War for Belgium, +and to General Melis, Inspector General of the Belgian Army Medical +Corps, I realised that, once in Belgian territory, my troubles would +probably be at an end. + +For getting out of England I put my faith in a card given me by the +Belgian Red Cross. There are only four such cards in existence, and +mine was number four. + +From Calais to La Panne! If I could get to Calais I could get to the +front, for La Panne is only four miles from Nieuport, where the +confronting lines of trenches begin. But Calais was under military +law. Would I be allowed to land? + +Such writers as reached there were allowed twenty-four hours, and were +then shipped back across the Channel or to some innocuous destination +south. Yet this little card, if all went well, meant the privilege of +going fifty miles northeast to the actual front. True, it gave no +chance for deviation. A mile, a hundred feet off the straight and +tree-lined road north to La Panne, and I should be arrested. But the +time to think about that would come later on. + +As a matter of fact, I have never been arrested. Except in the +hospitals, I was always practically where I had no business to be. I +had a room in the Hôtel des Arcades, in Dunkirk, for weeks, where, +just round the corner, the police had closed a house for a month as a +punishment because a room had been rented to a correspondent. The +correspondent had been sentenced to five years' imprisonment, but had +been released after five weeks. I was frankly a writer. I was almost +aggressively a writer. I wrote down carefully and openly everything I +saw. I made, but of course under proper auspices and with the +necessary permits, excursions to the trenches from Nieuport to the La +Bassée region and Béthune, along Belgian, French and English lines, +always openly, always with a notebook. And nothing happened! + +As my notebook became filled with data I grew more and more anxious, +while the authorities grew more calm. Suppose I fell into the hands of +the Germans! It was a large notebook, filled with much information. I +could never swallow the thing, as officers are supposed to swallow the +password slips in case of capture. After a time the general spy alarm +got into my blood. I regarded the boy who brought my morning coffee +with suspicion, and slept with my notes under my pillow. And nothing +happened! + +I had secured my passport _visé_ at the French and Belgian Consulates, +and at the latter legation was able also to secure a letter asking the +civil and military authorities to facilitate my journey. The letter +had been requested for me by Colonel Depage. + +It was almost miraculously easy to get out of England. It was almost +suspiciously easy. My passport frankly gave the object of my trip as +"literary work." Perhaps the keen eyes of the inspectors who passed me +onto the little channel boat twinkled a bit as they examined it. + +The general opinion as to the hopelessness of my trying to get nearer +than thirty miles to the front had so communicated itself to me that +had I been turned back there on the quay at Folkstone, I would have +been angry, but hardly surprised. + +Not until the boat was out in the channel did I feel sure that I was +to achieve even this first leg of the journey. + +Even then, all was not well. With Folkstone and the war office well +behind, my mind turned to submarines as a sunflower to the sun. +Afterward I found that the thing to do is not to think about +submarines. To think of politics, or shampoos, or of people one does +not like, but not of submarines. They are like ghosts in that respect. +They are perfectly safe and entirely innocuous as long as one thinks +of something else. + +And something went wrong almost immediately. + +It was imperative that I get to Calais. And the boat, which had +intended making Calais, had had a report of submarines and headed for +Boulogne. This in itself was upsetting. To have, as one may say, one's +teeth set for Calais, and find one is biting on Boulogne, is not +agreeable. I did not want Boulogne. My pass was from Calais. I had +visions of waiting in Boulogne, of growing old and grey waiting, or of +trying to walk to Calais and being turned back, of being locked in a +cow stable and bedded down on straw. For fear of rousing hopes that +must inevitably be disappointed, again nothing happened. + +There were no other women on board: only British officers and the +turbaned and imposing Indians. The day was bright, exceedingly cold. +The boat went at top speed, her lifeboats slung over the sides and +ready for lowering. There were lookouts posted everywhere. I did not +think they attended to their business. Every now and then one lifted +his head and looked at the sky or at the passengers. I felt that I +should report him. What business had he to look away from the sea? I +went out to the bow and watched for periscopes. There were black +things floating about. I decided that they were not periscopes, but +mines. We went very close to them. They proved to be buoys marking the +Channel. + +I hated to take my eyes off the sea, even for a moment. If you have +ever been driven at sixty miles an hour over a bad road, and felt that +if you looked away the car would go into the ditch, and if you will +multiply that by the exact number of German submarines and then add +the British Army, you will know how I felt. + +Afterward I grew accustomed to the Channel crossing. I made it four +times. It was necessary for me to cross twice after the eighteenth of +February, when the blockade began. On board the fated Arabic, later +sunk by a German submarine, I ran the blockade again to return to +America. It was never an enjoyable thing to brave submarine attack, +but one develops a sort of philosophy. It is the same with being under +fire. The first shell makes you jump. The second you speak of, +commenting with elaborate carelessness on where it fell. This is a +gain over shell number one, when you cannot speak to save your life. +The third shell you ignore, and the fourth you forget about--if you +can. + +Seeing me alone the captain asked me to the canvas shelter of the +bridge. I proceeded to voice my protest at our change of destination. +He apologised, but we continued to Boulogne. + +"What does a periscope look like?" I asked. "I mean, of course, from +this boat?" + +"Depends on how much of it is showing. Sometimes it's only about the +size of one of those gulls. It's hard to tell the difference." + +I rather suspect that captain now. There were many gulls sitting on +the water. I had been looking for something like a hitching post +sticking up out of the water. Now my last vestige of pleasure and +confidence was gone. I went almost mad trying to watch all the gulls +at once. + +"What will you do if you see a submarine?' + +"Run it down," said the captain calmly. "That's the only chance we've +got. That is, if we see the boat itself. These little Channel steamers +make about twenty-six knots, and the submarine, submerged, only about +half of that. Sixteen is the best they can do on the surface. Run them +down and sink them, that's my motto." + +"What about a torpedo?" + +"We can see them coming. It will be hard to torpedo this boat--she +goes too fast." + +Then and there he explained to me the snowy wake of the torpedo, a +white path across the water; the mechanism by which it is kept true to +its course; the detonator that explodes it. From nervousness I shifted +to enthusiasm. I wanted to see the white wake. I wanted to see the +Channel boat dodge it. My sporting blood was up. I was willing to take +a chance. I felt that if there was a difficulty this man would escape +it. I turned and looked back at the khaki-coloured figures on the deck +below. + +Taking a chance! They were all taking a chance. And there was one, an +officer, with an empty right sleeve. And suddenly what for an +enthusiastic moment, in that bracing sea air, had seemed a game, +became the thing that it is, not a game, but a deadly and cruel war. I +never grew accustomed to the tragedy of the empty sleeve. And as if to +accentuate this thing toward which I was moving so swiftly, the +British Red Cross ship, from Boulogne to Folkstone, came in sight, +hurrying over with her wounded, a great white boat, garnering daily +her harvest of wounded and taking them "home." + +Land now--a grey-white line that is the sand dunes at Ambleteuse, +north of Boulogne. I knew Ambleteuse. It gave a sense of strangeness +to see the old tower at the water's edge loom up out of the sea. The +sight of land was comforting, but vigilance was not relaxed. The +attacks of submarines have been mostly made not far outside the +harbours, and only a few days later that very boat was to make a +sensational escape just outside the harbour of Boulogne. + +All at once it was twilight, the swift dusk of the sea. The boat +warped in slowly. I showed my passport, and at last I was on French +soil. North and east, beyond the horizon, lay the thing I had come to +see. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +"SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE" + + +Many people have seen Boulogne and have written of what they have +seen: the great hotels that are now English hospitals; the crowding of +transport wagons; the French signs, which now have English signs added +to them; the mixture of uniforms--English khaki and French blue; the +white steamer waiting at the quay, with great Red Crosses on her snowy +funnels. Over everything, that first winter of the war, hung the damp +chill of the Continental winter, that chill that sinks in and never +leaves, that penetrates fur and wool and eats into the spirit like an +acid. + +I got through the customs without much difficulty. I had a large +package of cigarettes for the soldiers, for given his choice, food or +a smoke, the soldier will choose the latter. At last after much talk I +got them in free of duty. And then I was footfree. + +Here again I realise that I should have encountered great +difficulties. I should at least have had to walk to Calais, or to have +slept, as did one titled Englishwoman I know, in a bathtub. I did +neither. I took a first-class ticket to Calais, and waited round the +station until a train should go. + +And then I happened on one of the pictures that will stand out always +in my mind. Perhaps it was because I was not yet inured to suffering; +certainly I was to see many similar scenes, much more of the flotsam +and jetsam of the human tide that was sweeping back and forward over +the flat fields of France and Flanders. + +A hospital train had come in, a British train. The twilight had +deepened into night. Under the flickering arc lamps, in that cold and +dismal place, the train came to a quiet stop. Almost immediately it +began to unload. A door opened and a British nurse alighted. Then +slowly and painfully a man in a sitting position slid forward, pushing +himself with his hands, his two bandaged feet held in the air. He sat +at the edge of the doorway and lowered his feet carefully until they +hung free. + +"Frozen feet from the trenches," said a man standing beside me. + +The first man was lifted down and placed on a truck, and his place was +filled immediately by another. As fast as one man was taken another +came. The line seemed endless. One and all, their faces expressed keen +apprehension, lest some chance awkwardness should touch or jar the +tortured feet. Ten at a time they were wheeled away. And still they +came and came, until perhaps two hundred had been taken off. But now +something else was happening. Another car of badly wounded was being +unloaded. Through the windows could be seen the iron framework on +which the stretchers, three in a tier, were swung. + +Halfway down the car a wide window was opened, and two tall +lieutenants, with four orderlies, took their places outside. It was +very silent. Orders were given in low tones. The muffled rumble of the +trucks carrying the soldiers with frozen feet was all that broke the +quiet, and soon they, too, were gone; and there remained only the six +men outside, receiving with hands as gentle as those of women the +stretchers so cautiously worked over the window sill to them. One by +one the stretchers came; one by one they were added to the lengthening +line that lay prone on the stone flooring beside the train. There was +not a jar, not an unnecessary motion. One great officer, very young, +took the weight of the end as it came toward him, and lowered it with +marvellous gentleness as the others took hold. He had a trick of the +wrist that enabled him to reach up, take hold and lower the stretcher, +without freeing his hands. He was marvellously strong, marvellously +tender. + +The stretchers were laid out side by side. Their occupants did not +speak or move. It was as if they had reached their limit of endurance. +They lay with closed eyes, or with impassive, upturned faces, swathed +in their brown blankets against the chill. Here and there a knitted +neck scarf had been loosely wrapped about a head. All over America +women were knitting just such scarfs. + +And still the line grew. The car seemed inexhaustible of horrors. And +still the young lieutenant with the tender hands and the strong wrists +took the onus of the burden, the muscles of his back swelling under +his khaki tunic. If I were asked to typify the attitude of the British +Army and of the British people toward their wounded, I should point to +that boy. Nothing that I know of in history can equal the care the +English are taking of their wounded in this, the great war. They have, +of course, the advantage of the best nursing system in Europe. + +France is doing her best, but her nursing had always been in the hands +of nuns, and there are not nearly enough nuns in France to-day to cope +with the situation. Belgium, with some of the greatest surgeons in the +world, had no organised nursing system when war broke out. She is +largely dependent apparently on the notable work of her priests, and +on English and Dutch nurses. + +When my train drew out, the khaki-clad lieutenant and his assistants +were still at work. One car was emptied. They moved on to a second. +Other willing hands were at work on the line that stretched along the +stone flooring, carrying the wounded to ambulances, but the line +seemed hardly to shrink. Always the workers inside the train brought +another stretcher and yet another. The rumble of the trucks had +ceased. It was very cold. I could not look any longer. + +It took three hours to go the twenty miles to Calais, from six o'clock +to nine. I wrapped myself in my fur coat. Two men in my compartment +slept comfortably. One clutched a lighted cigarette. It burned down +close to his fingers. It was fascinating to watch. But just when it +should have provided a little excitement he wakened. It was +disappointing. + +We drifted into conversation, the gentleman of the cigarette and I. He +was an Englishman from a London newspaper. He was counting on his luck +to get him into Calais and his wit to get him out. He told me his +name. Just before I left France I heard of a highly philanthropic and +talented gentleman of the same name who was unselfishly going through +the hospitals as near the front as he could, giving a moving-picture +entertainment to the convalescent soldiers. I wish him luck; he +deserves it. And I am sure he is giving a good entertainment. His wit +had got him out of Calais! + +Calais at last, and the prospect of food. Still greater comfort, here +my little card became operative. I was no longer a refugee, fleeing +and hiding from the stern eyes of Lord Kitchener and the British War +Office. I had come into my own, even to supper. + +I saw no English troops that night. The Calais station was filled with +French soldiers. The first impression, after the trim English uniform, +was not particularly good. They looked cold, dirty, unutterably weary. +Later, along the French front, I revised my early judgment. But I have +never reconciled myself to the French uniform, with its rather +slovenly cut, or to the tendency of the French private soldier to +allow his beard to grow. It seems a pity that both French and +Belgians, magnificent fighters that they are, are permitted this +slackness in appearance. There are no smarter officers anywhere than +the French and Belgian officers, but the appearance of their troops +_en masse_ is not imposing. + +Later on, also, a close inspection of the old French uniform revealed +it as made of lighter cloth than the English, less durable, assuredly +less warm. The new grey-blue uniform is much heavier, but its colour +is questionable. It should be almost invisible in the early morning +mists, but against the green of spring and summer, or under the +magnesium flares--called by the English "starlights"--with which the +Germans illuminate the trenches of the Allies during the night, it +appeared to me that it would be most conspicuous. + +I have before me on my writing table a German fatigue cap. Under the +glare of my electric lamp it fades, loses colour and silhouette, is +eclipsed. I have tried it in sunlight against grass. It does the same +thing. A piece of the same efficient management that has distributed +white smocks and helmet covers among the German troops fighting in the +rigours of Poland, to render them invisible against the snow! + +Calais then, with food to get and an address to find. For Doctor +Depage had kindly arranged a haven for me. Food, of a sort, I got at +last. The hotel dining room was full of officers. Near me sat fourteen +members of the aviation corps, whose black leather coats bore, either +on left breast or left sleeve, the outspread wings of the flying +division. There were fifty people, perhaps, and two waiters, one a +pale and weary boy. The food was bad, but the crisp French bread was +delicious. Perhaps nowhere in the world is the bread average higher +than in France--just as in America, where fancy breads are at their +best, the ordinary wheat loaf is, taking the average, exceedingly +poor. + +Calais was entirely dark. The Zeppelin attack, which took place four +or five weeks later, was anticipated, and on the night of my arrival +there was a general feeling that the birthday of the German Emperor +the next day would produce something spectacular in the way of an air +raid. That explained, possibly, the presence so far from the +front--fifty miles from the nearest point--of so many flying men. + +As my French conversational powers are limited, I had some difficulty +in securing a vehicle. This was explained later by the discovery the +next day that no one is allowed on the streets of Calais after ten +o'clock. Nevertheless I secured a hack, and rode blithely and +unconsciously to the house where I was to spend the night. I have lost +the address of that house. I wish I could remember it, for I left +there a perfectly good and moderately expensive pair of field glasses. +I have been in Calais since, and have had the wild idea of driving +about the streets until I find it and my glasses. But a close scrutiny +of the map of Calais has deterred me. Age would overtake me, and I +should still be threading the maze of those streets, seeking an old +house in an old garden, both growing older all the time. + +A very large house it was, large and cold. I found that I was +expected; but an air of unreality hung over everything. I met three or +four most kindly Belgian people of whom I knew nothing and who knew +nothing of me. I did not know exactly why I was there, and I am sure +the others knew less. I went up to my room in a state of bewilderment. +It was a huge room without a carpet, and the tiny fire refused to +light. There was a funeral wreath over the bed, with the picture of +the deceased woman in the centre. It was bitterly cold, and there was +a curious odor of disinfectants in the air. + +By a window was a narrow black iron bed without a mattress. It looked +sinister. Where was the mattress? Had its last occupant died and the +mattress been burned? I sniffed about it; the odour of disinfectant +unmistakably clung to it. I do not yet know the story of that room or +of that bed. Perhaps there is no story. But I think there is. I put on +my fur coat and went to bed, and the lady of the wreath came in the +night and talked French to me. + +I rose in the morning at seven degrees Centigrade and dressed. At +breakfast part of the mystery was cleared up. The house was being used +as a residence by the chief surgeon of the Ambulance Jeanne d'Arc, the +Belgian Red Cross hospital in Calais, and by others interested in the +Red Cross work. It was a dormitory also for the English nurses from +the ambulance. This explained, naturally, my being sent there, the +somewhat casual nature of the furnishing and the odour of +disinfectants. It does not, however, explain the lady of the wreath or +the black iron bed. + +After breakfast some of the nurses came in from night duty at the +ambulance. I saw their bedroom, one directly underneath mine, with +four single beds and no pretence at comfort. It was cold, icy cold. + +"You are very courageous," I said. "Surely this is not very +comfortable. I should think you might at least have a fire." + +"We never think of a fire," a nurse said simply. "The best we can do +seems so little to what the men are doing, doesn't it?" + +She was not young. Some one told me she had a son, a boy of nineteen, +in the trenches. She did not speak of him. But I have wondered since +what she must feel during those grisly hours of the night when the +ambulances are giving up their wounded at the hospital doors. No doubt +she is a tender nurse, for in every case she is nursing vicariously +that nineteen-year-old boy of hers in the trenches. + +That morning I visited the various Calais hospitals. It was a bright +morning, sunny and cold. Lines of refugees with packs and bundles were +on their way to the quay. + +The frightful congestion of the autumn of 1914 was over, but the +hospitals were all full. They were surgical hospitals, typhoid +hospitals, hospitals for injured civilians, hospital boats. One and +all they were preparing as best they could for the mighty conflict of +the spring, when each side expected to make its great onward movement. + +As it turned out, the terrible fighting of the spring failed to break +the deadlock, but the preparations made by the hospitals were none too +great for the sad by-products of war. + +The Belgian hospital question was particularly grave. To-day, several +months later, it is still a matter for anxious thought. In case the +Germans retire from Belgium the Belgians will find themselves in their +own land, it is true, but a land stripped of everything. It is for +this contingency that the Allies are preparing. In whichever direction +the line moves, the arrangements that have served during the impasse +of the past year will no longer answer. Portable field hospital +pavilions, with portable equipment, will be required. The destructive +artillery fire, with its great range, will leave no buildings intact +near the battle line. + +One has only to follow the present line, fringed as it is with +destroyed or partially destroyed towns, to realise what the situation +will be if a successful offensive movement on the part of the Allies +drives the battle line back. Artillery fire leaves no buildings +standing. Even the roads become impassable,--masses of broken stone +with gaping holes, over which ambulances travel with difficulty. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LA PANNE + + +From Calais to La Panne is fifty miles. Calais is under military law. +It is difficult to enter, almost impossible to leave in the direction +in which I wished to go. But here again the Belgian Red Cross achieved +the impossible. I was taken before the authorities, sharply +questioned, and in the end a pink slip was passed over to the official +of the Red Cross who was to take me to the front. I wish I could have +secured that pink slip, if only because of its apparent fragility and +its astounding wearing qualities. All told, between Calais and La +Panne it was inspected--texture, weight and reading matter, front and +reverse sides, upside down and under glass--by some several hundred +sentries, officials and petty highwaymen. It suffered everything but +attack by bayonet. I found myself repeating that way to madness of +Mark Twain's: + + _Punch, brothers, punch with care, + Punch in the presence of the passenjaire, + A pink trip slip for a five-cent fare_-- + +and so on. + +Northeast then, in an open grey car with "Belgian Red Cross" on each +side of the machine. Northeast in a bitter wind, into a desolate and +almost empty country of flat fields, canals and roads bordered by +endless rows of trees bent forward like marching men. Northeast +through Gravelines, once celebrated of the Armada and now a +manufacturing city. It is curious to think that a part of the Armada +went ashore at Gravelines, and that, by the shifting of the English +Channel, it is now two miles inland and connected with the sea by a +ship canal. Northeast still, to Dunkirk. + +From Calais to Gravelines there had been few signs of war--an +occasional grey lorry laden with supplies for the front; great +ambulances, also grey, and with a red cross on the top as a warning to +aëroplanes; now and then an armoured car. At Gravelines the country +took on a more forbidding appearance. Trenches flanked the roads, +which were partly closed here and there by overlapping earthworks, so +that the car must turn sharply to the left and then to the right to +get through. At night the passage is closed by barbed wire. In one +place a bridge was closed by a steel rope, which a sentry lowered +after another operation on the pink slip. + +The landscape grew more desolate as the daylight began to fade, more +desolate and more warlike. There were platforms for lookouts here and +there in the trees, prepared during the early days of the war before +the German advance was checked. And there were barbed-wire +entanglements in the fields. I had always thought of a barbed-wire +entanglement as probably breast high. It was surprising to see them +only from eighteen inches to two feet in height. It was odd, too, to +think that most of the barbed wire had been made in America. Barbed +wire is playing a tremendous part in this war. The English say that +the Boers originated this use for it in the South African War. +Certainly much tragedy and an occasional bit of grim humour attach to +its present use. + +With the fortified town of Dunkirk--or Dunkerque--came the real +congestion of war. The large square of the town was filled with +soldiers and marines. Here again were British uniforms, British +transports and ambulances. As a seaport for the Allied Armies in the +north, it was bustling with activity. The French and Belgians +predominated, with a sprinkling of Spahis on horseback and Turcos. An +air of activity, of rapid coming and going, filled the town. Despatch +riders on motor cycles, in black leather uniforms with black leather +hoods, flung through the square at reckless speed. Battered +automobiles, their glass shattered by shells, mud guards crumpled, +coated with clay and riddled with holes, were everywhere, coming and +going at the furious pace I have since learned to associate with war. + +And over all, presiding in heroic size in the centre of the Square, +the statue of Jean Bart, Dunkirk's privateer and pirate, now come into +his own again, was watching with interest the warlike activities of +the Square. Things have changed since the days of Jean Bart, however. +The cutlass that hangs by his side would avail him little now. The +aeroplane bombs that drop round him now and then, and the processions +of French "seventy-five" guns that rumble through the Square, must +puzzle him. He must feel rather a piker in this business of modern +war. + +Dunkirk is generally referred to as the "front." It is not, however. +It is near enough for constant visits from German aeroplanes, and has +been partially destroyed by German guns, firing from a distance of +more than twenty miles. But the real line begins fifteen miles farther +along the coast at Nieuport. + +So we left Dunkirk at once and continued toward La Panne. A drawbridge +in the wall guards the road out of the city in that direction. And +here for the first time the pink slip threatened to fail us. The Red +Cross had been used by spies sufficiently often to cover us with cold +suspicion. And it was worse than that. Women were not allowed, under +any circumstances, to go in that direction--a new rule, being enforced +with severity. My little card was produced and eyed with hostility. + +My name was assuredly of German origin. I got out my passport and +pointed to the picture on it. It had been taken hastily in Washington +for passport purposes, and there was a cast in the left eye. I have no +cast in the left eye. Timid attempts to squint with that eye failed. + +But at last the officer shrugged his shoulders and let us go. The two +sentries who had kept their rifles pointed at me lowered them to a +more comfortable angle. A temporary sense of cold down my back retired +again to my feet, whence it had risen. We went over the ancient +drawbridge, with its chains by which it may be raised, and were free. +But our departure was without enthusiasm. I looked back. Some eight +sentries and officers were staring after us and muttering among +themselves. + +Afterward I crossed that bridge many times. They grew accustomed to +me, but they evidently thought me quite mad. Always they protested and +complained, until one day the word went round that the American lady +had been received by the King. After that I was covered with the +mantle of royalty. The sentries saluted as I passed. I was of the +elect. + +There were other sentries until the Belgian frontier was passed. After +that there was no further challenging. The occasional distant roar of +a great gun could be heard, and two French aeroplanes, winging home +after a reconnaissance over the German lines, hummed overhead. Where +between Calais and Dunkirk there had been an occasional peasant's cart +in the road or labourer in the fields, now the country was deserted, +save for long lines of weary soldiers going to their billets, lines +that shuffled rather than marched. There was no drum to keep them in +step with its melancholy throbbing. Two by two, heads down, laden with +intrenching tools in addition to their regular equipment, grumbling as +the car forced them off the road into the mud that bordered it, +swathed beyond recognition against the cold and dampness, in the +twilight those lines of shambling men looked grim, determined, +sinister. + +"We are going through Furnes," said my companion. "It has been shelled +all day, but at dusk they usually stop. It is out of our way, but you +will like to see it." + +I said I was perfectly willing, but that I hoped the Germans would +adhere to their usual custom. I felt all at once that, properly +conserved, a long and happy life might lie before me. I mentioned that +I was a person of no importance, and that my death would be of no +military advantage. And, as if to emphasise my peaceful fireside at +home, and dinner at seven o'clock with candles on the table, the fire +re-commenced. + +"Artillery," I said with conviction, "seems to me barbarous and +unnecessary. But in a moving automobile--" + +It was a wrong move. He hastened to tell me of people riding along +calmly in automobiles, and of the next moment there being nothing but +a hole in the road. Also he told me how shrapnel spread, scattering +death over large areas. If I had had an idea of dodging anything I saw +coming it vanished. + +We went into the little town of Furnes. Nothing happened. Only one +shell was fired, and I have no idea where it fell. The town was a dead +town, its empty streets full of brick and glass. I grew quite calm and +expressed some anxiety about the tires. Although my throat was dry, I +was able to enunciate clearly! We dared not light the car lamps, and +our progress was naturally slow. + +Furnes is not on the coast, but three miles inland. So we turned sharp +to the left toward La Panne, our destination, a small seaside resort +in times of peace, but now the capital of Belgium. It was dark now, +and the roads were congested with the movements of troops, some going +to the trenches, those out of the trenches going back to their billets +for twenty-four hours' rest, and the men who had been on rest moving +up as pickets or reserves. Even in the darkness it was easy to tell +the rested men from the ones newly relieved. Here were mostly +Belgians, and the little Belgian soldier is a cheery soul. He asks +very little, is never surly. A little food, a little sleep--on straw, +in a stable or a church--and he is happy again. Over and over, as I +saw the Belgian Army, I was impressed with its cheerfulness under +unparalleled conditions. + +Most of them have been fighting since Liege. Of a hundred and fifty +thousand men only fifty thousand remain. Their ration is meagre +compared with the English and the French, their clothing worn and +ragged. They are holding the inundated district between Nieuport and +Dixmude, a region of constant struggle for water-soaked trenches, +where outposts at the time I was there were being fought for through +lakes of icy water filled with barbed wire, where their wounded fall +and drown. And yet they are inveterately cheerful. A brave lot, the +Belgian soldiers, brave and uncomplaining! It is no wonder that the +King of Belgium loves them, and that his eyes are tragic as he looks +at them. + +La Panne at last, a straggling little town of one street and rows of +villas overlooking the sea. La Panne, with the guns of Nieuport +constantly in one's ears, and the low, red flash of them along the +sandy beach; with ambulances bringing in their wounded now that night +covers their movements; with English gunboats close to the shore and a +searchlight playing over the sea. La Panne, with just over the sand +dunes the beginning of that long line of trenches that extends south +and east and south again, four hundred and fifty miles of death. + +It was two weeks and four days since I had left America, and less than +thirty hours since I boarded the one-o'clock train at Victoria +Station, London. Later on I beat the thirty-hour record twice, once +going from the Belgian front to England in six hours, and another time +leaving the English lines at Béthune, motoring to Calais, and arriving +in my London hotel the same night. Cars go rapidly over the French +roads, and the distance, measured by miles, is not great. Measured by +difficulties, it is a different story. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"'TWAS A FAMOUS VICTORY" + + +FROM MY JOURNAL: + +LA PANNE, January 25th, 10 P.M. + +I am at the Belgian Red Cross hospital to-night. Have had supper and +have been given a room on the top floor, facing out over the sea. + +This is the base hospital for the Belgian lines. The men come here +with the most frightful injuries. As I entered the building to-night +the long tiled corridor was filled with the patient and quiet figures +that are the first fruits of war. They lay on portable cots, waiting +their turn in the operating rooms, the white coverings and bandages +not whiter than their faces. + +11 P.M. The Night Superintendent has just been in to see me. She says +there is a baby here from Furnes with both legs off, and a nun who +lost an arm as she was praying in the garden of her convent. The baby +will live, but the nun is dying. + +She brought me a hot-water bottle, for I am still chilled from my long +ride, and sat down for a moment's talk. She is English, as are most of +the nurses. She told me with tears in her eyes of a Dutch Red Cross +nurse who was struck by a shell in Furnes, two days ago, as she +crossed the street to her hospital, which was being evacuated. She was +brought here. + +"Her leg was shattered," she said. "So young and so pretty she was, +too! One of the surgeons was in love with her. It seemed as if he +could not let her die." + +How terrible! For she died. + +"But she had a casket," the Night Superintendent hastened to assure +me. "The others, of course, do not. And two of the nurses were +relieved to-day to go with her to the grave." + +I wonder if the young surgeon went. I wonder-- + +The baby is near me. I can hear it whimpering. + +Midnight. A man in the next room has started to moan. Good God, what a +place! He has shell in both lungs, and because of weakness had to be +operated on without an anæsthetic. + +2 A.M. I cannot sleep. He is trying to sing "Tipperary." + +English battleships are bombarding the German batteries at Nieuport +from the sea. The windows rattle all the time. + +6 A.M. A new day now. A grey and forbidding dawn. Sentries every +hundred yards along the beach under my window. The gunboats are moving +out to sea. A number of French aeroplanes are scouting overhead. + +The man in the next room is quiet. + + * * * * * + +Imagine one of our great seaside hotels stripped of its bands, its gay +crowds, its laughter. Paint its many windows white, with a red cross +in the centre of each one. Imagine its corridors filled with wounded +men, its courtyard crowded with ambulances, its parlours occupied by +convalescents who are blind or hopelessly maimed, its card room a +chapel trimmed with the panoply of death. For bathchairs and bathers +on the sands substitute long lines of weary soldiers drilling in the +rain and cold. And over all imagine the unceasing roar of great guns. +Then, but feebly, you will have visualised the Ambulance Ocean at La +Panne as I saw it that first winter of the war. + +The town is built on the sand dunes, and is not unlike Ostend in +general situation; but it is hardly more than a village. Such trees as +there are grow out of the sand, and are twisted by the winds from the +sea. Their trunks are green with smooth moss. And over the dunes is +long grass, then grey and dry with winter, grass that was beaten under +the wind into waves that surge and hiss. + +The beach is wide and level. There is no surf. The sea comes in in +long, flat lines of white that wash unheralded about the feet of the +cavalry horses drilling there. Here and there a fisherman's boat close +to the line of villas marks the limit of high tide; marks more than +that; marks the fisherman who has become a soldier; marks the end of +the peaceful occupations of the little town; marks the change from a +sea that was a livelihood to a sea that has become a menace and a +hidden death. + +The beach at La Panne has its story. There are guns there now, +waiting. The men in charge of them wait, and, waiting, shiver in the +cold. And just a few minutes away along the sands there was a house +built by a German, a house whose foundation was a cemented site for a +gun. The house is destroyed now. It had been carefully located, +strategically, and built long before the war began. A gun on that +foundation would have commanded Nieuport. + +Here, in six villas facing the sea, live King Albert and Queen +Elisabeth and their household, and here the Queen, grief-stricken at +the tragedy that has overtaken her innocent and injured people, visits +the hospital daily. + +La Panne has not been bombarded. Hostile aëroplanes are always +overhead. The Germans undoubtedly know all about the town; but it has +not been touched. I do not believe that it will be. For one thing, it +is not at present strategically valuable. Much more important, Queen +Elisabeth is a Bavarian princess by birth. Quite aside from both +reasons, the outcry from the civilised world which would result from +injury to any member of the Belgian royal house, with the present +world-wide sympathy for Belgium, would make such an attack +inadvisable. + +And yet who knows? So much that was considered fundamental in the +ethics of modern warfare has gone by the board; so certainly is this +war becoming one of reprisals, of hate and venom, that before this is +published La Panne may have been destroyed, or its evacuation by the +royal family have been decided. + +The contrast between Brussels and La Panne is the contrast between +Belgium as it was and as it is. The last time I was in Belgium, before +this war, I was in Brussels. The great modern city of three-quarters +of a million people had grown up round the ancient capital of Brabant. +Its name, which means "the dwelling on the marsh," dates from the +tenth century. The huge Palais de Justice is one of the most +remarkable buildings in the world. + +Now in front of that great building German guns are mounted, and the +capital of Belgium is a fishing village on the sand dunes. The King of +Belgium has exchanged the magnificent Palais du Roi for a small and +cheaply built house--not that the democratic young King of Belgium +cares for palaces. But the contrast of the two pictures was impressed +on me that winter morning as I stood on the sands at La Panne and +looked at the royal villa. All round were sentries. The wind from the +sea was biting. It set the long grey grass to waving, and blew the +fine sand in clouds about the feet of the cavalry horses filing along +the beach. + +I was quite unmolested as I took photographs of the stirring scenes +about. It was the first daylight view I had had of the Belgian +soldiers. These were men on their twenty-four hours' rest, with a part +of the new army that was being drilled for the spring campaign. The +Belgian system keeps a man twenty-four hours in the trenches, gives +him twenty-four hours for rest well back from the firing line, and +then, moving him up to picket or reserve duty, holds him another +twenty-four hours just behind the trenches. The English system is +different. Along the English front men are four days in the trenches +and four days out. All movements, of course, are made at night. + +The men I watched that morning were partly on rest, partly in reserve. +They were shabby, cold and cheery. I created unlimited surprise and +interest. They lined up eagerly to be photographed. One group I took +was gathered round a sack of potatoes, paring raw potatoes and eating +them. For the Belgian soldier is the least well fed of the three +armies in the western field. When I left, a good Samaritan had sent a +case or two of canned things to some of the regiments, and a favoured +few were being initiated into the joys of American canned baked beans. +They were a new sensation. To watch the soldiers eat them was a joy +and a delight. + +I wish some American gentleman, tiring of storing up his treasures +only in heaven, would send a can or a case or a shipload of baked +beans to the Belgians. This is alliterative, but earnest. They can +heat them in the trenches in the cans; they can thrive on them and +fight on them. And when the cans are empty they can build fires in +them or hang them, filled with stones, on the barbed-wire +entanglements in front of the trenches, so that they ring like bells +on a herd of cows to warn them of an impending attack. + +And while we are on this subject, I wish some of the women who are +knitting scarfs would stop,[B] now that winter is over, and make jelly +and jam for the brave and cheerful little Belgian army. I am aware +that it is less pleasant than knitting. It cannot be taken to lectures +or musicales. One cannot make jam between the courses of a luncheon or +a dinner party, or during the dummy hand at bridge. But the men have +so little--unsweetened coffee and black bread for breakfast; a stew of +meat and vegetables at mid-day, taken to them, when it can be taken, +but carried miles from where it is cooked, and usually cold. They pour +off the cold liquor and eat the unpalatable residue. Supper is like +breakfast with the addition of a ration of minced meat and potatoes, +also cold and not attractive at the best. + +[Footnote B: This was written in the spring. By the time this book is +published knitted woollens will be again in demand. Socks and mittens, +abdominal belts and neck scarfs are much liked. A soldier told me he +liked his scarf wide, and eight feet long, so he can carry it around +his body and fasten it in the back.] + +Sometimes they have bully beef. I have eaten bully beef, which is a +cooked and tinned beef, semi-gelatinous. The Belgian bully beef is +drier and tougher than the English. It is not bad; indeed, it is quite +good. But the soldier needs variety. The English know this. Their +soldiers have sugar, tea, jam and cheese. + +If I were asked to-day what the Belgian army needs, now that winter is +over and they need no longer shiver in their thin clothing, I should +say, in addition to the surgical supplies that are so terribly +necessary, portable kitchens, to give them hot and palatable food. +Such kitchens may be bought for two hundred and fifty dollars, with a +horse to draw them. They are really sublimated steam cookers, with the +hot water used to make coffee when they reach the trenches. I should +say, then, surgical supplies and hospital equipment, field kitchens, +jams of all sorts, canned beans, cigarettes and rubber boots! A number +of field kitchens have already been sent over. A splendid Englishman +attached to the Belgian Army has secured funds for a few more. But +many are needed. I have seen a big and brawny Belgian officer, with a +long record of military bravery behind him, almost shed tears over the +prospect of one of these kitchens for his men. + +I took many pictures that morning--of dogs, three abreast, hauling +_mitrailleuse_, the small and deadly quick-firing guns, from the word +_mitraille_, a hail of balls; of long lines of Belgian lancers on +their undipped and shaggy horses, each man carrying an eight-foot +lance at rest; of men drilling in broken boots, in wooden shoes +stuffed with straw, in carpet slippers. I was in furs from head to +foot--the same fur coat that has been, in turn, lap robe, bed clothing +and pillow--and I was cold. These men, smiling into my camera, were +thinly dressed, with bare, ungloved hands. But they were smiling. + +Afterward I learned that many of them had no underclothing, that the +blue tunics and trousers were all they had. Always they shivered, but +often also they smiled. Many of them had fought since Liège; most of +them had no knowledge of their families on the other side of the line +of death. When they return to their country, what will they go back +to? Their homes are gone, their farm buildings destroyed, their horses +and cattle killed. + +But they are a courageous people, a bravely cheery people. Flor every +one of them that remained there, two had gone, either to death, +captivity or serious injury. They were glad to be alive that morning +on the sands of La Panne, under the incessant roaring of the guns. The +wind died down; the sun came out. It was January. In two months, or +three, it would be spring and warm. In two months, or three, they +confidently expected to be on the move toward their homes again. + +What mattered broken boots and the mud and filth of their trenches? +What mattered the German aëroplane overhead? Or cold and insufficient +food? Or the wind? Nothing mattered but death, and they still lived. +And perhaps, beyond the line-- + +That afternoon, from the Ambulance Ocean, a young Belgian officer was +buried. + +It was a bright, sunny afternoon, but bitterly cold. Troops were lined +up before the hospital in the square; a band, too, holding its +instruments with blue and ungloved fingers. + +He had been a very brave officer, and very young. The story of what he +had done had been told about. So, although military funerals are many, +a handful of civilians had gathered to see him taken away to the +crowded cemetery. The three English gunboats were patrolling the sea. +Tall Belgian generals, in high blue-and-gold caps and great cape +overcoats, met in the open space and conferred. + +The dead young officer lay in state in the little chapel of the +hospital. Ten tall black standards round him held burning candles, the +lights of faith. His uniform, brushed of its mud and neatly folded, +lay on top of the casket, with his pathetic cap and with the sword +that would never lead another charge. He had fought very hard to live, +they said at the hospital. But he had died. + +The crowd opened, and the priest came through. He wore a purple velvet +robe, and behind him came his deacons and four small acolytes in +surplices. Up the steps went the little procession. And the doors of +the hospital closed behind it. + +The civilians turned and went away. The soldiers stood rigid in the +cold sunshine, and waited. A little boy kicked a football over the +sand. The guns at Nieuport crashed and hammered. + +After a time the doors opened again. The boy picked up his football +and came closer. The musicians blew on their fingers to warm them. The +dead young officer was carried out. His sword gleamed in the sun. They +carried the casket carefully, not to disorder the carefully folded +tunic or the pathetic cap. The body was placed in an ambulance. At a +signal the band commenced to play and the soldiers closed in round the +ambulance. + +The path of glory, indeed! + +But it was not this boyish officer's hope of glory that had brought +this scene to pass. He died fighting a defensive war, to save what was +left to him of the country he loved. He had no dream of empire, no +vision of commercial supremacy, no thrill of conquest as an invaded +and destroyed country bent to the inevitable. For months since Liège +he had fought a losing fight, a fight that Belgium knew from the +beginning must be a losing fight, until such time as her allies could +come to her aid. Like the others, he had nothing to gain by this war +and everything to lose. + +He had lost. The ambulance moved away. + +I was frequently in La Panne after that day. I got to know well the +road from Dunkirk, with its bordering of mud and ditch, its heavy +transports, its grey gunboats in the canals that followed it on one +side, its long lines of over-laden soldiers, its automobiles that +travelled always at top speed. I saw pictures that no artist will ever +paint--of horrors and beauties, of pathos and comedy; of soldiers +washing away the filth of the trenches in the cold waters of canals +and ditches; of refugees flying by day from the towns, and returning +at night to their ruined houses to sleep in the cellars; of long +processions of Spahis, Arabs from Algeria, silhouetted against the +flat sky line against a setting sun, their tired horses moving slowly, +with drooping heads, while their riders, in burnoose and turban, rode +with loose reins; of hostile aëroplanes sailing the afternoon breeze +like lazy birds, while shells from the anti-aircraft guns burst +harmlessly below them in small balloon-shaped clouds of smoke. + +But never in all that time did I overcome the sense of unreality, and +always I was obsessed by the injustice, the wanton waste and cost and +injustice of it all. The baby at La Panne--why should it go through +life on stumps instead of legs? The boyish officer--why should he have +died? The little sixteen-year-old soldier who had been blinded and who +sat all day by the phonograph, listening to Madame Butterfly, +Tipperary, and Harry Lauder's A Wee Deoch-an'-Doris--why should he +never see again what I could see from the window beside him, the +winter sunset over the sea, the glistening white of the sands, the +flat line of the surf as it crept in to the sentries' feet? Why? Why? + +All these wrecks of boys and men, where are they to go? What are they +to do? Blind and maimed, weak from long privation followed by great +suffering, what is to become of them when the hospital has fulfilled +its function and they are discharged "cured"? Their occupations, their +homes, their usefulness are gone. They have not always even clothing +in which to leave the hospital. If it was not destroyed by the shell +or shrapnel that mutilated them it was worn beyond belief and +redemption. Such ragged uniforms as I have seen! Such tragedies of +trousers! Such absurd and heart-breaking tunics! + +When, soon after, I was presented to the King of the Belgians, these +very questions had written lines in his face. It is easy to believe +that King Albert of Belgium has buried his private anxieties in the +common grief and stress of his people. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A TALK WITH THE KING OF THE BELGIANS + + +The letter announcing that I was to have an audience with the King of +the Belgians reached me at Dunkirk, France, on the evening of the day +before the date set. It was brief and to the effect that the King +would receive me the next afternoon at two o'clock at the Belgian Army +headquarters. + +The object of my visit was well known; and, because I wished an +authoritative statement to give to America, I had requested that the +notes of my conversation with His Majesty should be officially +approved. This request was granted. The manuscript of the interview +that follows was submitted to His Majesty for approval. It is +published as it occurred, and nothing has been added to the record. + +A general from the Ministry of War came to the Hôtel des Arcades, in +Dunkirk, and I was taken in a motor car to the Belgian Army +headquarters some miles away. As the general who conducted me had +influenza, and I was trying to keep my nerves in good order, it was +rather a silent drive. The car, as are all military cars--and there +are no others--was driven by a soldier-chauffeur by whose side sat the +general's orderly. Through the narrow gate, with its drawbridge +guarded by many sentries, we went out into the open country. + +The road, considering the constant traffic of heavy transports and +guns, was very fair. It is under constant repair. At first, during +this severe winter, on account of rain and snow, accidents were +frequent. The road, on both sides, was deep in mud and prolific of +catastrophe; and even now, with conditions much better, there are +numerous accidents. Cars all travel at frightful speed. There are no +restrictions, and it is nothing to see machines upset and abandoned in +the low-lying fields that border the road. + +Conditions, however, are better than they were. Part of the +conservation system has been the building of narrow ditches at right +angles to the line of the road, to lead off the water. Every ten feet +or so there is a gutter filled with fagots. + +I had been in the general's car before. The red-haired Fleming with +the fierce moustache who drove it was a speed maniac, and passing the +frequent sentries was only a matter of the password. A signal to slow +down, given by the watchful sentry, a hoarse whisper of the password +as the car went by, and on again at full speed. There was no bothering +with papers. + +On each side of the road were trenches, barbed-wire entanglements, +earthen barriers, canals filled with barges. And on the road were +lines of transports and a file of Spahis on horseback, picturesque in +their flowing burnouses, bearded and dark-skinned, riding their +unclipped horses through the roads under the single rows of trees. We +rode on through a village where a pig had escaped from a +slaughterhouse and was being pursued by soldiers--and then, at last, +army headquarters and the King of the Belgians. + +There was little formality. I was taken in charge by the King's +equerry, who tapped at a closed door. I drew a long breath. + +"Madame Rinehart!" said the equerry, and stood aside. + +There was a small screen in front of the door. I went round it. +Standing alone before the fire was Albert I, King of the Belgians. I +bowed; then we shook hands and he asked me to sit down. + +It was to be a conversation rather than an interview; but as it was to +be given as accurately as possible to the American people, I was +permitted to make careful notes of both questions and answers. It was +to be, in effect, a statement of the situation in Belgium as the King +of the Belgians sees it. + +I spoke first of a message to America. + +"I have already sent a message to America," he informed me; "quite a +long message. We are, of course, intensely appreciative of what +Americans have done for Belgium." + +"They are anxious to do what they can. The general feeling is one of +great sympathy." + +"Americans are both just and humane," the King replied; "and their +system of distribution is excellent. I do not know what we should have +done without the American Relief Committees." + +"Is there anything further Your Majesty can suggest?" + +"They seem to have thought of everything," the King said simply. "The +food is invaluable--particularly the flour. It has saved many from +starvation." + +"But there is still need?" + +"Oh, yes--great need." + +It was clear that the subject was a tragic one. The King of the +Belgians loves his people, as they love him, with a devotion that is +completely unselfish. That he is helpless to relieve so much that they +are compelled to endure is his great grief. + +His face clouded. Probably he was seeing, as he must always see, the +dejected figures of the peasants in the fields; the long files of his +soldiers as they made their way through wet and cold to the trenches; +the destroyed towns; the upheaval of a people. + +"What is possible to know of the general condition of affairs in that +part of Belgium occupied by the Germans?" I asked. "I do not mean in +regard to food only, but the general condition of the Belgian people." + +"It is impossible to say," was the answer. "During the invasion it was +very bad. It is a little better now, of course; but here we are on the +wrong side of the line to form any ordered judgment. To gain a real +conception of the situation it would be necessary to go through the +occupied portions from town to town, almost from house to house. Have +you been in the other part of Belgium?" + +"Not yet; I may go." + +"You should do that--see Louvain, Aerschot, Antwerp--see the destroyed +towns for yourself. No one can tell you. You must see them." + +I was not certain that I should be permitted to make such a journey, +but the King waved my doubts aside with a gesture. + +"You are an American," he said. "It would be quite possible and you +would see just what has happened. You would see open towns that were +bombarded; other towns that were destroyed after occupation! You would +see a country ruthlessly devastated; our wonderful monuments +destroyed; our architectural and artistic treasures sacrificed without +reason--without any justification." + +"But as a necessity of war?" I asked. + +"Not at all. The Germans have saved buildings when it suited their +convenience to do so. No military necessity dictated the destruction +of Louvain. It was not bombarded. It was deliberately destroyed. But, +of course, you know that." + +"The matter of the violation of Belgium's neutrality still remains an +open question," I said. "I have seen in American facsimile copies of +documents referring to conversations between staff officers of the +British and Belgian armies--documents that were found in the +ministerial offices at Brussels when the Germans occupied that city +last August. Of course I think most Americans realise that, had they +been of any real importance, they would have been taken away. There +was time enough. But there are some, I know, who think them +significant." + +The King of the Belgians shrugged his shoulders. + +"They were of an unofficial character and entirely without importance. +The German Staff probably knew all about them long before the +declaration of war. They themselves had, without doubt, discussed and +recorded similar probabilities in case of war with other countries. It +is a common practice in all army organisations to prepare against +different contingencies. It is a question of military routine only." + +"There was no justification, then, for the violation of Belgian +neutrality?" I inquired. + +"None whatever! The German violation of Belgian neutrality was wrong," +he said emphatically. "On the fourth of August their own chancellor +admitted it. Belgium had no thought of war. The Belgians are a +peace-loving people, who had every reason to believe in the friendship +of Germany." + +The next question was a difficult one. I inquired as to the behaviour +of the Germans in the conquered territory; but the King made no +sweeping condemnation of the German Army. + +"Fearful things have been done, particularly during the invasion," he +said, weighing his words carefully; "but it would be unfair to condemn +the whole German Army. Some regiments have been most humane; but +others behaved very badly. Have you seen the government report?" + +I said I had not seen it, though I had heard that a careful +investigation had been made. + +"The government was very cautious," His Majesty said. "The +investigation was absolutely impartial and as accurate as it could be +made. Doubts were cast on all statements--even those of the most +dependable witnesses--until they could be verified." + +"They were verified?" + +"Yes; again and again." + +"By the victims themselves?" + +"Not always. The victims of extreme cruelty do not live to tell of it; +but German soldiers themselves have told the story. We have had here +many hundreds of journals, taken from dead or imprisoned Germans, +furnishing elaborate details of most atrocious acts. The government is +keeping these journals. They furnish powerful and incontrovertible +testimony of what happened in Belgium when it was swept over by a +brutal army. That was, of course, during the invasion--such things are +not happening now so far as we know." + +He had spoken quietly, but there was a new note of strain in his +voice. The burden of the King of the Belgians is a double one. To the +horror of war has been added the unnecessary violation and death of +noncombatants. + +The King then referred to the German advance through Belgian +territory. + +"Thousands of civilians have been killed without reason. The execution +of noncombatants is not war, and no excuse can be made for it. Such +deeds cannot be called war." + +"But if the townspeople fired on the Germans?" I asked. + +"All weapons had been deposited in the hands of the town authorities. +It is unlikely that any organised attack by civilians could have been +made. However, if in individual cases shots were fired at the German +soldiers, this may always be condoned in a country suffering invasion. +During an occupation it would be different, naturally. No excuse can +be offered for such an action in occupied territory." + +"Various Belgian officers have told me of seeing crowds of men, women +and children driven ahead of the German Army to protect the troops. +This is so incredible that I must ask whether it has any foundation of +truth." + +"It is quite true. It is a barbarous and inhuman system of protecting +the German advance. When the Belgian soldiers fired on the enemy they +killed their own people. Again and again innocent civilians of both +sexes were sacrificed to protect the invading army during attacks. A +terrible slaughter!" + +His Majesty made no effort to conceal his great grief and indignation. +And again, as before, there seemed to be nothing to say. + +"Even now," I said, "when the Belgians return the Grerman artillery +fire they are bombarding their own towns." + +"That is true, of course; but what can we do? And the civilian +population is very brave. They fear invasion, but they no longer pay +any attention to bombs. They work in the fields quite calmly, with +shells dropping about. They must work or starve." + +He then spoke of the morale of the troops, which is excellent, and of +his sympathy for their situation. + +"Their families are in Belgium," he said. "Many of them have heard +nothing for months. But they are wonderful. They are fighting for life +and to regain their families, their homes and their country. Christmas +was very sad for them." + +"In the event of the German Army's retiring from Belgium, do you +believe, as many do, that there will be more destruction of cities? +Brussels, for instance?" + +"I think not." + +I referred to my last visit to Belgium, when Brussels was the capital; +and to the contrast now, when La Panne a small seaside resort hardly +more than a village, contains the court, the residence of the King and +Queen, and of the various members of his household. It seemed to me +unlikely that La Panne would be attacked, as the Queen of the Belgians +is a Bavarian. + +"Do you think La Panne will be bombarded?" I asked. + +"Why not?" + +"I thought that possibly, on account of Your Majesty and the Queen +being there, it would be spared. + +"They are bombarding Furnes, where I go every day," he replied. "And +there are German aëroplanes overhead all the time." + +The mention of Furnes brought to my mind the flooded district near +that village, which extends from Nieuport to Dixmude. + +"Belgium has made a great sacrifice in flooding her lowlands," I said. +"Will that land be as fertile as before?" + +"Not for several years. The flooding of the productive land in the +Yser district was only carried out as a military necessity. The water +is sea water, of course, and will have a bad effect on the soil. Have +you seen the flooded district?" + +I told His Majesty that I had been to the Belgian trenches, and then +across the inundated country to one of the outposts; a remarkable +experience--one I should never forget. + +The conversation shifted to America and her point of view; to American +women who have married abroad. His Majesty mentioned especially Lady +Curzon. Two children of the King were with Lord Curzon, in England, at +the time. The Crown Prince, a boy of fourteen, tall and straight like +his father, was with the King and Queen. + +The King had risen and was standing in his favourite attitude, his +elbow on the mantelpiece. I rose also. + +"I was given some instructions as to the ceremonial of this audience," +I said. "I am afraid I have not followed them!" + +"What were you told to do?" said His Majesty, evidently amused. Then, +without waiting for a reply; + +"We are very democratic--we Belgians," he said. "More democratic than +the Americans. The President of the United States has great +power--very great power. He is a czar." + +He referred to President Wilson in terms of great esteem--not only as +the President but as a man. He spoke, also, with evident admiration of +Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. McKinley, both of whom he had met. + +I looked at the clock. It was after three and the interview had begun +at two. I knew it was time for me to go, but I had been given no +indication that the interview was at an end. Fragments of the coaching +I had received came to my mind, but nothing useful; so I stated my +difficulty frankly, and again the King's serious face lighted up with +a smile. + +"There is no formality here; but if you are going we must find the +general for you." + +So we shook hands and I went out; but the beautiful courtesy of the +soldier King of the Belgians brought him out to the doorstep with me. + +That is the final picture I have of Albert I, King of the Belgians--a +tall young man, very fair and blue-eyed, in the dark blue uniform of a +lieutenant-general of his army, wearing no orders or decorations, +standing bareheaded in the wind and pointing out to me the direction +in which I should go to find the general who had brought me. + +He is a very courteous gentleman, with the eyes of one who loves the +sea, for the King of the Belgians is a sailor in his heart; a tragic +and heroic figure but thinking himself neither--thinking of himself +not at all, indeed; only of his people, whose griefs are his to share +but not to lighten; living day and night under the rumble of German +artillery at Nieuport and Dixmude in that small corner of Belgium +which remains to him. + +He is a King who, without suspicion of guilt, has lost his country; +who has seen since August of 1914 two-thirds of his army lost, his +beautiful and ancient towns destroyed, his fertile lands thrown open +to the sea. + +I went on. The guns were still at work. At Nieuport, Dixmude, Furnes, +Pervyse--all along that flat, flooded region--the work of destruction +was going on. Overhead, flying high, were two German aëroplanes--the +eyes of the war. + + * * * * * + +Not politically, but humanely, it was time to make to America an +authoritative statement as to conditions in Belgium. + +The principle of non-interference in European politics is one of +national policy and not to be questioned. But there can be no +justification for the destruction of property and loss of innocent +lives in Belgium. Germany had plead to the neutral nations her +necessity, and had plead eloquently. On the other hand, the English +and French authorities during the first year of the war had preserved +a dignified silence, confident of the justice of their cause. + +And official Belgium had made no complaint. She had bowed to the +judgment of her allies, knowing that a time would come, at the end +of the war, to speak of her situation and to demand justifiable +redress. + +But a million homeless Belgians in England and Holland proclaimed and +still proclaim their wretchedness broadcast. The future may bring +redress, but the present story of Belgium belongs to the world. +America, the greatest of the neutral countries, has a right to know +now the suffering and misery of this patient, hard-working people. + +This war may last a long time; the western armies are at a deadlock. +Since November of 1914 the line has varied only slightly here and +there; has been pushed out or back only to straighten again. + +Advances may be counted by feet. From Nieuport to Ypres attacks are +waged round solitary farms which, by reason of the floods, have become +tiny islands protected by a few men, mitrailleuses, and entanglements +of barbed wire. Small attacking bodies capture such an outpost, wading +breast-deep--drowning when wounded--in the stagnant water. There are +no glorious charges here, no contagion of courage; simply a dogged and +desperate struggle--a gain which the next day may see forfeited. The +only thing that goes on steadily is the devastating work of the heavy +guns on each side. + +Meantime, both in England and in France, there has been a growing +sentiment that the government's policy of silence has been a mistake. +The cudgel of public opinion is a heavy one. The German propaganda in +America has gone on steadily. There is no argument where one side only +is presented. That splendid and solid part of the American people, the +German population, essentially and naturally patriotic, keeping their +faith in the Fatherland, is constantly presenting its case; and +against that nothing official has been offered. + +England is fighting heroically, stoically; but her stoicism is a vital +mistake. This silence has nothing whatever to do with military +movements, their success or their failure. It is more fundamental, an +inherent characteristic of the English character, founded on +reserve--perhaps tinged with that often misunderstood conviction of +the Britisher that other persons cannot be really interested in what +is strictly another's affairs. + +The Allies are beginning to realise, however, that this war is not +their own affair alone. It affects the world too profoundly. Mentally, +morally, spiritually and commercially, it is an upheaval in which all +must suffer. + +And the English people, who have sent and are sending the very flower +of their country's manhood to the front, are beginning to regret the +error in judgment that has left the rest of the English-speaking world +in comparative ignorance of the true situation. + +They are sending the best they have--men of high ideals, who, as +volunteers, go out to fight for what they consider a just cause. The +old families, in which love of country and self-sacrifice are +traditions, have suffered heavily. + +The crux of the situation is Belgium--the violation of her neutrality; +the conduct of the invading army; her unnecessary and unjustifiable +suffering. And Belgium has felt that the time to speak has come. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE CAUSE + + +The Belgian Red Cross may well be proud of the hospital at La Panne. +It is modern, thoroughly organised, completely equipped. Within two +weeks of the outbreak of the war it was receiving patients. It was not +at the front then. But the German tide has forced itself along until +now it is almost on the line. + +Generally speaking, order had taken the place of the early chaos in +the hospital situation when I was at the front. The British hospitals +were a satisfaction to visit. The French situation was not so good. +The isolated French hospitals were still in need of everything, even +of anæsthetics. The lack of an organised nursing system was being +keenly felt. + +But the early handicaps of unpreparedness and overwhelming numbers of +patients had been overcome to a large extent. Scientific management +and modern efficiency had stepped in. Things were still capable of +improvement. Gentlemen ambulance drivers are not always to be depended +on. Nurses are not all of the same standard of efficiency. Supplies of +one sort exceeded the demand, while other things were entirely +lacking. Food of the kind that was needed by the very ill was scarce, +expensive and difficult to secure at any price. + +But the things that have been done are marvellous. Surgery has not +failed. The stereoscopic X-ray and antitetanus serum are playing their +active part. Once out of the trenches a soldier wounded at the front +has as much chance now as a man injured in the pursuit of a peaceful +occupation. + +Once out of the trenches! For that is the question. The ambulances +must wait for night. It is not in the hospitals but in the ghastly +hours between injury and darkness that the case of life or death is +decided. That is where surgical efficiency fails against the brutality +of this war, where the Red Cross is no longer respected, where it is +not possible to gather in the wounded under the hospital flag, where +there is no armistice and no pity. This is war, glorious war, which +those who stay at home say smugly is good for a nation. + +But there are those who are hurt, not in the trenches but in front of +them. In that narrow strip of No Man's Land between the confronting +armies, and extending four hundred and fifty miles from the sea +through Belgium and France, each day uncounted numbers of men fall, +and, falling, must lie. The terrible thirst that follows loss of blood +makes them faint; the cold winds and snows and rains of what has been +a fearful winter beat on them; they cannot have water or shelter. The +lucky ones die, but there are some that live, and live for days. This +too is war, glorious war, which is good for a nation, which makes its +boys into men, and its men into these writhing figures that die so +slowly and so long. + +I have seen many hospitals. Some of the makeshifts would be amusing +were they not so pathetic. Old chapels with beds and supplies piled +high before the altar; kindergarten rooms with childish mottoes on the +walls, from which hang fever charts; nuns' cubicles thrown open to +doctors and nurses as living quarters. + +At La Panne, however, there are no makeshifts. There are no wards, so +called. But many of the large rooms hold three beds. All the rooms are +airy and well lighted. True, there is no lift, and the men must be +carried down the staircases to the operating rooms on the lower floor, +and carried back again. But the carrying is gently done. + +There are two operating rooms, each with two modern operating tables. +The floors are tiled, the walls, ceiling and all furnishings white. +Attached to the operating rooms is a fully equipped laboratory and an +X-ray room. I was shown the stereoscopic X-ray apparatus by which the +figure on the plate stands out in relief, like any stereoscopic +picture. Every large hospital I saw had this apparatus, which is +invaluable in locating bullets and pieces of shell or shrapnel. Under +the X-ray, too, extraction frequently takes place, the operators using +long-handled instruments and gloves that are soaked in a solution of +lead and thus become impervious to the rays so destructive to the +tissues. + +Later on I watched Doctor DePage operate at this hospital. I was put +into a uniform, and watched a piece of shell taken from a man's brain +and a great blood clot evacuated. Except for the red cross on each +window and the rattle of the sash under the guns, I might have been in +one of the leading American hospitals and war a century away. There +were the same white uniforms on the surgeons; the same white gauze +covering their heads and swathing their faces to the eyes; the same +silence, the same care as to sterilisation; the same orderly rows of +instruments on a glass stand; the same nurses, alert and quiet; the +same clear white electric light overhead; the same rubber gloves, the +same anæsthetists and assistants. + +It was twelve minutes from the time the operating surgeon took the +knife until the wound was closed. The head had been previously shaved +by one of the assistants, and painted with iodine. In twelve minutes +the piece of shell lay in my hand. The stertorous breathing was +easier, bandages were being adjusted, the next case was being +anæsthetised and prepared. + +I wish I could go further. I wish I could follow that peasant-soldier +to recovery and health. I wish I could follow him back to his wife and +children, to his little farm in Belgium. I wish I could even say he +recovered. But I cannot. I do not know. The war is a series of +incidents with no beginning and no end. The veil lifts for a moment +and drops again. + +I saw other cases brought down for operation at the Ambulance Ocean. +One I shall never forget. Here was a boy again, looking up with +hopeful, fully conscious eyes at the surgeons. He had been shot +through the spine. From his waist down he was inert, helpless. He +smiled. He had come to be operated on. Now all would be well. The +great surgeons would work over him, and he would walk again. + +When after a long consultation they had to tell him they could not +operate, I dared not look at his eyes. + +Again, what is he to do? Where is he to go? He is helpless, in a +strange land. He has no country, no people, no money. And he will +live, think of it! + +I wish I could leaven all this with something cheerful. I wish I could +smile over the phonograph playing again and again A Wee +Deoch-an'-Doris in that room for convalescents that overlooks the sea. +I wish I could think that the baby with both legs off will grow up +without missing what it has never known. I wish I could be reconciled +because the dead young officer had died the death of a patriot and a +soldier, or that the boy I saw dying in an upper room, from shock and +loss of blood following an amputation, is only a pawn in the great +chess game of empires. I wish I could believe that the two women on +the floor below, one with both arms gone, another with one arm off and +her back ripped open by a shell, are the legitimate fruits of a holy +war. I cannot. I can see only greed and lust of battle and ambition. + +In a bright room I saw a German soldier. He had the room to himself. +He was blue eyed and yellow haired, with a boyish and contagious +smile. He knew no more about it all than I did. It must have +bewildered him in the long hours that he lay there alone. He did not +hate these people. He never had hated them. It was clear, too, that +they did not hate him. For they had saved a gangrenous leg for him +when all hope seemed ended. He lay there, with his white coverlet +drawn to his chin, and smiled at the surgeon. They were evidently on +the best of terms. + +"How goes it?" asked the surgeon cheerfully in German. + +"_Sehr gut_," he said, and eyed me curiously. + +He was very proud of the leg, and asked that I see it. It was in a +cast. He moved it about triumphantly. Probably all over Germany, as +over France and this corner of Belgium, just such little scenes occur +daily, hourly. + +The German peasant, like the French and the Belgian, is a peaceable +man. He is military but not militant. He is sentimental rather than +impassioned. He loves Christmas and other feast days. He is not +ambitious. He fights bravely, but he would rather sing or make a +garden. + +It is over the bent shoulders of these peasants that the great +Continental army machines must march. The German peasant is poor, +because for forty years he has been paying the heavy tax of endless +armament. The French peasant is poor, because for forty years he has +been struggling to recover from the drain of the huge war indemnity +demanded by Germany in 1871. The Russian peasant toils for a remote +government, with which his sole tie is the tax-gatherer; toils with +childish faith for The Little Father, at whose word he may be sent to +battle for a cause of which he knows nothing. + +Germany's militarism, England's navalism, Russia's autocracy, France, +graft-ridden in high places and struggling for rehabilitation after a +century of war--and, underneath it all, bearing it on bent shoulders, +men like this German prisoner, alone in his room and puzzling it out! +It makes one wonder if the result of this war will not be a great and +overwhelming individualism, a protest of the unit against the mass; if +Socialism, which has apparently died of an ideal, will find this ideal +but another name for tyranny, and rise from its grave a living force. + +Now and then a justifiable war is fought, for liberty perhaps, or like +our Civil War, for a great principle. There are wars that are +inevitable. Such wars are frequently revolutions and have their +origins in the disaffection of a people. + +But here is a world war about which volumes are being written to +discover the cause. Here were prosperous nations, building wealth and +culture on a basis of peace. Europe was apparently more in danger of +revolution than of international warfare. It is not only war without a +known cause, it is an unexpected war. Only one of the nations involved +showed any evidence of preparation. England is not yet ready. Russia +has not yet equipped the men she has mobilised. + +Is this war, then, because the balance of power is so nicely adjusted +that a touch turns the scale, whether that touch be a Kaiser's dream +of empire or the eyes of a Czar turned covetously toward the South? + +I tried to think the thing out during the long nights when the sound +of the heavy guns kept me awake. It was hard, because I knew so +little, nothing at all of European politics, or war, or diplomacy. +When I tried to be logical, I became emotional. Instead of reason I +found in myself only a deep resentment. + +I could see only that blue-eyed German in his bed, those cheery and +cold and ill-equipped Belgians drilling on the sands at La Panne. + +But on one point I was clear. Away from all the imminent questions +that filled the day, the changing ethics of war, its brutalities, its +hideous necessities, one point stood out clear and distinct. That the +real issue is not the result, but the cause of this war. That the +world must dig deep into the mire of European diplomacy to find that +cause, and having found it must destroy it. That as long as that cause +persists, be it social or political, predatory or ambitious, there +will be more wars. Again it will be possible for a handful of men in +high place to overthrow a world. + +And one of the first results of the discovery of that cause will be a +demand of the people to know what their representatives are doing. +Diplomacy, instead of secret whispering, a finger to its lips, must +shout from the housetops. Great nations cannot be governed from +cellars. Diplomats are not necessarily conspirators. There is such a +thing as walking in the sunlight. + +There is no such thing in civilisation as a warlike people. There are +peaceful people, or aggressive people, or military people. But there +are none that do not prefer peace to war, until, inflamed and roused +by those above them who play this game of empires, they must don the +panoply of battle and go forth. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE STORY WITH AN END + + +In its way that hospital at La Panne epitomised the whole tragedy of +the great war. Here were women and children, innocent victims when the +peaceful nearby market town of Furnes was being shelled; here was a +telegraph operator who had stuck to his post under furious bombardment +until both his legs were crushed. He had been decorated by the king +for his bravery. Here were Belgian aristocrats without extra clothing +or any money whatever, and women whose whole lives had been shielded +from pain or discomfort. One of them, a young woman whose father is +among the largest landowners in Belgium, is in charge of the villa +where the uniforms of wounded soldiers are cleaned and made fit for +use again. Over her white uniform she wore, in the bitter wind, a thin +tan raincoat. We walked together along the beach. I protested. + +"You are so thinly clad," I said. "Surely you do not go about like +that always!" + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"It is all I have," she said philosophically. "And I have no +money--none. None of us has." + +A titled Belgian woman with her daughter had just escaped from +Brussels. She was very sad, for she had lost her only boy. But she +smiled a little as she told me of their having nothing but what they +wore, and that the night before they had built a fire in their room, +washed their linen, and gone to bed, leaving it until morning to dry. + +Across the full width of the hospital stretched the great drawing-room +of the hotel, now a recreation place for convalescent soldiers. Here +all day the phonograph played, the nurses off duty came in to write +letters, the surgeons stopped on their busy rounds to speak to the men +or to watch for a few minutes the ever-changing panorama of the beach, +with its background of patrolling gunboats, its engineers on rest +playing football, its occasional aëroplanes, carrying each two men--a +pilot and an observer. + +The men sat about. There were boys with the stringy beards of their +twenty years. There were empty sleeves, many crutches, and some who +must be led past the chairs and tables--who will always have to be +led. + +They were all cheerful. But now and then, when the bombardment became +more insistent, some of them would raise their heads and listen, with +the strained faces of those who see a hideous picture. + +The young woman who could not buy a heavy coat showed me the villa +adjoining the hospital, where the clothing of wounded soldiers is +cared for. It is placed first in a fumigating plant in the basement +and thoroughly sterilised. After that it is brushed of its encrusted +mud and blood stains are taken out by soaking in cold water. It is +then dried and thoroughly sunned. Then it is ready for the second +floor. + +Here tailors are constantly at work mending garments apparently +unmendable, pressing, steaming, patching, sewing on buttons. The +ragged uniforms come out of that big bare room clean and whole, ready +to be tied up in new burlap bags, tagged, and placed in racks of fresh +white cedar. There is no odour in this room, although innumerable old +garments are stored in it. + +In an adjoining room the rifles and swords of the injured men stand in +racks, the old and unserviceable rifles with which Belgium was forced +to equip so many of her soldiers side by side with the new and +scientific German guns. Along the wall are officers' swords, and above +them, on shelves, the haversacks of the common soldiers, laden with +the things that comprise their whole comfort. + +I examined one. How few the things were and how worn! And yet the +haversack was heavy. As he started for the trenches, this soldier who +was carried back, he had on his shoulders this haversack of hide +tanned with the hair on. In it he had two pairs of extra socks, worn +and ragged, a tattered and dirty undershirt, a photograph of his wife, +rags for cleaning his gun, a part of a loaf of dry bread, the remnant +of what had been a pair of gloves, now fingerless and stiff with rain +and mud, a rosary, a pair of shoes that the woman of the photograph +would have wept and prayed over, some extra cartridges and a piece of +leather. Perhaps he meant to try to mend the shoes. + +And here again I wish I could finish the story. I wish I could tell +whether he lived or died--whether he carried that knapsack back to +battle, or whether he died and its pitiful contents were divided among +those of his comrades who were even more needy than he had been. But +the veil lifts for a moment and drops again. + +Two incidents stand out with distinctness from those first days in La +Panne, when, thrust with amazing rapidity into the midst of war, my +mind was a chaos of interest, bewilderment and despair. + +One is of an old abbé, talking earnestly to a young Belgian noblewoman +who had recently escaped from Brussels with only the clothing she +wore. + +The abbé was round of face and benevolent. I had met him before, at +Calais, where he had posed me in front of a statue and taken my +picture. His enthusiasm over photography was contagious. He had made a +dark room from a closet in an old convent, and he owned a little +American camera. With this carefully placed on a tripod and covered +with a black cloth, he posed me carefully, making numerous excursions +under the cloth. In that cold courtyard, under the marble figure of +Joan of Arc, he was a warm and human and most alive figure, in his +flat black shoes, his long black soutane with its woollen sash, his +woollen muffler and spectacles, with the eternal cigarette, that is +part and parcel of every Belgian, dangling loosely from his lower lip. + +The surgeons and nurses who were watching the operation looked on with +affectionate smiles. They loved him, this old priest, with his +boyishness, his enthusiasms, his tiny camera, his cigarette, his +beautiful faith. He has promised me the photograph and what he +promises he fulfils. But perhaps it was a failure. I hope not. He +would be so disappointed--and so would I. + +So I was glad to meet him again at La Panne--glad and surprised, for +he was fifty miles north of where we had met before. But the abbé was +changed. He was without the smile, without the cigarette. And he was +speaking beseechingly to the smiling young refugee. This is what he +was saying: + +"I am glad, daughter, to help you in every way that I can. I have +bought for you in Calais everything that you requested. But I implore +you, daughter, do not ask me to purchase any more ladies' underlinen. +It is most embarrassing." + +"But, father--" + +"No underlinen," he repeated firmly. But it hurt him to refuse. One +could see that. One imagined, too, that in his life of service there +were few refusals. I left them still debating. The abbé's eyes were +desperate but his posture firm. One felt that there would be no +surrender. + +Another picture, and I shall leave La Panne for a time. + +I was preparing to go. A telephone message to General Melis, of the +Belgian Army, had brought his car to take me to Dunkirk. I was about +to leave the protection of the Belgian Red Cross and place myself in +the care of the ministry of war. I did not know what the future would +bring, and the few days at La Panne and the Ambulance Ocean had made +friends for me there. Things move quickly in war time. The +conventions with which we bind up our souls in ordinary life are cut +away. La Panne was already familiar and friendly territory. + +I went down the wide staircase. An ambulance had stopped and its +burden was being carried in. The bearers rested the stretcher gently +on the floor, and a nurse was immediately on her knees beside it. + +"Shell!" she said. + +The occupant was a boy of perhaps nineteen--a big boy. Some mother +must have been very proud of him. He was fully conscious, and he +looked up from his stained bandages with the same searching glance +that now I have seen so often--the glance that would read its chances +in the faces of those about. With his uninjured arm he threw back the +blanket. His right arm was wounded, broken in two places, but not +shattered. + +"He'll do nicely," said the nurse. "A broken jaw and the arm." + +His eyes were on me, so I bent over. + +"The nurse says you will do nicely," I assured him. "It will take +time, but you will be very comfortable here, and--" + +The nurse had been making further investigation. Now she turned back +the other end of the blanket His right leg had been torn off at the +hip. + +That story has an end; for that boy died. + +The drive back to Dunkirk was a mad one. Afterward I learned to know +that red-headed Flemish chauffeur, with his fiercely upcurled +moustache and his contempt of death. Rather, perhaps, I learned to +know his back. It was a reckless back. He wore a large army overcoat +with a cape and a cap with a tassel. When he really got under way at +anything from fifty miles an hour to the limit of the speedometer, +which was ninety miles, the gilt tassel, which in the Belgian cap +hangs over and touches the forehead, had a way of standing up; the +cape overcoat blew out in the air, cutting off my vision and my last +hope. + +I regard that chauffeur as a menace on the high road. Certainly he is +not a lady's chauffeur. He never will be. Once at night he took +me--and the car--into an iron railroad gate, and bent the gate into a +V. I was bent into the whole alphabet. + +The car was a limousine. After that one cold ride from Calais to La +Panne I was always in a limousine--always, of course, where a car +could go at all. There may be other writers who have been equally +fortunate, but most of the stories are of frightful hardships. I was +not always comfortable. I was frequently in danger. But to and from +the front I rode soft and warm and comfortable. Often I had a bottle +of hot coffee and sandwiches. Except for the two carbines strapped to +the speedometer, except for the soldier-chauffeur and the orderly who +sat together outside, except for the eternal consulting of maps and +showing of passes, I might have been making a pleasure tour of the +towns of Northern France and Belgium. In fact, I have toured abroad +during times of peace and have been less comfortable. + +I do not speak Flemish, so I could not ask the chauffeur to desist, +slow down, or let me out to walk. I could only sit tight as the +machine flew round corners, elbowed transports, and threw a warning +shriek to armoured cars. I wondered what would happen if we skidded +into a wagon filled with high explosives. I tried to remember the +conditions of my war insurance policy at Lloyd's. Also I recalled the +unpleasant habit the sentries have of firing through the back of any +car that passes them. + +I need not have worried. Except that once we killed a brown chicken, +and that another time we almost skidded into the canal, the journey +was uneventful, almost calm. One thing cheered me--all the other +machines were going as fast as mine. A car that eased up its pace +would be rammed from behind probably. I am like the English--I prefer +a charge to a rearguard engagement. + +My pass took me into Dunkirk. + +It was dusk by that time. I felt rather lost and alone. I figured out +what time it was at home. I wished some one would speak English. And I +hated being regarded as a spy every mile or so, and depending on a +slip of paper as my testimonial of respectability. The people I knew +were lunching about that time, or getting ready for bridge or the +matinée. I wondered what would happen to me if the pass blew out of +the orderly's hands and was lost in the canal. + +The chauffeur had been instructed to take me to the _Mairie_ a great +dark building of stone halls and stairways, of sentries everywhere, of +elaborate officers and much ceremony. But soon, in a great hall of the +old building piled high with army supplies, I was talking to General +Melis, and my troubles were over. A kindly and courteous gentleman, he +put me at my ease at once. More than that, he spoke some English. He +had received letters from England about me, and had telegraphed that +he would meet me at Calais. He had, indeed, taken the time out of his +busy day to go himself to Calais, thirty miles by motor, to meet me. + +I was aghast. "The boat went to Boulogne," I explained. "I had no +idea, of course, that you would be there." + +"Now that you are here," he said, "it is all right. But--exactly what +can I do for you?" + +So I told him. He listened attentively. A very fine and gallant +soldier he was, sitting in that great room in the imposing uniform of +his rank; a busy man, taking a little time out of his crowded day to +see an American woman who had come a long way alone to see this +tragedy that had overtaken his country. Orderlies and officers came +and went; the _Mairie_ was a hive of seething activities. But he +listened patiently. + +"Where do you want to go?" he asked when I had finished. + +"I should like to stay here, if I may. And from here, of course, I +should like to get to the front." + +"Where?" + +"Can I get to Ypres?" + +"It is not very safe." + +I proclaimed instantly and loudly that I was as brave as a lion; that +I did not know fear. He smiled. But when the interview was over it was +arranged that I should have a _permis de séjour_ to stay in Dunkirk, +and that on the following day the general himself and one of his +officers having an errand in that direction would take me to Ypres. + +That night the town of Dunkirk was bombarded by some eighteen German +aëroplanes. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE NIGHT RAID ON DUNKIRK + + +I found that a room had been engaged for me at the Hotel des Arcades. +It was a very large room looking out over the public square and the +statue of Jean Bart. It was really a princely room. No wonder they +showed it to me proudly, and charged it to me royally. It was an +upholstered room. Even the doors were upholstered. And because it was +upholstered and expensive and regal, it enjoyed the isolation of +greatness. The other people in the hotel slept above or underneath. + +There were times when I longed for neighbours, when I yearned for some +one to occupy the other royal apartment next door. But except for a +Russian prince who stayed two days, and who snored in Russian and kept +two _valets de chambre_ up all night in the hall outside my door +polishing his boots and cleaning his uniform, I was always alone in +that part of the hotel. + +At my London hotel I had been lodged on the top floor, and twice in +the night the hall porter had telephoned me to say that German +Zeppelins were on their way to London. So I took care to find that in +the Hotel des Arcades there were two stories and two layers of Belgian +and French officers overhead. + +I felt very comfortable--until the air raid. The two stories seemed +absurd, inadequate. I would not have felt safe in the subcellar of the +Woolworth Building. + +There were no women in the hotel at that time, with the exception of a +hysterical lady manager, who sat in a boxlike office on the lower +floor, and two chambermaids. A boy made my bed and brought me hot +water. For several weeks at intervals he knocked at the door twice a +day and said: "Et wat." I always thought it was Flemish for "May I +come in?" At last I discovered that he considered this the English for +"hot water." The waiters in the café were too old to be sent to war, +but I think the cook had gone. There was no cook. Some one put the +food on the fire, but he was not a cook. + +Dunkirk had been bombarded several times, I learned. + +"They come in the morning," said my informant. "Every one is ordered +off the streets. But they do little damage. One or two machines come +and drop a bomb or two. That is all. Very few are killed." + +I protested. I felt rather bitter about it. I expected trouble along +the lines, I explained. I knew I would be quite calm when I was +actually at the front, and when I had my nervous system prepared for +trouble. But in Dunkirk I expected to rest and relax. I needed sleep +after La Panne. I thought something should be done about it. + +My informant shrugged his shoulders. He was English, and entirely +fair. + +"Dunkirk is a fortified town," he explained. "It is quite legitimate. +But you may sleep to-night. The raids are always daylight ones." + +So I commenced dinner calmly. I do not remember anything about that +dinner. The memory of it has gone. I do recall looking about the +dining room, and feeling a little odd and lonely, being the only +woman. Then a gun boomed somewhere outside, and an alarm bell +commenced to ring rapidly almost overhead. Instantly the officers in +the room were on their feet, and every light went out. + +The _maître d'hôtel_, Emil, groped his way to my table and struck a +match. + +"Aëroplanes!" he said. + +There was much laughing and talking as the officers moved to the door. +The heavy velvet curtains were drawn. Some one near the door lighted a +candle. + +"Where shall I go?" I asked. + +Emil, unlike the officers, was evidently nervous. + +"Madame is as safe here as anywhere," he said. "But if she wishes to +join the others in the cellar--" + +I wanted to go to the cellar or to crawl into the office safe. But I +felt that, as the only woman and the only American about, I held the +reputation of America and of my sex in my hands. The waiters had gone +to the cellar. The officers had flocked to the café on the ground +floor underneath. The alarm bell was still ringing. Over the candle, +stuck in a saucer, Emil's face looked white and drawn. + +"I shall stay here," I said. "And I shall have coffee." + +The coffee was not bravado. I needed something hot. + +The gun, which had ceased, began to fire again. And then suddenly, not +far away, a bomb exploded. Even through the closed and curtained +windows the noise was terrific. Emil placed my coffee before me with +shaking hands, and disappeared. + +Another crash, and another, both very close! + +There is nothing that I know of more hideous than an aërial +bombardment. It requires an entire mental readjustment. The sky, which +has always symbolised peace, suddenly spells death. Bombardment by the +big guns of an advancing army is not unexpected. There is time for +flight, a chance, too, for a reprisal. But against these raiders of +the sky there is nothing. One sits and waits. And no town is safe. One +moment there is a peaceful village with war twenty, fifty miles away. +The next minute hell breaks loose. Houses are destroyed. Sleeping +children die in their cradles. The streets echo and reëcho with the +din of destruction. The reply of the anti-aircraft guns is feeble, and +at night futile. There is no bustle of escape. The streets are empty +and dead, and in each house people, family groups, noncombatants, folk +who ask only the right to work and love and live, sit and wait with +blanched faces. + +More explosions, nearer still. They were trying for the _Mairie_, +which was round the corner. + +In the corridor outside the dining room a candle was lighted, and the +English officer who had reassured me earlier in the evening came in. + +"You need not be alarmed," he said cheerfully. "It is really nothing. +But out in the corridor it is quite safe and not so lonely." + +I went out. Two or three Belgian officers were there, gathered round a +table on which was a candle stuck in a glass. They were having their +after-dinner liqueurs and talking of many things. No one spoke of what +was happening outside. I was given a corner, as being out of the +draft. + +The explosion were incessant now. With each one the landlady +downstairs screamed. As they came closer, cries and French adjectives +came up the staircase beside me in a nerve-destroying staccato of +terror. + +At nine-thirty, when the aëroplanes had been overhead for +three-quarters of an hour, there came a period of silence. There were +no more explosions. + +"It is over," said one of the Belgian officers, smiling. "It is over, +and madame lives!" + +But it was not over. + +I took advantage of the respite to do the forbidden thing and look out +through one of the windows. The moon had come up and the square was +flooded with light. All around were silent houses. No ray of light +filtered through their closed and shuttered windows. The street lamps +were out. Not an automobile was to be seen, not a hurrying human +figure, not a dog. No night prowler disturbed that ghastly silence. +The town lay dead under the clear and peaceful light of the moon. The +white paving stones of the square gleamed, and in the centre, +saturnine and defiant, stood uninjured the statue of Jean Bart, +privateer and private of Dunkirk. + +Crash again! It was not over. The attack commenced with redoubled +fury. If sound were destructive the little town of Dunkirk would be +off the map of Northern France to-day. Sixty-seven bombs were dropped +in the hour or so that the Germans were overhead. + +The bombardment continued. My feet were very cold, my head hot. The +lady manager was silent; perhaps she had fainted. But Emil reappeared +for a moment, his round white face protruding above the staircase +well, to say that a Zeppelin was reported on the way. + +Then at last silence, broken soon by the rumble of ambulances as they +started on their quest for the dead and the wounded. And Emil was +wrong. There was no Zeppelin. The night raid on Dunkirk was history. + +The lights did not come on again. From that time on for several weeks +Dunkirk lay at night in darkness. Houses showing a light were fined by +the police. Automobiles were forbidden the use of lamps. One crept +along the streets and the roads surrounding the town in a mysterious +and nerve-racking blackness broken only by the shaded lanterns of the +sentries as they stepped out with their sharp command to stop. + +The result of the raid? It was largely moral, a part of that campaign +of terrorisation which is so strangely a part of the German system, +which has set its army to burning cities, to bombarding the +unfortified coast towns of England, to shooting civilians in conquered +Belgium, and which now sinks the pitiful vessels of small traders and +fishermen in the submarine-infested waters of the British Channel. It +gained no military advantage, was intended to gain no military +advantage. Not a soldier died. The great stores of military supplies +were not wrecked. The victims were, as usual, women and children. The +houses destroyed were the small and peaceful houses of noncombatants. +Only two men were killed. They were in a side street when the first +bomb dropped, and they tried to find an unlocked door, an open house, +anything for shelter. It was impossible. Built like all French towns, +without arcades or sheltering archways, the flat façades of the closed +and barricaded houses refused them sanctuary. The second bomb killed +them both. + +Through all that night after the bombardment I could hear each hour +the call of the trumpet from the great overhanging tower, a double +note at once thin and musical, that reported no enemy in sight in the +sky and all well. From far away, at the gate in the wall, came the +reply of the distant watchman's horn softened by distance. + +"All well here also," it said. + +Following the trumpets the soft-toned chimes of the church rang out a +hymn that has chimed from the old tower every hour for generations, +extolling and praising the Man of Peace. + +The ambulances had finished their work. The dead lay with folded +hands, surrounded by candles, the lights of faith. And under the +fading moon the old city rested and watched. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +NO MAN'S LAND + + +FROM MY JOURNAL: + +I have just had this conversation with the little French chambermaid +at my hotel. "You have not gone to mass, Mademoiselle?" + +"I? No." + +"But here, so near the lines, I should think--" + +"I do not go to church. There is no God." She looked up with +red-rimmed, defiant eyes. "My husband has been killed," she said. +"There is no God. If there was a God, why should my husband be killed? +He had done nothing." + +This afternoon at three-thirty I am to start for the front. I am to +see everything. The machine leaves the _Mairie_ at three-thirty. + + * * * * * + +Do you recall the school map on which the state of Texas was always +pink and Rhode Island green? And Canada a region without colour, and +therefore without existence? + +The map of Europe has become a battle line painted in three colours: +yellow for the Belgian Army, blue for the British and red for the +French. It is really a double line, for the confronting German Army is +drawn in black. It is a narrow line to signify what it does--not only +death and wanton destruction, but the end of the myth of civilisation; +a narrow line to prove that the brotherhood of man is a dream, that +modern science is but an improvement on fifth-century barbarity; that +right, after all, is only might. + +It took exactly twenty-four hours to strip the shirt off the diplomacy +of Europe and show the coat of mail underneath. + +It will take a century to hide that coat of mail. It will take a +thousand years to rebuild the historic towns of Belgium. But not +years, nor a reclothed diplomacy, nor the punishment of whichever +traitor to the world brought this thing to pass, nor anything but +God's great eternity, will ever restore to one mother her uselessly +sacrificed son; will quicken one of the figures that lie rotting along +the battle line; will heal this scar that extends, yellow and blue and +red and black, across the heart of Western Europe. + +It is a long scar--long and irregular. It begins at Nieuport, on the +North Sea, extends south to the region of Soissons, east to Verdun, +and then irregularly southeast to the Swiss border. + +The map from which I am working was coloured and marked for me by +General Foch, commander of the French Army of the North, at his +headquarters. It is a little map, and so this line, which crosses +empires and cuts civilisation in half, is only fourteen inches long, +although it represents a battle line of over four hundred miles. Of +this the Belgian front is one-half inch, or approximately +one-twenty-eighth. The British front is a trifle more than twice as +long. All the rest of that line is red--French. + +That is the most impressive thing about the map, the length of the +French line. + +With the arrival of Kitchener's army this last spring the blue portion +grew somewhat. The yellow remained as it was, for the Belgian +casualties have been two-thirds of her army. There have been many +tragedies in Belgium. That is one of them. + +In the very north then, yellow; then a bit of red; below that blue; +then red again in that long sweeping curve that is the French front. +Occasionally the line moves a trifle forward or back, like the +shifting record of a fever chart; but in general it remains the same. +It has remained the same since the first of November. A movement to +thrust it forward in any one place is followed by a counter-attack in +another place. The reserves must be drawn off and hurried to the +threatened spot. Automatically the line straightens again. + +The little map is dated the twenty-third of February. All through the +spring and summer the line has remained unchanged. There will be no +change until one side or the other begins a great offensive movement. +After that it will be a matter of the irresistible force and the +immovable body, a question not of maps but of empires. + +Between the confronting lines lies that tragic strip of No Man's Land, +which has been and is the scene of so much tragedy. No Man's Land is +of fixed length but of varying width. There are places where it is +very narrow, so narrow that it is possible to throw across a hand +grenade or a box of cigarettes, depending on the nearness of an +officer whose business is war. Again it is wide, so that friendly +relations are impossible, and sniping becomes a pleasure as well as an +art. + +It was No Man's Land that I was to visit the night of the entry in my +journal. + +From the neighbourhood of Ypres to the Swiss border No Man's Land +varies. The swamps and flat ground give way to more rolling country, +and this to hills. But in the north No Man's Land is a series of +shallow lakes, lying in flat, unprotected country. + +For Belgium, in desperation, last October opened the sluices and let +in the sea. It crept in steadily, each high tide advancing the flood +farther. It followed the lines of canal and irrigation ditches mile +after mile till it had got as far south as Ypres, beyond Ypres indeed. +To the encroachment of the sea was added the flooding resulting from +an abnormally rainy winter. Ordinarily the ditches have carried off +the rain; now even where the inundation does not reach it lies in +great ponds. Belgium's fertile sugar-beet fields are under salt water. + +The method was effectual, during the winter, at least, in retarding +the German advance. Their artillery destroyed the towns behind the +opposing trenches of the Allies, but their attempts to advance through +the flood failed. + +Even where the floods were shallow--only two feet or so--they served +their purpose in masking the character of the land. From a wading +depth of two feet, charging soldiers stepped frequently into a deep +ditch and drowned ignominiously. + +It is a noble thing, war! It is good for a country. It unites its +people and develops national spirit! + +Great poems have been written about charges. Will there ever be any +great poems about these men who have been drowned in ditches? Or about +the soldiers who have been caught in the barbed wire with which these +inland lakes are filled? Or about the wounded who fall helpless into +the flood? + +The inland lakes that ripple under the wind from the sea, or gleam +silver in the light of the moon, are beautiful, hideous, filled with +bodies that rise and float, face down. And yet here and there the +situation is not without a sort of grim humour. Brilliant engineers on +one side or the other are experimenting with the flood. Occasionally +trenches hitherto dry and fairly comfortable find themselves +unexpectedly filling with water, as the other side devises some clever +scheme for turning the flood from a menace into a military asset. + +In No Man's Land are the outposts. + +The fighting of the winter has mystified many noncombatants, with its +advances and retreats, which have yet resulted in no definite change +of the line. In many instances this sharp fighting has been a matter +of outposts, generally farms, churches or other isolated buildings, +sometimes even tiny villages. In the inundated portion of Belgium +these outposts are buildings which, situated on rather higher land, a +foot or two above the flood, have become islands. Much of the fighting +in the north has been about these island outposts. Under the +conditions, charges must be made by relatively small bodies of men. +The outposts can similarly house but few troops. + +They are generally defended by barbed wire and a few quick-firing +guns. Their purpose is strategical; they are vantage points from which +the enemy may be closely watched. They change sides frequently; are +won and lost, and won again. + +Here and there the side at the time in command of the outpost builds +out from its trenches through the flood a pathway of bags of earth, +topped by fascines or bundles of fagots tied together. Such a path +pays a tribute of many lives for every yard of advance. It is built +under fire; it remains under fire. It is destroyed and reconstructed. + +When I reached the front the British, Belgian and French troops in the +north had been fighting under these conditions for four months. My +first visit to the trenches was made under the auspices of the Belgian +Ministry of War. The start was made from the _Mairie_ in Dunkirk, +accompanied by the necessary passes and escorted by an attaché of the +Military Cabinet. + +I was taken in an automobile from Dunkirk to the Belgian Army +Headquarters, where an officer of the headquarters staff, Captain +F----, took charge. The headquarters had been a brewery. + +Stripped of the impedimenta of its previous occupation, it now housed +the officers of the staff. + +Since that time I have frequently visited the headquarters staffs of +various armies or their divisions. I became familiar with the long, +bare tables stacked with papers, the lamps, the maps on the walls, the +telephones, the coming and going of dispatch riders in black leather. +I came to know something of the chafing restlessness of these men who +must sit, well behind the firing line, and play paper battles on which +lives and empires hang. + +But one thing never ceased to puzzle me. + +That night, in a small kitchen behind the Belgian headquarters rooms, +a French peasant woman was cooking the evening meal. Always, at all +the headquarters that were near the front, somewhere in a back room +was a resigned-looking peasant woman cooking a meal. Children hung +about the stove or stood in corners looking out at the strange new +life that surrounded them. Peasants too old for war, their occupations +gone, sat listlessly with hanging hands, their faces the faces of +bewildered children; their clean floors were tracked by the muddy +boots of soldiers; their orderly lives disturbed, uprooted; their once +tidy farmyards were filled with transports; their barns with army +horses; their windmills, instead of housing sacks of grain, were +occupied by _mitrailleuses_. + +What were the thoughts of these people? What are they thinking +now?--for they are still there. What does it all mean to them? Do they +ever glance at the moving cord of the war map on the wall? Is this war +to them only a matter of a courtyard or a windmill? Of mud and the +upheaval of quiet lives? They appear to be waiting--for spring, +probably, and the end of hostilities; for spring and the planting of +crops, for quiet nights to sleep and days to labour. + +The young men are always at the front. They who are left express +confidence that these their sons and husbands will return. And yet in +the spring many of them ploughed shallow over battlefields. + +It had been planned to show me first a detail map of the places I was +to visit, and with this map before me to explain the present position +of the Belgian line along the embankment of the railroad from Nieuport +to Dixmude. The map was ready on a table in the officers' mess, a bare +room with three long tables of planks, to which a flight of half a +dozen steps led from the headquarters room below. + +Twilight had fallen by that time. It had commenced to rain. I could +see through the window heavy drops that stirred the green surface of +the moat at one side of the old building. On the wall hung the +advertisement of an American harvester, a reminder of more peaceful +days. The beating of the rain kept time to the story Captain F---- +told that night, bending over the map and tracing his country's ruin +with his forefinger. + +Much of it is already history. The surprise and fury of the Germans on +discovering that what they had considered a contemptible military +force was successfully holding them back until the English and French +Armies could get into the field; the policy of systematic terrorism +that followed this discovery; the unpreparedness of Belgium's allies, +which left this heroic little army practically unsupported for so long +against the German tidal wave. + +The great battle of the Yser is also history. I shall not repeat the +dramatic recital of the Belgian retreat to this point, fighting a +rear-guard engagement as they fell back before three times their +number; of the fury of the German onslaught, which engaged the entire +Belgian front, so that there was no rest, not a moment's cessation. In +one night at Dixmude the Germans made fifteen attacks. Is it any +wonder that two-thirds of Belgium's Army is gone? + +They had fought since the third of August. It was on the twenty-first +of October that they at last retired across the Yser and two days +later took up their present position at the railway embankment. On +that day, the twenty-third of October, the first French troops arrived +to assist them, some eighty-five hundred reaching Nieuport. + +It was the hope of the Belgians that, the French taking their places +on the line, they could retire for a time as reserves and get a little +rest. But the German attack continuing fiercely against the combined +armies of the Allies, the Belgians were forced to go into action +again, weary as they were, at the historic curve of the Yser, where +was fought the great battle of the war. At British Headquarters later +on I was given the casualties of that battle, when the invading German +Army flung itself again and again, for nineteen days, against the +forces of the Allies: The English casualties for that period were +forty-five thousand; the French, seventy thousand; the German, by +figures given out at Berlin, two hundred and fifty thousand. The +Belgian I do not know. + +"It was after that battle," said Captain F----, "that the German dead +were taken back and burned, to avoid pestilence." + +The Belgians had by this time reached the limit of their resources. It +was then that the sluices were opened and their fertile lowlands +flooded. + +On the thirty-first of October the water stopped the German advance +along the Belgian lines. As soon as they discovered what had been done +the Germans made terrific and furious efforts to get forward ahead of +it. They got into the towns of Ramscappelle and Pervyse, where furious +street fighting occurred. + +Pervyse was taken five times and lost five times. But all their +efforts failed. The remnant of the Belgian Army had retired to the +railroad embankment. The English and French lines held firm. + +For the time, at least, the German advance was checked. + +That was Captain F----'s story of the battle of the Yser. + +When he had finished he drew out of his pocket the diary of a German +officer killed at the Yser during the first days of the fighting, and +read it aloud. It is a great human document. I give here as nearly as +possible a literal translation. + +It was written during the first days of the great battle. For fifteen +days after he was killed the German offensive kept up. General Foch, +who commanded the French Army of the North during that time, described +their method to me. "The Germans came," he said, "like the waves of +the sea!" + + * * * * * + +The diary of a German officer, killed at the Yser:-- + +Twenty-fourth of October, 1914: + +"The battle goes on--we are trying to effect a crossing of the Yser. +Beginning at 5:45 P.M. the engineers go on preparing their bridging +materials. Marching quickly over the country, crossing fields and +ditches, we are exposed to continuous heavy fire. A spent bullet +strikes me in the back, just below the coat collar, but I am not +wounded. + +"Taking up a position near Vandewonde farm, we are able to obtain a +little shelter from the devastating fire of the enemy's artillery. How +terrible is our situation! By taking advantage of all available cover +we arrive at the fifth trench, where the artillery is in action and +rifle fire is incessant. We know nothing of the general situation. I +do not know where the enemy is, or what numbers are opposed to us, and +there seems no way of getting the desired information. + +"Everywhere along the line we are suffering heavy losses, altogether +out of proportion to the results obtained. The enemy's artillery is +too well sheltered, too strong; and as our own guns, fewer in number, +have not been able to silence those of the enemy, our infantry is +unable to make any advance. We are suffering heavy and useless losses. + +"The medical service on the field has been found very wanting. At +Dixmude, in one place, no less than forty frightfully wounded men were +left lying uncared, for. The medical corps is kept back on the other +side of the Yser without necessity. It is equally impossible to +receive water and rations in any regular way. + +"For several days now we have not tasted a warm meal; bread and other +things are lacking; our reserve rations are exhausted. The water is +bad, quite green, indeed; but all the same we drink it--we can get +nothing else. Man is brought down to the level of the brute beast. +Myself, I have nothing left to eat; I left what I had with me in the +saddlebags on my horse. In fact, we were not told what we should have +to do on this side of the Yser, and we did not know that our horses +would have to be left on the other side. That is why we could not +arrange things. + +"I am living on what other people, like true comrades, are willing to +give me, but even then my share is only very small. There is no +thought of changing our linen or our clothes in any way. It is an +incredible situation! On every hand farms and villages are burning. +How sad a spectacle, indeed, to see this magnificent region all in +ruins, wounded and dead lying everywhere all round." + +Twenty-fifth of October, 1914: + +"A relatively undisturbed night. The safety of the bridge over the +Yser has been assured for a time. The battle has gone on the whole day +long. We have not been given any definite orders. One would not think +this is Sunday. The infantry and artillery combat is incessant, but no +definite result is achieved. Nothing but losses in wounded and killed. +We shall try to get into touch with the sixth division of the Third +Reserve Army Corps on our right." + +Twenty-sixth of October, 1914: + +"What a frightful night has gone by! There was a terrible rainstorm. I +felt frozen. I remained standing knee-deep in water. To-day an +uninterrupted fusillade meets us in front. We shall throw a bridge +across the Yser, for the enemy's artillery has again destroyed one we +had previously constructed. + +"The situation is practically unchanged. No progress has been made in +spite of incessant fighting, in spite of the barking of the guns and +the cries of alarm of those human beings so uselessly killed. The +infantry is worthless until our artillery has silenced the enemy's +guns. Everywhere we must be losing heavily; our own company has +suffered greatly so far. The colonel, the major, and, indeed, many +other officers are already wounded; several are dead. + +"There has not yet been any chance of taking off our boots and washing +ourselves. The Sixth Division is ready, but its help is insufficient. +The situation is no clearer than before; we can learn nothing of what +is going on. Again we are setting off for wet trenches. Our regiment +is mixed up with other regiments in an inextricable fashion. No +battalion, no company, knows anything about where the other units of +the regiment are to be found. Everything is jumbled under this +terrible fire which enfilades from all sides. + +"There are numbers of _francs-tireurs_. Our second battalion is going +to be placed under the order of the Cyckortz Regiment, made up of +quite diverse units. Our old regiment is totally broken up. The +situation is terrible. To be under a hail of shot and shell, without +any respite, and know nothing whatever of one's own troops! + +"It is to be hoped that soon the situation will be improved. These +conditions cannot be borne very much longer. I am hopeless. The +battalion is under the command of Captain May, and I am reduced to +acting as _Fourier_. It is not at all an easy thing to do in our +present frightful situation. In the black night soldiers must be sent +some distance in order to get and bring back the food so much needed +by their comrades. They have brought back, too, cards and letters from +those we love. What a consolation in our cheerless situation! We +cannot have a light, however, so we are forced to put into our +pockets, unread, the words of comfort sent by our dear ones--we have +to wait till the following morning. + +"So we spend the night again on straw, huddled up close one to another +in order to keep warm. It is horribly cold and damp. All at once a +violent rattle of rifle fire raises us for the combat; hastily we get +ready, shivering, almost frozen." + +Twenty-seventh of October, 1914: + +"At dawn I take advantage of a few moments' respite to read over the +kind wishes which have come from home. What happiness! Soon, however, +the illusion leaves me. The situation here is still all confusion; we +cannot think of advancing--" + +The last sentence is a broken one. For he died. + + * * * * * + +Morning came and he read his letters from home. They cheered him a +little; we can be glad of that, at least. And then he died. + +That record is a great human document. It is absolutely genuine. He +was starving and cold. As fast as they built a bridge to get back it +was destroyed. From three sides he and the others with him were being +shelled. He must have known what the inevitable end would be. But he +said very little. And then he died. + +There were other journels taken from the bodies of other German +officers at that terrible battle of the Yser. They speak of it as a +"hell"--a place of torment and agony impossible to describe. Some of +them I have seen. There is nowhere in the world a more pitiful or +tragic or thought-compelling literature than these diaries of German +officers thrust forward without hope and waiting for the end. + +At six o'clock it was already entirely dark and raining hard. Even in +the little town the machine was deep in mud. I got in and we started +off again, moving steadily toward the front. Captain F---- had brought +with him a box of biscuits, large, square, flaky crackers, which were +to be my dinner until some time in the night. He had an electric flash +and a map. The roads were horrible; it was impossible to move rapidly. +Here and there a sentry's lantern would show him standing on the edge +of a flooded field. The car careened, righted itself and kept on. As +the roads became narrower it was impossible to pass another vehicle. +The car drew out at crossroads here and there to allow transports to +get by. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE IRON DIVISION + + +It was bitterly cold, and the dead officer's diary weighed on my +spirit. The two officers in the machine pored over the map; I sat +huddled in my corner. I had come a long distance to do the thing I was +doing. But my enthusiasm for it had died. I wished I had not heard the +diary. + +"At dawn I take advantage of a few moments' respite to read over the +kind wishes which have come from home. What happiness!" And then he +died. + +The car jolted on. + +The soldier and the military chauffeur out in front were drenched. The +wind hurled the rain at them like bullets. We were getting close to +the front. There were shellholes now, great ruts into which the car +dropped and pulled out again with a jerk. + +Then at last a huddle of dark houses and a sentry's challenge. The car +stopped and we got out. Again there were seas of mud, deeper even than +before. I had reached the headquarters of the Third Division of the +Belgian Army, commonly known as the Iron Division, so nicknamed for +its heroic work in this war. + +The headquarters building was ironically called the "château." It had +been built by officers and men, of fresh boards and lined neatly +inside with newspapers. Some of them were illustrated French papers. +It had much the appearance of a Western shack during the early days of +the gold fever. On one of the walls was a war map of the Eastern +front, the line a cord fastened into place with flag pins. The last +time I had seen such a map of the Eastern front was in the Cabinet +Room at Washington. + +A large stove in the centre of the room heated the building, which was +both light and warm. Some fifteen officers received us. I was the only +woman who had been so near the front, for out here there are no +nurses. One by one they were introduced and bowed. There were fifteen +hosts and extremely few guests! + +Having had telephone notice of our arrival, they showed me how +carefully they had prepared for it. The long desk was in beautiful +order; floors gleamed snow white; the lamp chimneys were polished. +There were sandwiches and tea ready to be served. + +In one room was the telephone exchange, which connected the +headquarters with every part of the line. In another, a long line of +American typewriters and mimeographing machines wrote out and copied +the orders which were regularly distributed to the front. + +"Will you see our museum?" said a tall officer, who spoke beautiful +English. His mother was an Englishwoman. So I was taken into another +room and shown various relics of the battlefield--pieces of shells, +rifles and bullets. + +"Early German shells," said the officer who spoke English, "were like +this. You see how finely they splintered. The later ones are not so +good; the material is inferior, and here is an aluminum nose which +shows how scarce copper is becoming in Germany to-day." + +I have often thought of that visit to the "château," of the beautiful +courtesy of those Belgian officers, their hospitality, their eagerness +to make an American woman comfortable and at home. And I was to have +still further proof of their kindly feeling, for when toward daylight +I came back from the trenches they were still up, the lamps were still +burning brightly, the stove was red hot and cheerful, and they had +provided food for us against the chill of the winter dawn. Out through +the mud and into the machine again. And now we were very near the +trenches. The car went without lights and slowly. A foot off the +centre of the road would have made an end to the excursion. + +We began to pass men, long lines of them standing in the drenching +rain to let us by. They crowded close against the car to avoid the +seas of mud. Sometimes they grumbled a little, but mostly they were +entirely silent. That is the thing that impressed me always about the +lines of soldiers I saw going to and from the trenches--their silence. +Even their feet made no noise. They loomed up like black shadows which +the night swallowed immediately. + +The car stopped again. We had made another leg of the journey. And +this time our destination was a church. We were close behind the +trenches now and our movements were made with extreme caution. Captain +F---- piloted me through the mud. + +"We will go quietly," he said. "Many of them are doubtless sleeping; +they are but just out of the trenches and very tired." + +Now and then one encounters in this war a picture that cannot be +painted. Such a picture is that little church just behind the Belgian +lines at L----. There are no pews, of course, in Continental churches. +The chairs had been piled up in a corner near the altar, and on the +stone floor thus left vacant had been spread quantities of straw. +Lying on the straw and covered by their overcoats were perhaps two +hundred Belgian soldiers. They lay huddled close together for warmth; +the mud of the trenches still clung to them. The air was heavy with +the odour of damp straw. + +The high vaulted room was a cave of darkness. The only lights were +small flat candles here and there, stuck in saucers or on haversacks +just above the straw. These low lights, so close to the floor, fell on +the weary faces of sleeping men, accentuating the shadows, bringing +pinched nostrils into relief, showing lines of utter fatigue and +exhaustion. + +But the picture was not all sombre. Here were four men playing cards +under an image of Our Lady, which was just overhead. They were muffled +against the cold and speaking in whispers. In a far corner a soldier +sat alone, cross-legged, writing by the light of a candle. His letter +rested on a flat loaf of bread, which was his writing table. Another +soldier had taken a loaf of bread for his pillow and was comfortably +asleep on it. + +Captain F---- led the way through the church. He stepped over the men +carefully. When they roused and looked up they would have risen to +salute, but he told them to lie still. + +It was clear that the relationship between the Belgian officers and +their troops was most friendly. Not only in that little church at +midnight, but again and again I have seen the same thing. The officers +call their men their "little soldiers," and eye them with affection. + +One boy insisted on rising and saluting. He was very young, and on his +chin was the straggly beard of his years. The Captain stooped, and +lifting a candle held it to his face. + +"The handsomest beard in the Belgian Army!" he said, and the men round +chuckled. + +And so it went, a word here, a nod there, an apology when we disturbed +one of the sleepers. + +"They are but boys," said the Captain, and sighed. For each day there +were fewer of them who returned to the little church to sleep. + +On the way back to the car, making our way by means of the Captain's +electric flash through the crowded graveyard, he turned to me. + +"When you write of this, madame," he said, "you will please not +mention the location of this church. So far it has escaped--perhaps +because it is small. But the churches always suffer." + +I regretted this. So many of the churches are old and have the +interest of extreme age, even when they are architecturally +insignificant. But I found these officers very fair, just as I had +found the King of the Belgians disinclined to condemn the entire +German Army for the brutalities of a part of it. + +"There is no reason why churches should not be destroyed if they are +serving military purposes," one of them said. "When a church tower +shelters a gun, or is used for observations, it is quite legitimate +that it be subject to artillery fire. That is a necessity of war." + +We moved cautiously. Behind the church was a tiny cluster of small +houses. The rain had ceased, but the electric flashlight showed great +pools of water, through which we were obliged to walk. The hamlet was +very silent--not a dog barked. There were no dogs. + +I do not recall seeing any dogs at any time along the front, except at +La Panne. What has become of them? There were cats in the destroyed +towns, cats even in the trenches. But there were no dogs. It is not +because the people are not fond of dogs. Dunkirk was full of them when +I was there. The public square resounded with their quarrels and noisy +playing. They lay there in the sun and slept, and ambulances turned +aside in their headlong career to avoid running them down. But the +villages along the front were silent. + +I once asked an officer what had become of the dogs. + +"The soldiers eat them!" he said soberly. + +I heard the real explanation later. The strongest dogs had been +commandeered for the army, and these brave dogs of Flanders, who have +always laboured, are now drawing _mitrailleuses_, as I saw them at +L----. The little dogs must be fed, and there is no food to spare. And +so the children, over whose heads passes unheeded the real +significance of this drama that is playing about them, have their own +small tragedies these days. + +We got into the car again and it moved off. With every revolution of +the engine we were advancing toward that sinister line that borders No +Man's Land. We were very close. The road paralleled the trenches, and +shelling had begun again. + +It was not close, and no shells dropped in our vicinity. But the low, +horizontal red streaks of the German guns were plainly visible. + +With the cessation of the rain had begun again the throwing over the +Belgian trenches of the German magnesium flares, which the British +call starlights. The French call them _fusées_. Under any name I do +not like them. One moment one is advancing in a comfortable obscurity. +The next instant it is the Fourth of July, with a white rocket +bursting overhead. There is no noise, however. The thing is +miraculously beautiful, silent and horrible. I believe the light +floats on a sort of tiny parachute. For perhaps sixty seconds it hangs +low in the air, throwing all the flat landscape into clear relief. + +I do not know if one may read print under these _fusées_. I never had +either the courage or the print for the experiment. But these eyes of +the night open and close silently all through the hours of darkness. +They hang over the trenches, reveal the movements of troops on the +roads behind, shine on ammunition trains and ambulances, on the +righteous and the unrighteous. All along the German lines these +_fusées_ go up steadily. I have seen a dozen in the air at once. Their +silence and the eternal vigilance which they reveal are most +impressive. On the quietest night, with only an occasional shot being +fired, the horizon is ringed with them. + +And on the horizon they are beautiful. Overhead they are distinctly +unpleasant. + +"They are very uncomfortable," I said to Captain F----. "The Germans +can see us plainly, can't they?" + +"But that is what they are for," he explained. "All movements of +troops and ammunition trains to and from the trenches are made during +the night, so they watch us very carefully." + +"How near are we to the trenches?" I asked. + +"Very near, indeed." + +"To the first line?" + +For I had heard that there were other lines behind, and with the +cessation of the rain my courage was rising. Nothing less than the +first line was to satisfy me. + +"To the first line," he said, and smiled. + +The wind which had driven the rain in sheets against the car had blown +the storm away. The moon came out, a full moon. From the car I could +see here and there the gleam of the inundation. The road was +increasingly bad, with shell holes everywhere. Buildings loomed out of +the night, roofless and destroyed. The _fusées_ rose and burst +silently overhead; the entire horizon seemed encircled with them. We +were so close to the German lines that we could see an electric signal +sending its message of long and short flashes, could even see the +reply. It seemed to me most unmilitary. + +"Any one who knew telegraphy and German could read that message," I +protested. + +"It is not so simple as that. It is a cipher code, and is probably +changed daily." + +Nevertheless, the officers in the car watched the signalling closely, +and turning, surveyed the country behind us. In so flat a region, with +trees and shrubbery cut down and houses razed, even a pocket flash can +send a signal to the lines of the enemy. And such signals are sent. +The German spy system is thorough and far-reaching. + +I have gone through Flanders near the lines at various times at night. +It is a dead country apparently. There are destroyed houses, sodden +fields, ditches lipful of water. But in the most amazing fashion +lights spring up and disappear. Follow one of these lights and you +find nothing but a deserted farm, or a ruined barn, or perhaps nothing +but a field of sugar beets dying in the ground. + +Who are these spies? Are they Belgians and French, driven by the ruin +of everything they possess to selling out to the enemy? I think not. +It is much more probable that they are Germans who slip through the +lines in some uncanny fashion, wading and swimming across the +inundation, crawling flat where necessary, and working, an inch at a +time, toward the openings between the trenches. Frightful work, of +course. Impossible work, too, if the popular idea of the trenches were +correct--that is, that they form one long, communicating ditch from +the North Sea to Switzerland! They do not, of course. There are blank +spaces here and there, fully controlled by the trenches on either +side, and reënforced by further trenches behind. But with a knowledge +of where these openings lie it is possible to work through. + +Possible, not easy. And there is no mercy for a captured spy. + +The troops who had been relieved were moving out of the trenches. Our +progress became extremely slow. The road was lined with men. They +pressed their faces close to the glass of the car and laughed and +talked a little among themselves. Some of them were bandaged. Their +white bandages gleamed in the moonlight. Here and there, as they +passed, one blew on his fingers, for the wind was bitterly cold. + +"In a few moments we must get out and walk," I was told. "Is madame a +good walker?" + +I said I was a good walker. I had a strong feeling that two or three +people might walk along that road under those starlights much more +safely and inconspicuously than an automobile could move. For +automobiles at the front mean generals as a rule, and are always +subject to attack. + +Suddenly the car stopped and a voice called to us sharply. There were +soldiers coming up a side road. I was convinced that we had surprised +an attack, and were in the midst of the German advance. One of the +officers flung the door open and looked out. + +But we were only on the wrong road, and must get into reverse and turn +the machine even closer to the front. I know now that there was no +chance of a German attack at that point, that my fears were absurd. +Nevertheless, so keen was the tension that for quite ten minutes my +heart raced madly. + +On again. The officers in the car consulted the map and, having +decided on the route, fell into conversation. The officer of the Third +Division, whose mother had been English, had joined the party. He had +been on the staff of General Leman at the time of the capture of +Liège, and he told me of the sensational attempt made by the Germans +to capture the General. + +"I was upstairs with him at headquarters," he said, "when word came up +that eight Englishmen had just entered the building with a request to +see him. I was suspicious and we started down the staircase together. +The 'Englishmen' were in the hallway below. As we appeared on the +stairs the man in advance put his hand in his pocket and drew a +revolver. They were dressed in civilians' clothes, but I saw at once +that they were German. + +"I was fortunate in getting my revolver out first, and shot down the +man in advance. There was a struggle, in which the General made his +escape and all of the eight were either killed or taken prisoners. +They were uhlans, two officers and six privates." + +"It was very brave," I said. "A remarkable exploit." + +"Very brave indeed," he agreed with me. "They are all very brave, the +Germans." + +Captain F---- had been again consulting his map. Now he put it away. + +"Brave but brutal," he said briefly. "I am of the Third Division. I +have watched the German advance protected by women and children. In +the fighting the civilians fell first. They had no weapons. It was +terrible. It is the German system," he went on, "which makes +everything of the end, and nothing at all of the means. It is seen in +the way they have sacrificed their own troops." + +"They think you are equally brutal," I said. "The German soldiers +believe that they will have their eyes torn out if they are captured." + +I cited a case I knew of, where a wounded German had hidden in the +inundation for five days rather than surrender to the horrors he +thought were waiting for him. When he was found and taken to a +hospital his long days in the water had brought on gangrene and he +could not be saved. + +"They have been told that to make them fight more savagely," was the +comment. "What about the official German order for a campaign of +'frightfulness' in Belgium?" + +And here, even while the car is crawling along toward the trenches, +perhaps it is allowable to explain the word "frightfulness," which now +so permeates the literature of the war. Following the scenes of the +German invasion into Belgium, where here and there some maddened +civilian fired on the German troops and precipitated the deaths of his +townsmen,[C] Berlin issued, on August twenty-seventh, a declaration, +of which this paragraph is a part: + +[Footnote C: The Belgians contend that, in almost every case, such +firing by civilians was the result of attack on their women.] + +"The only means of preventing surprise attacks from the civil +population has been to interfere with unrelenting severity and to +create examples which, by their frightfulness, would be a warning to +the whole country." + +A Belgian officer once quoted it to me, with a comment. + +"This is not an order to the army. It is an attempt at justification +for the very acts which Berlin is now attempting to deny!" + +That is how "frightfulness" came into the literature of the war. + +Captain F---- stopped the car. Near the road was a ruin of an old +church. + +"In that church," he said, "our soldiers were sleeping when the +Germans, evidently informed by a spy, began to shell it. The first +shot smashed that house there, twenty-five yards away; the second shot +came through the roof and struck one of the supporting pillars, +bringing the roof down. Forty-six men were killed and one hundred and +nine wounded." + +He showed me the grave from a window of the car, a great grave in +front of the church, with a wooden cross on it. It was too dark to +read the inscription, but he told me what it said: + +"Here lie forty-six _chasseurs_." Beneath are the names, one below the +other in two columns, and underneath all: "_Morts pour la Patrie_." + +We continued to advance. Our lamps were out, but the _fusées_ made +progress easy. And there was the moon. We had left behind us the lines +of the silent men. The scene was empty, desolate. Suddenly we stopped +by a low brick house, a one-story building with overhanging eaves. +Sentries with carbines stood under the eaves, flattened against the +wall for shelter from the biting wind. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AT THE HOUSE OF THE BARRIER + + +A narrow path led up to the house. It was flanked on both sides by +barbed wire, and progress through it was slow. The wind caught my rain +cape and tore it against the barbs. I had to be disentangled. The +sentries saluted, and the low door, through which the officers were +obliged to stoop to enter, was opened by an orderly from within. + +We entered The House of the Mill of Saint ----. + +The House of the Mill of Saint ---- was less pretentious than its +name. Even at its best it could not have been imposing. Now, partially +destroyed and with its windows carefully screened inside by grain +sacks nailed to the frames for fear of a betraying ray of light, it +was not beautiful. But it was hospitable. A hanging lamp in its one +livable room, a great iron stove, red and comforting, and a large +round table under the lamp made it habitable and inviting. It was +Belgian artillery headquarters, and I was to meet here Colonel +Jacques, one of the military idols of Belgium, the hero of the Congo, +and now in charge of Belgian batteries. In addition, since it was +midnight, we were to sup here. + +We were expected, and Colonel Jacques himself waited inside the +living-room door. A tall man, as are almost all the Belgian +officers--which is curious, considering that the troops seem to be +rather under average size--he greeted us cordially. I fancied that +behind his urbanity there was the glimmer of an amused smile. But his +courtesy was beautiful. He put me near the fire and took the next +chair himself. + +I had a good chance to observe him. He is no longer a young man, and +beyond a certain military erectness and precision in his movements +there is nothing to mark him the great soldier he has shown himself to +be. + +"We are to have supper," he said smilingly in French. "Provided you +have brought something to eat with you!" + +"We have brought it," said Captain F----. + +The officers of the staff came in and were formally presented. There +was much clicking of heels, much deep and courteous bowing. Then +Captain F---- produced his box of biscuits, and from a capacious +pocket of his army overcoat a tin of bully beef. The House of the Mill +of Saint ---- contributed a bottle of thin white native wine and, +triumphantly, a glass. There are not many glasses along the front. + +There was cheese too. And at the end of the meal Colonel Jacques, with +great _empressement_, laid before me a cake of sweet chocolate. + +I had to be shown the way to use the bully beef. One of the hard flat +biscuits was split open, spread with butter and then with the beef in +a deep layer. It was quite good, but what with excitement and fatigue +I was not hungry. Everybody ate; everybody talked; and, after asking +my permission, everybody smoked. I sat near the stove and dried my +steaming boots. + +Afterward I remembered that with all the conversation there was very +little noise. Our voices were subdued. Probably we might have cheered +in that closed and barricaded house without danger. But the sense of +the nearness of the enemy was over us all, and the business of war was +not forgotten. There were men who came, took orders and went away. +There were maps on the walls and weapons in every corner. Even the +sacking that covered the windows bespoke caution and danger. + +Here it was too near the front for the usual peasant family huddled +round its stove in the kitchen, and looking with resignation on these +strange occupants of their house. The humble farm buildings outside +were destroyed. + +I looked round the room; a picture or two still hung on the walls, and +a crucifix. There is always a crucifix in these houses. There was a +carbine just beneath this one. + +Inside of one of the picture frames one of the Colonel's medals had +been placed, as if for safety. + +Colonel Jacques sat at the head of the table and beamed at us all. He +has behind him many years of military service. He has been decorated +again and again for bravery. But, perhaps, when this war is over and +he has time to look back he will smile over that night supper with the +first woman he had seen for months, under the rumble of his own and +the German batteries. + +It was time to go to the advance trenches. But before we left one of +the officers who had accompanied me rose and took a folded paper from +a pocket of his tunic. He was smiling. + +"I shall read," he said, "a little tribute from one of Colonel +Jacques' soldiers to him." + +So we listened. Colonel Jacques sat and smiled; but he is a modest +man, and his fingers were beating a nervous tattoo on the table. The +young officer stood and read, glancing up now and then to smile at his +chief's embarrassment. The wind howled outside, setting the sacks at +the windows to vibrating. + +This is a part of the poem: + + _III_ + + "_Comme chef nous avons l'homme à la hauteur + Un homme aimé et adoré de tous + L'Colonel Jacques; de lui les hommes sont fous + En lui nous voyons l'emblème de l'honneur. + Des compagnes il en a des tas: En Afrique + Haecht et Dixmude, Ramsdonck et Sart-Tilmau + Et toujours premier et toujours en avant + Toujours en têt' de son beau régiment, + Toujours railleur + Chef au grand coeur_. + + _REFRAIN_ + "_L'Colo du 12me passe + Regardez ce vaillant + Quand il crie dans l'espace + Joyeus'ment 'En avant!' + Ses hommes, la mine heureuse + Gaîment suivent sa trace + Sur la route glorieuse. + Saluez-le, l'Colo du 12me passe_. + + "_AD. DAUVISTER_, + "SOUS-LIEUTENANT." + +We applauded. It is curious to remember how cheerful we were, how warm +and comfortable, there at the House of the Mill of Saint ----, with +war only a step away now. Curious, until we think that, of all the +created world, man is the most adaptable. Men and horses! Which is as +it should be now, with both men and horses finding themselves in +strange places, indeed, and somehow making the best of it. + +The copy of the poem, which had been printed at the front, probably on +an American hand press, was given to me with Colonel Jacques' +signature on the back, and we prepared to go. There was much donning +of heavy wraps, much bowing and handshaking. Colonel Jacques saw us +out into the wind-swept night. Then the door of the little house +closed again, and we were on our way through the barricade. + +Until now our excursion to the trenches, aside from the discomfort of +the weather and the mud, had been fairly safe, although there was +always the chance of a shell. To that now was to be added a fresh +hazard--the sniping that goes on all night long. + +Our car moved quietly for a mile, paralleling the trenches. Then it +stopped. The rest of the journey was to be on foot. + +All traces of the storm had passed, except for the pools of mud, +which, gleaming like small lakes, filled shell holes in the road. An +ammunition lorry had drawn up in the shadow of a hedge and was +cautiously unloading. Evidently the night's movement of troops was +over, for the roads were empty. + +A few feet beyond the lorry we came up to the trenches. We were behind +them, only head and shoulders above. + +There was no sign of life or movement, except for the silent _fusées_ +that burst occasionally a little to our right. Walking was bad. The +Belgian blocks of the road were coated with slippery mud, and from +long use and erosion the stones themselves were rounded, so that our +feet slipped over them. At the right was a shallow ditch three or four +feet wide. Immediately beyond that was the railway embankment where, +as Captain F---- had explained, the Belgian Army had taken up its +position after being driven back across the Yser. + +The embankment loomed shoulder high, and between it and the ditch were +the trenches. There was no sound from them, but sentries halted us +frequently. On such occasions the party stopped abruptly--for here +sentries are apt to fire first and investigate afterward--and one +officer advanced with the password. + +There is always something grim and menacing about the attitude of the +sentry as he waits on such occasions. His carbine is not over his +shoulder, but in his hands, ready for use. The bayonet gleams. His +eyes are fixed watchfully on the advance. A false move, and his +overstrained nerves may send the carbine to his shoulder. + +We walked just behind the trenches in the moonlight for a mile. No one +said anything. The wind was icy. Across the railroad embankment it +chopped the inundation into small crested waves. Only by putting one's +head down was it possible to battle ahead. From Dixmude came the +intermittent red flashes of guns. But the trenches beside us were +entirely silent. + +At the end of a mile we stopped. The road turned abruptly to the right +and crossed the railroad embankment, and at this crossing was the ruin +of what had been the House of the Barrier, where in peaceful times the +crossing tender lived. + +It had been almost destroyed. The side toward the German lines was +indeed a ruin, but one room was fairly whole. However, the door had +been shot away. To enter, it was necessary to lift away an +extemporised one of planks roughly nailed together, which leaned +against the aperture. + +The moving of the door showed more firelight, and a very small, shaded +and smoky lamp on a stand. There were officers here again. The little +house is slightly in front of the advanced trenches, and once inside +it was possible to realise its exposed position. Standing as it does +on the elevation of the railroad, it is constantly under fire. It is +surrounded by barbed wire and flanked by trenches in which are +_mitrailleuses_. + +The walls were full of shell holes, stuffed with sacks of straw or +boarded over. What had been windows were now jagged openings, +similarly closed. The wind came through steadily, smoking the chimney +of the lamp and making the flame flicker. + +There was one chair. + +I wish I could go farther. I wish I could say that shells were +bursting overhead, and that I sat calmly in the one chair and made +notes. I sat, true enough, but I sat because I was tired and my feet +were wet. And instead of making notes I examined my new six-guinea +silk rubber rain cape for barbed-wire tears. Not a shell came near. +The German battery across had ceased firing at dusk that evening, and +was playing pinochle four hundred yards away across the inundation. +The snipers were writing letters home. + +It is true that any time an artilleryman might lose a game and go out +and fire a gun to vent his spleen or to keep his hand in. And the +snipers might begin to notice that the rain was over, and that there +was suspicious activity at the House of the Barrier. And, to take away +the impression of perfect peace, big guns were busy just north and +south of us. Also, just where we were the Germans had made a terrific +charge three nights before to capture an outpost. But the fact remains +that I brought away not even a bullet hole through the crown of my +soft felt hat. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES + + +When I had been thawed out they took me into the trenches. Because of +the inundation directly in front, they are rather shallow, and at this +point were built against the railroad embankment with earth, boards, +and here and there a steel rail from the track. Some of them were +covered, too, but not with bombproof material. The tops were merely +shelters from the rain and biting wind. + +The men lay or sat in them--it was impossible to stand. Some of them +were like tiny houses into which the men crawled from the rear, and by +placing a board, which served as a door, managed to keep out at least +a part of the bitter wind. + +In the first trench I was presented to a bearded major. He was lying +flat and apologised for not being able to rise. There was a machine +gun beside him. He told me with some pride that it was an American +gun, and that it never jammed. When a machine gun jams the man in +charge of it dies and his comrades die, and things happen with great +rapidity. On the other side of him was a cat, curled up and sound +asleep. There was a telephone instrument there. It was necessary to +step over the wire that was stretched along the ground. + +All night long he lies there with his gun, watching for the first +movement in the trenches across. For here, at the House of the +Barrier, has taken place some of the most furious fighting of this +part of the line. + +In the next division of the trench were three men. They were cleaning +and oiling their rifles round a candle. + +The surprise of all of these men at seeing a woman was almost absurd. +Word went down the trenches that a woman was visiting. Heads popped +out and cautious comments were made. It was concluded that I was +visiting royalty, but the excitement died when it was discovered that +I was not the Queen. Now and then, when a trench looked clean and dry, +I was invited in. It was necessary to get down and crawl in on hands +and knees. + +Here was a man warming his hands over a tiny fire kindled in a tin +pail. He had bored holes in the bottom of the pail for air, and was +shielding the glow carefully with his overcoat. + +Many people have written about the trenches--the mud, the odours, the +inhumanity of compelling men to live under such foul conditions. +Nothing that they have said can be too strong. Under the best +conditions the life is ghastly, horrible, impossible. + +That night, when from a semi-shielded position I could look across to +the German line, the contrast between the condition of the men in the +trenches and the beauty of the scenery was appalling. In each +direction, as far as one could see, lay a gleaming lagoon of water. +The moon made a silver path across it, and here and there on its +borders were broken and twisted winter trees. + +"It is beautiful," said Captain F----, beside me, in a low voice. "But +it is full of the dead. They are taken out whenever it is possible; +but it is not often possible." + +"And when there is an attack the attacking side must go through the +water?" + +"Not always, but in many places." + +"What will happen if it freezes over?" + +He explained that it was salt water, and would not freeze easily. And +the cold of that part of the country is not the cold of America in the +same latitude. It is not a cold of low temperature; it is a damp, +penetrating cold that goes through garments of every weight and seems +to chill the very blood in a man's body. + +"How deep is the water?" I asked. + +"It varies--from two to eight feet. Here it is shallow." + +"I should think they would come over." + +"The water is full of barbed wire," he said grimly. "And some, a great +many, have tried--and failed." + +As of the trenches, many have written of the stenches of this war. But +the odour of that beautiful lagoon was horrible. I do not care to +emphasize it. It is one of the things best forgotten. But any +lingering belief I may have had in the grandeur and glory of war died +that night beside that silver lake--died of an odour, and will never +live again. + +And now came a discussion. + +The road crossing the railroad embankment turned sharply to the left +and proceeded in front of the trenches. There was no shelter on that +side of the embankment. The inundation bordered the road, and just +beyond the inundation were the German trenches. + +There were no trees, no shrubbery, no houses; just a flat road, paved +with Belgian blocks, that gleamed in the moonlight. + +At last the decision was made. We would go along the road, provided I +realised from the first that it was dangerous. One or two could walk +there with a good chance for safety, but not more. The little group +had been augmented. It must break up; two might walk together, and +then two a safe distance behind. Four would certainly be fired on. + +I wanted to go. It was not a matter of courage. I had simply, +parrot-fashion, mimicked the attitude of mind of the officers. One +after another I had seen men go into danger with a shrug of the +shoulders. + +"If it comes it comes!" they said, and went on. So I, too, had become +a fatalist. If I was to be shot it would happen, if I had to buy a +rifle and try to clean it myself to fulfil my destiny. + +So they let me go. I went farther than they expected, as it turned +out. There was a great deal of indignation and relief when it was +over. But that is later on. + +A very tall Belgian officer took me in charge. It was necessary to +work through a barbed-wire barricade, twisting and turning through its +mazes. The moonlight helped. It was at once a comfort and an anxiety, +for it seemed to me that my khaki-coloured suit gleamed in it. The +Belgian officers in their dark blue were less conspicuous. I thought +they had an unfair advantage of me, and that it was idiotic of the +British to wear and advocate anything so absurd as khaki. My cape +ballooned like a sail in the wind. I felt at least double my ordinary +size, and that even a sniper with a squint could hardly miss me. And, +by way of comfort, I had one last instruction before I started: + +"If a _fusée_ goes up, stand perfectly still. If you move they will +fire." + +The entire safety of the excursion depended on a sort of tacit +agreement that, in part at least, obtains as to sentries. + +This is a new warfare, one of artillery, supported by infantry in +trenches. And it has been necessary to make new laws for it. One of +the most curious is a sort of _modus vivendi_ by which each side +protects its own sentries by leaving the enemy's sentries unmolested +so long as there is no active fighting. They are always in plain view +before the trenches. In case of a charge they are the first to be +shot, of course. But long nights and days have gone by along certain +parts of the front where the hostile trenches are close together, and +the sentries, keeping their monotonous lookout, have been undisturbed. + +No doubt by this time the situation has changed to a certain extent; +there has been more active fighting, larger bodies of men are +involved. The spring floods south of the inundation will have dried +up. No Man's Land will have ceased to be a swamp and the deadlock may +be broken. + +But on that February night I put my faith in this agreement, and it +held. + +The tall Belgian officer asked me if I was frightened. I said I was +not. This was not exactly the truth; but it was no time for the truth. + +"They are not shooting," I said. "It looks perfectly safe." + +He shrugged his shoulders and glanced toward the German trenches. + +"They have been sleeping during the rain," he said briefly. "But when +one of them wakes up, look out!" + +After that there was little conversation, and what there was was in +whispers. + +As we proceeded the stench from the beautiful moonlit water grew +overpowering. The officer told me the reason. + +A little farther along a path of fascines had been built out over the +inundation to an outpost halfway to the German trenches. The building +of this narrow roadway had cost many lives. + +Half a mile along the road we were sharply challenged by a sentry. +When he had received the password he stood back and let us pass. +Alone, in that bleak and exposed position in front of the trenches, +always in full view as he paced back and forward, carbine on shoulder, +with not even a tree trunk or a hedge for shelter, the first to go at +the whim of some German sniper or at any indication of an attack, he +was a pathetic, almost a tragic, figure. He looked very young too. I +stopped and asked him in a whisper how old he was. + +He said he was nineteen! + +He may have been. I know something about boys, and I think he was +seventeen at the most. There are plenty of boys of that age doing just +what that lad was doing. + +Afterward I learned that it was no part of the original plan to take a +woman over the fascine path to the outpost; that Captain F---- ground +his teeth in impotent rage when he saw where I was being taken. But it +was not possible to call or even to come up to us. So, blithely and +unconsciously the tall Belgian officer and I turned to the right, and +I was innocently on my way to the German trenches. + +After a little I realised that this was rather more war than I had +expected. The fascines were slippery; the path only four or five feet +wide. On each side was the water, hideous with many secrets. + +I stopped, a third of the way out, and looked back. It looked about as +dangerous in one direction as another. So we went on. Once I slipped +and fell. And now, looming out of the moonlight, I could see the +outpost which was the object of our visit. + +I have always been grateful to that Belgian lieutenant for his +mistake. Just how grateful I might have been had anything untoward +happened, I cannot say. But the excursion was worth all the risk, and +more. + +On a bit of high ground stands what was once the tiny hamlet of +Oudstuyvenskerke--the ruins of two small white houses and the tower of +the destroyed church--hardly a tower any more, for only three sides of +it are standing and they are riddled with great shell holes. + +Six hundred feet beyond this tower were the German trenches. The +little island was hardly a hundred feet in its greatest dimension. + +I wish I could make those people who think that war is good for a +country see that Belgian outpost as I saw it that night under the +moonlight. Perhaps we were under suspicion; I do not know. Suddenly +the _fusées_, which had ceased for a time, began again, and with their +white light added to that of the moon the desolate picture of that +tiny island was a picture of the war. There was nothing lacking. There +was the beauty of the moonlit waters, there was the tragedy of the +destroyed houses and the church, and there was the horror of unburied +bodies. + +There was heroism, too, of the kind that will make Belgium live in +history. For in the top of that church tower for months a Capuchin +monk has held his position alone and unrelieved. He has a telephone, +and he gains access to his position in the tower by means of a rope +ladder which he draws up after him. + +Furious fighting has taken place again and again round the base of the +tower. The German shells assail it constantly. But when I left Belgium +the Capuchin monk, who has become a soldier, was still on duty; still +telephoning the ranges of the gun; still notifying headquarters of +German preparations for a charge. + +Some day the church tower will fall and he will go with it, or it will +be captured; one or the other is inevitable. Perhaps it has already +happened; for not long ago I saw in the newspapers that furious +fighting was taking place at this very spot. + +He came down and I talked to him--a little man, regarding his +situation as quite ordinary, and looking quaintly unpriestlike in his +uniform of a Belgian officer with its tasselled cap. Some day a great +story will be written of these priests of Belgium who have left their +churches to fight. + +We spoke in whispers. There was after all very little to say. It would +have embarrassed him horribly had any one told him that he was a +heroic figure. And the ordinary small talk is not currency in such a +situation. + +We shook hands and I think I wished him luck. Then he went back again +to the long hours and days of waiting. + +I passed under his telephone wires. Some day he will telephone that a +charge is coming. He will give all the particulars calmly, concisely. +Then the message will break off abruptly. He will have sent his last +warning. For that is the way these men at the advance posts die. + +As we started again I was no longer frightened. Something of his +courage had communicated itself to me, his courage and his philosophy, +perhaps his faith. + +The priest had become a soldier; but he was still a priest in his +heart. For he had buried the German dead in one great grave before the +church, and over them had put the cross of his belief. + +It was rather absurd on the way back over the path of death to be +escorted by a cat. It led the way over the fascines, treading daintily +and cautiously. Perhaps one of the destroyed houses at the outpost had +been its home, and with a cat's fondness for places it remained there, +though everything it knew had gone; though battle and sudden death had +usurped the place of its peaceful fireside, though that very fireside +was become a heap of stone and plaster, open to winds and rain. + +Again and again in destroyed towns I have seen these forlorn cats +stalking about, trying vainly to adjust themselves to new conditions, +cold and hungry and homeless. + +We were challenged repeatedly on the way back. Coming from the +direction we did we were open to suspicion. It was necessary each time +to halt some forty feet from the sentry, who stood with his rifle +pointed at us. Then the officer advanced with the word. + +Back again, then, along the road, past the youthful sentry, past other +sentries, winding through the barbed-wire barricade, and at last, +quite whole, to the House of the Barrier again. We had walked three +miles in front of the Belgian advanced trenches, in full view of the +Germans. There had been no protecting hedge or bank or tree between us +and that ominous line two hundred yards across. And nothing whatever +had happened. + +Captain F---- was indignant. The officers in the House of the Barrier +held up their hands. For men such a risk was legitimate, necessary. In +a woman it was foolhardy. Nevertheless, now that it was safely over, +they were keenly interested and rather amused. But I have learned that +the gallant captain and the officer with him had arranged, in case +shooting began, to jump into the water, and by splashing about draw +the fire in their direction! + +We went back to the automobile, a long walk over the shell-eaten roads +in the teeth of a biting wind. But a glow of exultation kept me warm. +I had been to the front. I had been far beyond the front, indeed, and +I had seen such a picture of war and its desolation there in the +centre of No Man's Land as perhaps no one not connected with an army +had seen before; such a picture as would live in my mind forever. + +I visited other advanced trenches that night as we followed the +Belgian lines slowly northward toward Nieuport. + +Save the varying conditions of discomfort, they were all similar. +Always they were behind the railroad embankment. Always they were +dirty and cold. Frequently they were full of mud and water. To reach +them one waded through swamps and pools. Just beyond them there was +always the moonlit stretch of water, now narrow, now wide. + +I was to see other trenches later on, French and English. But only +along the inundation was there that curious combination of beauty and +hideousness, of rippling water with the moonlight across it in a +silver path, and in that water things that had been men. + +In one place a cow and a pig were standing on ground a little bit +raised. They had been there for weeks between the two armies. Neither +side would shoot them, in the hope of some time obtaining them for +food. + +They looked peaceful, rather absurd. + +Now so near that one felt like whispering, and now a quarter of a mile +away, were the German trenches. We moved under their _fusées_, passing +destroyed towns where shell holes have become vast graves. + +One such town was most impressive. It had been a very beautiful town, +rather larger than the others. At the foot of the main street ran the +railroad embankment and the line of trenches. There was not a house +left. + +It had been, but a day or two before, the scene of a street fight, +when the Germans, swarming across the inundation, had captured the +trenches at the railroad and got into the town itself. + +At the intersection of two streets, in a shell hole, twenty bodies had +been thrown for burial. But that was not novel or new. Shell-hole +graves and destroyed houses were nothing. The thing I shall never +forget is the cemetery round the great church. + +Continental cemeteries are always crowded. They are old, and graves +almost touch one another. The crosses which mark them stand like rows +of men in close formation. + +This cemetery had been shelled. There was not a cross in place; they +lay flung about in every grotesque position. The quiet God's Acre had +become a hell. Graves were uncovered; the dust of centuries exposed. +In one the cross had been lifted up by an explosion and had settled +back again upside down, so that the Christ was inverted. + +It was curious to stand in that chaos of destruction, that ribald +havoc, that desecration of all we think of as sacred, and see, +stretched from one broken tombstone to another, the telephone wires +that connect the trenches at the foot of the street with headquarters +and with the "château." + +Ninety-six German soldiers had been buried in one shell hole in that +cemetery. Close beside it there was another, a great gaping wound in +the earth, half full of water from the evening's rain. + +An officer beside me looked down into it. + +"See," he said, "they dig their own graves!" + +It was almost morning. The automobile left the pathetic ruin of the +town and turned back toward the "château." There was no talking; a +sort of heaviness of spirit lay on us all. The officers were seeing +again the destruction of their country through my shocked eyes. We +were tired and cold, and I was heartsick. + +A long drive through the dawn, and then the "château." + +The officers were still up, waiting. They had prepared, against our +arrival, sandwiches and hot drinks. + +The American typewriters in the next room clicked and rattled. At the +telephone board messages were coming in from the very places we had +just left--from the instrument at the major's elbow as he lay in his +trench beside the House of the Barrier; from the priest who had left +his cell and become a soldier; from that desecrated and ruined +graveyard with its gaping shell holes that waited, open-mouthed, +for--what? + +When we had eaten, Captain F---- rose and made a little speech. It was +simply done, in the words of a soldier and a patriot speaking out of a +full heart. + +"You have seen to-night a part of what is happening to our country," +he said. "You have seen what the invading hosts of Germany have made +us suffer. But you have seen more than that. You have seen that the +Belgian Army still exists; that it is still fighting and will continue +to fight. The men in those trenches fought at Liège, at Louvain, at +Antwerp, at the Yser. They will fight as long as there is a drop of +Belgian blood to shed. + +"Beyond the enemy's trenches lies our country, devastated; our +national life destroyed; our people under the iron heel of Germany. +But Belgium lives. Tell America, tell the world, that destroyed, +injured as she is, Belgium lives and will rise again, greater than +before!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +"WIPERS" + + +FROM MY JOURNAL: + +An aëroplane man at the next table starts to-night on a dangerous +scouting expedition over the German lines. In case he does not return +he has given a letter for his mother to Captain T----. + +It now appears quite certain that I am to be sent along the French and +English lines. I shall be the first correspondent, I am told, to see +the British front, as "Eyewitness," who writes for the English papers, +is supposed to be a British officer. + +I have had word also that I am to see Mr. Winston Churchill, the First +Lord of the British Admiralty. But to-day I am going to Ypres. The +Tommies call it "Wipers." + + * * * * * + +Before I went abroad I had two ambitions among others: One was to be +able to pronounce Ypres; the other was to bring home and exhibit to my +admiring friends the pronunciation of Przemysl. To a moderate extent I +have succeeded with the first. I have discovered that the second one +must be born to. + +Two or three towns have stood out as conspicuous points of activity in +the western field. Ypres is one of these towns. Day by day it figures +in the reports from the front. The French are there, and just to the +east the English line commences.[D] The line of trenches lies beyond +the town, forming a semicircle round it. + +[Footnote D: Written in May, 1915.] + +A few days later I saw this semicircle, the flat and muddy battlefield +of Ypres. But on this visit I was to see only the town, which, +although completely destroyed, was still being shelled. + +The curve round the town gave the invading army a great advantage in +its destruction. It enabled them to shell it from three directions, so +that it was raked by cross fire. For that reason the town of Ypres +presents one of the most hideous pictures of desolation of the present +war. + +General M---- had agreed to take me to Ypres. But as he was a Belgian +general, and the town of Ypres is held by the French, it was a part of +the etiquette of war that we should secure the escort of a French +officer at the town of Poperinghe. + +For war has its etiquette, and of a most exacting kind. And yet in the +end it simplifies things. It is to war what rules are to +bridge--something to lead by! Frequently I was armed with passes to +visit, for instance, certain batteries. My escort was generally a +member of the Headquarters' Staff of that particular army. But it was +always necessary to visit first the officer in command of that +battery, who in his turn either accompanied us to the battlefield or +deputised one of his own staff. The result was an imposing number of +uniforms of various sorts, and the conviction, as I learned, among the +gunners that some visiting royalty was on an excursion to the front! + +It was a cold winter day in February, a grey day with a fine snow that +melted as soon as it touched the ground. Inside the car we were +swathed in rugs. The chauffeur slapped his hands at every break in the +journey, and sentries along the road hugged such shelter as they could +find. + +As we left Poperinghe the French officer, Commandant D----, pointed to +a file of men plodding wearily through the mud. + +"The heroes of last night's attack," he said. "They are very tired, as +you see." + +We stopped the car and let the men file past. They did not look like +heroes; they looked tired and dirty and depressed. Although our +automobile generally attracted much attention, scarcely a man lifted +his head to glance at us. They went on drearily through the mud under +the pelting sleet, drooping from fatigue and evidently suffering from +keen reaction after the excitement of the night before. + +I have heard the French soldier criticised for this reaction. It may +certainly be forgiven him, in view of his splendid bravery. But part +of the criticism is doubtless justified. The English Tommy fights as +he does everything else. There is a certain sporting element in what +he does. He puts into his fighting the same fairness he puts into +sport, and it is a point of honour with him to keep cool. The English +gunner will admire the enemy's marksmanship while he is ducking a +shell. + +The French soldier, on the other hand, fights under keen excitement. +He is temperamental, imaginative; as he fights he remembers all the +bitterness of the past, its wrongs, its cruelties. He sees blood. +There is nothing that will hold him back. The result has made history, +is making history to-day. + +But he has the reaction of his temperament. Who shall say he is not +entitled to it? + +Something of this I mentioned to Monsieur le Commandant as the line +filed past. + +"It is because it is fighting that gets nowhere," he replied. "If our +men, after such an attack, could advance, could do anything but crawl +back into holes full of water and mud, you would see them gay and +smiling to-day." + +After a time I discovered that the same situation holds to a certain +extent in all the armies. If his fighting gets him anywhere the +soldier is content. The line has made a gain. What matter wet +trenches, discomfort, freezing cold? The line has made a gain. It is +lack of movement that sends their spirits down, the fearful boredom of +the trenches, varied only by the dropping shells, so that they term +themselves, ironically, "Cannon food." + +We left the victorious company behind, making their way toward +whatever church bedded down with straw, or coach-house or drafty barn +was to house them for their rest period. + +"They have been fighting waist-deep in water," said the Commandant, +"and last night was cold. The British soldier rubs his body with oil +and grease before he dresses for the trenches. I hope that before long +our men may do this also. It is a great protection." + +I have in front of me now a German soldier's fatigue cap, taken by one +of those men from a dead soldier who lay in front of the trench. + +It is a pathetic cap, still bearing the crease which showed how he +folded it to thrust it into his pocket. When his helmet irked him in +the trenches he was allowed to take it <off and put this on. He +belonged to Bavarian Regiment Number Fifteen, and the cap was given +him in October, 1914. There is a blood-stain on one side of it. Also +it is spotted with mud inside and out. It is a pathetic little cap, +because when its owner died, that night before, a thousand other +Germans died with him, died to gain a trench two hundred yards from +their own line, a trench to capture which would have gained them +little but glory, and which, since they failed, lost them everything, +even life itself. + +We were out of the town by this time, and started on the road to +Ypres. Between Poperinghe and Ypres were numerous small villages with +narrow, twisting streets. They were filled with soldiers at rest, with +tethered horses being re-shod by army blacksmiths, with small fires in +sheltered corners on which an anxious cook had balanced a kettle. + +In each town a proclamation had been nailed to a wall and the +townspeople stood about it, gaping. + +"An inoculation proclamation," explained the Commandant. "There is +typhoid here, so the civilians are to be inoculated. They are very +much excited about it. It appears to them worse than a bombardment." + +We passed a file of Spahis, native Algerians who speak Arabic. They +come from Tunis and Algeria, and, as may be imagined, they were +suffering bitterly from the cold. + +They peered at us with bright, black eyes from the encircling folds of +the great cloaks with pointed hoods which they had drawn closely about +them. They have French officers and interpreters, and during the +spring fighting they probably proved very valuable. During the winter +they gave me the impression of being out of place and rather forlorn. +Like the Indian troops with the British, they were fighting a new +warfare. For gallant charges over dry desert sands had been +substituted mud and mist and bitter cold, and the stagnation of +armies. + +Terrible tales have been told of the ferocity of these Arabs, and of +the Turcos also. I am inclined to think they are exaggerated. But +certainly, met with on a lonely road, these long files of men in their +quaint costumes moving silently along with heads lowered against the +wind were sombre, impressive and rather alarming. + +The car, going furiously, skidded, was pulled sharply round and +righted itself. The conversation went on. No one appeared to notice +that we had been on the edge of eternity, and it was not for me to +mention it. But I made a jerky entry in my notebook: + +"Very casual here about human life. Enlarge on this." + +The general, who was a Belgian, continued his complaint. It was about +the Belgian absentee tax. + +The Germans now in control in Belgium had imposed an absentee tax of +ten times the normal on all Belgians who had left the country and did +not return by the fifteenth of March. The general snorted his rage and +disgust. + +"But," I said innocently, "I should think it would make very little +difference to you. You are not there, so of course you cannot pay it." + +"Not there!" he said. "Of course I am not there. But everything I own +in the world is there, except this uniform that I have on my back." + +"They would confiscate it?" I asked. "Not the uniform, of course; I +mean your property." + +He broke into a torrent of rapid French. I felt quite sure that he was +saying that they would confiscate it; that they would annihilate it, +reduce it to its atomic constituents; take it, acres and buildings and +shade trees and vegetable garden, back to Germany. But as his French +was of the ninety horse-power variety and mine travels afoot, like +Bayard Taylor, and limps at that, I never caught up with him. + +Later on, in a calmer moment, I had the thing explained to me. + +It appears that the Germans have instituted a tax on all the Belgian +refugees of ten times the normal tax; the purpose being to bring back +into Belgium such refugees as wish to save the remnants of their +property. This will mean bringing back people of the better class who +have property to save. It will mean to the far-seeing German mind a +return of the better class of Belgians to reorganise things, to put +that prostrate country on its feet again, to get the poorer classes to +work, to make it self-supporting. + +"The real purpose, of course," said my informant, "is so that American +sympathy, now so potent, will cease for both refugees and interned +Belgians. If the factories start, and there is work for them, and the +refugees still refuse to return, you can see what it means." + +He may be right; I do not think so. I believe that at this moment +Germany regards Belgium as a new but integral part of the German +Empire, and that she wishes to see this new waste land of hers +productive. Assuredly Germany has made a serious effort to reorganise +and open again some of the great Belgian factories that are now idle. + +In one instance that I know of a manufacturer was offered a large +guarantee to come back and put his factory into operation again. He +refused, although he knew that it spelled ruin. The Germans, unable +themselves at this time to put skilled labour in his mill, sent its +great machines by railroad back into Germany. I have been told that +this has happened in a number of instances. Certainly it sounds +entirely probable. + +The factory owner in question is in America at the time I am writing +this, obtaining credit and new machines against the time of the +retirement of the German Army. + +From the tax the conversation went on to the finances of Belgium. I +learned that the British Government, through the Bank of England, is +guaranteeing the payment of the Belgian war indemnity to Germany! The +war indemnity is over nineteen million pounds, or approximately +ninety-six millions of dollars. Of this the Belgian authorities are +instructed to pay over nine million dollars each month. + +The Société Générale de Belgique has been obliged by the German +Government to accept the power of issuing notes, on a strict +understanding that it must guarantee the note issue on the gold +reserve and foreign bill book, which is at present deposited in the +Bank of England at London. If the Société Générale de Belgique had not +done so, all notes of the Bank of Belgium would have been declared +valueless by Germany. + +A very prominent Englishman, married to a Belgian lady, told me a +story about this gold reserve which is amusing enough to repeat, and +which has a certain appearance of truth. + +When the Germans took possession of Brussels, he said, their first +move was to send certain officers to the great Brussels Bank, in whose +vaults the gold reserve was kept. The word had been sent ahead that +they were coming, and demanding that certain high officials of the +bank were to be present. + +The officials went to the bank, and the German officers presented +themselves promptly. + +The conversation was brief. + +"Take us to the vaults," said one of the German officers. + +"To the vaults?" said the principal official of the bank. + +"To the vaults," was the curt reply. + +"I am not the vault keeper. We shall have to send for him." + +The bank official was most courteous, quite bland, indeed. The officer +scowled, but there was nothing to do but wait. + +The vault keeper was sent for. It took some time to find him. + +The bank official commented on the weather, which was, he considered, +extremely warm. + +At last the vault keeper came. He was quite breathless. But it seemed +that, not knowing why he came, he had neglected to bring his keys. The +bank official regretted the delay. The officers stamped about. + +"It looks like a shower," said the bank official. "Later in the day it +may be cooler." + +The officers muttered among themselves. + +It took the vault keeper a long time to get his keys and return, but +at last he arrived. They went down and down, through innumerable doors +that must be unlocked before them, through gratings and more steel +doors. And at last they stood in the vaults. + +The German officers stared about and then turned to the Belgian +official. + +"The gold!" they said furiously. "Where is the gold?" + +"The gold!" said the official, much surprised. "You wished to see the +gold? I am sorry. You asked for the vaults and I have shown you the +vaults. The gold, of course, is in England." + +We sped on, the same flat country, the same grey fields, the same +files of soldiers moving across those fields toward distant billets, +the same transports and ambulances, and over all the same colourless +sky. + +Not very long ago some inquiring British scientist discovered that on +foggy days in London the efficiency of the average clerk was cut down +about fifty per cent. One begins to wonder how much of this winter +_impasse_ is due to the weather, and what the bright and active days +of early spring will bring. Certainly the weather that day weighed on +me. It was easier to look out through the window of the car than to +get out and investigate. The penetrating cold dulled our spirits. + +A great lorry had gone into the mud at the side of the road and was +being dug out. A horse neatly disembowelled lay on its back in the +road, its four stark legs pointed upward. + +"They have been firing at a German _Taube_," said the Commandant, "and +naturally what goes up must come down." + +On the way back we saw the same horse. It was dark by that time, and +some peasants had gathered round the carcass with a lantern. The hide +had been cut away and lay at one side, and the peasants were carving +the animal into steaks and roasts. For once fate had been good to +them. They would dine that night. + +Everywhere here and there along the road we had passed the small sheds +that sentries built to protect themselves against the wind, little +huts the size of an American patrol box, built of the branches of +trees and thatched all about with straw. + +Now we passed one larger than the others, a shed with the roof +thatched and the sides plastered with mud to keep out the cold. + +The Commandant halted the car. There was one bare little room with a +wooden bench and a door. The bench and the door had just played their +part in a tragedy. + +I have been asked again and again whether it is true that on both +sides of the line disheartened soldiers have committed suicide during +this long winter of waiting. I have always replied that I do not know. +On the Allied side it is thought that many Germans have done so; I +daresay the Germans make the same contention. This one instance is +perfectly true. But it was the result of an accident, not of +discouragement. + +The sentry was alone in his hut, and he was cleaning his gun. For a +certain length of time he would be alone. In some way the gun exploded +and blew off his right hand. There was no one to call on for help. He +waited quite a while. It was night. Nobody came; he was suffering +frightfully. + +Perhaps, sitting there alone, he tried to think out what life would be +without a right hand. In the end he decided that it was not worth +while. But he could not pull the trigger of his gun with his left +hand. He tried it and failed. So at last he tied a stout cord to the +trigger, fastened the end of it to the door, and sitting on the bench +kicked the door to. They had just taken him away. + +Just back of Ypres there is a group of buildings that had been a great +lunatic asylum. It is now a hospital for civilians, although it is +partially destroyed. + +"During the evacuation of the town," said the Commandant, "it was +decided that the inmates must be taken out. The asylum had been hit +once and shells were falling in every direction. So the nuns dressed +their patients and started to march them back along the route to the +nearest town. Shells were falling all about them; the nuns tried to +hurry them, but as each shell fell or exploded close at hand the +lunatics cheered and clapped their hands. They could hardly get them +away at all; they wanted to stay and see the excitement." + +That is a picture, if you like. It was a very large asylum, containing +hundreds of patients. The nuns could not hurry them. They stood in the +roads, faces upturned to the sky, where death was whining its shrill +cry overhead. When a shell dropped into the road, or into the familiar +fields about them, tearing great holes, flinging earth and rocks in +every direction, they cheered. They blocked the roads, so that gunners +with badly needed guns could not get by. And behind and all round them +the nuns urged them on in vain. Some of them were killed, I believe. +All about great holes in fields and road tell the story of the hell +that beat about them. + +Here behind the town one sees fields of graves marked each with a +simple wooden cross. Here and there a soldier's cap has been nailed to +the cross. + +The officers told me that in various places the French peasants had +placed the dead soldier's number and identifying data in a bottle and +placed it on the grave. But I did not see this myself. + +Unlike American towns, there is no gradual approach to these cities of +Northern France; no straggling line of suburbs. Many of them were laid +out at a time when walled cities rose from the plain, and although the +walls are gone the tradition of compactness for protection still holds +good. So one moment we were riding through the shell-holed fields of +Northern France and the next we were in the city of Ypres. + +At the time of my visit few civilians had seen the city of Ypres since +its destruction. I am not sure that any had been there. I have seen no +description of it, and I have been asked frequently if it is really +true that the beautiful Cloth Hall is gone--that most famous of all +the famous buildings of Flanders. + +Ypres! + +What a tragedy! Not a city now; hardly a skeleton of a city. Rumour is +correct, for the wonderful Cloth Hall is gone. There is a fragment +left of the façade, but no repairing can ever restore it. It must all +come down. Indeed, any storm may finish its destruction. The massive +square belfry, two hundred and thirty feet high and topped by its four +turrets, is a shell swaying in every gust of wind. + +The inimitable arcade at the end is quite gone. Nothing indeed is left +of either the Cloth Hall, which, built in the year 1200, was the most +remarkable edifice of Belgium, or of the Cathedral behind it, erected +in 1300 to succeed an earlier edifice. General M---- stood by me as I +stared at the ruins of these two great buildings. Something of the +tragedy of Belgium was in his face. + +"We were very proud of it," he said. "If we started now to build +another it would take more than seven hundred years to give it +history." + +There were shells overhead. But they passed harmlessly, falling either +into the open country or into distant parts of the town. We paid no +attention to them, but my curiosity was roused. + +"It seems absurd to continue shelling the town," I said. "There is +nothing left." + +Then and there I had a lesson in the new warfare. Bombardment of the +country behind the enemy's trenches is not necessarily to destroy +towns. Its strategical purpose, I was told, is to cut off +communications, to prevent, if possible, the bringing up of reserve +troops and transport wagons, to destroy ammunition trains. I was new +to war, with everything to learn. This perfectly practical explanation +had not occurred to me. + +"But how do they know when an ammunition train is coming?" I asked. + +"There are different methods. Spies, of course, always. And aëroplanes +also." + +"But an ammunition train moves." + +It was necessary then to explain the various methods by which +aëroplanes signal, giving ranges and locations. I have seen since that +time the charts carried by aviators and airship crews, in which every +hedge, every ditch, every small detail of the landscape is carefully +marked. In the maps I have seen the region is divided into lettered +squares, each square made up of four small squares, numbered. Thus B 3 +means the third block of the B division, and so on. By wireless or in +other ways the message is sent to the batteries, and B 3, along which +an ammunition train is moving, suddenly finds itself under fire. Thus +ended the second lesson! + +An ammunition train, having safely escaped B 3 and all the other +terrors that are spread for such as it, rumbled by, going through the +Square. The very vibration of its wheels as they rattled along the +street set parts of the old building to shaking. Stones fell. It was +not safe to stand near the belfry. + +Up to this time I had found a certain philosophy among the French and +Belgian officers as to the destruction of their towns. Not of Louvain, +of course, or those earlier towns destroyed during the German +invasion, but of the bombardment which is taking place now along the +battle line. But here I encountered furious resentment. + +There is nothing whatever left of the city for several blocks in each +direction round the Cloth Hall. At the time it was destroyed the army +of the Allies was five miles in advance of the town. The shells went +over their heads for days, weeks. + +So accurate is modern gunnery that given a chart of a city the gunner +can drop a shell within a few yards of any desired spot. The Germans +had a chart of Ypres. They might have saved the Cloth Hall, as they +did save the Cathedral at Antwerp. But they were furious with thwarted +ambition--the onward drive had been checked. Instead of attempting to +save the Cloth Hall they focussed all their fire on it. There was +nothing to gain by this wanton destruction. + +It is a little difficult in America, where great structures are a +matter of steel and stone erected in a year or so, to understand what +its wonderful old buildings meant to Flanders. In a way they typified +its history, certainly its art. The American likes to have his art in +his home; he buys great paintings and puts them on the walls. He +covers his floors with the entire art of a nomadic people. But on the +Continent the method is different. They have built their art into +their buildings; their great paintings are in churches or in +structures like the Cloth Hall. Their homes are comparatively +unadorned, purely places for living. All that they prize they have +stored, open to the world, in their historic buildings. It is for that +reason that the destruction of the Cloth Hall of Ypres is a matter of +personal resentment to each individual of the nation to which it +belonged. So I watched the faces of the two officers with me. There +could be no question as to their attitude. It was a personal loss they +had suffered. The loss of their homes they had accepted stoically. But +this was much more. It was the loss of their art, their history, their +tradition. And it could not be replaced. + +The firing was steady, unemotional. + +As the wind died down we ventured into the ruins of the Cloth Hall +itself. The roof is gone, of course. The building took fire from the +bombardment, and what the shells did not destroy the fire did. Melted +lead from ancient gutters hung in stalactites. In one place a wall was +still standing, with a bit of its mural decoration. I picked up a bit +of fallen gargoyle from under the fallen tower and brought it away. It +is before me now. + +It is seven hundred and fifteen years since that gargoyle was lifted +into its place. The Crusades were going on about that time; the robber +barons were sallying out onto the plains on their raiding excursions. +The Norman Conquest had taken place. From this very town of Ypres had +gone across the Channel "workmen and artisans to build churches and +feudal castles, weavers and workers of many crafts." + +In those days the Yperlée, a small river, ran open through the town. +But for many generations it has been roofed over and run under the +public square. + +It was curious to stand on the edge of a great shell hole and look +down at the little river, now uncovered to the light of day for the +first time in who knows how long. + +In all that chaos, with hardly a wall intact, at the corner of what +was once the cathedral, stood a heroic marble figure of Burgomaster +Vandenpeereboom. It was quite untouched and as placid as the little +river, a benevolent figure rising from the ruins of war. + +"They have come like a pestilence," said the General. "When they go +they will leave nothing. What they will do is written in what they +have done." + +Monsieur le Commandant had disappeared. Now he returned triumphant, +carrying a great bundle in both arms. + +"I have been to what was the house of a relative," he explained. "He +has told me that in the cellar I would find these. They will interest +you." + +"These" proved to be five framed photographs of the great paintings +that had decorated the walls of the great Cloth Hall. Although they +had been hidden in a cellar, fragments of shell had broken and torn +them. But it was still possible to gain from them a faint idea of the +interior beauty of the old building before its destruction. + +I examined them there in the public square, with a shell every now and +then screeching above but falling harmlessly far away. + +A priest joined us. He told pathetically of watching the destruction +of the Arcade, of seeing one arch after another go down until there +was nothing left. + +"They ate it," said the priest graphically. "A bite at a time." + +We walked through the town. One street after another opened up its +perspective of destruction. The strange antics that shell fire plays +had left doors and lintels standing without buildings, had left intact +here and there pieces of furniture. There was an occasional picture on +an exposed wall; iron street lamps had been twisted into travesties; +whole panes of glass remained in façades behind which the buildings +were gone. A part of the wooden scaffolding by which repairs were +being made to the old tower of the Cloth Hall hung there uninjured by +either flame or shell. + +On one street all the trees had been cut off as if by one shell, about +ten feet above the ground, but in another, where nothing whatever +remained but piles of stone and mortar, a great elm had apparently not +lost a single branch. + +Much has been written about the desolation of these towns. To get a +picture of it one must realise the solidity with which even the +private houses are built. They are stone, or if not, the walls are of +massive brick coated with plaster. There are no frame buildings; wood +is too expensive for that purpose. It is only in prodigal America that +we can use wood. + +So the destruction of a town there means the destruction of buildings +that have stood for centuries, and would in the normal course of +events have stood for centuries more. + +A few civilians had crept back into the town. As in other places, they +had come back because they had no place else to go. At any time a +shell might destroy the fragment of the building in which they were +trying to reëstablish themselves. There were no shops open, because +there were no shops to open. Supplies had to be brought from long +distances. As all the horses and automobiles had been commandeered by +the government, they had no way to get anything. Their situation was +pitiable, tragic. And over them was the daily, hourly fear that the +German Army would concentrate for its onward drive at some near-by +point. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +LADY DECIES' STORY + + +It was growing dark; the chauffeur was preparing to light the lamps of +the car. Shells were fewer. With the approach of night the activity +behind the lines increased; more ammunition trains made their way over +the débris; regiments prepared for the trenches marched through the +square on their way to the front. + +They were laden, as usual, with extra food and jars of water. Almost +every man had an additional loaf of bread strapped to the knapsack at +his back. They were laughing and talking among themselves, for they +had had a sleep and hot food; for the time at least they were dry and +fed and warm. + +On the way out of the town we passed a small restaurant, one of a row +of houses. It was the only undestroyed building I saw in Ypres. + +"It is the only house," said the General, "where the inhabitants +remained during the entire bombardment. They made coffee for the +soldiers and served meals to officers. Shells hit the pavement and +broke the windows; but the house itself is intact. It is +extraordinary." + +We stopped at the one-time lunatic asylum on our way back. It had been +converted into a hospital for injured civilians, and its long wards +were full of women and children. An English doctor was in charge. + +Some of the buildings had been destroyed, but in the main it had +escaped serious injury. By a curious fatality that seems to have +followed the chapels and churches of Flanders, the chapel was the only +part that was entirely gone. One great shell struck it while it was +housing soldiers, as usual, and all of them were killed. As an example +of the work of one shell the destruction of that building was +enormous. There was little or nothing left. + +"The shell was four feet high," said the Doctor, and presented me with +the nose of it. + +"You may get more at any moment," I said. + +He shrugged his shoulders. "What must be, must be," he said quietly. + +When the bombardment was at its height, he said, they took their +patients to the cellar and continued operating there. They had only a +candle or two. But it was impossible to stop, for the wards were full +of injured women and children. + +I walked through some of the wards. It was the first time I had seen +together so many of the innocent victims of this war--children blind +and forever cut off from the light of day, little girls with arms +gone, women who will never walk again. + +It was twilight. Here and there a candle gleamed, for any bright +illumination was considered unwise. + +What must they think as they lie there during the long dark hours +between twilight and the late winter morning? Like the sentry, many of +them must wonder if it is worth while. These are people, most of them, +who have lived by their labour. What will they do when the war is +over, or when, having made such recovery as they may, the hospital +opens its doors and must perforce turn them out on the very threshold +of war? + +And yet they cling to life. I met a man who crossed the Channel--I +believe it was from Flushing--with the first lot of hopelessly wounded +English prisoners who had been sent home to England from Germany in +exchange for as many wrecked and battered Germans on their way back to +the Fatherland. + +One young boy was all eagerness. His home was on the cliff above the +harbour which was their destination. He alternately wept and cheered. + +"They'll be glad enough to see me, all right," he said. "It's six +months since they heard from me. More than likely they think I'm lying +over there with some of the other chaps." + +He was in a wheeled chair. In his excitement the steamer rug slipped +down. Both his legs were gone above the knees! + +Our hands were full. The General had picked up a horseshoe on the +street at Ypres and given it to me to bring me luck; the Commandant +had the framed pictures. The General carried the gargoyle wrapped in a +newspaper. I had the nose of the shell. + +We walked through the courtyard, with its broken fountain and cracked +walks, out to the machine. The password for the night was "Écosse," +which means "Scotland." The General gave the word to the orderly and +we went on again toward Poperinghe, where we were to have coffee. + +The firing behind us had ceased. Possibly the German gunners were +having coffee also. We went at our usual headlong speed through almost +empty roads. Now and then a lantern waved. We checked our headlong +speed to give the password, and on again. More lanterns; more +challenges. + +Since we passed, a few hours before, another car had been wrecked by +the road. One sees these cars everywhere, lying on their sides, turned +turtle in ditches, bent and twisted against trees. No one seems to be +hurt in these accidents; at least one hears nothing of them, if they +are. And now we were back at Poperinghe again. + +The Commandant had his headquarters in the house of a notary. Except +in one instance, all the houses occupied by the headquarters' staffs +that I visited were the houses of notaries. Perhaps the notary is the +important man of a French town. I do not know. + +This was a double house with a centre hall, a house of some pretension +in many ways. But it had only one lamp. When we went from one room to +another we took the lamp with us. It was not even a handsome lamp. In +that very comfortable house it was one of the many anomalies of war. + +One or two of the best things from the museum at Ypres had been +secured and brought back here. On a centre table was a bronze +equestrian statue in miniature of a Crusader, a beautiful piece of +work. + +While we were waiting for coffee the Commandant opened the lower +drawer of a secretary and took out a letter. + +"This may interest Madame," he said. "I have just received it. It is +from General Leman, the hero of Liège." + +He held it close to the lamp and read it. I have the envelope before +me now. It is addressed in lead pencil and indorsed as coming from +General Leman, Prisoner of War at Magdeburg, Germany. + +The letter was a soldier's simple letter, written to a friend. I wish +I had made a copy of it; but I remember in effect what it said. +Clearly the hero of Liège has no idea that he is a hero. He said he +had a good German doctor, but that he had been very ill. It is known, +of course, that his foot was injured during the destruction of one of +the fortresses just before he was captured. + +"I have a very good German doctor," he wrote. "But my foot gives me a +great deal of trouble. Gangrene set in and part of it had to be +amputated. The wound refuses to heal, and in addition my heart is +bad." + +He goes on to ask for his family, for news of them, especially of his +daughter. I saw this letter in March. He had been taken a prisoner the +previous August. He had then been seven or eight months without news +of his family. + +"I am no longer young," he wrote in effect, for I am not quoting him +exactly, "and I hope my friends will not forget me, in case of an +exchange of prisoners." + +He will never be forgotten. But of course he does not realise that. He +is sixty-four and very ill. One read through all the restraint of the +letter his longing to die among his own people. He hopes he will not +be forgotten in an exchange of prisoners! + +The Commandant's orderly announced that coffee was served, and we +followed the lamp across the hall. An English officer made a fourth at +the table. + +It was good coffee, served with cream, the first I had seen for weeks. +With it the Commandant served small, very thin cakes, with a layer of +honey in the centre. "A specialty of the country," he said. + +We talked of many things: of the attitude of America toward the war, +her incredulity as to atrocities, the German propaganda, and a rumour +that had reached the front of a German-Irish coalition in the House of +Representatives at Washington. + +From that the talk drifted to uniforms. The Commandant wished that the +new French uniforms, instead of being a slaty blue, had been green, +for use in the spring fighting. + +I criticised the new Belgian uniform, which seemed to me much thinner +than the old. + +"That is wrong. It is of excellent cloth," said the General, and +brought his cape up under the lamp for examination. + +The uniforms of three armies were at the table--the French, the +Belgian and the English. It was possible to compare them under the +light of a single lamp. + +The General's cloak, in spite of my criticism, was the heaviest of the +three. But all of them seemed excellent. The material was like felt in +body, but much softer. + +All of the officers were united in thinking khaki an excellent +all-round colour. + +"The Turcos have been put into khaki," said the Commandant. "They +disliked it at first; but their other costumes were too conspicuous. +Now they are satisfied." + +The Englishman offered the statement that England was supplying all of +the Allies, including Russia, with cloth. + +Sitting round the table under the lamp, the Commandant read a postcard +taken from the body of a dead German in the attack the night before. +There was a photograph with it, autographed. The photograph was of the +woman who had written the card. It began "Beloved Otto," and was +signed "Your loving wife, Hedwig." + +This is the postcard: + + "_Beloved Otto_: To-day your dear cards came, so full of anxiety + for us. So that now at last I know that you have received my + letters. I was convinced you had not. We have sent you so many + packages of things you may need. Have you got any of them? To-day I + have sent you my photograph. I wished to send a letter also instead + of this card, but I have no writing paper. All week I have been + busy with the children's clothing. We think of you always, dear + Otto. Write to us often. Greetings from your Hedwig and the + children." + +So she was making clothing for the children and sending him little +packages. And Otto lay dead under the stars that night--dead of an +ideal, which is that a man must leave his family and all that he loves +and follow the beckoning finger of empire. + +"For king and country!" + +The Commandant said that when a German soldier surrenders he throws +down his gun, takes off his helmet and jerks off his shoulder straps, +saying over and over, "_Pater familias_." Sometimes, by way of +emphasising that he is a family man, he holds up his fingers--two +children or three children, whatever it may be. Even boys in their +teens will claim huge families. + +I did not find it amusing after the postcard and the photograph. I +found it all very tragic and sad and disheartening. + +It was growing late and the General was impatient to be off. We had +still a long journey ahead of us, and riding at night was not +particularly safe. + +I got into the car and they bundled in after me the damaged pictures, +the horseshoe, the piece of gargoyle from the Cloth Hall and the nose +of the shell. + +The orderly reported that a Zeppelin had just passed overhead; but the +General shrugged his shoulders. + +"They are always seeing Zeppelins," he said. "Me, I do not believe +there is such a thing!" + + * * * * * + +That night in my hotel, after dinner, Gertrude, Lady Decies, told me +the following story: + +"I had only twelve hours' notice to start for the front. I am not a +hospital nurse, but I have taken for several years three months each +summer of special training. So I felt that I would be useful if I +could get over. + +"It was November and very cold. When I got to Calais there was not a +room to be had anywhere. But at the Hotel Centrale they told me I +might have a bathroom to sleep in. + +"At the last moment a gentleman volunteered to exchange with me. But +the next day he left, so that night I slept in a bathtub with a +mattress in it! + +"The following day I got a train for Dunkirk. On the way the train was +wrecked. Several coaches left the track, and there was nothing to do +but to wait until they were put back on. + +"I went to the British Consul at Dunkirk and asked him where I could +be most useful. He said to go to the railroad station at once. + +"I went to the station. The situation there was horrible. Three +doctors and seven dressers were working on four-hour shifts. + +"As the wounded came in only at night, that was when we were needed. I +worked all night from that time on. My first night we had eleven +hundred men. Some of them were dead when they were lifted out onto the +stone floor of the station shed. One boy flung himself out of the +door. I caught him as he fell and he died in my arms. He had +diphtheria, as well as being wounded. + +"The station was frightfully cold, and the men had to be laid on the +stone floors with just room for moving about between them. There was +no heat of any sort. The dead were laid in rows, one on top of +another, on cattle trucks. As fast as a man died they took his body +away and brought in another wounded man. + +"Every now and then the electric lights would go out and leave us +there in black darkness. Finally we got candles and lamps for +emergencies. + +"We had no surgical dressings, but we had some iodine. The odours were +fearful. Some of the men had not had their clothes off for five weeks. +Their garments were like boards. It was almost impossible to cut +through them. And underneath they were coated with vermin. Their +bodies were black with them frequently. + +"In many cases the wounds were green through lack of attention. One +man, I remember, had fifteen. The first two nights I was there we had +no water, which made it terrible. There was a pump outside, but the +water was bad. At last we had a little stove set up, and I got some +kettles and jugs and boiled the water. + +"We were obliged to throw the bandages in a heap on the floor, and +night after night we walked about in blood. My clothing and stockings +were stained with blood to my knees. + +"After the first five nights I kept no record of the number of +wounded; but the first night we had eleven hundred; the second night, +nine hundred; the third night, seven hundred and fifty; the fourth +night, two thousand; the fifth night, fifteen hundred. + +"The men who were working at the station were English Quakers. They +were splendid men. I have never known more heroic work than they did, +and the curé was a splendid fellow. There was nothing too menial for +him to do. He was everywhere." + + * * * * * + +This is the story she told me that night, in her own words. I have not +revised it. Better than anything I know it tells of conditions as they +actually existed during the hard fighting of the first autumn of the +war, and as in the very nature of things they must exist again +whenever either side undertakes an offensive. + +It becomes a little wearying, sometimes, this constant cry of horrors, +the ever-recurring demands on America's pocketbook for supplies, for +dressings, for money to buy the thousands of things that are needed. + +Read Lady Decies' account again, and try to place your own son on that +stone floor on the station platform. Think of that wounded boy, +sitting for hours in a train, and choking to death with diphtheria. + +This is the thing we call war. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +RUNNING THE BLOCKADE + + +From my journal written during an attack of influenza at the Gare +Maritime in Calais: + +Last night I left England on the first boat to cross the Channel after +the blockade. I left London at midnight, with the usual formality of +being searched by Scotland Yard detectives. The train was empty and +very cold. + +"At half-past two in the morning we reached Folkestone. I was quite +alone, and as I stood shivering on the quay waiting to have my papers +examined a cold wind from the harbour and a thin spray of rain made +the situation wretched. At last I confronted the inspector, and was +told that under the new regulations I should have had my Red Cross +card viséed in Paris. It was given back to me with a shrug, but my +passport was stamped. + +"There were four men round the table. My papers and I were inspected +by each of the four in turn. At last I was through. But to my disgust +I found I was not to be allowed on the Calais boat. There was one +going to Boulogne and carrying passengers, but Calais was closed up +tight, except to troops and officers. + +"I looked at the Boulogne boat. It was well lighted and cheerful. +Those few people who had come down from London on the train were +already settling themselves for the crossing. They were on their way +to Paris and peace. + +"I did not want Paris and certainly I did not want peace. I had +telegraphed to Dunkirk and expected a military car to meet me at +Calais. Once across, I knew I could neither telegraph nor telephone to +Dunkirk, all lines of communication being closed to the public. I felt +that I might be going to be ill. I would not be ill in Boulogne. + +"At the end of the quay, dark and sinister, loomed the Calais boat. I +had one moment of indecision. Then I picked up my suitcase and started +toward it in the rain. Luckily the gangway was out. I boarded the boat +with as much assurance as I could muster, and was at once accosted by +the chief officer. + +"I produced my papers. Some of them were very impressive. There were +letters from the French Ambassador in London, Monsieur Cambon, to +leading French generals. There was a letter to Sir John French and +another letter expediting me through the customs, but unluckily the +customs at Boulogne. + +"They left him cold. I threw myself on his mercy. He apologised, but +continued firm. The Boulogne boat drew in its gangway. I mentioned +this, and that, so to speak, I had burned my Boulogne gangway behind +me. I said I had just had an interview with Mr. Winston Churchill, and +that I felt sure the First Lord of the Admiralty would not approve of +my standing there arguing when I was threatened with influenza. He +acted as though he had never heard of the First Lord. + +"At last he was called away. So I went into a deck cabin, and closed +and bolted the door. I remember that, and that I put a life preserver +over my feet, in case of a submarine, and my fur coat over the rest of +me, because of a chill. And that is all I do remember, until this +morning in a grey, rainy dawn I opened the door to find that we were +entering the harbour of Calais. If the officers of the boat were +surprised to see me emerge they concealed it. No doubt they knew that +with Calais under military law I could hardly slip through the fingers +of the police. + +"This morning I have a mild attack of what the English call 'flu.' I +am still at the hotel in Calais. I have breakfasted to the extent of +hot coffee, have taken three different kinds of influenza remedies, +and am now waiting and aching, but at least I am in France. + +"If the car from Dunkirk does not come for me to-day I shall be +deported to-night. + +"Two torpedo boats are coaling in the harbor. They have two large +white letters which answer for their names. One is the BE; the other +is the ER. As they lie side by side these tall white letters spell +B-E-E-R. + +"I have heard an amusing thing: that the English have built duplicates +of all their great battleships, building them of wood, guns and all, +over the hulls of other vessels; and that the Germans have done the +same thing! What would happen if one of the 'dummy' fleets met the +other? Would it be a battle of expletives? Would the German consonant +triumph over the English aspirate, and both ships go down in a sea of +language? + +"The idea is, of course, to delude submarines into the belief that +they are sinking battleships, while the real dreadnoughts are +somewhere else--pure strategy, but amusing, except for the crews of +these sham war flotillas." + + * * * * * + +The French Ambassador in London had given me letters to the various +generals commanding the divisions of the French Army. + +It was realised that America knew very little of what the French were +doing in this great war. We knew, of course, that they were holding a +tremendous battle line and that they were fighting bravely. Rumours we +had heard of the great destruction done by the French seventy-five +millimetre gun, and the names of numerous towns had become familiar to +us in print, even when we could not pronounce them. The Paris +omnibuses had gone to the front. Paris fashions were late in coming to +us, and showed a military trend. For the first time the average +American knew approximately where and what Alsace-Lorraine is, and +that Paris has forts as well as shops and hotels. + +But what else did we know of France and its part in the war? What does +America generally know of France, outside of Paris? Very little. Since +my return, almost the only question I have been asked about France is: +"Is Paris greatly changed?" + +Yet America owes much to her great sister republic; much encouragement +in the arts, in literature, in research. For France has always +extended a kindly hand and a splendid welcome to gifted and artistic +Americans. But her encouragement neither begins nor ends there. + +It was in France that American statesmen received the support that +enabled them to rear the new republic on strong and sturdy +foundations. It is curious to think of that France of Louis the +Sixteenth, with its every tradition opposed to the democracy for which +America was contending, sending the very flower of her chivalry to +assist the new republic. It is amazing to remember that when France +was in a deplorable condition financially it was yet found possible to +lend America six million dollars, and to exempt us from the payment of +interest for a year. + +And the friendship of France was of the people, not alone of the king, +for it survived the downfall of the monarchy and the rise of the +French Republic. When Benjamin Franklin died the National Assembly at +Paris went into three days' mourning for "the great American." + +As a matter of fact, France's help to America precipitated her own +great crisis. The Declaration of Independence was the spark that set +her ablaze. If the king was right in America he was utterly wrong at +home. Lafayette went back from America convinced that "resistance is +the most sacred of duties." + +The French adopted the American belief that liberty is the object of +government, and liberty of the individual--that very belief which +France is standing for to-day as opposed to the nationalism of +Germany. The Frenchman believes, like the American, that pressure +should be from within out, not from without in. In other words, his +own conscience, and not the arbitrary ruling of an arbitrary +government, is his dictator. To reconcile liberty and democracy, then, +has been France's problem, as it has been that of America. She has +faced the same problems against a handicap that America has not +had--the handicap of a discontented nobility. And by sheer force and +determination France has won. + +It has been said that the French in their Revolution were not reckless +innovators. They were confiding followers. And the star they followed +was the same star which, multiplied by the number of states, is the +American flag to-day--Liberty. + +Because of the many ties between the two countries, I had urged on the +French Ambassador the necessity of letting America know a little more +intimately what was being done by the French in this war. Since that +time a certain relaxation has taken place along all the Allied lines. +Correspondents have been taken out on day excursions and have cabled +to America what they saw. But at the time I visited the French Army of +the North there had been no one there. + +Those Americans who had seen the French soldier in times of peace had +not been greatly impressed. His curious, bent-kneed, slouching step, +so carefully taught him--so different from the stately progress of the +British, for instance, but so effective in covering ground--his loose +trousers and huge pack, all conspire against the _ensemble_ effect of +French soldiers on the march. + +I have seen British regiments at ease, British soldiers at rest and in +their billets. Always they are smart, always they are military. A +French regiment at ease ceases to be a part of a great machine. It +shows, perhaps, more humanity. The men let their muscles sag a bit. +They talk, laugh, sing if they are happy. They lie about in every +attitude of complete relaxation. But at the word they fall in again. +They take up the slack, as it were, and move on again in that +remarkable _pas de flexion_ that is so oddly tireless. It is a +difference of method; probably the best thing for men who are Gallic, +temperamental. A more lethargic army is better governed probably by +rule of thumb. + +I had crossed the Channel again to see the French and English lines. +On my previous visit, which had lasted for several weeks, I had seen +the Belgian Army at the front and the French Army in billets and on +reserve. This time I was to see the French Army in action. + +The first step to that end, getting out of Calais, proved simple +enough. The car came from Dunkirk, and brought passes. I took more +influenza medicine, dressed and packed my bag. There was some little +regret mingled with my farewell to the hotel at the Gare Maritime. I +had had there a private bath, with a porcelain tub. More than that, +the tub had been made in my home city. It was, I knew, my last glimpse +of a porcelain tub, probably of any tub, for some time. There were +bath towels also. I wondered if I would ever see a bath towel again. I +left a cake of soap in that bathroom. I can picture its next occupant +walking in, calm and deliberate, and then his eye suddenly falling on +a cake of soap. I can picture his stare, his incredulity. I can see +him rushing to the corridor and ringing the fire bell and calling the +other guests and the strangers without the gates, and the boot boy in +an apron, to come and see that cake of soap. + +But not the management. They would take it away. + +The car which came for me had been at the front all night. It was +filled inside and out with mud, so that it was necessary to cover the +seat before I got in. Of all the cars I have ever travelled in, this +was the most wrecked. Hardly a foot of the metal body was unbroken by +shell or bullet hole. The wind shield had been torn away. Tatters of +curtain streamed out in the wind. The mud guards were bent and +twisted. Even in that region of wrecked cars people turned to look at +it. + +Calais was very gay that Sunday afternoon. The sun was out. At the end +of the drawbridge a soldier was exercising a captured German horse. + +Officers in scarlet and gold, in pale blue, in green and red, in all +the picturesqueness of a Sunday back from the front, were decked for +the public eye. They walked in groups or singly. There were no women +with them. Their wives and sweethearts were far away. A Sunday in +Calais, indifferent food at a hotel, a saunter in the sunlight, and +then--Monday and war again, with the bright colours replaced by sombre +ones, with mud and evil odours and wretchedness. + +They wandered about, smoking eternal cigarettes and watching the +harbour, where ships were coaling, and where, as my car waited, the +drawbridge opened to allow a great Norwegian merchantman to pass. The +blockade was only two days old, but already this Norwegian boat had +her name painted in letters ten feet high along each side of her hull, +flanked on both sides by the Norwegian flag, also painted. Her crew, +leaning over the side, surveyed the quay curiously. So this was +war--this petulant horse with its soldier rider, these gay uniforms! + +It had been hoped that neutral shipping would, by thus indicating +clearly its nationality, escape the attacks of submarines. That very +ship was sunk three days later in the North Sea. + +Convalescent soldiers limped about on crutches; babies were wheeled in +perambulators in the sun; a group of young aviators in black leather +costumes watched a French biplane flying low. English naval officers +from the coaling boats took shore leave and walked along with the free +English stride. + +There were no guns; everything was gaiety and brightness. But for the +limping soldiers, my own battered machine, and the ominous grey ships +in the harbour, it might have been a carnival. + +In spite of the appearance of the machine it went northeast at an +incredible pace, its dried mud flying off like missiles, through those +French villages, which are so tidy because there is nothing to waste; +where there is just enough and no more--no extra paper, no extra +string, or food, or tin cans, or any of the litter that goes to make +the disorder of a wasteful American town; where paper and string and +tin cans and old boots serve their original purpose and then, in the +course of time, become flower-pots or rag carpets or soup meat, or +heaven knows what; and where, having fulfilled this second destiny, +they go on being useful in feeding chickens, or repairing roads, or +fertilising fields. + +For the first time on this journey I encountered difficulty with the +sentries. My Red Cross card had lost its potency. A new rule had gone +out that even a staff car might not carry a woman. Things looked very +serious for a time. But at last we got through. + +There were many aviators out that bright day, going to the front, +returning, or merely flying about taking the air. Women walked along +the roads wearing bright-coloured silk aprons. Here and there the +sentries had stretched great chains across the road, against which the +car brought up sharply. And then at last Dunkirk again, and the royal +apartment, and a soft bed, and--influenza. + +Two days later I started for the French lines. I packed a small bag, +got out a fresh notebook, and, having received the proper passes, the +start was made early in the morning. An officer was to take me to the +headquarters of the French Army of the North. From there I was to +proceed to British headquarters. + +My previous excursions from Dunkirk had all been made east and +southeast. This new route was south. As far as the town of Bergues we +followed the route by which I had gone to Ypres. Bergues, a little +fortified town, has been at times owned by the French, English, +Spanish and Dutch. + +It is odd, remembering the new alignment of the nations, to see +erected in the public square a monument celebrating the victory of the +French over the English in 1793, a victory which had compelled the +British to raise the siege of Dunkirk. + +South of Bergues there was no sign of war. The peasants rode along the +road in their high, two-wheeled carts with bare iron hoops over the +top, hoops over which canvas is spread in wet weather. + +There were trees again; windmills with their great wings turning +peacefully; walled gardens and wayside shrines; holly climbing over +privet hedges; and rows of pollard willows, their early buds a reddish +brown; and tall Lombardy poplars, yellow-green with spring. + +The road stretched straight ahead, a silver line. Nothing could have +been more peaceful, more unwar-like. Peasants trudged along with heavy +milk cans hanging from wooden neck yokes, chickens flew squawking from +the onslaught of the car. There were sheep here and there. + +"It is forbidden to take or kill a sheep--except in self-defence!" +said the officer. + +And then suddenly we turned into a small town and came on hundreds of +French omnibuses, requisitioned from all parts of France and painted a +dingy grey. + +Out of the town again. The road rose now to Cassel, with its three +windmills in a row on the top of a hill. We drove under an arch of +trees, their trunks covered with moss. On each side of the highway +peasants were ploughing in the mud--old peasants, bent to the plough, +or very young boys, who eyed us without curiosity. + +Still south. But now there were motor ambulances and an occasional +long line of motor lorries. At one place in a village we came on a +great three-ton lorry, driven and manned by English Tommies. They knew +no French and were completely lost in a foreign land. But they were +beautifully calm. They sat on the driving seat and smoked pipes and +derided each other, as in turn they struggled to make their difficulty +known. + +"Bailleul," said the Tommies over and over, but they pronounced it +"Berlue," and the villagers only laughed. + +The officer in the car explained. + +"'Berlue,'" he said, "is--what do you Americans say--dotty? They are +telling the villagers they want to go crazy!" + +So he got out and explained. Also he found out their road for them and +sent them off, rather sheepish, but laughing. + +"I never get over the surprises of this war," said the officer when he +returned. "Think of those boys, with not a word of French, taking that +lorry from the coast to the English lines! They'll get there too. They +always do." + +As we left the flat land toward the coast the country grew more and +more beautiful. It rolled gently and there were many trees. + +The white houses with their low thatched roofs, which ended in a +bordering of red tiles, looked prosperous. But there were soldiers +again. We were approaching the war zone. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE MAN OF YPRES + + +The sun was high when we reached the little town where General Foch, +Commander of the Armies of the North, had his headquarters. It was not +difficult to find the building. The French flag furled at the doorway, +a gendarme at one side of the door and a sentry at the other, denoted +the headquarters of the staff. But General Foch was not there at the +moment. He had gone to church. + +The building was near. Thinking that there might be a service, I +decided to go also. Going up a steep street to where at the top stood +a stone church, with an image of the Christ almost covered by that +virgin vine which we call Virginia creeper, I opened the +leather-covered door and went quietly in. + +There was no service. The building was quite empty. And the Commander +of the Armies of the North, probably the greatest general the French +have in the field to-day, was kneeling there alone. + +He never knew I had seen him. I left before he did. Now, as I look +back, it seems to me that that great general on his knees alone in +that little church is typical of the attitude of France to-day toward +the war. + +It is a totally different attitude from the English--not more heroic, +not braver, not more resolute to an end. But it is peculiarly +reverential. The enemy is on the soil of France. The French are +fighting for their homes, for their children, for their country. And +in this great struggle France daily, hourly, on its knees asks for +help. + +I went to the hotel--an ancient place, very small, very clean, very +cold and shabby. The entrance was through an archway into a +cobble-paved courtyard, where on the left, under the roof of a shed, +the saddles of cavalry horses and gendarmes were waiting on saddle +trestles. Beyond, through a glazed door, was a long dining room, with +a bare, white-scrubbed floor and whitewashed walls. Its white +table-cloths, white walls and ceiling and white floor, with no hint of +fire, although a fine snow had commenced to fall, set me to shivering. +Even the attempt at decoration of hanging baskets, of trailing vines +with strings of red peppers, was hardly cheering. + +From the window a steep, walled garden fell away, dreary enough under +the grey sky and the snowfall. The same curious pale-green moss +covered the trees, and beyond the garden wall, in a field, was a hole +where a German aëroplane had dropped a bomb. + +Hot coffee had been ordered, and we went into a smaller room for it. +Here there was a fire, with four French soldiers gathered round it. +One of them was writing at the table. The others were having their +palms read. + +"You have a heart line," said the palmist to one of them--"a heart +line like a windmill!" + +I drank my coffee and listened. I could understand only a part of it, +but it was eminently cheerful. They laughed, chaffed each other, and +although my presence in the hotel must have caused much curiosity in +that land of no women, they did not stare at me. Indeed, it was I who +did the gazing. + +After a time I was given a room. It was at the end of a whitewashed +corridor, from which pine doors opened on either side into bedrooms. +The corridor was bare of carpet, the whole upstairs freezing cold. +There were none of the amenities. My room was at the end. It boasted +two small windows, with a tiny stand between them containing a tin +basin and a pitcher; a bed with one side of the mattress torn open and +exposing a heterogeneous content that did not bear inspection; a pine +chair, a candle and a stove. + +They called it a stove. It had a coal receptacle that was not as large +as a porridge bowl, and one small lump of coal, pulverized, was all it +held. It was lighted with a handful of straw. Turn your back and count +ten, and it was out. Across the foot of the bed was one of the +Continental feather comforts which cover only one's feet and let the +rest freeze. + +It was not so near the front as La Panne, but the windows rattled +incessantly from the bombardment of Ypres. I glanced through one of +the windows. The red tiles I had grown to know so well were not in +evidence. Most of the roofs were blue, a weathered and mottled blue, +very lovely, but, like everything else about the town, exceedingly +cold to look at. + +Shortly after I had unpacked my few belongings I was presented to +General Foch, not at headquarters, but at the house in which he was +living. He came out himself to meet me, attended by several of his +officers, and asked at once if I had had _déjeuner_. I had not, so he +invited me to lunch with him and with his staff. + +_Déjeuner_ was ready and we went in immediately. A long table had been +laid for fourteen. General Foch took his place at the centre of one of +the long sides, and I was placed in the seat of honour directly +across. As his staff is very large, only a dozen officers dine with +him. The others, juniors in the service, are billeted through the town +and have a separate mess. + +Sitting where I did I had a very good opportunity to see the hero of +Ypres, philosopher, strategist and theorist, whose theories were then +bearing the supreme test of war. + +Erect, and of distinguished appearance, General Foch is a man rather +past middle life, with heavy iron-grey hair, rather bushy grey +eyebrows and a moustache. His eyes are grey and extremely direct. His +speech incisive and rather rapid. + +Although some of the staff had donned the new French uniform of +grey-blue, the general wore the old uniform, navy-blue, the only thing +denoting his rank being the three dull steel stars on the embroidered +sleeve of his tunic. + +There was little ceremony at the meal. The staff remained standing +until General Foch and I were seated. Then they all sat down and +_déjeuner_ was immediately served. + +One of the staff told me later that the general is extremely +punctilious about certain things. The staff is expected to be in the +dining room five minutes before meals are served. A punctual man +himself, he expects others to be punctual. The table must always be +the epitome of neatness, the food well cooked and quietly served. + +Punctuality and neatness no doubt are due to his long military +training, for General Foch has always been a soldier. Many of the +officers of France owe their knowledge of strategy and tactics to his +teaching at the _École de Guerre_. + +General Foch led the conversation. Owing to the rapidity of his +speech, it was necessary to translate much of it for me. We spoke, one +may say, through a clearing house. But although he knew it was to be +translated to me, he spoke, not to the interpreter, but to me, and his +keen eyes watched me as I replied. And I did not interview General +Foch. General Foch interviewed me. I made no pretence at speaking for +America. I had no mission. But within my limitations I answered him as +well as I could. + +"There are many ties between America and France," said General Foch. +"We wish America to know what we are doing over here, to realise that +this terrible war was forced on us." + +I mentioned my surprise at the great length of the French line--more +than four hundred miles. + +"You do not know that in America?" he asked, evidently surprised. + +I warned him at once not to judge the knowledge of America by what I +myself knew, that no doubt many quite understood the situation. + +"But you have been very modest," I said. "We really have had little +information about the French Army and what it is doing, unless more +news is going over since I left." + +"We are more modest than the Germans, then?" + +"You are, indeed. There are several millions of German-born Americans +who are not likely to let America forget the Fatherland. There are +many German newspapers also." + +"What is the percentage of German population?" + +I told him. I think I was wrong. I think I made it too great. But I +had not expected to be interviewed. + +"And these German newspapers, are they neutral?" + +"Not at all. Very far from it." + +I told him what I knew of the German propaganda in America, and he +listened intently. + +"What is its effect? Is it influencing public opinion?" + +"It did so undeniably for a time. But I believe it is not doing so +much now. For one thing, Germany's methods on the sea will neutralise +all her agents can say in her favour--that and the relaxation of the +restrictions against the press, so that something can be known of what +the Allies are doing." + +"You have known very little?" + +"Absurdly little." + +There was some feeling in my tone, and he smiled. + +"We wish to have America know the splendid spirit of the French Army," +he said after a moment. "And the justice of its cause also." + +I asked him what he thought of the future. + +"There is no question about the future," he said with decision. "That +is already settled. When the German advance was checked it was checked +for good." + +"Then you do not believe that they will make a further advance toward +Paris?" + +"Certainly not." + +He went on to explain the details of the battle of the Marne, and how +in losing that battle the invading army had lost everything. + +It will do no harm to digress for a moment and explain exactly what +the French did at the battle of the Marne. + +All through August the Allies fell back before the onward rush of the +Germans. But during all that strategic retreat plans were being made +for resuming the offensive again. This necessitated an orderly +retreat, not a rout, with constant counter-engagements to keep the +invaders occupied. It necessitated also a fixed point of retreat, to +be reached by the different Allied armies simultaneously. + +When, on September fifth, the order for assuming the offensive was +given, the extreme limit of the retreat had not yet been reached. But +the audacity of the German march had placed it in a position +favourable for attack, and at the same time extremely dangerous for +the Allies and Paris if they were not checked. + +On the evening of September fifth General Joffre sent this message to +all the commanders of armies: + +"The hour has come to advance at all costs, and do or die where you +stand rather than give way." + +The French did not give way. Paris was saved after a colossal battle, +in which more than two million men were engaged. The army commanded by +General Foch was at one time driven back by overwhelming odds, but +immediately resumed the offensive, and making a flank attack forced +the Germans to retreat. + +Not that he mentioned his part in the battle of the Marne. Not that +any member of his staff so much as intimated it. But these are things +that get back. + +"How is America affected by the war?" + +I answered as best I could, telling him something of the paralysis it +had caused in business, of the war tax, and of our anxiety as to the +status of our shipping. + +"From what I can gather from the newspapers, the sentiment in America +is being greatly influenced by the endangering of American shipping," + +"Naturally. But your press endeavours to be neutral, does it not?" + +"Not particularly," I admitted. "Sooner or later our papers become +partisan. It is difficult not to. In this war one must take sides." + +"Certainly. One must take sides. One cannot be really neutral in this +war. Every country is interested in the result, either actively now or +later on, when the struggle is decided. One cannot be disinterested; +one must be partisan." + +The staff echoed this. + +Having been interviewed by General Foch for some time, I ventured to +ask him a question. So I asked, as I asked every general I met, if the +German advance had been merely ruthless or if it had been barbaric. + +He made no direct reply, but he said: + +"You must remember that the Germans are not only fighting against an +army, they are fighting against nations; trying to destroy their past, +their present, even their future." + +"How does America feel as to the result of this war?" he asked, "I +suppose it feels no doubt as to the result." + +Again I was forced to explain my own inadequacy to answer such a +question and my total lack of authority to voice American sentiment. +While I was confident that many Americans believed in the cause of the +Allies, and had every confidence in the outcome of the war, there +remained always that large and prosperous portion of the population, +either German-born or of German parentage, which had no doubt of +Germany's success. + +"It is natural, of course," he commented. "How many French have you in +the United States?" + +I thought there were about three hundred thousand, and said so. + +"You treat your people so well in France," I said, "that few of them +come to us." + +He nodded and smiled. + +"What do you think of the blockade, General Foch?" I said. "I have +just crossed the Channel and it is far from comfortable." + +"Such a blockade cannot be," was his instant reply; "a blockade must +be continuous to be effective. In a real blockade all neutral shipping +must be stopped, and Germany cannot do this." + +One of the staff said "Bluff!" which has apparently been adopted into +the French language, and the rest nodded their approval. + +Their talk moved on to aëroplanes, to shells, to the French artillery. +General Foch considered that Zeppelins were useful only as air scouts, +and that with the coming of spring, with short nights and early dawns, +there would be no time for them to range far. The aëroplanes he +considered much more valuable. + +"One thing has impressed me," I said, "as I have seen various +artillery duels--the number of shells used with comparatively small +result. After towns are destroyed the shelling continues. I have seen +a hillside where no troops had been for weeks, almost entirely covered +with shell holes." + +He agreed that the Germans had wasted a great deal of their +ammunition. + +Like all great commanders, he was intensely proud of his men and their +spirit. + +"They are both cheerful and healthy," said the general; "splendid men. +We are very proud of them. I am glad that America is to know something +of their spirit, of the invincible courage and resolution of the +French to fight in the cause of humanity and justice." + +Luncheon was over. It had been a good luncheon, of a mound of boiled +cabbage, finely minced beef in the centre, of mutton cutlets and +potatoes, of strawberry jam, cheese and coffee. There had been a +bottle of red wine on the table. A few of the staff took a little, +diluting it with water. General Foch did not touch it. + +We rose. I had an impression that I had had my interview; but the +hospitality and kindness of this French general were to go further. + +In the little corridor he picked up his dark-blue cap and we set out +for official headquarters, followed by several of the officers. He +walked rapidly, taking the street to give me the narrow sidewalk and +going along with head bent against the wind. In the square, almost +deserted, a number of staff cars had gathered, and lorries lumbered +through. We turned to the left, between the sentry and the gendarme, +and climbing a flight of wooden stairs were in the anteroom of the +general's office. Here were tables covered with papers, telephones, +maps, the usual paraphernalia of such rooms. We passed through a pine +door, and there was the general's room--a bare and shabby room, with a +large desk in front of the two windows that overlooked the street, a +shaded lamp, more papers and a telephone. The room had a fireplace, +and in front of it was a fine old chair. And on the mantelpiece, as +out of place as the chair, was a marvellous Louis-Quinze clock, under +glass. There were great maps on the walls, with the opposing battle +lines shown to the smallest detail. General Foch drew my attention at +once to the clock. + +"During the battle of the Yser," he said, "night and day my eyes were +on that clock. Orders were sent. Then it was necessary to wait until +they were carried out. It was by the clock that one could know what +should be happening. The hours dragged. It was terrible." + +It must have been terrible. Everywhere I had heard the same story. +More than any of the great battles of the war, more even than the +battle of the Marne, the great fight along the Yser, from the +twenty-first of October, 1914, to the twelfth of November, seems to +have impressed itself in sheer horror on the minds of those who know +its fearfulness. At every headquarters I have found the same feeling. + +It was General Foch's army that reënforced the British at that battle. +The word had evidently been given to the Germans that at any cost they +must break through. They hurled themselves against the British with +unprecedented ferocity. I have told a little of that battle, of the +frightful casualties, so great among the Germans that they carried +their dead back and burned them in great pyres. The British Army was +being steadily weakened. The Germans came steadily, new lines taking +the place of those that were gone. Then the French came up, and, after +days of struggle, the line held. + +General Foch opened a drawer of the desk and showed me, day by day, +the charts of the battle. They were bound together in a great book, +and each day had a fresh page. The German Army was black. The French +was red. Page after page I lived that battle, the black line +advancing, the blue of the British wavering against overwhelming +numbers and ferocity, the red line of the French coming up. "The Man +of Ypres," they call General Foch, and well they may. + +"They came," said General Foch, "like the waves of the sea." + +It was the second time I had heard the German onslaught so described. + +He shut the book and sat for a moment, his head bent, as though in +living over again that fearful time some of its horror had come back +to him. + +At last: "I paced the floor and watched the clock," he said. + +How terrible! How much easier to take a sword and head a charge! How +much simpler to lead men to death than to send them! There in that +quiet room, with only the telephone and the ticking of the clock for +company, while his staff waited outside for orders, this great +general, this strategist on whose strategy hung the lives of armies, +this patriot and soldier at whose word men went forth to die, paced +the floor. + +He walked over to the clock and stood looking at it, his fine head +erect, his hands behind him. Some of the tragedy of those nineteen +days I caught from his face. + +But the line held. + +To-day, as I write this, General Foch's army in the North and the +British are bearing the brunt of another great attack at Ypres.[E] The +British have made a gain at Neuve Chapelle, and the Germans have +retaliated by striking at their line, some miles farther north. If +they break through it will be toward Calais and the sea. Every +offensive movement in this new warfare of trench and artillery +requires a concentration of reserves. To make their offensive movement +the British have concentrated at Neuve Chapelle. The second move of +this game of death has been made by the other side against the +weakened line of the Allies. During the winter the line, in this +manner, automatically straightened. But what will happen now? + +[Footnote E: Battle of Neuve Chapelle March, 1915.] + +One thing we know: General Foch will send out his brave men, and, +having sent them, will watch the Louis-Quinze clock and wait. And +other great generals will send out their men, and wait also. There +will be more charts, and every fresh line of black or blue or red or +Belgian yellow will mean a thousand deaths, ten thousand deaths. + +They are fighting to-day at Ypres. I have seen that flat and muddy +battlefield. I have talked with the men, have stood by the batteries +as they fired. How many of the boys I watched playing prisoners' base +round their guns in the intervals of firing are there to-day? How many +remain of that little company of soldiers who gave three cheers for me +because I was the only woman they had seen for months? How many of the +officers who shrugged their shoulders when I spoke of danger have gone +down to death? + +Outside the window where I am writing this, Fifth Avenue, New York, +has just left its churches and is flaunting its spring finery in the +sun. Across the sea, such a little way as measured by time, people are +in the churches also. The light comes through the ancient, +stained-glass windows and falls, not on spring finery, not on orchids +and gardenias, but on thousands of tiny candles burning before the +shrine of the Mother of Pity. + +It is so near. And it is so terrible. How can we play? How can we +think of anything else? But for the grace of God, your son and mine +lying there in the spring sunlight on the muddy battlefield of Ypres! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +IN THE LINE OF THE "MITRAILLEUSE" + + +I was taken to see the battlefield of Ypres by Captain Boisseau, of +the French War Academy, and Lieutenant René Puaux, of the staff of +General Foch. It was a bright and sunny day, with a cold wind, +however, that set the water in the wayside ditches to rippling. + +All the night before I had wakened at intervals to heavy cannonading +and the sharp cracking of _mitrailleuse_. We were well behind the +line, but the wind was coming from the direction of the battlefield. + +The start was made from in front of General Foch's headquarters. He +himself put me in the car, and bowed an _au revoir_. + +"You will see," he said, "the French soldier in the field, and you +will see him cheerful and well. You will find him full also of +invincible courage and resolution." + +And all that he had said, I found. I found the French soldiers smiling +and cheerful and ruddy in the most wretched of billets. I found them +firing at the enemy, still cheerful, but with a coolness of courage +that made my own shaking nerves steady themselves. + +Today, when that very part of the line I visited is, as was expected +when I was there, bearing the brunt of the German attack in the most +furious fighting of the war, I wonder, of those French soldiers who +crowded round to see the first woman they had beheld for months, how +many are lying on that muddy battlefield? What has happened on that +road, guarded by buried quick-firers, that stretched to the German +trenches beyond the poplar trees? Did the "rabbit trap" do its work? +Only for a time, I think, for was it not there that the Germans broke +through? Did the Germans find and silence that concealed battery of +seventy-five-millimetre guns under its imitation hedge? Who was in the +tree lookout as the enemy swarmed across, and did he get away? + +Except for the constant road repairing there was little to see during +the first part of the journey. Here in a flat field, well beyond the +danger zone, some of the new British Army was digging practice +trenches in the mud. Their tidy uniforms were caked with dirt, their +faces earnest and flushed. At last the long training at Salisbury +Plain was over, and here they were, if not at the front, within +hearing distance of the guns. Any day now a bit of luck would move +them forward, and there would be something doing. + +By now, no doubt, they have been moved up and there has been something +doing. Poor lads! I watched them until even their khaki-coloured tents +had faded into the haze. The tall, blonde, young officer, Lieutenant +Puaux, pointed out to me a detachment of Belgian soldiers mending +roads. As our car passed they leaned on their spades and looked after +us. + +"Belgian carabineers," he said. "They did some of the most heroic work +of the war last summer and autumn. They were decorated by the King. +Now they are worn out and they mend roads!" + +For--and this I had to learn--a man may not fight always, even +although he escapes actual injury. It is the greatest problem of +commanding generals that they must be always moving forward fresh +troops. The human element counts for much in any army. Nerves go after +a time. The constant noise of the guns has sent men mad. + +More than ever, in this new warfare, is the problem serious. For days +the men suffer not only the enemy's guns but the roar of their own +batteries from behind them. They cannot always tell which side they +hear. Their tortured ears ache with listening. And when they charge +and capture an outpost it is not always certain that they will escape +their own guns. In one tragic instance that I know of this happened. + +The route was by way of Poperinghe, with its narrow, crowded streets, +its fresh troops just arrived and waiting patiently, heavy packs +beside them, for orders. In Poperinghe are found all the troops of the +Allies: British, Belgian, French, Hindus, Cingalese, Algerians, +Moroccans. Its streets are a series of colourful pictures, of quaint +uniforms, of a babel of tongues, of that minor confusion that is order +on a great scale. The inevitable guns rumbled along with six horses +and three drivers: a lead driver, a centre driver and wheel driver. +Unlike the British guns, there are generally no gunners with the guns, +but only an officer or two. The gunners go ahead on foot. Lines of +hussars rode by, making their way slowly round a train of British +Red-Cross ambulances. + +At Elverdingue I was to see the men in their billets. Elverdingue was +another Poperinghe--the same crowds of soldiers, the same confusion, +only perhaps more emphasised, for Elverdingue is very near the front, +between Poperinghe and Ypres and a little to the north, where the line +that curves out about Ypres bends back again. + +More guns, more hussars. It was difficult to walk across the narrow +streets. We watched our chance and broke through at last, going into a +house at random. As each house had soldiers billeted in it, it was +certain we would find some, and I was to see not selected quarters but +billets chosen at random. Through a narrow, whitewashed centre hall, +with men in the rooms on either side, and through a muddy kitchen, +where the usual family was huddled round a stove, we went into a tiny, +brick-paved yard. Here was a shed, a roof only, which still held what +remained of the winter's supply of coal. + +Two soldiers were cooking there. Their tiny fire of sticks was built +against a brick wall, and on it was a large can of stewing meat. One +of the cooks--they were company cooks--was watching the kettle and +paring potatoes in a basket. The other was reading a letter aloud. As +the officers entered the men rose and saluted, their bright eyes +taking in this curious party, which included, of all things, a woman! + +"When did you get in from the trenches?" one of the officers asked. + +"At two o'clock this morning, _Monsieur le Capitaine_." + +"And you have not slept?" + +"But no. The men must eat. We have cooked ever since we returned." + +Further questioning elicited the facts that he would sleep when his +company was fed, that he was twenty-two years old, and that--this not +by questions but by investigation--he was sheltered against the cold +by a large knitted muffler, an overcoat, a coat, a green sweater, a +flannel shirt and an undershirt. Under his blue trousers he wore also +the red ones of an old uniform, the red showing through numerous rents +and holes. + +"You have a letter, comrade!" said the Lieutenant to the other man. + +"From my family," was the somewhat sheepish reply. + +Round the doorway other soldiers had gathered to see what was +occurring. They came, yawning with sleep, from the straw they had been +sleeping on, or drifted in from the streets, where they had been +smoking in the sun. They were true republicans, those French soldiers. +They saluted the officers without subservience, but as man to man. And +through a break in the crowd a new arrival was shoved forward. He +came, smiling uneasily. + +"He has the new uniform," I was informed, and he must turn round to +show me how he looked in it. + +We went across the street and through an alleyway to an open place +where stood an old coach house. Here were more men, newly in from the +front. The coach house was a ruin, far from weather-proof and floored +with wet and muddy straw. One could hardly believe that that straw had +been dry and fresh when the troops came in at dawn. It was hideous +now, from the filth of the trenches. The men were awake, and being +advised of our coming by an anxious and loud-voiced member of the +company who ran ahead, they were on their feet, while others, who had +been sleeping in the loft, were on their way down the ladder. + +"They have been in a very bad place all night," said the Captain. +"They are glad to be here, they say." + +"You mean that they have been in a dangerous place?" + +The men were laughing among themselves and pushing forward one of +their number. Urged by their rapid French, he held out his cap to me. +It had been badly torn by a German bullet. Encouraged by his example, +another held out his cap. The crown had been torn almost out of it. + +"You see," said Captain Boisseau, "it was not a comfortable night. But +they are here, and they are content." + +I could understand it, of course, but "here" seemed so pitifully poor +a place--a wet and cold and dirty coach house, open to all the winds +that blew; before it a courtyard stabling army horses that stood to +the fetlocks in mud. For food they had what the boy of twenty-two or +other cooks like him were preparing over tiny fires built against +brick walls. But they were alive, and there were letters from home, +and before very long they expected to drive the Germans back in one of +those glorious charges so dear to the French heart. They were here, +and they were content. + +More sheds, more small fires, more paring of potatoes and onions and +simmering of stews. The meal of the day was in preparation and its +odours were savoury. In one shed I photographed the cook, paring +potatoes with a knife that looked as though it belonged on the end of +a bayonet. And here I was lined up by the fire and the cook--and the +knife--and my picture taken. It has not yet reached me. Perhaps it +went by way of England, and was deleted by the censor as showing +munitions of war! + +From Elverdingue the road led north and west, following the curves of +the trenches. We went through Woesten, where on the day before a +dramatic incident had taken place. Although the town was close to the +battlefield and its church in plain view from the German lines, it had +escaped bombardment. But one Sunday morning a shot was fired. The +shell went through the roof of the church just above the altar, fell +and exploded, killing the priest as he knelt. The hole in the roof of +the building bore mute evidence to this tragedy. It was a small hole, +for the shell exploded inside the building. When I saw it a half dozen +planks had been nailed over it to keep out the rain. + +There were trees outside Woesten, more trees than I had been +accustomed to nearer the sea. Here and there a troop of cavalry horses +was corralled in a grove; shaggy horses, not so large as the English +ones. They were confined by the simple expedient of stretching a rope +from tree to tree in a large circle. + +"French horses," I said, "always look to me so small and light +compared with English horses." + +Then a horse moved about, and on its shaggy flank showed plainly the +mark of a Western branding iron! They were American cow ponies from +the plains. + +"There are more than a hundred thousand American horses here," +observed the Lieutenant. "They are very good horses." + +Later on I stopped to stroke the soft nose of a black horse as it +stood trembling near a battery of heavy guns that was firing steadily. +It was American too. On its flank there was a Western brand. I gave it +an additional caress, and talked a little American into one of its +nervous, silky ears. We were both far from home, a trifle bewildered, +a bit uneasy and frightened. + +And now it was the battlefield--the flat, muddy plain of Ypres. On the +right bodies of men, sheltered by intervening groves and hedges, moved +about. Dispatch riders on motor cycles flew along the roads, and over +the roof of a deserted farmhouse an observation balloon swung in the +wind. Beyond the hedges and the grove lay the trenches, and beyond +them again German batteries were growling. Their shells, however, were +not bursting anywhere near us. + +The balloon was descending. I asked permission to go up in it, but +when I saw it near at hand I withdrew the request. It had no basket, +like the ones I had seen before, but instead the observers, two of +them, sat astride a horizontal bar. + +The English balloons have a basket beneath, I am told. One English +airship man told me that to be sent up in a stationary balloon was the +greatest penalty a man could be asked to pay. The balloon jerks at the +end of its rope like a runaway calf, and "the resulting nausea makes +sea-sickness seem like a trip to the Crystal Palace." + +So I did not go up in that observation balloon on the field of Ypres. +We got out of the car, and trudged after the balloon as it was carried +to its new position by many soldiers. We stood by as it rose again +above the tree tops, the rope and the telephone wire hanging beneath +it. But what the observers saw that afternoon from their horizontal +bar I do not yet know--trenches, of course. But trenches are +interesting in this war only when their occupants have left them and +started forward. Batteries and ammunition trains, probably, the latter +crawling along the enemy's roads. But both of these can be better and +more easily located by aëroplanes. + +The usefulness of the captive balloon in this war is doubtful. It +serves, at the best, to take the place of an elevation of land in this +flat country, is a large and tempting target, and can serve only on +very clear days, when there is no ground mist--a difficult thing to +achieve in Flanders. + +We were getting closer to the front all the time. As the automobile +jolted on, drawing out for transports, for ambulances and ammunition +wagons, the two French officers spoke of the heroism of their men. +They told me, one after the other, of brave deeds that had come under +their own observation. + +"The French common soldier is exceedingly brave--quite reckless," one +of them said. "Take, for instance, the case, a day or so ago, of +Philibert Musillat, of the 168th Infantry. We had captured a +communication trench from the Germans and he was at the end of it, +alone. There was a renewal of the German attack, and they came at him +along the trench. He refused to retreat. His comrades behind handed +him loaded rifles, and he killed every German that appeared until they +lay in a heap. The Germans threw bombs at him, but he would not move. +He stood there for more than twelve hours!" + +There were many such stories, such as that of the boys of the senior +class of the military school of St. Cyr, who took, the day of the +beginning of the war, an oath to put on gala dress, white gloves and a +red, white and blue plume, when they had the honour to receive the +first order to charge. + +They did it, too. Theatrical? Isn't it just splendidly boyish? They +did it, you see. The first of them to die, a young sub-lieutenant, was +found afterward, his red, white and blue plume trampled in the mud, +his brave white gloves stained with his own hot young blood. Another +of these St. Cyr boys, shot in the face hideously and unable to speak, +stood still under fire and wrote his orders to his men. It was his +first day under fire. + +A boy fell injured between the barbed wire in front of his trench and +the enemy, in that No Man's Land of so many tragedies. His comrades, +afraid of hitting him, stopped firing. + +"Go on!" he called to them. "No matter about me. Shoot at them!" + +So they fired, and he writhed for a moment. + +"I got one of yours that time!" he said. + +The Germans retired, but the boy still lay on the ground, beyond +reach. He ceased moving, and they thought he was dead. One may believe +that they hoped he was dead. It was more merciful than the slow dying +of No Man's Land. But after a time he raised his head. + +"Look out," he called. "They are coming again. They are almost up to +me!" + +That is all of that story. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +FRENCH GUNS IN ACTION + + +The car stopped. We were at the wireless and telephone headquarters +for the French Army of the North. It was a low brick building, and +outside, just off the roadway, was a high van full of telephone +instruments. That it was moved from one place to another was shown +when, later in the day, returning by that route, we found the van had +disappeared. + +It was two o'clock. The German wireless from Berlin had just come in. +At three the receiving station would hear from the Eiffel Tower in +Paris. It was curious to stand there and watch the operator, receivers +on his ears, picking up the German message. It was curious to think +that, just a little way over there, across a field or two, the German +operator was doing the same thing, and that in an hour he would be +receiving the French message. + +All the batteries of the army corps are--or were--controlled from that +little station. The colonel in charge came out to greet us, and to him +Captain Boisseau gave General Foch's request to show me batteries in +action. + +The colonel was very willing. He would go with us himself. I conquered +a strong desire to stand with the telephone building between me and +the German lines, now so near, and looked about. A French aëroplane +was overhead, but there was little bustle and activity along the road. +It is a curious fact in this war that the nearer one is to the front +the quieter things become. Three or four miles behind there is bustle +and movement. A mile behind, and only an occasional dispatch rider, a +few men mending roads, an officer's car, a few horses tethered in a +wood, a broken gun carriage, a horse being shod behind a wall, a +soldier on a lookout platform in a tree, thickets and hedges that on +occasion spout fire and death--that is the country round Ypres and +just behind the line, in daylight. + +We were between Ypres and the Allied line, in that arc which the +Germans are, as I write, trying so hard to break through. The papers +say that they are shelling Ypres and that it is burning. They were +shelling it that day also. But now, as then, I cannot believe it is +burning. There was nothing left to burn. + +While arrangements were being made to visit the batteries, Lieutenant +Puaux explained to me a method they had established at that point for +measuring the altitude of hostile aëroplanes for the guns. + +"At some anti-aircfaft batteries," he explained, "they have the +telemeter for that purpose. But here there is none. So they use the +system of _visée laterale_, or side sight, literally." + +He explained it all carefully to me. I understood it at the time, I +think. + +I remember saying it was perfectly clear, and a child could do it, and +a number of other things. But the system of _visée laterale_ has gone +into that part of my mind which contains the Latin irregular verbs, +harmonies, the catechism and answers to riddles. + +There is a curious feeling that comes with the firing of a large +battery at an unseen enemy. One moment the air is still; there is a +peaceful plain round. The sun shines, and heavy cart horses, drawing a +wagon filled with stones for repairing a road, are moving forward +steadily, their heads down, their feet sinking deep in the mud. The +next moment hell breaks loose. The great guns stand with smoking jaws. +The message of death has gone forth. Over beyond the field and that +narrow line of trees, what has happened? A great noise, the furious +recoiling of the guns, an upcurling of smoke--that is the firing of a +battery. But over there, perhaps, one man, or twenty, or fifty men, +lying still. + +So I required assurance that this battery was not being fired for me. +I had no morbid curiosity as to batteries. One of the officers assured +me that I need have no concern. Though they were firing earlier than +had been intended, a German battery had been located and it was their +instructions to disable it. + +The battery had been well concealed. + +"No German aëroplane has as yet discovered it," explained the officer +in charge. + +To tell the truth, I had not yet discovered it myself. We had alighted +from the machine in a sea of mud. There was mud everywhere. + +A farmhouse to the left stood inaccessible in it. Down the road a few +feet a tree with an observation platform rose out of it. A few +chickens waded about in it. A crowd of soldiers stood at a respectful +distance and watched us. But I saw no guns. + +One of the officers stooped and picked up the cast shoe of a battery +horse, and shaking the mud off, presented it to me. + +"To bring you luck," he said, "and perhaps luck to the battery!" + +We left the road, and turning to the right made a floundering progress +across a field to a hedge. Only when we were almost there did I +realise that the hedge was the battery. + +"We built it," said the officer in charge. "We brought the trees and +saplings and constructed it. Madame did not suspect?" + +Madame had not suspected. There were other hedges in the +neighbourhood, and the artificial one had been well contrived. Halfway +through the field the party paused by a curious elevation, flat, +perhaps twenty feet across and circular. + +"The cyclone cellar!" some one said. "We will come here during the +return fire." + +But one look down the crude steps decided me to brave the return fire +and die in the open. The cave below the flat roof, turf-covered +against the keen eyes of aeroplanes, was full of water. The officers +watched my expression and smiled. + +And now we had reached the battery, and eager gunners were tearing +away the trees and shrubbery that covered them. In an incredible space +of time the great grey guns, sinister, potential of death, lay open to +the bright sky. The crews gathered round, each man to his place. The +shell was pushed home, the gunners held the lanyards. + +"Open your mouth wide," said the officer in charge, and gave the +signal. + +The great steel throats were torn open. The monsters recoiled, as if +aghast at what they had done. Their white smoke curled from the +muzzles. The dull horses in the road lifted their heads. + +And over there, beyond the line of poplar trees, what? + +One by one they fired the great guns. Then all together, several +rounds. The air was torn with noise. Other batteries, far and near, +took up the echo. The lassitude of the deadlock was broken. + +And then overhead the bursting shell of a German gun. The return fire +had commenced! + +I had been under fire before. The sound of a bursting shell was not a +new one. But there had always before been a strong element of chance +in my favour. When the Germans were shelling a town, who was I that a +shell should pick me out to fall on or to explode near? But this was +different. They were firing at a battery, and I was beside that +battery. It was all very well for the officer in charge to have said +they had never located his battery. I did not believe him. I still +doubt him. For another shell came. + +The soldiers from the farmhouse had gathered behind us in the field. I +turned and looked at them. They were smiling. So I summoned a shaky +smile myself and refused the hospitality of the cellar full of water. + +One of the troopers stepped out from the others. + +"We have just completed a small bridge," he said--"a bridge over the +canal. Will madame do us the honour of walking across it? It will thus +be inaugurated by the only lady at the front." + +Madame would. Madame did. But without any real enthusiasm. The men +cheered, and another German shell came, and everything was merry as a +marriage bell. + +They invited me to climb the ladder to the lookout in the tree and +look at the enemy's trenches. But under the circumstances I declined. +I felt that it was time to move on and get hence. The honour of being +the only woman who had got to the front at Ypres began to weigh heavy +on me. I mentioned the passing of time and the condition of the roads. + +So at last I got into the car. The officers of the battery bowed, and +the men, some fifty of them, gave me three rousing cheers. I think of +them now, and there is a lump in my throat. They were so interested, +so smiling and cheery, that bright late February afternoon, standing +in the mud of the battlefield of Ypres, with German shells bursting +overhead. Half of them, even then, had been killed or wounded. Each +day took its toll of some of them, one way or another. + +How many of them are left to-day? The smiling officer, so debonair, so +proud of his hidden battery, where is he? The tiny bridge, has it run +red this last week? The watchman in the tree, what did he see, that +terrible day when the Germans got across the canal and charged over +the flat lands? + +The Germans claim to have captured guns at or near this place. One +thing I am sure of: This battery or another, it was not taken while +there were men belonging to it to defend it. The bridge would run red +and the water under the bridge, the muddy field be strewn with bodies, +before those cheery, cool-eyed and indomitable French gunners would +lose their guns. + +The car moved away, fifty feet, a hundred feet, and turned out to +avoid an ammunition wagon, disabled in the road. It was fatal. We slid +off into the mire and settled down. I looked back at the battery. A +fresh shell was bursting high in the air. + +We sat there, interminable hours that were really minutes, while an +orderly and the chauffeur dug us out with spades. We conversed of +other things. But it was a period of uneasiness on my part. And, as if +to point the lesson and adorn the tale, away to the left, rising above +the plain, was the church roof with the hole in it--mute evidence that +even the mantle of righteousness is no protection against a shell. + +Our course was now along a road just behind the trenches and +paralleling them, to an anti-aircraft station. + +I have seen a number of anti-aircraft stations at the front: English +ones near the coast and again south of Ypres; guns mounted, as was +this French battery, on the plain of a battlefield; isolated cannon in +towers and on the tops of buildings and water tanks. I have seen them +in action, firing at hostile planes. I have never yet seen them do any +damage, but they serve a useful purpose in keeping the scouting +machines high in the air, thus rendering difficult the work of the +enemy's observer. The real weapon against the hostile aeroplane is +another machine. Several times I have seen German _Taubes_ driven off +by French aviators, and winging a swift flight back to their lines. +Not, one may be sure, through any lack of courage on the part of +German aviators. They are fearless and extremely skilful. But because +they have evidently been instructed to conserve their machines. + +I had considerable curiosity as to the anti-aircraft batteries. How +was it possible to manipulate a large field gun, with a target moving +at a varying height, and at a speed velocity of, say, sixty miles an +hour? + +The answer was waiting on the field just north of Ypres. + +A brick building by the road was evidently a storehouse for provisions +for the trenches. Unloaded in front of it were sacks of bread, meal +and provisions. And standing there in the sunshine was the commander +of the field battery, Captain Mignot. A tall and bearded man, +essentially grave, he listened while Lieutenant Puaux explained the +request from General Foch that I see his battery. He turned and +scanned the sky. + +"We regret," he said seriously, "that at the moment there is no +aëroplane in sight. We will, however, show Madame everything." + +He led the way round the corner of the building to where a path, +neatly banked, went out through the mud to the battery. + +"Keep to the path," said a tall sign. But there was no temptation to +do otherwise. There must have been fifty acres to that field, unbroken +by hedge or tree. As we walked out, Captain Mignot paused and pointed +his finger up and somewhat to the right. + +"German shrapnel!" he said. True enough, little spherical clouds told +where it had burst harmlessly. + +As cannonading had been going on steadily all the afternoon, no one +paid any particular attention. We walked on in the general direction +of the trenches. + +The gunners were playing prisoner's base just beyond the guns. When +they saw us coming the game ceased, and they hurried to their +stations. Boys they were, most of them. The youth of the French troops +had not impressed me so forcibly as had the boyishness of the English +and the Belgians. They are not so young, on an average, I believe. But +also the deception of maturity is caused by a general indifference to +shaving while in the field. + +But Captain Mignot evidently had his own ideas of military smartness, +and these lads were all clean-shaven. They trooped in from their game, +under that little cloud of shrapnel smoke that still hung in the sky, +for all the world a crowd of overheated and self-conscious schoolboys +receiving an unexpected visit from the master of the school. + +The path ended at the battery. In the centre of the guns was a raised +platform of wood, and a small shelter house for the observer or +officer on duty. There were five guns in pits round this focal point +and forming a circle. And on the platform in the centre was a curious +instrument on a tripod. + +"The telemeter," explained Captain Mignot; "for obtaining the altitude +of the enemy's aëroplane." + +Once again we all scanned the sky anxiously, but uselessly. + +"I don't care to have any one hurt," I said; "but if a plane is coming +I wish it would come now. Or a Zeppelin." + +The captain's serious face lighted in a smile. + +"A Zeppelin!" he said. "We would with pleasure wait all the night for +a Zeppelin!" + +He glanced round at the guns. Every gunner was in his place. We were +to have a drill. + +"We will suppose," he said, "that a German aëroplane is approaching. +To fire correctly we must first know its altitude. So we discover that +with this." He placed his hand on the telemeter. "There are, you +observe, two apertures, one for each eye. In one the aëroplane is seen +right side up. In the other the image is inverted, upside down. Now! +By this screw the images are made to approach, until one is +superimposed exactly over the other. Immediately on the lighted dial +beneath is shown the altitude, in metres." + +I put my eyes to the openings, and tried to imagine an aëroplane +overhead, manoeuvring to drop a bomb or a dart on me while I +calculated its altitude. I could not do it. + +Next I was shown the guns. They were the famous +seventy-five-millimetre guns of France, transformed into aircraft guns +by the simple expedient of installing them in a pit with sloping +sides, so that their noses pointed up and out. To swing them round, so +that they pointed readily toward any portion of the sky, a circular +framework of planks formed a round rim to the pit, and on this runway, +heavily greased, the muzzles were swung about. + +The gun drill began. It was executed promptly, skilfully. There was no +bungling, not a wrong motion or an unnecessary one, as they went +through the movements of loading, sighting and firing the guns. It was +easy to see why French artillery has won its renown. The training of +the French artilleryman is twice as severe as that of the infantryman. +Each man, in addition to knowing his own work on the gun, must be able +to do the work of all the eleven others. Casualties must occur, and in +spite of them the work of the gun must go on. + +Casualties had occurred at that station. More than half the original +battery was gone. The little shelter house was splintered in a hundred +places. There were shell holes throughout the field, and the breech of +one gun had recently been shattered and was undergoing repair. + +The drill was over and the gunners stood at attention. I asked +permission to photograph the battery, and it was cheerfully given. One +after the other I took the guns, until I had taken four. The gunners +waited smilingly expectant. For the last gun I found I had no film, +but I could not let it go at that. So I pointed the empty camera at it +and snapped the shutter. It would never do to show discrimination. + +Somewhere in London are all those pictures. They have never been sent +to me. No doubt a watchful English government pounced on them in the +mail, and, in connection with my name, based on them most unjust +suspicions. They were very interesting. There was Captain Mignot, and +the two imposing officers from General Foch's staff; there were +smiling young French gunners; there was the telemeter, which cost, +they told me, ten thousand francs, and surely deserved to have its +picture taken, and there was one, not too steady, of a patch of sunny +sky and a balloon-shaped white cloud, where another German shrapnel +had burst overhead. + +The drill was over. We went back along the path toward the road. +Behind the storehouse the evening meal was preparing in a shed. The +battery was to have a new ration that night for a change, bacon and +codfish. Potatoes were being pared into a great kettle and there was a +bowl of eggs on a stand. It appeared to me, accustomed to the meagre +ration of the Belgians, that the French were dining well that night on +the plains of Ypres. + +In a stable near at hand a horse whinnied. I patted him as I passed, +and he put his head against my shoulder. + +"He recognises you!" said Captain Boisseau. "He too is American." + +It was late afternoon by that time. The plan to reach the advanced +trenches was frustrated by an increasing fusillade from the front. +There were barbed-wire entanglements everywhere, and every field was +honeycombed with trenches. One looked across the plain and saw +nothing. Then suddenly as we advanced great gashes cut across the +fields, and in these gashes, although not a head was seen, were men. +The firing was continuous. And now, going down a road, with a line of +poplar trees at the foot and the setting sun behind us throwing out +faint shadows far ahead, we saw the flash of water. It was very near. +It was the flooded river and the canal. Beyond, eight hundred yards or +less from where we stood, were the Germans. To one side the inundation +made a sort of bay. + +It was along this part of the field that the Allies expected the +German Army to make its advance when the spring movement commenced. +And as nearly as can be learned from the cabled accounts that is where +the attack was made. + +A captain from General d'Urbal's staff met us at the trenches, and +pointed out the strategical value of a certain place, the certainty of +a German advance, and the preparations that were made to meet it. + +It was odd to stand there in the growing dusk, looking across to where +was the invading army, only a little over two thousand feet away. It +was rather horrible to see that beautiful landscape, the untravelled +road ending in the line of poplars, so very close, where were the +French outposts, and the shining water just beyond, and talk so calmly +of the death that was waiting for the first Germans who crossed the +canal. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +"I NIBBLE THEM" + + +I went into the trenches. The captain was very proud of them. + +"They represent the latest fashion in trenches!" he explained, smiling +faintly. + +It seemed to me that I could easily have improved on that latest +fashion. The bottom was full of mud and water. Standing in the trench, +I could see over the side by making an effort. The walls were +wattled--that is, covered with an interlacing of fagots which made the +sides dry. + +But it was not for that reason only that these trenches were called +the latest fashion. They were divided, every fifteen feet or so, by a +bulwark of earth about two feet thick, round which extended a +communication trench. + +"The object of dividing these trenches in this manner is to limit the +havoc of shells that drop into them," the captain explained. "Without +the earth bulwark a shell can kill every man in the trench. In this +way it can kill only eight. Now stand at this end of the trench. What +do you see?" + +What I saw was a barbed-wire entanglement, leading into a cul-de-sac. + +"A rabbit trap!" he said. "They will come over the field there, and +because they cannot cross the entanglement they will follow it. It is +built like a great letter V, and this is the point." + +The sun had gone down to a fiery death in the west. The guns were +firing intermittently. Now and then from the poplar trees came the +sharp ping of a rifle. The evening breeze had sprung up, ruffling the +surface of the water, and bringing afresh that ever-present and +hideous odour of the battlefield. Behind us the trenches showed signs +of activity as the darkness fell. + +Suddenly the rabbit trap and the trench grew unspeakably loathsome and +hideous to me. What a mockery, this business of killing men! No matter +that beyond the canal there lurked the menace of a foe that had +himself shown unspeakable barbarity and resource in plotting death. No +matter if the very odour that stank in my nostrils called loud for +vengeance. I thought of German prisoners I had seen, German wounded +responding so readily to kindness and a smile. I saw them driven +across that open space, at the behest of frantic officers who were +obeying a guiding ambition from behind. I saw them herded like cattle, +young men and boys and the fathers of families, in that cruel rabbit +trap and shot by men who, in their turn, were protecting their country +and their homes. + +I have in my employ a German gardener. He has been a member of the +household for years. He has raised, or helped to raise, the children, +has planted the trees, and helped them, like the children, through +their early weakness. All day long he works in the garden among his +flowers. He coaxes and pets them, feeds them, moves them about in the +sun. When guests arrive, it is Wilhelm's genial smile that greets +them. When the small calamities of a household occur, it is Wilhelm's +philosophy that shows us how to meet them. + +Wilhelm was a sergeant in the German Army for five years. Now he is an +American citizen, owning his own home, rearing his children to a +liberty his own childhood never knew. + +But, save for the accident of emigration, Wilhelm would to-day be in +the German Army. He is not young, but he is not old. His arms and +shoulders are mighty. But for the accident of emigration, then, +Wilhelm, working to-day in the sun among his Delphiniums and his iris, +his climbing roses and flowering shrubs, would be wearing the helmet +of the invader; for his vine-covered house he would have substituted a +trench; for his garden pick a German rifle. + +For Wilhelm was a faithful subject of Germany while he remained there. +He is a Socialist. He does not believe in war. Live and help others to +live is his motto. But at the behest of the Kaiser, Wilhelm too would +have gone to his appointed place. + +It was of Wilhelm then, and others of his kind, that I thought as I +stood in the end of the new-fashion trench, looking at the rabbit +trap. There must be many Wilhelms in the German Army, fathers, good +citizens, kindly men who had no thought of a place in the sun except +for the planting of a garden. Men who have followed the false gods of +their country with the ardent blue eyes of supreme faith. + +I asked to be taken home. + +On the way to the machine we passed a _mitrailleuse_ buried by the +roadside. Its location brought an argument among the officers. +Strategically it would be valuable for a time, but there was some +question as to its position in view of a retirement by the French. + +I could not follow the argument. I did not try to. I was cold and +tired, and the red sunset had turned to deep purple and gold. The guns +had ceased. Over all the countryside brooded the dreadful peace of +sheer exhaustion and weariness. And in the air, high overhead, a +German plane sailed slowly home. + + * * * * * + +Sentries halted us on the way back holding high lanterns that set the +bayonets of their guns to gleaming. Faces pressed to the glass, they +surveyed us stolidly, making sure that we were as our passes described +us. Long lines of marching men turned out to let us pass. As darkness +settled down, the location of the German line, as it encircled Ypres, +was plainly shown by floating _fusées_. In every hamlet reserves were +lining up for the trenches, dark masses of men, with here and there a +face thrown into relief as a match was held to light a cigarette. Open +doors showed warm, lamp-lit interiors and the glow of fires. + +I sat back in the car and listened while the officers talked together. +They were speaking of General Joffre, of his great ability, of his +confidence in the outcome of the war, and of his method, during those +winter months when, with such steady fighting, there had been so +little apparent movement. One of the officers told me that General +Joffre had put his winter tactics in three words: + +"I nibble them." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +DUNKIRK: FROM MY JOURNAL + + +I wakened early this morning and went to church--a great empty place, +very cold but with the red light of the sanctuary lamp burning before +a shrine. There were perhaps a dozen people there when I went in. +Before the Mater Dolorosa two women in black were praying with +upturned eyes. At the foot of the Cross crouched the tragic figure of +the Mother, with her dead Son in her arms. Before her were these other +mothers, praying in the light of the thin burning candles. Far away, +near the altar, seven women of the Society of the Holy Rosary were +conducting a private service. They were market women, elderly, plain, +raising to the altar faces full of faith and devotion, as they prayed +for France and for their soldier-children. + +Here and there was a soldier or a sailor on his knees on a low +prie-dieu, his cap dangling loose in his hands. Unlike the women, the +lips of these men seldom moved in prayer; they apparently gazed in +wordless adoration at the shrine. Great and swelling thoughts were +theirs, no doubt, kindled by that tiny red flame: thoughts too big for +utterance or even for form. To go out and fight for France, to drive +back the invaders, and, please God, to come back again--that was what +their faces said. + +Other people came in, mostly women, who gathered silently around the +Mater Dolorosa. The great empty Cross; the woman and the dead Christ +at the foot of it; the quiet, kneeling people before it; over all, as +the services began, the silvery bell of the Mass; the bending backs of +the priests before the altar; the sound of fresh, boyish voices +singing in the choir--that is early morning service in the great +Gothic church at Dunkirk. + +Onto this drab and grey and grieving picture came the morning +sunlight, through roof-high windows of red and yellow and of that warm +violet that glows like a jewel. The candles paled in the growing +light. A sailor near me gathered up his cap, which had fallen unheeded +to the floor, and went softly out. The private service was over; the +market women picked up their baskets and, bowing to the altar, +followed the sailor. The great organ pleaded and cried out. I stole +out. I was an intruder, gazing at the grief of a nation. + +It was a transformed square that I walked through on my way back to +the hotel. It was a market morning. All week long it had been crowded +with motor ambulances, lorries, passing guns. Orderlies had held +cavalry horses under the shadow of the statue in the centre. The +fried-potato-seller's van had exuded an appetising odour of cooking, +and had gathered round it crowds of marines in tam-o'-shanters with +red woollen balls in the centre, Turcos in great bloomers, and the +always-hungry French and Belgian troopers. + +Now all was changed. The square had become a village filled with +canvas houses, the striped red-and-white booths of the market people. +War had given way to peace. For the clattering of accoutrements were +substituted high pitched haggling, the cackling of geese in crates, +the squawks of chickens tied by the leg. Little boys in pink-checked +gingham aprons ran about or stood, feet apart, staring with frank +curiosity at tall East Indians. + +There were small and carefully cherished baskets of eggs and bundles +of dead Belgian hares hung by the ears, but no other fresh meats. +There was no fruit, no fancy bread. The vegetable sellers had only +Brussels sprouts, turnips, beets and the small round potatoes of the +country. For war has shorn the market of its gaiety. Food is scarce +and high. The flower booths are offering country laces and finding no +buyers. The fruit sellers have only shrivelled apples to sell. + +Now, at a little after midday, the market is over. The canvas booths +have been taken down, packed on small handcarts and trundled away; +unsold merchandise is on its way back to the farm to wait for another +week and another market. Already the market square has taken on its +former martial appearance, and Dunkirk is at its midday meal of rabbit +and Brussels sprouts. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +TEA WITH THE AIR-FIGHTERS + + +Later: Roland Garros, the French aviator, has just driven off a German +_Taube_. They both circled low over the town for some time. Then the +German machine started east with Garros in pursuit. They have gone out +of sight. + + * * * * * + +War is not all grey and grim and hideous. It has its lighter moments. +The more terrible a situation the more keen is human nature to forget +it for a time. Men play between shells in the trenches. London, +suffering keenly, flocks to a comedy or a farce as a relief from +strain. Wounded men, past their first agony, chaff each other in the +hospitals. There are long hours behind the lines when people have tea +and try to forget for a little while what is happening just ahead. + +Some seven miles behind the trenches, in that vague "Somewhere in +France," the British Army had established a naval air-station, where +one of its dirigible airships was kept. In good weather the airship +went out on reconnoissance. It was not a large airship, as such things +go, and was formerly a training ship. Now it was housed in an +extemporised hangar that was once a carwheel works, and made its +ascent from a plain surrounded by barbed wire. + +The airship men were extremely hospitable, and I made several visits +to the station. On the day of which I am about to write I was taken +for an exhaustive tour of the premises, beginning with the hangar and +ending with tea. Not that it really ended with tea. Tea was rather a +beginning, leading to all sorts of unexpected and surprising things. + +The airship was out when I arrived, and a group of young officers was +watching it, a dot on the horizon near the front. They gave me the +glasses, and I saw it plainly--a long, yellowish, slowly moving object +that turned as I looked and headed back for the station. + +The group watched the sky carefully. A German aëroplane could wreck +the airship easily. But although there were planes in sight none was +of the familiar German lines. + +It came on. Now one could see the car below. A little closer and three +dots were the men in it. On the sandy plain which is the landing field +were waiting the men whose work it is to warp the great balloon into +its hangar. The wind had come up and made landing difficult. It was +necessary to make two complete revolutions over the field before +coming down. Then the blunt yellow nose dipped abruptly. The men below +caught the ropes, the engine was cut off, and His Majesty's airship, +in shape and colour not unlike a great pig, was safely at home again +and being led to the stable. + +"Do you want to know the bravest man in all the world?" one of the +young officers said. "Because here he is. The funny thing about it is +he doesn't know he is brave." + +That is how I met Colonel M----, who is England's greatest airship man +and who is in charge of the naval air station. + +"If you had come a little sooner," he said, "you could have gone out +with us." + +I was grateful but unenthusiastic. I had seen the officers watching +the sky for German planes. I had a keen idea that a German aviator +overhead, armed with a Belgian block or a bomb or a dart, could have +ripped that yellow envelope open from stem to stern, and robbed +American literature of one of its shining lights. Besides, even in +times of peace I am afraid to look out of a third-story window. + +We made a tour of the station, which had been a great factory before +the war began, beginning with the hangar in which the balloon was now +safely housed. + +Entrance to the station is by means of a bridge over a canal. The +bridge is guarded by sentries and the password of the day is necessary +to gain admission. East and west along the canal are canal boats that +have been painted grey and have guns mounted on them. Side by side +with these gunboats are the ordinary canal boats of the region, +serving as homes for that part of the populace which remains, with +women knitting on the decks or hanging out lines of washing overhead. + +The endless traffic of a main highroad behind the lines passes the +station day and night. Chauffeurs drop in to borrow petrol or to +repair their cars; visiting officers from other stations come to watch +the airship perform. For England has been slow to believe in the +airships, pinning her aëronautical faith to heavier-than-air machines. +She has considered the great expense for building and upkeep of each +of these dirigible balloons--as much as that of fifty aëroplanes--the +necessity of providing hangars for them, and their vulnerability to +attack, as overbalancing the advantages of long range, silence as they +drift with the wind with engines cut off, and ability to hover over a +given spot and thus launch aërial bombs more carefully. + +There is a friendly rivalry between the two branches of the air +service, and so far in this war the credit apparently goes to the +aëroplanes. However, until the war is over, and Germany definitely +states what part her Zeppelins have had in both sea and land attacks, +it will be impossible to make any fair comparison. + +The officers at the naval air station had their headquarters in the +administration building of the factory, a long brick building facing +the road. Here in a long room with western windows they rested and +relaxed, lined and talked between their adventurous excursions to the +lines. + +Day by day these men went out, some in the airship for a +reconnoissance, others to man observation balloons. Day by day it was +uncertain who would come back. + +But they were very cheerful. Officers with an hour to spare came up +from the gunboats in the canal to smoke a pipe by the fire. Once in so +often a woman came, stopping halfway her frozen journey to a soup +kitchen or a railroad station, where she looked after wounded +soldiers, to sit in the long room and thaw out; visiting officers from +other parts of the front dropped in for a meal, sure of a welcome and +a warm fire. As compared with the trenches, or even with the gunboats +on the canal, the station represented cheer, warmth; even, after the +working daylight hours, society. + +There were several buildings. Outside near the bridge was the wireless +building, where an operator sat all the time with his receivers over +his ears. Not far from the main group was the great hangar of the +airship, and to that we went first. The hangar had been a machine shop +with a travelling crane. It had been partially cleared but the crane +still towered at one end. High above it, reached by a ladder, was a +door. + +The young captain of the airship pointed up to it. + +"My apartments!" he said. + +"Do you mean to say that you sleep here?" I asked. For the building +was bitterly cold; one end had been knocked out to admit the airship, +and the wall had been replaced by great curtains of sailcloth to keep +out the wind. + +"Of course," he replied. "I am always within call. There are sentries +also to guard the ship. It would be very easy to put it out of +commission." + +The construction of the great balloon was explained to me carefully. +It was made of layer after layer of gold-beater's skin and contained +two ballonets--a small ship compared to the Zeppelins, and non-rigid +in type. + +Underneath the great cigar-shaped bag hangs an aluminum car which +carries a crew of three men. The pilot sits in front at a wheel that +resembles the driving wheel of an automobile. Just behind him is the +observer, who also controls the wireless. The engineer is the third +man. + +The wireless puzzled me. "Do you mean that when you go out on scouting +expeditions you can communicate with the station here?" I asked. + +"It is quite possible. But when the airship goes out a wireless van +accompanies it, following along the roads. Messages are picked up by +the van and by a telephone connection sent to the various batteries." + +It may be well to mention again the airship chart system by which the +entire region is numbered and lettered in small squares. Black lines +drawn across the detail map of the neighbourhood divide it into +lettered squares, A, B, C, and so forth, and these lettered squares +are again subdivided into four small squares, 1, 2, 3, 4. Thus the +direction B 4, or N 2, is a very specific one in directing the fire of +a battery. + +"Did you accomplish much to-day?" I inquired. + +"Not as much as usual. There is a ground haze," replied Colonel M----, +who had been the observer in that day's flight. "Down here it is not +so noticeable, but from above it obscures everything." + +He explained the difficulties of the airship builder, the expense and +tendency to "pinholes" of gold-beaters' skin, the curious fact that +chemists had so far failed to discover a gasproof varnish. + +"But of course," he said, "those things will come. The airship is the +machine of the future. Its stability, its power to carry great +weights, point to that. The difference between an airship and an +aëroplane is the difference between a battleship and a submarine. Each +has its own field of usefulness." + +All round lay great cylinders of pure hydrogen, used for inflating the +balloon. Smoking in the hangar was forbidden. The incessant wind +rattled the great canvas curtains and whistled round the rusting +crane. From the shop next door came the hammering of machines, for the +French Government has put the mill to work again. + +We left the hangar and walked past the machine shop. Halfway along one +of its sides a tall lieutenant pointed to a small hole in the land, +leading under the building. + +"The French government has sent here," he said, "the men who are unfit +for service in the army. Day by day, as German aëroplanes are seen +overhead, the alarm is raised in the shop. The men are panic-stricken. +If there are a dozen alarms they do the same thing. They rush out like +frightened rabbits, throw themselves flat on the sand, and wriggle +through that hole into a cave that they have dug underneath. It is +hysterically funny; they all try to get in at the same time." + +I had hoped to see the thing happen myself. But when, late that +afternoon, a German aëroplane actually flew over the station, the +works had closed down for the day and the men were gone. It was +disappointing. + +Between the machine shop and the administration building is a tall +water tower. On top of this are two observers who watch the sky day +and night. An anti-aircraft gun is mounted there and may be swung to +command any portion of the sky. This precaution is necessary, for the +station has been the object of frequent attacks. The airship itself +has furnished a tempting mark to numerous German airmen. Its best +speed is forty miles an hour, so they are able to circle about it and +attack it from various directions. As it has only two ballonets, a +single shot, properly placed, could do it great damage. The Zeppelin, +with its eighteen great gasbags, can suffer almost any amount of +attack and still remain in the air. + +"Would you like to see the trenches?" said one of the officers, +smiling. + +"Trenches? Seven miles behind the line?" + +"Trenches certainly. If the German drive breaks through it will come +along this road." + +"But I thought you lived in the administration building?" + +"Some of us must hold the trenches," he said solemnly. "What are six +or seven miles to the German Army? You should see the letters of +sympathy we get from home!" + +So he showed me the trenches. They were extremely nice trenches, dug +out of the sand, it is true, but almost luxurious for all that, more +like rooms than ditches, with board shelves and dishes on the shelves, +egg cups and rows of shining glasses, silver spoons, neat little +folded napkins, and, though the beds were on the floor, extremely tidy +beds of mattresses and warm blankets. The floor was boarded over. +There was a chair or two, and though I will not swear to pictures on +the walls there were certainly periodicals and books. Outside the door +was a sort of vestibule of boards which had been built to keep the +wind out. + +"You see!" said the young officer with twinkling eyes. "But of course +this is war. One must put up with things!" + +Nevertheless it was a real trench, egg cups and rows of shining +glasses and electric light and all. It was there for a purpose. In +front of it was a great barbed-wire barricade. Strategically it +commanded the main road over which the German Army must pass to reach +the point it has been striving for. Only seven miles away along that +road it was straining even then for the onward spring movement. Any +day now, and that luxurious trench may be the scene of grim and +terrible fighting. + +And, more than that, these men at the station were not waiting for +danger to come to them. Day after day they were engaged in the most +perilous business of the war. + +At this station some of the queer anomalies of a volunteer army were +to be found. So strongly ingrained in the heart of the British youth +of good family is the love of country, that when he is unable to get +his commission he goes in any capacity. I heard of a little chap, too +small for the regular service, who has gone to the front as a cook! +His uncle sits in the House of Lords. And here, at this naval air +station, there were young noncommissioned officers who were +Honourables, and who were trying their best to live it down. One such +youth was in charge of the great van that is the repair shop for the +airship. Others were in charge of the wireless station. One met them +everywhere, clear-eyed young Englishmen ready and willing to do +anything, no matter what, and proving every moment of their busy day +the essential democracy of the English people. + +As we went into the administration building that afternoon two things +happened: The observers in the water tower reported a German aëroplane +coming toward the station, and a young lieutenant, who had gone to the +front in a borrowed machine, reported that he had broken the wind +shield of the machine. There are plenty of German aëroplanes at that +British airship station, but few wind shields. The aëroplane was +ignored, but the wind shield was loudly and acrimoniously discussed. + +The day was cold and had turned grey and lowering. It was pleasant +after our tour of the station to go into the long living room and sit +by the fire. But the fire smoked. One after another those dauntless +British officers attacked it, charged with poker, almost with bayonet, +and retired defeated. So they closed it up finally with a curious +curved fire screen and let it alone. It was ten minutes after I began +looking at the fire screen before I recognised it for what it was--the +hood from an automobile! + +Along one side of the wall was a piano. It had been brought back from +a ruined house at the front. It was rather a poor piano and no one had +any music, but some of the officers played a little by ear. The top of +the piano was held up by a bandage! It was a piano of German make, and +the nameplate had been wrenched off! + +A long table filled the centre of the room. One end formed the press +censorship bureau, for it was part of the province of the station to +censor and stamp letters going out. The other end was the dining +table. Over the fireplace on the mantel was a baby's shoe, a little +brown shoe picked up on the street of a town that was being destroyed. + +Beside it lay an odd little parachute of canvas with a weighted +letter-carrier beneath. One of the officers saw me examining it and +presented it to me, as it was worn and past service. + +"Now and then," he explained, "it is impossible to use the wireless, +for one reason or another. In that case a message can be dropped by +means of the parachute." + +I brought the message-carrier home with me. On its weighted canvas bag +is written in ink: "Urgent! You are requested to forward this at once +to the inclosed address. From His Majesty's airship ----." + +The sight of the press-censor stamp reminded an English officer, who +had lived in Belgium, of the way letters to and from interned Belgians +have been taken over the frontier into Holland and there dispatched. +Men who are willing to risk their lives for money collect these +letters. At one time the price was as high as two hundred francs for +each one. When enough have been gathered together to make the risk +worth while the bearer starts on his journey. He must slip through the +sentry lines disguised as a workman, or perhaps by crawling through +the barbed wire at the barrier. For fear of capture some of these +bearers, working their way through the line at night, have dragged +their letters behind them, so that in case of capture they could drop +the cord and be found without incriminating evidence on them. For +taking letters into Belgium the process is naturally reversed. But +letters are sent, not to names, but to numbers. The bearer has a list +of numbers which correspond to certain addresses. Thus, even if he is +taken and the letters are found on him, their intended recipients will +not be implicated. I saw a letter which had been received in this way +by a Belgian woman. It was addressed simply to Number Twenty-eight. + +The fire was burning better behind its automobile hood. An orderly had +brought in tea, white bread, butter, a pitcher of condensed cream, and +an English teacake. We gathered round the tea table. War seemed a +hundred miles away. Except for the blue uniforms and brass buttons of +the officers who belonged to the naval air service, the orderly's +khaki and the bayonet from a gun used casually at the other end of the +table as a paperweight, it was an ordinary English tea. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE WOMEN AT THE FRONT + + +It was commencing to rain outside. The rain beat on the windows and +made even the reluctant fire seem cosy. Some one had had a box of +candy sent from home. It was brought out and presented with a +flourish. + +"It is frightful, this life in the trenches!" said the young officer +who passed it about. + +Shortly afterward the party was increased. An orderly came in and +announced that an Englishwoman, whose automobile had broken down, was +standing on the bridge over the canal and asked to be admitted. She +did not know the password and the sentry refused to let her pass by. + +One of the officers went out and returned in a few moments with a +small lady much wrapped in veils and extremely wet. She stood blinking +in the doorway in the accustomed light. She was recognised at once as +a well-known English novelist who is conducting a soup kitchen at a +railroad station three miles behind the Belgian front. + +"A car was to have picked me up," she said, "but I have walked and +walked and it has not come. And I am so cold. Is that tea? And may I +come to the fire?" + +So they settled her comfortably, with her feet thrust out to the +blaze, and gave her hot tea and plenty of bread and butter. + +"It is like the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice in Wonderland," said +one of the officers gaily. "When any fresh person drops in we just +move up one place." + +The novelist sipped her tea and told me about her soup kitchen. + +"It is so very hard to get things to put into the soup," she said. "Of +course I have no car, and now with the new law that no women are to be +allowed in military cars I hardly know what to do." + +"Will you tell me just what you do?" I asked. So she told me, and +later I saw her soup kitchen. + +"Men come in from the front," she explained, "injured and without +food. Often they have had nothing to eat for a long time. We make soup +of whatever meat we can find and any vegetables, and as the hospital +trains come in we carry it out to the men. They are so very grateful +for it." + +That was to be an exceptional afternoon at the naval air-station. For +hardly had the novelist been settled with her tea when two very +attractive but strangely attired young women came into the room. They +nodded to the officers, whom they knew, and went at once to the +business which had brought them. + +"Can you lend us a car?" they asked. "Ours has gone off the road into +the mud, and it looks as though it would never move again." + +That was the beginning of a very strange evening, almost an +extraordinary evening. For while the novelist was on her way back to +peace these young women were on their way home. + +And home to them was one room of a shattered house directly on the +firing line. + +Much has been said about women at the front. As far as I know at that +time there were only two women absolutely at the front. Nurses as a +rule are kept miles behind the line. Here and there a soup kitchen, +like that just spoken of, has held its courageous place three or four +miles back along the lines of communication. + +I have said that they were extraordinarily dressed. Rather they were +most practically dressed. Under khaki-coloured leather coats these two +young women wore khaki riding breeches with puttees and flannel +shirts. They had worn nothing else for six months. They wore knitted +caps on their heads, for the weather was extremely cold, and mittens. + +The fire was blazing high and we urged them to take off their outer +wraps. For a reason which we did not understand at the time they +refused. They sat with their leather coats buttoned to the throat, and +coloured violently when urged to remove them. + +"But what are you doing here?" said one of the officers. "What brings +you so far from P----" + +They said they had had an errand, and went on drinking tea. + +"What sort of an errand?" a young lieutenant demanded. + +They exchanged glances. + +"Shopping," they said, and took more tea. + +"Shopping, for what?" He was smilingly impertinent. + +They hesitated. Then: "For mutton," one of them replied. Both looked +relieved. Evidently the mutton was an inspiration. "We have found some +mutton." They turned to me. "It is a real festival. You have no idea +how long it is since we've had anything of the sort." + +"Mutton!" cried the novelist, with frankly greedy eyes. "It makes +wonderful soup! Where can I get it?" + +They told her, and she stood up, tied on her seven veils and departed, +rejoicing, in a car that had come for her. + +When she was gone Colonel M---- turned to one of the young women. + +"Now," he said, "out with it. What brings you both so far from your +thriving and prosperous little community?" + +The irony of that was lost on me until later, when I discovered that +the said community was a destroyed town with the advance line of +trenches running through it, and that they lived in the only two whole +rooms in the place. + +"Out with it," said the colonel, and scowled ferociously. + +Driven into a corner they were obliged to confess. For three hours +that afternoon they had stood in a freezing wind on a desolate field, +while King Albert of Belgium decorated for bravery various officers +and--themselves. The jealously fastened coats were thrown open. +Gleaming on the breast of each young woman was the star of the Order +of Leopold! + +"But why did you not tell us?" the officers demanded. + +"Because," was the retort, "you have never approved of us; you have +always wanted us sent back to England. The whole British Army has +objected to our being where we are." + +"Much good the objecting has done!" grumbled the officers. But in +their hearts they were very proud. + +Originally there had been three in this valiant little group of young +aristocrats who have proved as true as their brothers to the +traditions of their race. The third one was the daughter of an earl. +She, too, had been decorated. But she had gone to a little town near +by a day or two before. + +"But what do you do?" I asked one of these young women. She was +drawing on her mittens ready to start for their car. + +"Sick and sorry work," she said briefly. "You know the sort of thing. +I wish you would come out and have dinner with us. There is to be +mutton." + +I accepted promptly, but it was the situation and not the mutton that +appealed to me. It was arranged that they should go ahead and set +things in motion for the meal, and that I should follow later. + +At the door one of them turned and smiled at me. + +"They are shelling the village," she said. "You don't mind, do you?" + +"Not at all," I replied. And I meant it. For I was no longer so +gun-shy as I had been earlier in the winter. I had got over turning +pale at the slamming of a door. I was as terrified, perhaps, but my +pride had come to my aid. + +It was the English officers who disapproved so thoroughly who told me +about them when they had gone. + +"Of course they have no business there," they said. "It's a frightful +responsibility to place on the men at that part of the line. But +there's no question about the value of what they are doing, and if +they want to stay they deserve to be allowed to. They go right into +the trenches, and they take care of the wounded until the ambulances +can come up at night. Wait until you see their house and you will +understand why they got those medals." + +And when I had seen their house and spent an evening with them I +understood very well indeed. + +We gathered round the fire; conversation was desultory. Muddy and +weary young officers, who had been at the front all day, came in and +warmed themselves for a moment before going up to their cold rooms. +The owner of the broken wind shield arrived and was placated. +Continuous relays of tea were coming and going. Colonel ----, who had +been in an observation balloon most of the day, spoke of balloon +sickness. + +"I have been in balloons of one sort and another for twenty years," he +said. "I never overcome the nausea. Very few airmen do." + +I spoke to him about a recent night attack by German aviators. + +"It is remarkable work," he commented warmly, "hazardous in the +extreme; and if anything goes wrong they cannot see where they are +coming down. Even when they alight in their own lines, landing safely +is difficult. They are apt to wreck their machines." + +The mention of German aëroplanes reminded one of the officers of an +experience he had had just behind the firing line. + +"I had been to the front," he said, "and a mile or so behind the line +a German aëroplane overtook the automobile. He flew low, with the +evident intention of dropping a bomb on us. The chauffeur, becoming +excited, stalled the engine. At that moment the aviator dropped the +first bomb, killing a sow and a litter of young pigs beside the car +and breaking all the glass. Cranking failed to start the car. It was +necessary, while the machine manoeuvred to get overhead again, to lift +the hood of the engine, examine a spark-plug and then crank the car. +He dropped a second bomb which fell behind the car and made a hole in +the road. Then at last the engine started, and it took us a very short +time to get out of that neighbourhood." + +The car he spoke of was the car in which I had come out to the +station. I could testify that something had broken the glass! + +One of the officers had just received what he said were official +percentages of casualties in killed, wounded and missing among the +Allies, to the first of February. + +The Belgian percentage was 66 2-3, the English 33 1-3 and the French +7. I have no idea how accurate the figures were, or his authority for +them. He spoke of them as official. From casualties to hospitals and +nurses was but a step. I spoke warmly of the work the nurses near the +front were doing. But one officer disagreed with me, although in the +main his views were not held by the others. + +"The nurses at the base hospitals should be changed every three +months," he said. "They get the worst cases there, in incredible +conditions. After a time it tells on them. I've seen it in a number of +cases. They grow calloused to suffering. That's the time to bring up a +new lot." + +I think he is wrong. I have seen many hospitals, many nurses. If there +is a change in the nurses after a time, it is that, like the soldiers +in the field, they develop a philosophy which carries them through +their terrible days. "What must be, must be," say the men in the +trenches. "What must be, must be," say the nurses in the hospital. And +both save themselves from madness. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE LITTLE "SICK AND SORRY" HOUSE + + +And now it was seven o'clock, and raining. Dinner was to be at eight. +I had before me a drive of nine miles along those slippery roads. It +was dark and foggy, with the ground mist of Flanders turning to a fog. +The lamps of the car shining into it made us appear to be riding +through a milky lake. Progress was necessarily slow. + +One of the English officers accompanied me. + +"I shall never forget the last time I dined out here," he said as we +jolted along. "There is a Belgian battery just behind the house. All +evening as we sat and talked I thought the battery was firing; the +house shook under tremendous concussion. Every now and then Mrs. K---- +or Miss C---- would get up and go out, coming back a few moments later +and joining calmly in the conversation. + +"Not until I started back did I know that we had been furiously +bombarded, that the noise I had heard was shells breaking all about +the place. A 'coal-box,' as they call them here, had fallen in the +garden and dug a great hole!" + +"And when the young ladies went out, were they watching the bombs +burst?" I inquired. + +"Not at all," he said. "They went out to go into the trenches to +attend to the wounded. They do it all the time." + +"And they said nothing about it!" + +"They thought we knew. As for going into the trenches, that is what +they are there to do." + +My enthusiasm for mutton began to fade. I felt convinced that I should +not remain calm if a shell fell into the garden. But again, as +happened many times during those eventful weeks at the front, my pride +refused to allow me to turn back. And not for anything in the world +would I have admitted being afraid to dine where those two young women +were willing to eat and sleep and have their being day and night for +months. + +"But of course," I said, "they are well protected, even if they are at +the trenches. That is, the Germans never get actually into the town." + +"Oh, don't they?" said the officer. "That town has been taken by the +Germans five times and lost as many. A few nights ago they got over +into the main street and there was terrific hand-to-hand fighting." + +"Where do they go at such times?" I asked. + +"I never thought about it. I suppose they get into the cellar. But if +they do it is not at all because they are afraid." + +We went on, until some five of the nine miles had been traversed. + +I have said before that the activity at the front commences only with +the falling of night. During the day the zone immediately back of the +trenches is a dead country. But at night it wakens into activity. +Soldiers leave the trenches and fresh soldiers take their places, +ammunition and food are brought up, wires broken during the day by +shells are replaced, ambulances come up and receive their frightful +burdens. + +Now we reached the zone of night activity. A travelling battery passed +us, moving from one part of the line to another; the drivers, three to +each gun, sat stolidly on their horses, their heads dropped against +the rain. They appeared out of the mist beside us, stood in full +relief for a moment in the glow of the lamps, and were swallowed up +again. + +At three miles from our destination, but only one mile from the German +lines, it was necessary to put out the lamps. Our progress, which had +been dangerous enough before, became extremely precarious. It was +necessary to turn out for teams and lorries, for guns and endless +lines of soldiers, and to turn out a foot too far meant slipping into +the mud. Two miles and a half from the village we turned out too far. + +There was a sickening side slip. The car turned over to the right at +an acute angle and there remained. We were mired! + +We got out. It was perfectly dark. Guns were still passing us, so that +it was necessary to warn the drivers of our wrecked car. The road was +full of shell holes, so that to step was to stumble. The German lines, +although a mile away, seemed very near. Between the road and the enemy +was not a tree or a shrub or a fence--only the line of the railway +embankment which marked the Allies' trenches. To add to the dismalness +of the situation the Germans began throwing the familiar magnesium +lights overhead. The flares made the night alike beautiful and +fearful. It was possible when one burst near to see the entire +landscape spread out like a map--ditches full of water, sodden fields, +shell holes in the roads which had become lakes, the long lines of +poplars outlining the road ahead. At one time no less than twenty +starlights hung in the air at one time. When they went out the inky +night seemed blacker than ever. I stepped off the road and was almost +knee-deep in mud at once. + +The battery passed, urging its tired horses to such speed as was +possible. After it came thousands of men, Belgian and French mostly, +on their way out of the trenches. + +We called for volunteers from the line to try to lift the car onto the +road. But even with twenty men at the towing rope it refused to move. +The men were obliged to give it up and run on to catch their +companies. + +Between the _fusées_ the curious shuffling of feet and a deeper shadow +were all that told of the passage of these troops. It was so dark that +one could see no faces. But here and there one saw the light of a +cigarette. The mere hardship of walking for miles along those roads, +paved with round stones and covered with mud on which their feet +slipped continually, must have been a great one, and agonizing for +feet that had been frosted in the water of the trenches. + +Afterward I inquired what these men carried. They loomed up out of the +night like pack horses. I found that each soldier carried, in addition +to his rifle and bayonet, a large knapsack, a canteen, a cartridge +pouch, a brown haversack containing tobacco, soap, towel and food, a +billy-can and a rolled blanket. + +German batteries were firing intermittently as we stood there. The +rain poured down. I had dressed to go out to tea and wore my one and +only good hat. I did the only thing that seemed possible--I took off +that hat and put it in the automobile and let the rain fall on my +unprotected head. The hat had to see me through the campaign, and my +hair would stand water. + +At last an armoured car came along and pulled the automobile onto the +road. But after a progress of only ten feet it lapsed again, and there +remained. + +The situation was now acute. It was impossible to go back, and to go +ahead meant to advance on foot along roads crowded with silent +soldiers--meant going forward, too, in a pouring rain and in +high-heeled shoes. For that was another idiocy I had committed. + +We started on, leaving the apologetic chauffeur by the car. A few feet +and the road, curving to the right, began to near the German line. +Every now and then it was necessary to call sharply to the troops, or +struggling along through the rain they would have crowded us off +knee-deep into the mud. + +"_Attention!"_ the officer would call sharply. And for a time we would +have foot room. There were no more horses, no more guns--only men, +men, men. Some of them had taken off their outer coats and put them +shawl-fashion over their heads. But most of them walked stolidly on, +already too wet and wretched to mind the rain. + +The fog had lifted. It was possible to see that sinister red streak +that follows the firing of a gun at night. The rain gave a peculiar +hollowness to the concussion. The Belgian and French batteries were +silent. + +We seemed to have walked endless miles, and still there was no little +town. We went over a bridge, and on its flat floor I stopped and +rested my aching feet. + +"Only a little farther now," said the British officer cheerfully. + +"How much farther?" + +"Not more than a mile," + +By way of cheering me he told me about the town we were +approaching--how the road we were on was its main street, and that the +advanced line of trenches crossed at the railroad near the foot of the +street. + +"And how far from that are the German trenches?" I asked nervously. + +"Not very far," he said blithely. "Near enough to be interesting." + +On and on. Here was a barn. + +"Is this the town?" I asked feebly. + +"Not yet. A little farther!" + +I was limping, drenched, irritable. But now and then the absurdity of +my situation overcame me and I laughed. Water ran down my head and off +my nose, trickled down my neck under my coat. I felt like a great +sponge. And suddenly I remembered my hat. + +"I feel sure," I said, stopping still in the road, "that the chauffeur +will go inside the car out of the rain and sit on my hat." + +The officer thought this very likely. I felt extremely bitter about +it. The more I thought of it the more I was convinced that he was +exactly the sort of chauffeur who would get into a car and sit on an +only hat. + +At last we came to the town--to what had been a town. It was a town no +longer. Walls without roofs, roofs almost without walls. Here and +there only a chimney standing of what had been a home; a street so +torn up by shells that walking was almost impossible--full of +shell-holes that had become graves. There were now no lights, not even +soldiers. In the silence our footsteps re-echoed against those +desolate and broken walls. + +A day or two ago I happened on a description of this town, written by +a man who had seen it at the time I was there. + +"The main street," he writes, "is like a great museum of prehistoric +fauna. The house roofs, denuded of tiles and the joists left naked, +have tilted forward on to the sidewalks, so that they hang in mid-air +like giant vertebrae.... One house only of the whole village of ---- +had been spared." + +We stumbled down the street toward the trenches and at last stopped +before a house. Through boards nailed across what had once been +windows a few rays of light escaped. There was no roof; a side wall +and an entire corner were gone. It was the residence of the ladies of +the decoration. + +Inside there was for a moment an illusion of entirety. The narrow +corridor that ran through the centre of the house was weatherproof. +But through some unseen gap rushed the wind of the night. At the +right, warm with lamplight, was the reception room, dining room and +bedroom--one small chamber about twelve by fifteen! + +What a strange room it was, furnished with odds and ends from the +shattered houses about! A bed in the corner; a mattress on the floor; +a piano in front of the shell-holed windows, a piano so badly cracked +by shrapnel that panels of the woodwork were missing and keys gone; +two or three odd chairs and what had once been a bookcase, and in the +centre a pine table laid for a meal. + +Mrs. K----, whose uncle was a cabinet minister, was hurrying in with a +frying-pan in her hand. + +"The mutton!" she said triumphantly, and placed it on the table, +frying-pan and all. The other lady of the decoration followed with the +potatoes, also in the pan in which they had been cooked. + +We drew up our chairs, for the mutton must not be allowed to get cold. + +"It's quite a party, isn't it?" said one of the hostesses, and showed +us proudly the dish of fruit on the centre of the table, flanked by +bonbons and nuts which had just been sent from England. + +True, the fruit was a little old and the nuts were few; but they gave +the table a most festive look. + +Some one had taken off my shoes and they were drying by the fire, +stuffed with paper to keep them in shape. My soaking outer garments +had been carried to the lean-to kitchen to hang by the stove, and dry +under the care of a soldier servant who helped with the cooking. I +looked at him curiously. His predecessor had been killed in the room +where he stood. + +The German batteries were firing, and every now and then from the +trenches at the foot of the street came the sharp ping of rifles. No +one paid any attention. We were warm and sheltered from the wind. What +if the town was being shelled and the Germans were only six hundred +feet away? We were getting dry, and there was mutton for dinner. + +It was a very cheerful party--the two young ladies, and a third who +had joined them temporarily, a doctor who was taking influenza and +added little to the conversation, the chauffeur attached to the house, +who was a count in ordinary times, a Belgian major who had come up +from the trenches to have a real meal, and the English officer who had +taken me out. + +Outside the door stood the major's Congo servant, a black boy who +never leaves him, following with dog-like fidelity into the trenches +and sleeping outside his door when the major is in billet. He had +picked him up in the Congo years before during his active service +there. + +The meal went on. The frying-pan was passed. The food was good and the +talk was better. It was indiscriminately rapid French and English. +When it was English I replied. When it was French I ate. + +The hostess presented me with a shrapnel case which had arrived that +day on the doorstep. + +"If you are collecting trophies," said the major, "I shall get you a +German sentry this evening. How would you like that?" + +There was a reckless twinkle in the major's eye. It developed that he +had captured several sentries and liked playing the game. + +But I did not know the man. So I said: "Certainly, it would be most +interesting." + +Whereupon he rose. It took all the combined effort of the dinner party +to induce him to sit down and continue his meal. He was vastly +disappointed. He was a big man with a humorous mouth. The idea of +bringing me a German sentry to take home as a trophy appealed to him. + +The meal went on. No one seemed to consider the circumstances +extraordinary. Now and then I remembered the story of the street +fighting a few nights before. I had an idea that these people would +keep on eating and talking English politics quite calmly in the event +of a German charge. I wondered if I could live up to my reputation for +courage in such a crisis. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +FLIGHT + + +The first part of the meal over, the hostess picked up a nut and threw +it deftly at a door leading into the lean-to-kitchen. + +"Our table bell," she explained to me. And, true enough, a moment +later the orderly appeared and carried out the plates. + +Then we had dessert, which was fruit and candy, and coffee. + +And all the time the guns were firing, and every opening of the door +into the corridor brought a gale of wind into the room. + +Suddenly it struck me that hardly a foot of the plaster interior of +that room was whole. The ceiling was riddled. So were the walls. + +"Shrapnel," said the major, following my gaze. "It gets worse every +day." + +"I think the ceiling is going to fall," said one of the hostesses. + +True enough, there was a great bulge in the centre. But it held for +that night. It may be holding now. + +Everybody took a hand at clearing the table. The lamp was burning low, +and they filled it without putting it out. One of the things that I +have always been taught is never to fill a lighted lamp. I explained +this to them carefully. But they were quite calm. It seems at the +front one does a great many extraordinary things. It is part and +parcel of that utter indifference to danger that comes with war. + +Now appeared the chauffeur, who brought the information that the car +had been dragged out of the mud and towed as far as the house. + +"Towed?" I said blankly. + +"Towed, madame. There is no more petrol." + +The major suggested that we kill him at once. But he was a perfectly +good chauffeur and young. Also it developed that he had not sat on my +hat. So we let him live. + +"Never mind," said Miss C----; "we can give you the chauffeur's bed +and he can go somewhere else." + +But after a time I decided that I would rather walk back than stay +overnight in that house. For the major explained that at eleven +o'clock the batteries behind the town would bombard the German +trenches and the road behind them, along which they had information +that an ammunition train would pass. + +"Another night in the cellar!" said some one. "That means no one will +need any beds, for there will be a return fire, of course." + +"Is there no petrol to be had?" I inquired anxiously. + +"None whatever." + +None, of course. There had been shops in the town, and presumably +petrol and other things. But now there was nothing but ruined walls +and piles of brick and mortar. However, there was a cellar. + +My feet were swollen and painful, for the walk had been one long +agony. I was chilled, too, from my wetting, in spite of the fire. I +sat by the tiny stove and tried to forget the prospect of a night in +the cellar, tried to ignore the pieces of shell and shrapnel cases +lined up on the mantelpiece, shells and shrapnel that had entered the +house and destroyed it. + +The men smoked and talked. An officer came up from the trenches to +smoke his after-dinner pipe, a bearded individual, who apologised for +his muddy condition. He and the major played a duet. They made a great +fuss about their preparation for it. The stool must be so, the top of +the cracked piano raised. They turned and bowed to us profoundly. Then +sat down and played--CHOP STICKS! + +But that was only the beginning. For both of them were accomplished +musicians. The major played divinely. He played a Rhapsodie Hongroise, +the Moonlight Sonata, one of the movements of the Sonata Appassionata. +He played without notes, a bulldog pipe gripped firmly in his teeth, +blue clouds encircling his fair hair. Gone was the reckless soldier +who would have taken his life in his hands for the whim of bringing in +a German sentry. Instead there was a Belgian whose ruined country lay +behind him, whose people lay dead in thousands of hideous graves, +whose heart was torn and aching with the things that it knew and +buried. We sat silent. His pipe died in his mouth; his eyes, fixed on +the shell-riddled wall, grew sombre. When the music ceased his hands +still lay lingeringly on the keys. And, beyond the foot of the street, +the ominous guns of the army that had ruined his country crashed +steadily. + +We were rather subdued when the music died away. But he evidently +regretted having put a weight on the spirits of the party. He rose and +brought me a charming little water-colour sketch he had made of the +bit of No Man's Land in front of his trench, with the German line +beyond it. + +"By the way," he said in his exact English, "I went to art school in +Dresden with an American named Reinhart. Afterward he became a great +painter--Charles Stanley Reinhart. Is he by any chance a relative?" + +"Charles Stanley Reinhart is dead," I said. "He was a Pittsburgher, +too, but the two families are connected only by marriage." + +"Dead! So he is dead too! Everybody is dead. He--he was a very nice +boy." + +Suddenly he stood up and stretched his long arms. + +"It was a long time ago," he said. "Now I go for the sentry." + +They caught him at the door, however, and brought him back. + +"But it is so simple," he protested. "No one is hurt. And the American +lady--" + +The American lady protested. + +"I don't want a German sentry," I said. "I shouldn't know what to do +with a German sentry if I had one." + +So he sat down and explained his method to me. I wish I could tell his +method here. It sounded so easy. Evidently it was a safety-valve, +during that long wait of the deadlock, for his impetuous temperament. +One could picture him sitting in his trench day after day among the +soldiers who adored him, making little water-colour sketches and +smoking his bulldog pipe, and then suddenly, as now, rising and +stretching his long arms and saying: + +"Well, boys, I guess I'll go out and bring one in." + +And doing it. + +I was taken for a tour of the house--up a broken staircase that hung +suspended, apparently from nothing, to what had been the upper story. + +It was quite open to the sky and the rain was coming in. On the side +toward the German line there was no wall. There were no partitions, no +windows, only a few broken sticks of what had been furniture. And in +one corner, partly filled with rain water, a child's cradle that had +miraculously escaped destruction. + +Downstairs to the left of the corridor was equal destruction. There +was one room here that, except for a great shell-hole and for a +ceiling that was sagging and almost ready to fall, was intact. Here on +a stand were surgical supplies, and there was a cot in the corner. A +soldier had just left the cot. He had come up late in the afternoon +with a nosebleed, and had now recovered. + +"It has been a light day," said my guide. "Sometimes we hardly know +which way to turn--when there is much going on, you know. Probably +to-night we shall be extremely busy." + +We went back into the living room and I consulted my watch. It was +half past ten o'clock. At eleven the bombardment was to begin! + +The conversation in the room had turned to spies. Always, everywhere, +I found this talk of spies. It appeared that at night a handful of the +former inhabitants of the town crept back from the fields to sleep in +the cellars of what had been their homes, and some of them were under +suspicion. + +"Every morning," said Miss C----, "before the German bombardment +begins, three small shells are sent over in quick succession. Then +there is about fifteen minutes' wait before the real shelling. I am +convinced that it is a signal to some one to get out." + +The officers pooh-poohed the idea. But Miss C---- stuck to her point. + +"They are getting information somehow," she said. "You may laugh if +you like. I am sure I am right." + +Later on an officer explained to me something about the secret service +of the war. + +"It is a war of spies," he said. "That is one reason for the deadlock. +Every movement is reported to the other side and checkmated almost +before it begins. In the eastern field of war the system is still +inadequate; that accounts for the great movements that have taken +place there." + +Perhaps he is right. It sounds reasonable. I do not know with what +authority he spoke. But certainly everywhere I found this talk of +spies. One of the officers that night told of a recent experience of +his. + +"I was in a church tower at ----," he said. "There were three of us. +We had been looking over toward the German lines. Suddenly I looked +down into the street below. Some one with an electric flash was +signalling across. It was quite distinct. All of us saw it. There was +an answer from the German trenches immediately. While one of us kept +watch on the tower the others rushed down into the street. There was +no one there. But it is certain that that sort of thing goes on all +the time." + +A quarter to eleven! + +Suddenly the whole thing seemed impossible--that the noise at the foot +of the street was really guns; that I should be there; that these two +young women should live there day and night in the midst of such +horrors. For the whole town is a graveyard. Bodies in numbers have +been buried in shell-holes and hastily covered, or float in the +stagnant water of the canal. Every heavy rain uncovers shallow graves +in the fields, allowing a dead arm, part of a rotting trunk, to show. + +And now, after this lapse of time, it still seems incredible. Are they +still there? Report has it that the Germans captured this town and +held it for a time, only to lose it later. What happened to the little +"sick and sorry" house during those fearful days? Did the German +officers sit about that pine table and throw a nut to summon an +orderly? Did they fill the lamp while it was lighted, and play on the +cracked piano, and pick up shrapnel cases as they landed on the +doorstep and set them on the mantel? + +Ten minutes to eleven! + +The chauffeur came to the door and stuck his head in. + +"I have found petrol in a can in an empty shed," he explained. "It is +now possible to go." + +We went. We lost no time on the order of our going. The rain was over, +but the fog had descended again. We lighted our lamps, and were curtly +ordered by a sentry to put them out. In the moment that they remained +alight, carefully turned away from the trenches, it was possible to +see the hopeless condition of the street. + +At last we reached a compromise. One lamp we might have, but covered +with heavy paper. It was very little. The car bumped ominously, sagged +into shell-holes. + +I turned and looked back at the house. Faint rays of light shone +through its boarded windows. A wounded soldier had been brought up the +street and stood, leaning heavily on his companion, at the doorstep. +The door opened, and he was taken in. + +Good-bye, little "sick and sorry" house, with your laughter and tears, +your friendly hands, your open door! Good-bye! + +Five minutes later, as we reached the top of the Street, the +bombardment began. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +VOLUNTEERS AND PATRIOTS + + +I hold a strong brief for the English: For the English at home, +restrained, earnest, determined and unassuming; for the English in the +field, equally all of these things. + +The British Army has borne attacks at La Bassée and Ypres, positions +so strategically difficult to hold that the Germans have concentrated +their assaults at these points. It has borne the horrors of the +retreat from Mons, when what the Kaiser called "General French's +contemptible little army" was forced back by oncoming hosts of many +times its number. It has fought, as the English will always fight, +with unequalled heroism but without heroics. + +To-day, after many months of war, the British Army in the field is as +smart, in a military sense, as tidy--if it will forgive me the +word--as well ordered, as efficiently cared for, as the German Army +was in the beginning. Partly this is due to its splendid equipment. +Mostly it is due to that fetish of the British soldier wherever he may +be--personal neatness. + +Behind the lines he is jaunty, cheerful, smart beyond belief. He hates +the trenches--not because they are dangerous or monotonous but because +it is difficult to take a bath in them. He is four days in the +trenches and four days out. On his days out he drills and marches, to +get back into condition after the forced inaction of the trenches. And +he gets his hair trimmed. + +There is something about the appearance of the British soldier in the +field that got me by the throat. Perhaps because they are, in a sense, +my own people, speaking my tongue, looking at things from a view-point +that I could understand. That partly. But it was more than that. + +These men and boys are volunteers, the very flower of England. They +march along the roads, heads well up, eyes ahead, thousands of them. +What a tragedy for the country that gives them up! Who will take their +places?--these splendid Scots with their picturesque kilts, their +bare, muscular knees, their great shoulders; the cheery Irish, +swaggering a bit and with a twinkle in their blue eyes; these tall +young English boys, showing race in every line; these dashing +Canadians, so impressive that their every appearance on a London +street was certain to set the crowds to cheering. + +I saw them in London, and later on I saw them at the front. Still +later I saw them again, prostrate on the ground, in hospital trains, +on hospital ships. I saw mounds, too, marked with wooden crosses. + +Volunteers and patriots! A race incapable of a mean thing, incapable +of a cruelty. A race of sportsmen, playing this horrible game of war +fairly, almost too honestly. A race, not of diplomats, but of +gentlemen. + +"You will always be fools," said a captured German naval officer to +his English captors, "and we shall never be gentlemen!" + +But they are not fools. It is that attitude toward the English that +may defeat Germany in the end. + +Every man in the British Army to-day has counted the cost. He is there +because he elected to be there. He is going to stay by until the thing +is done, or he is. He says very little about it. He is uncomfortable +if any one else says anything about it. He is rather matter of fact, +indeed, and nonchalant as long as things are being done fairly. But +there is nothing calm about his attitude when his opponent hits below +the belt. It was a sense of fair play, as well as humanity, that made +England rise to the call of Belgium. It is England's sense of fair +play that makes her soldiers and sailors go white with fury at the +drowning of women and children and noncombatants; at the unprincipled +employment of such trickery in war as the use of asphyxiating gases, +or at the insulting and ill-treating of those of their army who have +been captured by the Germans. It is at the English, not at the French +or the Belgians, that Germany is striking in this war. Her whole +attitude shows it. British statesmen knew this from the beginning, but +the people were slow to believe it. But escaped prisoners have told +that they were discriminated against. I have talked with a British +officer who made a sensational escape from a German prison camp. +German soldiers have called across to the French trenches that it was +the English they were after. + +In his official order to his troops to advance, the German Emperor +voiced the general sentiment. + + "It is my Royal and Imperial Command that you concentrate your + energies, for the immediate present, upon one single purpose, and + that is that you address all your skill and all the valour of my + soldiers to exterminate first the treacherous English and walk over + General French's contemptible little army. + + "Headquarters, + + "Aix-la-Chapelle, August 19th, 1914." + +In the name of the dignity of great nations, compare that order with +Lord Kitchener's instructions to his troops, given at the same time. + + "You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French + comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You have to perform + a task which will need your courage, your energy, your patience. + Remember that the honour of the British Army depends on your + individual conduct. It will be your duty not only to set an example + of discipline and perfect steadiness under fire, but also to + maintain the most friendly relations with those whom you are helping + in this struggle. + + "The operations in which you are engaged will, for the most part, + take place in a friendly country, and you can do your own country no + better service than in showing yourselves in France and Belgium in + the true character of a British soldier. + + "Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. Never do anything + likely to injure or destroy property, and always look upon looting + as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet with a welcome and to be + trusted; your conduct will justify that welcome and that trust. Your + duty cannot be done unless your health is sound. So keep constantly + on your guard against any excesses. In this new experience you may + find temptations both in wine and women. You must entirely resist + both temptations, and, while treating all women with perfect + courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy. + + "Do your duty bravely, + + "Fear God, + + "Honour the King. + + "(Signed), KITCHENER, Field Marshal," + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +A LUNCHEON AT BRITISH HEADQUARTERS + + +The same high-crowned roads, with pitfalls of mud at each side; the +same lines of trees; the same coating of ooze, over which the car slid +dangerously. But a new element--khaki. + +Khaki everywhere--uniforms, tents, transports, all of the same hue. +Skins, too, where one happens on the Indian troops. It is difficult to +tell where their faces end and their yellow turbans begin. + +Except for the slightly rolling landscape and the khaki one might have +been behind the Belgian or French Army. There were as usual aëroplanes +overhead, clouds of shrapnel smoke, and not far away the thunder of +cannonading. After a time even that ceased, for I was on my way to +British General Headquarters, well back from the front. + +I carried letters from England to Field Marshal Sir John French, to +Colonel Brinsley Fitzgerald, aid-de-camp to the "Chief," as he is +called, and to General Huguet, the _liaison_ between the French and +English Armies. His official title is something entirely different, +but the French word is apt. He is the connecting link between the +English and French Armies. + +I sent these letters to headquarters, and waited in the small hotel +for developments. The British antipathy to correspondents was well +known. True, there were indications that a certain relaxation was +about to take place. Frederick Palmer in London had been notified that +before long he would be sent across, and I had heard that some of the +London newspapers, the _Times_ and a few others, were to be allowed a +day at the lines. + +But at the time my machine drew into that little French town and +deposited me in front of a wretched inn, no correspondent had been to +the British lines. It was _terra incognita_. Even London knew very +little. It was rumoured that such part of the Canadian contingent as +had left England up to that time had been sent to the eastern field, +to Egypt or the Dardanelles. With the exception of Sir John French's +reports and the "Somewhere in France" notes of "Eyewitness," a British +officer at the front, England was taking her army on faith. + +And now I was there, and there frankly as a writer. Also I was a +woman. I knew how the chivalrous English mind recoiled at the idea of +a woman near the front. Their nurses were kept many miles in the rear. +They had raised loud protests when three English women were permitted +to stay at the front with the Belgian Army. + +My knees were a bit weak as I went up the steps and into the hotel. +They would hardly arrest me. My letters were from very important +persons indeed. But they could send me away with expedition and +dispatch. I had run the Channel blockade to get there, and I did not +wish to be sent away with expedition and dispatch. + +The hotel was cold and bare. Curious eyed officers came in, stared at +me and went out. A French gentleman in a military cape walked round +the bare room, spoke to the canaries in a great cage in the corner, +and came back to where I sat with my fur coat, lap-robe fashion, over +my knees. + +"_Pardon!_" he said. "Are you the Duchess of Sutherland?" + +I regretted that I was not the Duchess of Sutherland. + +"You came just now in a large car?" + +"I did." + +"You intend to stay here for some time?" + +"I have not decided." + +"Where did you come from?" + +"I think," I said after a rather stunned pause, "that I shall not tell +you." + +"Madame is very cautious!" + +I felt convinced that he spoke with the authority of the army, or of +the town _gendarmerie_, behind him. But I was irritated. Besides, I +had been cautioned so much about telling where I had been, except in +general terms, that I was even afraid to talk in my sleep. + +"I think," I said, "that it does not really matter where I came from, +where I am going, or what I am doing here." + +I expected to see him throw back his cape and exhibit a sheriff's +badge, or whatever its French equivalent. But he only smiled. + +"In that case," he said cheerfully, "I shall wish you a good morning." + +"Good-bye," I said coldly. And he took himself off. + +I have never solved the mystery of that encounter. Was he merely +curious? Or scraping acquaintance with the only woman he had seen in +months? Or was he as imposing a person as he looked, and did he go +away for a warrant or whatever was necessary, and return to find me +safe in the lap of the British Army? + +The canary birds sang, and a porter with a leather apron, having +overcome a national inability to light a fire in the middle of the +day, came to take me to my room. There was an odour of stewing onions +in the air, and soapsuds, and a dog sniffed at me and barked because I +addressed him in English. + +And then General Huguet came, friendly and smiling, and speaking +English. And all was well. + +Afterward I learned how that same diplomacy which made me comfortable +and at home with him at once has made smooth the relations between the +English and French Armies. It was Chesterfield, wasn't it, who spoke +of _"Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re"?_ That is General Huguet. A +tall man, dark, keen and of most soldierly bearing; beside the genial +downrightness of the British officers he was urbane, suave, but full +of decision. His post requires diplomacy but not concession. + +Sir John French, he regretted to say, was at the front and would not +return until late in the evening. But Colonel Fitzgerald hoped that I +would come to luncheon at headquarters, so that we might talk over +what was best to be done. He would, if the arrangement suited me, +return at one o'clock for me. + +It was half past twelve. I made such concessions to the occasion as my +travelling bag permitted, and, prompt to the minute, General Huguet's +car drew up at the inn door. It was a wonderful car. I used it all +that afternoon and the next day, and I can testify both to its comfort +and to its speed. I had travelled fast in cars belonging to the +Belgian and French staffs, but never have I gone as I did in that +marvel of a car. Somewhere among my papers I have a sketch that I made +of the interior of the limousine body, with the two soldier-chauffeurs +outside in front, the two carbines strapped to the speedometer between +the _vis-à -vis_ seats inside the car, and the speedometer registering +ninety kilometres and going up. + +We went at once to British Headquarters, with its sentries and its +flag; a large house, which had belonged to a notary, its grim and +forbidding exterior gave little promise of the comfort within. A +passage led to a square centre hall from which opened various rooms--a +library, with a wood fire, the latest possible London and Paris +papers, a flat-topped desk and a large map; a very large drawing-room, +which is Sir John French's private office, with white walls panelled +with rose brocade, a marble mantel, and a great centre table, covered, +like the library desk, with papers; a dining room, wainscoted and +comfortable. There were other rooms, which I did not see. In the +square hall an orderly sat all day, waiting for orders of various +sorts. + +Colonel Fitzgerald greeted me amiably. He regretted that Sir John +French was absent, and was curious as to how I had penetrated to the +fastnesses of British Headquarters without trouble. Now and then, +glancing at him unexpectedly during the excellent luncheon that +followed, I found his eyes fixed on me thoughtfully, intently. It was +not at all an unfriendly gaze. Rather it was the look of a man who is +painstakingly readjusting his mental processes to meet a new +situation. + +He made a delightful host. I sat at his right. At the other end of the +table was General Huguet, and across from me a young English nobleman, +attached to the field marshal's staff, came in, a few minutes late, +and took his place. The Prince of Wales, who lives there, had gone to +the trenches the day before. + +Two soldier-servants served the meal. There was red wine, but none of +the officers touched it. The conversation was general and animated. We +spoke of public opinion in America, of the resources of Germany and +her starvation cry, of the probable length of the war. On this +opinions varied. One of the officers prophesied a quick ending when +the Allies were finally ready to take the offensive. The others were +not so optimistic. But neither here, nor in any of the conversations I +have heard at the headquarters of the Allies, was there a doubt +expressed as to ultimate victory. They had a quiet confidence that was +contagious. There was no bluster, no assertion; victory was simply +accepted as a fact; the only two opinions might be as to when it would +occur, and whether the end would be sudden or a slow withdrawal of the +German forces. + +The French Algerian troops and the Indian forces of Great Britain came +up for discussion, their bravery, their dislike for trench fighting +and intense longing to charge, the inroads the bad weather had made on +them during the winter. + +One of the officers considered the American press rather pro-German. +The recent American note to Sir Edward Grey and his reply, with the +press comments on both, led to this statement. The possibility of +Germany's intentionally antagonising America was discussed, but not at +length. + +From the press to the censorship was but a step. I objected to the +English method as having lost us our perspective on the war. + +"You allow anything to go through the censor's office that is not +considered dangerous or too explicit," I said. "False reports go +through on an equality with true ones. How can America know what to +believe?" + +It was suggested by some one that the only way to make the censorship +more elastic, while retaining its usefulness in protecting military +secrets and movements, was to establish such a censorship at the +front, where it is easier to know what news would be harmful to give +out and what may be printed with safety. + +I mentioned what a high official of the admiralty had said to me about +the censorship--that it was "an infernal nuisance, but necessary." + +"But it is not true that messages are misleadingly changed in +transmission," said one of the officers at the table. + +I had seen the head of the press-censorship bureau, and was able to +repeat what he had said--that where the cutting out of certain phrases +endangered the sense of a message, the words "and" or "the" were +occasionally added, that the sense might be kept clear, but that no +other additions or changes of meaning were ever made. + +Luncheon was over. We went into the library, and there, consulting the +map, Colonel Fitzgerald and General Huguet discussed where I might go +that afternoon. The mist of the morning had turned to rain, and the +roads at the front would be very bad. Besides, it was felt that the +"Chief" should give me permission to go to the front, and he had not +yet returned. + +"How about seeing the Indians?" asked Colonel Fitzgerald, turning from +the map. + +"I should like it very much." + +The young officer was turned to, and agreed, like a British patriot +and gentleman, to show me the Indian villages. General Huguet offered +his car. The officer got his sheepskin-lined coat, for the weather was +cold. + +"Thirty shillings," he said, "and nothing goes through it!" + +I examined that coat. It was smart, substantial, lined throughout with +pure white fur, and it had cost seven dollars and a half. + +There is a very popular English word just making its place in America. +The word is "swank." It is both noun and verb. One swanks when one +swaggers. One puts on swank when one puts on side. And because I hold +a brief for the English, and because I was fortunate enough to meet +all sorts of English people, I want to say that there is very little +swank among them. The example of simplicity and genuineness has been +set by the King and Queen. I met many different circles of people. +From the highest to the lowest, there was a total absence of that +arrogance which the American mind has so long associated with the +English. For fear of being thought to swagger, an Englishman will +understate his case. And so with the various English officers I met at +the front. There was no swank. They were downright, unassuming, +extremely efficient-looking men, quick to speak of German courage, +ready to give the benefit of the doubt where unproved outrages were in +question, but rousing, as I have said, to pale fury where their troops +were being unfairly attacked. + +While the car was being brought to the door General Huguet pointed out +to me on the map where I was going. As we stood there his pencil drew +a light semicircle round the town of Ypres. + +"A great battle," he said, and described it. Colonel Fitzgerald took +up the narrative. So it happened that, in the three different staff +headquarters, Belgian, French and English, executive officers of the +three armies in the western field described to me that great +battle--the frightful slaughter of the English, their re-enforcement +at a critical time by General Foch's French Army of the North, and the +final holding of the line. + +The official figures of casualties were given me again: English +forty-five thousand out of a hundred and twenty thousand engaged; the +French seventy thousand, and the German over two hundred thousand. + +Turning to the table, Colonel Fitzgerald picked up a sheet of paper +covered with figures. + +"It is interesting," he said, "to compare the disease and battle +mortality percentages of this war with the percentages in other wars; +to see, considering the frightful weather and the trenches, how little +disease there has been among our troops. Compare the figures with the +Boer War, for instance. And even then our percentage has been somewhat +brought up by the Indian troops." + +"Have many of them been ill?" + +"They have felt the weather," he replied; "not the cold so much as the +steady rain. And those regiments of English that have been serving in +India have felt the change. They particularly have suffered from +frostbitten feet." + +I knew that. More than once I had seen men being taken back from the +British lines, their faces twisted with pain, their feet great masses +of cotton and bandages which they guarded tenderly, lest a chance blow +add to their agony. Even the English system of allowing the men to rub +themselves with lard and oil from the waist down before going into +flooded trenches has not prevented the tortures of frostbite. + +It was time to go and the motor was waiting. We set off in a driving +sleet that covered the windows of the car and made motoring even more +than ordinarily precarious. But the roads here were better than those +nearer the coast; wider, too, and not so crowded. To Ham, where the +Indian regiment I was to visit had been retired for rest, was almost +twenty miles. "Ham!" I said. "What a place to send Mohammedans to!" + +In his long dispatch of February seventeenth Sir John French said of +the Indian troops: + + "The Indian troops have fought with the utmost steadfastness and + gallantry whenever they have been called upon." + +This is the answer to many varying statements as to the efficacy of +the assistance furnished by her Indian subjects to the British Empire +at this time. For Sir John French is a soldier, not a diplomat. No +question of the union of the Empire influences his reports. The +Indians have been valuable, or he would not say so. He is chary of +praise, is the Field Marshal of the British Army. + +But there is another answer--that everywhere along the British front +one sees the Ghurkas, slant-eyed and Mongolian, with their +broad-brimmed, khaki-coloured hats, filling posts of responsibility. +They are little men, smaller than the Sikhs, rather reminiscent of the +Japanese in build and alertness. + +When I was at the English front some of the Sikhs had been retired to +rest. But even in the small villages on billet, relaxed and resting, +they were a fine and soldierly looking body of men, showing race and +their ancient civilisation. + +It has been claimed that England called on her Indian troops, not +because she expected much assistance from them but to show the +essential unity of the British Empire. The plain truth is, however, +that she needed the troops, needed men at once, needed experienced +soldiers to eke out her small and purely defensive army of regulars. +Volunteers had to be equipped and drilled--a matter of months. + +To say that she called to her aid barbarians is absurd. The Ghurkas +are fierce fighters, but carefully disciplined. Compare the lances of +the Indian cavalry regiments and the _kukri_, the Ghurka knife, with +the petrol squirts, hand grenades, aëroplane darts and asphyxiating +bombs of Germany, and call one barbarian to the advantage of the +other! The truth is, of course, that war itself is barbarous. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +A STRANGE PARTY + + +The road to Ham turned off the main highway south of Aire. It was a +narrow clay road in unspeakable condition. The car wallowed along. +Once we took a wrong turning and were obliged to go back and start +again. + +It was still raining. Indian horsemen beat their way stolidly along +the road. We passed through hamlets where cavalry horses in ruined +stables were scantily protected, where the familiar omnibuses of +London were parked in what appeared to be hundreds. The cocoa and +other advertisements had been taken off and they had been hastily +painted a yellowish grey. Here and there we met one on the road, +filled and overflowing with troops, and looking curiously like the +"rubber-neck wagons" of New York. + +Aside from the transports and a few small Indian ammunition carts, +with open bodies made of slats, and drawn by two mules, with an +impassive turbaned driver calling strange words to his team, there was +no sign of war. No bombarding disturbed the heavy atmosphere; no +aëroplanes were overhead. There was no barbed wire, no trenches. Only +muddy sugarbeet fields on each side of the narrow road, a few winter +trees, and the beat of the rain on the windows. + +At last, with an extra lurch, the car drew up in the village of Ham. +At a gate in a brick wall a Scotch soldier in kilts, carrying a rifle, +came forward. Our errand was explained and he went off to find Makand +Singh, a major in the Lahore Lancers and in charge of the post. + +It was a curious picture that I surveyed through the opened door of +the car. We were in the centre of the village, and at the intersection +of a crossroads was a tall cross with a life-size Christ. Underneath +the cross, in varying attitudes of dampness and curiosity, were a +dozen Indians, Mohammedans by faith. Some of them held horses which, +in spite of the rain, they had been exercising. One or two wore long +capes to the knees, with pointed hoods which fitted up over their +great turbans. Bearded men with straight, sensitive noses and oval +faces, even the absurdity of the cape and pointed hood failed to +lessen their dignity. They were tall, erect, soldierly looking, and +they gazed at me with the bland gravity of the East. + +Makand Singh came hastily forward, a splendid figure of a man, six +foot two or thereabout, and appearing even taller by reason of his +turban. He spoke excellent English. + +"It is very muddy for a lady to alight," he said, and instructed one +of the men to bring bags of sacking, which were laid in the road. + +"You are seeing us under very unfavourable conditions," he said as he +helped me to alight. "But there is a fire if you are cold." + +I was cold. So Makand Singh led the way to his living quarters. To go +to them it was necessary to pass through a long shed, which was now a +stable for perhaps a dozen horses. At a word of command the Indian +grooms threw themselves against the horses' heads and pushed them +back. By stepping over the ground pegs to which they were tethered I +got through the shed somehow and into a small yard. + +Makand Singh turned to the right, and, throwing open the low door of a +peasant's house, stood aside to allow me to enter. "It is not very +comfortable," he explained, "but it is the best we have." + +He was so tall that he was obliged to stoop as he entered the doorway. +Within was an ordinary peasant's kitchen, but cleaner than the +average. In spite of the weather the floor boards were freshly +scrubbed. The hearth was swept, and by the stove lay a sleek +tortoise-shell cat. There was a wooden dresser, a chimney shelf with +rows of plates standing on it, and in a doorway just beyond an elderly +peasant woman watching us curiously. + +"Perhaps," said Makand Singh, "you will have coffee?" + +I was glad to accept, and the young officer, who had followed, +accepted also. We sat down while the kettle was placed on the stove +and the fire replenished. I glanced at the Indian major's tall figure. +Even sitting, he was majestic. When he took the cape off he was +discovered clothed in the khaki uniform of his rank in the British +Army. Except for the olive colour of his skin, his turban, and the +fact that his beard--the soft beard of one who has never shaved--was +drawn up into a black net so that it formed a perfect crescent around +the angle of his jaw, he might have been a gallant and interested +English officer. + +For the situation assuredly interested him. His eyes were alert and +keen. When he smiled he showed rows of beautiful teeth, small and +white. And although his face in repose was grave, he smiled often. He +superintended the making of the coffee by the peasant woman and +instructed her to prepare the table. + +She obeyed pleasantly. Indeed, it was odd to see that between this +elderly Frenchwoman and her strange guests--people of whose existence +on the earth I dare say she had never heard until this war--there was +the utmost good will. Perhaps the Indians are neater than other +troops. Certainly personal cleanliness is a part of their religion. +Anyhow, whatever the reason, I saw no evidence of sulkiness toward the +Indians, although I have seen surly glances directed toward many of +the billeted troops of other nationalities. + +Conversation was rather difficult. We had no common ground to meet on, +and the ordinary currency of polite society seemed inadequate, out of +place. + +"The weather must be terrible after India," I ventured. + +"We do not mind the cold. We come from the north of India, where it is +often cold. But the mud is bad. We cannot use our horses." + +"You are a cavalry regiment?" I asked, out of my abysmal ignorance. + +"We are Lancers. Yes. And horses are not useful in this sort of +fighting." + +From a room beyond there was a movement, followed by the entrance of a +young Frenchman in a British uniform. Makand Singh presented him and +he joined the circle that waited for coffee. + +The newcomer presented an enigma--a Frenchman in a British uniform +quartered with the Indian troops! It developed that he was a pupil +from the Sorbonne, in Paris, and was an interpreter. Everywhere +afterward I found these interpreters with the British Army--Frenchmen +who for various reasons are disqualified from entering the French Army +in active service and who are anxious to do what they can. They wear +the British uniform, with the exception that instead of the stiff +crown of the British cap theirs is soft, They are attached to every +battalion, for Tommy Atkins is in a strange land these days, a land +that knows no more English than he knows French, + +True, he carries little books of French and English which tell him how +to say "Porter, get my luggage and take it to a cab," or "Please bring +me a laundry list," or "Give my kind regards to your parents," Imagine +him trying to find the French for "Look out, they're coming!" to call +to a French neighbour, in the inevitable mix-up of the line during a +_mêlée_, and finding only "These trousers do not fit well," or "I +would like an ice and then a small piece of cheese." + +It was a curious group that sat in a semicircle around that peasant +woman's stove, waiting for the kettle to boil--the tall Indian major +with his aristocratic face and long, quiet hands, the young English +officer in his Headquarters Staff uniform, the French interpreter, and +I. Just inside the door the major's Indian servant, tall, impassive +and turbaned, stood with folded arms, looking over our heads. And at +the table the placid faced peasant woman cut slices of yellow bread, +made with eggs and milk, and poured our coffee. + +It was very good coffee, served black. The woman brought a small +decanter and placed it near me. + +"It is rum," said the major, "and very good in coffee." + +I declined the rum. The interpreter took a little. The major shook his +head. + +"Although they say that a Sikh never refuses rum!" he said, smiling. + +Coffee over, we walked about the village. Hardly a village--a cluster +of houses along unpaved lanes which were almost impassable. There were +tumbling stables full of horses, groups of Indians standing under +dripping eaves for shelter, sentries, here and there a peasant. The +houses were replicas of the one where Makand Singh had his quarters. + +Although it was still raining, a dozen Indian Lancers were exercising +their horses. They dismounted and stood back to let us pass. Behind +them, as they stood, was the great Cross. + +That was the final picture I had of the village of Ham and the Second +Lahore Lancers--the turbaned Indians with their dripping horses, the +grave bow of Makand Singh as he closed the door of the car, and behind +him a Scotch corporal in kilt and cap, with a cigarette tucked behind +his ear. + +We went on. I looked back, Makand Singh was making his careful way +through the mud; the horses were being led to a stable. The Cross +stood alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +SIR JOHN FRENCH + + +The next day I was taken along the English front, between the first +and the second line of trenches, from Béthune, the southern extremity +of the line, the English right flank, to the northern end of the line +just below Ypres. In a direct line the British front at that time +extended along some twenty-seven miles. But the line was irregular, +and I believe was really well over thirty. + +I have never been in an English trench. I have been close enough to +the advance trenches to be shown where they lay, and to see the slight +break they make in the flat country. I was never in a dangerous +position at the English front, if one excepts the fact that all of +that portion of the country between the two lines of trenches is +exposed to shell fire. + +No shells burst near me. Béthune was being intermittently shelled, but +as far as I know not a shell fell in the town while I was there. I +lunched on a hill surrounded by batteries, with the now celebrated +towns of Messines and Wytschaete just across a valley, so that one +could watch shells bursting over them. And still nothing threatened my +peace of mind or my physical well-being. And yet it was one of the +most interesting days of a not uneventful period. + +In the morning I was taken, still in General Huguet's car, to British +Headquarters again, to meet Sir John French. + +I confess to a thrill of excitement when the door into his private +office was opened and I was ushered in. The Field Marshal of the +British Army was standing by his table. He came forward at once and +shook hands. In his khaki uniform, with the scarlet straps of his rank +on collar and sleeves, he presented a most soldierly and impressive +appearance. + +A man of middle height, squarely and compactly built, he moves easily. +He is very erect, and his tanned face and grey hair are in strong +contrast. A square and determined jaw, very keen blue eyes and a +humorous mouth--that is my impression of Sir John French. + +"We are sending you along the lines," he said when I was seated. "But +not into danger. I hope you do not want to go into danger." + +I wish I might tell of the conversation that followed. It is +impossible. Not that it dealt with vital matters; but it was +understood that Sir John was not being interviewed. He was taking a +little time from a day that must have been crowded, to receive with +beautiful courtesy a visitor from overseas. That was all. + +There can be no objection, I think, to my mentioning one or two things +he spoke of--of his admiration for General Foch, whom I had just seen, +of the tribute he paid to the courage of the Indian troops, and of the +marvellous spirit all the British troops had shown under the adverse +weather conditions prevailing. All or most of these things he has said +in his official dispatches. + +Other things were touched on--the possible duration of the war, the +new problems of what is virtually a new warfare, the possibility of a +pestilence when warm weather came, owing to inadequately buried +bodies. The Canadian troops had not arrived at the front at that time, +although later in the day I saw their transports on the way, or I am +sure he would have spoken of them. I should like to hear what he has +to say about them after their recent gallant fighting. I should like +to see his fine blue eyes sparkle. + +The car was at the door, and the same young officer who had taken me +about on the previous day entered the room. + +"I am putting you in his care," said Sir John, indicating the new +arrival, "because he has a charmed life. Nothing will happen if you +are with him." He eyed the tall young officer affectionately. "He has +been fighting since the beginning," he said, "handling a machine gun +in all sorts of terrible places. And nothing ever touches him." + +A discussion followed as to where I was to be taken. There was a culm +heap near the Givenchy brickyards which was rather favoured as a +lookout spot. In spite of my protests, that was ruled out as being +under fire at the time. Béthune was being shelled, but not severely. I +would be taken to Béthune and along the road behind the trenches. But +nothing was to happen to me. Sir John French knitted his grey brows, +and suggested a visit to a wood where the soldiers had built wooden +walks and put up signs, naming them Piccadilly, Regent Street, and so +on. + +"I should like to see something," I put in feebly. + +I appreciated their kindly solicitude, but after all I was there to +see things; to take risks, if necessary, but to see. + +"Then," said Sir John with decision, "we will send you to a hill from +which you can see." + +The trip was arranged while I waited. Then he went with me to the door +and there we shook hands. He hoped I would have a comfortable trip, +and bowed me out most courteously. But in the doorway he thought of +something. + +"Have you a camera with you?" + +I had, and said so; a very good camera. + +"I hope you do not mind if I ask you not to use it." + +I did not mind. I promised at once to take no pictures, and indeed at +the end of the afternoon I found my unfortunate camera on the floor, +much buffeted and kicked about and entirely ignored. + +The interview with Sir John French had given me an entirely unexpected +impression of the Field Marshal of the British Army. I had read his +reports fully, and from those unemotional reports of battles, of +movements and countermovements, I had formed a picture of a great +soldier without imagination, to whom a battle was an issue, not a +great human struggle--an austere man. + +I had found a man with a fighting jaw and a sensitive mouth; and a man +greatly beloved by the men closest to him. A human man; a soldier, not +a writer. + +And after seeing and talking with Sir John French I am convinced that +it is not his policy that dictates the silence of the army at the +front. He is proud of his men, proud of each heroic regiment, of every +brave deed. He would like, I am sure, to shout to the world the names +of the heroes of the British Army, to publish great rolls of honour. +But silence, or comparative silence, has been the decree. + +There must be long hours of suspense when the Field Marshal of the +British Army paces the floor of that grey and rose brocade +drawing-room; hours when the orders he has given are being translated +into terms of action, of death, of wounds, but sometimes--thank +God!--into terms of victory. Long hours, when the wires and the +dispatch riders bring in news, valiant names, gains, losses; names +that are not to be told; brave deeds that, lacking chroniclers, must +go unrecorded. + +Read this, from the report Sir John French sent out only a day or so +before I saw him: + + "The troops composing the Army of France have been subjected to as + severe a trial as it is possible to impose upon any body of men. The + desperate fighting described in my last dispatch had hardly been + brought to a conclusion when they were called upon to face the + rigours and hardships of a winter campaign. Frost and snow have + alternated with periods of continuous rain." + + "The men have been called upon to stand for many hours together + almost up to their waists in bitterly cold water, separated by only + one or two hundred yards from a most vigilant enemy." + + "Although every measure which science and medical knowledge could + suggest to mitigate these hardships was employed, the sufferings of + the men have been very great." + + "In spite of all this they present a most soldier like, splendid, + though somewhat war-worn appearance. Their spirit remains high and + confident; their general health is excellent, and their condition + most satisfactory." + + "I regard it as most unfortunate that circumstances have prevented + any account of many splendid instances of courage and endurance, in + the face of almost unparalleled hardship and fatigue in war, coming + regularly to the knowledge of the public." + +So it is clearly not the fault of Sir John French that England does +not know the names of her heroes, or that their families are denied +the comfort of knowing that their sons fought bravely and died nobly. +It is not the fault of the British people, waiting eagerly for news +that does not come. Surely, in these inhuman times, some concession +should be made to the humanities. War is not moving pawns in a game; +it is a struggle of quivering flesh and agonised nerves, of men +fighting and dying for ideals. Heroism is much more than duty. It is +idealism. No leader is truly great who discounts this quality. + +America has known more of the great human interest of this war than +England. English people get the news from great American dailies. It +is an unprecedented situation, and so far the English people have +borne it almost in silence. But as the months go on and only bare +official dispatches reach them, there is a growing tendency to +protest. They want the truth, a picture of conditions. They want to +know what their army is doing; what their sons are doing. And they +have a right to know. They are making tremendous sacrifices, and they +have a right to know to what end. + +The greatest agent in the world for moulding public opinion is the +press. The Germans know this, and have used their journals skilfully. +To underestimate the power of the press, to fail to trust to its good +will and discretion, is to refuse to wield the mightiest instrument in +the world for influencing national thought and national action. At +times of great crisis the press has always shown itself sane, +conservative, safe, eminently to be trusted. + +The English know the power of the great modern newspaper, not only to +reflect but to form public opinion. They have watched the American +press because they know to what extent it influences American policy. + +There is talk of conscription in England to-day. Why? Ask the British +people. Ask the London _Times_. Ask rural England where, away from the +tramp of soldiers in the streets, the roll of drums, the visual +evidence of a great struggle, patriotism is asked to feed on the ashes +of war. + +Self-depreciation in a nation is as great an error as +over-complacency. Lack of full knowledge is the cause of much of the +present British discontent. + +Let the British people be told what their army is doing. Let Lord +Kitchener announce its deeds, its courage, its vast unselfishness. Let +him put the torch of publicity to the national pride and see it turn +to a white flame of patriotism. Then it will be possible to tear the +recruiting posters from the walls of London, and the remotest roads of +England will echo to the tramp of marching men. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +ALONG THE GREAT BETHUNE ROAD + + +Again and again through these chapters I have felt apologetic for the +luxurious manner in which I frequently saw the war. And so now I +hesitate to mention the comfort of that trip along the British lines; +the substantial and essentially British foresight and kindness that +had stocked the car with sandwiches wrapped in white paper; the good +roads; the sense of general well-being that spread like a contagion +from a well-fed and well-cared-for army. There is something about the +British Army that inspires one with confidence. It is a pity that +those people who sit at home in Great Britain and shrug their +shoulders over the daily papers cannot see their army at the front. + +It is not a roast beef stolidity. It is rather the steadiness of calm +eyes and good nerves, of physically fit bodies and clean minds. I felt +it when I saw Kitchener's army of clear-eyed boys drilling in Hyde +Park. I got it from the quiet young officer, still in his twenties, +who sat beside me in the car, and who, having been in the war from the +beginning, handling a machine gun all through the battle of Ypres, +when his regiment, the Grenadier Guards, suffered so horribly, was +willing to talk about everything but what he had done. + +We went first to Béthune. The roads as we approached the front were +crowded, but there was no disorder. There were motor bicycles and +side-cars carrying dispatch riders and scouts, travelling kitchens, +great lorries, small light cars for supplies needed in a hurry--cars +which make greater speed than the motor vans--omnibuses full of +troops, and steam tractors or caterpillar engines for hauling heavy +guns. + +The day was sunny and cold. The rain of the day before had turned to +snow in the night, and the fields were dazzling. + +"In the east," said the officer with me, "where there is always snow +in the winter, the Germans have sent out to their troops white helmet +covers and white smocks to cover the uniforms. But snow is +comparatively rare here, and it has not been considered necessary." + +At a small bridge ten miles from Béthune he pointed out a house as +marking the farthest advance of the German Army, reached about the +eleventh of October. There was no evidence of the hard fighting that +had gone on along this road. It was a peaceful scene, the black +branches of the overarching trees lightly powdered with snow. But the +snowy fields were full of unmarked mounds. Another year, and the +mounds will have sunk to the level of the ground. Another year, and +only history will tell the story of that October of 1914 along the +great Béthune road. + +An English aëroplane was overhead. There were armoured cars on the +road, going toward the front; top-heavy machines that made +surprisingly little noise, considering their weight. Some had a sort +of conning tower at the top. They looked sombre, menacing. The driving +of these cars over slippery roads must be difficult. Like the vans, +they keep as near the centre of the road as possible, allowing lighter +traffic to turn out to pass them. A van had broken down and was being +repaired at one of the wayside repair shops maintained everywhere +along the roads for this war of machinery. Men in khaki with leather +aprons were working about it, while the driver stood by, smoking a +pipe. + +As we went on we encountered the Indian troops again. The weather was +better, and they thronged the roads, driving their tiny carts, +cleaning arms and accoutrements in sunny doorways, proud and haughty +in appearence even when attending to the most menial duties. From the +little ammunition carts, like toy wagons, they gazed gravely at the +car, and at the unheard of spectacle of a woman inside. Side by side +with the Indians were Scots in kilts, making up with cheerful +impudence for the Indians' lack of curiosity. + +There were more Ghurkas, carrying rifles and walking lightly beside +forage carts driven by British Tommies. There were hundreds of these +carts taking hay to the cavalry divisions. The Ghurkas looked more +Japanese than ever in the clear light. Their broad-brimmed khaki hats +have a strap that goes under the chin. The strap or their black +slanting eyes or perhaps their rather flattened noses and pointed +chins give them a look of cruelty that the other Indian troops do not +have. They are hard and relentless fighters, I believe; and they look +it. + +The conversation in the car turned to the feeding of the army. + +"The British Army is exceedingly well fed," said the young officer. + +"In the trenches also?" + +"Always. The men are four days in the trenches and four out. When the +weather is too bad for anything but sniping, the inactivity of the +trench life and the abundant ration gets them out of condition. On +their four days in reserve it is necessary to drill them hard to keep +them in condition." + +This proved to be the explanation of the battalions we met everywhere, +marching briskly along the roads. I do not recall the British ration +now, but it includes, in addition to meat and vegetables, tea, cheese, +jam and bacon--probably not all at once, but giving that variety of +diet so lacking to the unfortunate Belgian Army. Food is one of the +principal munitions of war. No man fights well with an empty stomach. +Food sinks into the background only when it is assured and plentiful. +Deprived of it, its need becomes insistent, an obsession that drives +away every other thought. + +So the wise British Army feeds its men well, and lets them think of +other things, such as war and fighting and love of country and brave +deeds. + +But food has not always been plentiful in the British Army. There were +times last fall when, what with German artillery bombardment and +shifting lines, it was difficult to supply the men. + +"My servant," said the officer, "found a hare somewhere, and in a +deserted garden a handful of carrots. Word came to the trench where I +was stationed that at dark that night he would bring out a stew. We +were very hungry and we waited eagerly. But just as it was cooked and +ready a German shell came down the chimney of the house where he was +working and blew up stove and stew and everything. It was one of the +greatest disappointments I ever remember." + +We were in Béthune at last--a crowded town, larger than any I had seen +since I left Dunkirk. So congested were its narrow streets with +soldiers, mounted and on foot, and with all the ghastly machinery of +war, that a traffic squad had taken charge and was directing things. +On some streets it was possible to go only in one direction. I looked +about for the signs of destruction that had grown so familiar to me, +but I saw none. Evidently the bombardment of Béthune has not yet done +much damage. + +A squad of artillerymen marched by in perfect step; their faces were +keen, bronzed. They were fine-looking, well-set-up men, as smart as +English artillerymen always are. I watched them as long as I could see +them. + +We had lost our way, owing to the regulations of the traffic squad. It +was necessary to stop and inquire. Then at last we crossed a small +bridge over the canal, and were on our way along the front, behind the +advanced trenches and just in front of the second line. + +For a few miles the country was very level. The firing was on our +right, the second line of trenches on our left. The congestion of +Béthune had given way to the extreme peace in daylight of the region +just behind the trenches. There were few wagons, few soldiers. Nothing +could be seen except an occasional cloud where shrapnel had burst. The +British Army was keeping me safe, as it had promised! + +There were, however, barbed-wire entanglements everywhere, built, I +thought, rather higher than the French. Roads to the right led to the +advanced trenches, empty roads which at night are thronged with men +going to the front or coming back. + +Here and there one saw a sentry, and behind him a tent of curious +mottled shades of red, brown and green. + +"They look as though they were painted," I said, rather bewildered. + +"They are," the officer replied promptly. "From an aëroplane these +tents are absolutely impossible to locate. They merge into the colors +of the fields." + +Now and then at a crossroads it was necessary to inquire our way. I +had no wish to run into danger, but I was conscious of a wild longing +to have the car take the wrong turning and land abruptly at the +advance trenches. Nothing of the sort happened, however. + +We passed small buildings converted into field hospitals and flying +the white flag with a red cross. + +"There are no nurses in these hospitals," explained the officer. "Only +one surgeon and a few helpers. The men are brought here from the +trenches, and then taken back at night in ambulances to the railroad +or to base hospitals." + +"Are there no nurses at all along the British front?" + +"None whatever. There are no women here in any capacity. That is why +the men are so surprised to see you." + +Here and there, behind the protection of groves and small thickets, +were temporary camps, sometimes tents, sometimes tent-shaped shelters +of wood. There were batteries on the right everywhere, great guns +concealed in farmyards or, like the guns I had seen on the French +front, in artificial hedges. Some of them were firing; but the firing +of a battery amounts to nothing but a great noise in these days of +long ranges. Somewhere across the valley the shells would burst, we +knew that; that was all. + +The conversation turned to the Prince of Wales, and to the +responsibility it was to the various officers to have him in the +trenches. Strenuous efforts had been made to persuade him to be +satisfied with the work at headquarters, where he is attached to Sir +John French's staff. But evidently the young heir to the throne of +England is a man in spite of his youth. He wanted to go out and fight, +and he had at last secured permission. + +"He has had rather remarkable training," said the young officer, who +was also his friend. "First he was in Calais with the transport +service. Then he came to headquarters, and has seen how things are +done there. And now he is at the front." + +Quite unexpectedly round a turn in the road we came on a great line of +Canadian transports--American-built lorries with khaki canvas tops. +Canadians were driving them, Canadians were guarding them. It gave me +a homesick thrill at once to see these other Americans, of types so +familiar to me, there in Northern France. + +Their faces were eager as they pushed ahead. Some of the tent-shaped +wooden buildings were to be temporary barracks for them. In one place +the transports had stopped and the men were cooking a meal beside the +road. Some one had brought a newspaper and a crowd of men had gathered +round it. I wondered if it was an American paper. I would like to have +stood on the running board of the machine, as we went past, and called +out that I, too, was an American, and God bless them! + +But I fancy the young officer with me would have been greatly +disconcerted at such an action. The English are not given to such +demonstrations. But the Canadians would have understood, I know. + +Since that time the reports have brought great news of these Canadian +troops, of their courage, of the loss of almost all their officers in +the fighting at Neuve Chapelle. But that sunny morning, when I saw +them in the north of France, they were untouched by battle or sudden +death. Their faces were eager, intent, earnest. They had come a long +distance and now they had arrived. And what next? + +Into this scene of war unexpectedly obtruded itself a bit of peace. A +great cart came down a side road, drawn by two white oxen with heavy +wooden yokes. Piled high in the cart were sugar beets. Some thrifty +peasant was salvaging what was left of his crop. The sight of the oxen +reminded me that I had seen very few horses. + +"They are farther back," said the officer, "Of course, as you know, +for the last two or three months it has been impossible to use the +cavalry at all." + +Then he told me a curious thing. He said that during the long winter +wait the cavalry horses got much out of condition. The side roads were +thick with mud and the main roads were being reserved for transports. +Adequate exercises for the cavalry seemed impossible. One detachment +discovered what it considered a bright solution, and sent to England +for beagle hounds. Morning after morning the men rode after the hounds +over the flat fields of France. It was a welcome distraction and it +kept the horses in working trim. + +But the French objected. They said their country was at war, was being +devastated by an alien army. They considered riding to hounds, no +matter for What purpose, an indecorous, almost an inhuman, thing to do +under the circumstances. So the hounds were sent back to England, and +the cavalry horses are now exercised in dejected strings along side +roads. + +As we went north the firing increased in intensity. More English +batteries were at work; the German response was insistent. + +We were approaching Ypres, this time from the English side, and the +great artillery duel of late February was in progress. + +The country was slightly rolling. Its unevenness permitted more +activity along our road. Batteries were drawn up at rest in the fields +here and there. In one place a dozen food kitchens in the road were +cooking the midday meal, the khaki-clad cooks frequently smoking as +they worked. + +Ahead of this loomed two hills. They rose abruptly, treeless and +precipitous. On the one nearest to the German lines was a ruined +tower. + +"The tower," said the officer, "would have been a charming place for +luncheon. But the hill has been shelled steadily for several days. I +have no idea why the Germans are shelling it. There is nobody there." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE MILITARY SECRET + + +The second hill was our destination. At the foot of it the car stopped +and we got out. A steep path with here and there a wooden step led to +the summit. At the foot of the path was a sentry and behind him one of +the multicoloured tents. + +"Are you a good climber?" asked the officer. + +I said I was and we set out. The path extended only a part of the way, +to a place perhaps two hundred feet beyond the road, where what we +would call a cyclone cellar in America had been dug out of the +hillside. Like the others of the sort I had seen, it was muddy and +uninviting, practically a cave with a roof of turf. + +The path ceased, and it was necessary to go diagonally up the steep +hillside through the snow. From numberless guns at the base of the +hill came steady reports, and as we ascended it was explained to me +that I was about to visit the headquarters of Major General H----, +commanding an army division. + +"The last person I brought here," said the young officer, smiling, +"was the Prince of Wales." + +We reached the top at last. There was a tiny farmhouse, a low stable +with a thatched roof, and, towering over all, the arms of a great +windmill. Chickens cackled round my feet, a pig grunted in a corner, +and apparently from directly underneath came the ear-splitting reports +of a battery as it fired. + +"Perhaps I would better go ahead and tell them you are coming," said +the officer. "These people have probably not seen a woman in months, +and the shock would be too severe. We must break it gently." + +So he went ahead, and I stood on the crest of that wind-swept hill and +looked across the valley to Messines, to Wytschaete and Ypres. + +The battlefield lay spread out like a map. As I looked, clouds of +smoke over Messines told of the bursting of shells. + +Major General H---- came hurrying out. His quarters occupy the only +high ground, with the exception of the near-by hill with its ruined +tower, in the neighbourhood of Ypres. Here, a week or so before, had +come the King of Belgium, to look with tragic eyes at all that +remained to him of his country. Here had come visiting Russian princes +from the eastern field, the King of England, the Prince of Wales. No +obscurities--except myself--had ever penetrated so far into the +fastness of the British lines. + +Later on in the day I wrote my name in a visitors' book the officers +have established there, wrote under sprawling royal signatures, under +the boyish hand of the Prince of Wales, the irregular chirography of +Albert of Belgium, the blunt and soldierly name of General Joffre. + +There are six officers stationed in the farmhouse, composing General +H----'s staff. And, as things turned out, we did not require the +white-paper sandwiches, for we were at once invited to luncheon. + +"Not a very elaborate luncheon," said General H----, "but it will give +us a great deal of pleasure to share it." + +While the extra places were being laid we went to the brow of the +hill. Across the valley at the foot of a wooded ridge were the British +trenches. The ground rose in front of them, thickly covered with +trees, to the German position on the ridge. + +"It looks from here like a very uncomfortable position," I said. "The +German position is better, isn't it?" + +"It is," said General H---- grimly. "But we shall take that hill +before long." + +I am not sure, and my many maps do not say, but there is little doubt +in my mind that the hill in question is the now celebrated Hill 60, of +which so much has been published. + +As we looked across shells were bursting round the church tower of +Messines, and the batteries beneath were sending out ear-splitting +crashes of noise. Ypres, less than three miles away, but partly hidden +in mist, was echoing the bombardment. And to complete the pandemonium +of sound, as we turned, a _mitrailleuse_ in the windmill opened fire +behind us. + +"Practice!" said General H---- as I started. "It is noisy here, I'm +afraid." + +We went through the muddy farmyard back to the house. The staff was +waiting and we sat down at once to luncheon at a tiny pine table drawn +up before a window. It was not a good luncheon. The French wine was +like vinegar, the food the ordinary food of the peasant whose house it +was. But it was a cheerful meal in spite of the food, and in spite of +a boil on General H----'s neck. The marvel of a woman being there +seemed to grow, not diminish, as the meal went on. + +"Next week," said General H----, "we are to have two parties of +correspondents here. The penny papers come first, and later on the +ha'pennies!" + +That brought the conversation, as usual, to the feeling about the war +in America. Like all the other officers I had met, these men were +anxious to have things correctly reported in America, being satisfied +that the true story of the war would undoubtedly influence any +wavering of public opinion in favour of the Allies. + +One of the officers was a Canadian, and for his benefit somebody told +the following story, possibly by now familiar to America. + +Some of the Canadian troops took with them to England a bit of the +dash and impatience of discipline of the great Northwest. The story in +question is of a group of soldiers at night passing a sentry, who +challenges them: + +"Halt! Who goes there?" + +"Black Watch." + +"Advance, Black Watch, and all's well." + +The next group is similarly challenged: + +"Halt! Who goes there?" + +"Cameronians." + +"Advance, Cameronians." + +The third group comes on. + +"Halt! Who goes there?" + +"What the devil is that to you?" + +"Advance, Canadians!" + +In the burst of mirth that followed the Canadian officer joined. Then +he told an anecdote also: + +"British recruits, practising passing a whispered order from one end +of a trench to the other, received this message to pass along: 'Enemy +advancing on right flank. Send re-enforcements.' When the message +reached the other end of the trench," he said, "it was: 'Enemy +advancing with ham shank. Send three and fourpence!'" + +It was a gay little meal, the only breaks in the conversation when the +great guns drowned out our voices. I wonder how many of those round +that table are living to-day. Not all, it is almost certain. The +German Army almost broke through the English line at that very point +in the late spring. The brave Canadians have lost almost all their +officers in the field and a sickening percentage of their men. That +little valley must have run deep with blood since I saw it that day in +the sunlight. + +Luncheon was over. I wrote my name in the visitors' book, to the tune +of such a bombardment as almost forbade speech, and accompanied by +General H---- we made our way down the steep hillside to the car. + +"Some time to-night I shall be in England," I said as I settled myself +for the return trip. + +The smile died on the general's face. It was as if, in speaking of +home, I had touched the hidden chord of gravity and responsibility +that underlay the cheerfulness of that cheery visit. + +"England!" he said. That was all. + +I looked back as the car started on. A battery was moving up along the +road behind the hill. The sentry stood by his low painted tent. The +general was watching the car, his hand shading his eyes against the +glare of the winter sun. Behind him rose his lonely hill, white with +snow, with the little path leading, by devious ways, up its steep and +shining side. + +It was not considered advisable to return by the road behind the +trenches. The late afternoon artillery duel was going on. So we turned +off a few miles south of the hill and left war behind us. + +Not altogether, of course. There were still transports and troops. And +at an intersection of three roads we were abruptly halted. A line of +military cars was standing there, all peremptorily held up by a +handful of soldiers. + +The young officer got out and inquired. There was little time to +spare, for I was to get to Calais that evening, and to run the Channel +blockade some time in the night. + +The officer came back soon, smiling. + +"A military secret!" he said. "We shall have to wait a little. The +road is closed." + +So I sat in the car and the military secret went by. I cannot tell +about it except that it was thrillingly interesting. My hands itched +to get out my camera and photograph it, just as they itch now to write +about it. But the mystery of what I saw on the highroad back of the +British lines is not mine to tell. It must die with me! + +My visit to the British lines was over. + +As I look back I find that the one thing that stands out with +distinctness above everything else is the quality of the men that +constitute the British Army in the field. I had seen thousands in that +one day. But I had seen them also north of Ypres, at Dunkirk, at +Boulogne and Calais, on the Channel boats. I have said before that +they show race. But it is much more than a matter of physique. It is a +thing of steady eyes, of high-held heads, of a clean thrust of jaw. + +The English are not demonstrative. London, compared with Paris, is +normal. British officers at the front and at headquarters treat the +war as a part of the day's work, a thing not to talk about but to do. +But my frequent meetings with British soldiers, naval men, members of +the flying contingent and the army medical service, revealed under the +surface of each man's quiet manner a grimness, a red heat of +patriotism, a determination to fight fair but to fight to the death. + +They concede to the Germans, with the British sense of fairness, +courage, science, infinite resource and patriotism. Two things they +deny them, civilisation and humanity--civilisation in its spiritual, +not its material, side; humanity of the sort that is the Englishman's +creed and his religion--the safeguarding of noncombatants, the keeping +of the national word and the national honour. + +My visit to the English lines was over. I had seen no valiant charges, +no hand-to-hand fighting. But in a way I had had a larger picture. I +had seen the efficiency of the methods behind the lines, the abundance +of supplies, the spirit that glowed in the eyes of every fighting man. +I had seen the colonial children of England in the field, volunteers +who had risen to the call of the mother country. I had seen and talked +with the commander-in-chief of the British forces, and had come away +convinced that the mother country had placed her honour in fine and +capable hands. And I had seen, between the first and second lines of +trenches, an army of volunteers and patriots--and gentlemen. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +QUEEN MARY OF ENGLAND + + +The great European war affects profoundly all the women of each nation +involved. It affects doubly the royal women. The Queen of England, the +Czarina of Russia, the Queen of the Belgians, the Empress of Germany, +each carries in these momentous days a frightful burden. The young +Prince of Wales is at the front; the King of the Belgians has been +twice wounded; the Empress of Germany has her sons as well as her +husband in the field. + +In addition to these cares these women of exalted rank have the +responsibility that comes always to the very great. To see a world +crisis approaching, to know every detail by which it has been +furthered or retarded, to realise at last its inevitability--to see, +in a word, every movement of the great drama and to be unable to check +its _dénouement_--that has been a part of their burden. And when the +_dénouement_ came, to sink their private anxieties in the public +welfare, to assume, not a double immunity but a double responsibility +to their people, has been the other part. + +It has required heroism of a high order. It is, to a certain extent, a +new heroism, almost a demonstration of the new faith whose foundation +is responsibility--responsibility of a nation to its sons, of rulers +to their people, of a man to his neighbour. + +It has been my privilege to meet and speak with two of these royal +women, with the Queen of England and with the Queen of the Belgians. +In each instance I carried away with me an ineradicable impression of +this quality--of a grave and wearing responsibility borne quietly and +simply, of a quiet courage that buries its own griefs and asks only to +help. + +From the beginning of the war I had felt a keen interest in the Queen +of England. Here was a great queen who had chosen to be, first of all, +a wife and mother; a queen with courage and a conscience. And into her +reign had come the tragedy of a war that affected every nation of the +world, many of them directly, all of them indirectly. The war had come +unsought, unexpected, unprepared for. Peaceful England had become a +camp. The very palace in which the royal children were housed was open +to an attack from a brutal enemy, which added to the new warfare of +this century the ethics of barbarism. + +What did she think of it all? What did she feel when that terrible +Roll of Honour came in, week by week, that Roll of Honour with its +photographs of splendid types of young manhood that no Anglo-Saxon can +look at without a clutch at his throat? What did she think when, one +by one, the friends of her girlhood put on the black of bereavement +and went uncomplainingly about the good works in which hers was the +guiding hand? What thoughts were hers during those anxious days before +the Prince of Wales went to the front, when, like any other mother, +she took every possible moment to be with him, walking about +arm-in-arm with her boy, talking of everything but the moment of +parting? + +And when at last I was permitted to see the Queen of England, I +understood a part at least of what she was suffering. I had been to +the front. I had seen the English army in the field. I had been quite +close to the very trenches where the boyish Prince of Wales was facing +the enemies of his country and doing it with high courage. And I had +heard the rumble of the great German guns, as Queen Mary of England +must hear them in her sleep. + +Even with no son in the field the Queen of England would be working +for the soldiers. It is a part of the tradition of her house. But a +good mother is a mother to all the world. When Queen Mary is +supervising the great work of the Needlework Guild one feels sure that +into each word of direction has gone a little additional tenderness, +because of this boy of hers at the front. + +It is because of Her Majesty's interest in the material well-being of +the soldiers at the front, and because of her most genuine gratitude +for America's part in this well-being, that I took such pleasure in +meeting the Queen of England. + +It was characteristic of Her Majesty that she put an American woman--a +very nervous American woman--at her ease at once, that she showed that +American woman the various departments of her Needlework Guild under +way, and that she conveyed, in every word she said, a deep feeling of +friendship for America and her assistance to Belgium in this crisis. + +Although our ambassadors are still accredited to the Court of St. +James's, the old palace has ceased to be the royal residence. The King +still holds there his levees, to which only gentlemen are admitted. +But the formal Drawing Rooms are held at Buckingham Palace. To those +who have seen St. James's during a levee, or to those London tourists +who have watched the Scots Guards, or the Coldstream or the +Grenadiers, preceded by a splendid band, swinging into the old Friary +Court to perform the impressive ceremony of changing guard, the change +in these days of war is most amazing. Friary Court is guarded by +London policemen, and filled with great vans piled high with garments +and supplies for the front--that front where the Coldstream and the +Grenadiers and the others, shorn of their magnificence, are waiting +grimly in muddy trenches or leading charges to victory--or the Roll of +Honour. Under the winter sky of London the crenelated towers and brick +walls of the old palace give little indication of the former grandeur +of this most historic of England's palaces, built on the site of an +old leper hospital and still retaining the name of the saint to whom +that hospital was dedicated. + +There had been a shower just before I arrived; and, although it was +February, there was already a hint of spring in the air. The sun came +out, drying the roads in the park close by, and shining brightly on +the lovely English grass, green even then with the green of June at +home. Riders, caught in the shower and standing by the sheltered sides +of trees for protection, took again to the bridle paths. The hollows +of Friary Court were pools where birds were splashing. As I got out of +my car a Boy Scout emerged from the palace and carried a large parcel +to a waiting van. + +"Do you want the Q.M.N.G.?" said a tall policeman. + +This, being interpreted, I was given to understand was Queen Mary's +Needlework Guild. + +Later on, when I was taken to Buckingham Palace to write my name in +the Queen's book, which is etiquette after a presentation, there was +all the formality the visit to St. James's had lacked--the drive into +the inclosure, where the guard was changing, the stately footmen, the +great book with its pages containing the dignitaries and great people +of all the earth. + +But the Boy Scout and the policeman had restored my failing courage +that day at St. James's Palace. Except for a tendency to breathe at +twice my normal rate as the Queen entered the room I felt almost calm. + +As she advanced toward us, stopping to speak cordially to the various +ladies who are carrying on the work of the Guild for her, I had an +opportunity to see this royal woman who has suffered so grossly from +the camera. + +It will be a surprise to many Americans to learn that the Queen of +England is very lovely to look at. So much emphasis has always been +placed on her virtues, and so little has been written of her charm, +that this tribute is only fair to Her Majesty. She is tall, perhaps +five feet eight inches, with deep-blue eyes and beautiful colouring. +She has a rather wide, humorous mouth. There is not a trace of +austerity in her face or in any single feature. The whole impression +was of sincerity and kindliness, with more than a trace of humour. + +I could quite believe, after I saw Her Majesty, the delightful story +that I had heard from a member of her own circle, that now and then, +when during some court solemnity an absurdity occurred, it was +positively dangerous to catch the Queen's eye! + +Queen Mary came up the long room. As she paused and held out her hand, +each lady took it and curtsied at the same time. The Queen talked, +smiling as she spoke. There was no formality. Near at hand the +lady-in-waiting who was in attendance stood, sometimes listening, +sometimes joining in the conversation. The talk was all of supplies, +for these days in England one thinks in terms of war. Certain things +had come in; other things had gone or were going. For the Queen of +England is to-day at the head of a great business, one that in a few +months has already collected and distributed over a million garments, +all new, all practical, all of excellent quality. + +The Queen came toward me and paused. There was an agonised moment +while the lady-in-waiting presented me. Her Majesty held out her hand. +I took it and bowed. The next instant she was speaking. + +She spoke at once of America, of what had already been done by +Americans for the Belgians both in England and in their desolated +country. And she hastened to add her gratitude for the support they +have given her Guild. + +"The response has been more than generous," said Her Majesty. "We are +very grateful. We are glad to find that the sympathy of America is +with us," + +She expressed a desire also to have America know fully just what was +being done with the supplies that are being constantly sent over, both +from Canada and from the United States. + +"Canada has been wonderful," she said. "They are doing everything." + +The ready response of Canada to the demand for both troops and +supplies appeared to have touched Her Majesty. She spoke at length +about the troops, the distance they had come, the fine appearance the +men made, and their popularity with the crowds when they paraded on +the streets of London. I had already noticed this. A Canadian regiment +was sure to elicit cheers at any time, although London, generally +speaking, has ceased any but silent demonstration over the soldiers. + +"Have you seen any of the English hospitals on the Continent?" the +Queen asked. + +"I have seen a number, Your Majesty," + +"Do they seem well supplied?" + +I replied that they appeared to be thoroughly equipped, but that the +amount of supplies required w&s terrifying and that at one time some +of the hospitals had experienced difficulty in securing what they +needed. + +"One hospital in Calais," I said, "received twelve thousand pairs of +bed socks in one week last autumn, and could not get a bandage." + +"Those things happened early in the war. We are doing much better now. +England had not expected war. We were totally unprepared." + +And in the great analysis that is to come, that speech of the Queen of +England is the answer to many questions. England had not expected war. +Every roll of the drum as the men of the new army march along the +streets, every readjustment necessary to a peaceful people suddenly +thrust into war, every month added to the length of time it has taken +to put England in force into the field, shifts the responsibility to +where it belongs. Back of all fine questions of diplomatic negotiation +stands this one undeniable fact. To deny it is absurd; to accept it is +final. + +"What is your impression of the French and Belgian hospitals?" Her +Majesty inquired. + +I replied that none were so good as the English, that France had +always depended on her nuns in such emergencies, and, there being no +nuns in France now, her hospital situation was still not good. + +"The priests of Belgium are doing wonderful work," I said. "They have +suffered terribly during the war." + +"It is very terrible," said Her Majesty. "Both priests and nuns have +suffered, as England has reason to know." + +The Queen spoke of the ladies connected with the Guild. + +"They are really much overworked," she said. "They are giving all +their time day after day. They are splendid. And many of them, of +course, are in great anxiety." + +Already, by her tact and her simplicity of manner, she had put me at +my ease. The greatest people, I have found, have this quality of +simplicity. When she spoke of the anxieties of her ladies, I wished +that I could have conveyed to her, from so many Americans, their +sympathy in her own anxieties, so keen at that time, so unselfishly +borne. But the lady-in-waiting was speaking: + +"Please tell the Queen about your meeting with King Albert." + +So I told about it. It had been unconventional, and the recital amused +Her Majesty. It was then that I realised how humorous her mouth was, +how very blue and alert her eyes. I told it all to her, the things +that insisted on slipping off my lap, and the King's picking them up; +the old envelope he gave me on which to make notes of the interview; +how I had asked him whether he would let me know when the interview +was over, or whether I ought to get up and go! And finally, when we +were standing talking before my departure, how I had suddenly +remembered that I was not to stand nearer to His Majesty than six +feet, and had hastily backed away and explained, to his great +amusement. + +Queen Mary laughed. Then her face clouded. + +"It is all so very tragic," she said. "Have you seen the Queen?" + +I replied that the Queen of the Belgians had received me a few days +after my conversation with the King. + +"She is very sad," said Her Majesty. "It is a terrible thing for her, +especially as she is a Bavarian by birth." + +From that to the ever-imminent subject of the war itself was but a +step. An English officer had recently made a sensational escape from a +German prison camp, and having at last got back to England, had been +sent for by the King. With the strange inconsistencies that seem to +characterise the behaviour of the Germans, the man to whom he had +surrendered after a gallant defence had treated him rather well. But +from that time on his story was one of brutalities and starvation. + +The officer in question had told me his story, and I ventured to refer +to it Her Majesty knew it quite well, and there was no mistaking the +grief in her Voice as she commented on it, especially on that part of +it which showed discrimination against the British prisoners. Major +V---- had especially emphasised the lack of food for the private +soldiers and the fearful trials of being taken back along the lines of +communication, some fifty-two men being locked in one of the small +Continental box cars which are built to carry only six horses. Many of +them were wounded. They were obliged to stand, the floor of the car +being inches deep with filth. For thirty hours they had no water and +no air, and for three days and three nights no food. + +"I am to publish Major V----'s statement in America, Your Majesty," I +said. + +"I think America should know it," said the Queen. "It is most unjust. +German prisoners in England are well cared for. They are well fed, and +games and other amusements are provided for them. They even play +football!" + +I stepped back as Her Majesty prepared to continue her visit round the +long room. But she indicated that I was to accompany her. It was then +that one realised that the Queen of England is the intensely practical +daughter of a practical mother. Nothing that is done in this Guild, +the successor of a similar guild founded by the late Duchess of Teck, +Her Majesty's mother, escapes her notice. No detail is too small if it +makes for efficiency. She selected at random garments from the tables, +and examined them for warmth, for quality, for utility. + +Generally she approved. Before a great heap of heavy socks she paused. + +"The soldiers like the knitted ones, we are told," she said. "These +are not all knitted but they are very warm." + +A baby sweater of a hideous yellow roused in her something like wrath. + +"All that labour!" she said, "and such a colour for a little baby!" +And again, when she happened on a pair of felt slippers, quite the +largest slippers I have ever seen, she fell silent in sheer amazement. +They amused her even while they shocked her. And again, as she smiled, +I regretted that the photographs of the Queen of England may not show +her smiling. + +A small canvas case, skilfully rolled and fastened, caught Her +Majesty's attention. She opened it herself and revealed with evident +pride its numerous contents. Many thousands of such cases had already +been sent to the army. + +This one was a model of packing. It contained in its small compass an +extraordinary number of things--changes of under flannels, extra +socks, an abdominal belt, and, in an inclosure, towel, soap, +toothbrush, nailbrush and tooth powder. I am not certain, but I +believe there was also a pack of cards. + +"I am afraid I should never be able to get it all back again!" said +Her Majesty. So one of the ladies took it in charge, and the Queen +went on. + +My audience was over. As Her Majesty passed me she held out her hand. +I took it and curtsied. + +"Were you not frightened the night you were in the Belgian trenches?" +she inquired. + +"Not half so frightened as I was this afternoon, Your Majesty," I +replied. + +She passed on, smiling. + + * * * * * + +And now, when enough time has elapsed to give perspective to my first +impression of Queen Mary of England, I find that it loses nothing by +this supreme test. I find that I remember her, not as a great Queen +but as a gracious and kindly woman, greatly beloved by those of her +immediate circle, totally without arrogance, and of a simplicity of +speech and manner that must put to shame at times those lesser lights +that group themselves about a throne. + +I find another impression also--that the Queen of England is intensely +and alertly mental--alive to her finger tips, we should say in +America. She has always been active. Her days are crowded. A different +type of royal woman would be content to be the honoured head of the +Queen's Guild. But she is in close touch with it at all times. It is +she who dictates its policy, and so competently that the ladies who +are associated with the work that is being done speak of her with +admiration not unmixed with awe. + +From a close and devoted friend of Queen Mary I obtained other +characteristics to add to my picture: That the Queen is acutely +sensitive to pain or distress in others--it hurts her; that she is +punctual--and this not because of any particular sense of time but +because she does not like to keep other people waiting. It is all a +part of an overwhelming sense of that responsibility to others that +has its origin in true kindliness. + +The work of the Queen's Guild is surprising in its scope. In a way it +is a vast clearing house. Supplies come in from every part of the +world, from India, Ceylon, Java, Alaska, South America, from the most +remote places. I saw the record book. I saw that a woman from my home +city had sent cigarettes to the soldiers through the Guild, that +Africa had sent flannels! Coming from a land where the sending, as +regards Africa, is all the other way, I found this exciting. Indeed, +the whole record seems to show how very small the earth is, and how +the tragedy of a great war has overcome the barriers of distance and +time and language. + +From this clearing house in England's historic old palace, built so +long ago by Bluff King Hal, these offerings of the world are sent +wherever there is need, to Servia, to Egypt, to South and East Africa, +to the Belgians. The work was instituted by the Queen the moment war +broke out, and three things are being very carefully insured: That a +real want exists, that the clothing reaches its proper destination, +and that there shall be no overlapping. + +The result has been most gratifying to the Queen, but it was difficult +to get so huge a business--for, as I have already said, it is a +business now--under way at the beginning. Demand was insistent. There +was no time to organise a system in advance. It had to be worked out +in actual practice. + +One of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting wrote in February, apropos of the +human element in the work: + +"There was a great deal of human element in the start with its various +mistakes. The Queen wished, on the breaking out of war, to start the +Guild in such a way as to prevent the waste and overlapping which +occurred in the Boer War.... The fact that the ladies connected with +the work have toiled daily and unceasingly for seven months is the +most wonderful part of it all." + +Before Christmas nine hundred and seventy thousand belts and socks +were collected and sent as a special gift to the soldiers at the +front, from the Queen and the women of the empire. That in itself is +an amazing record of efficiency. + +It is rather comforting to know that there were mistakes in the +beginning. It is so human. It is comforting to think of this +exceedingly human Queen being a party to them, and being divided +between annoyance and mirth as they developed. It is very comforting +also to think that, in the end, they were rectified. + +We had a similar situation during our Civil War. There were mistakes +then also, and they too were rectified. What the heroic women of the +North and South did during that great conflict the women of Great +Britain are doing to-day. They are showing the same high and +courageous spirit, the same subordination of their personal griefs to +the national cause, the same cheerful relinquishment of luxuries. It +is a United Britain that confronts the enemy in France. It is a united +womanhood, united in spirit, in labour, in faith and high moral +courage, that looks east across the Channel to that land beyond the +horizon, "somewhere in France," where the Empire is fighting for life. + +A united womanhood, and at its head a steadfast and courageous Queen +and mother, Mary of England. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE QUEEN OF THE BELGIANS + + +On the third of August, 1914, the German Army crossed the frontier +into Belgium. And on the following day, the fourth, King Albert made +his now famous speech to the joint meeting of the Belgian Chamber and +Senate. Come what might, the Belgian people would maintain the freedom +that was their birthright. + +"I have faith in our destinies," King Albert concluded. "A country +which defends itself wins respect and cannot perish." + +With these simple and dignified words Belgium took up the struggle. +She was beaten before she began, and she knew it. No matter what the +ultimate out-come of the war, she must lose. The havoc would be hers. +The old battleground of Europe knew what war meant; no country in the +world knew better. And, knowing, Belgium took up the burden. + +To-day, Belgium is prostrate. That she lives, that she will rise +again, no Belgian doubts. It may be after months--even after years; +but never for a moment can there be any doubt of the national +integrity. The Germans are in Belgium, but not of it. Belgium is still +Belgium--not a part of the German Empire. Until the Germans are driven +out she is waiting. + +As I write this, one corner of her territory remains to her, a +wedge-shaped piece, ten miles or so in width at the coast, narrowing +to nothing at a point less than thirty miles inland. And in that +tragic fragment there remains hardly an undestroyed town. Her revenues +are gone, being collected as an indemnity, for God knows what, by the +Germans. King Albert himself has been injured. The Queen of the +Belgians has pawned her jewels. The royal children are refugees in +England. Two-thirds of the army is gone. And, of even that tiny +remaining corner, much is covered by the salt floods of the sea. + +The King of the Belgians is often heard of. We hear of him at the head +of his army, consulting his staff, reviewing his weary and decimated +troops. We know his calibre now, both as man and soldier. He stands +out as one of the truly heroic figures of the war. + +But what of the Bavarian-born Queen of the Belgians? What of this +royal woman who has lost the land of her nativity through the same war +that has cost her the country of her adoption; who must see her +husband go each day to the battle line; who must herself live under +the shadow of hostile aëroplanes, within earshot of the enemy's guns? +What was she thinking of during those fateful hours when, all night +long, King Albert and his Ministers debated the course of Belgium--a +shameful immunity, or a war? What does she think now, when, before the +windows of her villa at La Panne, the ragged and weary remnant of the +brave Belgian Army lines up for review? What does she hope for and +pray for--this Queen without a country? + +What she thinks we cannot know. What she hopes for we may guess--the +end of war; the return of her faithful people to their homes; the +reunion of families; that the guns will cease firing, so the long +lines of ambulances will no longer fill the roads; that the wounded +will recover; and that those that grieve may be comforted. + +She has pawned her jewels. When I saw her she wore a thin gold chain +round her neck, and on it a tiny gold heart. I believe she has +sacrificed everything else. Royal jewels have been pawned before +this--to support extravagant mistresses or to bolster a crumbling +throne; but Elisabeth of Belgium has pawned her jewels to buy supplies +for wounded soldiers. Battle-scarred old Belgium has not always had a +clean slate; but certainly this act of a generous and devoted queen +should mark off many scores. + +The Queen is living at La Panne, a tiny fishing village and resort on +the coast--an ugly village, robbed of quaintness by its rows of villas +owned by summer visitors. The villas are red and yellow brick, built +château fashion and set at random on the sand. Efforts at lawns have +proved abortive. The encroaching dunes gradually cover the grass. Here +and there are streets; and there is one main thoroughfare, along which +is a tramway that formerly connected the town with other villages. + +On one side the sea; on the other the dunes, with little shade and no +beauty--such is the location of the new capital of Belgium. And here, +in one of the six small villas that house the court, the King and +Queen of Belgium, with the Crown Prince, are living. They live very +quietly, walking together along the sands at those times when King +Albert is not with his troops, faring simply, waiting always--as all +Belgium is waiting to-day. Waiting for the end of this terrible time. + +I asked a member of the royal household what they did during those +long winter evenings, when the only sounds in the little village were +the wash of the sea and the continual rumble of the artillery at +Nieuport. + +"What can we do?" he replied. "My wife and children are in Brussels. +It is not possible to read, and it is not wise to think too much. We +wait." + +But waiting does not imply inaction. The members of His Majesty's +household are all officers in the army. I saw only one gentleman in +civilian dress, and he was the King's secretary, M. Ingenbleek. The +King heads this activity, and the Queen of the Belgians is never idle. +The Ocean Ambulance, the great Belgian base hospital, is under her +active supervision, and its location near the royal villa makes it +possible for her to visit it daily. She knows the wounded soldiers, +who adore her. Indeed, she is frankly beloved by the army. Her +appearance is always the signal for a demonstration; and again and +again I saw copies of her photograph nailed up in sentry huts, in +soldiers' billets, in battered buildings that were temporary +headquarters for divisions of the army. + +In return for this devotion the young Queen regards the welfare of the +troops as her especial charge. She visits them when they are wounded, +and many tales are told of her keen memory for their troubles. One, a +wounded Frenchman, had lost his pipe when he was injured. As he +recovered he mourned his pipe. Other pipes were offered, but they were +not the same. There had been something about the curve of the stem of +the old one, or the shape of the bowl--whatever it was, he missed it. +And it had been his sole possession. + +At last the Queen of the Belgians had him describe the old pipe +exactly. I believe he made a drawing--and she secured a duplicate of +it for him. He told me the story himself. + +The Queen had wished to go to the trenches to see the wretchedness of +conditions at the front, and to discover what she could do to +ameliorate them. One excursion she had been permitted at the time I +saw her, to the great anxiety of those who knew of the trip. She was +quite fearless, and went into one of the trenches at the railroad +embankment of Pervyse. I saw that trench afterward. It was proudly +decorated with a sign that said: _Repose de la Reine_. And above the +board was the plaster head of a saint, from one of the churches. Both +sign and head, needless to say, were carefully protected from German +bullets. + +Everywhere I went I found evidences of devotion to this girlish and +tender-hearted Queen. I was told of her farewell to the leading +officials of the army and of the court, when, having remained to the +last possible moment, King Albert insisted on her departure from +Brussels. I was told of her incognito excursions across the dangerous +Channel to see her children in England. I was told of her +single-hearted devotion to the King; her belief in him; her confidence +that he can do no wrong. + +So, when a great and bearded individual, much given to bowing, +presented himself at the door of my room in the hotel at Dunkirk, and +extended to me a notification that the Queen of the Belgians would +receive me the next day at the royal villa at La Panne, I was keenly +expectant. + +I went over my wardrobe. It was exceedingly limited and more than a +little worn. Furs would cover some of the deficiencies, but there was +a difficulty about shoe buttons. Dunkirk apparently laces its shoes. +After a period of desperation, two top buttons were removed and sewed +on lower down, where they would do the most good. That and much +brushing was all that was possible, my total war equipment comprising +one small suitcase, two large notebooks and a fountain pen. + +I had been invited to lunch at a town on my way to La Panne, but the +luncheon was deferred. When I passed through my would-be entertainer +was eating bully beef out of a tin, with a cracker or two; and shells +were falling inhospitably. Suddenly I was not hungry. I did not care +for food. I did not care to stop to talk about food. It was a very +small town, and there were bricks and glass and plaster in the +streets. There were almost no people, and those who were there were +hastily preparing for flight. + +It was a wonderful Sunday afternoon, brilliantly sunny. A German +aëroplane hung overhead and called the bull's-eyes. From the plain +near they were firing at it, but the shells burst below. One could see +how far they fell short by the clouds of smoke that hung suspended +beneath it, floating like shadowy balloons. + +I felt that the aëroplane had its eyes on my car. They drop darts--do +the aëroplanes--two hundred and more at a time; small pencil-shaped +arrows of steel, six inches long, extremely sharp and weighted at the +point end. I did not want to die by a dart. I did not want to die by a +shell. As a matter of fact, I did not want to die at all. + +So the car went on; and, luncheonless, I met the Queen of the +Belgians. + +The royal villa at La Panne faces the sea. It is at the end of the +village and the encroaching dunes have ruined what was meant to be a +small lawn. The long grass that grows out of the sand is the only +vegetation about it; and outside, half-buried in the dune, is a marble +seat. A sentry box or two, and sentries with carbines pacing along the +sand; the constant swish of the sea wind through the dead winter +grass; the half-buried garden seat--that is what the Queen of the +Belgians sees as she looks from the window of her villa. + +The villa itself is small and ugly. The furnishing is the furnishing +of a summer seaside cottage. The windows fit badly and rattle in the +gale. In the long drawing room--really a living room--in which I +waited for the Queen, a heavy red curtain had been hung across the +lower part of the long French windows that face the sea, to keep out +the draft. With that and an open coal fire the room was fairly +comfortable. + +As I waited I looked about. Rather a long room this, which has seen so +many momentous discussions, so much tragedy and real grief. A chaotic +room too; for, in addition to its typical villa furnishing of +chintz-covered chairs and a sofa or two, an ordinary pine table by a +side window was littered with papers. + +On a centre table were books--H.G. Wells' "The War in the Air"; two +American books written by correspondents who had witnessed the +invasion of Belgium; and several newspapers. A hideous marble bust on +a pedestal occupied a corner, and along a wall was a very small +cottage piano. On the white marble mantel were a clock and two +candlesticks. Except for a great basket of heather on a stand--a gift +to Her Majesty---the room was evidently just as its previous owners +had left it. A screen just inside the door, a rather worn rug on the +floor, and a small brocade settee by the fireplace completed the +furnishing. + +The door opened and the Queen entered without ceremony. I had not seen +her before. In her simple blue dress, with its white lawn collar and +cuffs, she looked even more girlish than I had anticipated. Like Queen +Mary of England, she had suffered from the camera. She is indeed +strikingly beautiful, with lovely colouring and hair, and with very +direct wide eyes, set far apart. She is small and slender, and moves +quickly. She speaks beautiful English, in that softly inflected voice +of the Continent which is the envy of all American women. + +I bowed as she entered; and she shook hands with me at once and asked +me to sit down. She sat on the sofa by the fireplace. Like the Queen +of England, like King Albert, her first words were of gratitude to +America. + +It is not my intention to record here anything but the substance of my +conversation with Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. Much that was said was +the free and unrestricted speech of two women, talking over together a +situation which was tragic to them both; for Queen Elisabeth allowed +me to forget, as I think she had ceased to remember, her own exalted +rank, in her anxiety for her people. + +A devoted churchwoman, she grieved over the treatment accorded by the +invading German Army to the priests and nuns of Belgium. She referred +to her own Bavarian birth, and to the confidence both King Albert and +she had always felt in the friendliness of Germany. + +"I am a Bavarian," she said. "I have always, from my childhood, heard +this talk that Germany must grow, must get to the sea. I thought it +was just talk--a pleasantry!" + +She had seen many of the diaries of German soldiers, had read them in +the very room where we were sitting. She went quite white over the +recollection and closed her eyes. + +"It is the women and children!" she said. "It is terrible! There must +be killing. That is war. But not this other thing." + +And later on she said, in reference to German criticism of King +Albert's course during the early days of the war: + +"Any one who knows the King knows that he cannot do a wrong thing. It +is impossible for him. He cannot go any way but straight." + +And Queen Elisabeth was right. Any one who knows King Albert of +Belgium knows that "he cannot go any way but straight." + +The conversation shifted to the wounded soldiers and to the Queen's +anxiety for them. I spoke of her hospital as being a remarkable +one--practically under fire, but moving as smoothly as a great +American institution, thousands of miles from danger. She had looked +very sad, but at the mention of the Ocean Ambulance her face +brightened. She spoke of its equipment; of the difficulty in securing +supplies; of the new surgery, which has saved so many limbs from +amputation. They were installing new and larger sterilisers, she said. + +"Things are in as good condition as can be expected now," she said. +"The next problem will come when we get back into our own country. +What are the people to do? So many of the towns are gone; so many +farms are razed!" + +The Queen spoke of Brand Whitlock and praised highly his work in +Brussels. From that to the relief work was only a step. I spoke of the +interest America was taking in the relief work, and of the desire of +so many American women to help. + +"We are grateful for anything," she said. "The army seems to be as +comfortable as is possible under the circumstances; but the people, of +course, need everything." + +Inevitably the conversation turned again to the treatment of the +Belgian people by the Germans; to the unnecessary and brutal murders +of noncombatants; to the frightful rapine and pillage of the early +months of the war. Her Majesty could not understand the scepticism of +America on this point. I suggested that it was difficult to say what +any army would do when it found itself in a prostrate and conquered +land. + +"The Belgian Army would never have behaved so," said Her Majesty. "Nor +the English; nor the French. Never!" + +And the Queen of the Belgians is a German! True, she has suffered +much. Perhaps she is embittered; but there was no bitterness in her +voice that afternoon in the little villa at La Panne--only sadness and +great sorrow and, with it, deep conviction. What Queen Elisabeth of +Belgium says, she believes; and who should know better? There, to that +house on the sea front, in the fragment of Belgium that remains, go +all the hideous details that are war. She knows them all. King Albert +is not a figure-head; he is the actual fighting head of his army. The +murder of Belgium has been done before his very eyes. + +In those long evenings when he has returned from headquarters; when he +and Queen Elisabeth sit by the fire in the room that overlooks the +sea; when every blast that shakes the windows reminds them both of +that little army, two-thirds gone, shivering in the trenches only a +mile or two away, or of their people beyond the dead line, suffering +both deprivation and terror--what pictures do they see in the glowing +coals? + +It is not hard to know. Queen Elisabeth sees her children, and the +puzzled, boyish faces of those who are going down to the darkness of +death that another nation may find a place in the sun. + +What King Albert sees may not all be written; but this is certain: +Both these royal exiles--this Soldier-King who has won and deserved +the admiration of the world; this Queen who refuses to leave her +husband and her wounded, though day after day hostile aëroplanes are +overhead and the roar of German guns is in her ears--these royal +exiles live in hope and in deep conviction. They will return to +Belgium. Their country will be theirs again. Their houses will be +restored; their fields will be sown and yield harvest--not for +Germany, but for Belgium. Belgium, as Belgium, will live again! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THE RED BADGE OF MERCY + + +Immediately on the declaration of war by the Powers the vast machinery +of mercy was put in the field. The mobilisation of the Red Cross army +began--that great army which is of no nation, but of all nations, of +no creed but of all faiths, of one flag for all the world and that +flag the banner of the Crusaders. + +The Red Cross is the wounded soldier's last defence. Worn as a +brassard on the left arm of its volunteers, it conveys a higher +message than the Victoria Cross of England, the Iron Cross of Germany, +or the Cross of the Legion of Honour of France. It is greater than +cannon, greater than hate, greater than blood-lust, greater than +vengeance. It triumphs over wrath as good triumphs over evil. Direct +descendant of the cross of the Christian faith, it carries on to every +battlefield the words of the Man of Peace: "Blessed are the merciful, +for they shall obtain mercy." + + * * * * * + +The care of the wounded in war has been the problem of the ages. +Richard the Lion-Hearted took a hospital ship to the coast of +Palestine. The German people of the Middle Ages had their wounded in +battle treated by their wives, who followed the army for that purpose. +It remained for Frederick the First of Prussia to establish a military +service in connection with a standing army. + +With the invention of firearms battlefield surgery faced new problems, +notably hemorrhage, and took a step forward to meet these altered +conditions. It was a French surgeon who solved the problem of +hemorrhage by tying the torn blood vessels above the injury. To +England goes the credit for the prevention of sepsis, as far as it may +be prevented on a battlefield. + +As far as it may be prevented on a battlefield! For that is the +question that confronts the machinery of mercy to-day. Transportation +to the hospitals has been solved, to a large extent, by motor +ambulances, by hospital trains, by converted channel steamers +connecting the Continent with England. Hospitals in the western field +of war are now plentiful and some are well equipped. The days of +bedding wounded men down on straw are largely in the past, but how to +prevent the ravages of dirt, the so-called "dirt diseases" of gaseous +gangrene, blood poisoning, tetanus, is the problem. + +I did not see the first exchange of hopelessly wounded prisoners that +took place at Flushing, while I was on the Continent. It must have +been a tragic sight. They lined up in two parties at the railroad +station, German surgeons and nurses with British prisoners, British +surgeons and nurses with German prisoners. + +Then they were counted off, I am told. Ten Germans came forward, ten +British, in wheeled chairs, on crutches, the sightless ones led. The +exchange was made. Then ten more, and so on. What a sight! What a +horror! No man there would ever be whole again. There were men without +legs, without arms, blind men, men twisted by fearful body wounds. Two +hundred and sixteen British officers and men, and as many Germans, +were exchanged that day. + +"They were, however, in the best of spirits," said the London Times of +the next day! + +At Folkestone a crowd was waiting on the quay, and one may be sure +that heads were uncovered as the men limped, or were led or wheeled, +down the gang-plank. Kindly English women gave them nosegays of +snowdrops and violets. + +And then they went on--to what? For a few weeks, or months, they will +be the objects of much kindly sympathy. In the little towns where they +live visitors will be taken to see them. The neighbourhood will exert +itself in kindness. But after a time interest will die away, and +besides, there will be many to divide sympathy. The blind man, or the +man without a leg or an arm, will cease to be the neighbourhood's +responsibility and will become its burden. + +What then? For that is the problem that is facing each nation at +war--to make a whole life out of a fragment, to teach that the spirit +may be greater than the body, to turn to usefulness these sad and +hopeless by-products of battlefields. + +The ravages of war--to the lay mind--consist mainly of wounds. As a +matter of fact, they divide themselves into several classes, all +different, all requiring different care, handling and treatment, and +all, in their several ways, dependent for help on the machinery of +mercy. In addition to injuries on the battlefield there are illnesses +contracted on the field, septic conditions following even slight +abrasions or minor wounds, and nervous conditions--sometimes +approximating a temporary insanity--due to prolonged strain, to +incessant firing close at hand, to depression following continual lack +of success, to the sordid and hideous conditions of unburied dead, +rotting in full view for weeks and even months. + +During the winter frozen feet, sometimes requiring amputation, and +even in mild cases entailing great suffering, took thousands of men +out of the trenches. The trouble resulted from standing for hours and +even days in various depths of cold water, and was sometimes given the +name "waterbite." Soldiers were instructed to rub their boots inside +and out with whale oil, and to grease their feet and legs. Unluckily, +only fortunately situated men could be so supplied, and the suffering +was terrible. Surgeons who have observed many cases of both frost and +water bite say that, curiously enough, the left foot is more +frequently and seriously affected than the right. The reason given is +that right-handed men automatically use the right foot more than the +left, make more movements with it. The order to remove boots twice a +day, for a few moments while in the trenches, had a beneficial effect +among certain battalions. + +The British soldier who wraps tightly a khaki puttee round his leg and +thus hampers circulation has been a particular sufferer from frostbite +in spite of the precaution he takes to grease his feet and legs before +going into the trenches. + +The presence of septic conditions has been appalling. + +This is a dirty war. Men are taken back to the hospitals in incredible +states of filth. Their stiffened clothing must frequently be cut off +to reveal, beneath, vermin-covered bodies. When the problem of +transportation is a serious one, as after a great battle, men must lie +in sheds or railway stations, waiting their turn. Wounds turn green +and hideous. Their first-aid dressing, originally surgically clean, +becomes infected. Lucky the man who has had a small vial of iodine to +pour over the gaping surface of his wound. For the time, at least, he +is well off. + +The very soil of Flanders seems polluted. British surgeons are sighing +for the clean dust of the Boer war of South Africa, although they +cursed it at the time. That it is not the army occupation which is +causing the grave infections of Flanders and France is shown by the +fact that the trouble dates from the beginning of the war. It is not +that living in a trench undermines the vitality of the men and lays +them open to infection. On the contrary, with the exception of frost +bite, there is a curious absence of such troubles as would ordinarily +result from exposure, cold and constant wetting. + +The open-air life has apparently built up the men. Again and again the +extraordinary power of resistance shown has astonished the surgeons. +It is as if, in forcing men to face overwhelming hardships, a watchful +Providence had granted them overwhelming vitality. + +Perhaps the infection of the soil, the typhoid-carrying waters that +seep through and into the trenches, the tetanus and gangrene that may +infect the simplest wounds, are due to the long intensive cultivation +of that fertile country, to the fertilisation by organic matter of its +fields. Doubtless the vermin that cover many of the troops form the +connecting link between the soil and the infected men. In many places +gasoline is being delivered to the troopers to kill these pests, and +it is a German army joke that before a charge on a Russian trench it +is necessary to send ahead men to scatter insect powder! So serious is +the problem in the east indeed that an official order from Berlin now +requires all cars returning from Russia to be placarded "_Aus +Russland_! Before using again thoroughly sterilise and unlouse!" And +no upholstered cars are allowed to be used. + +Generally speaking, a soldier is injured either in his trench or in +front of it in the waste land between the confronting armies. In the +latter case, if the lines are close together the situation is still +further complicated. It may be and often is impossible to reach him at +all. He must lie there for hours or even for days of suffering, until +merciful death overtakes him. When he can be rescued he is, and many +of the bravest deeds of this war have been acts of such salvage. In +addition to the work of the ambulance corps and of volunteer soldiers +who often venture out into a rain of death to bring in fallen officers +and comrades in the western field, some five hundred ambulance dogs +are being used by the Allies to locate the wounded. + +When a man is injured in the trenches his companions take care of him +until night, when it is possible to move him. His first-aid packet is +opened, a sterilised bandage produced, and the dressing applied to the +wound. Frequently he has a small bottle of iodine and the wound is +first painted with that. In cases where iodine is used at once, +chances of infection are greatly lessened. But often he must lie in +the trench until night, when the ambulances come up. His comrades make +him as comfortable as they can. He lies on their overcoats, his head +frequently on his own pack. + +Fighting goes on about him, above him. Other comrades fall in the +trench and are carried and laid near him. In the intervals of +fighting, men bring the injured men water. For that is the first +cry--a great and insistent need--water. When they cannot get water +from the canteens they drink what is in the bottom of the trench. + +At last night falls. The evening artillery duel, except when a charge +is anticipated, is greatly lessened at night, and infantry fire is +only that of "snipers." But over the trench and over the line of +communication behind the trench hang always the enemy's "starlights." + +The ambulances come up. They cannot come as far as the trenches, but +stretchers are brought and the wounded men are lifted out as tenderly +as possible. + +Many soldiers have tried to tell of the horrors of a night journey in +an ambulance or transport; careful driving is out of the question. +Near the front the ambulance can have no lights, and the roads +everywhere have been torn up by shells. + +Men die in transit, and, dying, hark back to early days. They call for +their mothers, for their wives. They dictate messages that no one can +take down. Unloaded at railway stations, the dead are separated from +the living and piled in tiers on trucks. The wounded lie about on +stretchers on the station floor. Sometimes they are operated on there, +by the light of a candle, it may be, or of a smoking lamp. When it is +a well-equipped station there is the mercy of chloroform, the blessed +release of morphia, but more times than I care to think of at night, +there has been no chloroform and no morphia. + +France has sixty hospital trains, England twelve, Belgium not so many. + +I have seen trains drawing in with their burden of wounded men. They +travel slowly, come to a gradual stop, without jolting or jarring; but +instead of the rush of passengers to alight, which usually follows the +arrival of a train, there is silence, infinite quiet. Then, somewhere, +a door is unhurriedly opened. Maybe a priest alights and looks about +him. Perhaps it is a nurse who steps down and takes a comprehensive +survey of conditions. There is no talking, no uproar. A few men may +come up to assist in lifting out the stretchers, an ambulance driver +who salutes and indicates with a gesture where his car is stationed. +There are no onlookers. This is business, the grim business of war. +The line of stretchers on the station platform grows. The men lie on +them, impassive. They have waited so long. They have lain on the +battlefield, in the trench, behind the line at the dressing shed, +waiting, always waiting. What is a little time more or less, now? + +The patience of the injured! I have been in many hospitals. I have +seen pneumonia and typhoid patients lying in the fearful apathy of +disease. They are very sad to see, very tragic, but their patience is +the lethargy of half consciousness. Their fixed eyes see visions. The +patience of the wounded is the resignation of alert faculties. + +Once I saw a boy dying. He was a dark-haired, brown-eyed lad of +eighteen. He had had a leg shattered the day before, and he had lain +for hours unattended on the battlefield. The leg had been amputated, +and he was dying of loss of blood. + +He lay alone, in a small room of what had once been a girls' school. +He had asked to be propped up with pillows, so that he could breathe. +His face was grey, and only his eyes were alive. They burned like +coals. He was alone. The hospital was crowded, and there were others +who could be saved. So he lay there, propped high, alone, and as +conscious as I am now, and waited. The nurse came back at last, and +his eyes greeted her. + +There seemed to be nothing that I could do. Before his conscious eyes +I was an intruder, gazing at him in his extremity. I went away. And +now and then, when I hear this talk of national honour, and am carried +away with a hot flame of resentment so that I, too, would cry for war, +I seem to see that dying boy's eyes, looking through the mists that +are vengeance and hatred and affronted pride, to war as it is--the end +of hope, the gate of despair and agony and death. + +After my return I received these letters. The woman who wrote them +will, I know, forgive me for publishing extracts from them. She is a +Belgian, married to an American. More clearly than any words of mine, +they show where falls the burden of war: + +"I have just learned that my youngest brother has been killed in +action in Flanders. King Albert decorated him for conspicuous bravery +on April 22d, and my poor boy went to his reward on April 26th. In my +leaden heart, through my whirling brain, your words keep repeating +themselves: 'For King and Country!' Yes, he died for them, and died a +hero! I know only that his regiment, the Grenadiers, was decimated. My +poor little boy! God pity us all, and save martyred Belgium!" + +In a second letter: + +"I enclose my dear little boy's obituary notice. He died at the head +of his company and five hundred and seventy-four of his Grenadiers +went down with him. Their regiment effectively checked the German +advance, and in recognition General Joffre pinned the Cross of the +Legion of Honour to his regimental colours. But we are left to +mourn--though I do no begrudge my share of sorrow. The pain is awful, +and I pray that by the grace of God you may never know what it means." + +For King and Country! + +The only leaven in this black picture of war as have seen it, as it +has touched me, has been the scarlet of the Red Cross. To a faith that +the terrible scene at the front had almost destroyed, came every now +and then again the flash of the emblem of mercy Hope, then, was not +dead. There were hands to soothe and labour, as well as hands to kill. +There was still brotherly love in the world. There was a courage that +was not of hate. There was a patience that was not a lying in wait. +There was a flag that was not of one nation, but of all the world; a +flag that needed no recruiting station, for the ranks it led were +always full to overflowing; a flag that stood between the wounded +soldier and death; that knew no defeat but surrender to the will of +the God of Battles. + +And that flag I followed. To the front, to the field hospitals behind +the trenches, to railway stations, to hospital trains and ships, to +great base hospitals. I watched its ambulances on shelled roads. I +followed its brassards as their wearers, walking gently, carried +stretchers with their groaning burdens. And, whatever may have failed +in this war--treaties, ammunition, elaborate strategies, even some of +the humanities--the Red Cross as a symbol of service has never failed. + +I was a critical observer. I am a graduate of a hospital +training-school, and more or less for years I have been in touch with +hospitals. I myself was enrolled under the Red Cross banner. I was +prepared for efficiency. What I was not prepared for was the absolute +self-sacrifice, the indifference to cost in effort, in very life +itself, of a great army of men and women. I saw English aristocrats +scrubbing floors; I found American surgeons working day and night +under the very roar and rattle of guns. I found cultured women of +every nation performing the most menial tasks. I found an army where +all are equal--priests, surgeons, scholars, chauffeurs, poets, women +of the stage, young girls who until now have been shielded from the +very name of death--all enrolled under the red badge of mercy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +IN TERMS OF LIFE AND DEATH + + +One of the first hospitals I saw was in Calais. We entered a muddy +courtyard through a gate, and the building loomed before us. It had +been a girls' convent school, and was now a military hospital for both +the French and British armies, one half the building being used by +each. It was the first war hospital I had seen, and I was taken +through the building by Major S----, of the Royal Army Medical Corps. +It was morning, and the corridors and stairs still bore the mud of the +night, when the ambulances drive into the courtyard and the stretchers +are carried up the stairs. It had been rather a quiet night, said +Major S----. The operations were already over, and now the work of +cleaning up was going on. + +He opened a door, and we entered a long ward. + +I live in a great manufacturing city. Day by day its mills take their +toll in crushed bodies. The sight of broken humanity is not new to me. +In a general way, it is the price we pay for prosperity. Individually, +men so injured are the losers in life's great struggle for food and +shelter. + +I had never before seen men dying of an ideal. + +There is a terrible sameness in war hospitals. There are rows of beds, +and in them rows of unshaven, white-faced men. Some of them turn and +look at visitors. Others lie very still, with their eyes fixed on the +ceiling, or eternity, or God knows what. Now and then one is sleeping. + +"He has slept since he came in," the nurse will say; "utter +exhaustion." + +Often they die. If there is a screen, the death takes place decently +and in order, away from the eyes of the ward. But when there is no +screen, it makes little difference. What is one death to men who have +seen so many? + +Once men thought in terms of a day's work, a night's sleep, of labour +and play and love. But all over Europe to-day, in hospital and out, +men are learning to think in terms of life and death. What will be the +result? A general brutalising? The loss of much that is fine? Perhaps. +There are some who think that it will scourge men's souls clean of +pettiness, teach them proportion, give them a larger outlook. But is +it petty to labour and love? Is the duty of the nation greater than +the duty of the home? Is the nation greater than the individual? Is +the whole greater than the sum of its parts? + +Ward after ward. Rows of quiet men. The occasional thump of a +convalescent's crutch. The swish of a nurse's starched dress. The +strangled grunt of a man as the dressing is removed from his wound. +The hiss of coal in the fireplace at the end of the ward. Perhaps a +priest beside a bed, or a nun. Over all, the heavy odour of drugs and +disinfectants. Brisk nurses go about, cheery surgeons, but there is no +real cheer. The ward is waiting. + +I saw a man who had been shot in the lungs. His lungs were filled with +jagged pieces of steel. He was inhaling oxygen from a tank. There was +an inhaler strapped over his mouth and nostrils, and the oxygen passed +through a bottle of water, to moisten it before it entered his +tortured lungs. + +The water in the bottle seethed and bubbled, and the man lay and +waited. + +He was waiting for the next breath. Above the mask his eyes were +fixed, intent. Would it come? Ah, that was not so bad. Almost a full +breath that time. But he must have another, and another. + +They are all waiting; for death, maybe; for home; for health again, or +such travesty of health as may come, for the hospital is not an end +but a means. It is an interval. It is the connecting link between the +trenches and home, between war and peace, between life and death. + +That one hospital had been a school. The children's lavatory is now +the operating room. There are rows of basins along one side, set a +trifle low for childish hands. When I saw them they were faintly +rimmed with red. There was a locker room too. Once these lockers had +held caps, no doubt, and overshoes, balls and other treasures. Now +they contained torn and stained uniforms, weapons, knapsacks, + +Does it matter how many wards there were, or how many surgeons? Do +figures mean anything to us any more? When we read in the spring of +1915 that the British Army, a small army compared with the others, had +lost already in dead, wounded and missing more than a quarter of a +million men we could not visualise it Multiply one ward by infinity, +one hospital by thousands, and then try to realise the terrible +by-products of war! + +In that Calais hospital I saw for the first time the apparatus for +removing bits of shell and shrapnel directly under the X-ray. Four +years ago such a procedure would have been considered not only +marvelous but dangerous. + +At that time, in Vienna and Berlin, I saw men with hands hopelessly +burned and distorted as the result of merely taking photographic +plates with the X-ray. Then came in lead-glass screens--screens of +glass made with a lead percentage. + +Now, as if science had prepared for this great emergency, operators +use gloves saturated with a lead solution, and right-angled +instruments, and operate directly in the ray. For cases where +immediate extraction is inadvisable or unnecessary there is a +stereoscopic arrangement of plates on the principle of our familiar +stereoscope, which shows an image with perspective and locates the +foreign body exactly. + +One plate I saw had a story attached to it. + +I was stopping in a private house where a tall Belgian surgeon lived. +In the morning, after breakfast, I saw him carefully preparing a tray +and carrying it upstairs. There was a sick boy, still in his teens, up +there. As I passed the door I had seen him lying there, gaunt and +pale, but plainly convalescent. + +Happening to go up shortly after, I saw the tall surgeon by the side +of the bed, the tray on his knees. And later I heard the story: + +The boy was his son. During the winter he had been injured and taken +prisoner. The father, in Calais, got word that his boy was badly +injured and lying in a German hospital in Belgium. He was an only son. + +I do not know how the frenzied father got into Belgium. Perhaps he +crept through the German lines. He may have gone to sea and landed on +the sand dunes near Zeebrugge. It does not matter how, for he found +his boy. He went to the German authorities and got permission to move +him to a private house. The boy was badly hurt. He had a bullet in the +wall of the carotid artery, for one thing, and a fractured thigh. The +father saw that his recovery, if it occurred at all, would be a matter +of skillful surgery and unremitting care, but the father had a post at +Calais and was badly needed. + +He took a wagon to the hospital and got his boy. Then he drove, +disguised I believe as a farmer, over the frontier into Holland. The +boy was covered in the bottom of the wagon. In Holland they got a boat +and went to Calais. All this, with that sharp-pointed German bullet in +the carotid artery! And at Calais they took the plate I have mentioned +and got out the bullet. + +The last time I saw that brave father he was sitting beside his son, +and the boy's hand was between both of his. + +Nearly all the hospitals I saw had been schools. In one that I recall, +the gentle-faced nuns, who by edict no longer exist in France, were +still living in a wing of the school building. They had abandoned +their quaint and beautiful habit for the ugly dress of the French +provinces--odd little bonnets that sat grotesquely on the tops of +their heads, stuffy black dresses, black cotton gloves. They would +like to be useful, but they belonged to the old regime. + +Under their bonnets their faces were placid, but their eyes were sad. +Their schoolrooms are hospital wards, the tiny chapel is piled high +with supplies; in the refectory, where decorous rows of small girls +were wont to file in to the convent meals, unthinkable horrors of +operations go on all day and far into the night. The Hall of the Holy +Rosary is a convalescent room, where soldiers smoke and play at cards. +The Room of the Holy Angels contains a steriliser. Through the +corridors that once re-echoed to the soft padding of their felt shoes +brisk English nurses pass with a rustle of skirts. + +Even the cross by which they lived has turned red, the colour of +blood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE LOSING GAME + + +I saw a typhoid hospital in charge of two women doctors. It was +undermanned. There were not enough nurses, not enough orderlies. + +One of the women physicians had served through the Balkan war. + +"There was typhoid there," she said, "but nothing to compare with this +in malignancy. Nearly all the cases have come from one part of +Belgium." + +Some of the men were wounded, in addition to the fever. She told me +that it was impossible to keep things in proper order with the help +they had. + +"And food!" she said. "We cannot have eggs. They are prohibitive at +twenty-five centimes--five cents--each; nor many broths. Meat is dear +and scarce, and there are no chickens. We give them stewed macaroni +and farinaceous things. It's a terrible problem." + +The charts bore out what she had said about the type of the disease. +They showed incredible temperatures, with the sudden drop that is +perforation or hemorrhage. + +The odour was heavy. Men lay there, far from home, babbling in +delirium or, with fixed eyes, picking at the bed clothes. One was +going to die that day. Others would last hardly longer. + +"They are all Belgians here," she said. "The British and French troops +have been inoculated against typhoid." + +So here again the Belgians were playing a losing game. Perhaps they +are being inoculated now. I do not know. To inoculate an army means +much money, and where is the Belgian Government to get it? ft seems +the tragic irony of fate that that heroic little army should have been +stationed in the infested territory. Are there any blows left to rain +on Belgium? + +In a letter from the Belgian lines the writer says: + +"This is just a race for life. The point is, which will get there +first, disease and sickness caused by drinking water unspeakably +contaminated, or sterilising plants to avoid such a disaster." + +Another letter from a different writer, also in Belgium at the front, +says: + +"A friend of mine has just been invalided home with enteritis. He had +been drinking from a well with a dead Frenchman in it!" + +The Belgian Soldiers' Fund in the spring of 1915 sent out an appeal, +which said: + +"The full heat of summer will soon be upon the army, and the dust of +the battlefield will cause the men to suffer from an intolerable +thirst." + +This is a part of the appeal: + +"It is said that out of the 27,000 men who gave their lives in the +South African war 7000 only were killed, whilst 20,000 died of +enteritis, contracted by drinking impure water. + +"In order to save their army from the fatal effects of contaminated +water, the Belgian Army medical authorities have, after careful tests, +selected the following means of sterilisation--boiling, ozone and +violet rays--as the most reliable methods for obtaining large supplies +of pure water rapidly. + +"Funds are urgently needed to help the work of providing and +distributing a pure water supply in the following ways: + +"1. By small portable sterilising plants for every company to produce +and distribute from twenty to a hundred gallons of pure cold water per +hour. + +"2. By sterilisers easy of adjustment for all field hospitals, +convalescent homes, medical depots, and so forth. + +"3. By large sterilising plants, capable of producing from 150 gallons +upward per hour, to provide a pure water supply for all the devastated +towns through which the army must pass. + +"4. By the sterilisation of contaminated pools and all surface water, +under the direction of leading scientific experts who have generously +offered their services. + +"5. By pocket filters for all who may have to work out of reach of the +sterilising plants, and so forth. + +"6. By two hundred field kitchens on the battlefield to serve out +soup, coffee or other drinks to the men fighting in the trenches or on +the march." + +Everywhere, at the front, I found the gravest apprehension as to water +supply in case the confronting armies remained in approximately the +same position. Sir John French spoke of it, and the British are +providing a system of sterilised water for their men. Merely providing +so many human beings with water is a tremendous problem. Along part of +the line, quite aside from typhoid contamination, the water is now +impregnated with salt water from the sea. If even wells contain dead +bodies, how about the open water-courses? Wounded men must have water. +It is their first and most insistent cry. + +People will read this who have never known the thirst of the +battlefield or the parched throat that follows loss of blood; people +who, by the turning of a tap, may have all the water they want. +Perhaps among them there are some who will face this problem of water +as America has faced Belgium's problem of food. For the Belgian Army +has no money at all for sterilisers, for pocket filters; has not the +means to inoculate the army against typhoid; has little of anything. +The revenues that would normally support the army are being +collected--in addition to a war indemnity--by Germany. + +Any hope that conditions would be improved by a general spring +movement into uncontaminated territory has been dispelled. The war has +become a gigantic siege, varied only by sorties and assaults. As long +ago as November, 1914, the situation as to drinking water was +intolerable. I quote again from the diary taken from the body of a +German officer after the battle of the Yser--a diary published in full +in an earlier chapter. + +"The water is bad, quite green, indeed; but all the same we drink +it--we can get nothing else. Man is brought down to the level of the +brute beast." + +There is little or no typhoid among the British troops. They, too, no +doubt, have realised the value of conservation, and to inoculation +have added careful supervision of wells and of watercourses. But when +I was at the front the Belgian Army of fifty thousand trained soldiers +and two hundred thousand recruits was dependent on springs oozing from +fields that were vast graveyards; on sluggish canals in which lay the +bodies of men and horses; and on a few tank wagons that carried fresh +water daily to the front. + +A quarter of a million dollars would be needed to install a water +supply for the Belgian Army and for the civilians--residents and +refugees--gathered behind the lines. To ask the American people to +shoulder this additional burden is out of the question. But perhaps, +somewhere among the people who will read this, there is one +great-hearted and wealthy American who would sleep better of nights +for having lifted to the lips of a wounded soldier the cup of pure +water that he craves; for having furnished to ten thousand wounds a +sterile and soothing wet compress. + +Dunkirk was full of hospitals when I was there. Probably the +subsequent shelling of the town destroyed some of them. I do not know. +A letter from Calais, dated May 21st, 1915, says: + +"I went through Dunkirk again. Last time I was there it was a +flourishing and busy market day. This time the only two living souls I +saw were the soldiers who let us in at one gate and out at the other. +In the interval, as you know, the town had been shelled by +fifteen-inch guns from a distance of twenty-three miles. Many +buildings in the main streets had been reduced to ruins, and nearly +all the windows in the town had been smashed." + +There is, or was, a converted Channel steamer at Dunkirk that is now a +hospital. Men in all stages of mutilation are there. The salt winds of +the Channel blow in through the open ports. The boat rises and falls +to the swell of the sea. The deck cabins are occupied by wounded +officers, and below, in the long saloon, are rows of cots. + +I went there on a bright day in February. There was a young officer on +the deck. He had lost a leg at the hip, and he was standing supported +by a crutch and looking out to sea. He did not even turn his head when +we approached. + +General M----, the head of the Belgian Army medical service, who had +escorted me, touched him on the arm, and he looked round without +interest. + +"For conspicuous bravery!" said the General, and showed me the medal +he wore on his breast. + +However, the young officer's face did not lighten, and very soon he +turned again to the sea. The time will come, of course, when the +tragedy of his mutilation will be less fresh and poignant, when the +Order of Leopold on his breast will help to compensate for many +things; but that sunny morning, on the deck of the hospital ship, it +held small comfort for him. + +We went below. At our appearance at the top of the stairs those who +were convalescent below rose and stood at attention. They stood in a +line at the foot of their beds, boys and grizzled veterans, clad in +motley garments, supported by crutches, by sticks, by a hand on the +supporting back of a chair. Men without a country, where were they to +go when the hospital ship had finished with them? Those who were able +would go back to the army, of course. But what of that large +percentage who will never be whole again? The machinery of mercy can +go so far, and no farther. France cannot support them. Occupied with +her own burden, she has persistently discouraged Belgian refugees. +They will go to England probably--a kindly land but of an alien +tongue. And there again they will wait. + +The waiting of the hospital will become the waiting of the refugee. +The Channel coast towns of England are full of human derelicts who +stand or sit for hours, looking wistfully back toward what was once +home. + +The story of the hospitals is not always gloomy. Where the +surroundings are favourable, defeat is sometimes turned to victory. +Tetanus is being fought and conquered by means of a serum. The open +treatment of fractures--that is, by cutting down and exposing the +jagged edges of splintered bones, and then uniting them--has saved +many a limb. Conservation is the watchword of the new surgery, to save +whenever possible. The ruthless cutting and hacking of previous wars +is a thing of the past. + +I remember a boy in a French hospital whose leg bones had been fairly +shattered. Eight pieces, the surgeon said there had been. Two linear +incisions, connected by a centre one, like a letter H, had been made. +The boy showed me the leg himself, and a mighty proud and happy +youngster he was. There was no vestige of deformity, no shortening. +The incisions had healed by first intention, and the thin, white lines +of the H were all that told the story. + +As if to offset the cheer of that recovery, a man in the next bed was +dying of an abdominal injury. I saw the wound. May the mother who bore +him, the wife he loved, never dream of that wound! + +I have told of the use of railway stations as temporary resting places +for injured soldiers. One is typical of them all. As my visit was made +during a lull in the fighting, conditions were more than usually +favourable. There was no congestion. + +On a bright afternoon early in March I went to the railway station +three miles behind the trenches at E----. Only a mile away a town was +being shelled. One could look across the fields at the changing roof +line, at a church steeple that had so far escaped. But no shells were +falling in E----. + +The station was a small village one. In the room corresponding to our +baggage-room straw had been spread over the floor, and men just out of +the trenches lay there in every attitude of exhaustion. In a tiny room +just beyond two or three women were making soup. As fast as one kettle +was ready it was served to the hungry men. There were several +kettles--all the small stove would hold. Soup was there in every +state, from the finished product to the raw meat and vegetables on a +table. + +Beyond was a waiting-room, with benches. Here were slightly injured +men, bandaged but able to walk about. A few slept on the benches, +heads lolled back against the whitewashed wall. The others were paying +no attention to the incessant, nearby firing, but were watching a boy +who was drawing. + +He had a supply of coloured crayons, and the walls as high as he could +reach were almost covered. There were priests, soldier types, +caricatures of the German Emperor, the arms of France and Belgium--I +do not remember what all. And it was exceedingly well done. The boy +was an artist to his finger tips. + +At a clever caricature of the German Emperor the soldiers laughed and +clapped their hands. While they were laughing I looked through an open +door. + +Three men lay on cots in an inner room--rather, two men and a boy. I +went in. + +One of the men was shot through the spine and paralysed. The second +one had a bullet in his neck, and his face already bore the dark flush +and anxious look of general infection. The boy smiled. + +They had been there since the day before, waiting for a locomotive to +come and move the hospital train that waited outside. In that railway +station the boy had had his leg taken off at the knee. + +They lay there, quite alone. The few women were feeding starving men. +Now and then one would look in to see if there was any change. There +was nothing to be done. They lay there, and the shells burst +incessantly a mile away, and the men in the next room laughed and +applauded at some happy stroke of the young artist. + +"I am so sorry," I said to the boy. The others had not roused at my +entrance, but he had looked at me with quick, intelligent eyes. + +"It is nothing!" was his reply. + +Outside, in the village, soldiers thronged the streets. The sun was +shining with the first promise of spring. In an area way regimental +butchering was going on, and a great sow, escaping, ran frenzied down +the street, followed by a throng of laughing, shouting men. And still +the shells fell, across a few fields, and inside the station the three +men lay and waited. + +That evening at dusk the bombardment ceased, and I went through the +shelled town. It was difficult to get about. Walls had fallen across +the way, interiors that had been homes gaped open to the streets. +Shattered beds and furnishings lay about--kitchen utensils, broken +dishes. On some of the walls holy pictures still hung, grouped about a +crucifix. There are many to tell how the crucifix has escaped in the +wholesale destruction of towns. + +A shoemaker had come back into the village for the night, and had +opened his shop. For a time he seemed to be the only inhabitant of +what I had known, a short time before, as a prosperous and thriving +market town. Then through an aperture that had been a window I saw +three women sitting round a candle. And in the next street I found a +man on his knees on the pavement, working with bricks and a trowel. + +He explained that he had closed up a small cellar-way. His family had +no place else to go and were coming in from the fields, where they had +sought safety, to sleep in the cellar for the night. He was leaving a +small aperture, to be closed with bags of sand, so that if the house +was destroyed over them in the night they could crawl out and escape. + +He knelt on the bricks in front of the house, a patient, resigned +figure, playing no politics, interested not at all in war and +diplomacy, in a way to the sea or to a place in the sun--one of the +millions who must adapt themselves to new and fearsome situations and +do their best. + +That night, sitting at dinner in a hotel, I saw two pretty nurses come +in. They had been relieved for a few hours from their hospital and +were on holiday. + +One of them had a clear, although musical voice. What she said came to +me with great distinctness, and what she was wishing for was a glass +of American soda water! + +Now, long months before I had had any idea of going to the war I had +read an American correspondent's story of the evacuation of Antwerp, +and of a tall young American girl, a nurse, whom the others called +Morning Glory. He never knew the rest of her name. Anyhow, Morning +Glory leaped into my mind and stayed there, through soup, through +rabbit, which was called on the menu something entirely different, +through hard cakes and a withered orange. + +So when a young lieutenant asked permission to bring them over to meet +me, I was eager. It was Morning Glory! Her name is really Glory, and +she is a Southern girl Somewhere among my papers I have a snapshot of +her helping to take a wounded soldier out of an ambulance, and if the +correspondent wants it I shall send it to him. Also her name, which he +never knew. And I will verify his opinion that it is better to be a +Morning Glory in Flanders than to be a good many other things that I +can think of. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +HOW AMERICANS CAN HELP + + +With the possible exception of Germany, which seems to have +anticipated everything, no one of the nations engaged appears to have +expected the fearful carnage of this war. The destructive effect of +the modern, high-explosive shell has been well known, but it is the +trench form of warfare which, by keeping troops in stationary +positions, under grilling artillery fire, has given such shells their +opportunity. Shrapnel has not been so deadly to the men in the +trenches. + +The result of the vast casualty lists has been some hundreds of +isolated hospitals scattered through France, not affiliated with any +of the Red Cross societies, unorganised, poverty-stricken, frequently +having only the services of a surgeon who can come but once a week. +They have no dressings, no nurses save peasants, no bedding, no coal +to cook even the scanty food that the villagers can spare. + +No coal, for France is facing a coal famine to-day. Her coal mines are +in the territory held by the Germans. Even if she had the mines, where +would she get men to labour in them, or trains to transport the coal? + +There are more than three hundred such hospitals scattered through +isolated French villages, hospitals where everything is needed. For +whatever else held fast during the first year of the war, the nursing +system of France absolutely failed. Some six hundred miles of hospital +wards there are to-day in France, with cots so close together that one +can hardly step between. It is true that with the passing of time, the +first chaos is giving way to order. But France, unlike England, has +the enemy within her boundaries, on her soil. Her every resource is +taxed. And the need is still great. + +The story of the town of D----, in Brittany, is very typical of what +the war has brought into many isolated communities. + +D---- is a little town of two thousand inhabitants, with a +thirteenth-century church, with mediaeval houses with quaint stone +porticoes and outside staircases. There is one street, shaped like a +sickle, with a handle that is the station road. + +War was declared and the men of D---- went away. The women and +children brought in the harvest, and waited for news. What little came +was discouraging. + +One day in August one of the rare trains stopped at the station, and +an inspector got off and walked up the sickle-handle to the +schoolhouse. He looked about and made the comment that it would hold +eighty beds. Whereupon he went away, and D---- waited for news and +gathered the harvest. + +On the fifth of September, 1914, the terrific battle of the Marne +commenced. The French strategic retreat was at an end, and with her +allies France resumed the offensive. What happened in the little +village of D----? + +And remember that D---- is only one of hundreds of tiny interior +towns. D---- has never heard of the Red Cross, but D---- venerated, in +its thirteenth-century church, the Cross of Christ. + +This is what happened: + +One day in the first week of September a train drew up at the box-like +station, a heterogeneous train--coaches, luggage vans, cattle and +horse cars. The doors opened, and the work of emptying the cars began. +The women and children, aghast and bewildered, ran down the +sickle-handle road and watched. Four hundred wounded men were taken +out of the cars, laid prone on the station platform, and the train +went on. + +There were no surgeons in D----, but there was a chemist who knew +something of medicine and who, for one reason or another, had not been +called to the ranks. There were no horses to draw carts. There was +nothing. + +The chemist was a man of action. Very soon the sickle and the old +church saw a curious sight. They saw women and children, a procession, +pushing wounded men to the school in the hand carts that country +people use for milk cans and produce. They saw brawny peasant women +carrying chairs in which sat injured men with lolling heads and sunken +eyes. + +Bales of straw were brought into the school. Tender, if unaccustomed, +hands washed fearful wounds, but there were no dressings, no bandages. + +Any one who knows the French peasant and his poverty will realise the +plight of the little town. The peasant has no reserves of supplies. +Life is reduced to its simplest elements. There is nothing that is not +in use. + +D---- solved part of its problem by giving up its own wooden beds to +the soldiers. It tore up its small stock of linen, its towels, its +dusters; but the problem of food remained. + +There was a tiny stove, on which the three or four teachers of the +school had been accustomed to cook their midday meal. There was no +coal, only wood, and green wood at that. All day, and all day now, +D---- cooks the _pot-à -feu_ for the wounded on that tiny stove. +_Pot-à -feu_ is good diet for convalescents, but the "light diets" must +have eggs, broth, whatever can be found. + +So the peasant woman of D---- comes to the hospital, bringing a few +eggs, the midday meal of her family, who will do without. + +I have spoken mainly in the past tense, but conditions in D---- are +not greatly changed to-day. An old marquise, impoverished by the war, +darns the pathetic socks of the wounded men and mends their uniforms. +At the last report I received, the corridors and schoolrooms were +still filled--every inch of space--with a motley collection of beds, +on which men lay in their uniforms, for lack of other clothing. They +were covered with old patchwork quilts, with anything that can be +used. There were, of course, no sheets. All the sheets were used long +ago for dressings. A friend of mine there recently saw a soldier with +one leg, in the kitchen, rolling wretched scraps and dusters for +bandages. There was no way to sterilise them, of course. Once a week a +surgeon comes. When he goes away he takes his instruments with him. + +This is not an isolated case, nor an exaggerated one. There are things +I do not care to publish. Three hundred and more such hospitals are +known. The French Government pays, or will pay, twenty-five cents a +day to keep these men. Black bread and _pot-à -feu_ is all that can be +managed on that amount. + +Convalescents sit up in bed and painfully unravel their tattered socks +for wool. They tie the bits together, often two or three inches in +length, and knit new feet in old socks, or--when they secure +enough--new socks. For the Germans hold the wool cities of France. +Ordinarily worsted costs eighteen and nineteen francs in Dinard and +Saint Malo, or from three dollars and sixty cents to three dollars and +eighty cents a pound. Much of the government reserves of woollen +underwear for the soldiers was in the captured towns, and German +prisoners have been found wearing woollens with the French Government +stamp. + +Every sort of building is being used for these isolated +hospitals--garages, town halls, private dwellings, schools. At first +they had no chloroform, no instruments. There are cases on record +where automobile tools were used in emergency, kitchen knives, saws, +anything. In one case, last spring, two hundred convalescents, leaving +one of these hospitals on a cold day in March, were called back, on +the arrival of a hundred freshly wounded men, that every superfluous +bandage on their wounds might be removed, to be used again. + +Naturally, depending entirely on the unskilled nursing of the village +women, much that we regard as fundamental in hospital practice is +ignored. Wounded men, typhoid and scarlet fever cases are found in the +same wards. In one isolated town a single clinical thermometer is +obliged to serve for sixty typhoid and scarlet fever patients.[F] + +[Footnote F: Written in June, 1915.] + +Sometimes the men in these isolated and ill-equipped refuges realise +the horror and hopelessness of their situation. The nights are +particularly bad. Any one who knows hospitals well, knows the night +terrors of the wards; knows, too, the contagion of excitement that +proceeds from a hysterical or delirious patient. + +In some of these lonely hospitals hell breaks loose at night. The +peasant women must sleep. Even the tireless nuns cannot labour forever +without rest. The men have come from battlefields of infinite horror. +A frenzied dream, a delirious soldier calling them to the charge, and +panic rages. + +To offset these horrors of the night the peasants have, here and +there, resorted to music. It is naïve, pathetic. Where there is a +piano it is moved into the school, or garage, or whatever the building +may be, and at twilight a nun or a volunteer musician plays quietly, +to soothe the men to sleep. In one or two towns a village band, or +perhaps a lone cornetist, plays in the street outside. + +So the days go on, and the nights. Supplies are begged for and do not +always come. Dressings are washed, to be used again and again. + +An attempt is now being made to better these conditions. A Frenchwoman +helping in one of these hospitals, and driven almost to madness by the +outcries of men and boys undergoing operations without anæsthetics, +found her appeals for help unanswered. She decided to go to England to +ask her friends there for chloroform, and to take it back on the next +boat. She was successful. She carried back with her, on numerous +journeys, dressings, chloroform, cotton, even a few instruments. She +is still doing this work. Others interested in isolated hospitals, +hearing of her success, appealed to her; and now regular, if small, +shipments of chloroform and dressings are going across the Channel. + +Americans willing to take their own cars, and willing to work, will +find plenty to do in distributing such supplies over there. A request +has come to me to find such Americans. Surgeons who can spare a +scalpel, an artery clip or two, ligatures--catgut or silk--and +forceps, may be certain of having them used at once. Bandages rolled +by kindly American hands will not lie unclaimed on the quay at Havre +or Calais. + +So many things about these little hospitals of France are touching, +without having any particular connection. There was a surgeon in one +of these isolated villages, with an X-ray machine but no gloves or +lead screen to protect himself. He worked on, using the deadly rays to +locate pieces of shell, bullets and shrapnel, and knowing all the time +what would happen. He has lost both hands. + +Since my return to America the problems of those who care for the sick +and wounded have been further complicated, among the Allies, by the +inhuman use of asphyxiating gases. + +Sir John French says of these gases: + +"The effect of this poison is not merely disabling, or even painlessly +fatal, as suggested in the German press. Those of its victims who do +not succumb on the field and who can be brought into hospitals suffer +acutely and, in a large proportion of cases, die a painful and +lingering death. Those who survive are in little better case, as the +injury to their lungs appears to be of a permanent character and +reduces them to a condition that points to their being invalids for +life." + +I have received from the front one of the respirators given out to the +troops to be used when the gas clouds appear. + +"It is prepared with hypophosphite of soda," wrote the surgeon who +sent it, "and all they have to do before putting it on is to dip it in +the water in the trenches. They are all supplied in addition with +goggles, which are worn on their caps," + +This is from the same letter: + +"That night a German soldier was brought in wounded, and jolly glad he +was to be taken. He told us he had been turned down three times for +phthisis--tuberculosis--and then in the end was called up and put into +the trenches after eight weeks' training. All of which is very +significant. Another wounded German told the men at the ambulance that +they must move on as soon as they could, as very soon the Germans +would be in Calais. + +"All the German soldiers write home now on the official cards, which +have Calais printed on the top of them!" + +Not all. I have before me a card from a German officer in the trenches +in France. It is a good-natured bit of raillery, with something of +grimness underneath. + + "_Dear Madame_: + + "'I nibble them'--Joffre. See your article in the _Saturday Evening + Post_ of May 29th, 1915. Really, Joffre has had time! It is + September now, and we are not nibbled yet. Still we stand deep in + France. Au revoir à Paris, Madame." + +He signs it "Yours truly," and then his name. + +Not Calais, then, but Paris! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +AN ARMY OF CHILDREN + + +It is undeniably true that the humanities are failing us as the war +goes on. Not, thank God, the broad humanity of the Red Cross, but that +individual compassion of a man for his wounded brother, of which the +very fabric of mercy is woven. There is too much death, too much +suffering. Men grow calloused. As yet the loss is not irretrievable, +but the war is still only a matter of months. What if it is to be of +years? + +France and Belgium were suffering from a wave of atheism before the +war. But there comes a time in the existence of nations, as in the +lives of individuals, when human endeavour seems useless, when the +world and the things thereof have failed. At such time nations and +individuals alike turn at last to a Higher Power. France is on her +knees to-day. Her churches are crowded. Not perhaps since the days of +chivalry, when men were shriven in the churches before going out to +battle, has France so generally knelt and bowed her head--but it is to +the God of Battles that she prays. + +On her battlefields the priests have most signally distinguished +themselves. Some have exchanged the soutane for the uniform, and have +fought bravely and well. Others, like the priests who stood firm in +the midst of Jordan, have carried their message of hope to the dying +into the trenches. + +No article on the work of the Red Cross can be complete without a +reference to the work of these priests, not perhaps affiliated with +the society, but doing yeoman work of service among the wounded. They +are everywhere, in the trenches or at the outposts, in the hospitals +and hospital trains, in hundreds of small villages, where the entire +community plus its burden of wounded turns to the _curé_ for +everything, from advice to the sacrament. + +In prostrate Belgium the demands on the priests have been extremely +heavy. Subjected to insult, injury and even death during the German +invasion, where in one diocese alone thirteen were put to death--their +churches destroyed, or used as barracks by the enemy--that which was +their world has turned to chaos about them. Those who remained with +their conquered people have done their best to keep their small +communities together and to look after their material needs--which +has, indeed, been the lot of the priests of battle-scarred Flanders +for many generations. + +Others have attached themselves to the hospital service. All the +Belgian trains of wounded are cared for solely by these priests, who +perform every necessary service for their men, and who, as I have said +before, administer the sacrament and make coffee to cheer the flagging +spirits of the wounded, with equal courage and resource. + +Surgeons, nurses, priests, nuns, volunteer workers who substitute for +lack of training both courage and zeal, these are a part of the +machinery of mercy. There is another element--the boy scouts. + +During the early days of the war the boy scouts of England, then on +school holiday, did marvellous work. Boys of fourteen made repeated +trips across the Channel, bringing back from France children, +invalids, timorous women. They volunteered in the hospitals, ran +errands, carried messages, were as useful as only willing boys can be. +They did scout service, too, guarding the railway lines and assisting +in watching the Channel coast; but with the end of the holiday most of +the English boy scouts were obliged to go back to school. Their +activities were not over, but they were largely curtailed. + +There were five thousand boy scouts in Belgium at the beginning of the +war. I saw them everywhere--behind the battle lines, on the driving +seats of ambulances, at the doors of hospitals. They were very calm. +Because I know a good deal about small boys I smothered a riotous +impulse to hug them, and spoke to them as grown-up to grown-up. Thus +approached, they met my advances with dignity, but without excitement. + +And after a time I learned something about them from the Chief Scout +of Belgium; perhaps it will show the boy scouts of America what they +will mean to the country in time of war. Perhaps it will make them +realise that being a scout is not, after all, only camping in the +woods, long hikes, games in the open. The long hikes fit a boy for +dispatch carrying, the camping teaches him to care for himself when, +if necessity arises, he is thrown on the country, like his older +brother, the fighting man. + +A small cog, perhaps, in the machinery of mercy, but a necessary one. +A vital cog in the vast machinery of war--that is the boy scout +to-day. + +The day after the declaration of war the Belgian scouts were +mobilised, by order of the minister of war--five thousand boys, then, +ranging in age from twelve to eighteen, an army of children. What a +sight they must have been! How many grown-ups can think of it with dry +eyes? What a terrible emergency was this, which must call the children +into battle! + +They were placed at the service of the military authorities, to do any +and every kind of work. Some, with ordinary bicycles or motorcyles, +were made dispatch riders. The senior scouts were enlisted in the +regular army, armed, and they joined the soldiers in barracks. The +younger boys, between thirteen and sixteen, were letter-carriers, +messengers in the different ministries, or orderlies in the hospitals +that were immediately organised. Those who could drive automobiles +were given that to do. + +Others of the older boys, having been well trained in scouting, were +set to watch points of importance, or given carbines and attached to +the civic guard. During the siege of Liège between forty and fifty boy +scouts were constantly employed carrying food and ammunition to the +beleaguered troops. + +The Germans finally realised that every boy scout was a potential spy, +working for his country. The uniform itself then became a menace, +since boys wearing it were frequently shot. The boys abandoned it, the +older ones assuming the Belgian uniform and the younger ones returning +to civilian dress. But although, in the chaos that followed the +invasion and particularly the fall of Liège, they were virtually +disbanded, they continued their work as spies, as dispatch riders, as +stretcher-bearers. + +There are still nine boy scouts with the famous Ninth Regiment, which +has been decorated by the king. + +One boy scout captured, single-handed, two German officers. Somewhere +or other he had got a revolver, and with it was patrolling a road. The +officers were lost and searching for their regiments. As they stepped +out of a wood the boy confronted them, with his revolver levelled. +This happened near Liège. + +Trust a boy to use his wits in emergency! Here is another lad, aged +fifteen, who found himself in Liège after its surrender, and who +wanted to get back to the Belgian Army. He offered his services as +stretcher-bearer in the German Army, and was given a German Red Cross +pass. Armed with this pass he left Liège, passed successfully many +sentries, and at last got to Antwerp by a circuitous route. On the way +he found a dead German and, being only a small boy after all, he took +off the dead man's stained uniform and bore it in his arms into +Antwerp! + +There is no use explaining about that uniform. If you do not know boys +you will never understand. If you do, it requires no explanation. + +Here is a fourteen-year-old lad, intrusted with a message of the +utmost importance for military headquarters in Antwerp. He left +Brussels in civilian clothing, but he had neglected to take off his +boy scout shirt--boy-fashion! The Germans captured him and stripped +him, and they burned the boy scout shirt. Then they locked him up, but +they did not find his message. + +All day he lay in duress, and part of the night. Perhaps he shed a few +tears. He was very young, and things looked black for him. Boy scouts +were being shot, remember! But it never occurred to him to destroy the +message that meant his death if discovered. + +He was clever with locks and such things, after the manner of boys, +and for most of the night he worked with the window and shutter lock. +Perhaps he had a nail in his pocket, or some wire. Most boys have. And +just before dawn he got window and shutter opened, and dropped, a long +drop, to the ground. He lay there for a while, getting his breath and +listening. Then, on his stomach, he slid away into the darkest hour +that is just before the dawn. + +Later on that day a footsore and weary but triumphant youngster +presented himself at the headquarters of the Belgian Army in Antwerp +and insisted on seeing the minister of war. Being at last admitted, he +turned up a very travel-stained and weary little boy's foot and +proceeded to strip a piece of adhesive plaster from the sole. + +Underneath the plaster was the message! + + * * * * * + +War is a thing of fearful and curious anomalies. It has shown that +humane units may comprise a brutal whole; that civilisation is a shirt +over a coat of mail. It has shown that hatred and love are kindred +emotions, boon companions, friends. It has shown that in every man +there are two men, devil and saint; that there are two courages, that +of the mind, which is bravest, that of the heart, which is greatest. + +It has shown that government by men only is not an appeal to reason, +but an appeal to arms; that on women, without a voice to protest, must +fall the burden. It is easier to die than to send a son to death. + +It has shown that a single hatred may infect a world, but it has shown +that mercy too may spread among nations. That love is greater than +cannon, greater than hate, greater than vengeance; that it triumphs +over wrath, as good triumphs over evil. + +Direct descendant of the cross of the Christian faith, the Red Cross +carries onto every battlefield the words of the Man of Mercy: + +"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." + +On a day in March I went back to England. March in England is spring. +Masses of snowdrops lined the paths in Hyde Park. The grass was green, +the roads hard and dry under the eager feet of Kitchener's great army. +They marched gayly by. The drums beat. The passers-by stopped. Here +and there an open carriage or an automobile drew up, and pale men, +some of them still in bandages, sat and watched. In their eyes was the +same flaming eagerness, the same impatience to get back, to be loosed +against the old lion's foes. + +All through England, all through France, all through the tragic corner +of Belgium that remains to her, were similar armies drilling and +waiting, equally young, equally eager, equally resolute. And the thing +that they were going to I knew. I had seen it in that mysterious +region that had swallowed up those who had gone before; in the +trenches, in the operating rooms of field hospitals, at outposts where +the sentries walked hand in hand with death. + +War is not two great armies meeting in the clash and frenzy of battle. +War is a boy carried on a stretcher, looking up at God's blue sky with +bewildered eyes that are soon to close; war is a woman carrying a +child that has been injured by a shell; war is spirited horses tied in +burning buildings and waiting for death; war is the flower of a race, +battered, hungry, bleeding, up to its knees in filthy water; war is an +old woman burning a candle before the Mater Dolorosa for the son she +has given. + +For King and Country! + + + THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Kings, Queens And Pawns, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14457 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..647134c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14457 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14457) diff --git a/old/14457-8.txt b/old/14457-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac63c4a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14457-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11631 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Kings, Queens And Pawns, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Kings, Queens And Pawns + An American Woman at the Front + +Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart + +Release Date: December 25, 2004 [EBook #14457] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Richard Lammers and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + +[Illustration: MARY ROBERTS RINEHART RETURNING FROM THE WAR-ZONE +AND CAPTAIN FINCH ON S.S. "ARABIC."] + + + + + + KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS + + _An American Woman at the Front_ + + BY + MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + AUTHOR OF + "K" + + + NEW YORK + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + 1915 + + + + +CONTENTS + + FOR KING AND COUNTRY + + I. TAKING A CHANCE + + II. "SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE" + + III. LA PANNE + + IV. "'TWAS A FAMOUS VICTORY" + + V. A TALK WITH THE KING OF THE BELGIANS + + VI. THE CAUSE + + VII. THE STORY WITH AN END + + VIII. THE NIGHT RAID ON DUNKIRK + + IX. NO MAN'S LAND + + X. THE IRON DIVISION + + XI. AT THE HOUSE OF THE BARRIER + + XII. NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES + + XIII. "WIPERS" + + XIV. LADY DECIES' STORY + + XV. RUNNING THE BLOCKADE + + XVI. THE MAN OF YPRES + + XVII. IN THE LINE OF THE "MITRAILLEUSE" + + XVIII. FRENCH GUNS IN ACTION + + XIX. "I NIBBLE THEM" + + XX. DUNKIRK: FROM MY JOURNAL + + XXI. TEA WITH THE AIR-FIGHTERS + + XXII. THE WOMEN AT THE FRONT + + XXIII. THE LITTLE "SICK AND SORRY" HOUSE + + XXIV. FLIGHT + + XXV. VOLUNTEERS AND PATRIOTS + + XXVI. A LUNCHEON AT BRITISH HEADQUARTERS + + XXVII. A STRANGE PARTY + +XXVIII. SIR JOHN FRENCH + + XXIX. ALONG THE GREAT BETHUNE ROAD + + XXX. THE MILITARY SECRET + + XXXI. QUEEN MARY OF ENGLAND + + XXXII. THE QUEEN OF THE BELGIANS + +XXXIII. THE RED BADGE OF MERCY + + XXXIV. IN TERMS OF LIFE AND DEATH + + XXXV. THE LOSING GAME + + XXXVI. HOW AMERICANS CAN HELP + +XXXVII. AN ARMY OF CHILDREN + + + + +KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS + + + + + +KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS + +FOR KING AND COUNTRY + + +March in England is spring. Early in the month masses of snowdrops +lined the paths in Hyde Park. The grass was green, the roads hard and +dry under the eager feet of Kitchener's great army. For months they +had been drilling, struggling with the intricacies of a new career, +working and waiting. And now it was spring, and soon they would be +off. Some had already gone. + +"Lucky beggars!" said the ones who remained, and counted the days. + +And waiting, they drilled. Everywhere there were squads: Scots in +plaid kilts with khaki tunics; less picturesque but equally imposing +regiments in the field uniform, with officers hardly distinguishable +from their men. Everywhere the same grim but cheerful determination to +get over and help the boys across the Channel to assist in holding +that more than four hundred miles of battle line against the invading +hosts of Germany. + +Here in Hyde Park that spring day was all the panoply of war: bands +playing, the steady tramp of numberless feet, the muffled clatter of +accoutrements, the homage of the waiting crowd. And they deserved +homage, those fine, upstanding men, many of them hardly more than +boys, marching along with a fine, full swing. There is something +magnificent, a contagion of enthusiasm, in the sight of a great +volunteer army. The North and the South knew the thrill during our own +great war. Conscription may form a great and admirable machine, but it +differs from the trained army of volunteers as a body differs from a +soul. But it costs a country heavy in griefs, does a volunteer army; +for the flower of the country goes. That, too, America knows, and +England is learning. + +They marched by gaily. The drums beat. The passers-by stopped. Here +and there an open carriage or an automobile drew up, and pale men, +some of them still in bandages, sat and watched. In their eyes was the +same flaming eagerness, the same impatience to get back, to be loosed +against the old lion's foes. + +For King and Country! + +All through England, all through France, all through that tragic +corner of Belgium which remains to her, are similar armies, drilling +and waiting, equally young, equally eager, equally resolute. And the +thing they were going to I knew. I had seen it in that mysterious +region which had swallowed up those who had gone before; in the +trenches, in the operating, rooms of field hospitals, at outposts +between the confronting armies where the sentries walked hand in hand +with death. I had seen it in its dirt and horror and sordidness, this +thing they were going to. + +War is not two great armies meeting in a clash and frenzy of battle. +It is much more than that. War is a boy carried on a stretcher, +looking up at God's blue sky with bewildered eyes that are soon to +close; war is a woman carrying a child that has been wounded by a +shell; war is spirited horses tied in burning buildings and waiting +for death; war is the flower of a race, torn, battered, hungry, +bleeding, up to its knees in icy water; war is an old woman burning a +candle before the Mater Dolorosa for the son she has given. For King +and Country! + + + + +CHAPTER I + +TAKING A CHANCE + + +I started for the Continent on a bright day early in January. I was +searched by a woman from Scotland Yard before being allowed on the +platform. The pockets of my fur coat were examined; my one piece of +baggage, a suitcase, was inspected; my letters of introduction were +opened and read. + +"Now, Mrs. Rinehart," she said, straightening, "just why are you +going?" + +I told her exactly half of why I was going. I had a shrewd idea that +the question in itself meant nothing. But it gave her a good chance to +look at me. She was a very clever woman. + +And so, having been discovered to be carrying neither weapons nor +seditious documents, and having an open and honest eye, I was allowed +to go through the straight and narrow way that led to possible +destruction. Once or twice, later on, I blamed that woman for letting +me through. I blamed myself for telling only half of my reasons for +going. Had I told her all she would have detained me safely in +England, where automobiles sometimes go less than eighty miles an +hour, and where a sharp bang means a door slamming in the wind and not +a shell exploding, where hostile aeroplanes overhead with bombs and +unpleasant little steel darts, were not always between one's eyes and +heaven. She let me through, and I went out on the platform. + +The leaving of the one-o'clock train from Victoria Station, London, is +an event and a tragedy. Wounded who have recovered are going back; +soldiers who have been having their week at home are returning to that +mysterious region across the Channel, the front. + +Not the least of the British achievements had been to transport, +during the deadlock of the first winter of the war, almost the entire +army, in relays, back to England for a week's rest. It had been done +without the loss of a man, across a channel swarming with hostile +submarines. They came in thousands, covered with mud weary, eager, +their eyes searching the waiting crowd for some beloved face. And +those who waited and watched as the cars emptied sometimes wept with +joy and sometimes turned and went away alone. + +Their week over, rested, tidy, eyes still eager but now turned toward +France, the station platform beside the one-o'clock train was filled +with soldiers going back. There were few to see them off; there were +not many tears. Nothing is more typical of the courage and patriotism +of the British women than that platform beside the one-o'clock train +at Victoria. The crowd was shut out by ropes and Scotland Yard men +stood guard. And out on the platform, saying little because words are +so feeble, pacing back and forth slowly, went these silent couples. +They did not even touch hands. One felt that all the unselfish +stoicism and restraint would crumble under the familiar touch. + +The platform filled. Sir Purtab Singh, an Indian prince, with his +suite, was going back to the English lines. I had been a neighbour of +his at Claridge's Hotel in London. I caught his eye. It was filled +with cold suspicion. It said quite plainly that I could put nothing +over on him. But whether he suspected me of being a newspaper writer +or a spy I do not know. + +Somehow, considering that the train was carrying a suspicious and +turbaned Indian prince, any number of impatient officers and soldiers, +and an American woman who was carefully avoiding the war office and +trying to look like a buyer crossing the Channel for hats, the whistle +for starting sounded rather inadequate. It was not martial. It was +thin, effeminate, absurd. And so we were off, moving slowly past that +line on the platform, where no one smiled; where grief and tragedy, in +that one revealing moment, were written deep. I shall never forget the +faces of the women as the train crept by. + +And now the train was well under way. The car was very quiet. The +memory of those faces on the platform was too fresh. There was a brown +and weary officer across from me. He sat very still, looking straight +ahead. Long after the train had left London, and was moving smoothly +through the English fields, so green even in winter, he still sat in +the same attitude. + +I drew a long breath, and ordered luncheon. I was off to the war. I +might be turned back at Folkstone. There was more than a chance that I +might not get beyond Calais, which was under military law. But at +least I had made a start. + +This is a narrative of personal experience. It makes no pretensions, +except to truth. It is pure reporting, a series of pictures, many of +them disconnected, but all authentic. It will take a hundred years to +paint this war on one canvas. A thousand observers, ten thousand, must +record what they have seen. To the reports of trained men must be +added a bit here and there from these untrained observers, who without +military knowledge, ignorant of the real meaning of much that they +saw, have been able to grasp only a part of the human significance of +the great tragedy of Europe. + +I was such an observer. + +My errand was primarily humane, to visit the hospitals at or near the +front, and to be able to form an opinion of what supplies were needed, +of conditions generally. Rumour in America had it that the medical and +surgical situation was chaotic. Bands of earnest and well-intentioned +people were working quite in the dark as to the conditions they hoped +to relieve. And over the hospital situation, as over the military, +brooded the impenetrable silence that has been decreed by the Allies +since the beginning of the war. I had met everywhere in America tales +from both the German and the Allies' lines that had astounded me. It +seemed incredible that such conditions could exist in an age of +surgical enlightenment; that, even in an unexpected and unprepared-for +war, modern organisation and efficiency should have utterly failed. + +On the steamer crossing the Atlantic, with the ship speeding on her +swift and rather precarious journey windows and ports carefully closed +and darkened, one heard the same hideous stories: of tetanus in +uncounted cases, of fearful infections, of no bandages--worst of all, +of no anæsthetics. + +I was a member of the American Red Cross Association, but I knew that +the great work of the American Red Cross was in sending supplies. The +comparatively few nurses they had sent to the western field of war +were not at the front or near it. The British, French, Belgian and +Dutch nursing associations were in charge of the field hospitals, so +far as I could discover. + +To see these hospitals, to judge and report conditions, then, was a +part of my errand. Only a part, of course; for I had another purpose. +I knew nothing of strategy or tactics, of military movements and their +significance. I was not interested in them particularly. But I meant +to get, if it was possible, a picture of this new warfare that would +show it for the horror that it is; a picture that would give pause to +that certain percentage of the American people that is always so eager +to force a conservative government into conflict with other nations. + +There were other things to learn. What was France doing? The great +sister republic had put a magnificent army into the field. Between +France and the United States were many bonds, much reciprocal good +feeling. The Statue of Liberty, as I went down the bay, bespoke the +kindly feeling between the two republics. I remembered Lafayette. +Battle-scarred France, where liberty has fought so hard for life--what +was France doing? Not saying much, certainly. Fighting, surely, as the +French have always fought. For certainly England, with her gallant but +at that time meagre army, was not fighting alone the great war. + +But there were three nations fighting the allied cause in the west. +What had become of the heroic Belgian Army? Was it resting on its +laurels? Having done its part, was it holding an honorary position in +the great line-up? Was it a fragment or an army, an entity or a +memory? + +The newspapers were full of details that meant nothing: names of +strange villages, movements backward and forward as the long battle +line bent and straightened again. But what was really happening beyond +the barriers that guarded the front so jealously? How did the men live +under these new and strange conditions? What did they think? Or fear? +Or hope? + +Great lorries and transports went out from the French coast towns and +disappeared beyond the horizon; motor ambulances and hospital trains +came in with the grim harvest. Men came and, like those who had gone +before, they too went out and did not come back. "Somewhere in +France," the papers said. Such letters as they wrote came from +"somewhere in France." What was happening then, over there, beyond the +horizon, "somewhere in France"? + +And now that I have been beyond the dead line many of these questions +have answered themselves. France is saying nothing, and fighting +magnificently, Belgium, with two-thirds of her army gone, has still +fifty thousand men, and is preparing two hundred thousand more. + +Instead of merely an honorary position, she is holding tenaciously, +against repeated onslaughts and under horrible conditions, the flooded +district between Nieuport and Dixmude. England, although holding only +thirty-two miles of front, beginning immediately south of Ypres, is +holding that line against some of the most furious fighting of the +war, and is developing, at the same time, an enormous fighting machine +for the spring movement.[A] + +[Footnote A: This is written of conditions in the early spring of +1915. Although the relative positions of the three armies are the +same, the British are holding a considerably longer frontage.] + +The British soldier is well equipped, well fed, comfortably +transported. When it is remembered that England is also assisting to +equip all the allied armies, it will be seen that she is doing much +more than holding the high seas. + +To see the wounded, then; to follow the lines of hospital trains to +that mysterious region, the front; to see the men in the trenches and +in their billets; to observe their _morale_, the conditions under +which they lived--and died. It was too late to think of the cause of +the war or of the justice or injustice of that cause. It will never be +too late for its humanities and inhumanities, its braveries and its +occasional flinchings, its tragedies and its absurdities. + +It was through the assistance of the Belgian Red Cross that I got out +of England and across the Channel. I visited the Anglo-Belgian +Committee at its quarters in the Savoy Hotel, London, and told them of +my twofold errand. They saw at once the point I made. America was +sending large amounts of money and vast quantities of supplies to the +Belgians on both sides of the line. What was being done in interned +Belgium was well known. But those hospital supplies and other things +shipped to Northern France were swallowed up in the great silence. The +war would not be ended in a day or a month. + +"Let me see conditions as they really are," I said. "It is no use +telling me about them. Let me see them. Then I can tell the American +people what they have already done in the war zone, and what they may +be asked to do." + +Through a piece of good luck Doctor Depage, the president, had come +across the Channel to a conference, and was present. A huge man, in +the uniform of a colonel of the Belgian Army, with a great military +cape, he seemed to fill and dominate the little room. + +They conferred together in rapid French. + +"Where do you wish to go?" I was asked. + +"Everywhere." + +"Hospitals are not always cheerful to visit." + +"I am a graduate of a hospital training-school. Also a member of the +American Red Cross." + +They conferred again. + +"Madame will not always be comfortable--over there." + +"I don't want to be comfortable," I said bravely. + +Another conference. The idea was a new one; it took some mental +readjustment. But their cause was just, and mingled with their desire +to let America know what they were doing was a justifiable pride. They +knew what I was to find out--that one of the finest hospitals in the +world, as to organisation, equipment and results, was situated almost +under the guns of devastated Nieuport, so close that the roar of +artillery is always in one's ears. + +I had expected delays, a possible refusal. Everyone had encountered +delays of one sort and another. Instead, I found a most courteous and +agreeable permission given. I was rather dazed. And when, a day or so +later, through other channels, I found myself in possession of letters +to the Baron de Broqueville, Premier and Minister of War for Belgium, +and to General Melis, Inspector General of the Belgian Army Medical +Corps, I realised that, once in Belgian territory, my troubles would +probably be at an end. + +For getting out of England I put my faith in a card given me by the +Belgian Red Cross. There are only four such cards in existence, and +mine was number four. + +From Calais to La Panne! If I could get to Calais I could get to the +front, for La Panne is only four miles from Nieuport, where the +confronting lines of trenches begin. But Calais was under military +law. Would I be allowed to land? + +Such writers as reached there were allowed twenty-four hours, and were +then shipped back across the Channel or to some innocuous destination +south. Yet this little card, if all went well, meant the privilege of +going fifty miles northeast to the actual front. True, it gave no +chance for deviation. A mile, a hundred feet off the straight and +tree-lined road north to La Panne, and I should be arrested. But the +time to think about that would come later on. + +As a matter of fact, I have never been arrested. Except in the +hospitals, I was always practically where I had no business to be. I +had a room in the Hôtel des Arcades, in Dunkirk, for weeks, where, +just round the corner, the police had closed a house for a month as a +punishment because a room had been rented to a correspondent. The +correspondent had been sentenced to five years' imprisonment, but had +been released after five weeks. I was frankly a writer. I was almost +aggressively a writer. I wrote down carefully and openly everything I +saw. I made, but of course under proper auspices and with the +necessary permits, excursions to the trenches from Nieuport to the La +Bassée region and Béthune, along Belgian, French and English lines, +always openly, always with a notebook. And nothing happened! + +As my notebook became filled with data I grew more and more anxious, +while the authorities grew more calm. Suppose I fell into the hands of +the Germans! It was a large notebook, filled with much information. I +could never swallow the thing, as officers are supposed to swallow the +password slips in case of capture. After a time the general spy alarm +got into my blood. I regarded the boy who brought my morning coffee +with suspicion, and slept with my notes under my pillow. And nothing +happened! + +I had secured my passport _visé_ at the French and Belgian Consulates, +and at the latter legation was able also to secure a letter asking the +civil and military authorities to facilitate my journey. The letter +had been requested for me by Colonel Depage. + +It was almost miraculously easy to get out of England. It was almost +suspiciously easy. My passport frankly gave the object of my trip as +"literary work." Perhaps the keen eyes of the inspectors who passed me +onto the little channel boat twinkled a bit as they examined it. + +The general opinion as to the hopelessness of my trying to get nearer +than thirty miles to the front had so communicated itself to me that +had I been turned back there on the quay at Folkstone, I would have +been angry, but hardly surprised. + +Not until the boat was out in the channel did I feel sure that I was +to achieve even this first leg of the journey. + +Even then, all was not well. With Folkstone and the war office well +behind, my mind turned to submarines as a sunflower to the sun. +Afterward I found that the thing to do is not to think about +submarines. To think of politics, or shampoos, or of people one does +not like, but not of submarines. They are like ghosts in that respect. +They are perfectly safe and entirely innocuous as long as one thinks +of something else. + +And something went wrong almost immediately. + +It was imperative that I get to Calais. And the boat, which had +intended making Calais, had had a report of submarines and headed for +Boulogne. This in itself was upsetting. To have, as one may say, one's +teeth set for Calais, and find one is biting on Boulogne, is not +agreeable. I did not want Boulogne. My pass was from Calais. I had +visions of waiting in Boulogne, of growing old and grey waiting, or of +trying to walk to Calais and being turned back, of being locked in a +cow stable and bedded down on straw. For fear of rousing hopes that +must inevitably be disappointed, again nothing happened. + +There were no other women on board: only British officers and the +turbaned and imposing Indians. The day was bright, exceedingly cold. +The boat went at top speed, her lifeboats slung over the sides and +ready for lowering. There were lookouts posted everywhere. I did not +think they attended to their business. Every now and then one lifted +his head and looked at the sky or at the passengers. I felt that I +should report him. What business had he to look away from the sea? I +went out to the bow and watched for periscopes. There were black +things floating about. I decided that they were not periscopes, but +mines. We went very close to them. They proved to be buoys marking the +Channel. + +I hated to take my eyes off the sea, even for a moment. If you have +ever been driven at sixty miles an hour over a bad road, and felt that +if you looked away the car would go into the ditch, and if you will +multiply that by the exact number of German submarines and then add +the British Army, you will know how I felt. + +Afterward I grew accustomed to the Channel crossing. I made it four +times. It was necessary for me to cross twice after the eighteenth of +February, when the blockade began. On board the fated Arabic, later +sunk by a German submarine, I ran the blockade again to return to +America. It was never an enjoyable thing to brave submarine attack, +but one develops a sort of philosophy. It is the same with being under +fire. The first shell makes you jump. The second you speak of, +commenting with elaborate carelessness on where it fell. This is a +gain over shell number one, when you cannot speak to save your life. +The third shell you ignore, and the fourth you forget about--if you +can. + +Seeing me alone the captain asked me to the canvas shelter of the +bridge. I proceeded to voice my protest at our change of destination. +He apologised, but we continued to Boulogne. + +"What does a periscope look like?" I asked. "I mean, of course, from +this boat?" + +"Depends on how much of it is showing. Sometimes it's only about the +size of one of those gulls. It's hard to tell the difference." + +I rather suspect that captain now. There were many gulls sitting on +the water. I had been looking for something like a hitching post +sticking up out of the water. Now my last vestige of pleasure and +confidence was gone. I went almost mad trying to watch all the gulls +at once. + +"What will you do if you see a submarine?' + +"Run it down," said the captain calmly. "That's the only chance we've +got. That is, if we see the boat itself. These little Channel steamers +make about twenty-six knots, and the submarine, submerged, only about +half of that. Sixteen is the best they can do on the surface. Run them +down and sink them, that's my motto." + +"What about a torpedo?" + +"We can see them coming. It will be hard to torpedo this boat--she +goes too fast." + +Then and there he explained to me the snowy wake of the torpedo, a +white path across the water; the mechanism by which it is kept true to +its course; the detonator that explodes it. From nervousness I shifted +to enthusiasm. I wanted to see the white wake. I wanted to see the +Channel boat dodge it. My sporting blood was up. I was willing to take +a chance. I felt that if there was a difficulty this man would escape +it. I turned and looked back at the khaki-coloured figures on the deck +below. + +Taking a chance! They were all taking a chance. And there was one, an +officer, with an empty right sleeve. And suddenly what for an +enthusiastic moment, in that bracing sea air, had seemed a game, +became the thing that it is, not a game, but a deadly and cruel war. I +never grew accustomed to the tragedy of the empty sleeve. And as if to +accentuate this thing toward which I was moving so swiftly, the +British Red Cross ship, from Boulogne to Folkstone, came in sight, +hurrying over with her wounded, a great white boat, garnering daily +her harvest of wounded and taking them "home." + +Land now--a grey-white line that is the sand dunes at Ambleteuse, +north of Boulogne. I knew Ambleteuse. It gave a sense of strangeness +to see the old tower at the water's edge loom up out of the sea. The +sight of land was comforting, but vigilance was not relaxed. The +attacks of submarines have been mostly made not far outside the +harbours, and only a few days later that very boat was to make a +sensational escape just outside the harbour of Boulogne. + +All at once it was twilight, the swift dusk of the sea. The boat +warped in slowly. I showed my passport, and at last I was on French +soil. North and east, beyond the horizon, lay the thing I had come to +see. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +"SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE" + + +Many people have seen Boulogne and have written of what they have +seen: the great hotels that are now English hospitals; the crowding of +transport wagons; the French signs, which now have English signs added +to them; the mixture of uniforms--English khaki and French blue; the +white steamer waiting at the quay, with great Red Crosses on her snowy +funnels. Over everything, that first winter of the war, hung the damp +chill of the Continental winter, that chill that sinks in and never +leaves, that penetrates fur and wool and eats into the spirit like an +acid. + +I got through the customs without much difficulty. I had a large +package of cigarettes for the soldiers, for given his choice, food or +a smoke, the soldier will choose the latter. At last after much talk I +got them in free of duty. And then I was footfree. + +Here again I realise that I should have encountered great +difficulties. I should at least have had to walk to Calais, or to have +slept, as did one titled Englishwoman I know, in a bathtub. I did +neither. I took a first-class ticket to Calais, and waited round the +station until a train should go. + +And then I happened on one of the pictures that will stand out always +in my mind. Perhaps it was because I was not yet inured to suffering; +certainly I was to see many similar scenes, much more of the flotsam +and jetsam of the human tide that was sweeping back and forward over +the flat fields of France and Flanders. + +A hospital train had come in, a British train. The twilight had +deepened into night. Under the flickering arc lamps, in that cold and +dismal place, the train came to a quiet stop. Almost immediately it +began to unload. A door opened and a British nurse alighted. Then +slowly and painfully a man in a sitting position slid forward, pushing +himself with his hands, his two bandaged feet held in the air. He sat +at the edge of the doorway and lowered his feet carefully until they +hung free. + +"Frozen feet from the trenches," said a man standing beside me. + +The first man was lifted down and placed on a truck, and his place was +filled immediately by another. As fast as one man was taken another +came. The line seemed endless. One and all, their faces expressed keen +apprehension, lest some chance awkwardness should touch or jar the +tortured feet. Ten at a time they were wheeled away. And still they +came and came, until perhaps two hundred had been taken off. But now +something else was happening. Another car of badly wounded was being +unloaded. Through the windows could be seen the iron framework on +which the stretchers, three in a tier, were swung. + +Halfway down the car a wide window was opened, and two tall +lieutenants, with four orderlies, took their places outside. It was +very silent. Orders were given in low tones. The muffled rumble of the +trucks carrying the soldiers with frozen feet was all that broke the +quiet, and soon they, too, were gone; and there remained only the six +men outside, receiving with hands as gentle as those of women the +stretchers so cautiously worked over the window sill to them. One by +one the stretchers came; one by one they were added to the lengthening +line that lay prone on the stone flooring beside the train. There was +not a jar, not an unnecessary motion. One great officer, very young, +took the weight of the end as it came toward him, and lowered it with +marvellous gentleness as the others took hold. He had a trick of the +wrist that enabled him to reach up, take hold and lower the stretcher, +without freeing his hands. He was marvellously strong, marvellously +tender. + +The stretchers were laid out side by side. Their occupants did not +speak or move. It was as if they had reached their limit of endurance. +They lay with closed eyes, or with impassive, upturned faces, swathed +in their brown blankets against the chill. Here and there a knitted +neck scarf had been loosely wrapped about a head. All over America +women were knitting just such scarfs. + +And still the line grew. The car seemed inexhaustible of horrors. And +still the young lieutenant with the tender hands and the strong wrists +took the onus of the burden, the muscles of his back swelling under +his khaki tunic. If I were asked to typify the attitude of the British +Army and of the British people toward their wounded, I should point to +that boy. Nothing that I know of in history can equal the care the +English are taking of their wounded in this, the great war. They have, +of course, the advantage of the best nursing system in Europe. + +France is doing her best, but her nursing had always been in the hands +of nuns, and there are not nearly enough nuns in France to-day to cope +with the situation. Belgium, with some of the greatest surgeons in the +world, had no organised nursing system when war broke out. She is +largely dependent apparently on the notable work of her priests, and +on English and Dutch nurses. + +When my train drew out, the khaki-clad lieutenant and his assistants +were still at work. One car was emptied. They moved on to a second. +Other willing hands were at work on the line that stretched along the +stone flooring, carrying the wounded to ambulances, but the line +seemed hardly to shrink. Always the workers inside the train brought +another stretcher and yet another. The rumble of the trucks had +ceased. It was very cold. I could not look any longer. + +It took three hours to go the twenty miles to Calais, from six o'clock +to nine. I wrapped myself in my fur coat. Two men in my compartment +slept comfortably. One clutched a lighted cigarette. It burned down +close to his fingers. It was fascinating to watch. But just when it +should have provided a little excitement he wakened. It was +disappointing. + +We drifted into conversation, the gentleman of the cigarette and I. He +was an Englishman from a London newspaper. He was counting on his luck +to get him into Calais and his wit to get him out. He told me his +name. Just before I left France I heard of a highly philanthropic and +talented gentleman of the same name who was unselfishly going through +the hospitals as near the front as he could, giving a moving-picture +entertainment to the convalescent soldiers. I wish him luck; he +deserves it. And I am sure he is giving a good entertainment. His wit +had got him out of Calais! + +Calais at last, and the prospect of food. Still greater comfort, here +my little card became operative. I was no longer a refugee, fleeing +and hiding from the stern eyes of Lord Kitchener and the British War +Office. I had come into my own, even to supper. + +I saw no English troops that night. The Calais station was filled with +French soldiers. The first impression, after the trim English uniform, +was not particularly good. They looked cold, dirty, unutterably weary. +Later, along the French front, I revised my early judgment. But I have +never reconciled myself to the French uniform, with its rather +slovenly cut, or to the tendency of the French private soldier to +allow his beard to grow. It seems a pity that both French and +Belgians, magnificent fighters that they are, are permitted this +slackness in appearance. There are no smarter officers anywhere than +the French and Belgian officers, but the appearance of their troops +_en masse_ is not imposing. + +Later on, also, a close inspection of the old French uniform revealed +it as made of lighter cloth than the English, less durable, assuredly +less warm. The new grey-blue uniform is much heavier, but its colour +is questionable. It should be almost invisible in the early morning +mists, but against the green of spring and summer, or under the +magnesium flares--called by the English "starlights"--with which the +Germans illuminate the trenches of the Allies during the night, it +appeared to me that it would be most conspicuous. + +I have before me on my writing table a German fatigue cap. Under the +glare of my electric lamp it fades, loses colour and silhouette, is +eclipsed. I have tried it in sunlight against grass. It does the same +thing. A piece of the same efficient management that has distributed +white smocks and helmet covers among the German troops fighting in the +rigours of Poland, to render them invisible against the snow! + +Calais then, with food to get and an address to find. For Doctor +Depage had kindly arranged a haven for me. Food, of a sort, I got at +last. The hotel dining room was full of officers. Near me sat fourteen +members of the aviation corps, whose black leather coats bore, either +on left breast or left sleeve, the outspread wings of the flying +division. There were fifty people, perhaps, and two waiters, one a +pale and weary boy. The food was bad, but the crisp French bread was +delicious. Perhaps nowhere in the world is the bread average higher +than in France--just as in America, where fancy breads are at their +best, the ordinary wheat loaf is, taking the average, exceedingly +poor. + +Calais was entirely dark. The Zeppelin attack, which took place four +or five weeks later, was anticipated, and on the night of my arrival +there was a general feeling that the birthday of the German Emperor +the next day would produce something spectacular in the way of an air +raid. That explained, possibly, the presence so far from the +front--fifty miles from the nearest point--of so many flying men. + +As my French conversational powers are limited, I had some difficulty +in securing a vehicle. This was explained later by the discovery the +next day that no one is allowed on the streets of Calais after ten +o'clock. Nevertheless I secured a hack, and rode blithely and +unconsciously to the house where I was to spend the night. I have lost +the address of that house. I wish I could remember it, for I left +there a perfectly good and moderately expensive pair of field glasses. +I have been in Calais since, and have had the wild idea of driving +about the streets until I find it and my glasses. But a close scrutiny +of the map of Calais has deterred me. Age would overtake me, and I +should still be threading the maze of those streets, seeking an old +house in an old garden, both growing older all the time. + +A very large house it was, large and cold. I found that I was +expected; but an air of unreality hung over everything. I met three or +four most kindly Belgian people of whom I knew nothing and who knew +nothing of me. I did not know exactly why I was there, and I am sure +the others knew less. I went up to my room in a state of bewilderment. +It was a huge room without a carpet, and the tiny fire refused to +light. There was a funeral wreath over the bed, with the picture of +the deceased woman in the centre. It was bitterly cold, and there was +a curious odor of disinfectants in the air. + +By a window was a narrow black iron bed without a mattress. It looked +sinister. Where was the mattress? Had its last occupant died and the +mattress been burned? I sniffed about it; the odour of disinfectant +unmistakably clung to it. I do not yet know the story of that room or +of that bed. Perhaps there is no story. But I think there is. I put on +my fur coat and went to bed, and the lady of the wreath came in the +night and talked French to me. + +I rose in the morning at seven degrees Centigrade and dressed. At +breakfast part of the mystery was cleared up. The house was being used +as a residence by the chief surgeon of the Ambulance Jeanne d'Arc, the +Belgian Red Cross hospital in Calais, and by others interested in the +Red Cross work. It was a dormitory also for the English nurses from +the ambulance. This explained, naturally, my being sent there, the +somewhat casual nature of the furnishing and the odour of +disinfectants. It does not, however, explain the lady of the wreath or +the black iron bed. + +After breakfast some of the nurses came in from night duty at the +ambulance. I saw their bedroom, one directly underneath mine, with +four single beds and no pretence at comfort. It was cold, icy cold. + +"You are very courageous," I said. "Surely this is not very +comfortable. I should think you might at least have a fire." + +"We never think of a fire," a nurse said simply. "The best we can do +seems so little to what the men are doing, doesn't it?" + +She was not young. Some one told me she had a son, a boy of nineteen, +in the trenches. She did not speak of him. But I have wondered since +what she must feel during those grisly hours of the night when the +ambulances are giving up their wounded at the hospital doors. No doubt +she is a tender nurse, for in every case she is nursing vicariously +that nineteen-year-old boy of hers in the trenches. + +That morning I visited the various Calais hospitals. It was a bright +morning, sunny and cold. Lines of refugees with packs and bundles were +on their way to the quay. + +The frightful congestion of the autumn of 1914 was over, but the +hospitals were all full. They were surgical hospitals, typhoid +hospitals, hospitals for injured civilians, hospital boats. One and +all they were preparing as best they could for the mighty conflict of +the spring, when each side expected to make its great onward movement. + +As it turned out, the terrible fighting of the spring failed to break +the deadlock, but the preparations made by the hospitals were none too +great for the sad by-products of war. + +The Belgian hospital question was particularly grave. To-day, several +months later, it is still a matter for anxious thought. In case the +Germans retire from Belgium the Belgians will find themselves in their +own land, it is true, but a land stripped of everything. It is for +this contingency that the Allies are preparing. In whichever direction +the line moves, the arrangements that have served during the impasse +of the past year will no longer answer. Portable field hospital +pavilions, with portable equipment, will be required. The destructive +artillery fire, with its great range, will leave no buildings intact +near the battle line. + +One has only to follow the present line, fringed as it is with +destroyed or partially destroyed towns, to realise what the situation +will be if a successful offensive movement on the part of the Allies +drives the battle line back. Artillery fire leaves no buildings +standing. Even the roads become impassable,--masses of broken stone +with gaping holes, over which ambulances travel with difficulty. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LA PANNE + + +From Calais to La Panne is fifty miles. Calais is under military law. +It is difficult to enter, almost impossible to leave in the direction +in which I wished to go. But here again the Belgian Red Cross achieved +the impossible. I was taken before the authorities, sharply +questioned, and in the end a pink slip was passed over to the official +of the Red Cross who was to take me to the front. I wish I could have +secured that pink slip, if only because of its apparent fragility and +its astounding wearing qualities. All told, between Calais and La +Panne it was inspected--texture, weight and reading matter, front and +reverse sides, upside down and under glass--by some several hundred +sentries, officials and petty highwaymen. It suffered everything but +attack by bayonet. I found myself repeating that way to madness of +Mark Twain's: + + _Punch, brothers, punch with care, + Punch in the presence of the passenjaire, + A pink trip slip for a five-cent fare_-- + +and so on. + +Northeast then, in an open grey car with "Belgian Red Cross" on each +side of the machine. Northeast in a bitter wind, into a desolate and +almost empty country of flat fields, canals and roads bordered by +endless rows of trees bent forward like marching men. Northeast +through Gravelines, once celebrated of the Armada and now a +manufacturing city. It is curious to think that a part of the Armada +went ashore at Gravelines, and that, by the shifting of the English +Channel, it is now two miles inland and connected with the sea by a +ship canal. Northeast still, to Dunkirk. + +From Calais to Gravelines there had been few signs of war--an +occasional grey lorry laden with supplies for the front; great +ambulances, also grey, and with a red cross on the top as a warning to +aëroplanes; now and then an armoured car. At Gravelines the country +took on a more forbidding appearance. Trenches flanked the roads, +which were partly closed here and there by overlapping earthworks, so +that the car must turn sharply to the left and then to the right to +get through. At night the passage is closed by barbed wire. In one +place a bridge was closed by a steel rope, which a sentry lowered +after another operation on the pink slip. + +The landscape grew more desolate as the daylight began to fade, more +desolate and more warlike. There were platforms for lookouts here and +there in the trees, prepared during the early days of the war before +the German advance was checked. And there were barbed-wire +entanglements in the fields. I had always thought of a barbed-wire +entanglement as probably breast high. It was surprising to see them +only from eighteen inches to two feet in height. It was odd, too, to +think that most of the barbed wire had been made in America. Barbed +wire is playing a tremendous part in this war. The English say that +the Boers originated this use for it in the South African War. +Certainly much tragedy and an occasional bit of grim humour attach to +its present use. + +With the fortified town of Dunkirk--or Dunkerque--came the real +congestion of war. The large square of the town was filled with +soldiers and marines. Here again were British uniforms, British +transports and ambulances. As a seaport for the Allied Armies in the +north, it was bustling with activity. The French and Belgians +predominated, with a sprinkling of Spahis on horseback and Turcos. An +air of activity, of rapid coming and going, filled the town. Despatch +riders on motor cycles, in black leather uniforms with black leather +hoods, flung through the square at reckless speed. Battered +automobiles, their glass shattered by shells, mud guards crumpled, +coated with clay and riddled with holes, were everywhere, coming and +going at the furious pace I have since learned to associate with war. + +And over all, presiding in heroic size in the centre of the Square, +the statue of Jean Bart, Dunkirk's privateer and pirate, now come into +his own again, was watching with interest the warlike activities of +the Square. Things have changed since the days of Jean Bart, however. +The cutlass that hangs by his side would avail him little now. The +aeroplane bombs that drop round him now and then, and the processions +of French "seventy-five" guns that rumble through the Square, must +puzzle him. He must feel rather a piker in this business of modern +war. + +Dunkirk is generally referred to as the "front." It is not, however. +It is near enough for constant visits from German aeroplanes, and has +been partially destroyed by German guns, firing from a distance of +more than twenty miles. But the real line begins fifteen miles farther +along the coast at Nieuport. + +So we left Dunkirk at once and continued toward La Panne. A drawbridge +in the wall guards the road out of the city in that direction. And +here for the first time the pink slip threatened to fail us. The Red +Cross had been used by spies sufficiently often to cover us with cold +suspicion. And it was worse than that. Women were not allowed, under +any circumstances, to go in that direction--a new rule, being enforced +with severity. My little card was produced and eyed with hostility. + +My name was assuredly of German origin. I got out my passport and +pointed to the picture on it. It had been taken hastily in Washington +for passport purposes, and there was a cast in the left eye. I have no +cast in the left eye. Timid attempts to squint with that eye failed. + +But at last the officer shrugged his shoulders and let us go. The two +sentries who had kept their rifles pointed at me lowered them to a +more comfortable angle. A temporary sense of cold down my back retired +again to my feet, whence it had risen. We went over the ancient +drawbridge, with its chains by which it may be raised, and were free. +But our departure was without enthusiasm. I looked back. Some eight +sentries and officers were staring after us and muttering among +themselves. + +Afterward I crossed that bridge many times. They grew accustomed to +me, but they evidently thought me quite mad. Always they protested and +complained, until one day the word went round that the American lady +had been received by the King. After that I was covered with the +mantle of royalty. The sentries saluted as I passed. I was of the +elect. + +There were other sentries until the Belgian frontier was passed. After +that there was no further challenging. The occasional distant roar of +a great gun could be heard, and two French aeroplanes, winging home +after a reconnaissance over the German lines, hummed overhead. Where +between Calais and Dunkirk there had been an occasional peasant's cart +in the road or labourer in the fields, now the country was deserted, +save for long lines of weary soldiers going to their billets, lines +that shuffled rather than marched. There was no drum to keep them in +step with its melancholy throbbing. Two by two, heads down, laden with +intrenching tools in addition to their regular equipment, grumbling as +the car forced them off the road into the mud that bordered it, +swathed beyond recognition against the cold and dampness, in the +twilight those lines of shambling men looked grim, determined, +sinister. + +"We are going through Furnes," said my companion. "It has been shelled +all day, but at dusk they usually stop. It is out of our way, but you +will like to see it." + +I said I was perfectly willing, but that I hoped the Germans would +adhere to their usual custom. I felt all at once that, properly +conserved, a long and happy life might lie before me. I mentioned that +I was a person of no importance, and that my death would be of no +military advantage. And, as if to emphasise my peaceful fireside at +home, and dinner at seven o'clock with candles on the table, the fire +re-commenced. + +"Artillery," I said with conviction, "seems to me barbarous and +unnecessary. But in a moving automobile--" + +It was a wrong move. He hastened to tell me of people riding along +calmly in automobiles, and of the next moment there being nothing but +a hole in the road. Also he told me how shrapnel spread, scattering +death over large areas. If I had had an idea of dodging anything I saw +coming it vanished. + +We went into the little town of Furnes. Nothing happened. Only one +shell was fired, and I have no idea where it fell. The town was a dead +town, its empty streets full of brick and glass. I grew quite calm and +expressed some anxiety about the tires. Although my throat was dry, I +was able to enunciate clearly! We dared not light the car lamps, and +our progress was naturally slow. + +Furnes is not on the coast, but three miles inland. So we turned sharp +to the left toward La Panne, our destination, a small seaside resort +in times of peace, but now the capital of Belgium. It was dark now, +and the roads were congested with the movements of troops, some going +to the trenches, those out of the trenches going back to their billets +for twenty-four hours' rest, and the men who had been on rest moving +up as pickets or reserves. Even in the darkness it was easy to tell +the rested men from the ones newly relieved. Here were mostly +Belgians, and the little Belgian soldier is a cheery soul. He asks +very little, is never surly. A little food, a little sleep--on straw, +in a stable or a church--and he is happy again. Over and over, as I +saw the Belgian Army, I was impressed with its cheerfulness under +unparalleled conditions. + +Most of them have been fighting since Liege. Of a hundred and fifty +thousand men only fifty thousand remain. Their ration is meagre +compared with the English and the French, their clothing worn and +ragged. They are holding the inundated district between Nieuport and +Dixmude, a region of constant struggle for water-soaked trenches, +where outposts at the time I was there were being fought for through +lakes of icy water filled with barbed wire, where their wounded fall +and drown. And yet they are inveterately cheerful. A brave lot, the +Belgian soldiers, brave and uncomplaining! It is no wonder that the +King of Belgium loves them, and that his eyes are tragic as he looks +at them. + +La Panne at last, a straggling little town of one street and rows of +villas overlooking the sea. La Panne, with the guns of Nieuport +constantly in one's ears, and the low, red flash of them along the +sandy beach; with ambulances bringing in their wounded now that night +covers their movements; with English gunboats close to the shore and a +searchlight playing over the sea. La Panne, with just over the sand +dunes the beginning of that long line of trenches that extends south +and east and south again, four hundred and fifty miles of death. + +It was two weeks and four days since I had left America, and less than +thirty hours since I boarded the one-o'clock train at Victoria +Station, London. Later on I beat the thirty-hour record twice, once +going from the Belgian front to England in six hours, and another time +leaving the English lines at Béthune, motoring to Calais, and arriving +in my London hotel the same night. Cars go rapidly over the French +roads, and the distance, measured by miles, is not great. Measured by +difficulties, it is a different story. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"'TWAS A FAMOUS VICTORY" + + +FROM MY JOURNAL: + +LA PANNE, January 25th, 10 P.M. + +I am at the Belgian Red Cross hospital to-night. Have had supper and +have been given a room on the top floor, facing out over the sea. + +This is the base hospital for the Belgian lines. The men come here +with the most frightful injuries. As I entered the building to-night +the long tiled corridor was filled with the patient and quiet figures +that are the first fruits of war. They lay on portable cots, waiting +their turn in the operating rooms, the white coverings and bandages +not whiter than their faces. + +11 P.M. The Night Superintendent has just been in to see me. She says +there is a baby here from Furnes with both legs off, and a nun who +lost an arm as she was praying in the garden of her convent. The baby +will live, but the nun is dying. + +She brought me a hot-water bottle, for I am still chilled from my long +ride, and sat down for a moment's talk. She is English, as are most of +the nurses. She told me with tears in her eyes of a Dutch Red Cross +nurse who was struck by a shell in Furnes, two days ago, as she +crossed the street to her hospital, which was being evacuated. She was +brought here. + +"Her leg was shattered," she said. "So young and so pretty she was, +too! One of the surgeons was in love with her. It seemed as if he +could not let her die." + +How terrible! For she died. + +"But she had a casket," the Night Superintendent hastened to assure +me. "The others, of course, do not. And two of the nurses were +relieved to-day to go with her to the grave." + +I wonder if the young surgeon went. I wonder-- + +The baby is near me. I can hear it whimpering. + +Midnight. A man in the next room has started to moan. Good God, what a +place! He has shell in both lungs, and because of weakness had to be +operated on without an anæsthetic. + +2 A.M. I cannot sleep. He is trying to sing "Tipperary." + +English battleships are bombarding the German batteries at Nieuport +from the sea. The windows rattle all the time. + +6 A.M. A new day now. A grey and forbidding dawn. Sentries every +hundred yards along the beach under my window. The gunboats are moving +out to sea. A number of French aeroplanes are scouting overhead. + +The man in the next room is quiet. + + * * * * * + +Imagine one of our great seaside hotels stripped of its bands, its gay +crowds, its laughter. Paint its many windows white, with a red cross +in the centre of each one. Imagine its corridors filled with wounded +men, its courtyard crowded with ambulances, its parlours occupied by +convalescents who are blind or hopelessly maimed, its card room a +chapel trimmed with the panoply of death. For bathchairs and bathers +on the sands substitute long lines of weary soldiers drilling in the +rain and cold. And over all imagine the unceasing roar of great guns. +Then, but feebly, you will have visualised the Ambulance Ocean at La +Panne as I saw it that first winter of the war. + +The town is built on the sand dunes, and is not unlike Ostend in +general situation; but it is hardly more than a village. Such trees as +there are grow out of the sand, and are twisted by the winds from the +sea. Their trunks are green with smooth moss. And over the dunes is +long grass, then grey and dry with winter, grass that was beaten under +the wind into waves that surge and hiss. + +The beach is wide and level. There is no surf. The sea comes in in +long, flat lines of white that wash unheralded about the feet of the +cavalry horses drilling there. Here and there a fisherman's boat close +to the line of villas marks the limit of high tide; marks more than +that; marks the fisherman who has become a soldier; marks the end of +the peaceful occupations of the little town; marks the change from a +sea that was a livelihood to a sea that has become a menace and a +hidden death. + +The beach at La Panne has its story. There are guns there now, +waiting. The men in charge of them wait, and, waiting, shiver in the +cold. And just a few minutes away along the sands there was a house +built by a German, a house whose foundation was a cemented site for a +gun. The house is destroyed now. It had been carefully located, +strategically, and built long before the war began. A gun on that +foundation would have commanded Nieuport. + +Here, in six villas facing the sea, live King Albert and Queen +Elisabeth and their household, and here the Queen, grief-stricken at +the tragedy that has overtaken her innocent and injured people, visits +the hospital daily. + +La Panne has not been bombarded. Hostile aëroplanes are always +overhead. The Germans undoubtedly know all about the town; but it has +not been touched. I do not believe that it will be. For one thing, it +is not at present strategically valuable. Much more important, Queen +Elisabeth is a Bavarian princess by birth. Quite aside from both +reasons, the outcry from the civilised world which would result from +injury to any member of the Belgian royal house, with the present +world-wide sympathy for Belgium, would make such an attack +inadvisable. + +And yet who knows? So much that was considered fundamental in the +ethics of modern warfare has gone by the board; so certainly is this +war becoming one of reprisals, of hate and venom, that before this is +published La Panne may have been destroyed, or its evacuation by the +royal family have been decided. + +The contrast between Brussels and La Panne is the contrast between +Belgium as it was and as it is. The last time I was in Belgium, before +this war, I was in Brussels. The great modern city of three-quarters +of a million people had grown up round the ancient capital of Brabant. +Its name, which means "the dwelling on the marsh," dates from the +tenth century. The huge Palais de Justice is one of the most +remarkable buildings in the world. + +Now in front of that great building German guns are mounted, and the +capital of Belgium is a fishing village on the sand dunes. The King of +Belgium has exchanged the magnificent Palais du Roi for a small and +cheaply built house--not that the democratic young King of Belgium +cares for palaces. But the contrast of the two pictures was impressed +on me that winter morning as I stood on the sands at La Panne and +looked at the royal villa. All round were sentries. The wind from the +sea was biting. It set the long grey grass to waving, and blew the +fine sand in clouds about the feet of the cavalry horses filing along +the beach. + +I was quite unmolested as I took photographs of the stirring scenes +about. It was the first daylight view I had had of the Belgian +soldiers. These were men on their twenty-four hours' rest, with a part +of the new army that was being drilled for the spring campaign. The +Belgian system keeps a man twenty-four hours in the trenches, gives +him twenty-four hours for rest well back from the firing line, and +then, moving him up to picket or reserve duty, holds him another +twenty-four hours just behind the trenches. The English system is +different. Along the English front men are four days in the trenches +and four days out. All movements, of course, are made at night. + +The men I watched that morning were partly on rest, partly in reserve. +They were shabby, cold and cheery. I created unlimited surprise and +interest. They lined up eagerly to be photographed. One group I took +was gathered round a sack of potatoes, paring raw potatoes and eating +them. For the Belgian soldier is the least well fed of the three +armies in the western field. When I left, a good Samaritan had sent a +case or two of canned things to some of the regiments, and a favoured +few were being initiated into the joys of American canned baked beans. +They were a new sensation. To watch the soldiers eat them was a joy +and a delight. + +I wish some American gentleman, tiring of storing up his treasures +only in heaven, would send a can or a case or a shipload of baked +beans to the Belgians. This is alliterative, but earnest. They can +heat them in the trenches in the cans; they can thrive on them and +fight on them. And when the cans are empty they can build fires in +them or hang them, filled with stones, on the barbed-wire +entanglements in front of the trenches, so that they ring like bells +on a herd of cows to warn them of an impending attack. + +And while we are on this subject, I wish some of the women who are +knitting scarfs would stop,[B] now that winter is over, and make jelly +and jam for the brave and cheerful little Belgian army. I am aware +that it is less pleasant than knitting. It cannot be taken to lectures +or musicales. One cannot make jam between the courses of a luncheon or +a dinner party, or during the dummy hand at bridge. But the men have +so little--unsweetened coffee and black bread for breakfast; a stew of +meat and vegetables at mid-day, taken to them, when it can be taken, +but carried miles from where it is cooked, and usually cold. They pour +off the cold liquor and eat the unpalatable residue. Supper is like +breakfast with the addition of a ration of minced meat and potatoes, +also cold and not attractive at the best. + +[Footnote B: This was written in the spring. By the time this book is +published knitted woollens will be again in demand. Socks and mittens, +abdominal belts and neck scarfs are much liked. A soldier told me he +liked his scarf wide, and eight feet long, so he can carry it around +his body and fasten it in the back.] + +Sometimes they have bully beef. I have eaten bully beef, which is a +cooked and tinned beef, semi-gelatinous. The Belgian bully beef is +drier and tougher than the English. It is not bad; indeed, it is quite +good. But the soldier needs variety. The English know this. Their +soldiers have sugar, tea, jam and cheese. + +If I were asked to-day what the Belgian army needs, now that winter is +over and they need no longer shiver in their thin clothing, I should +say, in addition to the surgical supplies that are so terribly +necessary, portable kitchens, to give them hot and palatable food. +Such kitchens may be bought for two hundred and fifty dollars, with a +horse to draw them. They are really sublimated steam cookers, with the +hot water used to make coffee when they reach the trenches. I should +say, then, surgical supplies and hospital equipment, field kitchens, +jams of all sorts, canned beans, cigarettes and rubber boots! A number +of field kitchens have already been sent over. A splendid Englishman +attached to the Belgian Army has secured funds for a few more. But +many are needed. I have seen a big and brawny Belgian officer, with a +long record of military bravery behind him, almost shed tears over the +prospect of one of these kitchens for his men. + +I took many pictures that morning--of dogs, three abreast, hauling +_mitrailleuse_, the small and deadly quick-firing guns, from the word +_mitraille_, a hail of balls; of long lines of Belgian lancers on +their undipped and shaggy horses, each man carrying an eight-foot +lance at rest; of men drilling in broken boots, in wooden shoes +stuffed with straw, in carpet slippers. I was in furs from head to +foot--the same fur coat that has been, in turn, lap robe, bed clothing +and pillow--and I was cold. These men, smiling into my camera, were +thinly dressed, with bare, ungloved hands. But they were smiling. + +Afterward I learned that many of them had no underclothing, that the +blue tunics and trousers were all they had. Always they shivered, but +often also they smiled. Many of them had fought since Liège; most of +them had no knowledge of their families on the other side of the line +of death. When they return to their country, what will they go back +to? Their homes are gone, their farm buildings destroyed, their horses +and cattle killed. + +But they are a courageous people, a bravely cheery people. Flor every +one of them that remained there, two had gone, either to death, +captivity or serious injury. They were glad to be alive that morning +on the sands of La Panne, under the incessant roaring of the guns. The +wind died down; the sun came out. It was January. In two months, or +three, it would be spring and warm. In two months, or three, they +confidently expected to be on the move toward their homes again. + +What mattered broken boots and the mud and filth of their trenches? +What mattered the German aëroplane overhead? Or cold and insufficient +food? Or the wind? Nothing mattered but death, and they still lived. +And perhaps, beyond the line-- + +That afternoon, from the Ambulance Ocean, a young Belgian officer was +buried. + +It was a bright, sunny afternoon, but bitterly cold. Troops were lined +up before the hospital in the square; a band, too, holding its +instruments with blue and ungloved fingers. + +He had been a very brave officer, and very young. The story of what he +had done had been told about. So, although military funerals are many, +a handful of civilians had gathered to see him taken away to the +crowded cemetery. The three English gunboats were patrolling the sea. +Tall Belgian generals, in high blue-and-gold caps and great cape +overcoats, met in the open space and conferred. + +The dead young officer lay in state in the little chapel of the +hospital. Ten tall black standards round him held burning candles, the +lights of faith. His uniform, brushed of its mud and neatly folded, +lay on top of the casket, with his pathetic cap and with the sword +that would never lead another charge. He had fought very hard to live, +they said at the hospital. But he had died. + +The crowd opened, and the priest came through. He wore a purple velvet +robe, and behind him came his deacons and four small acolytes in +surplices. Up the steps went the little procession. And the doors of +the hospital closed behind it. + +The civilians turned and went away. The soldiers stood rigid in the +cold sunshine, and waited. A little boy kicked a football over the +sand. The guns at Nieuport crashed and hammered. + +After a time the doors opened again. The boy picked up his football +and came closer. The musicians blew on their fingers to warm them. The +dead young officer was carried out. His sword gleamed in the sun. They +carried the casket carefully, not to disorder the carefully folded +tunic or the pathetic cap. The body was placed in an ambulance. At a +signal the band commenced to play and the soldiers closed in round the +ambulance. + +The path of glory, indeed! + +But it was not this boyish officer's hope of glory that had brought +this scene to pass. He died fighting a defensive war, to save what was +left to him of the country he loved. He had no dream of empire, no +vision of commercial supremacy, no thrill of conquest as an invaded +and destroyed country bent to the inevitable. For months since Liège +he had fought a losing fight, a fight that Belgium knew from the +beginning must be a losing fight, until such time as her allies could +come to her aid. Like the others, he had nothing to gain by this war +and everything to lose. + +He had lost. The ambulance moved away. + +I was frequently in La Panne after that day. I got to know well the +road from Dunkirk, with its bordering of mud and ditch, its heavy +transports, its grey gunboats in the canals that followed it on one +side, its long lines of over-laden soldiers, its automobiles that +travelled always at top speed. I saw pictures that no artist will ever +paint--of horrors and beauties, of pathos and comedy; of soldiers +washing away the filth of the trenches in the cold waters of canals +and ditches; of refugees flying by day from the towns, and returning +at night to their ruined houses to sleep in the cellars; of long +processions of Spahis, Arabs from Algeria, silhouetted against the +flat sky line against a setting sun, their tired horses moving slowly, +with drooping heads, while their riders, in burnoose and turban, rode +with loose reins; of hostile aëroplanes sailing the afternoon breeze +like lazy birds, while shells from the anti-aircraft guns burst +harmlessly below them in small balloon-shaped clouds of smoke. + +But never in all that time did I overcome the sense of unreality, and +always I was obsessed by the injustice, the wanton waste and cost and +injustice of it all. The baby at La Panne--why should it go through +life on stumps instead of legs? The boyish officer--why should he have +died? The little sixteen-year-old soldier who had been blinded and who +sat all day by the phonograph, listening to Madame Butterfly, +Tipperary, and Harry Lauder's A Wee Deoch-an'-Doris--why should he +never see again what I could see from the window beside him, the +winter sunset over the sea, the glistening white of the sands, the +flat line of the surf as it crept in to the sentries' feet? Why? Why? + +All these wrecks of boys and men, where are they to go? What are they +to do? Blind and maimed, weak from long privation followed by great +suffering, what is to become of them when the hospital has fulfilled +its function and they are discharged "cured"? Their occupations, their +homes, their usefulness are gone. They have not always even clothing +in which to leave the hospital. If it was not destroyed by the shell +or shrapnel that mutilated them it was worn beyond belief and +redemption. Such ragged uniforms as I have seen! Such tragedies of +trousers! Such absurd and heart-breaking tunics! + +When, soon after, I was presented to the King of the Belgians, these +very questions had written lines in his face. It is easy to believe +that King Albert of Belgium has buried his private anxieties in the +common grief and stress of his people. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A TALK WITH THE KING OF THE BELGIANS + + +The letter announcing that I was to have an audience with the King of +the Belgians reached me at Dunkirk, France, on the evening of the day +before the date set. It was brief and to the effect that the King +would receive me the next afternoon at two o'clock at the Belgian Army +headquarters. + +The object of my visit was well known; and, because I wished an +authoritative statement to give to America, I had requested that the +notes of my conversation with His Majesty should be officially +approved. This request was granted. The manuscript of the interview +that follows was submitted to His Majesty for approval. It is +published as it occurred, and nothing has been added to the record. + +A general from the Ministry of War came to the Hôtel des Arcades, in +Dunkirk, and I was taken in a motor car to the Belgian Army +headquarters some miles away. As the general who conducted me had +influenza, and I was trying to keep my nerves in good order, it was +rather a silent drive. The car, as are all military cars--and there +are no others--was driven by a soldier-chauffeur by whose side sat the +general's orderly. Through the narrow gate, with its drawbridge +guarded by many sentries, we went out into the open country. + +The road, considering the constant traffic of heavy transports and +guns, was very fair. It is under constant repair. At first, during +this severe winter, on account of rain and snow, accidents were +frequent. The road, on both sides, was deep in mud and prolific of +catastrophe; and even now, with conditions much better, there are +numerous accidents. Cars all travel at frightful speed. There are no +restrictions, and it is nothing to see machines upset and abandoned in +the low-lying fields that border the road. + +Conditions, however, are better than they were. Part of the +conservation system has been the building of narrow ditches at right +angles to the line of the road, to lead off the water. Every ten feet +or so there is a gutter filled with fagots. + +I had been in the general's car before. The red-haired Fleming with +the fierce moustache who drove it was a speed maniac, and passing the +frequent sentries was only a matter of the password. A signal to slow +down, given by the watchful sentry, a hoarse whisper of the password +as the car went by, and on again at full speed. There was no bothering +with papers. + +On each side of the road were trenches, barbed-wire entanglements, +earthen barriers, canals filled with barges. And on the road were +lines of transports and a file of Spahis on horseback, picturesque in +their flowing burnouses, bearded and dark-skinned, riding their +unclipped horses through the roads under the single rows of trees. We +rode on through a village where a pig had escaped from a +slaughterhouse and was being pursued by soldiers--and then, at last, +army headquarters and the King of the Belgians. + +There was little formality. I was taken in charge by the King's +equerry, who tapped at a closed door. I drew a long breath. + +"Madame Rinehart!" said the equerry, and stood aside. + +There was a small screen in front of the door. I went round it. +Standing alone before the fire was Albert I, King of the Belgians. I +bowed; then we shook hands and he asked me to sit down. + +It was to be a conversation rather than an interview; but as it was to +be given as accurately as possible to the American people, I was +permitted to make careful notes of both questions and answers. It was +to be, in effect, a statement of the situation in Belgium as the King +of the Belgians sees it. + +I spoke first of a message to America. + +"I have already sent a message to America," he informed me; "quite a +long message. We are, of course, intensely appreciative of what +Americans have done for Belgium." + +"They are anxious to do what they can. The general feeling is one of +great sympathy." + +"Americans are both just and humane," the King replied; "and their +system of distribution is excellent. I do not know what we should have +done without the American Relief Committees." + +"Is there anything further Your Majesty can suggest?" + +"They seem to have thought of everything," the King said simply. "The +food is invaluable--particularly the flour. It has saved many from +starvation." + +"But there is still need?" + +"Oh, yes--great need." + +It was clear that the subject was a tragic one. The King of the +Belgians loves his people, as they love him, with a devotion that is +completely unselfish. That he is helpless to relieve so much that they +are compelled to endure is his great grief. + +His face clouded. Probably he was seeing, as he must always see, the +dejected figures of the peasants in the fields; the long files of his +soldiers as they made their way through wet and cold to the trenches; +the destroyed towns; the upheaval of a people. + +"What is possible to know of the general condition of affairs in that +part of Belgium occupied by the Germans?" I asked. "I do not mean in +regard to food only, but the general condition of the Belgian people." + +"It is impossible to say," was the answer. "During the invasion it was +very bad. It is a little better now, of course; but here we are on the +wrong side of the line to form any ordered judgment. To gain a real +conception of the situation it would be necessary to go through the +occupied portions from town to town, almost from house to house. Have +you been in the other part of Belgium?" + +"Not yet; I may go." + +"You should do that--see Louvain, Aerschot, Antwerp--see the destroyed +towns for yourself. No one can tell you. You must see them." + +I was not certain that I should be permitted to make such a journey, +but the King waved my doubts aside with a gesture. + +"You are an American," he said. "It would be quite possible and you +would see just what has happened. You would see open towns that were +bombarded; other towns that were destroyed after occupation! You would +see a country ruthlessly devastated; our wonderful monuments +destroyed; our architectural and artistic treasures sacrificed without +reason--without any justification." + +"But as a necessity of war?" I asked. + +"Not at all. The Germans have saved buildings when it suited their +convenience to do so. No military necessity dictated the destruction +of Louvain. It was not bombarded. It was deliberately destroyed. But, +of course, you know that." + +"The matter of the violation of Belgium's neutrality still remains an +open question," I said. "I have seen in American facsimile copies of +documents referring to conversations between staff officers of the +British and Belgian armies--documents that were found in the +ministerial offices at Brussels when the Germans occupied that city +last August. Of course I think most Americans realise that, had they +been of any real importance, they would have been taken away. There +was time enough. But there are some, I know, who think them +significant." + +The King of the Belgians shrugged his shoulders. + +"They were of an unofficial character and entirely without importance. +The German Staff probably knew all about them long before the +declaration of war. They themselves had, without doubt, discussed and +recorded similar probabilities in case of war with other countries. It +is a common practice in all army organisations to prepare against +different contingencies. It is a question of military routine only." + +"There was no justification, then, for the violation of Belgian +neutrality?" I inquired. + +"None whatever! The German violation of Belgian neutrality was wrong," +he said emphatically. "On the fourth of August their own chancellor +admitted it. Belgium had no thought of war. The Belgians are a +peace-loving people, who had every reason to believe in the friendship +of Germany." + +The next question was a difficult one. I inquired as to the behaviour +of the Germans in the conquered territory; but the King made no +sweeping condemnation of the German Army. + +"Fearful things have been done, particularly during the invasion," he +said, weighing his words carefully; "but it would be unfair to condemn +the whole German Army. Some regiments have been most humane; but +others behaved very badly. Have you seen the government report?" + +I said I had not seen it, though I had heard that a careful +investigation had been made. + +"The government was very cautious," His Majesty said. "The +investigation was absolutely impartial and as accurate as it could be +made. Doubts were cast on all statements--even those of the most +dependable witnesses--until they could be verified." + +"They were verified?" + +"Yes; again and again." + +"By the victims themselves?" + +"Not always. The victims of extreme cruelty do not live to tell of it; +but German soldiers themselves have told the story. We have had here +many hundreds of journals, taken from dead or imprisoned Germans, +furnishing elaborate details of most atrocious acts. The government is +keeping these journals. They furnish powerful and incontrovertible +testimony of what happened in Belgium when it was swept over by a +brutal army. That was, of course, during the invasion--such things are +not happening now so far as we know." + +He had spoken quietly, but there was a new note of strain in his +voice. The burden of the King of the Belgians is a double one. To the +horror of war has been added the unnecessary violation and death of +noncombatants. + +The King then referred to the German advance through Belgian +territory. + +"Thousands of civilians have been killed without reason. The execution +of noncombatants is not war, and no excuse can be made for it. Such +deeds cannot be called war." + +"But if the townspeople fired on the Germans?" I asked. + +"All weapons had been deposited in the hands of the town authorities. +It is unlikely that any organised attack by civilians could have been +made. However, if in individual cases shots were fired at the German +soldiers, this may always be condoned in a country suffering invasion. +During an occupation it would be different, naturally. No excuse can +be offered for such an action in occupied territory." + +"Various Belgian officers have told me of seeing crowds of men, women +and children driven ahead of the German Army to protect the troops. +This is so incredible that I must ask whether it has any foundation of +truth." + +"It is quite true. It is a barbarous and inhuman system of protecting +the German advance. When the Belgian soldiers fired on the enemy they +killed their own people. Again and again innocent civilians of both +sexes were sacrificed to protect the invading army during attacks. A +terrible slaughter!" + +His Majesty made no effort to conceal his great grief and indignation. +And again, as before, there seemed to be nothing to say. + +"Even now," I said, "when the Belgians return the Grerman artillery +fire they are bombarding their own towns." + +"That is true, of course; but what can we do? And the civilian +population is very brave. They fear invasion, but they no longer pay +any attention to bombs. They work in the fields quite calmly, with +shells dropping about. They must work or starve." + +He then spoke of the morale of the troops, which is excellent, and of +his sympathy for their situation. + +"Their families are in Belgium," he said. "Many of them have heard +nothing for months. But they are wonderful. They are fighting for life +and to regain their families, their homes and their country. Christmas +was very sad for them." + +"In the event of the German Army's retiring from Belgium, do you +believe, as many do, that there will be more destruction of cities? +Brussels, for instance?" + +"I think not." + +I referred to my last visit to Belgium, when Brussels was the capital; +and to the contrast now, when La Panne a small seaside resort hardly +more than a village, contains the court, the residence of the King and +Queen, and of the various members of his household. It seemed to me +unlikely that La Panne would be attacked, as the Queen of the Belgians +is a Bavarian. + +"Do you think La Panne will be bombarded?" I asked. + +"Why not?" + +"I thought that possibly, on account of Your Majesty and the Queen +being there, it would be spared. + +"They are bombarding Furnes, where I go every day," he replied. "And +there are German aëroplanes overhead all the time." + +The mention of Furnes brought to my mind the flooded district near +that village, which extends from Nieuport to Dixmude. + +"Belgium has made a great sacrifice in flooding her lowlands," I said. +"Will that land be as fertile as before?" + +"Not for several years. The flooding of the productive land in the +Yser district was only carried out as a military necessity. The water +is sea water, of course, and will have a bad effect on the soil. Have +you seen the flooded district?" + +I told His Majesty that I had been to the Belgian trenches, and then +across the inundated country to one of the outposts; a remarkable +experience--one I should never forget. + +The conversation shifted to America and her point of view; to American +women who have married abroad. His Majesty mentioned especially Lady +Curzon. Two children of the King were with Lord Curzon, in England, at +the time. The Crown Prince, a boy of fourteen, tall and straight like +his father, was with the King and Queen. + +The King had risen and was standing in his favourite attitude, his +elbow on the mantelpiece. I rose also. + +"I was given some instructions as to the ceremonial of this audience," +I said. "I am afraid I have not followed them!" + +"What were you told to do?" said His Majesty, evidently amused. Then, +without waiting for a reply; + +"We are very democratic--we Belgians," he said. "More democratic than +the Americans. The President of the United States has great +power--very great power. He is a czar." + +He referred to President Wilson in terms of great esteem--not only as +the President but as a man. He spoke, also, with evident admiration of +Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. McKinley, both of whom he had met. + +I looked at the clock. It was after three and the interview had begun +at two. I knew it was time for me to go, but I had been given no +indication that the interview was at an end. Fragments of the coaching +I had received came to my mind, but nothing useful; so I stated my +difficulty frankly, and again the King's serious face lighted up with +a smile. + +"There is no formality here; but if you are going we must find the +general for you." + +So we shook hands and I went out; but the beautiful courtesy of the +soldier King of the Belgians brought him out to the doorstep with me. + +That is the final picture I have of Albert I, King of the Belgians--a +tall young man, very fair and blue-eyed, in the dark blue uniform of a +lieutenant-general of his army, wearing no orders or decorations, +standing bareheaded in the wind and pointing out to me the direction +in which I should go to find the general who had brought me. + +He is a very courteous gentleman, with the eyes of one who loves the +sea, for the King of the Belgians is a sailor in his heart; a tragic +and heroic figure but thinking himself neither--thinking of himself +not at all, indeed; only of his people, whose griefs are his to share +but not to lighten; living day and night under the rumble of German +artillery at Nieuport and Dixmude in that small corner of Belgium +which remains to him. + +He is a King who, without suspicion of guilt, has lost his country; +who has seen since August of 1914 two-thirds of his army lost, his +beautiful and ancient towns destroyed, his fertile lands thrown open +to the sea. + +I went on. The guns were still at work. At Nieuport, Dixmude, Furnes, +Pervyse--all along that flat, flooded region--the work of destruction +was going on. Overhead, flying high, were two German aëroplanes--the +eyes of the war. + + * * * * * + +Not politically, but humanely, it was time to make to America an +authoritative statement as to conditions in Belgium. + +The principle of non-interference in European politics is one of +national policy and not to be questioned. But there can be no +justification for the destruction of property and loss of innocent +lives in Belgium. Germany had plead to the neutral nations her +necessity, and had plead eloquently. On the other hand, the English +and French authorities during the first year of the war had preserved +a dignified silence, confident of the justice of their cause. + +And official Belgium had made no complaint. She had bowed to the +judgment of her allies, knowing that a time would come, at the end +of the war, to speak of her situation and to demand justifiable +redress. + +But a million homeless Belgians in England and Holland proclaimed and +still proclaim their wretchedness broadcast. The future may bring +redress, but the present story of Belgium belongs to the world. +America, the greatest of the neutral countries, has a right to know +now the suffering and misery of this patient, hard-working people. + +This war may last a long time; the western armies are at a deadlock. +Since November of 1914 the line has varied only slightly here and +there; has been pushed out or back only to straighten again. + +Advances may be counted by feet. From Nieuport to Ypres attacks are +waged round solitary farms which, by reason of the floods, have become +tiny islands protected by a few men, mitrailleuses, and entanglements +of barbed wire. Small attacking bodies capture such an outpost, wading +breast-deep--drowning when wounded--in the stagnant water. There are +no glorious charges here, no contagion of courage; simply a dogged and +desperate struggle--a gain which the next day may see forfeited. The +only thing that goes on steadily is the devastating work of the heavy +guns on each side. + +Meantime, both in England and in France, there has been a growing +sentiment that the government's policy of silence has been a mistake. +The cudgel of public opinion is a heavy one. The German propaganda in +America has gone on steadily. There is no argument where one side only +is presented. That splendid and solid part of the American people, the +German population, essentially and naturally patriotic, keeping their +faith in the Fatherland, is constantly presenting its case; and +against that nothing official has been offered. + +England is fighting heroically, stoically; but her stoicism is a vital +mistake. This silence has nothing whatever to do with military +movements, their success or their failure. It is more fundamental, an +inherent characteristic of the English character, founded on +reserve--perhaps tinged with that often misunderstood conviction of +the Britisher that other persons cannot be really interested in what +is strictly another's affairs. + +The Allies are beginning to realise, however, that this war is not +their own affair alone. It affects the world too profoundly. Mentally, +morally, spiritually and commercially, it is an upheaval in which all +must suffer. + +And the English people, who have sent and are sending the very flower +of their country's manhood to the front, are beginning to regret the +error in judgment that has left the rest of the English-speaking world +in comparative ignorance of the true situation. + +They are sending the best they have--men of high ideals, who, as +volunteers, go out to fight for what they consider a just cause. The +old families, in which love of country and self-sacrifice are +traditions, have suffered heavily. + +The crux of the situation is Belgium--the violation of her neutrality; +the conduct of the invading army; her unnecessary and unjustifiable +suffering. And Belgium has felt that the time to speak has come. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE CAUSE + + +The Belgian Red Cross may well be proud of the hospital at La Panne. +It is modern, thoroughly organised, completely equipped. Within two +weeks of the outbreak of the war it was receiving patients. It was not +at the front then. But the German tide has forced itself along until +now it is almost on the line. + +Generally speaking, order had taken the place of the early chaos in +the hospital situation when I was at the front. The British hospitals +were a satisfaction to visit. The French situation was not so good. +The isolated French hospitals were still in need of everything, even +of anæsthetics. The lack of an organised nursing system was being +keenly felt. + +But the early handicaps of unpreparedness and overwhelming numbers of +patients had been overcome to a large extent. Scientific management +and modern efficiency had stepped in. Things were still capable of +improvement. Gentlemen ambulance drivers are not always to be depended +on. Nurses are not all of the same standard of efficiency. Supplies of +one sort exceeded the demand, while other things were entirely +lacking. Food of the kind that was needed by the very ill was scarce, +expensive and difficult to secure at any price. + +But the things that have been done are marvellous. Surgery has not +failed. The stereoscopic X-ray and antitetanus serum are playing their +active part. Once out of the trenches a soldier wounded at the front +has as much chance now as a man injured in the pursuit of a peaceful +occupation. + +Once out of the trenches! For that is the question. The ambulances +must wait for night. It is not in the hospitals but in the ghastly +hours between injury and darkness that the case of life or death is +decided. That is where surgical efficiency fails against the brutality +of this war, where the Red Cross is no longer respected, where it is +not possible to gather in the wounded under the hospital flag, where +there is no armistice and no pity. This is war, glorious war, which +those who stay at home say smugly is good for a nation. + +But there are those who are hurt, not in the trenches but in front of +them. In that narrow strip of No Man's Land between the confronting +armies, and extending four hundred and fifty miles from the sea +through Belgium and France, each day uncounted numbers of men fall, +and, falling, must lie. The terrible thirst that follows loss of blood +makes them faint; the cold winds and snows and rains of what has been +a fearful winter beat on them; they cannot have water or shelter. The +lucky ones die, but there are some that live, and live for days. This +too is war, glorious war, which is good for a nation, which makes its +boys into men, and its men into these writhing figures that die so +slowly and so long. + +I have seen many hospitals. Some of the makeshifts would be amusing +were they not so pathetic. Old chapels with beds and supplies piled +high before the altar; kindergarten rooms with childish mottoes on the +walls, from which hang fever charts; nuns' cubicles thrown open to +doctors and nurses as living quarters. + +At La Panne, however, there are no makeshifts. There are no wards, so +called. But many of the large rooms hold three beds. All the rooms are +airy and well lighted. True, there is no lift, and the men must be +carried down the staircases to the operating rooms on the lower floor, +and carried back again. But the carrying is gently done. + +There are two operating rooms, each with two modern operating tables. +The floors are tiled, the walls, ceiling and all furnishings white. +Attached to the operating rooms is a fully equipped laboratory and an +X-ray room. I was shown the stereoscopic X-ray apparatus by which the +figure on the plate stands out in relief, like any stereoscopic +picture. Every large hospital I saw had this apparatus, which is +invaluable in locating bullets and pieces of shell or shrapnel. Under +the X-ray, too, extraction frequently takes place, the operators using +long-handled instruments and gloves that are soaked in a solution of +lead and thus become impervious to the rays so destructive to the +tissues. + +Later on I watched Doctor DePage operate at this hospital. I was put +into a uniform, and watched a piece of shell taken from a man's brain +and a great blood clot evacuated. Except for the red cross on each +window and the rattle of the sash under the guns, I might have been in +one of the leading American hospitals and war a century away. There +were the same white uniforms on the surgeons; the same white gauze +covering their heads and swathing their faces to the eyes; the same +silence, the same care as to sterilisation; the same orderly rows of +instruments on a glass stand; the same nurses, alert and quiet; the +same clear white electric light overhead; the same rubber gloves, the +same anæsthetists and assistants. + +It was twelve minutes from the time the operating surgeon took the +knife until the wound was closed. The head had been previously shaved +by one of the assistants, and painted with iodine. In twelve minutes +the piece of shell lay in my hand. The stertorous breathing was +easier, bandages were being adjusted, the next case was being +anæsthetised and prepared. + +I wish I could go further. I wish I could follow that peasant-soldier +to recovery and health. I wish I could follow him back to his wife and +children, to his little farm in Belgium. I wish I could even say he +recovered. But I cannot. I do not know. The war is a series of +incidents with no beginning and no end. The veil lifts for a moment +and drops again. + +I saw other cases brought down for operation at the Ambulance Ocean. +One I shall never forget. Here was a boy again, looking up with +hopeful, fully conscious eyes at the surgeons. He had been shot +through the spine. From his waist down he was inert, helpless. He +smiled. He had come to be operated on. Now all would be well. The +great surgeons would work over him, and he would walk again. + +When after a long consultation they had to tell him they could not +operate, I dared not look at his eyes. + +Again, what is he to do? Where is he to go? He is helpless, in a +strange land. He has no country, no people, no money. And he will +live, think of it! + +I wish I could leaven all this with something cheerful. I wish I could +smile over the phonograph playing again and again A Wee +Deoch-an'-Doris in that room for convalescents that overlooks the sea. +I wish I could think that the baby with both legs off will grow up +without missing what it has never known. I wish I could be reconciled +because the dead young officer had died the death of a patriot and a +soldier, or that the boy I saw dying in an upper room, from shock and +loss of blood following an amputation, is only a pawn in the great +chess game of empires. I wish I could believe that the two women on +the floor below, one with both arms gone, another with one arm off and +her back ripped open by a shell, are the legitimate fruits of a holy +war. I cannot. I can see only greed and lust of battle and ambition. + +In a bright room I saw a German soldier. He had the room to himself. +He was blue eyed and yellow haired, with a boyish and contagious +smile. He knew no more about it all than I did. It must have +bewildered him in the long hours that he lay there alone. He did not +hate these people. He never had hated them. It was clear, too, that +they did not hate him. For they had saved a gangrenous leg for him +when all hope seemed ended. He lay there, with his white coverlet +drawn to his chin, and smiled at the surgeon. They were evidently on +the best of terms. + +"How goes it?" asked the surgeon cheerfully in German. + +"_Sehr gut_," he said, and eyed me curiously. + +He was very proud of the leg, and asked that I see it. It was in a +cast. He moved it about triumphantly. Probably all over Germany, as +over France and this corner of Belgium, just such little scenes occur +daily, hourly. + +The German peasant, like the French and the Belgian, is a peaceable +man. He is military but not militant. He is sentimental rather than +impassioned. He loves Christmas and other feast days. He is not +ambitious. He fights bravely, but he would rather sing or make a +garden. + +It is over the bent shoulders of these peasants that the great +Continental army machines must march. The German peasant is poor, +because for forty years he has been paying the heavy tax of endless +armament. The French peasant is poor, because for forty years he has +been struggling to recover from the drain of the huge war indemnity +demanded by Germany in 1871. The Russian peasant toils for a remote +government, with which his sole tie is the tax-gatherer; toils with +childish faith for The Little Father, at whose word he may be sent to +battle for a cause of which he knows nothing. + +Germany's militarism, England's navalism, Russia's autocracy, France, +graft-ridden in high places and struggling for rehabilitation after a +century of war--and, underneath it all, bearing it on bent shoulders, +men like this German prisoner, alone in his room and puzzling it out! +It makes one wonder if the result of this war will not be a great and +overwhelming individualism, a protest of the unit against the mass; if +Socialism, which has apparently died of an ideal, will find this ideal +but another name for tyranny, and rise from its grave a living force. + +Now and then a justifiable war is fought, for liberty perhaps, or like +our Civil War, for a great principle. There are wars that are +inevitable. Such wars are frequently revolutions and have their +origins in the disaffection of a people. + +But here is a world war about which volumes are being written to +discover the cause. Here were prosperous nations, building wealth and +culture on a basis of peace. Europe was apparently more in danger of +revolution than of international warfare. It is not only war without a +known cause, it is an unexpected war. Only one of the nations involved +showed any evidence of preparation. England is not yet ready. Russia +has not yet equipped the men she has mobilised. + +Is this war, then, because the balance of power is so nicely adjusted +that a touch turns the scale, whether that touch be a Kaiser's dream +of empire or the eyes of a Czar turned covetously toward the South? + +I tried to think the thing out during the long nights when the sound +of the heavy guns kept me awake. It was hard, because I knew so +little, nothing at all of European politics, or war, or diplomacy. +When I tried to be logical, I became emotional. Instead of reason I +found in myself only a deep resentment. + +I could see only that blue-eyed German in his bed, those cheery and +cold and ill-equipped Belgians drilling on the sands at La Panne. + +But on one point I was clear. Away from all the imminent questions +that filled the day, the changing ethics of war, its brutalities, its +hideous necessities, one point stood out clear and distinct. That the +real issue is not the result, but the cause of this war. That the +world must dig deep into the mire of European diplomacy to find that +cause, and having found it must destroy it. That as long as that cause +persists, be it social or political, predatory or ambitious, there +will be more wars. Again it will be possible for a handful of men in +high place to overthrow a world. + +And one of the first results of the discovery of that cause will be a +demand of the people to know what their representatives are doing. +Diplomacy, instead of secret whispering, a finger to its lips, must +shout from the housetops. Great nations cannot be governed from +cellars. Diplomats are not necessarily conspirators. There is such a +thing as walking in the sunlight. + +There is no such thing in civilisation as a warlike people. There are +peaceful people, or aggressive people, or military people. But there +are none that do not prefer peace to war, until, inflamed and roused +by those above them who play this game of empires, they must don the +panoply of battle and go forth. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE STORY WITH AN END + + +In its way that hospital at La Panne epitomised the whole tragedy of +the great war. Here were women and children, innocent victims when the +peaceful nearby market town of Furnes was being shelled; here was a +telegraph operator who had stuck to his post under furious bombardment +until both his legs were crushed. He had been decorated by the king +for his bravery. Here were Belgian aristocrats without extra clothing +or any money whatever, and women whose whole lives had been shielded +from pain or discomfort. One of them, a young woman whose father is +among the largest landowners in Belgium, is in charge of the villa +where the uniforms of wounded soldiers are cleaned and made fit for +use again. Over her white uniform she wore, in the bitter wind, a thin +tan raincoat. We walked together along the beach. I protested. + +"You are so thinly clad," I said. "Surely you do not go about like +that always!" + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"It is all I have," she said philosophically. "And I have no +money--none. None of us has." + +A titled Belgian woman with her daughter had just escaped from +Brussels. She was very sad, for she had lost her only boy. But she +smiled a little as she told me of their having nothing but what they +wore, and that the night before they had built a fire in their room, +washed their linen, and gone to bed, leaving it until morning to dry. + +Across the full width of the hospital stretched the great drawing-room +of the hotel, now a recreation place for convalescent soldiers. Here +all day the phonograph played, the nurses off duty came in to write +letters, the surgeons stopped on their busy rounds to speak to the men +or to watch for a few minutes the ever-changing panorama of the beach, +with its background of patrolling gunboats, its engineers on rest +playing football, its occasional aëroplanes, carrying each two men--a +pilot and an observer. + +The men sat about. There were boys with the stringy beards of their +twenty years. There were empty sleeves, many crutches, and some who +must be led past the chairs and tables--who will always have to be +led. + +They were all cheerful. But now and then, when the bombardment became +more insistent, some of them would raise their heads and listen, with +the strained faces of those who see a hideous picture. + +The young woman who could not buy a heavy coat showed me the villa +adjoining the hospital, where the clothing of wounded soldiers is +cared for. It is placed first in a fumigating plant in the basement +and thoroughly sterilised. After that it is brushed of its encrusted +mud and blood stains are taken out by soaking in cold water. It is +then dried and thoroughly sunned. Then it is ready for the second +floor. + +Here tailors are constantly at work mending garments apparently +unmendable, pressing, steaming, patching, sewing on buttons. The +ragged uniforms come out of that big bare room clean and whole, ready +to be tied up in new burlap bags, tagged, and placed in racks of fresh +white cedar. There is no odour in this room, although innumerable old +garments are stored in it. + +In an adjoining room the rifles and swords of the injured men stand in +racks, the old and unserviceable rifles with which Belgium was forced +to equip so many of her soldiers side by side with the new and +scientific German guns. Along the wall are officers' swords, and above +them, on shelves, the haversacks of the common soldiers, laden with +the things that comprise their whole comfort. + +I examined one. How few the things were and how worn! And yet the +haversack was heavy. As he started for the trenches, this soldier who +was carried back, he had on his shoulders this haversack of hide +tanned with the hair on. In it he had two pairs of extra socks, worn +and ragged, a tattered and dirty undershirt, a photograph of his wife, +rags for cleaning his gun, a part of a loaf of dry bread, the remnant +of what had been a pair of gloves, now fingerless and stiff with rain +and mud, a rosary, a pair of shoes that the woman of the photograph +would have wept and prayed over, some extra cartridges and a piece of +leather. Perhaps he meant to try to mend the shoes. + +And here again I wish I could finish the story. I wish I could tell +whether he lived or died--whether he carried that knapsack back to +battle, or whether he died and its pitiful contents were divided among +those of his comrades who were even more needy than he had been. But +the veil lifts for a moment and drops again. + +Two incidents stand out with distinctness from those first days in La +Panne, when, thrust with amazing rapidity into the midst of war, my +mind was a chaos of interest, bewilderment and despair. + +One is of an old abbé, talking earnestly to a young Belgian noblewoman +who had recently escaped from Brussels with only the clothing she +wore. + +The abbé was round of face and benevolent. I had met him before, at +Calais, where he had posed me in front of a statue and taken my +picture. His enthusiasm over photography was contagious. He had made a +dark room from a closet in an old convent, and he owned a little +American camera. With this carefully placed on a tripod and covered +with a black cloth, he posed me carefully, making numerous excursions +under the cloth. In that cold courtyard, under the marble figure of +Joan of Arc, he was a warm and human and most alive figure, in his +flat black shoes, his long black soutane with its woollen sash, his +woollen muffler and spectacles, with the eternal cigarette, that is +part and parcel of every Belgian, dangling loosely from his lower lip. + +The surgeons and nurses who were watching the operation looked on with +affectionate smiles. They loved him, this old priest, with his +boyishness, his enthusiasms, his tiny camera, his cigarette, his +beautiful faith. He has promised me the photograph and what he +promises he fulfils. But perhaps it was a failure. I hope not. He +would be so disappointed--and so would I. + +So I was glad to meet him again at La Panne--glad and surprised, for +he was fifty miles north of where we had met before. But the abbé was +changed. He was without the smile, without the cigarette. And he was +speaking beseechingly to the smiling young refugee. This is what he +was saying: + +"I am glad, daughter, to help you in every way that I can. I have +bought for you in Calais everything that you requested. But I implore +you, daughter, do not ask me to purchase any more ladies' underlinen. +It is most embarrassing." + +"But, father--" + +"No underlinen," he repeated firmly. But it hurt him to refuse. One +could see that. One imagined, too, that in his life of service there +were few refusals. I left them still debating. The abbé's eyes were +desperate but his posture firm. One felt that there would be no +surrender. + +Another picture, and I shall leave La Panne for a time. + +I was preparing to go. A telephone message to General Melis, of the +Belgian Army, had brought his car to take me to Dunkirk. I was about +to leave the protection of the Belgian Red Cross and place myself in +the care of the ministry of war. I did not know what the future would +bring, and the few days at La Panne and the Ambulance Ocean had made +friends for me there. Things move quickly in war time. The +conventions with which we bind up our souls in ordinary life are cut +away. La Panne was already familiar and friendly territory. + +I went down the wide staircase. An ambulance had stopped and its +burden was being carried in. The bearers rested the stretcher gently +on the floor, and a nurse was immediately on her knees beside it. + +"Shell!" she said. + +The occupant was a boy of perhaps nineteen--a big boy. Some mother +must have been very proud of him. He was fully conscious, and he +looked up from his stained bandages with the same searching glance +that now I have seen so often--the glance that would read its chances +in the faces of those about. With his uninjured arm he threw back the +blanket. His right arm was wounded, broken in two places, but not +shattered. + +"He'll do nicely," said the nurse. "A broken jaw and the arm." + +His eyes were on me, so I bent over. + +"The nurse says you will do nicely," I assured him. "It will take +time, but you will be very comfortable here, and--" + +The nurse had been making further investigation. Now she turned back +the other end of the blanket His right leg had been torn off at the +hip. + +That story has an end; for that boy died. + +The drive back to Dunkirk was a mad one. Afterward I learned to know +that red-headed Flemish chauffeur, with his fiercely upcurled +moustache and his contempt of death. Rather, perhaps, I learned to +know his back. It was a reckless back. He wore a large army overcoat +with a cape and a cap with a tassel. When he really got under way at +anything from fifty miles an hour to the limit of the speedometer, +which was ninety miles, the gilt tassel, which in the Belgian cap +hangs over and touches the forehead, had a way of standing up; the +cape overcoat blew out in the air, cutting off my vision and my last +hope. + +I regard that chauffeur as a menace on the high road. Certainly he is +not a lady's chauffeur. He never will be. Once at night he took +me--and the car--into an iron railroad gate, and bent the gate into a +V. I was bent into the whole alphabet. + +The car was a limousine. After that one cold ride from Calais to La +Panne I was always in a limousine--always, of course, where a car +could go at all. There may be other writers who have been equally +fortunate, but most of the stories are of frightful hardships. I was +not always comfortable. I was frequently in danger. But to and from +the front I rode soft and warm and comfortable. Often I had a bottle +of hot coffee and sandwiches. Except for the two carbines strapped to +the speedometer, except for the soldier-chauffeur and the orderly who +sat together outside, except for the eternal consulting of maps and +showing of passes, I might have been making a pleasure tour of the +towns of Northern France and Belgium. In fact, I have toured abroad +during times of peace and have been less comfortable. + +I do not speak Flemish, so I could not ask the chauffeur to desist, +slow down, or let me out to walk. I could only sit tight as the +machine flew round corners, elbowed transports, and threw a warning +shriek to armoured cars. I wondered what would happen if we skidded +into a wagon filled with high explosives. I tried to remember the +conditions of my war insurance policy at Lloyd's. Also I recalled the +unpleasant habit the sentries have of firing through the back of any +car that passes them. + +I need not have worried. Except that once we killed a brown chicken, +and that another time we almost skidded into the canal, the journey +was uneventful, almost calm. One thing cheered me--all the other +machines were going as fast as mine. A car that eased up its pace +would be rammed from behind probably. I am like the English--I prefer +a charge to a rearguard engagement. + +My pass took me into Dunkirk. + +It was dusk by that time. I felt rather lost and alone. I figured out +what time it was at home. I wished some one would speak English. And I +hated being regarded as a spy every mile or so, and depending on a +slip of paper as my testimonial of respectability. The people I knew +were lunching about that time, or getting ready for bridge or the +matinée. I wondered what would happen to me if the pass blew out of +the orderly's hands and was lost in the canal. + +The chauffeur had been instructed to take me to the _Mairie_ a great +dark building of stone halls and stairways, of sentries everywhere, of +elaborate officers and much ceremony. But soon, in a great hall of the +old building piled high with army supplies, I was talking to General +Melis, and my troubles were over. A kindly and courteous gentleman, he +put me at my ease at once. More than that, he spoke some English. He +had received letters from England about me, and had telegraphed that +he would meet me at Calais. He had, indeed, taken the time out of his +busy day to go himself to Calais, thirty miles by motor, to meet me. + +I was aghast. "The boat went to Boulogne," I explained. "I had no +idea, of course, that you would be there." + +"Now that you are here," he said, "it is all right. But--exactly what +can I do for you?" + +So I told him. He listened attentively. A very fine and gallant +soldier he was, sitting in that great room in the imposing uniform of +his rank; a busy man, taking a little time out of his crowded day to +see an American woman who had come a long way alone to see this +tragedy that had overtaken his country. Orderlies and officers came +and went; the _Mairie_ was a hive of seething activities. But he +listened patiently. + +"Where do you want to go?" he asked when I had finished. + +"I should like to stay here, if I may. And from here, of course, I +should like to get to the front." + +"Where?" + +"Can I get to Ypres?" + +"It is not very safe." + +I proclaimed instantly and loudly that I was as brave as a lion; that +I did not know fear. He smiled. But when the interview was over it was +arranged that I should have a _permis de séjour_ to stay in Dunkirk, +and that on the following day the general himself and one of his +officers having an errand in that direction would take me to Ypres. + +That night the town of Dunkirk was bombarded by some eighteen German +aëroplanes. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE NIGHT RAID ON DUNKIRK + + +I found that a room had been engaged for me at the Hotel des Arcades. +It was a very large room looking out over the public square and the +statue of Jean Bart. It was really a princely room. No wonder they +showed it to me proudly, and charged it to me royally. It was an +upholstered room. Even the doors were upholstered. And because it was +upholstered and expensive and regal, it enjoyed the isolation of +greatness. The other people in the hotel slept above or underneath. + +There were times when I longed for neighbours, when I yearned for some +one to occupy the other royal apartment next door. But except for a +Russian prince who stayed two days, and who snored in Russian and kept +two _valets de chambre_ up all night in the hall outside my door +polishing his boots and cleaning his uniform, I was always alone in +that part of the hotel. + +At my London hotel I had been lodged on the top floor, and twice in +the night the hall porter had telephoned me to say that German +Zeppelins were on their way to London. So I took care to find that in +the Hotel des Arcades there were two stories and two layers of Belgian +and French officers overhead. + +I felt very comfortable--until the air raid. The two stories seemed +absurd, inadequate. I would not have felt safe in the subcellar of the +Woolworth Building. + +There were no women in the hotel at that time, with the exception of a +hysterical lady manager, who sat in a boxlike office on the lower +floor, and two chambermaids. A boy made my bed and brought me hot +water. For several weeks at intervals he knocked at the door twice a +day and said: "Et wat." I always thought it was Flemish for "May I +come in?" At last I discovered that he considered this the English for +"hot water." The waiters in the café were too old to be sent to war, +but I think the cook had gone. There was no cook. Some one put the +food on the fire, but he was not a cook. + +Dunkirk had been bombarded several times, I learned. + +"They come in the morning," said my informant. "Every one is ordered +off the streets. But they do little damage. One or two machines come +and drop a bomb or two. That is all. Very few are killed." + +I protested. I felt rather bitter about it. I expected trouble along +the lines, I explained. I knew I would be quite calm when I was +actually at the front, and when I had my nervous system prepared for +trouble. But in Dunkirk I expected to rest and relax. I needed sleep +after La Panne. I thought something should be done about it. + +My informant shrugged his shoulders. He was English, and entirely +fair. + +"Dunkirk is a fortified town," he explained. "It is quite legitimate. +But you may sleep to-night. The raids are always daylight ones." + +So I commenced dinner calmly. I do not remember anything about that +dinner. The memory of it has gone. I do recall looking about the +dining room, and feeling a little odd and lonely, being the only +woman. Then a gun boomed somewhere outside, and an alarm bell +commenced to ring rapidly almost overhead. Instantly the officers in +the room were on their feet, and every light went out. + +The _maître d'hôtel_, Emil, groped his way to my table and struck a +match. + +"Aëroplanes!" he said. + +There was much laughing and talking as the officers moved to the door. +The heavy velvet curtains were drawn. Some one near the door lighted a +candle. + +"Where shall I go?" I asked. + +Emil, unlike the officers, was evidently nervous. + +"Madame is as safe here as anywhere," he said. "But if she wishes to +join the others in the cellar--" + +I wanted to go to the cellar or to crawl into the office safe. But I +felt that, as the only woman and the only American about, I held the +reputation of America and of my sex in my hands. The waiters had gone +to the cellar. The officers had flocked to the café on the ground +floor underneath. The alarm bell was still ringing. Over the candle, +stuck in a saucer, Emil's face looked white and drawn. + +"I shall stay here," I said. "And I shall have coffee." + +The coffee was not bravado. I needed something hot. + +The gun, which had ceased, began to fire again. And then suddenly, not +far away, a bomb exploded. Even through the closed and curtained +windows the noise was terrific. Emil placed my coffee before me with +shaking hands, and disappeared. + +Another crash, and another, both very close! + +There is nothing that I know of more hideous than an aërial +bombardment. It requires an entire mental readjustment. The sky, which +has always symbolised peace, suddenly spells death. Bombardment by the +big guns of an advancing army is not unexpected. There is time for +flight, a chance, too, for a reprisal. But against these raiders of +the sky there is nothing. One sits and waits. And no town is safe. One +moment there is a peaceful village with war twenty, fifty miles away. +The next minute hell breaks loose. Houses are destroyed. Sleeping +children die in their cradles. The streets echo and reëcho with the +din of destruction. The reply of the anti-aircraft guns is feeble, and +at night futile. There is no bustle of escape. The streets are empty +and dead, and in each house people, family groups, noncombatants, folk +who ask only the right to work and love and live, sit and wait with +blanched faces. + +More explosions, nearer still. They were trying for the _Mairie_, +which was round the corner. + +In the corridor outside the dining room a candle was lighted, and the +English officer who had reassured me earlier in the evening came in. + +"You need not be alarmed," he said cheerfully. "It is really nothing. +But out in the corridor it is quite safe and not so lonely." + +I went out. Two or three Belgian officers were there, gathered round a +table on which was a candle stuck in a glass. They were having their +after-dinner liqueurs and talking of many things. No one spoke of what +was happening outside. I was given a corner, as being out of the +draft. + +The explosion were incessant now. With each one the landlady +downstairs screamed. As they came closer, cries and French adjectives +came up the staircase beside me in a nerve-destroying staccato of +terror. + +At nine-thirty, when the aëroplanes had been overhead for +three-quarters of an hour, there came a period of silence. There were +no more explosions. + +"It is over," said one of the Belgian officers, smiling. "It is over, +and madame lives!" + +But it was not over. + +I took advantage of the respite to do the forbidden thing and look out +through one of the windows. The moon had come up and the square was +flooded with light. All around were silent houses. No ray of light +filtered through their closed and shuttered windows. The street lamps +were out. Not an automobile was to be seen, not a hurrying human +figure, not a dog. No night prowler disturbed that ghastly silence. +The town lay dead under the clear and peaceful light of the moon. The +white paving stones of the square gleamed, and in the centre, +saturnine and defiant, stood uninjured the statue of Jean Bart, +privateer and private of Dunkirk. + +Crash again! It was not over. The attack commenced with redoubled +fury. If sound were destructive the little town of Dunkirk would be +off the map of Northern France to-day. Sixty-seven bombs were dropped +in the hour or so that the Germans were overhead. + +The bombardment continued. My feet were very cold, my head hot. The +lady manager was silent; perhaps she had fainted. But Emil reappeared +for a moment, his round white face protruding above the staircase +well, to say that a Zeppelin was reported on the way. + +Then at last silence, broken soon by the rumble of ambulances as they +started on their quest for the dead and the wounded. And Emil was +wrong. There was no Zeppelin. The night raid on Dunkirk was history. + +The lights did not come on again. From that time on for several weeks +Dunkirk lay at night in darkness. Houses showing a light were fined by +the police. Automobiles were forbidden the use of lamps. One crept +along the streets and the roads surrounding the town in a mysterious +and nerve-racking blackness broken only by the shaded lanterns of the +sentries as they stepped out with their sharp command to stop. + +The result of the raid? It was largely moral, a part of that campaign +of terrorisation which is so strangely a part of the German system, +which has set its army to burning cities, to bombarding the +unfortified coast towns of England, to shooting civilians in conquered +Belgium, and which now sinks the pitiful vessels of small traders and +fishermen in the submarine-infested waters of the British Channel. It +gained no military advantage, was intended to gain no military +advantage. Not a soldier died. The great stores of military supplies +were not wrecked. The victims were, as usual, women and children. The +houses destroyed were the small and peaceful houses of noncombatants. +Only two men were killed. They were in a side street when the first +bomb dropped, and they tried to find an unlocked door, an open house, +anything for shelter. It was impossible. Built like all French towns, +without arcades or sheltering archways, the flat façades of the closed +and barricaded houses refused them sanctuary. The second bomb killed +them both. + +Through all that night after the bombardment I could hear each hour +the call of the trumpet from the great overhanging tower, a double +note at once thin and musical, that reported no enemy in sight in the +sky and all well. From far away, at the gate in the wall, came the +reply of the distant watchman's horn softened by distance. + +"All well here also," it said. + +Following the trumpets the soft-toned chimes of the church rang out a +hymn that has chimed from the old tower every hour for generations, +extolling and praising the Man of Peace. + +The ambulances had finished their work. The dead lay with folded +hands, surrounded by candles, the lights of faith. And under the +fading moon the old city rested and watched. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +NO MAN'S LAND + + +FROM MY JOURNAL: + +I have just had this conversation with the little French chambermaid +at my hotel. "You have not gone to mass, Mademoiselle?" + +"I? No." + +"But here, so near the lines, I should think--" + +"I do not go to church. There is no God." She looked up with +red-rimmed, defiant eyes. "My husband has been killed," she said. +"There is no God. If there was a God, why should my husband be killed? +He had done nothing." + +This afternoon at three-thirty I am to start for the front. I am to +see everything. The machine leaves the _Mairie_ at three-thirty. + + * * * * * + +Do you recall the school map on which the state of Texas was always +pink and Rhode Island green? And Canada a region without colour, and +therefore without existence? + +The map of Europe has become a battle line painted in three colours: +yellow for the Belgian Army, blue for the British and red for the +French. It is really a double line, for the confronting German Army is +drawn in black. It is a narrow line to signify what it does--not only +death and wanton destruction, but the end of the myth of civilisation; +a narrow line to prove that the brotherhood of man is a dream, that +modern science is but an improvement on fifth-century barbarity; that +right, after all, is only might. + +It took exactly twenty-four hours to strip the shirt off the diplomacy +of Europe and show the coat of mail underneath. + +It will take a century to hide that coat of mail. It will take a +thousand years to rebuild the historic towns of Belgium. But not +years, nor a reclothed diplomacy, nor the punishment of whichever +traitor to the world brought this thing to pass, nor anything but +God's great eternity, will ever restore to one mother her uselessly +sacrificed son; will quicken one of the figures that lie rotting along +the battle line; will heal this scar that extends, yellow and blue and +red and black, across the heart of Western Europe. + +It is a long scar--long and irregular. It begins at Nieuport, on the +North Sea, extends south to the region of Soissons, east to Verdun, +and then irregularly southeast to the Swiss border. + +The map from which I am working was coloured and marked for me by +General Foch, commander of the French Army of the North, at his +headquarters. It is a little map, and so this line, which crosses +empires and cuts civilisation in half, is only fourteen inches long, +although it represents a battle line of over four hundred miles. Of +this the Belgian front is one-half inch, or approximately +one-twenty-eighth. The British front is a trifle more than twice as +long. All the rest of that line is red--French. + +That is the most impressive thing about the map, the length of the +French line. + +With the arrival of Kitchener's army this last spring the blue portion +grew somewhat. The yellow remained as it was, for the Belgian +casualties have been two-thirds of her army. There have been many +tragedies in Belgium. That is one of them. + +In the very north then, yellow; then a bit of red; below that blue; +then red again in that long sweeping curve that is the French front. +Occasionally the line moves a trifle forward or back, like the +shifting record of a fever chart; but in general it remains the same. +It has remained the same since the first of November. A movement to +thrust it forward in any one place is followed by a counter-attack in +another place. The reserves must be drawn off and hurried to the +threatened spot. Automatically the line straightens again. + +The little map is dated the twenty-third of February. All through the +spring and summer the line has remained unchanged. There will be no +change until one side or the other begins a great offensive movement. +After that it will be a matter of the irresistible force and the +immovable body, a question not of maps but of empires. + +Between the confronting lines lies that tragic strip of No Man's Land, +which has been and is the scene of so much tragedy. No Man's Land is +of fixed length but of varying width. There are places where it is +very narrow, so narrow that it is possible to throw across a hand +grenade or a box of cigarettes, depending on the nearness of an +officer whose business is war. Again it is wide, so that friendly +relations are impossible, and sniping becomes a pleasure as well as an +art. + +It was No Man's Land that I was to visit the night of the entry in my +journal. + +From the neighbourhood of Ypres to the Swiss border No Man's Land +varies. The swamps and flat ground give way to more rolling country, +and this to hills. But in the north No Man's Land is a series of +shallow lakes, lying in flat, unprotected country. + +For Belgium, in desperation, last October opened the sluices and let +in the sea. It crept in steadily, each high tide advancing the flood +farther. It followed the lines of canal and irrigation ditches mile +after mile till it had got as far south as Ypres, beyond Ypres indeed. +To the encroachment of the sea was added the flooding resulting from +an abnormally rainy winter. Ordinarily the ditches have carried off +the rain; now even where the inundation does not reach it lies in +great ponds. Belgium's fertile sugar-beet fields are under salt water. + +The method was effectual, during the winter, at least, in retarding +the German advance. Their artillery destroyed the towns behind the +opposing trenches of the Allies, but their attempts to advance through +the flood failed. + +Even where the floods were shallow--only two feet or so--they served +their purpose in masking the character of the land. From a wading +depth of two feet, charging soldiers stepped frequently into a deep +ditch and drowned ignominiously. + +It is a noble thing, war! It is good for a country. It unites its +people and develops national spirit! + +Great poems have been written about charges. Will there ever be any +great poems about these men who have been drowned in ditches? Or about +the soldiers who have been caught in the barbed wire with which these +inland lakes are filled? Or about the wounded who fall helpless into +the flood? + +The inland lakes that ripple under the wind from the sea, or gleam +silver in the light of the moon, are beautiful, hideous, filled with +bodies that rise and float, face down. And yet here and there the +situation is not without a sort of grim humour. Brilliant engineers on +one side or the other are experimenting with the flood. Occasionally +trenches hitherto dry and fairly comfortable find themselves +unexpectedly filling with water, as the other side devises some clever +scheme for turning the flood from a menace into a military asset. + +In No Man's Land are the outposts. + +The fighting of the winter has mystified many noncombatants, with its +advances and retreats, which have yet resulted in no definite change +of the line. In many instances this sharp fighting has been a matter +of outposts, generally farms, churches or other isolated buildings, +sometimes even tiny villages. In the inundated portion of Belgium +these outposts are buildings which, situated on rather higher land, a +foot or two above the flood, have become islands. Much of the fighting +in the north has been about these island outposts. Under the +conditions, charges must be made by relatively small bodies of men. +The outposts can similarly house but few troops. + +They are generally defended by barbed wire and a few quick-firing +guns. Their purpose is strategical; they are vantage points from which +the enemy may be closely watched. They change sides frequently; are +won and lost, and won again. + +Here and there the side at the time in command of the outpost builds +out from its trenches through the flood a pathway of bags of earth, +topped by fascines or bundles of fagots tied together. Such a path +pays a tribute of many lives for every yard of advance. It is built +under fire; it remains under fire. It is destroyed and reconstructed. + +When I reached the front the British, Belgian and French troops in the +north had been fighting under these conditions for four months. My +first visit to the trenches was made under the auspices of the Belgian +Ministry of War. The start was made from the _Mairie_ in Dunkirk, +accompanied by the necessary passes and escorted by an attaché of the +Military Cabinet. + +I was taken in an automobile from Dunkirk to the Belgian Army +Headquarters, where an officer of the headquarters staff, Captain +F----, took charge. The headquarters had been a brewery. + +Stripped of the impedimenta of its previous occupation, it now housed +the officers of the staff. + +Since that time I have frequently visited the headquarters staffs of +various armies or their divisions. I became familiar with the long, +bare tables stacked with papers, the lamps, the maps on the walls, the +telephones, the coming and going of dispatch riders in black leather. +I came to know something of the chafing restlessness of these men who +must sit, well behind the firing line, and play paper battles on which +lives and empires hang. + +But one thing never ceased to puzzle me. + +That night, in a small kitchen behind the Belgian headquarters rooms, +a French peasant woman was cooking the evening meal. Always, at all +the headquarters that were near the front, somewhere in a back room +was a resigned-looking peasant woman cooking a meal. Children hung +about the stove or stood in corners looking out at the strange new +life that surrounded them. Peasants too old for war, their occupations +gone, sat listlessly with hanging hands, their faces the faces of +bewildered children; their clean floors were tracked by the muddy +boots of soldiers; their orderly lives disturbed, uprooted; their once +tidy farmyards were filled with transports; their barns with army +horses; their windmills, instead of housing sacks of grain, were +occupied by _mitrailleuses_. + +What were the thoughts of these people? What are they thinking +now?--for they are still there. What does it all mean to them? Do they +ever glance at the moving cord of the war map on the wall? Is this war +to them only a matter of a courtyard or a windmill? Of mud and the +upheaval of quiet lives? They appear to be waiting--for spring, +probably, and the end of hostilities; for spring and the planting of +crops, for quiet nights to sleep and days to labour. + +The young men are always at the front. They who are left express +confidence that these their sons and husbands will return. And yet in +the spring many of them ploughed shallow over battlefields. + +It had been planned to show me first a detail map of the places I was +to visit, and with this map before me to explain the present position +of the Belgian line along the embankment of the railroad from Nieuport +to Dixmude. The map was ready on a table in the officers' mess, a bare +room with three long tables of planks, to which a flight of half a +dozen steps led from the headquarters room below. + +Twilight had fallen by that time. It had commenced to rain. I could +see through the window heavy drops that stirred the green surface of +the moat at one side of the old building. On the wall hung the +advertisement of an American harvester, a reminder of more peaceful +days. The beating of the rain kept time to the story Captain F---- +told that night, bending over the map and tracing his country's ruin +with his forefinger. + +Much of it is already history. The surprise and fury of the Germans on +discovering that what they had considered a contemptible military +force was successfully holding them back until the English and French +Armies could get into the field; the policy of systematic terrorism +that followed this discovery; the unpreparedness of Belgium's allies, +which left this heroic little army practically unsupported for so long +against the German tidal wave. + +The great battle of the Yser is also history. I shall not repeat the +dramatic recital of the Belgian retreat to this point, fighting a +rear-guard engagement as they fell back before three times their +number; of the fury of the German onslaught, which engaged the entire +Belgian front, so that there was no rest, not a moment's cessation. In +one night at Dixmude the Germans made fifteen attacks. Is it any +wonder that two-thirds of Belgium's Army is gone? + +They had fought since the third of August. It was on the twenty-first +of October that they at last retired across the Yser and two days +later took up their present position at the railway embankment. On +that day, the twenty-third of October, the first French troops arrived +to assist them, some eighty-five hundred reaching Nieuport. + +It was the hope of the Belgians that, the French taking their places +on the line, they could retire for a time as reserves and get a little +rest. But the German attack continuing fiercely against the combined +armies of the Allies, the Belgians were forced to go into action +again, weary as they were, at the historic curve of the Yser, where +was fought the great battle of the war. At British Headquarters later +on I was given the casualties of that battle, when the invading German +Army flung itself again and again, for nineteen days, against the +forces of the Allies: The English casualties for that period were +forty-five thousand; the French, seventy thousand; the German, by +figures given out at Berlin, two hundred and fifty thousand. The +Belgian I do not know. + +"It was after that battle," said Captain F----, "that the German dead +were taken back and burned, to avoid pestilence." + +The Belgians had by this time reached the limit of their resources. It +was then that the sluices were opened and their fertile lowlands +flooded. + +On the thirty-first of October the water stopped the German advance +along the Belgian lines. As soon as they discovered what had been done +the Germans made terrific and furious efforts to get forward ahead of +it. They got into the towns of Ramscappelle and Pervyse, where furious +street fighting occurred. + +Pervyse was taken five times and lost five times. But all their +efforts failed. The remnant of the Belgian Army had retired to the +railroad embankment. The English and French lines held firm. + +For the time, at least, the German advance was checked. + +That was Captain F----'s story of the battle of the Yser. + +When he had finished he drew out of his pocket the diary of a German +officer killed at the Yser during the first days of the fighting, and +read it aloud. It is a great human document. I give here as nearly as +possible a literal translation. + +It was written during the first days of the great battle. For fifteen +days after he was killed the German offensive kept up. General Foch, +who commanded the French Army of the North during that time, described +their method to me. "The Germans came," he said, "like the waves of +the sea!" + + * * * * * + +The diary of a German officer, killed at the Yser:-- + +Twenty-fourth of October, 1914: + +"The battle goes on--we are trying to effect a crossing of the Yser. +Beginning at 5:45 P.M. the engineers go on preparing their bridging +materials. Marching quickly over the country, crossing fields and +ditches, we are exposed to continuous heavy fire. A spent bullet +strikes me in the back, just below the coat collar, but I am not +wounded. + +"Taking up a position near Vandewonde farm, we are able to obtain a +little shelter from the devastating fire of the enemy's artillery. How +terrible is our situation! By taking advantage of all available cover +we arrive at the fifth trench, where the artillery is in action and +rifle fire is incessant. We know nothing of the general situation. I +do not know where the enemy is, or what numbers are opposed to us, and +there seems no way of getting the desired information. + +"Everywhere along the line we are suffering heavy losses, altogether +out of proportion to the results obtained. The enemy's artillery is +too well sheltered, too strong; and as our own guns, fewer in number, +have not been able to silence those of the enemy, our infantry is +unable to make any advance. We are suffering heavy and useless losses. + +"The medical service on the field has been found very wanting. At +Dixmude, in one place, no less than forty frightfully wounded men were +left lying uncared, for. The medical corps is kept back on the other +side of the Yser without necessity. It is equally impossible to +receive water and rations in any regular way. + +"For several days now we have not tasted a warm meal; bread and other +things are lacking; our reserve rations are exhausted. The water is +bad, quite green, indeed; but all the same we drink it--we can get +nothing else. Man is brought down to the level of the brute beast. +Myself, I have nothing left to eat; I left what I had with me in the +saddlebags on my horse. In fact, we were not told what we should have +to do on this side of the Yser, and we did not know that our horses +would have to be left on the other side. That is why we could not +arrange things. + +"I am living on what other people, like true comrades, are willing to +give me, but even then my share is only very small. There is no +thought of changing our linen or our clothes in any way. It is an +incredible situation! On every hand farms and villages are burning. +How sad a spectacle, indeed, to see this magnificent region all in +ruins, wounded and dead lying everywhere all round." + +Twenty-fifth of October, 1914: + +"A relatively undisturbed night. The safety of the bridge over the +Yser has been assured for a time. The battle has gone on the whole day +long. We have not been given any definite orders. One would not think +this is Sunday. The infantry and artillery combat is incessant, but no +definite result is achieved. Nothing but losses in wounded and killed. +We shall try to get into touch with the sixth division of the Third +Reserve Army Corps on our right." + +Twenty-sixth of October, 1914: + +"What a frightful night has gone by! There was a terrible rainstorm. I +felt frozen. I remained standing knee-deep in water. To-day an +uninterrupted fusillade meets us in front. We shall throw a bridge +across the Yser, for the enemy's artillery has again destroyed one we +had previously constructed. + +"The situation is practically unchanged. No progress has been made in +spite of incessant fighting, in spite of the barking of the guns and +the cries of alarm of those human beings so uselessly killed. The +infantry is worthless until our artillery has silenced the enemy's +guns. Everywhere we must be losing heavily; our own company has +suffered greatly so far. The colonel, the major, and, indeed, many +other officers are already wounded; several are dead. + +"There has not yet been any chance of taking off our boots and washing +ourselves. The Sixth Division is ready, but its help is insufficient. +The situation is no clearer than before; we can learn nothing of what +is going on. Again we are setting off for wet trenches. Our regiment +is mixed up with other regiments in an inextricable fashion. No +battalion, no company, knows anything about where the other units of +the regiment are to be found. Everything is jumbled under this +terrible fire which enfilades from all sides. + +"There are numbers of _francs-tireurs_. Our second battalion is going +to be placed under the order of the Cyckortz Regiment, made up of +quite diverse units. Our old regiment is totally broken up. The +situation is terrible. To be under a hail of shot and shell, without +any respite, and know nothing whatever of one's own troops! + +"It is to be hoped that soon the situation will be improved. These +conditions cannot be borne very much longer. I am hopeless. The +battalion is under the command of Captain May, and I am reduced to +acting as _Fourier_. It is not at all an easy thing to do in our +present frightful situation. In the black night soldiers must be sent +some distance in order to get and bring back the food so much needed +by their comrades. They have brought back, too, cards and letters from +those we love. What a consolation in our cheerless situation! We +cannot have a light, however, so we are forced to put into our +pockets, unread, the words of comfort sent by our dear ones--we have +to wait till the following morning. + +"So we spend the night again on straw, huddled up close one to another +in order to keep warm. It is horribly cold and damp. All at once a +violent rattle of rifle fire raises us for the combat; hastily we get +ready, shivering, almost frozen." + +Twenty-seventh of October, 1914: + +"At dawn I take advantage of a few moments' respite to read over the +kind wishes which have come from home. What happiness! Soon, however, +the illusion leaves me. The situation here is still all confusion; we +cannot think of advancing--" + +The last sentence is a broken one. For he died. + + * * * * * + +Morning came and he read his letters from home. They cheered him a +little; we can be glad of that, at least. And then he died. + +That record is a great human document. It is absolutely genuine. He +was starving and cold. As fast as they built a bridge to get back it +was destroyed. From three sides he and the others with him were being +shelled. He must have known what the inevitable end would be. But he +said very little. And then he died. + +There were other journels taken from the bodies of other German +officers at that terrible battle of the Yser. They speak of it as a +"hell"--a place of torment and agony impossible to describe. Some of +them I have seen. There is nowhere in the world a more pitiful or +tragic or thought-compelling literature than these diaries of German +officers thrust forward without hope and waiting for the end. + +At six o'clock it was already entirely dark and raining hard. Even in +the little town the machine was deep in mud. I got in and we started +off again, moving steadily toward the front. Captain F---- had brought +with him a box of biscuits, large, square, flaky crackers, which were +to be my dinner until some time in the night. He had an electric flash +and a map. The roads were horrible; it was impossible to move rapidly. +Here and there a sentry's lantern would show him standing on the edge +of a flooded field. The car careened, righted itself and kept on. As +the roads became narrower it was impossible to pass another vehicle. +The car drew out at crossroads here and there to allow transports to +get by. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE IRON DIVISION + + +It was bitterly cold, and the dead officer's diary weighed on my +spirit. The two officers in the machine pored over the map; I sat +huddled in my corner. I had come a long distance to do the thing I was +doing. But my enthusiasm for it had died. I wished I had not heard the +diary. + +"At dawn I take advantage of a few moments' respite to read over the +kind wishes which have come from home. What happiness!" And then he +died. + +The car jolted on. + +The soldier and the military chauffeur out in front were drenched. The +wind hurled the rain at them like bullets. We were getting close to +the front. There were shellholes now, great ruts into which the car +dropped and pulled out again with a jerk. + +Then at last a huddle of dark houses and a sentry's challenge. The car +stopped and we got out. Again there were seas of mud, deeper even than +before. I had reached the headquarters of the Third Division of the +Belgian Army, commonly known as the Iron Division, so nicknamed for +its heroic work in this war. + +The headquarters building was ironically called the "château." It had +been built by officers and men, of fresh boards and lined neatly +inside with newspapers. Some of them were illustrated French papers. +It had much the appearance of a Western shack during the early days of +the gold fever. On one of the walls was a war map of the Eastern +front, the line a cord fastened into place with flag pins. The last +time I had seen such a map of the Eastern front was in the Cabinet +Room at Washington. + +A large stove in the centre of the room heated the building, which was +both light and warm. Some fifteen officers received us. I was the only +woman who had been so near the front, for out here there are no +nurses. One by one they were introduced and bowed. There were fifteen +hosts and extremely few guests! + +Having had telephone notice of our arrival, they showed me how +carefully they had prepared for it. The long desk was in beautiful +order; floors gleamed snow white; the lamp chimneys were polished. +There were sandwiches and tea ready to be served. + +In one room was the telephone exchange, which connected the +headquarters with every part of the line. In another, a long line of +American typewriters and mimeographing machines wrote out and copied +the orders which were regularly distributed to the front. + +"Will you see our museum?" said a tall officer, who spoke beautiful +English. His mother was an Englishwoman. So I was taken into another +room and shown various relics of the battlefield--pieces of shells, +rifles and bullets. + +"Early German shells," said the officer who spoke English, "were like +this. You see how finely they splintered. The later ones are not so +good; the material is inferior, and here is an aluminum nose which +shows how scarce copper is becoming in Germany to-day." + +I have often thought of that visit to the "château," of the beautiful +courtesy of those Belgian officers, their hospitality, their eagerness +to make an American woman comfortable and at home. And I was to have +still further proof of their kindly feeling, for when toward daylight +I came back from the trenches they were still up, the lamps were still +burning brightly, the stove was red hot and cheerful, and they had +provided food for us against the chill of the winter dawn. Out through +the mud and into the machine again. And now we were very near the +trenches. The car went without lights and slowly. A foot off the +centre of the road would have made an end to the excursion. + +We began to pass men, long lines of them standing in the drenching +rain to let us by. They crowded close against the car to avoid the +seas of mud. Sometimes they grumbled a little, but mostly they were +entirely silent. That is the thing that impressed me always about the +lines of soldiers I saw going to and from the trenches--their silence. +Even their feet made no noise. They loomed up like black shadows which +the night swallowed immediately. + +The car stopped again. We had made another leg of the journey. And +this time our destination was a church. We were close behind the +trenches now and our movements were made with extreme caution. Captain +F---- piloted me through the mud. + +"We will go quietly," he said. "Many of them are doubtless sleeping; +they are but just out of the trenches and very tired." + +Now and then one encounters in this war a picture that cannot be +painted. Such a picture is that little church just behind the Belgian +lines at L----. There are no pews, of course, in Continental churches. +The chairs had been piled up in a corner near the altar, and on the +stone floor thus left vacant had been spread quantities of straw. +Lying on the straw and covered by their overcoats were perhaps two +hundred Belgian soldiers. They lay huddled close together for warmth; +the mud of the trenches still clung to them. The air was heavy with +the odour of damp straw. + +The high vaulted room was a cave of darkness. The only lights were +small flat candles here and there, stuck in saucers or on haversacks +just above the straw. These low lights, so close to the floor, fell on +the weary faces of sleeping men, accentuating the shadows, bringing +pinched nostrils into relief, showing lines of utter fatigue and +exhaustion. + +But the picture was not all sombre. Here were four men playing cards +under an image of Our Lady, which was just overhead. They were muffled +against the cold and speaking in whispers. In a far corner a soldier +sat alone, cross-legged, writing by the light of a candle. His letter +rested on a flat loaf of bread, which was his writing table. Another +soldier had taken a loaf of bread for his pillow and was comfortably +asleep on it. + +Captain F---- led the way through the church. He stepped over the men +carefully. When they roused and looked up they would have risen to +salute, but he told them to lie still. + +It was clear that the relationship between the Belgian officers and +their troops was most friendly. Not only in that little church at +midnight, but again and again I have seen the same thing. The officers +call their men their "little soldiers," and eye them with affection. + +One boy insisted on rising and saluting. He was very young, and on his +chin was the straggly beard of his years. The Captain stooped, and +lifting a candle held it to his face. + +"The handsomest beard in the Belgian Army!" he said, and the men round +chuckled. + +And so it went, a word here, a nod there, an apology when we disturbed +one of the sleepers. + +"They are but boys," said the Captain, and sighed. For each day there +were fewer of them who returned to the little church to sleep. + +On the way back to the car, making our way by means of the Captain's +electric flash through the crowded graveyard, he turned to me. + +"When you write of this, madame," he said, "you will please not +mention the location of this church. So far it has escaped--perhaps +because it is small. But the churches always suffer." + +I regretted this. So many of the churches are old and have the +interest of extreme age, even when they are architecturally +insignificant. But I found these officers very fair, just as I had +found the King of the Belgians disinclined to condemn the entire +German Army for the brutalities of a part of it. + +"There is no reason why churches should not be destroyed if they are +serving military purposes," one of them said. "When a church tower +shelters a gun, or is used for observations, it is quite legitimate +that it be subject to artillery fire. That is a necessity of war." + +We moved cautiously. Behind the church was a tiny cluster of small +houses. The rain had ceased, but the electric flashlight showed great +pools of water, through which we were obliged to walk. The hamlet was +very silent--not a dog barked. There were no dogs. + +I do not recall seeing any dogs at any time along the front, except at +La Panne. What has become of them? There were cats in the destroyed +towns, cats even in the trenches. But there were no dogs. It is not +because the people are not fond of dogs. Dunkirk was full of them when +I was there. The public square resounded with their quarrels and noisy +playing. They lay there in the sun and slept, and ambulances turned +aside in their headlong career to avoid running them down. But the +villages along the front were silent. + +I once asked an officer what had become of the dogs. + +"The soldiers eat them!" he said soberly. + +I heard the real explanation later. The strongest dogs had been +commandeered for the army, and these brave dogs of Flanders, who have +always laboured, are now drawing _mitrailleuses_, as I saw them at +L----. The little dogs must be fed, and there is no food to spare. And +so the children, over whose heads passes unheeded the real +significance of this drama that is playing about them, have their own +small tragedies these days. + +We got into the car again and it moved off. With every revolution of +the engine we were advancing toward that sinister line that borders No +Man's Land. We were very close. The road paralleled the trenches, and +shelling had begun again. + +It was not close, and no shells dropped in our vicinity. But the low, +horizontal red streaks of the German guns were plainly visible. + +With the cessation of the rain had begun again the throwing over the +Belgian trenches of the German magnesium flares, which the British +call starlights. The French call them _fusées_. Under any name I do +not like them. One moment one is advancing in a comfortable obscurity. +The next instant it is the Fourth of July, with a white rocket +bursting overhead. There is no noise, however. The thing is +miraculously beautiful, silent and horrible. I believe the light +floats on a sort of tiny parachute. For perhaps sixty seconds it hangs +low in the air, throwing all the flat landscape into clear relief. + +I do not know if one may read print under these _fusées_. I never had +either the courage or the print for the experiment. But these eyes of +the night open and close silently all through the hours of darkness. +They hang over the trenches, reveal the movements of troops on the +roads behind, shine on ammunition trains and ambulances, on the +righteous and the unrighteous. All along the German lines these +_fusées_ go up steadily. I have seen a dozen in the air at once. Their +silence and the eternal vigilance which they reveal are most +impressive. On the quietest night, with only an occasional shot being +fired, the horizon is ringed with them. + +And on the horizon they are beautiful. Overhead they are distinctly +unpleasant. + +"They are very uncomfortable," I said to Captain F----. "The Germans +can see us plainly, can't they?" + +"But that is what they are for," he explained. "All movements of +troops and ammunition trains to and from the trenches are made during +the night, so they watch us very carefully." + +"How near are we to the trenches?" I asked. + +"Very near, indeed." + +"To the first line?" + +For I had heard that there were other lines behind, and with the +cessation of the rain my courage was rising. Nothing less than the +first line was to satisfy me. + +"To the first line," he said, and smiled. + +The wind which had driven the rain in sheets against the car had blown +the storm away. The moon came out, a full moon. From the car I could +see here and there the gleam of the inundation. The road was +increasingly bad, with shell holes everywhere. Buildings loomed out of +the night, roofless and destroyed. The _fusées_ rose and burst +silently overhead; the entire horizon seemed encircled with them. We +were so close to the German lines that we could see an electric signal +sending its message of long and short flashes, could even see the +reply. It seemed to me most unmilitary. + +"Any one who knew telegraphy and German could read that message," I +protested. + +"It is not so simple as that. It is a cipher code, and is probably +changed daily." + +Nevertheless, the officers in the car watched the signalling closely, +and turning, surveyed the country behind us. In so flat a region, with +trees and shrubbery cut down and houses razed, even a pocket flash can +send a signal to the lines of the enemy. And such signals are sent. +The German spy system is thorough and far-reaching. + +I have gone through Flanders near the lines at various times at night. +It is a dead country apparently. There are destroyed houses, sodden +fields, ditches lipful of water. But in the most amazing fashion +lights spring up and disappear. Follow one of these lights and you +find nothing but a deserted farm, or a ruined barn, or perhaps nothing +but a field of sugar beets dying in the ground. + +Who are these spies? Are they Belgians and French, driven by the ruin +of everything they possess to selling out to the enemy? I think not. +It is much more probable that they are Germans who slip through the +lines in some uncanny fashion, wading and swimming across the +inundation, crawling flat where necessary, and working, an inch at a +time, toward the openings between the trenches. Frightful work, of +course. Impossible work, too, if the popular idea of the trenches were +correct--that is, that they form one long, communicating ditch from +the North Sea to Switzerland! They do not, of course. There are blank +spaces here and there, fully controlled by the trenches on either +side, and reënforced by further trenches behind. But with a knowledge +of where these openings lie it is possible to work through. + +Possible, not easy. And there is no mercy for a captured spy. + +The troops who had been relieved were moving out of the trenches. Our +progress became extremely slow. The road was lined with men. They +pressed their faces close to the glass of the car and laughed and +talked a little among themselves. Some of them were bandaged. Their +white bandages gleamed in the moonlight. Here and there, as they +passed, one blew on his fingers, for the wind was bitterly cold. + +"In a few moments we must get out and walk," I was told. "Is madame a +good walker?" + +I said I was a good walker. I had a strong feeling that two or three +people might walk along that road under those starlights much more +safely and inconspicuously than an automobile could move. For +automobiles at the front mean generals as a rule, and are always +subject to attack. + +Suddenly the car stopped and a voice called to us sharply. There were +soldiers coming up a side road. I was convinced that we had surprised +an attack, and were in the midst of the German advance. One of the +officers flung the door open and looked out. + +But we were only on the wrong road, and must get into reverse and turn +the machine even closer to the front. I know now that there was no +chance of a German attack at that point, that my fears were absurd. +Nevertheless, so keen was the tension that for quite ten minutes my +heart raced madly. + +On again. The officers in the car consulted the map and, having +decided on the route, fell into conversation. The officer of the Third +Division, whose mother had been English, had joined the party. He had +been on the staff of General Leman at the time of the capture of +Liège, and he told me of the sensational attempt made by the Germans +to capture the General. + +"I was upstairs with him at headquarters," he said, "when word came up +that eight Englishmen had just entered the building with a request to +see him. I was suspicious and we started down the staircase together. +The 'Englishmen' were in the hallway below. As we appeared on the +stairs the man in advance put his hand in his pocket and drew a +revolver. They were dressed in civilians' clothes, but I saw at once +that they were German. + +"I was fortunate in getting my revolver out first, and shot down the +man in advance. There was a struggle, in which the General made his +escape and all of the eight were either killed or taken prisoners. +They were uhlans, two officers and six privates." + +"It was very brave," I said. "A remarkable exploit." + +"Very brave indeed," he agreed with me. "They are all very brave, the +Germans." + +Captain F---- had been again consulting his map. Now he put it away. + +"Brave but brutal," he said briefly. "I am of the Third Division. I +have watched the German advance protected by women and children. In +the fighting the civilians fell first. They had no weapons. It was +terrible. It is the German system," he went on, "which makes +everything of the end, and nothing at all of the means. It is seen in +the way they have sacrificed their own troops." + +"They think you are equally brutal," I said. "The German soldiers +believe that they will have their eyes torn out if they are captured." + +I cited a case I knew of, where a wounded German had hidden in the +inundation for five days rather than surrender to the horrors he +thought were waiting for him. When he was found and taken to a +hospital his long days in the water had brought on gangrene and he +could not be saved. + +"They have been told that to make them fight more savagely," was the +comment. "What about the official German order for a campaign of +'frightfulness' in Belgium?" + +And here, even while the car is crawling along toward the trenches, +perhaps it is allowable to explain the word "frightfulness," which now +so permeates the literature of the war. Following the scenes of the +German invasion into Belgium, where here and there some maddened +civilian fired on the German troops and precipitated the deaths of his +townsmen,[C] Berlin issued, on August twenty-seventh, a declaration, +of which this paragraph is a part: + +[Footnote C: The Belgians contend that, in almost every case, such +firing by civilians was the result of attack on their women.] + +"The only means of preventing surprise attacks from the civil +population has been to interfere with unrelenting severity and to +create examples which, by their frightfulness, would be a warning to +the whole country." + +A Belgian officer once quoted it to me, with a comment. + +"This is not an order to the army. It is an attempt at justification +for the very acts which Berlin is now attempting to deny!" + +That is how "frightfulness" came into the literature of the war. + +Captain F---- stopped the car. Near the road was a ruin of an old +church. + +"In that church," he said, "our soldiers were sleeping when the +Germans, evidently informed by a spy, began to shell it. The first +shot smashed that house there, twenty-five yards away; the second shot +came through the roof and struck one of the supporting pillars, +bringing the roof down. Forty-six men were killed and one hundred and +nine wounded." + +He showed me the grave from a window of the car, a great grave in +front of the church, with a wooden cross on it. It was too dark to +read the inscription, but he told me what it said: + +"Here lie forty-six _chasseurs_." Beneath are the names, one below the +other in two columns, and underneath all: "_Morts pour la Patrie_." + +We continued to advance. Our lamps were out, but the _fusées_ made +progress easy. And there was the moon. We had left behind us the lines +of the silent men. The scene was empty, desolate. Suddenly we stopped +by a low brick house, a one-story building with overhanging eaves. +Sentries with carbines stood under the eaves, flattened against the +wall for shelter from the biting wind. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AT THE HOUSE OF THE BARRIER + + +A narrow path led up to the house. It was flanked on both sides by +barbed wire, and progress through it was slow. The wind caught my rain +cape and tore it against the barbs. I had to be disentangled. The +sentries saluted, and the low door, through which the officers were +obliged to stoop to enter, was opened by an orderly from within. + +We entered The House of the Mill of Saint ----. + +The House of the Mill of Saint ---- was less pretentious than its +name. Even at its best it could not have been imposing. Now, partially +destroyed and with its windows carefully screened inside by grain +sacks nailed to the frames for fear of a betraying ray of light, it +was not beautiful. But it was hospitable. A hanging lamp in its one +livable room, a great iron stove, red and comforting, and a large +round table under the lamp made it habitable and inviting. It was +Belgian artillery headquarters, and I was to meet here Colonel +Jacques, one of the military idols of Belgium, the hero of the Congo, +and now in charge of Belgian batteries. In addition, since it was +midnight, we were to sup here. + +We were expected, and Colonel Jacques himself waited inside the +living-room door. A tall man, as are almost all the Belgian +officers--which is curious, considering that the troops seem to be +rather under average size--he greeted us cordially. I fancied that +behind his urbanity there was the glimmer of an amused smile. But his +courtesy was beautiful. He put me near the fire and took the next +chair himself. + +I had a good chance to observe him. He is no longer a young man, and +beyond a certain military erectness and precision in his movements +there is nothing to mark him the great soldier he has shown himself to +be. + +"We are to have supper," he said smilingly in French. "Provided you +have brought something to eat with you!" + +"We have brought it," said Captain F----. + +The officers of the staff came in and were formally presented. There +was much clicking of heels, much deep and courteous bowing. Then +Captain F---- produced his box of biscuits, and from a capacious +pocket of his army overcoat a tin of bully beef. The House of the Mill +of Saint ---- contributed a bottle of thin white native wine and, +triumphantly, a glass. There are not many glasses along the front. + +There was cheese too. And at the end of the meal Colonel Jacques, with +great _empressement_, laid before me a cake of sweet chocolate. + +I had to be shown the way to use the bully beef. One of the hard flat +biscuits was split open, spread with butter and then with the beef in +a deep layer. It was quite good, but what with excitement and fatigue +I was not hungry. Everybody ate; everybody talked; and, after asking +my permission, everybody smoked. I sat near the stove and dried my +steaming boots. + +Afterward I remembered that with all the conversation there was very +little noise. Our voices were subdued. Probably we might have cheered +in that closed and barricaded house without danger. But the sense of +the nearness of the enemy was over us all, and the business of war was +not forgotten. There were men who came, took orders and went away. +There were maps on the walls and weapons in every corner. Even the +sacking that covered the windows bespoke caution and danger. + +Here it was too near the front for the usual peasant family huddled +round its stove in the kitchen, and looking with resignation on these +strange occupants of their house. The humble farm buildings outside +were destroyed. + +I looked round the room; a picture or two still hung on the walls, and +a crucifix. There is always a crucifix in these houses. There was a +carbine just beneath this one. + +Inside of one of the picture frames one of the Colonel's medals had +been placed, as if for safety. + +Colonel Jacques sat at the head of the table and beamed at us all. He +has behind him many years of military service. He has been decorated +again and again for bravery. But, perhaps, when this war is over and +he has time to look back he will smile over that night supper with the +first woman he had seen for months, under the rumble of his own and +the German batteries. + +It was time to go to the advance trenches. But before we left one of +the officers who had accompanied me rose and took a folded paper from +a pocket of his tunic. He was smiling. + +"I shall read," he said, "a little tribute from one of Colonel +Jacques' soldiers to him." + +So we listened. Colonel Jacques sat and smiled; but he is a modest +man, and his fingers were beating a nervous tattoo on the table. The +young officer stood and read, glancing up now and then to smile at his +chief's embarrassment. The wind howled outside, setting the sacks at +the windows to vibrating. + +This is a part of the poem: + + _III_ + + "_Comme chef nous avons l'homme à la hauteur + Un homme aimé et adoré de tous + L'Colonel Jacques; de lui les hommes sont fous + En lui nous voyons l'emblème de l'honneur. + Des compagnes il en a des tas: En Afrique + Haecht et Dixmude, Ramsdonck et Sart-Tilmau + Et toujours premier et toujours en avant + Toujours en têt' de son beau régiment, + Toujours railleur + Chef au grand coeur_. + + _REFRAIN_ + "_L'Colo du 12me passe + Regardez ce vaillant + Quand il crie dans l'espace + Joyeus'ment 'En avant!' + Ses hommes, la mine heureuse + Gaîment suivent sa trace + Sur la route glorieuse. + Saluez-le, l'Colo du 12me passe_. + + "_AD. DAUVISTER_, + "SOUS-LIEUTENANT." + +We applauded. It is curious to remember how cheerful we were, how warm +and comfortable, there at the House of the Mill of Saint ----, with +war only a step away now. Curious, until we think that, of all the +created world, man is the most adaptable. Men and horses! Which is as +it should be now, with both men and horses finding themselves in +strange places, indeed, and somehow making the best of it. + +The copy of the poem, which had been printed at the front, probably on +an American hand press, was given to me with Colonel Jacques' +signature on the back, and we prepared to go. There was much donning +of heavy wraps, much bowing and handshaking. Colonel Jacques saw us +out into the wind-swept night. Then the door of the little house +closed again, and we were on our way through the barricade. + +Until now our excursion to the trenches, aside from the discomfort of +the weather and the mud, had been fairly safe, although there was +always the chance of a shell. To that now was to be added a fresh +hazard--the sniping that goes on all night long. + +Our car moved quietly for a mile, paralleling the trenches. Then it +stopped. The rest of the journey was to be on foot. + +All traces of the storm had passed, except for the pools of mud, +which, gleaming like small lakes, filled shell holes in the road. An +ammunition lorry had drawn up in the shadow of a hedge and was +cautiously unloading. Evidently the night's movement of troops was +over, for the roads were empty. + +A few feet beyond the lorry we came up to the trenches. We were behind +them, only head and shoulders above. + +There was no sign of life or movement, except for the silent _fusées_ +that burst occasionally a little to our right. Walking was bad. The +Belgian blocks of the road were coated with slippery mud, and from +long use and erosion the stones themselves were rounded, so that our +feet slipped over them. At the right was a shallow ditch three or four +feet wide. Immediately beyond that was the railway embankment where, +as Captain F---- had explained, the Belgian Army had taken up its +position after being driven back across the Yser. + +The embankment loomed shoulder high, and between it and the ditch were +the trenches. There was no sound from them, but sentries halted us +frequently. On such occasions the party stopped abruptly--for here +sentries are apt to fire first and investigate afterward--and one +officer advanced with the password. + +There is always something grim and menacing about the attitude of the +sentry as he waits on such occasions. His carbine is not over his +shoulder, but in his hands, ready for use. The bayonet gleams. His +eyes are fixed watchfully on the advance. A false move, and his +overstrained nerves may send the carbine to his shoulder. + +We walked just behind the trenches in the moonlight for a mile. No one +said anything. The wind was icy. Across the railroad embankment it +chopped the inundation into small crested waves. Only by putting one's +head down was it possible to battle ahead. From Dixmude came the +intermittent red flashes of guns. But the trenches beside us were +entirely silent. + +At the end of a mile we stopped. The road turned abruptly to the right +and crossed the railroad embankment, and at this crossing was the ruin +of what had been the House of the Barrier, where in peaceful times the +crossing tender lived. + +It had been almost destroyed. The side toward the German lines was +indeed a ruin, but one room was fairly whole. However, the door had +been shot away. To enter, it was necessary to lift away an +extemporised one of planks roughly nailed together, which leaned +against the aperture. + +The moving of the door showed more firelight, and a very small, shaded +and smoky lamp on a stand. There were officers here again. The little +house is slightly in front of the advanced trenches, and once inside +it was possible to realise its exposed position. Standing as it does +on the elevation of the railroad, it is constantly under fire. It is +surrounded by barbed wire and flanked by trenches in which are +_mitrailleuses_. + +The walls were full of shell holes, stuffed with sacks of straw or +boarded over. What had been windows were now jagged openings, +similarly closed. The wind came through steadily, smoking the chimney +of the lamp and making the flame flicker. + +There was one chair. + +I wish I could go farther. I wish I could say that shells were +bursting overhead, and that I sat calmly in the one chair and made +notes. I sat, true enough, but I sat because I was tired and my feet +were wet. And instead of making notes I examined my new six-guinea +silk rubber rain cape for barbed-wire tears. Not a shell came near. +The German battery across had ceased firing at dusk that evening, and +was playing pinochle four hundred yards away across the inundation. +The snipers were writing letters home. + +It is true that any time an artilleryman might lose a game and go out +and fire a gun to vent his spleen or to keep his hand in. And the +snipers might begin to notice that the rain was over, and that there +was suspicious activity at the House of the Barrier. And, to take away +the impression of perfect peace, big guns were busy just north and +south of us. Also, just where we were the Germans had made a terrific +charge three nights before to capture an outpost. But the fact remains +that I brought away not even a bullet hole through the crown of my +soft felt hat. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES + + +When I had been thawed out they took me into the trenches. Because of +the inundation directly in front, they are rather shallow, and at this +point were built against the railroad embankment with earth, boards, +and here and there a steel rail from the track. Some of them were +covered, too, but not with bombproof material. The tops were merely +shelters from the rain and biting wind. + +The men lay or sat in them--it was impossible to stand. Some of them +were like tiny houses into which the men crawled from the rear, and by +placing a board, which served as a door, managed to keep out at least +a part of the bitter wind. + +In the first trench I was presented to a bearded major. He was lying +flat and apologised for not being able to rise. There was a machine +gun beside him. He told me with some pride that it was an American +gun, and that it never jammed. When a machine gun jams the man in +charge of it dies and his comrades die, and things happen with great +rapidity. On the other side of him was a cat, curled up and sound +asleep. There was a telephone instrument there. It was necessary to +step over the wire that was stretched along the ground. + +All night long he lies there with his gun, watching for the first +movement in the trenches across. For here, at the House of the +Barrier, has taken place some of the most furious fighting of this +part of the line. + +In the next division of the trench were three men. They were cleaning +and oiling their rifles round a candle. + +The surprise of all of these men at seeing a woman was almost absurd. +Word went down the trenches that a woman was visiting. Heads popped +out and cautious comments were made. It was concluded that I was +visiting royalty, but the excitement died when it was discovered that +I was not the Queen. Now and then, when a trench looked clean and dry, +I was invited in. It was necessary to get down and crawl in on hands +and knees. + +Here was a man warming his hands over a tiny fire kindled in a tin +pail. He had bored holes in the bottom of the pail for air, and was +shielding the glow carefully with his overcoat. + +Many people have written about the trenches--the mud, the odours, the +inhumanity of compelling men to live under such foul conditions. +Nothing that they have said can be too strong. Under the best +conditions the life is ghastly, horrible, impossible. + +That night, when from a semi-shielded position I could look across to +the German line, the contrast between the condition of the men in the +trenches and the beauty of the scenery was appalling. In each +direction, as far as one could see, lay a gleaming lagoon of water. +The moon made a silver path across it, and here and there on its +borders were broken and twisted winter trees. + +"It is beautiful," said Captain F----, beside me, in a low voice. "But +it is full of the dead. They are taken out whenever it is possible; +but it is not often possible." + +"And when there is an attack the attacking side must go through the +water?" + +"Not always, but in many places." + +"What will happen if it freezes over?" + +He explained that it was salt water, and would not freeze easily. And +the cold of that part of the country is not the cold of America in the +same latitude. It is not a cold of low temperature; it is a damp, +penetrating cold that goes through garments of every weight and seems +to chill the very blood in a man's body. + +"How deep is the water?" I asked. + +"It varies--from two to eight feet. Here it is shallow." + +"I should think they would come over." + +"The water is full of barbed wire," he said grimly. "And some, a great +many, have tried--and failed." + +As of the trenches, many have written of the stenches of this war. But +the odour of that beautiful lagoon was horrible. I do not care to +emphasize it. It is one of the things best forgotten. But any +lingering belief I may have had in the grandeur and glory of war died +that night beside that silver lake--died of an odour, and will never +live again. + +And now came a discussion. + +The road crossing the railroad embankment turned sharply to the left +and proceeded in front of the trenches. There was no shelter on that +side of the embankment. The inundation bordered the road, and just +beyond the inundation were the German trenches. + +There were no trees, no shrubbery, no houses; just a flat road, paved +with Belgian blocks, that gleamed in the moonlight. + +At last the decision was made. We would go along the road, provided I +realised from the first that it was dangerous. One or two could walk +there with a good chance for safety, but not more. The little group +had been augmented. It must break up; two might walk together, and +then two a safe distance behind. Four would certainly be fired on. + +I wanted to go. It was not a matter of courage. I had simply, +parrot-fashion, mimicked the attitude of mind of the officers. One +after another I had seen men go into danger with a shrug of the +shoulders. + +"If it comes it comes!" they said, and went on. So I, too, had become +a fatalist. If I was to be shot it would happen, if I had to buy a +rifle and try to clean it myself to fulfil my destiny. + +So they let me go. I went farther than they expected, as it turned +out. There was a great deal of indignation and relief when it was +over. But that is later on. + +A very tall Belgian officer took me in charge. It was necessary to +work through a barbed-wire barricade, twisting and turning through its +mazes. The moonlight helped. It was at once a comfort and an anxiety, +for it seemed to me that my khaki-coloured suit gleamed in it. The +Belgian officers in their dark blue were less conspicuous. I thought +they had an unfair advantage of me, and that it was idiotic of the +British to wear and advocate anything so absurd as khaki. My cape +ballooned like a sail in the wind. I felt at least double my ordinary +size, and that even a sniper with a squint could hardly miss me. And, +by way of comfort, I had one last instruction before I started: + +"If a _fusée_ goes up, stand perfectly still. If you move they will +fire." + +The entire safety of the excursion depended on a sort of tacit +agreement that, in part at least, obtains as to sentries. + +This is a new warfare, one of artillery, supported by infantry in +trenches. And it has been necessary to make new laws for it. One of +the most curious is a sort of _modus vivendi_ by which each side +protects its own sentries by leaving the enemy's sentries unmolested +so long as there is no active fighting. They are always in plain view +before the trenches. In case of a charge they are the first to be +shot, of course. But long nights and days have gone by along certain +parts of the front where the hostile trenches are close together, and +the sentries, keeping their monotonous lookout, have been undisturbed. + +No doubt by this time the situation has changed to a certain extent; +there has been more active fighting, larger bodies of men are +involved. The spring floods south of the inundation will have dried +up. No Man's Land will have ceased to be a swamp and the deadlock may +be broken. + +But on that February night I put my faith in this agreement, and it +held. + +The tall Belgian officer asked me if I was frightened. I said I was +not. This was not exactly the truth; but it was no time for the truth. + +"They are not shooting," I said. "It looks perfectly safe." + +He shrugged his shoulders and glanced toward the German trenches. + +"They have been sleeping during the rain," he said briefly. "But when +one of them wakes up, look out!" + +After that there was little conversation, and what there was was in +whispers. + +As we proceeded the stench from the beautiful moonlit water grew +overpowering. The officer told me the reason. + +A little farther along a path of fascines had been built out over the +inundation to an outpost halfway to the German trenches. The building +of this narrow roadway had cost many lives. + +Half a mile along the road we were sharply challenged by a sentry. +When he had received the password he stood back and let us pass. +Alone, in that bleak and exposed position in front of the trenches, +always in full view as he paced back and forward, carbine on shoulder, +with not even a tree trunk or a hedge for shelter, the first to go at +the whim of some German sniper or at any indication of an attack, he +was a pathetic, almost a tragic, figure. He looked very young too. I +stopped and asked him in a whisper how old he was. + +He said he was nineteen! + +He may have been. I know something about boys, and I think he was +seventeen at the most. There are plenty of boys of that age doing just +what that lad was doing. + +Afterward I learned that it was no part of the original plan to take a +woman over the fascine path to the outpost; that Captain F---- ground +his teeth in impotent rage when he saw where I was being taken. But it +was not possible to call or even to come up to us. So, blithely and +unconsciously the tall Belgian officer and I turned to the right, and +I was innocently on my way to the German trenches. + +After a little I realised that this was rather more war than I had +expected. The fascines were slippery; the path only four or five feet +wide. On each side was the water, hideous with many secrets. + +I stopped, a third of the way out, and looked back. It looked about as +dangerous in one direction as another. So we went on. Once I slipped +and fell. And now, looming out of the moonlight, I could see the +outpost which was the object of our visit. + +I have always been grateful to that Belgian lieutenant for his +mistake. Just how grateful I might have been had anything untoward +happened, I cannot say. But the excursion was worth all the risk, and +more. + +On a bit of high ground stands what was once the tiny hamlet of +Oudstuyvenskerke--the ruins of two small white houses and the tower of +the destroyed church--hardly a tower any more, for only three sides of +it are standing and they are riddled with great shell holes. + +Six hundred feet beyond this tower were the German trenches. The +little island was hardly a hundred feet in its greatest dimension. + +I wish I could make those people who think that war is good for a +country see that Belgian outpost as I saw it that night under the +moonlight. Perhaps we were under suspicion; I do not know. Suddenly +the _fusées_, which had ceased for a time, began again, and with their +white light added to that of the moon the desolate picture of that +tiny island was a picture of the war. There was nothing lacking. There +was the beauty of the moonlit waters, there was the tragedy of the +destroyed houses and the church, and there was the horror of unburied +bodies. + +There was heroism, too, of the kind that will make Belgium live in +history. For in the top of that church tower for months a Capuchin +monk has held his position alone and unrelieved. He has a telephone, +and he gains access to his position in the tower by means of a rope +ladder which he draws up after him. + +Furious fighting has taken place again and again round the base of the +tower. The German shells assail it constantly. But when I left Belgium +the Capuchin monk, who has become a soldier, was still on duty; still +telephoning the ranges of the gun; still notifying headquarters of +German preparations for a charge. + +Some day the church tower will fall and he will go with it, or it will +be captured; one or the other is inevitable. Perhaps it has already +happened; for not long ago I saw in the newspapers that furious +fighting was taking place at this very spot. + +He came down and I talked to him--a little man, regarding his +situation as quite ordinary, and looking quaintly unpriestlike in his +uniform of a Belgian officer with its tasselled cap. Some day a great +story will be written of these priests of Belgium who have left their +churches to fight. + +We spoke in whispers. There was after all very little to say. It would +have embarrassed him horribly had any one told him that he was a +heroic figure. And the ordinary small talk is not currency in such a +situation. + +We shook hands and I think I wished him luck. Then he went back again +to the long hours and days of waiting. + +I passed under his telephone wires. Some day he will telephone that a +charge is coming. He will give all the particulars calmly, concisely. +Then the message will break off abruptly. He will have sent his last +warning. For that is the way these men at the advance posts die. + +As we started again I was no longer frightened. Something of his +courage had communicated itself to me, his courage and his philosophy, +perhaps his faith. + +The priest had become a soldier; but he was still a priest in his +heart. For he had buried the German dead in one great grave before the +church, and over them had put the cross of his belief. + +It was rather absurd on the way back over the path of death to be +escorted by a cat. It led the way over the fascines, treading daintily +and cautiously. Perhaps one of the destroyed houses at the outpost had +been its home, and with a cat's fondness for places it remained there, +though everything it knew had gone; though battle and sudden death had +usurped the place of its peaceful fireside, though that very fireside +was become a heap of stone and plaster, open to winds and rain. + +Again and again in destroyed towns I have seen these forlorn cats +stalking about, trying vainly to adjust themselves to new conditions, +cold and hungry and homeless. + +We were challenged repeatedly on the way back. Coming from the +direction we did we were open to suspicion. It was necessary each time +to halt some forty feet from the sentry, who stood with his rifle +pointed at us. Then the officer advanced with the word. + +Back again, then, along the road, past the youthful sentry, past other +sentries, winding through the barbed-wire barricade, and at last, +quite whole, to the House of the Barrier again. We had walked three +miles in front of the Belgian advanced trenches, in full view of the +Germans. There had been no protecting hedge or bank or tree between us +and that ominous line two hundred yards across. And nothing whatever +had happened. + +Captain F---- was indignant. The officers in the House of the Barrier +held up their hands. For men such a risk was legitimate, necessary. In +a woman it was foolhardy. Nevertheless, now that it was safely over, +they were keenly interested and rather amused. But I have learned that +the gallant captain and the officer with him had arranged, in case +shooting began, to jump into the water, and by splashing about draw +the fire in their direction! + +We went back to the automobile, a long walk over the shell-eaten roads +in the teeth of a biting wind. But a glow of exultation kept me warm. +I had been to the front. I had been far beyond the front, indeed, and +I had seen such a picture of war and its desolation there in the +centre of No Man's Land as perhaps no one not connected with an army +had seen before; such a picture as would live in my mind forever. + +I visited other advanced trenches that night as we followed the +Belgian lines slowly northward toward Nieuport. + +Save the varying conditions of discomfort, they were all similar. +Always they were behind the railroad embankment. Always they were +dirty and cold. Frequently they were full of mud and water. To reach +them one waded through swamps and pools. Just beyond them there was +always the moonlit stretch of water, now narrow, now wide. + +I was to see other trenches later on, French and English. But only +along the inundation was there that curious combination of beauty and +hideousness, of rippling water with the moonlight across it in a +silver path, and in that water things that had been men. + +In one place a cow and a pig were standing on ground a little bit +raised. They had been there for weeks between the two armies. Neither +side would shoot them, in the hope of some time obtaining them for +food. + +They looked peaceful, rather absurd. + +Now so near that one felt like whispering, and now a quarter of a mile +away, were the German trenches. We moved under their _fusées_, passing +destroyed towns where shell holes have become vast graves. + +One such town was most impressive. It had been a very beautiful town, +rather larger than the others. At the foot of the main street ran the +railroad embankment and the line of trenches. There was not a house +left. + +It had been, but a day or two before, the scene of a street fight, +when the Germans, swarming across the inundation, had captured the +trenches at the railroad and got into the town itself. + +At the intersection of two streets, in a shell hole, twenty bodies had +been thrown for burial. But that was not novel or new. Shell-hole +graves and destroyed houses were nothing. The thing I shall never +forget is the cemetery round the great church. + +Continental cemeteries are always crowded. They are old, and graves +almost touch one another. The crosses which mark them stand like rows +of men in close formation. + +This cemetery had been shelled. There was not a cross in place; they +lay flung about in every grotesque position. The quiet God's Acre had +become a hell. Graves were uncovered; the dust of centuries exposed. +In one the cross had been lifted up by an explosion and had settled +back again upside down, so that the Christ was inverted. + +It was curious to stand in that chaos of destruction, that ribald +havoc, that desecration of all we think of as sacred, and see, +stretched from one broken tombstone to another, the telephone wires +that connect the trenches at the foot of the street with headquarters +and with the "château." + +Ninety-six German soldiers had been buried in one shell hole in that +cemetery. Close beside it there was another, a great gaping wound in +the earth, half full of water from the evening's rain. + +An officer beside me looked down into it. + +"See," he said, "they dig their own graves!" + +It was almost morning. The automobile left the pathetic ruin of the +town and turned back toward the "château." There was no talking; a +sort of heaviness of spirit lay on us all. The officers were seeing +again the destruction of their country through my shocked eyes. We +were tired and cold, and I was heartsick. + +A long drive through the dawn, and then the "château." + +The officers were still up, waiting. They had prepared, against our +arrival, sandwiches and hot drinks. + +The American typewriters in the next room clicked and rattled. At the +telephone board messages were coming in from the very places we had +just left--from the instrument at the major's elbow as he lay in his +trench beside the House of the Barrier; from the priest who had left +his cell and become a soldier; from that desecrated and ruined +graveyard with its gaping shell holes that waited, open-mouthed, +for--what? + +When we had eaten, Captain F---- rose and made a little speech. It was +simply done, in the words of a soldier and a patriot speaking out of a +full heart. + +"You have seen to-night a part of what is happening to our country," +he said. "You have seen what the invading hosts of Germany have made +us suffer. But you have seen more than that. You have seen that the +Belgian Army still exists; that it is still fighting and will continue +to fight. The men in those trenches fought at Liège, at Louvain, at +Antwerp, at the Yser. They will fight as long as there is a drop of +Belgian blood to shed. + +"Beyond the enemy's trenches lies our country, devastated; our +national life destroyed; our people under the iron heel of Germany. +But Belgium lives. Tell America, tell the world, that destroyed, +injured as she is, Belgium lives and will rise again, greater than +before!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +"WIPERS" + + +FROM MY JOURNAL: + +An aëroplane man at the next table starts to-night on a dangerous +scouting expedition over the German lines. In case he does not return +he has given a letter for his mother to Captain T----. + +It now appears quite certain that I am to be sent along the French and +English lines. I shall be the first correspondent, I am told, to see +the British front, as "Eyewitness," who writes for the English papers, +is supposed to be a British officer. + +I have had word also that I am to see Mr. Winston Churchill, the First +Lord of the British Admiralty. But to-day I am going to Ypres. The +Tommies call it "Wipers." + + * * * * * + +Before I went abroad I had two ambitions among others: One was to be +able to pronounce Ypres; the other was to bring home and exhibit to my +admiring friends the pronunciation of Przemysl. To a moderate extent I +have succeeded with the first. I have discovered that the second one +must be born to. + +Two or three towns have stood out as conspicuous points of activity in +the western field. Ypres is one of these towns. Day by day it figures +in the reports from the front. The French are there, and just to the +east the English line commences.[D] The line of trenches lies beyond +the town, forming a semicircle round it. + +[Footnote D: Written in May, 1915.] + +A few days later I saw this semicircle, the flat and muddy battlefield +of Ypres. But on this visit I was to see only the town, which, +although completely destroyed, was still being shelled. + +The curve round the town gave the invading army a great advantage in +its destruction. It enabled them to shell it from three directions, so +that it was raked by cross fire. For that reason the town of Ypres +presents one of the most hideous pictures of desolation of the present +war. + +General M---- had agreed to take me to Ypres. But as he was a Belgian +general, and the town of Ypres is held by the French, it was a part of +the etiquette of war that we should secure the escort of a French +officer at the town of Poperinghe. + +For war has its etiquette, and of a most exacting kind. And yet in the +end it simplifies things. It is to war what rules are to +bridge--something to lead by! Frequently I was armed with passes to +visit, for instance, certain batteries. My escort was generally a +member of the Headquarters' Staff of that particular army. But it was +always necessary to visit first the officer in command of that +battery, who in his turn either accompanied us to the battlefield or +deputised one of his own staff. The result was an imposing number of +uniforms of various sorts, and the conviction, as I learned, among the +gunners that some visiting royalty was on an excursion to the front! + +It was a cold winter day in February, a grey day with a fine snow that +melted as soon as it touched the ground. Inside the car we were +swathed in rugs. The chauffeur slapped his hands at every break in the +journey, and sentries along the road hugged such shelter as they could +find. + +As we left Poperinghe the French officer, Commandant D----, pointed to +a file of men plodding wearily through the mud. + +"The heroes of last night's attack," he said. "They are very tired, as +you see." + +We stopped the car and let the men file past. They did not look like +heroes; they looked tired and dirty and depressed. Although our +automobile generally attracted much attention, scarcely a man lifted +his head to glance at us. They went on drearily through the mud under +the pelting sleet, drooping from fatigue and evidently suffering from +keen reaction after the excitement of the night before. + +I have heard the French soldier criticised for this reaction. It may +certainly be forgiven him, in view of his splendid bravery. But part +of the criticism is doubtless justified. The English Tommy fights as +he does everything else. There is a certain sporting element in what +he does. He puts into his fighting the same fairness he puts into +sport, and it is a point of honour with him to keep cool. The English +gunner will admire the enemy's marksmanship while he is ducking a +shell. + +The French soldier, on the other hand, fights under keen excitement. +He is temperamental, imaginative; as he fights he remembers all the +bitterness of the past, its wrongs, its cruelties. He sees blood. +There is nothing that will hold him back. The result has made history, +is making history to-day. + +But he has the reaction of his temperament. Who shall say he is not +entitled to it? + +Something of this I mentioned to Monsieur le Commandant as the line +filed past. + +"It is because it is fighting that gets nowhere," he replied. "If our +men, after such an attack, could advance, could do anything but crawl +back into holes full of water and mud, you would see them gay and +smiling to-day." + +After a time I discovered that the same situation holds to a certain +extent in all the armies. If his fighting gets him anywhere the +soldier is content. The line has made a gain. What matter wet +trenches, discomfort, freezing cold? The line has made a gain. It is +lack of movement that sends their spirits down, the fearful boredom of +the trenches, varied only by the dropping shells, so that they term +themselves, ironically, "Cannon food." + +We left the victorious company behind, making their way toward +whatever church bedded down with straw, or coach-house or drafty barn +was to house them for their rest period. + +"They have been fighting waist-deep in water," said the Commandant, +"and last night was cold. The British soldier rubs his body with oil +and grease before he dresses for the trenches. I hope that before long +our men may do this also. It is a great protection." + +I have in front of me now a German soldier's fatigue cap, taken by one +of those men from a dead soldier who lay in front of the trench. + +It is a pathetic cap, still bearing the crease which showed how he +folded it to thrust it into his pocket. When his helmet irked him in +the trenches he was allowed to take it <off and put this on. He +belonged to Bavarian Regiment Number Fifteen, and the cap was given +him in October, 1914. There is a blood-stain on one side of it. Also +it is spotted with mud inside and out. It is a pathetic little cap, +because when its owner died, that night before, a thousand other +Germans died with him, died to gain a trench two hundred yards from +their own line, a trench to capture which would have gained them +little but glory, and which, since they failed, lost them everything, +even life itself. + +We were out of the town by this time, and started on the road to +Ypres. Between Poperinghe and Ypres were numerous small villages with +narrow, twisting streets. They were filled with soldiers at rest, with +tethered horses being re-shod by army blacksmiths, with small fires in +sheltered corners on which an anxious cook had balanced a kettle. + +In each town a proclamation had been nailed to a wall and the +townspeople stood about it, gaping. + +"An inoculation proclamation," explained the Commandant. "There is +typhoid here, so the civilians are to be inoculated. They are very +much excited about it. It appears to them worse than a bombardment." + +We passed a file of Spahis, native Algerians who speak Arabic. They +come from Tunis and Algeria, and, as may be imagined, they were +suffering bitterly from the cold. + +They peered at us with bright, black eyes from the encircling folds of +the great cloaks with pointed hoods which they had drawn closely about +them. They have French officers and interpreters, and during the +spring fighting they probably proved very valuable. During the winter +they gave me the impression of being out of place and rather forlorn. +Like the Indian troops with the British, they were fighting a new +warfare. For gallant charges over dry desert sands had been +substituted mud and mist and bitter cold, and the stagnation of +armies. + +Terrible tales have been told of the ferocity of these Arabs, and of +the Turcos also. I am inclined to think they are exaggerated. But +certainly, met with on a lonely road, these long files of men in their +quaint costumes moving silently along with heads lowered against the +wind were sombre, impressive and rather alarming. + +The car, going furiously, skidded, was pulled sharply round and +righted itself. The conversation went on. No one appeared to notice +that we had been on the edge of eternity, and it was not for me to +mention it. But I made a jerky entry in my notebook: + +"Very casual here about human life. Enlarge on this." + +The general, who was a Belgian, continued his complaint. It was about +the Belgian absentee tax. + +The Germans now in control in Belgium had imposed an absentee tax of +ten times the normal on all Belgians who had left the country and did +not return by the fifteenth of March. The general snorted his rage and +disgust. + +"But," I said innocently, "I should think it would make very little +difference to you. You are not there, so of course you cannot pay it." + +"Not there!" he said. "Of course I am not there. But everything I own +in the world is there, except this uniform that I have on my back." + +"They would confiscate it?" I asked. "Not the uniform, of course; I +mean your property." + +He broke into a torrent of rapid French. I felt quite sure that he was +saying that they would confiscate it; that they would annihilate it, +reduce it to its atomic constituents; take it, acres and buildings and +shade trees and vegetable garden, back to Germany. But as his French +was of the ninety horse-power variety and mine travels afoot, like +Bayard Taylor, and limps at that, I never caught up with him. + +Later on, in a calmer moment, I had the thing explained to me. + +It appears that the Germans have instituted a tax on all the Belgian +refugees of ten times the normal tax; the purpose being to bring back +into Belgium such refugees as wish to save the remnants of their +property. This will mean bringing back people of the better class who +have property to save. It will mean to the far-seeing German mind a +return of the better class of Belgians to reorganise things, to put +that prostrate country on its feet again, to get the poorer classes to +work, to make it self-supporting. + +"The real purpose, of course," said my informant, "is so that American +sympathy, now so potent, will cease for both refugees and interned +Belgians. If the factories start, and there is work for them, and the +refugees still refuse to return, you can see what it means." + +He may be right; I do not think so. I believe that at this moment +Germany regards Belgium as a new but integral part of the German +Empire, and that she wishes to see this new waste land of hers +productive. Assuredly Germany has made a serious effort to reorganise +and open again some of the great Belgian factories that are now idle. + +In one instance that I know of a manufacturer was offered a large +guarantee to come back and put his factory into operation again. He +refused, although he knew that it spelled ruin. The Germans, unable +themselves at this time to put skilled labour in his mill, sent its +great machines by railroad back into Germany. I have been told that +this has happened in a number of instances. Certainly it sounds +entirely probable. + +The factory owner in question is in America at the time I am writing +this, obtaining credit and new machines against the time of the +retirement of the German Army. + +From the tax the conversation went on to the finances of Belgium. I +learned that the British Government, through the Bank of England, is +guaranteeing the payment of the Belgian war indemnity to Germany! The +war indemnity is over nineteen million pounds, or approximately +ninety-six millions of dollars. Of this the Belgian authorities are +instructed to pay over nine million dollars each month. + +The Société Générale de Belgique has been obliged by the German +Government to accept the power of issuing notes, on a strict +understanding that it must guarantee the note issue on the gold +reserve and foreign bill book, which is at present deposited in the +Bank of England at London. If the Société Générale de Belgique had not +done so, all notes of the Bank of Belgium would have been declared +valueless by Germany. + +A very prominent Englishman, married to a Belgian lady, told me a +story about this gold reserve which is amusing enough to repeat, and +which has a certain appearance of truth. + +When the Germans took possession of Brussels, he said, their first +move was to send certain officers to the great Brussels Bank, in whose +vaults the gold reserve was kept. The word had been sent ahead that +they were coming, and demanding that certain high officials of the +bank were to be present. + +The officials went to the bank, and the German officers presented +themselves promptly. + +The conversation was brief. + +"Take us to the vaults," said one of the German officers. + +"To the vaults?" said the principal official of the bank. + +"To the vaults," was the curt reply. + +"I am not the vault keeper. We shall have to send for him." + +The bank official was most courteous, quite bland, indeed. The officer +scowled, but there was nothing to do but wait. + +The vault keeper was sent for. It took some time to find him. + +The bank official commented on the weather, which was, he considered, +extremely warm. + +At last the vault keeper came. He was quite breathless. But it seemed +that, not knowing why he came, he had neglected to bring his keys. The +bank official regretted the delay. The officers stamped about. + +"It looks like a shower," said the bank official. "Later in the day it +may be cooler." + +The officers muttered among themselves. + +It took the vault keeper a long time to get his keys and return, but +at last he arrived. They went down and down, through innumerable doors +that must be unlocked before them, through gratings and more steel +doors. And at last they stood in the vaults. + +The German officers stared about and then turned to the Belgian +official. + +"The gold!" they said furiously. "Where is the gold?" + +"The gold!" said the official, much surprised. "You wished to see the +gold? I am sorry. You asked for the vaults and I have shown you the +vaults. The gold, of course, is in England." + +We sped on, the same flat country, the same grey fields, the same +files of soldiers moving across those fields toward distant billets, +the same transports and ambulances, and over all the same colourless +sky. + +Not very long ago some inquiring British scientist discovered that on +foggy days in London the efficiency of the average clerk was cut down +about fifty per cent. One begins to wonder how much of this winter +_impasse_ is due to the weather, and what the bright and active days +of early spring will bring. Certainly the weather that day weighed on +me. It was easier to look out through the window of the car than to +get out and investigate. The penetrating cold dulled our spirits. + +A great lorry had gone into the mud at the side of the road and was +being dug out. A horse neatly disembowelled lay on its back in the +road, its four stark legs pointed upward. + +"They have been firing at a German _Taube_," said the Commandant, "and +naturally what goes up must come down." + +On the way back we saw the same horse. It was dark by that time, and +some peasants had gathered round the carcass with a lantern. The hide +had been cut away and lay at one side, and the peasants were carving +the animal into steaks and roasts. For once fate had been good to +them. They would dine that night. + +Everywhere here and there along the road we had passed the small sheds +that sentries built to protect themselves against the wind, little +huts the size of an American patrol box, built of the branches of +trees and thatched all about with straw. + +Now we passed one larger than the others, a shed with the roof +thatched and the sides plastered with mud to keep out the cold. + +The Commandant halted the car. There was one bare little room with a +wooden bench and a door. The bench and the door had just played their +part in a tragedy. + +I have been asked again and again whether it is true that on both +sides of the line disheartened soldiers have committed suicide during +this long winter of waiting. I have always replied that I do not know. +On the Allied side it is thought that many Germans have done so; I +daresay the Germans make the same contention. This one instance is +perfectly true. But it was the result of an accident, not of +discouragement. + +The sentry was alone in his hut, and he was cleaning his gun. For a +certain length of time he would be alone. In some way the gun exploded +and blew off his right hand. There was no one to call on for help. He +waited quite a while. It was night. Nobody came; he was suffering +frightfully. + +Perhaps, sitting there alone, he tried to think out what life would be +without a right hand. In the end he decided that it was not worth +while. But he could not pull the trigger of his gun with his left +hand. He tried it and failed. So at last he tied a stout cord to the +trigger, fastened the end of it to the door, and sitting on the bench +kicked the door to. They had just taken him away. + +Just back of Ypres there is a group of buildings that had been a great +lunatic asylum. It is now a hospital for civilians, although it is +partially destroyed. + +"During the evacuation of the town," said the Commandant, "it was +decided that the inmates must be taken out. The asylum had been hit +once and shells were falling in every direction. So the nuns dressed +their patients and started to march them back along the route to the +nearest town. Shells were falling all about them; the nuns tried to +hurry them, but as each shell fell or exploded close at hand the +lunatics cheered and clapped their hands. They could hardly get them +away at all; they wanted to stay and see the excitement." + +That is a picture, if you like. It was a very large asylum, containing +hundreds of patients. The nuns could not hurry them. They stood in the +roads, faces upturned to the sky, where death was whining its shrill +cry overhead. When a shell dropped into the road, or into the familiar +fields about them, tearing great holes, flinging earth and rocks in +every direction, they cheered. They blocked the roads, so that gunners +with badly needed guns could not get by. And behind and all round them +the nuns urged them on in vain. Some of them were killed, I believe. +All about great holes in fields and road tell the story of the hell +that beat about them. + +Here behind the town one sees fields of graves marked each with a +simple wooden cross. Here and there a soldier's cap has been nailed to +the cross. + +The officers told me that in various places the French peasants had +placed the dead soldier's number and identifying data in a bottle and +placed it on the grave. But I did not see this myself. + +Unlike American towns, there is no gradual approach to these cities of +Northern France; no straggling line of suburbs. Many of them were laid +out at a time when walled cities rose from the plain, and although the +walls are gone the tradition of compactness for protection still holds +good. So one moment we were riding through the shell-holed fields of +Northern France and the next we were in the city of Ypres. + +At the time of my visit few civilians had seen the city of Ypres since +its destruction. I am not sure that any had been there. I have seen no +description of it, and I have been asked frequently if it is really +true that the beautiful Cloth Hall is gone--that most famous of all +the famous buildings of Flanders. + +Ypres! + +What a tragedy! Not a city now; hardly a skeleton of a city. Rumour is +correct, for the wonderful Cloth Hall is gone. There is a fragment +left of the façade, but no repairing can ever restore it. It must all +come down. Indeed, any storm may finish its destruction. The massive +square belfry, two hundred and thirty feet high and topped by its four +turrets, is a shell swaying in every gust of wind. + +The inimitable arcade at the end is quite gone. Nothing indeed is left +of either the Cloth Hall, which, built in the year 1200, was the most +remarkable edifice of Belgium, or of the Cathedral behind it, erected +in 1300 to succeed an earlier edifice. General M---- stood by me as I +stared at the ruins of these two great buildings. Something of the +tragedy of Belgium was in his face. + +"We were very proud of it," he said. "If we started now to build +another it would take more than seven hundred years to give it +history." + +There were shells overhead. But they passed harmlessly, falling either +into the open country or into distant parts of the town. We paid no +attention to them, but my curiosity was roused. + +"It seems absurd to continue shelling the town," I said. "There is +nothing left." + +Then and there I had a lesson in the new warfare. Bombardment of the +country behind the enemy's trenches is not necessarily to destroy +towns. Its strategical purpose, I was told, is to cut off +communications, to prevent, if possible, the bringing up of reserve +troops and transport wagons, to destroy ammunition trains. I was new +to war, with everything to learn. This perfectly practical explanation +had not occurred to me. + +"But how do they know when an ammunition train is coming?" I asked. + +"There are different methods. Spies, of course, always. And aëroplanes +also." + +"But an ammunition train moves." + +It was necessary then to explain the various methods by which +aëroplanes signal, giving ranges and locations. I have seen since that +time the charts carried by aviators and airship crews, in which every +hedge, every ditch, every small detail of the landscape is carefully +marked. In the maps I have seen the region is divided into lettered +squares, each square made up of four small squares, numbered. Thus B 3 +means the third block of the B division, and so on. By wireless or in +other ways the message is sent to the batteries, and B 3, along which +an ammunition train is moving, suddenly finds itself under fire. Thus +ended the second lesson! + +An ammunition train, having safely escaped B 3 and all the other +terrors that are spread for such as it, rumbled by, going through the +Square. The very vibration of its wheels as they rattled along the +street set parts of the old building to shaking. Stones fell. It was +not safe to stand near the belfry. + +Up to this time I had found a certain philosophy among the French and +Belgian officers as to the destruction of their towns. Not of Louvain, +of course, or those earlier towns destroyed during the German +invasion, but of the bombardment which is taking place now along the +battle line. But here I encountered furious resentment. + +There is nothing whatever left of the city for several blocks in each +direction round the Cloth Hall. At the time it was destroyed the army +of the Allies was five miles in advance of the town. The shells went +over their heads for days, weeks. + +So accurate is modern gunnery that given a chart of a city the gunner +can drop a shell within a few yards of any desired spot. The Germans +had a chart of Ypres. They might have saved the Cloth Hall, as they +did save the Cathedral at Antwerp. But they were furious with thwarted +ambition--the onward drive had been checked. Instead of attempting to +save the Cloth Hall they focussed all their fire on it. There was +nothing to gain by this wanton destruction. + +It is a little difficult in America, where great structures are a +matter of steel and stone erected in a year or so, to understand what +its wonderful old buildings meant to Flanders. In a way they typified +its history, certainly its art. The American likes to have his art in +his home; he buys great paintings and puts them on the walls. He +covers his floors with the entire art of a nomadic people. But on the +Continent the method is different. They have built their art into +their buildings; their great paintings are in churches or in +structures like the Cloth Hall. Their homes are comparatively +unadorned, purely places for living. All that they prize they have +stored, open to the world, in their historic buildings. It is for that +reason that the destruction of the Cloth Hall of Ypres is a matter of +personal resentment to each individual of the nation to which it +belonged. So I watched the faces of the two officers with me. There +could be no question as to their attitude. It was a personal loss they +had suffered. The loss of their homes they had accepted stoically. But +this was much more. It was the loss of their art, their history, their +tradition. And it could not be replaced. + +The firing was steady, unemotional. + +As the wind died down we ventured into the ruins of the Cloth Hall +itself. The roof is gone, of course. The building took fire from the +bombardment, and what the shells did not destroy the fire did. Melted +lead from ancient gutters hung in stalactites. In one place a wall was +still standing, with a bit of its mural decoration. I picked up a bit +of fallen gargoyle from under the fallen tower and brought it away. It +is before me now. + +It is seven hundred and fifteen years since that gargoyle was lifted +into its place. The Crusades were going on about that time; the robber +barons were sallying out onto the plains on their raiding excursions. +The Norman Conquest had taken place. From this very town of Ypres had +gone across the Channel "workmen and artisans to build churches and +feudal castles, weavers and workers of many crafts." + +In those days the Yperlée, a small river, ran open through the town. +But for many generations it has been roofed over and run under the +public square. + +It was curious to stand on the edge of a great shell hole and look +down at the little river, now uncovered to the light of day for the +first time in who knows how long. + +In all that chaos, with hardly a wall intact, at the corner of what +was once the cathedral, stood a heroic marble figure of Burgomaster +Vandenpeereboom. It was quite untouched and as placid as the little +river, a benevolent figure rising from the ruins of war. + +"They have come like a pestilence," said the General. "When they go +they will leave nothing. What they will do is written in what they +have done." + +Monsieur le Commandant had disappeared. Now he returned triumphant, +carrying a great bundle in both arms. + +"I have been to what was the house of a relative," he explained. "He +has told me that in the cellar I would find these. They will interest +you." + +"These" proved to be five framed photographs of the great paintings +that had decorated the walls of the great Cloth Hall. Although they +had been hidden in a cellar, fragments of shell had broken and torn +them. But it was still possible to gain from them a faint idea of the +interior beauty of the old building before its destruction. + +I examined them there in the public square, with a shell every now and +then screeching above but falling harmlessly far away. + +A priest joined us. He told pathetically of watching the destruction +of the Arcade, of seeing one arch after another go down until there +was nothing left. + +"They ate it," said the priest graphically. "A bite at a time." + +We walked through the town. One street after another opened up its +perspective of destruction. The strange antics that shell fire plays +had left doors and lintels standing without buildings, had left intact +here and there pieces of furniture. There was an occasional picture on +an exposed wall; iron street lamps had been twisted into travesties; +whole panes of glass remained in façades behind which the buildings +were gone. A part of the wooden scaffolding by which repairs were +being made to the old tower of the Cloth Hall hung there uninjured by +either flame or shell. + +On one street all the trees had been cut off as if by one shell, about +ten feet above the ground, but in another, where nothing whatever +remained but piles of stone and mortar, a great elm had apparently not +lost a single branch. + +Much has been written about the desolation of these towns. To get a +picture of it one must realise the solidity with which even the +private houses are built. They are stone, or if not, the walls are of +massive brick coated with plaster. There are no frame buildings; wood +is too expensive for that purpose. It is only in prodigal America that +we can use wood. + +So the destruction of a town there means the destruction of buildings +that have stood for centuries, and would in the normal course of +events have stood for centuries more. + +A few civilians had crept back into the town. As in other places, they +had come back because they had no place else to go. At any time a +shell might destroy the fragment of the building in which they were +trying to reëstablish themselves. There were no shops open, because +there were no shops to open. Supplies had to be brought from long +distances. As all the horses and automobiles had been commandeered by +the government, they had no way to get anything. Their situation was +pitiable, tragic. And over them was the daily, hourly fear that the +German Army would concentrate for its onward drive at some near-by +point. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +LADY DECIES' STORY + + +It was growing dark; the chauffeur was preparing to light the lamps of +the car. Shells were fewer. With the approach of night the activity +behind the lines increased; more ammunition trains made their way over +the débris; regiments prepared for the trenches marched through the +square on their way to the front. + +They were laden, as usual, with extra food and jars of water. Almost +every man had an additional loaf of bread strapped to the knapsack at +his back. They were laughing and talking among themselves, for they +had had a sleep and hot food; for the time at least they were dry and +fed and warm. + +On the way out of the town we passed a small restaurant, one of a row +of houses. It was the only undestroyed building I saw in Ypres. + +"It is the only house," said the General, "where the inhabitants +remained during the entire bombardment. They made coffee for the +soldiers and served meals to officers. Shells hit the pavement and +broke the windows; but the house itself is intact. It is +extraordinary." + +We stopped at the one-time lunatic asylum on our way back. It had been +converted into a hospital for injured civilians, and its long wards +were full of women and children. An English doctor was in charge. + +Some of the buildings had been destroyed, but in the main it had +escaped serious injury. By a curious fatality that seems to have +followed the chapels and churches of Flanders, the chapel was the only +part that was entirely gone. One great shell struck it while it was +housing soldiers, as usual, and all of them were killed. As an example +of the work of one shell the destruction of that building was +enormous. There was little or nothing left. + +"The shell was four feet high," said the Doctor, and presented me with +the nose of it. + +"You may get more at any moment," I said. + +He shrugged his shoulders. "What must be, must be," he said quietly. + +When the bombardment was at its height, he said, they took their +patients to the cellar and continued operating there. They had only a +candle or two. But it was impossible to stop, for the wards were full +of injured women and children. + +I walked through some of the wards. It was the first time I had seen +together so many of the innocent victims of this war--children blind +and forever cut off from the light of day, little girls with arms +gone, women who will never walk again. + +It was twilight. Here and there a candle gleamed, for any bright +illumination was considered unwise. + +What must they think as they lie there during the long dark hours +between twilight and the late winter morning? Like the sentry, many of +them must wonder if it is worth while. These are people, most of them, +who have lived by their labour. What will they do when the war is +over, or when, having made such recovery as they may, the hospital +opens its doors and must perforce turn them out on the very threshold +of war? + +And yet they cling to life. I met a man who crossed the Channel--I +believe it was from Flushing--with the first lot of hopelessly wounded +English prisoners who had been sent home to England from Germany in +exchange for as many wrecked and battered Germans on their way back to +the Fatherland. + +One young boy was all eagerness. His home was on the cliff above the +harbour which was their destination. He alternately wept and cheered. + +"They'll be glad enough to see me, all right," he said. "It's six +months since they heard from me. More than likely they think I'm lying +over there with some of the other chaps." + +He was in a wheeled chair. In his excitement the steamer rug slipped +down. Both his legs were gone above the knees! + +Our hands were full. The General had picked up a horseshoe on the +street at Ypres and given it to me to bring me luck; the Commandant +had the framed pictures. The General carried the gargoyle wrapped in a +newspaper. I had the nose of the shell. + +We walked through the courtyard, with its broken fountain and cracked +walks, out to the machine. The password for the night was "Écosse," +which means "Scotland." The General gave the word to the orderly and +we went on again toward Poperinghe, where we were to have coffee. + +The firing behind us had ceased. Possibly the German gunners were +having coffee also. We went at our usual headlong speed through almost +empty roads. Now and then a lantern waved. We checked our headlong +speed to give the password, and on again. More lanterns; more +challenges. + +Since we passed, a few hours before, another car had been wrecked by +the road. One sees these cars everywhere, lying on their sides, turned +turtle in ditches, bent and twisted against trees. No one seems to be +hurt in these accidents; at least one hears nothing of them, if they +are. And now we were back at Poperinghe again. + +The Commandant had his headquarters in the house of a notary. Except +in one instance, all the houses occupied by the headquarters' staffs +that I visited were the houses of notaries. Perhaps the notary is the +important man of a French town. I do not know. + +This was a double house with a centre hall, a house of some pretension +in many ways. But it had only one lamp. When we went from one room to +another we took the lamp with us. It was not even a handsome lamp. In +that very comfortable house it was one of the many anomalies of war. + +One or two of the best things from the museum at Ypres had been +secured and brought back here. On a centre table was a bronze +equestrian statue in miniature of a Crusader, a beautiful piece of +work. + +While we were waiting for coffee the Commandant opened the lower +drawer of a secretary and took out a letter. + +"This may interest Madame," he said. "I have just received it. It is +from General Leman, the hero of Liège." + +He held it close to the lamp and read it. I have the envelope before +me now. It is addressed in lead pencil and indorsed as coming from +General Leman, Prisoner of War at Magdeburg, Germany. + +The letter was a soldier's simple letter, written to a friend. I wish +I had made a copy of it; but I remember in effect what it said. +Clearly the hero of Liège has no idea that he is a hero. He said he +had a good German doctor, but that he had been very ill. It is known, +of course, that his foot was injured during the destruction of one of +the fortresses just before he was captured. + +"I have a very good German doctor," he wrote. "But my foot gives me a +great deal of trouble. Gangrene set in and part of it had to be +amputated. The wound refuses to heal, and in addition my heart is +bad." + +He goes on to ask for his family, for news of them, especially of his +daughter. I saw this letter in March. He had been taken a prisoner the +previous August. He had then been seven or eight months without news +of his family. + +"I am no longer young," he wrote in effect, for I am not quoting him +exactly, "and I hope my friends will not forget me, in case of an +exchange of prisoners." + +He will never be forgotten. But of course he does not realise that. He +is sixty-four and very ill. One read through all the restraint of the +letter his longing to die among his own people. He hopes he will not +be forgotten in an exchange of prisoners! + +The Commandant's orderly announced that coffee was served, and we +followed the lamp across the hall. An English officer made a fourth at +the table. + +It was good coffee, served with cream, the first I had seen for weeks. +With it the Commandant served small, very thin cakes, with a layer of +honey in the centre. "A specialty of the country," he said. + +We talked of many things: of the attitude of America toward the war, +her incredulity as to atrocities, the German propaganda, and a rumour +that had reached the front of a German-Irish coalition in the House of +Representatives at Washington. + +From that the talk drifted to uniforms. The Commandant wished that the +new French uniforms, instead of being a slaty blue, had been green, +for use in the spring fighting. + +I criticised the new Belgian uniform, which seemed to me much thinner +than the old. + +"That is wrong. It is of excellent cloth," said the General, and +brought his cape up under the lamp for examination. + +The uniforms of three armies were at the table--the French, the +Belgian and the English. It was possible to compare them under the +light of a single lamp. + +The General's cloak, in spite of my criticism, was the heaviest of the +three. But all of them seemed excellent. The material was like felt in +body, but much softer. + +All of the officers were united in thinking khaki an excellent +all-round colour. + +"The Turcos have been put into khaki," said the Commandant. "They +disliked it at first; but their other costumes were too conspicuous. +Now they are satisfied." + +The Englishman offered the statement that England was supplying all of +the Allies, including Russia, with cloth. + +Sitting round the table under the lamp, the Commandant read a postcard +taken from the body of a dead German in the attack the night before. +There was a photograph with it, autographed. The photograph was of the +woman who had written the card. It began "Beloved Otto," and was +signed "Your loving wife, Hedwig." + +This is the postcard: + + "_Beloved Otto_: To-day your dear cards came, so full of anxiety + for us. So that now at last I know that you have received my + letters. I was convinced you had not. We have sent you so many + packages of things you may need. Have you got any of them? To-day I + have sent you my photograph. I wished to send a letter also instead + of this card, but I have no writing paper. All week I have been + busy with the children's clothing. We think of you always, dear + Otto. Write to us often. Greetings from your Hedwig and the + children." + +So she was making clothing for the children and sending him little +packages. And Otto lay dead under the stars that night--dead of an +ideal, which is that a man must leave his family and all that he loves +and follow the beckoning finger of empire. + +"For king and country!" + +The Commandant said that when a German soldier surrenders he throws +down his gun, takes off his helmet and jerks off his shoulder straps, +saying over and over, "_Pater familias_." Sometimes, by way of +emphasising that he is a family man, he holds up his fingers--two +children or three children, whatever it may be. Even boys in their +teens will claim huge families. + +I did not find it amusing after the postcard and the photograph. I +found it all very tragic and sad and disheartening. + +It was growing late and the General was impatient to be off. We had +still a long journey ahead of us, and riding at night was not +particularly safe. + +I got into the car and they bundled in after me the damaged pictures, +the horseshoe, the piece of gargoyle from the Cloth Hall and the nose +of the shell. + +The orderly reported that a Zeppelin had just passed overhead; but the +General shrugged his shoulders. + +"They are always seeing Zeppelins," he said. "Me, I do not believe +there is such a thing!" + + * * * * * + +That night in my hotel, after dinner, Gertrude, Lady Decies, told me +the following story: + +"I had only twelve hours' notice to start for the front. I am not a +hospital nurse, but I have taken for several years three months each +summer of special training. So I felt that I would be useful if I +could get over. + +"It was November and very cold. When I got to Calais there was not a +room to be had anywhere. But at the Hotel Centrale they told me I +might have a bathroom to sleep in. + +"At the last moment a gentleman volunteered to exchange with me. But +the next day he left, so that night I slept in a bathtub with a +mattress in it! + +"The following day I got a train for Dunkirk. On the way the train was +wrecked. Several coaches left the track, and there was nothing to do +but to wait until they were put back on. + +"I went to the British Consul at Dunkirk and asked him where I could +be most useful. He said to go to the railroad station at once. + +"I went to the station. The situation there was horrible. Three +doctors and seven dressers were working on four-hour shifts. + +"As the wounded came in only at night, that was when we were needed. I +worked all night from that time on. My first night we had eleven +hundred men. Some of them were dead when they were lifted out onto the +stone floor of the station shed. One boy flung himself out of the +door. I caught him as he fell and he died in my arms. He had +diphtheria, as well as being wounded. + +"The station was frightfully cold, and the men had to be laid on the +stone floors with just room for moving about between them. There was +no heat of any sort. The dead were laid in rows, one on top of +another, on cattle trucks. As fast as a man died they took his body +away and brought in another wounded man. + +"Every now and then the electric lights would go out and leave us +there in black darkness. Finally we got candles and lamps for +emergencies. + +"We had no surgical dressings, but we had some iodine. The odours were +fearful. Some of the men had not had their clothes off for five weeks. +Their garments were like boards. It was almost impossible to cut +through them. And underneath they were coated with vermin. Their +bodies were black with them frequently. + +"In many cases the wounds were green through lack of attention. One +man, I remember, had fifteen. The first two nights I was there we had +no water, which made it terrible. There was a pump outside, but the +water was bad. At last we had a little stove set up, and I got some +kettles and jugs and boiled the water. + +"We were obliged to throw the bandages in a heap on the floor, and +night after night we walked about in blood. My clothing and stockings +were stained with blood to my knees. + +"After the first five nights I kept no record of the number of +wounded; but the first night we had eleven hundred; the second night, +nine hundred; the third night, seven hundred and fifty; the fourth +night, two thousand; the fifth night, fifteen hundred. + +"The men who were working at the station were English Quakers. They +were splendid men. I have never known more heroic work than they did, +and the curé was a splendid fellow. There was nothing too menial for +him to do. He was everywhere." + + * * * * * + +This is the story she told me that night, in her own words. I have not +revised it. Better than anything I know it tells of conditions as they +actually existed during the hard fighting of the first autumn of the +war, and as in the very nature of things they must exist again +whenever either side undertakes an offensive. + +It becomes a little wearying, sometimes, this constant cry of horrors, +the ever-recurring demands on America's pocketbook for supplies, for +dressings, for money to buy the thousands of things that are needed. + +Read Lady Decies' account again, and try to place your own son on that +stone floor on the station platform. Think of that wounded boy, +sitting for hours in a train, and choking to death with diphtheria. + +This is the thing we call war. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +RUNNING THE BLOCKADE + + +From my journal written during an attack of influenza at the Gare +Maritime in Calais: + +Last night I left England on the first boat to cross the Channel after +the blockade. I left London at midnight, with the usual formality of +being searched by Scotland Yard detectives. The train was empty and +very cold. + +"At half-past two in the morning we reached Folkestone. I was quite +alone, and as I stood shivering on the quay waiting to have my papers +examined a cold wind from the harbour and a thin spray of rain made +the situation wretched. At last I confronted the inspector, and was +told that under the new regulations I should have had my Red Cross +card viséed in Paris. It was given back to me with a shrug, but my +passport was stamped. + +"There were four men round the table. My papers and I were inspected +by each of the four in turn. At last I was through. But to my disgust +I found I was not to be allowed on the Calais boat. There was one +going to Boulogne and carrying passengers, but Calais was closed up +tight, except to troops and officers. + +"I looked at the Boulogne boat. It was well lighted and cheerful. +Those few people who had come down from London on the train were +already settling themselves for the crossing. They were on their way +to Paris and peace. + +"I did not want Paris and certainly I did not want peace. I had +telegraphed to Dunkirk and expected a military car to meet me at +Calais. Once across, I knew I could neither telegraph nor telephone to +Dunkirk, all lines of communication being closed to the public. I felt +that I might be going to be ill. I would not be ill in Boulogne. + +"At the end of the quay, dark and sinister, loomed the Calais boat. I +had one moment of indecision. Then I picked up my suitcase and started +toward it in the rain. Luckily the gangway was out. I boarded the boat +with as much assurance as I could muster, and was at once accosted by +the chief officer. + +"I produced my papers. Some of them were very impressive. There were +letters from the French Ambassador in London, Monsieur Cambon, to +leading French generals. There was a letter to Sir John French and +another letter expediting me through the customs, but unluckily the +customs at Boulogne. + +"They left him cold. I threw myself on his mercy. He apologised, but +continued firm. The Boulogne boat drew in its gangway. I mentioned +this, and that, so to speak, I had burned my Boulogne gangway behind +me. I said I had just had an interview with Mr. Winston Churchill, and +that I felt sure the First Lord of the Admiralty would not approve of +my standing there arguing when I was threatened with influenza. He +acted as though he had never heard of the First Lord. + +"At last he was called away. So I went into a deck cabin, and closed +and bolted the door. I remember that, and that I put a life preserver +over my feet, in case of a submarine, and my fur coat over the rest of +me, because of a chill. And that is all I do remember, until this +morning in a grey, rainy dawn I opened the door to find that we were +entering the harbour of Calais. If the officers of the boat were +surprised to see me emerge they concealed it. No doubt they knew that +with Calais under military law I could hardly slip through the fingers +of the police. + +"This morning I have a mild attack of what the English call 'flu.' I +am still at the hotel in Calais. I have breakfasted to the extent of +hot coffee, have taken three different kinds of influenza remedies, +and am now waiting and aching, but at least I am in France. + +"If the car from Dunkirk does not come for me to-day I shall be +deported to-night. + +"Two torpedo boats are coaling in the harbor. They have two large +white letters which answer for their names. One is the BE; the other +is the ER. As they lie side by side these tall white letters spell +B-E-E-R. + +"I have heard an amusing thing: that the English have built duplicates +of all their great battleships, building them of wood, guns and all, +over the hulls of other vessels; and that the Germans have done the +same thing! What would happen if one of the 'dummy' fleets met the +other? Would it be a battle of expletives? Would the German consonant +triumph over the English aspirate, and both ships go down in a sea of +language? + +"The idea is, of course, to delude submarines into the belief that +they are sinking battleships, while the real dreadnoughts are +somewhere else--pure strategy, but amusing, except for the crews of +these sham war flotillas." + + * * * * * + +The French Ambassador in London had given me letters to the various +generals commanding the divisions of the French Army. + +It was realised that America knew very little of what the French were +doing in this great war. We knew, of course, that they were holding a +tremendous battle line and that they were fighting bravely. Rumours we +had heard of the great destruction done by the French seventy-five +millimetre gun, and the names of numerous towns had become familiar to +us in print, even when we could not pronounce them. The Paris +omnibuses had gone to the front. Paris fashions were late in coming to +us, and showed a military trend. For the first time the average +American knew approximately where and what Alsace-Lorraine is, and +that Paris has forts as well as shops and hotels. + +But what else did we know of France and its part in the war? What does +America generally know of France, outside of Paris? Very little. Since +my return, almost the only question I have been asked about France is: +"Is Paris greatly changed?" + +Yet America owes much to her great sister republic; much encouragement +in the arts, in literature, in research. For France has always +extended a kindly hand and a splendid welcome to gifted and artistic +Americans. But her encouragement neither begins nor ends there. + +It was in France that American statesmen received the support that +enabled them to rear the new republic on strong and sturdy +foundations. It is curious to think of that France of Louis the +Sixteenth, with its every tradition opposed to the democracy for which +America was contending, sending the very flower of her chivalry to +assist the new republic. It is amazing to remember that when France +was in a deplorable condition financially it was yet found possible to +lend America six million dollars, and to exempt us from the payment of +interest for a year. + +And the friendship of France was of the people, not alone of the king, +for it survived the downfall of the monarchy and the rise of the +French Republic. When Benjamin Franklin died the National Assembly at +Paris went into three days' mourning for "the great American." + +As a matter of fact, France's help to America precipitated her own +great crisis. The Declaration of Independence was the spark that set +her ablaze. If the king was right in America he was utterly wrong at +home. Lafayette went back from America convinced that "resistance is +the most sacred of duties." + +The French adopted the American belief that liberty is the object of +government, and liberty of the individual--that very belief which +France is standing for to-day as opposed to the nationalism of +Germany. The Frenchman believes, like the American, that pressure +should be from within out, not from without in. In other words, his +own conscience, and not the arbitrary ruling of an arbitrary +government, is his dictator. To reconcile liberty and democracy, then, +has been France's problem, as it has been that of America. She has +faced the same problems against a handicap that America has not +had--the handicap of a discontented nobility. And by sheer force and +determination France has won. + +It has been said that the French in their Revolution were not reckless +innovators. They were confiding followers. And the star they followed +was the same star which, multiplied by the number of states, is the +American flag to-day--Liberty. + +Because of the many ties between the two countries, I had urged on the +French Ambassador the necessity of letting America know a little more +intimately what was being done by the French in this war. Since that +time a certain relaxation has taken place along all the Allied lines. +Correspondents have been taken out on day excursions and have cabled +to America what they saw. But at the time I visited the French Army of +the North there had been no one there. + +Those Americans who had seen the French soldier in times of peace had +not been greatly impressed. His curious, bent-kneed, slouching step, +so carefully taught him--so different from the stately progress of the +British, for instance, but so effective in covering ground--his loose +trousers and huge pack, all conspire against the _ensemble_ effect of +French soldiers on the march. + +I have seen British regiments at ease, British soldiers at rest and in +their billets. Always they are smart, always they are military. A +French regiment at ease ceases to be a part of a great machine. It +shows, perhaps, more humanity. The men let their muscles sag a bit. +They talk, laugh, sing if they are happy. They lie about in every +attitude of complete relaxation. But at the word they fall in again. +They take up the slack, as it were, and move on again in that +remarkable _pas de flexion_ that is so oddly tireless. It is a +difference of method; probably the best thing for men who are Gallic, +temperamental. A more lethargic army is better governed probably by +rule of thumb. + +I had crossed the Channel again to see the French and English lines. +On my previous visit, which had lasted for several weeks, I had seen +the Belgian Army at the front and the French Army in billets and on +reserve. This time I was to see the French Army in action. + +The first step to that end, getting out of Calais, proved simple +enough. The car came from Dunkirk, and brought passes. I took more +influenza medicine, dressed and packed my bag. There was some little +regret mingled with my farewell to the hotel at the Gare Maritime. I +had had there a private bath, with a porcelain tub. More than that, +the tub had been made in my home city. It was, I knew, my last glimpse +of a porcelain tub, probably of any tub, for some time. There were +bath towels also. I wondered if I would ever see a bath towel again. I +left a cake of soap in that bathroom. I can picture its next occupant +walking in, calm and deliberate, and then his eye suddenly falling on +a cake of soap. I can picture his stare, his incredulity. I can see +him rushing to the corridor and ringing the fire bell and calling the +other guests and the strangers without the gates, and the boot boy in +an apron, to come and see that cake of soap. + +But not the management. They would take it away. + +The car which came for me had been at the front all night. It was +filled inside and out with mud, so that it was necessary to cover the +seat before I got in. Of all the cars I have ever travelled in, this +was the most wrecked. Hardly a foot of the metal body was unbroken by +shell or bullet hole. The wind shield had been torn away. Tatters of +curtain streamed out in the wind. The mud guards were bent and +twisted. Even in that region of wrecked cars people turned to look at +it. + +Calais was very gay that Sunday afternoon. The sun was out. At the end +of the drawbridge a soldier was exercising a captured German horse. + +Officers in scarlet and gold, in pale blue, in green and red, in all +the picturesqueness of a Sunday back from the front, were decked for +the public eye. They walked in groups or singly. There were no women +with them. Their wives and sweethearts were far away. A Sunday in +Calais, indifferent food at a hotel, a saunter in the sunlight, and +then--Monday and war again, with the bright colours replaced by sombre +ones, with mud and evil odours and wretchedness. + +They wandered about, smoking eternal cigarettes and watching the +harbour, where ships were coaling, and where, as my car waited, the +drawbridge opened to allow a great Norwegian merchantman to pass. The +blockade was only two days old, but already this Norwegian boat had +her name painted in letters ten feet high along each side of her hull, +flanked on both sides by the Norwegian flag, also painted. Her crew, +leaning over the side, surveyed the quay curiously. So this was +war--this petulant horse with its soldier rider, these gay uniforms! + +It had been hoped that neutral shipping would, by thus indicating +clearly its nationality, escape the attacks of submarines. That very +ship was sunk three days later in the North Sea. + +Convalescent soldiers limped about on crutches; babies were wheeled in +perambulators in the sun; a group of young aviators in black leather +costumes watched a French biplane flying low. English naval officers +from the coaling boats took shore leave and walked along with the free +English stride. + +There were no guns; everything was gaiety and brightness. But for the +limping soldiers, my own battered machine, and the ominous grey ships +in the harbour, it might have been a carnival. + +In spite of the appearance of the machine it went northeast at an +incredible pace, its dried mud flying off like missiles, through those +French villages, which are so tidy because there is nothing to waste; +where there is just enough and no more--no extra paper, no extra +string, or food, or tin cans, or any of the litter that goes to make +the disorder of a wasteful American town; where paper and string and +tin cans and old boots serve their original purpose and then, in the +course of time, become flower-pots or rag carpets or soup meat, or +heaven knows what; and where, having fulfilled this second destiny, +they go on being useful in feeding chickens, or repairing roads, or +fertilising fields. + +For the first time on this journey I encountered difficulty with the +sentries. My Red Cross card had lost its potency. A new rule had gone +out that even a staff car might not carry a woman. Things looked very +serious for a time. But at last we got through. + +There were many aviators out that bright day, going to the front, +returning, or merely flying about taking the air. Women walked along +the roads wearing bright-coloured silk aprons. Here and there the +sentries had stretched great chains across the road, against which the +car brought up sharply. And then at last Dunkirk again, and the royal +apartment, and a soft bed, and--influenza. + +Two days later I started for the French lines. I packed a small bag, +got out a fresh notebook, and, having received the proper passes, the +start was made early in the morning. An officer was to take me to the +headquarters of the French Army of the North. From there I was to +proceed to British headquarters. + +My previous excursions from Dunkirk had all been made east and +southeast. This new route was south. As far as the town of Bergues we +followed the route by which I had gone to Ypres. Bergues, a little +fortified town, has been at times owned by the French, English, +Spanish and Dutch. + +It is odd, remembering the new alignment of the nations, to see +erected in the public square a monument celebrating the victory of the +French over the English in 1793, a victory which had compelled the +British to raise the siege of Dunkirk. + +South of Bergues there was no sign of war. The peasants rode along the +road in their high, two-wheeled carts with bare iron hoops over the +top, hoops over which canvas is spread in wet weather. + +There were trees again; windmills with their great wings turning +peacefully; walled gardens and wayside shrines; holly climbing over +privet hedges; and rows of pollard willows, their early buds a reddish +brown; and tall Lombardy poplars, yellow-green with spring. + +The road stretched straight ahead, a silver line. Nothing could have +been more peaceful, more unwar-like. Peasants trudged along with heavy +milk cans hanging from wooden neck yokes, chickens flew squawking from +the onslaught of the car. There were sheep here and there. + +"It is forbidden to take or kill a sheep--except in self-defence!" +said the officer. + +And then suddenly we turned into a small town and came on hundreds of +French omnibuses, requisitioned from all parts of France and painted a +dingy grey. + +Out of the town again. The road rose now to Cassel, with its three +windmills in a row on the top of a hill. We drove under an arch of +trees, their trunks covered with moss. On each side of the highway +peasants were ploughing in the mud--old peasants, bent to the plough, +or very young boys, who eyed us without curiosity. + +Still south. But now there were motor ambulances and an occasional +long line of motor lorries. At one place in a village we came on a +great three-ton lorry, driven and manned by English Tommies. They knew +no French and were completely lost in a foreign land. But they were +beautifully calm. They sat on the driving seat and smoked pipes and +derided each other, as in turn they struggled to make their difficulty +known. + +"Bailleul," said the Tommies over and over, but they pronounced it +"Berlue," and the villagers only laughed. + +The officer in the car explained. + +"'Berlue,'" he said, "is--what do you Americans say--dotty? They are +telling the villagers they want to go crazy!" + +So he got out and explained. Also he found out their road for them and +sent them off, rather sheepish, but laughing. + +"I never get over the surprises of this war," said the officer when he +returned. "Think of those boys, with not a word of French, taking that +lorry from the coast to the English lines! They'll get there too. They +always do." + +As we left the flat land toward the coast the country grew more and +more beautiful. It rolled gently and there were many trees. + +The white houses with their low thatched roofs, which ended in a +bordering of red tiles, looked prosperous. But there were soldiers +again. We were approaching the war zone. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE MAN OF YPRES + + +The sun was high when we reached the little town where General Foch, +Commander of the Armies of the North, had his headquarters. It was not +difficult to find the building. The French flag furled at the doorway, +a gendarme at one side of the door and a sentry at the other, denoted +the headquarters of the staff. But General Foch was not there at the +moment. He had gone to church. + +The building was near. Thinking that there might be a service, I +decided to go also. Going up a steep street to where at the top stood +a stone church, with an image of the Christ almost covered by that +virgin vine which we call Virginia creeper, I opened the +leather-covered door and went quietly in. + +There was no service. The building was quite empty. And the Commander +of the Armies of the North, probably the greatest general the French +have in the field to-day, was kneeling there alone. + +He never knew I had seen him. I left before he did. Now, as I look +back, it seems to me that that great general on his knees alone in +that little church is typical of the attitude of France to-day toward +the war. + +It is a totally different attitude from the English--not more heroic, +not braver, not more resolute to an end. But it is peculiarly +reverential. The enemy is on the soil of France. The French are +fighting for their homes, for their children, for their country. And +in this great struggle France daily, hourly, on its knees asks for +help. + +I went to the hotel--an ancient place, very small, very clean, very +cold and shabby. The entrance was through an archway into a +cobble-paved courtyard, where on the left, under the roof of a shed, +the saddles of cavalry horses and gendarmes were waiting on saddle +trestles. Beyond, through a glazed door, was a long dining room, with +a bare, white-scrubbed floor and whitewashed walls. Its white +table-cloths, white walls and ceiling and white floor, with no hint of +fire, although a fine snow had commenced to fall, set me to shivering. +Even the attempt at decoration of hanging baskets, of trailing vines +with strings of red peppers, was hardly cheering. + +From the window a steep, walled garden fell away, dreary enough under +the grey sky and the snowfall. The same curious pale-green moss +covered the trees, and beyond the garden wall, in a field, was a hole +where a German aëroplane had dropped a bomb. + +Hot coffee had been ordered, and we went into a smaller room for it. +Here there was a fire, with four French soldiers gathered round it. +One of them was writing at the table. The others were having their +palms read. + +"You have a heart line," said the palmist to one of them--"a heart +line like a windmill!" + +I drank my coffee and listened. I could understand only a part of it, +but it was eminently cheerful. They laughed, chaffed each other, and +although my presence in the hotel must have caused much curiosity in +that land of no women, they did not stare at me. Indeed, it was I who +did the gazing. + +After a time I was given a room. It was at the end of a whitewashed +corridor, from which pine doors opened on either side into bedrooms. +The corridor was bare of carpet, the whole upstairs freezing cold. +There were none of the amenities. My room was at the end. It boasted +two small windows, with a tiny stand between them containing a tin +basin and a pitcher; a bed with one side of the mattress torn open and +exposing a heterogeneous content that did not bear inspection; a pine +chair, a candle and a stove. + +They called it a stove. It had a coal receptacle that was not as large +as a porridge bowl, and one small lump of coal, pulverized, was all it +held. It was lighted with a handful of straw. Turn your back and count +ten, and it was out. Across the foot of the bed was one of the +Continental feather comforts which cover only one's feet and let the +rest freeze. + +It was not so near the front as La Panne, but the windows rattled +incessantly from the bombardment of Ypres. I glanced through one of +the windows. The red tiles I had grown to know so well were not in +evidence. Most of the roofs were blue, a weathered and mottled blue, +very lovely, but, like everything else about the town, exceedingly +cold to look at. + +Shortly after I had unpacked my few belongings I was presented to +General Foch, not at headquarters, but at the house in which he was +living. He came out himself to meet me, attended by several of his +officers, and asked at once if I had had _déjeuner_. I had not, so he +invited me to lunch with him and with his staff. + +_Déjeuner_ was ready and we went in immediately. A long table had been +laid for fourteen. General Foch took his place at the centre of one of +the long sides, and I was placed in the seat of honour directly +across. As his staff is very large, only a dozen officers dine with +him. The others, juniors in the service, are billeted through the town +and have a separate mess. + +Sitting where I did I had a very good opportunity to see the hero of +Ypres, philosopher, strategist and theorist, whose theories were then +bearing the supreme test of war. + +Erect, and of distinguished appearance, General Foch is a man rather +past middle life, with heavy iron-grey hair, rather bushy grey +eyebrows and a moustache. His eyes are grey and extremely direct. His +speech incisive and rather rapid. + +Although some of the staff had donned the new French uniform of +grey-blue, the general wore the old uniform, navy-blue, the only thing +denoting his rank being the three dull steel stars on the embroidered +sleeve of his tunic. + +There was little ceremony at the meal. The staff remained standing +until General Foch and I were seated. Then they all sat down and +_déjeuner_ was immediately served. + +One of the staff told me later that the general is extremely +punctilious about certain things. The staff is expected to be in the +dining room five minutes before meals are served. A punctual man +himself, he expects others to be punctual. The table must always be +the epitome of neatness, the food well cooked and quietly served. + +Punctuality and neatness no doubt are due to his long military +training, for General Foch has always been a soldier. Many of the +officers of France owe their knowledge of strategy and tactics to his +teaching at the _École de Guerre_. + +General Foch led the conversation. Owing to the rapidity of his +speech, it was necessary to translate much of it for me. We spoke, one +may say, through a clearing house. But although he knew it was to be +translated to me, he spoke, not to the interpreter, but to me, and his +keen eyes watched me as I replied. And I did not interview General +Foch. General Foch interviewed me. I made no pretence at speaking for +America. I had no mission. But within my limitations I answered him as +well as I could. + +"There are many ties between America and France," said General Foch. +"We wish America to know what we are doing over here, to realise that +this terrible war was forced on us." + +I mentioned my surprise at the great length of the French line--more +than four hundred miles. + +"You do not know that in America?" he asked, evidently surprised. + +I warned him at once not to judge the knowledge of America by what I +myself knew, that no doubt many quite understood the situation. + +"But you have been very modest," I said. "We really have had little +information about the French Army and what it is doing, unless more +news is going over since I left." + +"We are more modest than the Germans, then?" + +"You are, indeed. There are several millions of German-born Americans +who are not likely to let America forget the Fatherland. There are +many German newspapers also." + +"What is the percentage of German population?" + +I told him. I think I was wrong. I think I made it too great. But I +had not expected to be interviewed. + +"And these German newspapers, are they neutral?" + +"Not at all. Very far from it." + +I told him what I knew of the German propaganda in America, and he +listened intently. + +"What is its effect? Is it influencing public opinion?" + +"It did so undeniably for a time. But I believe it is not doing so +much now. For one thing, Germany's methods on the sea will neutralise +all her agents can say in her favour--that and the relaxation of the +restrictions against the press, so that something can be known of what +the Allies are doing." + +"You have known very little?" + +"Absurdly little." + +There was some feeling in my tone, and he smiled. + +"We wish to have America know the splendid spirit of the French Army," +he said after a moment. "And the justice of its cause also." + +I asked him what he thought of the future. + +"There is no question about the future," he said with decision. "That +is already settled. When the German advance was checked it was checked +for good." + +"Then you do not believe that they will make a further advance toward +Paris?" + +"Certainly not." + +He went on to explain the details of the battle of the Marne, and how +in losing that battle the invading army had lost everything. + +It will do no harm to digress for a moment and explain exactly what +the French did at the battle of the Marne. + +All through August the Allies fell back before the onward rush of the +Germans. But during all that strategic retreat plans were being made +for resuming the offensive again. This necessitated an orderly +retreat, not a rout, with constant counter-engagements to keep the +invaders occupied. It necessitated also a fixed point of retreat, to +be reached by the different Allied armies simultaneously. + +When, on September fifth, the order for assuming the offensive was +given, the extreme limit of the retreat had not yet been reached. But +the audacity of the German march had placed it in a position +favourable for attack, and at the same time extremely dangerous for +the Allies and Paris if they were not checked. + +On the evening of September fifth General Joffre sent this message to +all the commanders of armies: + +"The hour has come to advance at all costs, and do or die where you +stand rather than give way." + +The French did not give way. Paris was saved after a colossal battle, +in which more than two million men were engaged. The army commanded by +General Foch was at one time driven back by overwhelming odds, but +immediately resumed the offensive, and making a flank attack forced +the Germans to retreat. + +Not that he mentioned his part in the battle of the Marne. Not that +any member of his staff so much as intimated it. But these are things +that get back. + +"How is America affected by the war?" + +I answered as best I could, telling him something of the paralysis it +had caused in business, of the war tax, and of our anxiety as to the +status of our shipping. + +"From what I can gather from the newspapers, the sentiment in America +is being greatly influenced by the endangering of American shipping," + +"Naturally. But your press endeavours to be neutral, does it not?" + +"Not particularly," I admitted. "Sooner or later our papers become +partisan. It is difficult not to. In this war one must take sides." + +"Certainly. One must take sides. One cannot be really neutral in this +war. Every country is interested in the result, either actively now or +later on, when the struggle is decided. One cannot be disinterested; +one must be partisan." + +The staff echoed this. + +Having been interviewed by General Foch for some time, I ventured to +ask him a question. So I asked, as I asked every general I met, if the +German advance had been merely ruthless or if it had been barbaric. + +He made no direct reply, but he said: + +"You must remember that the Germans are not only fighting against an +army, they are fighting against nations; trying to destroy their past, +their present, even their future." + +"How does America feel as to the result of this war?" he asked, "I +suppose it feels no doubt as to the result." + +Again I was forced to explain my own inadequacy to answer such a +question and my total lack of authority to voice American sentiment. +While I was confident that many Americans believed in the cause of the +Allies, and had every confidence in the outcome of the war, there +remained always that large and prosperous portion of the population, +either German-born or of German parentage, which had no doubt of +Germany's success. + +"It is natural, of course," he commented. "How many French have you in +the United States?" + +I thought there were about three hundred thousand, and said so. + +"You treat your people so well in France," I said, "that few of them +come to us." + +He nodded and smiled. + +"What do you think of the blockade, General Foch?" I said. "I have +just crossed the Channel and it is far from comfortable." + +"Such a blockade cannot be," was his instant reply; "a blockade must +be continuous to be effective. In a real blockade all neutral shipping +must be stopped, and Germany cannot do this." + +One of the staff said "Bluff!" which has apparently been adopted into +the French language, and the rest nodded their approval. + +Their talk moved on to aëroplanes, to shells, to the French artillery. +General Foch considered that Zeppelins were useful only as air scouts, +and that with the coming of spring, with short nights and early dawns, +there would be no time for them to range far. The aëroplanes he +considered much more valuable. + +"One thing has impressed me," I said, "as I have seen various +artillery duels--the number of shells used with comparatively small +result. After towns are destroyed the shelling continues. I have seen +a hillside where no troops had been for weeks, almost entirely covered +with shell holes." + +He agreed that the Germans had wasted a great deal of their +ammunition. + +Like all great commanders, he was intensely proud of his men and their +spirit. + +"They are both cheerful and healthy," said the general; "splendid men. +We are very proud of them. I am glad that America is to know something +of their spirit, of the invincible courage and resolution of the +French to fight in the cause of humanity and justice." + +Luncheon was over. It had been a good luncheon, of a mound of boiled +cabbage, finely minced beef in the centre, of mutton cutlets and +potatoes, of strawberry jam, cheese and coffee. There had been a +bottle of red wine on the table. A few of the staff took a little, +diluting it with water. General Foch did not touch it. + +We rose. I had an impression that I had had my interview; but the +hospitality and kindness of this French general were to go further. + +In the little corridor he picked up his dark-blue cap and we set out +for official headquarters, followed by several of the officers. He +walked rapidly, taking the street to give me the narrow sidewalk and +going along with head bent against the wind. In the square, almost +deserted, a number of staff cars had gathered, and lorries lumbered +through. We turned to the left, between the sentry and the gendarme, +and climbing a flight of wooden stairs were in the anteroom of the +general's office. Here were tables covered with papers, telephones, +maps, the usual paraphernalia of such rooms. We passed through a pine +door, and there was the general's room--a bare and shabby room, with a +large desk in front of the two windows that overlooked the street, a +shaded lamp, more papers and a telephone. The room had a fireplace, +and in front of it was a fine old chair. And on the mantelpiece, as +out of place as the chair, was a marvellous Louis-Quinze clock, under +glass. There were great maps on the walls, with the opposing battle +lines shown to the smallest detail. General Foch drew my attention at +once to the clock. + +"During the battle of the Yser," he said, "night and day my eyes were +on that clock. Orders were sent. Then it was necessary to wait until +they were carried out. It was by the clock that one could know what +should be happening. The hours dragged. It was terrible." + +It must have been terrible. Everywhere I had heard the same story. +More than any of the great battles of the war, more even than the +battle of the Marne, the great fight along the Yser, from the +twenty-first of October, 1914, to the twelfth of November, seems to +have impressed itself in sheer horror on the minds of those who know +its fearfulness. At every headquarters I have found the same feeling. + +It was General Foch's army that reënforced the British at that battle. +The word had evidently been given to the Germans that at any cost they +must break through. They hurled themselves against the British with +unprecedented ferocity. I have told a little of that battle, of the +frightful casualties, so great among the Germans that they carried +their dead back and burned them in great pyres. The British Army was +being steadily weakened. The Germans came steadily, new lines taking +the place of those that were gone. Then the French came up, and, after +days of struggle, the line held. + +General Foch opened a drawer of the desk and showed me, day by day, +the charts of the battle. They were bound together in a great book, +and each day had a fresh page. The German Army was black. The French +was red. Page after page I lived that battle, the black line +advancing, the blue of the British wavering against overwhelming +numbers and ferocity, the red line of the French coming up. "The Man +of Ypres," they call General Foch, and well they may. + +"They came," said General Foch, "like the waves of the sea." + +It was the second time I had heard the German onslaught so described. + +He shut the book and sat for a moment, his head bent, as though in +living over again that fearful time some of its horror had come back +to him. + +At last: "I paced the floor and watched the clock," he said. + +How terrible! How much easier to take a sword and head a charge! How +much simpler to lead men to death than to send them! There in that +quiet room, with only the telephone and the ticking of the clock for +company, while his staff waited outside for orders, this great +general, this strategist on whose strategy hung the lives of armies, +this patriot and soldier at whose word men went forth to die, paced +the floor. + +He walked over to the clock and stood looking at it, his fine head +erect, his hands behind him. Some of the tragedy of those nineteen +days I caught from his face. + +But the line held. + +To-day, as I write this, General Foch's army in the North and the +British are bearing the brunt of another great attack at Ypres.[E] The +British have made a gain at Neuve Chapelle, and the Germans have +retaliated by striking at their line, some miles farther north. If +they break through it will be toward Calais and the sea. Every +offensive movement in this new warfare of trench and artillery +requires a concentration of reserves. To make their offensive movement +the British have concentrated at Neuve Chapelle. The second move of +this game of death has been made by the other side against the +weakened line of the Allies. During the winter the line, in this +manner, automatically straightened. But what will happen now? + +[Footnote E: Battle of Neuve Chapelle March, 1915.] + +One thing we know: General Foch will send out his brave men, and, +having sent them, will watch the Louis-Quinze clock and wait. And +other great generals will send out their men, and wait also. There +will be more charts, and every fresh line of black or blue or red or +Belgian yellow will mean a thousand deaths, ten thousand deaths. + +They are fighting to-day at Ypres. I have seen that flat and muddy +battlefield. I have talked with the men, have stood by the batteries +as they fired. How many of the boys I watched playing prisoners' base +round their guns in the intervals of firing are there to-day? How many +remain of that little company of soldiers who gave three cheers for me +because I was the only woman they had seen for months? How many of the +officers who shrugged their shoulders when I spoke of danger have gone +down to death? + +Outside the window where I am writing this, Fifth Avenue, New York, +has just left its churches and is flaunting its spring finery in the +sun. Across the sea, such a little way as measured by time, people are +in the churches also. The light comes through the ancient, +stained-glass windows and falls, not on spring finery, not on orchids +and gardenias, but on thousands of tiny candles burning before the +shrine of the Mother of Pity. + +It is so near. And it is so terrible. How can we play? How can we +think of anything else? But for the grace of God, your son and mine +lying there in the spring sunlight on the muddy battlefield of Ypres! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +IN THE LINE OF THE "MITRAILLEUSE" + + +I was taken to see the battlefield of Ypres by Captain Boisseau, of +the French War Academy, and Lieutenant René Puaux, of the staff of +General Foch. It was a bright and sunny day, with a cold wind, +however, that set the water in the wayside ditches to rippling. + +All the night before I had wakened at intervals to heavy cannonading +and the sharp cracking of _mitrailleuse_. We were well behind the +line, but the wind was coming from the direction of the battlefield. + +The start was made from in front of General Foch's headquarters. He +himself put me in the car, and bowed an _au revoir_. + +"You will see," he said, "the French soldier in the field, and you +will see him cheerful and well. You will find him full also of +invincible courage and resolution." + +And all that he had said, I found. I found the French soldiers smiling +and cheerful and ruddy in the most wretched of billets. I found them +firing at the enemy, still cheerful, but with a coolness of courage +that made my own shaking nerves steady themselves. + +Today, when that very part of the line I visited is, as was expected +when I was there, bearing the brunt of the German attack in the most +furious fighting of the war, I wonder, of those French soldiers who +crowded round to see the first woman they had beheld for months, how +many are lying on that muddy battlefield? What has happened on that +road, guarded by buried quick-firers, that stretched to the German +trenches beyond the poplar trees? Did the "rabbit trap" do its work? +Only for a time, I think, for was it not there that the Germans broke +through? Did the Germans find and silence that concealed battery of +seventy-five-millimetre guns under its imitation hedge? Who was in the +tree lookout as the enemy swarmed across, and did he get away? + +Except for the constant road repairing there was little to see during +the first part of the journey. Here in a flat field, well beyond the +danger zone, some of the new British Army was digging practice +trenches in the mud. Their tidy uniforms were caked with dirt, their +faces earnest and flushed. At last the long training at Salisbury +Plain was over, and here they were, if not at the front, within +hearing distance of the guns. Any day now a bit of luck would move +them forward, and there would be something doing. + +By now, no doubt, they have been moved up and there has been something +doing. Poor lads! I watched them until even their khaki-coloured tents +had faded into the haze. The tall, blonde, young officer, Lieutenant +Puaux, pointed out to me a detachment of Belgian soldiers mending +roads. As our car passed they leaned on their spades and looked after +us. + +"Belgian carabineers," he said. "They did some of the most heroic work +of the war last summer and autumn. They were decorated by the King. +Now they are worn out and they mend roads!" + +For--and this I had to learn--a man may not fight always, even +although he escapes actual injury. It is the greatest problem of +commanding generals that they must be always moving forward fresh +troops. The human element counts for much in any army. Nerves go after +a time. The constant noise of the guns has sent men mad. + +More than ever, in this new warfare, is the problem serious. For days +the men suffer not only the enemy's guns but the roar of their own +batteries from behind them. They cannot always tell which side they +hear. Their tortured ears ache with listening. And when they charge +and capture an outpost it is not always certain that they will escape +their own guns. In one tragic instance that I know of this happened. + +The route was by way of Poperinghe, with its narrow, crowded streets, +its fresh troops just arrived and waiting patiently, heavy packs +beside them, for orders. In Poperinghe are found all the troops of the +Allies: British, Belgian, French, Hindus, Cingalese, Algerians, +Moroccans. Its streets are a series of colourful pictures, of quaint +uniforms, of a babel of tongues, of that minor confusion that is order +on a great scale. The inevitable guns rumbled along with six horses +and three drivers: a lead driver, a centre driver and wheel driver. +Unlike the British guns, there are generally no gunners with the guns, +but only an officer or two. The gunners go ahead on foot. Lines of +hussars rode by, making their way slowly round a train of British +Red-Cross ambulances. + +At Elverdingue I was to see the men in their billets. Elverdingue was +another Poperinghe--the same crowds of soldiers, the same confusion, +only perhaps more emphasised, for Elverdingue is very near the front, +between Poperinghe and Ypres and a little to the north, where the line +that curves out about Ypres bends back again. + +More guns, more hussars. It was difficult to walk across the narrow +streets. We watched our chance and broke through at last, going into a +house at random. As each house had soldiers billeted in it, it was +certain we would find some, and I was to see not selected quarters but +billets chosen at random. Through a narrow, whitewashed centre hall, +with men in the rooms on either side, and through a muddy kitchen, +where the usual family was huddled round a stove, we went into a tiny, +brick-paved yard. Here was a shed, a roof only, which still held what +remained of the winter's supply of coal. + +Two soldiers were cooking there. Their tiny fire of sticks was built +against a brick wall, and on it was a large can of stewing meat. One +of the cooks--they were company cooks--was watching the kettle and +paring potatoes in a basket. The other was reading a letter aloud. As +the officers entered the men rose and saluted, their bright eyes +taking in this curious party, which included, of all things, a woman! + +"When did you get in from the trenches?" one of the officers asked. + +"At two o'clock this morning, _Monsieur le Capitaine_." + +"And you have not slept?" + +"But no. The men must eat. We have cooked ever since we returned." + +Further questioning elicited the facts that he would sleep when his +company was fed, that he was twenty-two years old, and that--this not +by questions but by investigation--he was sheltered against the cold +by a large knitted muffler, an overcoat, a coat, a green sweater, a +flannel shirt and an undershirt. Under his blue trousers he wore also +the red ones of an old uniform, the red showing through numerous rents +and holes. + +"You have a letter, comrade!" said the Lieutenant to the other man. + +"From my family," was the somewhat sheepish reply. + +Round the doorway other soldiers had gathered to see what was +occurring. They came, yawning with sleep, from the straw they had been +sleeping on, or drifted in from the streets, where they had been +smoking in the sun. They were true republicans, those French soldiers. +They saluted the officers without subservience, but as man to man. And +through a break in the crowd a new arrival was shoved forward. He +came, smiling uneasily. + +"He has the new uniform," I was informed, and he must turn round to +show me how he looked in it. + +We went across the street and through an alleyway to an open place +where stood an old coach house. Here were more men, newly in from the +front. The coach house was a ruin, far from weather-proof and floored +with wet and muddy straw. One could hardly believe that that straw had +been dry and fresh when the troops came in at dawn. It was hideous +now, from the filth of the trenches. The men were awake, and being +advised of our coming by an anxious and loud-voiced member of the +company who ran ahead, they were on their feet, while others, who had +been sleeping in the loft, were on their way down the ladder. + +"They have been in a very bad place all night," said the Captain. +"They are glad to be here, they say." + +"You mean that they have been in a dangerous place?" + +The men were laughing among themselves and pushing forward one of +their number. Urged by their rapid French, he held out his cap to me. +It had been badly torn by a German bullet. Encouraged by his example, +another held out his cap. The crown had been torn almost out of it. + +"You see," said Captain Boisseau, "it was not a comfortable night. But +they are here, and they are content." + +I could understand it, of course, but "here" seemed so pitifully poor +a place--a wet and cold and dirty coach house, open to all the winds +that blew; before it a courtyard stabling army horses that stood to +the fetlocks in mud. For food they had what the boy of twenty-two or +other cooks like him were preparing over tiny fires built against +brick walls. But they were alive, and there were letters from home, +and before very long they expected to drive the Germans back in one of +those glorious charges so dear to the French heart. They were here, +and they were content. + +More sheds, more small fires, more paring of potatoes and onions and +simmering of stews. The meal of the day was in preparation and its +odours were savoury. In one shed I photographed the cook, paring +potatoes with a knife that looked as though it belonged on the end of +a bayonet. And here I was lined up by the fire and the cook--and the +knife--and my picture taken. It has not yet reached me. Perhaps it +went by way of England, and was deleted by the censor as showing +munitions of war! + +From Elverdingue the road led north and west, following the curves of +the trenches. We went through Woesten, where on the day before a +dramatic incident had taken place. Although the town was close to the +battlefield and its church in plain view from the German lines, it had +escaped bombardment. But one Sunday morning a shot was fired. The +shell went through the roof of the church just above the altar, fell +and exploded, killing the priest as he knelt. The hole in the roof of +the building bore mute evidence to this tragedy. It was a small hole, +for the shell exploded inside the building. When I saw it a half dozen +planks had been nailed over it to keep out the rain. + +There were trees outside Woesten, more trees than I had been +accustomed to nearer the sea. Here and there a troop of cavalry horses +was corralled in a grove; shaggy horses, not so large as the English +ones. They were confined by the simple expedient of stretching a rope +from tree to tree in a large circle. + +"French horses," I said, "always look to me so small and light +compared with English horses." + +Then a horse moved about, and on its shaggy flank showed plainly the +mark of a Western branding iron! They were American cow ponies from +the plains. + +"There are more than a hundred thousand American horses here," +observed the Lieutenant. "They are very good horses." + +Later on I stopped to stroke the soft nose of a black horse as it +stood trembling near a battery of heavy guns that was firing steadily. +It was American too. On its flank there was a Western brand. I gave it +an additional caress, and talked a little American into one of its +nervous, silky ears. We were both far from home, a trifle bewildered, +a bit uneasy and frightened. + +And now it was the battlefield--the flat, muddy plain of Ypres. On the +right bodies of men, sheltered by intervening groves and hedges, moved +about. Dispatch riders on motor cycles flew along the roads, and over +the roof of a deserted farmhouse an observation balloon swung in the +wind. Beyond the hedges and the grove lay the trenches, and beyond +them again German batteries were growling. Their shells, however, were +not bursting anywhere near us. + +The balloon was descending. I asked permission to go up in it, but +when I saw it near at hand I withdrew the request. It had no basket, +like the ones I had seen before, but instead the observers, two of +them, sat astride a horizontal bar. + +The English balloons have a basket beneath, I am told. One English +airship man told me that to be sent up in a stationary balloon was the +greatest penalty a man could be asked to pay. The balloon jerks at the +end of its rope like a runaway calf, and "the resulting nausea makes +sea-sickness seem like a trip to the Crystal Palace." + +So I did not go up in that observation balloon on the field of Ypres. +We got out of the car, and trudged after the balloon as it was carried +to its new position by many soldiers. We stood by as it rose again +above the tree tops, the rope and the telephone wire hanging beneath +it. But what the observers saw that afternoon from their horizontal +bar I do not yet know--trenches, of course. But trenches are +interesting in this war only when their occupants have left them and +started forward. Batteries and ammunition trains, probably, the latter +crawling along the enemy's roads. But both of these can be better and +more easily located by aëroplanes. + +The usefulness of the captive balloon in this war is doubtful. It +serves, at the best, to take the place of an elevation of land in this +flat country, is a large and tempting target, and can serve only on +very clear days, when there is no ground mist--a difficult thing to +achieve in Flanders. + +We were getting closer to the front all the time. As the automobile +jolted on, drawing out for transports, for ambulances and ammunition +wagons, the two French officers spoke of the heroism of their men. +They told me, one after the other, of brave deeds that had come under +their own observation. + +"The French common soldier is exceedingly brave--quite reckless," one +of them said. "Take, for instance, the case, a day or so ago, of +Philibert Musillat, of the 168th Infantry. We had captured a +communication trench from the Germans and he was at the end of it, +alone. There was a renewal of the German attack, and they came at him +along the trench. He refused to retreat. His comrades behind handed +him loaded rifles, and he killed every German that appeared until they +lay in a heap. The Germans threw bombs at him, but he would not move. +He stood there for more than twelve hours!" + +There were many such stories, such as that of the boys of the senior +class of the military school of St. Cyr, who took, the day of the +beginning of the war, an oath to put on gala dress, white gloves and a +red, white and blue plume, when they had the honour to receive the +first order to charge. + +They did it, too. Theatrical? Isn't it just splendidly boyish? They +did it, you see. The first of them to die, a young sub-lieutenant, was +found afterward, his red, white and blue plume trampled in the mud, +his brave white gloves stained with his own hot young blood. Another +of these St. Cyr boys, shot in the face hideously and unable to speak, +stood still under fire and wrote his orders to his men. It was his +first day under fire. + +A boy fell injured between the barbed wire in front of his trench and +the enemy, in that No Man's Land of so many tragedies. His comrades, +afraid of hitting him, stopped firing. + +"Go on!" he called to them. "No matter about me. Shoot at them!" + +So they fired, and he writhed for a moment. + +"I got one of yours that time!" he said. + +The Germans retired, but the boy still lay on the ground, beyond +reach. He ceased moving, and they thought he was dead. One may believe +that they hoped he was dead. It was more merciful than the slow dying +of No Man's Land. But after a time he raised his head. + +"Look out," he called. "They are coming again. They are almost up to +me!" + +That is all of that story. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +FRENCH GUNS IN ACTION + + +The car stopped. We were at the wireless and telephone headquarters +for the French Army of the North. It was a low brick building, and +outside, just off the roadway, was a high van full of telephone +instruments. That it was moved from one place to another was shown +when, later in the day, returning by that route, we found the van had +disappeared. + +It was two o'clock. The German wireless from Berlin had just come in. +At three the receiving station would hear from the Eiffel Tower in +Paris. It was curious to stand there and watch the operator, receivers +on his ears, picking up the German message. It was curious to think +that, just a little way over there, across a field or two, the German +operator was doing the same thing, and that in an hour he would be +receiving the French message. + +All the batteries of the army corps are--or were--controlled from that +little station. The colonel in charge came out to greet us, and to him +Captain Boisseau gave General Foch's request to show me batteries in +action. + +The colonel was very willing. He would go with us himself. I conquered +a strong desire to stand with the telephone building between me and +the German lines, now so near, and looked about. A French aëroplane +was overhead, but there was little bustle and activity along the road. +It is a curious fact in this war that the nearer one is to the front +the quieter things become. Three or four miles behind there is bustle +and movement. A mile behind, and only an occasional dispatch rider, a +few men mending roads, an officer's car, a few horses tethered in a +wood, a broken gun carriage, a horse being shod behind a wall, a +soldier on a lookout platform in a tree, thickets and hedges that on +occasion spout fire and death--that is the country round Ypres and +just behind the line, in daylight. + +We were between Ypres and the Allied line, in that arc which the +Germans are, as I write, trying so hard to break through. The papers +say that they are shelling Ypres and that it is burning. They were +shelling it that day also. But now, as then, I cannot believe it is +burning. There was nothing left to burn. + +While arrangements were being made to visit the batteries, Lieutenant +Puaux explained to me a method they had established at that point for +measuring the altitude of hostile aëroplanes for the guns. + +"At some anti-aircfaft batteries," he explained, "they have the +telemeter for that purpose. But here there is none. So they use the +system of _visée laterale_, or side sight, literally." + +He explained it all carefully to me. I understood it at the time, I +think. + +I remember saying it was perfectly clear, and a child could do it, and +a number of other things. But the system of _visée laterale_ has gone +into that part of my mind which contains the Latin irregular verbs, +harmonies, the catechism and answers to riddles. + +There is a curious feeling that comes with the firing of a large +battery at an unseen enemy. One moment the air is still; there is a +peaceful plain round. The sun shines, and heavy cart horses, drawing a +wagon filled with stones for repairing a road, are moving forward +steadily, their heads down, their feet sinking deep in the mud. The +next moment hell breaks loose. The great guns stand with smoking jaws. +The message of death has gone forth. Over beyond the field and that +narrow line of trees, what has happened? A great noise, the furious +recoiling of the guns, an upcurling of smoke--that is the firing of a +battery. But over there, perhaps, one man, or twenty, or fifty men, +lying still. + +So I required assurance that this battery was not being fired for me. +I had no morbid curiosity as to batteries. One of the officers assured +me that I need have no concern. Though they were firing earlier than +had been intended, a German battery had been located and it was their +instructions to disable it. + +The battery had been well concealed. + +"No German aëroplane has as yet discovered it," explained the officer +in charge. + +To tell the truth, I had not yet discovered it myself. We had alighted +from the machine in a sea of mud. There was mud everywhere. + +A farmhouse to the left stood inaccessible in it. Down the road a few +feet a tree with an observation platform rose out of it. A few +chickens waded about in it. A crowd of soldiers stood at a respectful +distance and watched us. But I saw no guns. + +One of the officers stooped and picked up the cast shoe of a battery +horse, and shaking the mud off, presented it to me. + +"To bring you luck," he said, "and perhaps luck to the battery!" + +We left the road, and turning to the right made a floundering progress +across a field to a hedge. Only when we were almost there did I +realise that the hedge was the battery. + +"We built it," said the officer in charge. "We brought the trees and +saplings and constructed it. Madame did not suspect?" + +Madame had not suspected. There were other hedges in the +neighbourhood, and the artificial one had been well contrived. Halfway +through the field the party paused by a curious elevation, flat, +perhaps twenty feet across and circular. + +"The cyclone cellar!" some one said. "We will come here during the +return fire." + +But one look down the crude steps decided me to brave the return fire +and die in the open. The cave below the flat roof, turf-covered +against the keen eyes of aeroplanes, was full of water. The officers +watched my expression and smiled. + +And now we had reached the battery, and eager gunners were tearing +away the trees and shrubbery that covered them. In an incredible space +of time the great grey guns, sinister, potential of death, lay open to +the bright sky. The crews gathered round, each man to his place. The +shell was pushed home, the gunners held the lanyards. + +"Open your mouth wide," said the officer in charge, and gave the +signal. + +The great steel throats were torn open. The monsters recoiled, as if +aghast at what they had done. Their white smoke curled from the +muzzles. The dull horses in the road lifted their heads. + +And over there, beyond the line of poplar trees, what? + +One by one they fired the great guns. Then all together, several +rounds. The air was torn with noise. Other batteries, far and near, +took up the echo. The lassitude of the deadlock was broken. + +And then overhead the bursting shell of a German gun. The return fire +had commenced! + +I had been under fire before. The sound of a bursting shell was not a +new one. But there had always before been a strong element of chance +in my favour. When the Germans were shelling a town, who was I that a +shell should pick me out to fall on or to explode near? But this was +different. They were firing at a battery, and I was beside that +battery. It was all very well for the officer in charge to have said +they had never located his battery. I did not believe him. I still +doubt him. For another shell came. + +The soldiers from the farmhouse had gathered behind us in the field. I +turned and looked at them. They were smiling. So I summoned a shaky +smile myself and refused the hospitality of the cellar full of water. + +One of the troopers stepped out from the others. + +"We have just completed a small bridge," he said--"a bridge over the +canal. Will madame do us the honour of walking across it? It will thus +be inaugurated by the only lady at the front." + +Madame would. Madame did. But without any real enthusiasm. The men +cheered, and another German shell came, and everything was merry as a +marriage bell. + +They invited me to climb the ladder to the lookout in the tree and +look at the enemy's trenches. But under the circumstances I declined. +I felt that it was time to move on and get hence. The honour of being +the only woman who had got to the front at Ypres began to weigh heavy +on me. I mentioned the passing of time and the condition of the roads. + +So at last I got into the car. The officers of the battery bowed, and +the men, some fifty of them, gave me three rousing cheers. I think of +them now, and there is a lump in my throat. They were so interested, +so smiling and cheery, that bright late February afternoon, standing +in the mud of the battlefield of Ypres, with German shells bursting +overhead. Half of them, even then, had been killed or wounded. Each +day took its toll of some of them, one way or another. + +How many of them are left to-day? The smiling officer, so debonair, so +proud of his hidden battery, where is he? The tiny bridge, has it run +red this last week? The watchman in the tree, what did he see, that +terrible day when the Germans got across the canal and charged over +the flat lands? + +The Germans claim to have captured guns at or near this place. One +thing I am sure of: This battery or another, it was not taken while +there were men belonging to it to defend it. The bridge would run red +and the water under the bridge, the muddy field be strewn with bodies, +before those cheery, cool-eyed and indomitable French gunners would +lose their guns. + +The car moved away, fifty feet, a hundred feet, and turned out to +avoid an ammunition wagon, disabled in the road. It was fatal. We slid +off into the mire and settled down. I looked back at the battery. A +fresh shell was bursting high in the air. + +We sat there, interminable hours that were really minutes, while an +orderly and the chauffeur dug us out with spades. We conversed of +other things. But it was a period of uneasiness on my part. And, as if +to point the lesson and adorn the tale, away to the left, rising above +the plain, was the church roof with the hole in it--mute evidence that +even the mantle of righteousness is no protection against a shell. + +Our course was now along a road just behind the trenches and +paralleling them, to an anti-aircraft station. + +I have seen a number of anti-aircraft stations at the front: English +ones near the coast and again south of Ypres; guns mounted, as was +this French battery, on the plain of a battlefield; isolated cannon in +towers and on the tops of buildings and water tanks. I have seen them +in action, firing at hostile planes. I have never yet seen them do any +damage, but they serve a useful purpose in keeping the scouting +machines high in the air, thus rendering difficult the work of the +enemy's observer. The real weapon against the hostile aeroplane is +another machine. Several times I have seen German _Taubes_ driven off +by French aviators, and winging a swift flight back to their lines. +Not, one may be sure, through any lack of courage on the part of +German aviators. They are fearless and extremely skilful. But because +they have evidently been instructed to conserve their machines. + +I had considerable curiosity as to the anti-aircraft batteries. How +was it possible to manipulate a large field gun, with a target moving +at a varying height, and at a speed velocity of, say, sixty miles an +hour? + +The answer was waiting on the field just north of Ypres. + +A brick building by the road was evidently a storehouse for provisions +for the trenches. Unloaded in front of it were sacks of bread, meal +and provisions. And standing there in the sunshine was the commander +of the field battery, Captain Mignot. A tall and bearded man, +essentially grave, he listened while Lieutenant Puaux explained the +request from General Foch that I see his battery. He turned and +scanned the sky. + +"We regret," he said seriously, "that at the moment there is no +aëroplane in sight. We will, however, show Madame everything." + +He led the way round the corner of the building to where a path, +neatly banked, went out through the mud to the battery. + +"Keep to the path," said a tall sign. But there was no temptation to +do otherwise. There must have been fifty acres to that field, unbroken +by hedge or tree. As we walked out, Captain Mignot paused and pointed +his finger up and somewhat to the right. + +"German shrapnel!" he said. True enough, little spherical clouds told +where it had burst harmlessly. + +As cannonading had been going on steadily all the afternoon, no one +paid any particular attention. We walked on in the general direction +of the trenches. + +The gunners were playing prisoner's base just beyond the guns. When +they saw us coming the game ceased, and they hurried to their +stations. Boys they were, most of them. The youth of the French troops +had not impressed me so forcibly as had the boyishness of the English +and the Belgians. They are not so young, on an average, I believe. But +also the deception of maturity is caused by a general indifference to +shaving while in the field. + +But Captain Mignot evidently had his own ideas of military smartness, +and these lads were all clean-shaven. They trooped in from their game, +under that little cloud of shrapnel smoke that still hung in the sky, +for all the world a crowd of overheated and self-conscious schoolboys +receiving an unexpected visit from the master of the school. + +The path ended at the battery. In the centre of the guns was a raised +platform of wood, and a small shelter house for the observer or +officer on duty. There were five guns in pits round this focal point +and forming a circle. And on the platform in the centre was a curious +instrument on a tripod. + +"The telemeter," explained Captain Mignot; "for obtaining the altitude +of the enemy's aëroplane." + +Once again we all scanned the sky anxiously, but uselessly. + +"I don't care to have any one hurt," I said; "but if a plane is coming +I wish it would come now. Or a Zeppelin." + +The captain's serious face lighted in a smile. + +"A Zeppelin!" he said. "We would with pleasure wait all the night for +a Zeppelin!" + +He glanced round at the guns. Every gunner was in his place. We were +to have a drill. + +"We will suppose," he said, "that a German aëroplane is approaching. +To fire correctly we must first know its altitude. So we discover that +with this." He placed his hand on the telemeter. "There are, you +observe, two apertures, one for each eye. In one the aëroplane is seen +right side up. In the other the image is inverted, upside down. Now! +By this screw the images are made to approach, until one is +superimposed exactly over the other. Immediately on the lighted dial +beneath is shown the altitude, in metres." + +I put my eyes to the openings, and tried to imagine an aëroplane +overhead, manoeuvring to drop a bomb or a dart on me while I +calculated its altitude. I could not do it. + +Next I was shown the guns. They were the famous +seventy-five-millimetre guns of France, transformed into aircraft guns +by the simple expedient of installing them in a pit with sloping +sides, so that their noses pointed up and out. To swing them round, so +that they pointed readily toward any portion of the sky, a circular +framework of planks formed a round rim to the pit, and on this runway, +heavily greased, the muzzles were swung about. + +The gun drill began. It was executed promptly, skilfully. There was no +bungling, not a wrong motion or an unnecessary one, as they went +through the movements of loading, sighting and firing the guns. It was +easy to see why French artillery has won its renown. The training of +the French artilleryman is twice as severe as that of the infantryman. +Each man, in addition to knowing his own work on the gun, must be able +to do the work of all the eleven others. Casualties must occur, and in +spite of them the work of the gun must go on. + +Casualties had occurred at that station. More than half the original +battery was gone. The little shelter house was splintered in a hundred +places. There were shell holes throughout the field, and the breech of +one gun had recently been shattered and was undergoing repair. + +The drill was over and the gunners stood at attention. I asked +permission to photograph the battery, and it was cheerfully given. One +after the other I took the guns, until I had taken four. The gunners +waited smilingly expectant. For the last gun I found I had no film, +but I could not let it go at that. So I pointed the empty camera at it +and snapped the shutter. It would never do to show discrimination. + +Somewhere in London are all those pictures. They have never been sent +to me. No doubt a watchful English government pounced on them in the +mail, and, in connection with my name, based on them most unjust +suspicions. They were very interesting. There was Captain Mignot, and +the two imposing officers from General Foch's staff; there were +smiling young French gunners; there was the telemeter, which cost, +they told me, ten thousand francs, and surely deserved to have its +picture taken, and there was one, not too steady, of a patch of sunny +sky and a balloon-shaped white cloud, where another German shrapnel +had burst overhead. + +The drill was over. We went back along the path toward the road. +Behind the storehouse the evening meal was preparing in a shed. The +battery was to have a new ration that night for a change, bacon and +codfish. Potatoes were being pared into a great kettle and there was a +bowl of eggs on a stand. It appeared to me, accustomed to the meagre +ration of the Belgians, that the French were dining well that night on +the plains of Ypres. + +In a stable near at hand a horse whinnied. I patted him as I passed, +and he put his head against my shoulder. + +"He recognises you!" said Captain Boisseau. "He too is American." + +It was late afternoon by that time. The plan to reach the advanced +trenches was frustrated by an increasing fusillade from the front. +There were barbed-wire entanglements everywhere, and every field was +honeycombed with trenches. One looked across the plain and saw +nothing. Then suddenly as we advanced great gashes cut across the +fields, and in these gashes, although not a head was seen, were men. +The firing was continuous. And now, going down a road, with a line of +poplar trees at the foot and the setting sun behind us throwing out +faint shadows far ahead, we saw the flash of water. It was very near. +It was the flooded river and the canal. Beyond, eight hundred yards or +less from where we stood, were the Germans. To one side the inundation +made a sort of bay. + +It was along this part of the field that the Allies expected the +German Army to make its advance when the spring movement commenced. +And as nearly as can be learned from the cabled accounts that is where +the attack was made. + +A captain from General d'Urbal's staff met us at the trenches, and +pointed out the strategical value of a certain place, the certainty of +a German advance, and the preparations that were made to meet it. + +It was odd to stand there in the growing dusk, looking across to where +was the invading army, only a little over two thousand feet away. It +was rather horrible to see that beautiful landscape, the untravelled +road ending in the line of poplars, so very close, where were the +French outposts, and the shining water just beyond, and talk so calmly +of the death that was waiting for the first Germans who crossed the +canal. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +"I NIBBLE THEM" + + +I went into the trenches. The captain was very proud of them. + +"They represent the latest fashion in trenches!" he explained, smiling +faintly. + +It seemed to me that I could easily have improved on that latest +fashion. The bottom was full of mud and water. Standing in the trench, +I could see over the side by making an effort. The walls were +wattled--that is, covered with an interlacing of fagots which made the +sides dry. + +But it was not for that reason only that these trenches were called +the latest fashion. They were divided, every fifteen feet or so, by a +bulwark of earth about two feet thick, round which extended a +communication trench. + +"The object of dividing these trenches in this manner is to limit the +havoc of shells that drop into them," the captain explained. "Without +the earth bulwark a shell can kill every man in the trench. In this +way it can kill only eight. Now stand at this end of the trench. What +do you see?" + +What I saw was a barbed-wire entanglement, leading into a cul-de-sac. + +"A rabbit trap!" he said. "They will come over the field there, and +because they cannot cross the entanglement they will follow it. It is +built like a great letter V, and this is the point." + +The sun had gone down to a fiery death in the west. The guns were +firing intermittently. Now and then from the poplar trees came the +sharp ping of a rifle. The evening breeze had sprung up, ruffling the +surface of the water, and bringing afresh that ever-present and +hideous odour of the battlefield. Behind us the trenches showed signs +of activity as the darkness fell. + +Suddenly the rabbit trap and the trench grew unspeakably loathsome and +hideous to me. What a mockery, this business of killing men! No matter +that beyond the canal there lurked the menace of a foe that had +himself shown unspeakable barbarity and resource in plotting death. No +matter if the very odour that stank in my nostrils called loud for +vengeance. I thought of German prisoners I had seen, German wounded +responding so readily to kindness and a smile. I saw them driven +across that open space, at the behest of frantic officers who were +obeying a guiding ambition from behind. I saw them herded like cattle, +young men and boys and the fathers of families, in that cruel rabbit +trap and shot by men who, in their turn, were protecting their country +and their homes. + +I have in my employ a German gardener. He has been a member of the +household for years. He has raised, or helped to raise, the children, +has planted the trees, and helped them, like the children, through +their early weakness. All day long he works in the garden among his +flowers. He coaxes and pets them, feeds them, moves them about in the +sun. When guests arrive, it is Wilhelm's genial smile that greets +them. When the small calamities of a household occur, it is Wilhelm's +philosophy that shows us how to meet them. + +Wilhelm was a sergeant in the German Army for five years. Now he is an +American citizen, owning his own home, rearing his children to a +liberty his own childhood never knew. + +But, save for the accident of emigration, Wilhelm would to-day be in +the German Army. He is not young, but he is not old. His arms and +shoulders are mighty. But for the accident of emigration, then, +Wilhelm, working to-day in the sun among his Delphiniums and his iris, +his climbing roses and flowering shrubs, would be wearing the helmet +of the invader; for his vine-covered house he would have substituted a +trench; for his garden pick a German rifle. + +For Wilhelm was a faithful subject of Germany while he remained there. +He is a Socialist. He does not believe in war. Live and help others to +live is his motto. But at the behest of the Kaiser, Wilhelm too would +have gone to his appointed place. + +It was of Wilhelm then, and others of his kind, that I thought as I +stood in the end of the new-fashion trench, looking at the rabbit +trap. There must be many Wilhelms in the German Army, fathers, good +citizens, kindly men who had no thought of a place in the sun except +for the planting of a garden. Men who have followed the false gods of +their country with the ardent blue eyes of supreme faith. + +I asked to be taken home. + +On the way to the machine we passed a _mitrailleuse_ buried by the +roadside. Its location brought an argument among the officers. +Strategically it would be valuable for a time, but there was some +question as to its position in view of a retirement by the French. + +I could not follow the argument. I did not try to. I was cold and +tired, and the red sunset had turned to deep purple and gold. The guns +had ceased. Over all the countryside brooded the dreadful peace of +sheer exhaustion and weariness. And in the air, high overhead, a +German plane sailed slowly home. + + * * * * * + +Sentries halted us on the way back holding high lanterns that set the +bayonets of their guns to gleaming. Faces pressed to the glass, they +surveyed us stolidly, making sure that we were as our passes described +us. Long lines of marching men turned out to let us pass. As darkness +settled down, the location of the German line, as it encircled Ypres, +was plainly shown by floating _fusées_. In every hamlet reserves were +lining up for the trenches, dark masses of men, with here and there a +face thrown into relief as a match was held to light a cigarette. Open +doors showed warm, lamp-lit interiors and the glow of fires. + +I sat back in the car and listened while the officers talked together. +They were speaking of General Joffre, of his great ability, of his +confidence in the outcome of the war, and of his method, during those +winter months when, with such steady fighting, there had been so +little apparent movement. One of the officers told me that General +Joffre had put his winter tactics in three words: + +"I nibble them." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +DUNKIRK: FROM MY JOURNAL + + +I wakened early this morning and went to church--a great empty place, +very cold but with the red light of the sanctuary lamp burning before +a shrine. There were perhaps a dozen people there when I went in. +Before the Mater Dolorosa two women in black were praying with +upturned eyes. At the foot of the Cross crouched the tragic figure of +the Mother, with her dead Son in her arms. Before her were these other +mothers, praying in the light of the thin burning candles. Far away, +near the altar, seven women of the Society of the Holy Rosary were +conducting a private service. They were market women, elderly, plain, +raising to the altar faces full of faith and devotion, as they prayed +for France and for their soldier-children. + +Here and there was a soldier or a sailor on his knees on a low +prie-dieu, his cap dangling loose in his hands. Unlike the women, the +lips of these men seldom moved in prayer; they apparently gazed in +wordless adoration at the shrine. Great and swelling thoughts were +theirs, no doubt, kindled by that tiny red flame: thoughts too big for +utterance or even for form. To go out and fight for France, to drive +back the invaders, and, please God, to come back again--that was what +their faces said. + +Other people came in, mostly women, who gathered silently around the +Mater Dolorosa. The great empty Cross; the woman and the dead Christ +at the foot of it; the quiet, kneeling people before it; over all, as +the services began, the silvery bell of the Mass; the bending backs of +the priests before the altar; the sound of fresh, boyish voices +singing in the choir--that is early morning service in the great +Gothic church at Dunkirk. + +Onto this drab and grey and grieving picture came the morning +sunlight, through roof-high windows of red and yellow and of that warm +violet that glows like a jewel. The candles paled in the growing +light. A sailor near me gathered up his cap, which had fallen unheeded +to the floor, and went softly out. The private service was over; the +market women picked up their baskets and, bowing to the altar, +followed the sailor. The great organ pleaded and cried out. I stole +out. I was an intruder, gazing at the grief of a nation. + +It was a transformed square that I walked through on my way back to +the hotel. It was a market morning. All week long it had been crowded +with motor ambulances, lorries, passing guns. Orderlies had held +cavalry horses under the shadow of the statue in the centre. The +fried-potato-seller's van had exuded an appetising odour of cooking, +and had gathered round it crowds of marines in tam-o'-shanters with +red woollen balls in the centre, Turcos in great bloomers, and the +always-hungry French and Belgian troopers. + +Now all was changed. The square had become a village filled with +canvas houses, the striped red-and-white booths of the market people. +War had given way to peace. For the clattering of accoutrements were +substituted high pitched haggling, the cackling of geese in crates, +the squawks of chickens tied by the leg. Little boys in pink-checked +gingham aprons ran about or stood, feet apart, staring with frank +curiosity at tall East Indians. + +There were small and carefully cherished baskets of eggs and bundles +of dead Belgian hares hung by the ears, but no other fresh meats. +There was no fruit, no fancy bread. The vegetable sellers had only +Brussels sprouts, turnips, beets and the small round potatoes of the +country. For war has shorn the market of its gaiety. Food is scarce +and high. The flower booths are offering country laces and finding no +buyers. The fruit sellers have only shrivelled apples to sell. + +Now, at a little after midday, the market is over. The canvas booths +have been taken down, packed on small handcarts and trundled away; +unsold merchandise is on its way back to the farm to wait for another +week and another market. Already the market square has taken on its +former martial appearance, and Dunkirk is at its midday meal of rabbit +and Brussels sprouts. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +TEA WITH THE AIR-FIGHTERS + + +Later: Roland Garros, the French aviator, has just driven off a German +_Taube_. They both circled low over the town for some time. Then the +German machine started east with Garros in pursuit. They have gone out +of sight. + + * * * * * + +War is not all grey and grim and hideous. It has its lighter moments. +The more terrible a situation the more keen is human nature to forget +it for a time. Men play between shells in the trenches. London, +suffering keenly, flocks to a comedy or a farce as a relief from +strain. Wounded men, past their first agony, chaff each other in the +hospitals. There are long hours behind the lines when people have tea +and try to forget for a little while what is happening just ahead. + +Some seven miles behind the trenches, in that vague "Somewhere in +France," the British Army had established a naval air-station, where +one of its dirigible airships was kept. In good weather the airship +went out on reconnoissance. It was not a large airship, as such things +go, and was formerly a training ship. Now it was housed in an +extemporised hangar that was once a carwheel works, and made its +ascent from a plain surrounded by barbed wire. + +The airship men were extremely hospitable, and I made several visits +to the station. On the day of which I am about to write I was taken +for an exhaustive tour of the premises, beginning with the hangar and +ending with tea. Not that it really ended with tea. Tea was rather a +beginning, leading to all sorts of unexpected and surprising things. + +The airship was out when I arrived, and a group of young officers was +watching it, a dot on the horizon near the front. They gave me the +glasses, and I saw it plainly--a long, yellowish, slowly moving object +that turned as I looked and headed back for the station. + +The group watched the sky carefully. A German aëroplane could wreck +the airship easily. But although there were planes in sight none was +of the familiar German lines. + +It came on. Now one could see the car below. A little closer and three +dots were the men in it. On the sandy plain which is the landing field +were waiting the men whose work it is to warp the great balloon into +its hangar. The wind had come up and made landing difficult. It was +necessary to make two complete revolutions over the field before +coming down. Then the blunt yellow nose dipped abruptly. The men below +caught the ropes, the engine was cut off, and His Majesty's airship, +in shape and colour not unlike a great pig, was safely at home again +and being led to the stable. + +"Do you want to know the bravest man in all the world?" one of the +young officers said. "Because here he is. The funny thing about it is +he doesn't know he is brave." + +That is how I met Colonel M----, who is England's greatest airship man +and who is in charge of the naval air station. + +"If you had come a little sooner," he said, "you could have gone out +with us." + +I was grateful but unenthusiastic. I had seen the officers watching +the sky for German planes. I had a keen idea that a German aviator +overhead, armed with a Belgian block or a bomb or a dart, could have +ripped that yellow envelope open from stem to stern, and robbed +American literature of one of its shining lights. Besides, even in +times of peace I am afraid to look out of a third-story window. + +We made a tour of the station, which had been a great factory before +the war began, beginning with the hangar in which the balloon was now +safely housed. + +Entrance to the station is by means of a bridge over a canal. The +bridge is guarded by sentries and the password of the day is necessary +to gain admission. East and west along the canal are canal boats that +have been painted grey and have guns mounted on them. Side by side +with these gunboats are the ordinary canal boats of the region, +serving as homes for that part of the populace which remains, with +women knitting on the decks or hanging out lines of washing overhead. + +The endless traffic of a main highroad behind the lines passes the +station day and night. Chauffeurs drop in to borrow petrol or to +repair their cars; visiting officers from other stations come to watch +the airship perform. For England has been slow to believe in the +airships, pinning her aëronautical faith to heavier-than-air machines. +She has considered the great expense for building and upkeep of each +of these dirigible balloons--as much as that of fifty aëroplanes--the +necessity of providing hangars for them, and their vulnerability to +attack, as overbalancing the advantages of long range, silence as they +drift with the wind with engines cut off, and ability to hover over a +given spot and thus launch aërial bombs more carefully. + +There is a friendly rivalry between the two branches of the air +service, and so far in this war the credit apparently goes to the +aëroplanes. However, until the war is over, and Germany definitely +states what part her Zeppelins have had in both sea and land attacks, +it will be impossible to make any fair comparison. + +The officers at the naval air station had their headquarters in the +administration building of the factory, a long brick building facing +the road. Here in a long room with western windows they rested and +relaxed, lined and talked between their adventurous excursions to the +lines. + +Day by day these men went out, some in the airship for a +reconnoissance, others to man observation balloons. Day by day it was +uncertain who would come back. + +But they were very cheerful. Officers with an hour to spare came up +from the gunboats in the canal to smoke a pipe by the fire. Once in so +often a woman came, stopping halfway her frozen journey to a soup +kitchen or a railroad station, where she looked after wounded +soldiers, to sit in the long room and thaw out; visiting officers from +other parts of the front dropped in for a meal, sure of a welcome and +a warm fire. As compared with the trenches, or even with the gunboats +on the canal, the station represented cheer, warmth; even, after the +working daylight hours, society. + +There were several buildings. Outside near the bridge was the wireless +building, where an operator sat all the time with his receivers over +his ears. Not far from the main group was the great hangar of the +airship, and to that we went first. The hangar had been a machine shop +with a travelling crane. It had been partially cleared but the crane +still towered at one end. High above it, reached by a ladder, was a +door. + +The young captain of the airship pointed up to it. + +"My apartments!" he said. + +"Do you mean to say that you sleep here?" I asked. For the building +was bitterly cold; one end had been knocked out to admit the airship, +and the wall had been replaced by great curtains of sailcloth to keep +out the wind. + +"Of course," he replied. "I am always within call. There are sentries +also to guard the ship. It would be very easy to put it out of +commission." + +The construction of the great balloon was explained to me carefully. +It was made of layer after layer of gold-beater's skin and contained +two ballonets--a small ship compared to the Zeppelins, and non-rigid +in type. + +Underneath the great cigar-shaped bag hangs an aluminum car which +carries a crew of three men. The pilot sits in front at a wheel that +resembles the driving wheel of an automobile. Just behind him is the +observer, who also controls the wireless. The engineer is the third +man. + +The wireless puzzled me. "Do you mean that when you go out on scouting +expeditions you can communicate with the station here?" I asked. + +"It is quite possible. But when the airship goes out a wireless van +accompanies it, following along the roads. Messages are picked up by +the van and by a telephone connection sent to the various batteries." + +It may be well to mention again the airship chart system by which the +entire region is numbered and lettered in small squares. Black lines +drawn across the detail map of the neighbourhood divide it into +lettered squares, A, B, C, and so forth, and these lettered squares +are again subdivided into four small squares, 1, 2, 3, 4. Thus the +direction B 4, or N 2, is a very specific one in directing the fire of +a battery. + +"Did you accomplish much to-day?" I inquired. + +"Not as much as usual. There is a ground haze," replied Colonel M----, +who had been the observer in that day's flight. "Down here it is not +so noticeable, but from above it obscures everything." + +He explained the difficulties of the airship builder, the expense and +tendency to "pinholes" of gold-beaters' skin, the curious fact that +chemists had so far failed to discover a gasproof varnish. + +"But of course," he said, "those things will come. The airship is the +machine of the future. Its stability, its power to carry great +weights, point to that. The difference between an airship and an +aëroplane is the difference between a battleship and a submarine. Each +has its own field of usefulness." + +All round lay great cylinders of pure hydrogen, used for inflating the +balloon. Smoking in the hangar was forbidden. The incessant wind +rattled the great canvas curtains and whistled round the rusting +crane. From the shop next door came the hammering of machines, for the +French Government has put the mill to work again. + +We left the hangar and walked past the machine shop. Halfway along one +of its sides a tall lieutenant pointed to a small hole in the land, +leading under the building. + +"The French government has sent here," he said, "the men who are unfit +for service in the army. Day by day, as German aëroplanes are seen +overhead, the alarm is raised in the shop. The men are panic-stricken. +If there are a dozen alarms they do the same thing. They rush out like +frightened rabbits, throw themselves flat on the sand, and wriggle +through that hole into a cave that they have dug underneath. It is +hysterically funny; they all try to get in at the same time." + +I had hoped to see the thing happen myself. But when, late that +afternoon, a German aëroplane actually flew over the station, the +works had closed down for the day and the men were gone. It was +disappointing. + +Between the machine shop and the administration building is a tall +water tower. On top of this are two observers who watch the sky day +and night. An anti-aircraft gun is mounted there and may be swung to +command any portion of the sky. This precaution is necessary, for the +station has been the object of frequent attacks. The airship itself +has furnished a tempting mark to numerous German airmen. Its best +speed is forty miles an hour, so they are able to circle about it and +attack it from various directions. As it has only two ballonets, a +single shot, properly placed, could do it great damage. The Zeppelin, +with its eighteen great gasbags, can suffer almost any amount of +attack and still remain in the air. + +"Would you like to see the trenches?" said one of the officers, +smiling. + +"Trenches? Seven miles behind the line?" + +"Trenches certainly. If the German drive breaks through it will come +along this road." + +"But I thought you lived in the administration building?" + +"Some of us must hold the trenches," he said solemnly. "What are six +or seven miles to the German Army? You should see the letters of +sympathy we get from home!" + +So he showed me the trenches. They were extremely nice trenches, dug +out of the sand, it is true, but almost luxurious for all that, more +like rooms than ditches, with board shelves and dishes on the shelves, +egg cups and rows of shining glasses, silver spoons, neat little +folded napkins, and, though the beds were on the floor, extremely tidy +beds of mattresses and warm blankets. The floor was boarded over. +There was a chair or two, and though I will not swear to pictures on +the walls there were certainly periodicals and books. Outside the door +was a sort of vestibule of boards which had been built to keep the +wind out. + +"You see!" said the young officer with twinkling eyes. "But of course +this is war. One must put up with things!" + +Nevertheless it was a real trench, egg cups and rows of shining +glasses and electric light and all. It was there for a purpose. In +front of it was a great barbed-wire barricade. Strategically it +commanded the main road over which the German Army must pass to reach +the point it has been striving for. Only seven miles away along that +road it was straining even then for the onward spring movement. Any +day now, and that luxurious trench may be the scene of grim and +terrible fighting. + +And, more than that, these men at the station were not waiting for +danger to come to them. Day after day they were engaged in the most +perilous business of the war. + +At this station some of the queer anomalies of a volunteer army were +to be found. So strongly ingrained in the heart of the British youth +of good family is the love of country, that when he is unable to get +his commission he goes in any capacity. I heard of a little chap, too +small for the regular service, who has gone to the front as a cook! +His uncle sits in the House of Lords. And here, at this naval air +station, there were young noncommissioned officers who were +Honourables, and who were trying their best to live it down. One such +youth was in charge of the great van that is the repair shop for the +airship. Others were in charge of the wireless station. One met them +everywhere, clear-eyed young Englishmen ready and willing to do +anything, no matter what, and proving every moment of their busy day +the essential democracy of the English people. + +As we went into the administration building that afternoon two things +happened: The observers in the water tower reported a German aëroplane +coming toward the station, and a young lieutenant, who had gone to the +front in a borrowed machine, reported that he had broken the wind +shield of the machine. There are plenty of German aëroplanes at that +British airship station, but few wind shields. The aëroplane was +ignored, but the wind shield was loudly and acrimoniously discussed. + +The day was cold and had turned grey and lowering. It was pleasant +after our tour of the station to go into the long living room and sit +by the fire. But the fire smoked. One after another those dauntless +British officers attacked it, charged with poker, almost with bayonet, +and retired defeated. So they closed it up finally with a curious +curved fire screen and let it alone. It was ten minutes after I began +looking at the fire screen before I recognised it for what it was--the +hood from an automobile! + +Along one side of the wall was a piano. It had been brought back from +a ruined house at the front. It was rather a poor piano and no one had +any music, but some of the officers played a little by ear. The top of +the piano was held up by a bandage! It was a piano of German make, and +the nameplate had been wrenched off! + +A long table filled the centre of the room. One end formed the press +censorship bureau, for it was part of the province of the station to +censor and stamp letters going out. The other end was the dining +table. Over the fireplace on the mantel was a baby's shoe, a little +brown shoe picked up on the street of a town that was being destroyed. + +Beside it lay an odd little parachute of canvas with a weighted +letter-carrier beneath. One of the officers saw me examining it and +presented it to me, as it was worn and past service. + +"Now and then," he explained, "it is impossible to use the wireless, +for one reason or another. In that case a message can be dropped by +means of the parachute." + +I brought the message-carrier home with me. On its weighted canvas bag +is written in ink: "Urgent! You are requested to forward this at once +to the inclosed address. From His Majesty's airship ----." + +The sight of the press-censor stamp reminded an English officer, who +had lived in Belgium, of the way letters to and from interned Belgians +have been taken over the frontier into Holland and there dispatched. +Men who are willing to risk their lives for money collect these +letters. At one time the price was as high as two hundred francs for +each one. When enough have been gathered together to make the risk +worth while the bearer starts on his journey. He must slip through the +sentry lines disguised as a workman, or perhaps by crawling through +the barbed wire at the barrier. For fear of capture some of these +bearers, working their way through the line at night, have dragged +their letters behind them, so that in case of capture they could drop +the cord and be found without incriminating evidence on them. For +taking letters into Belgium the process is naturally reversed. But +letters are sent, not to names, but to numbers. The bearer has a list +of numbers which correspond to certain addresses. Thus, even if he is +taken and the letters are found on him, their intended recipients will +not be implicated. I saw a letter which had been received in this way +by a Belgian woman. It was addressed simply to Number Twenty-eight. + +The fire was burning better behind its automobile hood. An orderly had +brought in tea, white bread, butter, a pitcher of condensed cream, and +an English teacake. We gathered round the tea table. War seemed a +hundred miles away. Except for the blue uniforms and brass buttons of +the officers who belonged to the naval air service, the orderly's +khaki and the bayonet from a gun used casually at the other end of the +table as a paperweight, it was an ordinary English tea. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE WOMEN AT THE FRONT + + +It was commencing to rain outside. The rain beat on the windows and +made even the reluctant fire seem cosy. Some one had had a box of +candy sent from home. It was brought out and presented with a +flourish. + +"It is frightful, this life in the trenches!" said the young officer +who passed it about. + +Shortly afterward the party was increased. An orderly came in and +announced that an Englishwoman, whose automobile had broken down, was +standing on the bridge over the canal and asked to be admitted. She +did not know the password and the sentry refused to let her pass by. + +One of the officers went out and returned in a few moments with a +small lady much wrapped in veils and extremely wet. She stood blinking +in the doorway in the accustomed light. She was recognised at once as +a well-known English novelist who is conducting a soup kitchen at a +railroad station three miles behind the Belgian front. + +"A car was to have picked me up," she said, "but I have walked and +walked and it has not come. And I am so cold. Is that tea? And may I +come to the fire?" + +So they settled her comfortably, with her feet thrust out to the +blaze, and gave her hot tea and plenty of bread and butter. + +"It is like the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice in Wonderland," said +one of the officers gaily. "When any fresh person drops in we just +move up one place." + +The novelist sipped her tea and told me about her soup kitchen. + +"It is so very hard to get things to put into the soup," she said. "Of +course I have no car, and now with the new law that no women are to be +allowed in military cars I hardly know what to do." + +"Will you tell me just what you do?" I asked. So she told me, and +later I saw her soup kitchen. + +"Men come in from the front," she explained, "injured and without +food. Often they have had nothing to eat for a long time. We make soup +of whatever meat we can find and any vegetables, and as the hospital +trains come in we carry it out to the men. They are so very grateful +for it." + +That was to be an exceptional afternoon at the naval air-station. For +hardly had the novelist been settled with her tea when two very +attractive but strangely attired young women came into the room. They +nodded to the officers, whom they knew, and went at once to the +business which had brought them. + +"Can you lend us a car?" they asked. "Ours has gone off the road into +the mud, and it looks as though it would never move again." + +That was the beginning of a very strange evening, almost an +extraordinary evening. For while the novelist was on her way back to +peace these young women were on their way home. + +And home to them was one room of a shattered house directly on the +firing line. + +Much has been said about women at the front. As far as I know at that +time there were only two women absolutely at the front. Nurses as a +rule are kept miles behind the line. Here and there a soup kitchen, +like that just spoken of, has held its courageous place three or four +miles back along the lines of communication. + +I have said that they were extraordinarily dressed. Rather they were +most practically dressed. Under khaki-coloured leather coats these two +young women wore khaki riding breeches with puttees and flannel +shirts. They had worn nothing else for six months. They wore knitted +caps on their heads, for the weather was extremely cold, and mittens. + +The fire was blazing high and we urged them to take off their outer +wraps. For a reason which we did not understand at the time they +refused. They sat with their leather coats buttoned to the throat, and +coloured violently when urged to remove them. + +"But what are you doing here?" said one of the officers. "What brings +you so far from P----" + +They said they had had an errand, and went on drinking tea. + +"What sort of an errand?" a young lieutenant demanded. + +They exchanged glances. + +"Shopping," they said, and took more tea. + +"Shopping, for what?" He was smilingly impertinent. + +They hesitated. Then: "For mutton," one of them replied. Both looked +relieved. Evidently the mutton was an inspiration. "We have found some +mutton." They turned to me. "It is a real festival. You have no idea +how long it is since we've had anything of the sort." + +"Mutton!" cried the novelist, with frankly greedy eyes. "It makes +wonderful soup! Where can I get it?" + +They told her, and she stood up, tied on her seven veils and departed, +rejoicing, in a car that had come for her. + +When she was gone Colonel M---- turned to one of the young women. + +"Now," he said, "out with it. What brings you both so far from your +thriving and prosperous little community?" + +The irony of that was lost on me until later, when I discovered that +the said community was a destroyed town with the advance line of +trenches running through it, and that they lived in the only two whole +rooms in the place. + +"Out with it," said the colonel, and scowled ferociously. + +Driven into a corner they were obliged to confess. For three hours +that afternoon they had stood in a freezing wind on a desolate field, +while King Albert of Belgium decorated for bravery various officers +and--themselves. The jealously fastened coats were thrown open. +Gleaming on the breast of each young woman was the star of the Order +of Leopold! + +"But why did you not tell us?" the officers demanded. + +"Because," was the retort, "you have never approved of us; you have +always wanted us sent back to England. The whole British Army has +objected to our being where we are." + +"Much good the objecting has done!" grumbled the officers. But in +their hearts they were very proud. + +Originally there had been three in this valiant little group of young +aristocrats who have proved as true as their brothers to the +traditions of their race. The third one was the daughter of an earl. +She, too, had been decorated. But she had gone to a little town near +by a day or two before. + +"But what do you do?" I asked one of these young women. She was +drawing on her mittens ready to start for their car. + +"Sick and sorry work," she said briefly. "You know the sort of thing. +I wish you would come out and have dinner with us. There is to be +mutton." + +I accepted promptly, but it was the situation and not the mutton that +appealed to me. It was arranged that they should go ahead and set +things in motion for the meal, and that I should follow later. + +At the door one of them turned and smiled at me. + +"They are shelling the village," she said. "You don't mind, do you?" + +"Not at all," I replied. And I meant it. For I was no longer so +gun-shy as I had been earlier in the winter. I had got over turning +pale at the slamming of a door. I was as terrified, perhaps, but my +pride had come to my aid. + +It was the English officers who disapproved so thoroughly who told me +about them when they had gone. + +"Of course they have no business there," they said. "It's a frightful +responsibility to place on the men at that part of the line. But +there's no question about the value of what they are doing, and if +they want to stay they deserve to be allowed to. They go right into +the trenches, and they take care of the wounded until the ambulances +can come up at night. Wait until you see their house and you will +understand why they got those medals." + +And when I had seen their house and spent an evening with them I +understood very well indeed. + +We gathered round the fire; conversation was desultory. Muddy and +weary young officers, who had been at the front all day, came in and +warmed themselves for a moment before going up to their cold rooms. +The owner of the broken wind shield arrived and was placated. +Continuous relays of tea were coming and going. Colonel ----, who had +been in an observation balloon most of the day, spoke of balloon +sickness. + +"I have been in balloons of one sort and another for twenty years," he +said. "I never overcome the nausea. Very few airmen do." + +I spoke to him about a recent night attack by German aviators. + +"It is remarkable work," he commented warmly, "hazardous in the +extreme; and if anything goes wrong they cannot see where they are +coming down. Even when they alight in their own lines, landing safely +is difficult. They are apt to wreck their machines." + +The mention of German aëroplanes reminded one of the officers of an +experience he had had just behind the firing line. + +"I had been to the front," he said, "and a mile or so behind the line +a German aëroplane overtook the automobile. He flew low, with the +evident intention of dropping a bomb on us. The chauffeur, becoming +excited, stalled the engine. At that moment the aviator dropped the +first bomb, killing a sow and a litter of young pigs beside the car +and breaking all the glass. Cranking failed to start the car. It was +necessary, while the machine manoeuvred to get overhead again, to lift +the hood of the engine, examine a spark-plug and then crank the car. +He dropped a second bomb which fell behind the car and made a hole in +the road. Then at last the engine started, and it took us a very short +time to get out of that neighbourhood." + +The car he spoke of was the car in which I had come out to the +station. I could testify that something had broken the glass! + +One of the officers had just received what he said were official +percentages of casualties in killed, wounded and missing among the +Allies, to the first of February. + +The Belgian percentage was 66 2-3, the English 33 1-3 and the French +7. I have no idea how accurate the figures were, or his authority for +them. He spoke of them as official. From casualties to hospitals and +nurses was but a step. I spoke warmly of the work the nurses near the +front were doing. But one officer disagreed with me, although in the +main his views were not held by the others. + +"The nurses at the base hospitals should be changed every three +months," he said. "They get the worst cases there, in incredible +conditions. After a time it tells on them. I've seen it in a number of +cases. They grow calloused to suffering. That's the time to bring up a +new lot." + +I think he is wrong. I have seen many hospitals, many nurses. If there +is a change in the nurses after a time, it is that, like the soldiers +in the field, they develop a philosophy which carries them through +their terrible days. "What must be, must be," say the men in the +trenches. "What must be, must be," say the nurses in the hospital. And +both save themselves from madness. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE LITTLE "SICK AND SORRY" HOUSE + + +And now it was seven o'clock, and raining. Dinner was to be at eight. +I had before me a drive of nine miles along those slippery roads. It +was dark and foggy, with the ground mist of Flanders turning to a fog. +The lamps of the car shining into it made us appear to be riding +through a milky lake. Progress was necessarily slow. + +One of the English officers accompanied me. + +"I shall never forget the last time I dined out here," he said as we +jolted along. "There is a Belgian battery just behind the house. All +evening as we sat and talked I thought the battery was firing; the +house shook under tremendous concussion. Every now and then Mrs. K---- +or Miss C---- would get up and go out, coming back a few moments later +and joining calmly in the conversation. + +"Not until I started back did I know that we had been furiously +bombarded, that the noise I had heard was shells breaking all about +the place. A 'coal-box,' as they call them here, had fallen in the +garden and dug a great hole!" + +"And when the young ladies went out, were they watching the bombs +burst?" I inquired. + +"Not at all," he said. "They went out to go into the trenches to +attend to the wounded. They do it all the time." + +"And they said nothing about it!" + +"They thought we knew. As for going into the trenches, that is what +they are there to do." + +My enthusiasm for mutton began to fade. I felt convinced that I should +not remain calm if a shell fell into the garden. But again, as +happened many times during those eventful weeks at the front, my pride +refused to allow me to turn back. And not for anything in the world +would I have admitted being afraid to dine where those two young women +were willing to eat and sleep and have their being day and night for +months. + +"But of course," I said, "they are well protected, even if they are at +the trenches. That is, the Germans never get actually into the town." + +"Oh, don't they?" said the officer. "That town has been taken by the +Germans five times and lost as many. A few nights ago they got over +into the main street and there was terrific hand-to-hand fighting." + +"Where do they go at such times?" I asked. + +"I never thought about it. I suppose they get into the cellar. But if +they do it is not at all because they are afraid." + +We went on, until some five of the nine miles had been traversed. + +I have said before that the activity at the front commences only with +the falling of night. During the day the zone immediately back of the +trenches is a dead country. But at night it wakens into activity. +Soldiers leave the trenches and fresh soldiers take their places, +ammunition and food are brought up, wires broken during the day by +shells are replaced, ambulances come up and receive their frightful +burdens. + +Now we reached the zone of night activity. A travelling battery passed +us, moving from one part of the line to another; the drivers, three to +each gun, sat stolidly on their horses, their heads dropped against +the rain. They appeared out of the mist beside us, stood in full +relief for a moment in the glow of the lamps, and were swallowed up +again. + +At three miles from our destination, but only one mile from the German +lines, it was necessary to put out the lamps. Our progress, which had +been dangerous enough before, became extremely precarious. It was +necessary to turn out for teams and lorries, for guns and endless +lines of soldiers, and to turn out a foot too far meant slipping into +the mud. Two miles and a half from the village we turned out too far. + +There was a sickening side slip. The car turned over to the right at +an acute angle and there remained. We were mired! + +We got out. It was perfectly dark. Guns were still passing us, so that +it was necessary to warn the drivers of our wrecked car. The road was +full of shell holes, so that to step was to stumble. The German lines, +although a mile away, seemed very near. Between the road and the enemy +was not a tree or a shrub or a fence--only the line of the railway +embankment which marked the Allies' trenches. To add to the dismalness +of the situation the Germans began throwing the familiar magnesium +lights overhead. The flares made the night alike beautiful and +fearful. It was possible when one burst near to see the entire +landscape spread out like a map--ditches full of water, sodden fields, +shell holes in the roads which had become lakes, the long lines of +poplars outlining the road ahead. At one time no less than twenty +starlights hung in the air at one time. When they went out the inky +night seemed blacker than ever. I stepped off the road and was almost +knee-deep in mud at once. + +The battery passed, urging its tired horses to such speed as was +possible. After it came thousands of men, Belgian and French mostly, +on their way out of the trenches. + +We called for volunteers from the line to try to lift the car onto the +road. But even with twenty men at the towing rope it refused to move. +The men were obliged to give it up and run on to catch their +companies. + +Between the _fusées_ the curious shuffling of feet and a deeper shadow +were all that told of the passage of these troops. It was so dark that +one could see no faces. But here and there one saw the light of a +cigarette. The mere hardship of walking for miles along those roads, +paved with round stones and covered with mud on which their feet +slipped continually, must have been a great one, and agonizing for +feet that had been frosted in the water of the trenches. + +Afterward I inquired what these men carried. They loomed up out of the +night like pack horses. I found that each soldier carried, in addition +to his rifle and bayonet, a large knapsack, a canteen, a cartridge +pouch, a brown haversack containing tobacco, soap, towel and food, a +billy-can and a rolled blanket. + +German batteries were firing intermittently as we stood there. The +rain poured down. I had dressed to go out to tea and wore my one and +only good hat. I did the only thing that seemed possible--I took off +that hat and put it in the automobile and let the rain fall on my +unprotected head. The hat had to see me through the campaign, and my +hair would stand water. + +At last an armoured car came along and pulled the automobile onto the +road. But after a progress of only ten feet it lapsed again, and there +remained. + +The situation was now acute. It was impossible to go back, and to go +ahead meant to advance on foot along roads crowded with silent +soldiers--meant going forward, too, in a pouring rain and in +high-heeled shoes. For that was another idiocy I had committed. + +We started on, leaving the apologetic chauffeur by the car. A few feet +and the road, curving to the right, began to near the German line. +Every now and then it was necessary to call sharply to the troops, or +struggling along through the rain they would have crowded us off +knee-deep into the mud. + +"_Attention!"_ the officer would call sharply. And for a time we would +have foot room. There were no more horses, no more guns--only men, +men, men. Some of them had taken off their outer coats and put them +shawl-fashion over their heads. But most of them walked stolidly on, +already too wet and wretched to mind the rain. + +The fog had lifted. It was possible to see that sinister red streak +that follows the firing of a gun at night. The rain gave a peculiar +hollowness to the concussion. The Belgian and French batteries were +silent. + +We seemed to have walked endless miles, and still there was no little +town. We went over a bridge, and on its flat floor I stopped and +rested my aching feet. + +"Only a little farther now," said the British officer cheerfully. + +"How much farther?" + +"Not more than a mile," + +By way of cheering me he told me about the town we were +approaching--how the road we were on was its main street, and that the +advanced line of trenches crossed at the railroad near the foot of the +street. + +"And how far from that are the German trenches?" I asked nervously. + +"Not very far," he said blithely. "Near enough to be interesting." + +On and on. Here was a barn. + +"Is this the town?" I asked feebly. + +"Not yet. A little farther!" + +I was limping, drenched, irritable. But now and then the absurdity of +my situation overcame me and I laughed. Water ran down my head and off +my nose, trickled down my neck under my coat. I felt like a great +sponge. And suddenly I remembered my hat. + +"I feel sure," I said, stopping still in the road, "that the chauffeur +will go inside the car out of the rain and sit on my hat." + +The officer thought this very likely. I felt extremely bitter about +it. The more I thought of it the more I was convinced that he was +exactly the sort of chauffeur who would get into a car and sit on an +only hat. + +At last we came to the town--to what had been a town. It was a town no +longer. Walls without roofs, roofs almost without walls. Here and +there only a chimney standing of what had been a home; a street so +torn up by shells that walking was almost impossible--full of +shell-holes that had become graves. There were now no lights, not even +soldiers. In the silence our footsteps re-echoed against those +desolate and broken walls. + +A day or two ago I happened on a description of this town, written by +a man who had seen it at the time I was there. + +"The main street," he writes, "is like a great museum of prehistoric +fauna. The house roofs, denuded of tiles and the joists left naked, +have tilted forward on to the sidewalks, so that they hang in mid-air +like giant vertebrae.... One house only of the whole village of ---- +had been spared." + +We stumbled down the street toward the trenches and at last stopped +before a house. Through boards nailed across what had once been +windows a few rays of light escaped. There was no roof; a side wall +and an entire corner were gone. It was the residence of the ladies of +the decoration. + +Inside there was for a moment an illusion of entirety. The narrow +corridor that ran through the centre of the house was weatherproof. +But through some unseen gap rushed the wind of the night. At the +right, warm with lamplight, was the reception room, dining room and +bedroom--one small chamber about twelve by fifteen! + +What a strange room it was, furnished with odds and ends from the +shattered houses about! A bed in the corner; a mattress on the floor; +a piano in front of the shell-holed windows, a piano so badly cracked +by shrapnel that panels of the woodwork were missing and keys gone; +two or three odd chairs and what had once been a bookcase, and in the +centre a pine table laid for a meal. + +Mrs. K----, whose uncle was a cabinet minister, was hurrying in with a +frying-pan in her hand. + +"The mutton!" she said triumphantly, and placed it on the table, +frying-pan and all. The other lady of the decoration followed with the +potatoes, also in the pan in which they had been cooked. + +We drew up our chairs, for the mutton must not be allowed to get cold. + +"It's quite a party, isn't it?" said one of the hostesses, and showed +us proudly the dish of fruit on the centre of the table, flanked by +bonbons and nuts which had just been sent from England. + +True, the fruit was a little old and the nuts were few; but they gave +the table a most festive look. + +Some one had taken off my shoes and they were drying by the fire, +stuffed with paper to keep them in shape. My soaking outer garments +had been carried to the lean-to kitchen to hang by the stove, and dry +under the care of a soldier servant who helped with the cooking. I +looked at him curiously. His predecessor had been killed in the room +where he stood. + +The German batteries were firing, and every now and then from the +trenches at the foot of the street came the sharp ping of rifles. No +one paid any attention. We were warm and sheltered from the wind. What +if the town was being shelled and the Germans were only six hundred +feet away? We were getting dry, and there was mutton for dinner. + +It was a very cheerful party--the two young ladies, and a third who +had joined them temporarily, a doctor who was taking influenza and +added little to the conversation, the chauffeur attached to the house, +who was a count in ordinary times, a Belgian major who had come up +from the trenches to have a real meal, and the English officer who had +taken me out. + +Outside the door stood the major's Congo servant, a black boy who +never leaves him, following with dog-like fidelity into the trenches +and sleeping outside his door when the major is in billet. He had +picked him up in the Congo years before during his active service +there. + +The meal went on. The frying-pan was passed. The food was good and the +talk was better. It was indiscriminately rapid French and English. +When it was English I replied. When it was French I ate. + +The hostess presented me with a shrapnel case which had arrived that +day on the doorstep. + +"If you are collecting trophies," said the major, "I shall get you a +German sentry this evening. How would you like that?" + +There was a reckless twinkle in the major's eye. It developed that he +had captured several sentries and liked playing the game. + +But I did not know the man. So I said: "Certainly, it would be most +interesting." + +Whereupon he rose. It took all the combined effort of the dinner party +to induce him to sit down and continue his meal. He was vastly +disappointed. He was a big man with a humorous mouth. The idea of +bringing me a German sentry to take home as a trophy appealed to him. + +The meal went on. No one seemed to consider the circumstances +extraordinary. Now and then I remembered the story of the street +fighting a few nights before. I had an idea that these people would +keep on eating and talking English politics quite calmly in the event +of a German charge. I wondered if I could live up to my reputation for +courage in such a crisis. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +FLIGHT + + +The first part of the meal over, the hostess picked up a nut and threw +it deftly at a door leading into the lean-to-kitchen. + +"Our table bell," she explained to me. And, true enough, a moment +later the orderly appeared and carried out the plates. + +Then we had dessert, which was fruit and candy, and coffee. + +And all the time the guns were firing, and every opening of the door +into the corridor brought a gale of wind into the room. + +Suddenly it struck me that hardly a foot of the plaster interior of +that room was whole. The ceiling was riddled. So were the walls. + +"Shrapnel," said the major, following my gaze. "It gets worse every +day." + +"I think the ceiling is going to fall," said one of the hostesses. + +True enough, there was a great bulge in the centre. But it held for +that night. It may be holding now. + +Everybody took a hand at clearing the table. The lamp was burning low, +and they filled it without putting it out. One of the things that I +have always been taught is never to fill a lighted lamp. I explained +this to them carefully. But they were quite calm. It seems at the +front one does a great many extraordinary things. It is part and +parcel of that utter indifference to danger that comes with war. + +Now appeared the chauffeur, who brought the information that the car +had been dragged out of the mud and towed as far as the house. + +"Towed?" I said blankly. + +"Towed, madame. There is no more petrol." + +The major suggested that we kill him at once. But he was a perfectly +good chauffeur and young. Also it developed that he had not sat on my +hat. So we let him live. + +"Never mind," said Miss C----; "we can give you the chauffeur's bed +and he can go somewhere else." + +But after a time I decided that I would rather walk back than stay +overnight in that house. For the major explained that at eleven +o'clock the batteries behind the town would bombard the German +trenches and the road behind them, along which they had information +that an ammunition train would pass. + +"Another night in the cellar!" said some one. "That means no one will +need any beds, for there will be a return fire, of course." + +"Is there no petrol to be had?" I inquired anxiously. + +"None whatever." + +None, of course. There had been shops in the town, and presumably +petrol and other things. But now there was nothing but ruined walls +and piles of brick and mortar. However, there was a cellar. + +My feet were swollen and painful, for the walk had been one long +agony. I was chilled, too, from my wetting, in spite of the fire. I +sat by the tiny stove and tried to forget the prospect of a night in +the cellar, tried to ignore the pieces of shell and shrapnel cases +lined up on the mantelpiece, shells and shrapnel that had entered the +house and destroyed it. + +The men smoked and talked. An officer came up from the trenches to +smoke his after-dinner pipe, a bearded individual, who apologised for +his muddy condition. He and the major played a duet. They made a great +fuss about their preparation for it. The stool must be so, the top of +the cracked piano raised. They turned and bowed to us profoundly. Then +sat down and played--CHOP STICKS! + +But that was only the beginning. For both of them were accomplished +musicians. The major played divinely. He played a Rhapsodie Hongroise, +the Moonlight Sonata, one of the movements of the Sonata Appassionata. +He played without notes, a bulldog pipe gripped firmly in his teeth, +blue clouds encircling his fair hair. Gone was the reckless soldier +who would have taken his life in his hands for the whim of bringing in +a German sentry. Instead there was a Belgian whose ruined country lay +behind him, whose people lay dead in thousands of hideous graves, +whose heart was torn and aching with the things that it knew and +buried. We sat silent. His pipe died in his mouth; his eyes, fixed on +the shell-riddled wall, grew sombre. When the music ceased his hands +still lay lingeringly on the keys. And, beyond the foot of the street, +the ominous guns of the army that had ruined his country crashed +steadily. + +We were rather subdued when the music died away. But he evidently +regretted having put a weight on the spirits of the party. He rose and +brought me a charming little water-colour sketch he had made of the +bit of No Man's Land in front of his trench, with the German line +beyond it. + +"By the way," he said in his exact English, "I went to art school in +Dresden with an American named Reinhart. Afterward he became a great +painter--Charles Stanley Reinhart. Is he by any chance a relative?" + +"Charles Stanley Reinhart is dead," I said. "He was a Pittsburgher, +too, but the two families are connected only by marriage." + +"Dead! So he is dead too! Everybody is dead. He--he was a very nice +boy." + +Suddenly he stood up and stretched his long arms. + +"It was a long time ago," he said. "Now I go for the sentry." + +They caught him at the door, however, and brought him back. + +"But it is so simple," he protested. "No one is hurt. And the American +lady--" + +The American lady protested. + +"I don't want a German sentry," I said. "I shouldn't know what to do +with a German sentry if I had one." + +So he sat down and explained his method to me. I wish I could tell his +method here. It sounded so easy. Evidently it was a safety-valve, +during that long wait of the deadlock, for his impetuous temperament. +One could picture him sitting in his trench day after day among the +soldiers who adored him, making little water-colour sketches and +smoking his bulldog pipe, and then suddenly, as now, rising and +stretching his long arms and saying: + +"Well, boys, I guess I'll go out and bring one in." + +And doing it. + +I was taken for a tour of the house--up a broken staircase that hung +suspended, apparently from nothing, to what had been the upper story. + +It was quite open to the sky and the rain was coming in. On the side +toward the German line there was no wall. There were no partitions, no +windows, only a few broken sticks of what had been furniture. And in +one corner, partly filled with rain water, a child's cradle that had +miraculously escaped destruction. + +Downstairs to the left of the corridor was equal destruction. There +was one room here that, except for a great shell-hole and for a +ceiling that was sagging and almost ready to fall, was intact. Here on +a stand were surgical supplies, and there was a cot in the corner. A +soldier had just left the cot. He had come up late in the afternoon +with a nosebleed, and had now recovered. + +"It has been a light day," said my guide. "Sometimes we hardly know +which way to turn--when there is much going on, you know. Probably +to-night we shall be extremely busy." + +We went back into the living room and I consulted my watch. It was +half past ten o'clock. At eleven the bombardment was to begin! + +The conversation in the room had turned to spies. Always, everywhere, +I found this talk of spies. It appeared that at night a handful of the +former inhabitants of the town crept back from the fields to sleep in +the cellars of what had been their homes, and some of them were under +suspicion. + +"Every morning," said Miss C----, "before the German bombardment +begins, three small shells are sent over in quick succession. Then +there is about fifteen minutes' wait before the real shelling. I am +convinced that it is a signal to some one to get out." + +The officers pooh-poohed the idea. But Miss C---- stuck to her point. + +"They are getting information somehow," she said. "You may laugh if +you like. I am sure I am right." + +Later on an officer explained to me something about the secret service +of the war. + +"It is a war of spies," he said. "That is one reason for the deadlock. +Every movement is reported to the other side and checkmated almost +before it begins. In the eastern field of war the system is still +inadequate; that accounts for the great movements that have taken +place there." + +Perhaps he is right. It sounds reasonable. I do not know with what +authority he spoke. But certainly everywhere I found this talk of +spies. One of the officers that night told of a recent experience of +his. + +"I was in a church tower at ----," he said. "There were three of us. +We had been looking over toward the German lines. Suddenly I looked +down into the street below. Some one with an electric flash was +signalling across. It was quite distinct. All of us saw it. There was +an answer from the German trenches immediately. While one of us kept +watch on the tower the others rushed down into the street. There was +no one there. But it is certain that that sort of thing goes on all +the time." + +A quarter to eleven! + +Suddenly the whole thing seemed impossible--that the noise at the foot +of the street was really guns; that I should be there; that these two +young women should live there day and night in the midst of such +horrors. For the whole town is a graveyard. Bodies in numbers have +been buried in shell-holes and hastily covered, or float in the +stagnant water of the canal. Every heavy rain uncovers shallow graves +in the fields, allowing a dead arm, part of a rotting trunk, to show. + +And now, after this lapse of time, it still seems incredible. Are they +still there? Report has it that the Germans captured this town and +held it for a time, only to lose it later. What happened to the little +"sick and sorry" house during those fearful days? Did the German +officers sit about that pine table and throw a nut to summon an +orderly? Did they fill the lamp while it was lighted, and play on the +cracked piano, and pick up shrapnel cases as they landed on the +doorstep and set them on the mantel? + +Ten minutes to eleven! + +The chauffeur came to the door and stuck his head in. + +"I have found petrol in a can in an empty shed," he explained. "It is +now possible to go." + +We went. We lost no time on the order of our going. The rain was over, +but the fog had descended again. We lighted our lamps, and were curtly +ordered by a sentry to put them out. In the moment that they remained +alight, carefully turned away from the trenches, it was possible to +see the hopeless condition of the street. + +At last we reached a compromise. One lamp we might have, but covered +with heavy paper. It was very little. The car bumped ominously, sagged +into shell-holes. + +I turned and looked back at the house. Faint rays of light shone +through its boarded windows. A wounded soldier had been brought up the +street and stood, leaning heavily on his companion, at the doorstep. +The door opened, and he was taken in. + +Good-bye, little "sick and sorry" house, with your laughter and tears, +your friendly hands, your open door! Good-bye! + +Five minutes later, as we reached the top of the Street, the +bombardment began. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +VOLUNTEERS AND PATRIOTS + + +I hold a strong brief for the English: For the English at home, +restrained, earnest, determined and unassuming; for the English in the +field, equally all of these things. + +The British Army has borne attacks at La Bassée and Ypres, positions +so strategically difficult to hold that the Germans have concentrated +their assaults at these points. It has borne the horrors of the +retreat from Mons, when what the Kaiser called "General French's +contemptible little army" was forced back by oncoming hosts of many +times its number. It has fought, as the English will always fight, +with unequalled heroism but without heroics. + +To-day, after many months of war, the British Army in the field is as +smart, in a military sense, as tidy--if it will forgive me the +word--as well ordered, as efficiently cared for, as the German Army +was in the beginning. Partly this is due to its splendid equipment. +Mostly it is due to that fetish of the British soldier wherever he may +be--personal neatness. + +Behind the lines he is jaunty, cheerful, smart beyond belief. He hates +the trenches--not because they are dangerous or monotonous but because +it is difficult to take a bath in them. He is four days in the +trenches and four days out. On his days out he drills and marches, to +get back into condition after the forced inaction of the trenches. And +he gets his hair trimmed. + +There is something about the appearance of the British soldier in the +field that got me by the throat. Perhaps because they are, in a sense, +my own people, speaking my tongue, looking at things from a view-point +that I could understand. That partly. But it was more than that. + +These men and boys are volunteers, the very flower of England. They +march along the roads, heads well up, eyes ahead, thousands of them. +What a tragedy for the country that gives them up! Who will take their +places?--these splendid Scots with their picturesque kilts, their +bare, muscular knees, their great shoulders; the cheery Irish, +swaggering a bit and with a twinkle in their blue eyes; these tall +young English boys, showing race in every line; these dashing +Canadians, so impressive that their every appearance on a London +street was certain to set the crowds to cheering. + +I saw them in London, and later on I saw them at the front. Still +later I saw them again, prostrate on the ground, in hospital trains, +on hospital ships. I saw mounds, too, marked with wooden crosses. + +Volunteers and patriots! A race incapable of a mean thing, incapable +of a cruelty. A race of sportsmen, playing this horrible game of war +fairly, almost too honestly. A race, not of diplomats, but of +gentlemen. + +"You will always be fools," said a captured German naval officer to +his English captors, "and we shall never be gentlemen!" + +But they are not fools. It is that attitude toward the English that +may defeat Germany in the end. + +Every man in the British Army to-day has counted the cost. He is there +because he elected to be there. He is going to stay by until the thing +is done, or he is. He says very little about it. He is uncomfortable +if any one else says anything about it. He is rather matter of fact, +indeed, and nonchalant as long as things are being done fairly. But +there is nothing calm about his attitude when his opponent hits below +the belt. It was a sense of fair play, as well as humanity, that made +England rise to the call of Belgium. It is England's sense of fair +play that makes her soldiers and sailors go white with fury at the +drowning of women and children and noncombatants; at the unprincipled +employment of such trickery in war as the use of asphyxiating gases, +or at the insulting and ill-treating of those of their army who have +been captured by the Germans. It is at the English, not at the French +or the Belgians, that Germany is striking in this war. Her whole +attitude shows it. British statesmen knew this from the beginning, but +the people were slow to believe it. But escaped prisoners have told +that they were discriminated against. I have talked with a British +officer who made a sensational escape from a German prison camp. +German soldiers have called across to the French trenches that it was +the English they were after. + +In his official order to his troops to advance, the German Emperor +voiced the general sentiment. + + "It is my Royal and Imperial Command that you concentrate your + energies, for the immediate present, upon one single purpose, and + that is that you address all your skill and all the valour of my + soldiers to exterminate first the treacherous English and walk over + General French's contemptible little army. + + "Headquarters, + + "Aix-la-Chapelle, August 19th, 1914." + +In the name of the dignity of great nations, compare that order with +Lord Kitchener's instructions to his troops, given at the same time. + + "You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French + comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You have to perform + a task which will need your courage, your energy, your patience. + Remember that the honour of the British Army depends on your + individual conduct. It will be your duty not only to set an example + of discipline and perfect steadiness under fire, but also to + maintain the most friendly relations with those whom you are helping + in this struggle. + + "The operations in which you are engaged will, for the most part, + take place in a friendly country, and you can do your own country no + better service than in showing yourselves in France and Belgium in + the true character of a British soldier. + + "Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. Never do anything + likely to injure or destroy property, and always look upon looting + as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet with a welcome and to be + trusted; your conduct will justify that welcome and that trust. Your + duty cannot be done unless your health is sound. So keep constantly + on your guard against any excesses. In this new experience you may + find temptations both in wine and women. You must entirely resist + both temptations, and, while treating all women with perfect + courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy. + + "Do your duty bravely, + + "Fear God, + + "Honour the King. + + "(Signed), KITCHENER, Field Marshal," + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +A LUNCHEON AT BRITISH HEADQUARTERS + + +The same high-crowned roads, with pitfalls of mud at each side; the +same lines of trees; the same coating of ooze, over which the car slid +dangerously. But a new element--khaki. + +Khaki everywhere--uniforms, tents, transports, all of the same hue. +Skins, too, where one happens on the Indian troops. It is difficult to +tell where their faces end and their yellow turbans begin. + +Except for the slightly rolling landscape and the khaki one might have +been behind the Belgian or French Army. There were as usual aëroplanes +overhead, clouds of shrapnel smoke, and not far away the thunder of +cannonading. After a time even that ceased, for I was on my way to +British General Headquarters, well back from the front. + +I carried letters from England to Field Marshal Sir John French, to +Colonel Brinsley Fitzgerald, aid-de-camp to the "Chief," as he is +called, and to General Huguet, the _liaison_ between the French and +English Armies. His official title is something entirely different, +but the French word is apt. He is the connecting link between the +English and French Armies. + +I sent these letters to headquarters, and waited in the small hotel +for developments. The British antipathy to correspondents was well +known. True, there were indications that a certain relaxation was +about to take place. Frederick Palmer in London had been notified that +before long he would be sent across, and I had heard that some of the +London newspapers, the _Times_ and a few others, were to be allowed a +day at the lines. + +But at the time my machine drew into that little French town and +deposited me in front of a wretched inn, no correspondent had been to +the British lines. It was _terra incognita_. Even London knew very +little. It was rumoured that such part of the Canadian contingent as +had left England up to that time had been sent to the eastern field, +to Egypt or the Dardanelles. With the exception of Sir John French's +reports and the "Somewhere in France" notes of "Eyewitness," a British +officer at the front, England was taking her army on faith. + +And now I was there, and there frankly as a writer. Also I was a +woman. I knew how the chivalrous English mind recoiled at the idea of +a woman near the front. Their nurses were kept many miles in the rear. +They had raised loud protests when three English women were permitted +to stay at the front with the Belgian Army. + +My knees were a bit weak as I went up the steps and into the hotel. +They would hardly arrest me. My letters were from very important +persons indeed. But they could send me away with expedition and +dispatch. I had run the Channel blockade to get there, and I did not +wish to be sent away with expedition and dispatch. + +The hotel was cold and bare. Curious eyed officers came in, stared at +me and went out. A French gentleman in a military cape walked round +the bare room, spoke to the canaries in a great cage in the corner, +and came back to where I sat with my fur coat, lap-robe fashion, over +my knees. + +"_Pardon!_" he said. "Are you the Duchess of Sutherland?" + +I regretted that I was not the Duchess of Sutherland. + +"You came just now in a large car?" + +"I did." + +"You intend to stay here for some time?" + +"I have not decided." + +"Where did you come from?" + +"I think," I said after a rather stunned pause, "that I shall not tell +you." + +"Madame is very cautious!" + +I felt convinced that he spoke with the authority of the army, or of +the town _gendarmerie_, behind him. But I was irritated. Besides, I +had been cautioned so much about telling where I had been, except in +general terms, that I was even afraid to talk in my sleep. + +"I think," I said, "that it does not really matter where I came from, +where I am going, or what I am doing here." + +I expected to see him throw back his cape and exhibit a sheriff's +badge, or whatever its French equivalent. But he only smiled. + +"In that case," he said cheerfully, "I shall wish you a good morning." + +"Good-bye," I said coldly. And he took himself off. + +I have never solved the mystery of that encounter. Was he merely +curious? Or scraping acquaintance with the only woman he had seen in +months? Or was he as imposing a person as he looked, and did he go +away for a warrant or whatever was necessary, and return to find me +safe in the lap of the British Army? + +The canary birds sang, and a porter with a leather apron, having +overcome a national inability to light a fire in the middle of the +day, came to take me to my room. There was an odour of stewing onions +in the air, and soapsuds, and a dog sniffed at me and barked because I +addressed him in English. + +And then General Huguet came, friendly and smiling, and speaking +English. And all was well. + +Afterward I learned how that same diplomacy which made me comfortable +and at home with him at once has made smooth the relations between the +English and French Armies. It was Chesterfield, wasn't it, who spoke +of _"Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re"?_ That is General Huguet. A +tall man, dark, keen and of most soldierly bearing; beside the genial +downrightness of the British officers he was urbane, suave, but full +of decision. His post requires diplomacy but not concession. + +Sir John French, he regretted to say, was at the front and would not +return until late in the evening. But Colonel Fitzgerald hoped that I +would come to luncheon at headquarters, so that we might talk over +what was best to be done. He would, if the arrangement suited me, +return at one o'clock for me. + +It was half past twelve. I made such concessions to the occasion as my +travelling bag permitted, and, prompt to the minute, General Huguet's +car drew up at the inn door. It was a wonderful car. I used it all +that afternoon and the next day, and I can testify both to its comfort +and to its speed. I had travelled fast in cars belonging to the +Belgian and French staffs, but never have I gone as I did in that +marvel of a car. Somewhere among my papers I have a sketch that I made +of the interior of the limousine body, with the two soldier-chauffeurs +outside in front, the two carbines strapped to the speedometer between +the _vis-à-vis_ seats inside the car, and the speedometer registering +ninety kilometres and going up. + +We went at once to British Headquarters, with its sentries and its +flag; a large house, which had belonged to a notary, its grim and +forbidding exterior gave little promise of the comfort within. A +passage led to a square centre hall from which opened various rooms--a +library, with a wood fire, the latest possible London and Paris +papers, a flat-topped desk and a large map; a very large drawing-room, +which is Sir John French's private office, with white walls panelled +with rose brocade, a marble mantel, and a great centre table, covered, +like the library desk, with papers; a dining room, wainscoted and +comfortable. There were other rooms, which I did not see. In the +square hall an orderly sat all day, waiting for orders of various +sorts. + +Colonel Fitzgerald greeted me amiably. He regretted that Sir John +French was absent, and was curious as to how I had penetrated to the +fastnesses of British Headquarters without trouble. Now and then, +glancing at him unexpectedly during the excellent luncheon that +followed, I found his eyes fixed on me thoughtfully, intently. It was +not at all an unfriendly gaze. Rather it was the look of a man who is +painstakingly readjusting his mental processes to meet a new +situation. + +He made a delightful host. I sat at his right. At the other end of the +table was General Huguet, and across from me a young English nobleman, +attached to the field marshal's staff, came in, a few minutes late, +and took his place. The Prince of Wales, who lives there, had gone to +the trenches the day before. + +Two soldier-servants served the meal. There was red wine, but none of +the officers touched it. The conversation was general and animated. We +spoke of public opinion in America, of the resources of Germany and +her starvation cry, of the probable length of the war. On this +opinions varied. One of the officers prophesied a quick ending when +the Allies were finally ready to take the offensive. The others were +not so optimistic. But neither here, nor in any of the conversations I +have heard at the headquarters of the Allies, was there a doubt +expressed as to ultimate victory. They had a quiet confidence that was +contagious. There was no bluster, no assertion; victory was simply +accepted as a fact; the only two opinions might be as to when it would +occur, and whether the end would be sudden or a slow withdrawal of the +German forces. + +The French Algerian troops and the Indian forces of Great Britain came +up for discussion, their bravery, their dislike for trench fighting +and intense longing to charge, the inroads the bad weather had made on +them during the winter. + +One of the officers considered the American press rather pro-German. +The recent American note to Sir Edward Grey and his reply, with the +press comments on both, led to this statement. The possibility of +Germany's intentionally antagonising America was discussed, but not at +length. + +From the press to the censorship was but a step. I objected to the +English method as having lost us our perspective on the war. + +"You allow anything to go through the censor's office that is not +considered dangerous or too explicit," I said. "False reports go +through on an equality with true ones. How can America know what to +believe?" + +It was suggested by some one that the only way to make the censorship +more elastic, while retaining its usefulness in protecting military +secrets and movements, was to establish such a censorship at the +front, where it is easier to know what news would be harmful to give +out and what may be printed with safety. + +I mentioned what a high official of the admiralty had said to me about +the censorship--that it was "an infernal nuisance, but necessary." + +"But it is not true that messages are misleadingly changed in +transmission," said one of the officers at the table. + +I had seen the head of the press-censorship bureau, and was able to +repeat what he had said--that where the cutting out of certain phrases +endangered the sense of a message, the words "and" or "the" were +occasionally added, that the sense might be kept clear, but that no +other additions or changes of meaning were ever made. + +Luncheon was over. We went into the library, and there, consulting the +map, Colonel Fitzgerald and General Huguet discussed where I might go +that afternoon. The mist of the morning had turned to rain, and the +roads at the front would be very bad. Besides, it was felt that the +"Chief" should give me permission to go to the front, and he had not +yet returned. + +"How about seeing the Indians?" asked Colonel Fitzgerald, turning from +the map. + +"I should like it very much." + +The young officer was turned to, and agreed, like a British patriot +and gentleman, to show me the Indian villages. General Huguet offered +his car. The officer got his sheepskin-lined coat, for the weather was +cold. + +"Thirty shillings," he said, "and nothing goes through it!" + +I examined that coat. It was smart, substantial, lined throughout with +pure white fur, and it had cost seven dollars and a half. + +There is a very popular English word just making its place in America. +The word is "swank." It is both noun and verb. One swanks when one +swaggers. One puts on swank when one puts on side. And because I hold +a brief for the English, and because I was fortunate enough to meet +all sorts of English people, I want to say that there is very little +swank among them. The example of simplicity and genuineness has been +set by the King and Queen. I met many different circles of people. +From the highest to the lowest, there was a total absence of that +arrogance which the American mind has so long associated with the +English. For fear of being thought to swagger, an Englishman will +understate his case. And so with the various English officers I met at +the front. There was no swank. They were downright, unassuming, +extremely efficient-looking men, quick to speak of German courage, +ready to give the benefit of the doubt where unproved outrages were in +question, but rousing, as I have said, to pale fury where their troops +were being unfairly attacked. + +While the car was being brought to the door General Huguet pointed out +to me on the map where I was going. As we stood there his pencil drew +a light semicircle round the town of Ypres. + +"A great battle," he said, and described it. Colonel Fitzgerald took +up the narrative. So it happened that, in the three different staff +headquarters, Belgian, French and English, executive officers of the +three armies in the western field described to me that great +battle--the frightful slaughter of the English, their re-enforcement +at a critical time by General Foch's French Army of the North, and the +final holding of the line. + +The official figures of casualties were given me again: English +forty-five thousand out of a hundred and twenty thousand engaged; the +French seventy thousand, and the German over two hundred thousand. + +Turning to the table, Colonel Fitzgerald picked up a sheet of paper +covered with figures. + +"It is interesting," he said, "to compare the disease and battle +mortality percentages of this war with the percentages in other wars; +to see, considering the frightful weather and the trenches, how little +disease there has been among our troops. Compare the figures with the +Boer War, for instance. And even then our percentage has been somewhat +brought up by the Indian troops." + +"Have many of them been ill?" + +"They have felt the weather," he replied; "not the cold so much as the +steady rain. And those regiments of English that have been serving in +India have felt the change. They particularly have suffered from +frostbitten feet." + +I knew that. More than once I had seen men being taken back from the +British lines, their faces twisted with pain, their feet great masses +of cotton and bandages which they guarded tenderly, lest a chance blow +add to their agony. Even the English system of allowing the men to rub +themselves with lard and oil from the waist down before going into +flooded trenches has not prevented the tortures of frostbite. + +It was time to go and the motor was waiting. We set off in a driving +sleet that covered the windows of the car and made motoring even more +than ordinarily precarious. But the roads here were better than those +nearer the coast; wider, too, and not so crowded. To Ham, where the +Indian regiment I was to visit had been retired for rest, was almost +twenty miles. "Ham!" I said. "What a place to send Mohammedans to!" + +In his long dispatch of February seventeenth Sir John French said of +the Indian troops: + + "The Indian troops have fought with the utmost steadfastness and + gallantry whenever they have been called upon." + +This is the answer to many varying statements as to the efficacy of +the assistance furnished by her Indian subjects to the British Empire +at this time. For Sir John French is a soldier, not a diplomat. No +question of the union of the Empire influences his reports. The +Indians have been valuable, or he would not say so. He is chary of +praise, is the Field Marshal of the British Army. + +But there is another answer--that everywhere along the British front +one sees the Ghurkas, slant-eyed and Mongolian, with their +broad-brimmed, khaki-coloured hats, filling posts of responsibility. +They are little men, smaller than the Sikhs, rather reminiscent of the +Japanese in build and alertness. + +When I was at the English front some of the Sikhs had been retired to +rest. But even in the small villages on billet, relaxed and resting, +they were a fine and soldierly looking body of men, showing race and +their ancient civilisation. + +It has been claimed that England called on her Indian troops, not +because she expected much assistance from them but to show the +essential unity of the British Empire. The plain truth is, however, +that she needed the troops, needed men at once, needed experienced +soldiers to eke out her small and purely defensive army of regulars. +Volunteers had to be equipped and drilled--a matter of months. + +To say that she called to her aid barbarians is absurd. The Ghurkas +are fierce fighters, but carefully disciplined. Compare the lances of +the Indian cavalry regiments and the _kukri_, the Ghurka knife, with +the petrol squirts, hand grenades, aëroplane darts and asphyxiating +bombs of Germany, and call one barbarian to the advantage of the +other! The truth is, of course, that war itself is barbarous. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +A STRANGE PARTY + + +The road to Ham turned off the main highway south of Aire. It was a +narrow clay road in unspeakable condition. The car wallowed along. +Once we took a wrong turning and were obliged to go back and start +again. + +It was still raining. Indian horsemen beat their way stolidly along +the road. We passed through hamlets where cavalry horses in ruined +stables were scantily protected, where the familiar omnibuses of +London were parked in what appeared to be hundreds. The cocoa and +other advertisements had been taken off and they had been hastily +painted a yellowish grey. Here and there we met one on the road, +filled and overflowing with troops, and looking curiously like the +"rubber-neck wagons" of New York. + +Aside from the transports and a few small Indian ammunition carts, +with open bodies made of slats, and drawn by two mules, with an +impassive turbaned driver calling strange words to his team, there was +no sign of war. No bombarding disturbed the heavy atmosphere; no +aëroplanes were overhead. There was no barbed wire, no trenches. Only +muddy sugarbeet fields on each side of the narrow road, a few winter +trees, and the beat of the rain on the windows. + +At last, with an extra lurch, the car drew up in the village of Ham. +At a gate in a brick wall a Scotch soldier in kilts, carrying a rifle, +came forward. Our errand was explained and he went off to find Makand +Singh, a major in the Lahore Lancers and in charge of the post. + +It was a curious picture that I surveyed through the opened door of +the car. We were in the centre of the village, and at the intersection +of a crossroads was a tall cross with a life-size Christ. Underneath +the cross, in varying attitudes of dampness and curiosity, were a +dozen Indians, Mohammedans by faith. Some of them held horses which, +in spite of the rain, they had been exercising. One or two wore long +capes to the knees, with pointed hoods which fitted up over their +great turbans. Bearded men with straight, sensitive noses and oval +faces, even the absurdity of the cape and pointed hood failed to +lessen their dignity. They were tall, erect, soldierly looking, and +they gazed at me with the bland gravity of the East. + +Makand Singh came hastily forward, a splendid figure of a man, six +foot two or thereabout, and appearing even taller by reason of his +turban. He spoke excellent English. + +"It is very muddy for a lady to alight," he said, and instructed one +of the men to bring bags of sacking, which were laid in the road. + +"You are seeing us under very unfavourable conditions," he said as he +helped me to alight. "But there is a fire if you are cold." + +I was cold. So Makand Singh led the way to his living quarters. To go +to them it was necessary to pass through a long shed, which was now a +stable for perhaps a dozen horses. At a word of command the Indian +grooms threw themselves against the horses' heads and pushed them +back. By stepping over the ground pegs to which they were tethered I +got through the shed somehow and into a small yard. + +Makand Singh turned to the right, and, throwing open the low door of a +peasant's house, stood aside to allow me to enter. "It is not very +comfortable," he explained, "but it is the best we have." + +He was so tall that he was obliged to stoop as he entered the doorway. +Within was an ordinary peasant's kitchen, but cleaner than the +average. In spite of the weather the floor boards were freshly +scrubbed. The hearth was swept, and by the stove lay a sleek +tortoise-shell cat. There was a wooden dresser, a chimney shelf with +rows of plates standing on it, and in a doorway just beyond an elderly +peasant woman watching us curiously. + +"Perhaps," said Makand Singh, "you will have coffee?" + +I was glad to accept, and the young officer, who had followed, +accepted also. We sat down while the kettle was placed on the stove +and the fire replenished. I glanced at the Indian major's tall figure. +Even sitting, he was majestic. When he took the cape off he was +discovered clothed in the khaki uniform of his rank in the British +Army. Except for the olive colour of his skin, his turban, and the +fact that his beard--the soft beard of one who has never shaved--was +drawn up into a black net so that it formed a perfect crescent around +the angle of his jaw, he might have been a gallant and interested +English officer. + +For the situation assuredly interested him. His eyes were alert and +keen. When he smiled he showed rows of beautiful teeth, small and +white. And although his face in repose was grave, he smiled often. He +superintended the making of the coffee by the peasant woman and +instructed her to prepare the table. + +She obeyed pleasantly. Indeed, it was odd to see that between this +elderly Frenchwoman and her strange guests--people of whose existence +on the earth I dare say she had never heard until this war--there was +the utmost good will. Perhaps the Indians are neater than other +troops. Certainly personal cleanliness is a part of their religion. +Anyhow, whatever the reason, I saw no evidence of sulkiness toward the +Indians, although I have seen surly glances directed toward many of +the billeted troops of other nationalities. + +Conversation was rather difficult. We had no common ground to meet on, +and the ordinary currency of polite society seemed inadequate, out of +place. + +"The weather must be terrible after India," I ventured. + +"We do not mind the cold. We come from the north of India, where it is +often cold. But the mud is bad. We cannot use our horses." + +"You are a cavalry regiment?" I asked, out of my abysmal ignorance. + +"We are Lancers. Yes. And horses are not useful in this sort of +fighting." + +From a room beyond there was a movement, followed by the entrance of a +young Frenchman in a British uniform. Makand Singh presented him and +he joined the circle that waited for coffee. + +The newcomer presented an enigma--a Frenchman in a British uniform +quartered with the Indian troops! It developed that he was a pupil +from the Sorbonne, in Paris, and was an interpreter. Everywhere +afterward I found these interpreters with the British Army--Frenchmen +who for various reasons are disqualified from entering the French Army +in active service and who are anxious to do what they can. They wear +the British uniform, with the exception that instead of the stiff +crown of the British cap theirs is soft, They are attached to every +battalion, for Tommy Atkins is in a strange land these days, a land +that knows no more English than he knows French, + +True, he carries little books of French and English which tell him how +to say "Porter, get my luggage and take it to a cab," or "Please bring +me a laundry list," or "Give my kind regards to your parents," Imagine +him trying to find the French for "Look out, they're coming!" to call +to a French neighbour, in the inevitable mix-up of the line during a +_mêlée_, and finding only "These trousers do not fit well," or "I +would like an ice and then a small piece of cheese." + +It was a curious group that sat in a semicircle around that peasant +woman's stove, waiting for the kettle to boil--the tall Indian major +with his aristocratic face and long, quiet hands, the young English +officer in his Headquarters Staff uniform, the French interpreter, and +I. Just inside the door the major's Indian servant, tall, impassive +and turbaned, stood with folded arms, looking over our heads. And at +the table the placid faced peasant woman cut slices of yellow bread, +made with eggs and milk, and poured our coffee. + +It was very good coffee, served black. The woman brought a small +decanter and placed it near me. + +"It is rum," said the major, "and very good in coffee." + +I declined the rum. The interpreter took a little. The major shook his +head. + +"Although they say that a Sikh never refuses rum!" he said, smiling. + +Coffee over, we walked about the village. Hardly a village--a cluster +of houses along unpaved lanes which were almost impassable. There were +tumbling stables full of horses, groups of Indians standing under +dripping eaves for shelter, sentries, here and there a peasant. The +houses were replicas of the one where Makand Singh had his quarters. + +Although it was still raining, a dozen Indian Lancers were exercising +their horses. They dismounted and stood back to let us pass. Behind +them, as they stood, was the great Cross. + +That was the final picture I had of the village of Ham and the Second +Lahore Lancers--the turbaned Indians with their dripping horses, the +grave bow of Makand Singh as he closed the door of the car, and behind +him a Scotch corporal in kilt and cap, with a cigarette tucked behind +his ear. + +We went on. I looked back, Makand Singh was making his careful way +through the mud; the horses were being led to a stable. The Cross +stood alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +SIR JOHN FRENCH + + +The next day I was taken along the English front, between the first +and the second line of trenches, from Béthune, the southern extremity +of the line, the English right flank, to the northern end of the line +just below Ypres. In a direct line the British front at that time +extended along some twenty-seven miles. But the line was irregular, +and I believe was really well over thirty. + +I have never been in an English trench. I have been close enough to +the advance trenches to be shown where they lay, and to see the slight +break they make in the flat country. I was never in a dangerous +position at the English front, if one excepts the fact that all of +that portion of the country between the two lines of trenches is +exposed to shell fire. + +No shells burst near me. Béthune was being intermittently shelled, but +as far as I know not a shell fell in the town while I was there. I +lunched on a hill surrounded by batteries, with the now celebrated +towns of Messines and Wytschaete just across a valley, so that one +could watch shells bursting over them. And still nothing threatened my +peace of mind or my physical well-being. And yet it was one of the +most interesting days of a not uneventful period. + +In the morning I was taken, still in General Huguet's car, to British +Headquarters again, to meet Sir John French. + +I confess to a thrill of excitement when the door into his private +office was opened and I was ushered in. The Field Marshal of the +British Army was standing by his table. He came forward at once and +shook hands. In his khaki uniform, with the scarlet straps of his rank +on collar and sleeves, he presented a most soldierly and impressive +appearance. + +A man of middle height, squarely and compactly built, he moves easily. +He is very erect, and his tanned face and grey hair are in strong +contrast. A square and determined jaw, very keen blue eyes and a +humorous mouth--that is my impression of Sir John French. + +"We are sending you along the lines," he said when I was seated. "But +not into danger. I hope you do not want to go into danger." + +I wish I might tell of the conversation that followed. It is +impossible. Not that it dealt with vital matters; but it was +understood that Sir John was not being interviewed. He was taking a +little time from a day that must have been crowded, to receive with +beautiful courtesy a visitor from overseas. That was all. + +There can be no objection, I think, to my mentioning one or two things +he spoke of--of his admiration for General Foch, whom I had just seen, +of the tribute he paid to the courage of the Indian troops, and of the +marvellous spirit all the British troops had shown under the adverse +weather conditions prevailing. All or most of these things he has said +in his official dispatches. + +Other things were touched on--the possible duration of the war, the +new problems of what is virtually a new warfare, the possibility of a +pestilence when warm weather came, owing to inadequately buried +bodies. The Canadian troops had not arrived at the front at that time, +although later in the day I saw their transports on the way, or I am +sure he would have spoken of them. I should like to hear what he has +to say about them after their recent gallant fighting. I should like +to see his fine blue eyes sparkle. + +The car was at the door, and the same young officer who had taken me +about on the previous day entered the room. + +"I am putting you in his care," said Sir John, indicating the new +arrival, "because he has a charmed life. Nothing will happen if you +are with him." He eyed the tall young officer affectionately. "He has +been fighting since the beginning," he said, "handling a machine gun +in all sorts of terrible places. And nothing ever touches him." + +A discussion followed as to where I was to be taken. There was a culm +heap near the Givenchy brickyards which was rather favoured as a +lookout spot. In spite of my protests, that was ruled out as being +under fire at the time. Béthune was being shelled, but not severely. I +would be taken to Béthune and along the road behind the trenches. But +nothing was to happen to me. Sir John French knitted his grey brows, +and suggested a visit to a wood where the soldiers had built wooden +walks and put up signs, naming them Piccadilly, Regent Street, and so +on. + +"I should like to see something," I put in feebly. + +I appreciated their kindly solicitude, but after all I was there to +see things; to take risks, if necessary, but to see. + +"Then," said Sir John with decision, "we will send you to a hill from +which you can see." + +The trip was arranged while I waited. Then he went with me to the door +and there we shook hands. He hoped I would have a comfortable trip, +and bowed me out most courteously. But in the doorway he thought of +something. + +"Have you a camera with you?" + +I had, and said so; a very good camera. + +"I hope you do not mind if I ask you not to use it." + +I did not mind. I promised at once to take no pictures, and indeed at +the end of the afternoon I found my unfortunate camera on the floor, +much buffeted and kicked about and entirely ignored. + +The interview with Sir John French had given me an entirely unexpected +impression of the Field Marshal of the British Army. I had read his +reports fully, and from those unemotional reports of battles, of +movements and countermovements, I had formed a picture of a great +soldier without imagination, to whom a battle was an issue, not a +great human struggle--an austere man. + +I had found a man with a fighting jaw and a sensitive mouth; and a man +greatly beloved by the men closest to him. A human man; a soldier, not +a writer. + +And after seeing and talking with Sir John French I am convinced that +it is not his policy that dictates the silence of the army at the +front. He is proud of his men, proud of each heroic regiment, of every +brave deed. He would like, I am sure, to shout to the world the names +of the heroes of the British Army, to publish great rolls of honour. +But silence, or comparative silence, has been the decree. + +There must be long hours of suspense when the Field Marshal of the +British Army paces the floor of that grey and rose brocade +drawing-room; hours when the orders he has given are being translated +into terms of action, of death, of wounds, but sometimes--thank +God!--into terms of victory. Long hours, when the wires and the +dispatch riders bring in news, valiant names, gains, losses; names +that are not to be told; brave deeds that, lacking chroniclers, must +go unrecorded. + +Read this, from the report Sir John French sent out only a day or so +before I saw him: + + "The troops composing the Army of France have been subjected to as + severe a trial as it is possible to impose upon any body of men. The + desperate fighting described in my last dispatch had hardly been + brought to a conclusion when they were called upon to face the + rigours and hardships of a winter campaign. Frost and snow have + alternated with periods of continuous rain." + + "The men have been called upon to stand for many hours together + almost up to their waists in bitterly cold water, separated by only + one or two hundred yards from a most vigilant enemy." + + "Although every measure which science and medical knowledge could + suggest to mitigate these hardships was employed, the sufferings of + the men have been very great." + + "In spite of all this they present a most soldier like, splendid, + though somewhat war-worn appearance. Their spirit remains high and + confident; their general health is excellent, and their condition + most satisfactory." + + "I regard it as most unfortunate that circumstances have prevented + any account of many splendid instances of courage and endurance, in + the face of almost unparalleled hardship and fatigue in war, coming + regularly to the knowledge of the public." + +So it is clearly not the fault of Sir John French that England does +not know the names of her heroes, or that their families are denied +the comfort of knowing that their sons fought bravely and died nobly. +It is not the fault of the British people, waiting eagerly for news +that does not come. Surely, in these inhuman times, some concession +should be made to the humanities. War is not moving pawns in a game; +it is a struggle of quivering flesh and agonised nerves, of men +fighting and dying for ideals. Heroism is much more than duty. It is +idealism. No leader is truly great who discounts this quality. + +America has known more of the great human interest of this war than +England. English people get the news from great American dailies. It +is an unprecedented situation, and so far the English people have +borne it almost in silence. But as the months go on and only bare +official dispatches reach them, there is a growing tendency to +protest. They want the truth, a picture of conditions. They want to +know what their army is doing; what their sons are doing. And they +have a right to know. They are making tremendous sacrifices, and they +have a right to know to what end. + +The greatest agent in the world for moulding public opinion is the +press. The Germans know this, and have used their journals skilfully. +To underestimate the power of the press, to fail to trust to its good +will and discretion, is to refuse to wield the mightiest instrument in +the world for influencing national thought and national action. At +times of great crisis the press has always shown itself sane, +conservative, safe, eminently to be trusted. + +The English know the power of the great modern newspaper, not only to +reflect but to form public opinion. They have watched the American +press because they know to what extent it influences American policy. + +There is talk of conscription in England to-day. Why? Ask the British +people. Ask the London _Times_. Ask rural England where, away from the +tramp of soldiers in the streets, the roll of drums, the visual +evidence of a great struggle, patriotism is asked to feed on the ashes +of war. + +Self-depreciation in a nation is as great an error as +over-complacency. Lack of full knowledge is the cause of much of the +present British discontent. + +Let the British people be told what their army is doing. Let Lord +Kitchener announce its deeds, its courage, its vast unselfishness. Let +him put the torch of publicity to the national pride and see it turn +to a white flame of patriotism. Then it will be possible to tear the +recruiting posters from the walls of London, and the remotest roads of +England will echo to the tramp of marching men. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +ALONG THE GREAT BETHUNE ROAD + + +Again and again through these chapters I have felt apologetic for the +luxurious manner in which I frequently saw the war. And so now I +hesitate to mention the comfort of that trip along the British lines; +the substantial and essentially British foresight and kindness that +had stocked the car with sandwiches wrapped in white paper; the good +roads; the sense of general well-being that spread like a contagion +from a well-fed and well-cared-for army. There is something about the +British Army that inspires one with confidence. It is a pity that +those people who sit at home in Great Britain and shrug their +shoulders over the daily papers cannot see their army at the front. + +It is not a roast beef stolidity. It is rather the steadiness of calm +eyes and good nerves, of physically fit bodies and clean minds. I felt +it when I saw Kitchener's army of clear-eyed boys drilling in Hyde +Park. I got it from the quiet young officer, still in his twenties, +who sat beside me in the car, and who, having been in the war from the +beginning, handling a machine gun all through the battle of Ypres, +when his regiment, the Grenadier Guards, suffered so horribly, was +willing to talk about everything but what he had done. + +We went first to Béthune. The roads as we approached the front were +crowded, but there was no disorder. There were motor bicycles and +side-cars carrying dispatch riders and scouts, travelling kitchens, +great lorries, small light cars for supplies needed in a hurry--cars +which make greater speed than the motor vans--omnibuses full of +troops, and steam tractors or caterpillar engines for hauling heavy +guns. + +The day was sunny and cold. The rain of the day before had turned to +snow in the night, and the fields were dazzling. + +"In the east," said the officer with me, "where there is always snow +in the winter, the Germans have sent out to their troops white helmet +covers and white smocks to cover the uniforms. But snow is +comparatively rare here, and it has not been considered necessary." + +At a small bridge ten miles from Béthune he pointed out a house as +marking the farthest advance of the German Army, reached about the +eleventh of October. There was no evidence of the hard fighting that +had gone on along this road. It was a peaceful scene, the black +branches of the overarching trees lightly powdered with snow. But the +snowy fields were full of unmarked mounds. Another year, and the +mounds will have sunk to the level of the ground. Another year, and +only history will tell the story of that October of 1914 along the +great Béthune road. + +An English aëroplane was overhead. There were armoured cars on the +road, going toward the front; top-heavy machines that made +surprisingly little noise, considering their weight. Some had a sort +of conning tower at the top. They looked sombre, menacing. The driving +of these cars over slippery roads must be difficult. Like the vans, +they keep as near the centre of the road as possible, allowing lighter +traffic to turn out to pass them. A van had broken down and was being +repaired at one of the wayside repair shops maintained everywhere +along the roads for this war of machinery. Men in khaki with leather +aprons were working about it, while the driver stood by, smoking a +pipe. + +As we went on we encountered the Indian troops again. The weather was +better, and they thronged the roads, driving their tiny carts, +cleaning arms and accoutrements in sunny doorways, proud and haughty +in appearence even when attending to the most menial duties. From the +little ammunition carts, like toy wagons, they gazed gravely at the +car, and at the unheard of spectacle of a woman inside. Side by side +with the Indians were Scots in kilts, making up with cheerful +impudence for the Indians' lack of curiosity. + +There were more Ghurkas, carrying rifles and walking lightly beside +forage carts driven by British Tommies. There were hundreds of these +carts taking hay to the cavalry divisions. The Ghurkas looked more +Japanese than ever in the clear light. Their broad-brimmed khaki hats +have a strap that goes under the chin. The strap or their black +slanting eyes or perhaps their rather flattened noses and pointed +chins give them a look of cruelty that the other Indian troops do not +have. They are hard and relentless fighters, I believe; and they look +it. + +The conversation in the car turned to the feeding of the army. + +"The British Army is exceedingly well fed," said the young officer. + +"In the trenches also?" + +"Always. The men are four days in the trenches and four out. When the +weather is too bad for anything but sniping, the inactivity of the +trench life and the abundant ration gets them out of condition. On +their four days in reserve it is necessary to drill them hard to keep +them in condition." + +This proved to be the explanation of the battalions we met everywhere, +marching briskly along the roads. I do not recall the British ration +now, but it includes, in addition to meat and vegetables, tea, cheese, +jam and bacon--probably not all at once, but giving that variety of +diet so lacking to the unfortunate Belgian Army. Food is one of the +principal munitions of war. No man fights well with an empty stomach. +Food sinks into the background only when it is assured and plentiful. +Deprived of it, its need becomes insistent, an obsession that drives +away every other thought. + +So the wise British Army feeds its men well, and lets them think of +other things, such as war and fighting and love of country and brave +deeds. + +But food has not always been plentiful in the British Army. There were +times last fall when, what with German artillery bombardment and +shifting lines, it was difficult to supply the men. + +"My servant," said the officer, "found a hare somewhere, and in a +deserted garden a handful of carrots. Word came to the trench where I +was stationed that at dark that night he would bring out a stew. We +were very hungry and we waited eagerly. But just as it was cooked and +ready a German shell came down the chimney of the house where he was +working and blew up stove and stew and everything. It was one of the +greatest disappointments I ever remember." + +We were in Béthune at last--a crowded town, larger than any I had seen +since I left Dunkirk. So congested were its narrow streets with +soldiers, mounted and on foot, and with all the ghastly machinery of +war, that a traffic squad had taken charge and was directing things. +On some streets it was possible to go only in one direction. I looked +about for the signs of destruction that had grown so familiar to me, +but I saw none. Evidently the bombardment of Béthune has not yet done +much damage. + +A squad of artillerymen marched by in perfect step; their faces were +keen, bronzed. They were fine-looking, well-set-up men, as smart as +English artillerymen always are. I watched them as long as I could see +them. + +We had lost our way, owing to the regulations of the traffic squad. It +was necessary to stop and inquire. Then at last we crossed a small +bridge over the canal, and were on our way along the front, behind the +advanced trenches and just in front of the second line. + +For a few miles the country was very level. The firing was on our +right, the second line of trenches on our left. The congestion of +Béthune had given way to the extreme peace in daylight of the region +just behind the trenches. There were few wagons, few soldiers. Nothing +could be seen except an occasional cloud where shrapnel had burst. The +British Army was keeping me safe, as it had promised! + +There were, however, barbed-wire entanglements everywhere, built, I +thought, rather higher than the French. Roads to the right led to the +advanced trenches, empty roads which at night are thronged with men +going to the front or coming back. + +Here and there one saw a sentry, and behind him a tent of curious +mottled shades of red, brown and green. + +"They look as though they were painted," I said, rather bewildered. + +"They are," the officer replied promptly. "From an aëroplane these +tents are absolutely impossible to locate. They merge into the colors +of the fields." + +Now and then at a crossroads it was necessary to inquire our way. I +had no wish to run into danger, but I was conscious of a wild longing +to have the car take the wrong turning and land abruptly at the +advance trenches. Nothing of the sort happened, however. + +We passed small buildings converted into field hospitals and flying +the white flag with a red cross. + +"There are no nurses in these hospitals," explained the officer. "Only +one surgeon and a few helpers. The men are brought here from the +trenches, and then taken back at night in ambulances to the railroad +or to base hospitals." + +"Are there no nurses at all along the British front?" + +"None whatever. There are no women here in any capacity. That is why +the men are so surprised to see you." + +Here and there, behind the protection of groves and small thickets, +were temporary camps, sometimes tents, sometimes tent-shaped shelters +of wood. There were batteries on the right everywhere, great guns +concealed in farmyards or, like the guns I had seen on the French +front, in artificial hedges. Some of them were firing; but the firing +of a battery amounts to nothing but a great noise in these days of +long ranges. Somewhere across the valley the shells would burst, we +knew that; that was all. + +The conversation turned to the Prince of Wales, and to the +responsibility it was to the various officers to have him in the +trenches. Strenuous efforts had been made to persuade him to be +satisfied with the work at headquarters, where he is attached to Sir +John French's staff. But evidently the young heir to the throne of +England is a man in spite of his youth. He wanted to go out and fight, +and he had at last secured permission. + +"He has had rather remarkable training," said the young officer, who +was also his friend. "First he was in Calais with the transport +service. Then he came to headquarters, and has seen how things are +done there. And now he is at the front." + +Quite unexpectedly round a turn in the road we came on a great line of +Canadian transports--American-built lorries with khaki canvas tops. +Canadians were driving them, Canadians were guarding them. It gave me +a homesick thrill at once to see these other Americans, of types so +familiar to me, there in Northern France. + +Their faces were eager as they pushed ahead. Some of the tent-shaped +wooden buildings were to be temporary barracks for them. In one place +the transports had stopped and the men were cooking a meal beside the +road. Some one had brought a newspaper and a crowd of men had gathered +round it. I wondered if it was an American paper. I would like to have +stood on the running board of the machine, as we went past, and called +out that I, too, was an American, and God bless them! + +But I fancy the young officer with me would have been greatly +disconcerted at such an action. The English are not given to such +demonstrations. But the Canadians would have understood, I know. + +Since that time the reports have brought great news of these Canadian +troops, of their courage, of the loss of almost all their officers in +the fighting at Neuve Chapelle. But that sunny morning, when I saw +them in the north of France, they were untouched by battle or sudden +death. Their faces were eager, intent, earnest. They had come a long +distance and now they had arrived. And what next? + +Into this scene of war unexpectedly obtruded itself a bit of peace. A +great cart came down a side road, drawn by two white oxen with heavy +wooden yokes. Piled high in the cart were sugar beets. Some thrifty +peasant was salvaging what was left of his crop. The sight of the oxen +reminded me that I had seen very few horses. + +"They are farther back," said the officer, "Of course, as you know, +for the last two or three months it has been impossible to use the +cavalry at all." + +Then he told me a curious thing. He said that during the long winter +wait the cavalry horses got much out of condition. The side roads were +thick with mud and the main roads were being reserved for transports. +Adequate exercises for the cavalry seemed impossible. One detachment +discovered what it considered a bright solution, and sent to England +for beagle hounds. Morning after morning the men rode after the hounds +over the flat fields of France. It was a welcome distraction and it +kept the horses in working trim. + +But the French objected. They said their country was at war, was being +devastated by an alien army. They considered riding to hounds, no +matter for What purpose, an indecorous, almost an inhuman, thing to do +under the circumstances. So the hounds were sent back to England, and +the cavalry horses are now exercised in dejected strings along side +roads. + +As we went north the firing increased in intensity. More English +batteries were at work; the German response was insistent. + +We were approaching Ypres, this time from the English side, and the +great artillery duel of late February was in progress. + +The country was slightly rolling. Its unevenness permitted more +activity along our road. Batteries were drawn up at rest in the fields +here and there. In one place a dozen food kitchens in the road were +cooking the midday meal, the khaki-clad cooks frequently smoking as +they worked. + +Ahead of this loomed two hills. They rose abruptly, treeless and +precipitous. On the one nearest to the German lines was a ruined +tower. + +"The tower," said the officer, "would have been a charming place for +luncheon. But the hill has been shelled steadily for several days. I +have no idea why the Germans are shelling it. There is nobody there." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE MILITARY SECRET + + +The second hill was our destination. At the foot of it the car stopped +and we got out. A steep path with here and there a wooden step led to +the summit. At the foot of the path was a sentry and behind him one of +the multicoloured tents. + +"Are you a good climber?" asked the officer. + +I said I was and we set out. The path extended only a part of the way, +to a place perhaps two hundred feet beyond the road, where what we +would call a cyclone cellar in America had been dug out of the +hillside. Like the others of the sort I had seen, it was muddy and +uninviting, practically a cave with a roof of turf. + +The path ceased, and it was necessary to go diagonally up the steep +hillside through the snow. From numberless guns at the base of the +hill came steady reports, and as we ascended it was explained to me +that I was about to visit the headquarters of Major General H----, +commanding an army division. + +"The last person I brought here," said the young officer, smiling, +"was the Prince of Wales." + +We reached the top at last. There was a tiny farmhouse, a low stable +with a thatched roof, and, towering over all, the arms of a great +windmill. Chickens cackled round my feet, a pig grunted in a corner, +and apparently from directly underneath came the ear-splitting reports +of a battery as it fired. + +"Perhaps I would better go ahead and tell them you are coming," said +the officer. "These people have probably not seen a woman in months, +and the shock would be too severe. We must break it gently." + +So he went ahead, and I stood on the crest of that wind-swept hill and +looked across the valley to Messines, to Wytschaete and Ypres. + +The battlefield lay spread out like a map. As I looked, clouds of +smoke over Messines told of the bursting of shells. + +Major General H---- came hurrying out. His quarters occupy the only +high ground, with the exception of the near-by hill with its ruined +tower, in the neighbourhood of Ypres. Here, a week or so before, had +come the King of Belgium, to look with tragic eyes at all that +remained to him of his country. Here had come visiting Russian princes +from the eastern field, the King of England, the Prince of Wales. No +obscurities--except myself--had ever penetrated so far into the +fastness of the British lines. + +Later on in the day I wrote my name in a visitors' book the officers +have established there, wrote under sprawling royal signatures, under +the boyish hand of the Prince of Wales, the irregular chirography of +Albert of Belgium, the blunt and soldierly name of General Joffre. + +There are six officers stationed in the farmhouse, composing General +H----'s staff. And, as things turned out, we did not require the +white-paper sandwiches, for we were at once invited to luncheon. + +"Not a very elaborate luncheon," said General H----, "but it will give +us a great deal of pleasure to share it." + +While the extra places were being laid we went to the brow of the +hill. Across the valley at the foot of a wooded ridge were the British +trenches. The ground rose in front of them, thickly covered with +trees, to the German position on the ridge. + +"It looks from here like a very uncomfortable position," I said. "The +German position is better, isn't it?" + +"It is," said General H---- grimly. "But we shall take that hill +before long." + +I am not sure, and my many maps do not say, but there is little doubt +in my mind that the hill in question is the now celebrated Hill 60, of +which so much has been published. + +As we looked across shells were bursting round the church tower of +Messines, and the batteries beneath were sending out ear-splitting +crashes of noise. Ypres, less than three miles away, but partly hidden +in mist, was echoing the bombardment. And to complete the pandemonium +of sound, as we turned, a _mitrailleuse_ in the windmill opened fire +behind us. + +"Practice!" said General H---- as I started. "It is noisy here, I'm +afraid." + +We went through the muddy farmyard back to the house. The staff was +waiting and we sat down at once to luncheon at a tiny pine table drawn +up before a window. It was not a good luncheon. The French wine was +like vinegar, the food the ordinary food of the peasant whose house it +was. But it was a cheerful meal in spite of the food, and in spite of +a boil on General H----'s neck. The marvel of a woman being there +seemed to grow, not diminish, as the meal went on. + +"Next week," said General H----, "we are to have two parties of +correspondents here. The penny papers come first, and later on the +ha'pennies!" + +That brought the conversation, as usual, to the feeling about the war +in America. Like all the other officers I had met, these men were +anxious to have things correctly reported in America, being satisfied +that the true story of the war would undoubtedly influence any +wavering of public opinion in favour of the Allies. + +One of the officers was a Canadian, and for his benefit somebody told +the following story, possibly by now familiar to America. + +Some of the Canadian troops took with them to England a bit of the +dash and impatience of discipline of the great Northwest. The story in +question is of a group of soldiers at night passing a sentry, who +challenges them: + +"Halt! Who goes there?" + +"Black Watch." + +"Advance, Black Watch, and all's well." + +The next group is similarly challenged: + +"Halt! Who goes there?" + +"Cameronians." + +"Advance, Cameronians." + +The third group comes on. + +"Halt! Who goes there?" + +"What the devil is that to you?" + +"Advance, Canadians!" + +In the burst of mirth that followed the Canadian officer joined. Then +he told an anecdote also: + +"British recruits, practising passing a whispered order from one end +of a trench to the other, received this message to pass along: 'Enemy +advancing on right flank. Send re-enforcements.' When the message +reached the other end of the trench," he said, "it was: 'Enemy +advancing with ham shank. Send three and fourpence!'" + +It was a gay little meal, the only breaks in the conversation when the +great guns drowned out our voices. I wonder how many of those round +that table are living to-day. Not all, it is almost certain. The +German Army almost broke through the English line at that very point +in the late spring. The brave Canadians have lost almost all their +officers in the field and a sickening percentage of their men. That +little valley must have run deep with blood since I saw it that day in +the sunlight. + +Luncheon was over. I wrote my name in the visitors' book, to the tune +of such a bombardment as almost forbade speech, and accompanied by +General H---- we made our way down the steep hillside to the car. + +"Some time to-night I shall be in England," I said as I settled myself +for the return trip. + +The smile died on the general's face. It was as if, in speaking of +home, I had touched the hidden chord of gravity and responsibility +that underlay the cheerfulness of that cheery visit. + +"England!" he said. That was all. + +I looked back as the car started on. A battery was moving up along the +road behind the hill. The sentry stood by his low painted tent. The +general was watching the car, his hand shading his eyes against the +glare of the winter sun. Behind him rose his lonely hill, white with +snow, with the little path leading, by devious ways, up its steep and +shining side. + +It was not considered advisable to return by the road behind the +trenches. The late afternoon artillery duel was going on. So we turned +off a few miles south of the hill and left war behind us. + +Not altogether, of course. There were still transports and troops. And +at an intersection of three roads we were abruptly halted. A line of +military cars was standing there, all peremptorily held up by a +handful of soldiers. + +The young officer got out and inquired. There was little time to +spare, for I was to get to Calais that evening, and to run the Channel +blockade some time in the night. + +The officer came back soon, smiling. + +"A military secret!" he said. "We shall have to wait a little. The +road is closed." + +So I sat in the car and the military secret went by. I cannot tell +about it except that it was thrillingly interesting. My hands itched +to get out my camera and photograph it, just as they itch now to write +about it. But the mystery of what I saw on the highroad back of the +British lines is not mine to tell. It must die with me! + +My visit to the British lines was over. + +As I look back I find that the one thing that stands out with +distinctness above everything else is the quality of the men that +constitute the British Army in the field. I had seen thousands in that +one day. But I had seen them also north of Ypres, at Dunkirk, at +Boulogne and Calais, on the Channel boats. I have said before that +they show race. But it is much more than a matter of physique. It is a +thing of steady eyes, of high-held heads, of a clean thrust of jaw. + +The English are not demonstrative. London, compared with Paris, is +normal. British officers at the front and at headquarters treat the +war as a part of the day's work, a thing not to talk about but to do. +But my frequent meetings with British soldiers, naval men, members of +the flying contingent and the army medical service, revealed under the +surface of each man's quiet manner a grimness, a red heat of +patriotism, a determination to fight fair but to fight to the death. + +They concede to the Germans, with the British sense of fairness, +courage, science, infinite resource and patriotism. Two things they +deny them, civilisation and humanity--civilisation in its spiritual, +not its material, side; humanity of the sort that is the Englishman's +creed and his religion--the safeguarding of noncombatants, the keeping +of the national word and the national honour. + +My visit to the English lines was over. I had seen no valiant charges, +no hand-to-hand fighting. But in a way I had had a larger picture. I +had seen the efficiency of the methods behind the lines, the abundance +of supplies, the spirit that glowed in the eyes of every fighting man. +I had seen the colonial children of England in the field, volunteers +who had risen to the call of the mother country. I had seen and talked +with the commander-in-chief of the British forces, and had come away +convinced that the mother country had placed her honour in fine and +capable hands. And I had seen, between the first and second lines of +trenches, an army of volunteers and patriots--and gentlemen. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +QUEEN MARY OF ENGLAND + + +The great European war affects profoundly all the women of each nation +involved. It affects doubly the royal women. The Queen of England, the +Czarina of Russia, the Queen of the Belgians, the Empress of Germany, +each carries in these momentous days a frightful burden. The young +Prince of Wales is at the front; the King of the Belgians has been +twice wounded; the Empress of Germany has her sons as well as her +husband in the field. + +In addition to these cares these women of exalted rank have the +responsibility that comes always to the very great. To see a world +crisis approaching, to know every detail by which it has been +furthered or retarded, to realise at last its inevitability--to see, +in a word, every movement of the great drama and to be unable to check +its _dénouement_--that has been a part of their burden. And when the +_dénouement_ came, to sink their private anxieties in the public +welfare, to assume, not a double immunity but a double responsibility +to their people, has been the other part. + +It has required heroism of a high order. It is, to a certain extent, a +new heroism, almost a demonstration of the new faith whose foundation +is responsibility--responsibility of a nation to its sons, of rulers +to their people, of a man to his neighbour. + +It has been my privilege to meet and speak with two of these royal +women, with the Queen of England and with the Queen of the Belgians. +In each instance I carried away with me an ineradicable impression of +this quality--of a grave and wearing responsibility borne quietly and +simply, of a quiet courage that buries its own griefs and asks only to +help. + +From the beginning of the war I had felt a keen interest in the Queen +of England. Here was a great queen who had chosen to be, first of all, +a wife and mother; a queen with courage and a conscience. And into her +reign had come the tragedy of a war that affected every nation of the +world, many of them directly, all of them indirectly. The war had come +unsought, unexpected, unprepared for. Peaceful England had become a +camp. The very palace in which the royal children were housed was open +to an attack from a brutal enemy, which added to the new warfare of +this century the ethics of barbarism. + +What did she think of it all? What did she feel when that terrible +Roll of Honour came in, week by week, that Roll of Honour with its +photographs of splendid types of young manhood that no Anglo-Saxon can +look at without a clutch at his throat? What did she think when, one +by one, the friends of her girlhood put on the black of bereavement +and went uncomplainingly about the good works in which hers was the +guiding hand? What thoughts were hers during those anxious days before +the Prince of Wales went to the front, when, like any other mother, +she took every possible moment to be with him, walking about +arm-in-arm with her boy, talking of everything but the moment of +parting? + +And when at last I was permitted to see the Queen of England, I +understood a part at least of what she was suffering. I had been to +the front. I had seen the English army in the field. I had been quite +close to the very trenches where the boyish Prince of Wales was facing +the enemies of his country and doing it with high courage. And I had +heard the rumble of the great German guns, as Queen Mary of England +must hear them in her sleep. + +Even with no son in the field the Queen of England would be working +for the soldiers. It is a part of the tradition of her house. But a +good mother is a mother to all the world. When Queen Mary is +supervising the great work of the Needlework Guild one feels sure that +into each word of direction has gone a little additional tenderness, +because of this boy of hers at the front. + +It is because of Her Majesty's interest in the material well-being of +the soldiers at the front, and because of her most genuine gratitude +for America's part in this well-being, that I took such pleasure in +meeting the Queen of England. + +It was characteristic of Her Majesty that she put an American woman--a +very nervous American woman--at her ease at once, that she showed that +American woman the various departments of her Needlework Guild under +way, and that she conveyed, in every word she said, a deep feeling of +friendship for America and her assistance to Belgium in this crisis. + +Although our ambassadors are still accredited to the Court of St. +James's, the old palace has ceased to be the royal residence. The King +still holds there his levees, to which only gentlemen are admitted. +But the formal Drawing Rooms are held at Buckingham Palace. To those +who have seen St. James's during a levee, or to those London tourists +who have watched the Scots Guards, or the Coldstream or the +Grenadiers, preceded by a splendid band, swinging into the old Friary +Court to perform the impressive ceremony of changing guard, the change +in these days of war is most amazing. Friary Court is guarded by +London policemen, and filled with great vans piled high with garments +and supplies for the front--that front where the Coldstream and the +Grenadiers and the others, shorn of their magnificence, are waiting +grimly in muddy trenches or leading charges to victory--or the Roll of +Honour. Under the winter sky of London the crenelated towers and brick +walls of the old palace give little indication of the former grandeur +of this most historic of England's palaces, built on the site of an +old leper hospital and still retaining the name of the saint to whom +that hospital was dedicated. + +There had been a shower just before I arrived; and, although it was +February, there was already a hint of spring in the air. The sun came +out, drying the roads in the park close by, and shining brightly on +the lovely English grass, green even then with the green of June at +home. Riders, caught in the shower and standing by the sheltered sides +of trees for protection, took again to the bridle paths. The hollows +of Friary Court were pools where birds were splashing. As I got out of +my car a Boy Scout emerged from the palace and carried a large parcel +to a waiting van. + +"Do you want the Q.M.N.G.?" said a tall policeman. + +This, being interpreted, I was given to understand was Queen Mary's +Needlework Guild. + +Later on, when I was taken to Buckingham Palace to write my name in +the Queen's book, which is etiquette after a presentation, there was +all the formality the visit to St. James's had lacked--the drive into +the inclosure, where the guard was changing, the stately footmen, the +great book with its pages containing the dignitaries and great people +of all the earth. + +But the Boy Scout and the policeman had restored my failing courage +that day at St. James's Palace. Except for a tendency to breathe at +twice my normal rate as the Queen entered the room I felt almost calm. + +As she advanced toward us, stopping to speak cordially to the various +ladies who are carrying on the work of the Guild for her, I had an +opportunity to see this royal woman who has suffered so grossly from +the camera. + +It will be a surprise to many Americans to learn that the Queen of +England is very lovely to look at. So much emphasis has always been +placed on her virtues, and so little has been written of her charm, +that this tribute is only fair to Her Majesty. She is tall, perhaps +five feet eight inches, with deep-blue eyes and beautiful colouring. +She has a rather wide, humorous mouth. There is not a trace of +austerity in her face or in any single feature. The whole impression +was of sincerity and kindliness, with more than a trace of humour. + +I could quite believe, after I saw Her Majesty, the delightful story +that I had heard from a member of her own circle, that now and then, +when during some court solemnity an absurdity occurred, it was +positively dangerous to catch the Queen's eye! + +Queen Mary came up the long room. As she paused and held out her hand, +each lady took it and curtsied at the same time. The Queen talked, +smiling as she spoke. There was no formality. Near at hand the +lady-in-waiting who was in attendance stood, sometimes listening, +sometimes joining in the conversation. The talk was all of supplies, +for these days in England one thinks in terms of war. Certain things +had come in; other things had gone or were going. For the Queen of +England is to-day at the head of a great business, one that in a few +months has already collected and distributed over a million garments, +all new, all practical, all of excellent quality. + +The Queen came toward me and paused. There was an agonised moment +while the lady-in-waiting presented me. Her Majesty held out her hand. +I took it and bowed. The next instant she was speaking. + +She spoke at once of America, of what had already been done by +Americans for the Belgians both in England and in their desolated +country. And she hastened to add her gratitude for the support they +have given her Guild. + +"The response has been more than generous," said Her Majesty. "We are +very grateful. We are glad to find that the sympathy of America is +with us," + +She expressed a desire also to have America know fully just what was +being done with the supplies that are being constantly sent over, both +from Canada and from the United States. + +"Canada has been wonderful," she said. "They are doing everything." + +The ready response of Canada to the demand for both troops and +supplies appeared to have touched Her Majesty. She spoke at length +about the troops, the distance they had come, the fine appearance the +men made, and their popularity with the crowds when they paraded on +the streets of London. I had already noticed this. A Canadian regiment +was sure to elicit cheers at any time, although London, generally +speaking, has ceased any but silent demonstration over the soldiers. + +"Have you seen any of the English hospitals on the Continent?" the +Queen asked. + +"I have seen a number, Your Majesty," + +"Do they seem well supplied?" + +I replied that they appeared to be thoroughly equipped, but that the +amount of supplies required w&s terrifying and that at one time some +of the hospitals had experienced difficulty in securing what they +needed. + +"One hospital in Calais," I said, "received twelve thousand pairs of +bed socks in one week last autumn, and could not get a bandage." + +"Those things happened early in the war. We are doing much better now. +England had not expected war. We were totally unprepared." + +And in the great analysis that is to come, that speech of the Queen of +England is the answer to many questions. England had not expected war. +Every roll of the drum as the men of the new army march along the +streets, every readjustment necessary to a peaceful people suddenly +thrust into war, every month added to the length of time it has taken +to put England in force into the field, shifts the responsibility to +where it belongs. Back of all fine questions of diplomatic negotiation +stands this one undeniable fact. To deny it is absurd; to accept it is +final. + +"What is your impression of the French and Belgian hospitals?" Her +Majesty inquired. + +I replied that none were so good as the English, that France had +always depended on her nuns in such emergencies, and, there being no +nuns in France now, her hospital situation was still not good. + +"The priests of Belgium are doing wonderful work," I said. "They have +suffered terribly during the war." + +"It is very terrible," said Her Majesty. "Both priests and nuns have +suffered, as England has reason to know." + +The Queen spoke of the ladies connected with the Guild. + +"They are really much overworked," she said. "They are giving all +their time day after day. They are splendid. And many of them, of +course, are in great anxiety." + +Already, by her tact and her simplicity of manner, she had put me at +my ease. The greatest people, I have found, have this quality of +simplicity. When she spoke of the anxieties of her ladies, I wished +that I could have conveyed to her, from so many Americans, their +sympathy in her own anxieties, so keen at that time, so unselfishly +borne. But the lady-in-waiting was speaking: + +"Please tell the Queen about your meeting with King Albert." + +So I told about it. It had been unconventional, and the recital amused +Her Majesty. It was then that I realised how humorous her mouth was, +how very blue and alert her eyes. I told it all to her, the things +that insisted on slipping off my lap, and the King's picking them up; +the old envelope he gave me on which to make notes of the interview; +how I had asked him whether he would let me know when the interview +was over, or whether I ought to get up and go! And finally, when we +were standing talking before my departure, how I had suddenly +remembered that I was not to stand nearer to His Majesty than six +feet, and had hastily backed away and explained, to his great +amusement. + +Queen Mary laughed. Then her face clouded. + +"It is all so very tragic," she said. "Have you seen the Queen?" + +I replied that the Queen of the Belgians had received me a few days +after my conversation with the King. + +"She is very sad," said Her Majesty. "It is a terrible thing for her, +especially as she is a Bavarian by birth." + +From that to the ever-imminent subject of the war itself was but a +step. An English officer had recently made a sensational escape from a +German prison camp, and having at last got back to England, had been +sent for by the King. With the strange inconsistencies that seem to +characterise the behaviour of the Germans, the man to whom he had +surrendered after a gallant defence had treated him rather well. But +from that time on his story was one of brutalities and starvation. + +The officer in question had told me his story, and I ventured to refer +to it Her Majesty knew it quite well, and there was no mistaking the +grief in her Voice as she commented on it, especially on that part of +it which showed discrimination against the British prisoners. Major +V---- had especially emphasised the lack of food for the private +soldiers and the fearful trials of being taken back along the lines of +communication, some fifty-two men being locked in one of the small +Continental box cars which are built to carry only six horses. Many of +them were wounded. They were obliged to stand, the floor of the car +being inches deep with filth. For thirty hours they had no water and +no air, and for three days and three nights no food. + +"I am to publish Major V----'s statement in America, Your Majesty," I +said. + +"I think America should know it," said the Queen. "It is most unjust. +German prisoners in England are well cared for. They are well fed, and +games and other amusements are provided for them. They even play +football!" + +I stepped back as Her Majesty prepared to continue her visit round the +long room. But she indicated that I was to accompany her. It was then +that one realised that the Queen of England is the intensely practical +daughter of a practical mother. Nothing that is done in this Guild, +the successor of a similar guild founded by the late Duchess of Teck, +Her Majesty's mother, escapes her notice. No detail is too small if it +makes for efficiency. She selected at random garments from the tables, +and examined them for warmth, for quality, for utility. + +Generally she approved. Before a great heap of heavy socks she paused. + +"The soldiers like the knitted ones, we are told," she said. "These +are not all knitted but they are very warm." + +A baby sweater of a hideous yellow roused in her something like wrath. + +"All that labour!" she said, "and such a colour for a little baby!" +And again, when she happened on a pair of felt slippers, quite the +largest slippers I have ever seen, she fell silent in sheer amazement. +They amused her even while they shocked her. And again, as she smiled, +I regretted that the photographs of the Queen of England may not show +her smiling. + +A small canvas case, skilfully rolled and fastened, caught Her +Majesty's attention. She opened it herself and revealed with evident +pride its numerous contents. Many thousands of such cases had already +been sent to the army. + +This one was a model of packing. It contained in its small compass an +extraordinary number of things--changes of under flannels, extra +socks, an abdominal belt, and, in an inclosure, towel, soap, +toothbrush, nailbrush and tooth powder. I am not certain, but I +believe there was also a pack of cards. + +"I am afraid I should never be able to get it all back again!" said +Her Majesty. So one of the ladies took it in charge, and the Queen +went on. + +My audience was over. As Her Majesty passed me she held out her hand. +I took it and curtsied. + +"Were you not frightened the night you were in the Belgian trenches?" +she inquired. + +"Not half so frightened as I was this afternoon, Your Majesty," I +replied. + +She passed on, smiling. + + * * * * * + +And now, when enough time has elapsed to give perspective to my first +impression of Queen Mary of England, I find that it loses nothing by +this supreme test. I find that I remember her, not as a great Queen +but as a gracious and kindly woman, greatly beloved by those of her +immediate circle, totally without arrogance, and of a simplicity of +speech and manner that must put to shame at times those lesser lights +that group themselves about a throne. + +I find another impression also--that the Queen of England is intensely +and alertly mental--alive to her finger tips, we should say in +America. She has always been active. Her days are crowded. A different +type of royal woman would be content to be the honoured head of the +Queen's Guild. But she is in close touch with it at all times. It is +she who dictates its policy, and so competently that the ladies who +are associated with the work that is being done speak of her with +admiration not unmixed with awe. + +From a close and devoted friend of Queen Mary I obtained other +characteristics to add to my picture: That the Queen is acutely +sensitive to pain or distress in others--it hurts her; that she is +punctual--and this not because of any particular sense of time but +because she does not like to keep other people waiting. It is all a +part of an overwhelming sense of that responsibility to others that +has its origin in true kindliness. + +The work of the Queen's Guild is surprising in its scope. In a way it +is a vast clearing house. Supplies come in from every part of the +world, from India, Ceylon, Java, Alaska, South America, from the most +remote places. I saw the record book. I saw that a woman from my home +city had sent cigarettes to the soldiers through the Guild, that +Africa had sent flannels! Coming from a land where the sending, as +regards Africa, is all the other way, I found this exciting. Indeed, +the whole record seems to show how very small the earth is, and how +the tragedy of a great war has overcome the barriers of distance and +time and language. + +From this clearing house in England's historic old palace, built so +long ago by Bluff King Hal, these offerings of the world are sent +wherever there is need, to Servia, to Egypt, to South and East Africa, +to the Belgians. The work was instituted by the Queen the moment war +broke out, and three things are being very carefully insured: That a +real want exists, that the clothing reaches its proper destination, +and that there shall be no overlapping. + +The result has been most gratifying to the Queen, but it was difficult +to get so huge a business--for, as I have already said, it is a +business now--under way at the beginning. Demand was insistent. There +was no time to organise a system in advance. It had to be worked out +in actual practice. + +One of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting wrote in February, apropos of the +human element in the work: + +"There was a great deal of human element in the start with its various +mistakes. The Queen wished, on the breaking out of war, to start the +Guild in such a way as to prevent the waste and overlapping which +occurred in the Boer War.... The fact that the ladies connected with +the work have toiled daily and unceasingly for seven months is the +most wonderful part of it all." + +Before Christmas nine hundred and seventy thousand belts and socks +were collected and sent as a special gift to the soldiers at the +front, from the Queen and the women of the empire. That in itself is +an amazing record of efficiency. + +It is rather comforting to know that there were mistakes in the +beginning. It is so human. It is comforting to think of this +exceedingly human Queen being a party to them, and being divided +between annoyance and mirth as they developed. It is very comforting +also to think that, in the end, they were rectified. + +We had a similar situation during our Civil War. There were mistakes +then also, and they too were rectified. What the heroic women of the +North and South did during that great conflict the women of Great +Britain are doing to-day. They are showing the same high and +courageous spirit, the same subordination of their personal griefs to +the national cause, the same cheerful relinquishment of luxuries. It +is a United Britain that confronts the enemy in France. It is a united +womanhood, united in spirit, in labour, in faith and high moral +courage, that looks east across the Channel to that land beyond the +horizon, "somewhere in France," where the Empire is fighting for life. + +A united womanhood, and at its head a steadfast and courageous Queen +and mother, Mary of England. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE QUEEN OF THE BELGIANS + + +On the third of August, 1914, the German Army crossed the frontier +into Belgium. And on the following day, the fourth, King Albert made +his now famous speech to the joint meeting of the Belgian Chamber and +Senate. Come what might, the Belgian people would maintain the freedom +that was their birthright. + +"I have faith in our destinies," King Albert concluded. "A country +which defends itself wins respect and cannot perish." + +With these simple and dignified words Belgium took up the struggle. +She was beaten before she began, and she knew it. No matter what the +ultimate out-come of the war, she must lose. The havoc would be hers. +The old battleground of Europe knew what war meant; no country in the +world knew better. And, knowing, Belgium took up the burden. + +To-day, Belgium is prostrate. That she lives, that she will rise +again, no Belgian doubts. It may be after months--even after years; +but never for a moment can there be any doubt of the national +integrity. The Germans are in Belgium, but not of it. Belgium is still +Belgium--not a part of the German Empire. Until the Germans are driven +out she is waiting. + +As I write this, one corner of her territory remains to her, a +wedge-shaped piece, ten miles or so in width at the coast, narrowing +to nothing at a point less than thirty miles inland. And in that +tragic fragment there remains hardly an undestroyed town. Her revenues +are gone, being collected as an indemnity, for God knows what, by the +Germans. King Albert himself has been injured. The Queen of the +Belgians has pawned her jewels. The royal children are refugees in +England. Two-thirds of the army is gone. And, of even that tiny +remaining corner, much is covered by the salt floods of the sea. + +The King of the Belgians is often heard of. We hear of him at the head +of his army, consulting his staff, reviewing his weary and decimated +troops. We know his calibre now, both as man and soldier. He stands +out as one of the truly heroic figures of the war. + +But what of the Bavarian-born Queen of the Belgians? What of this +royal woman who has lost the land of her nativity through the same war +that has cost her the country of her adoption; who must see her +husband go each day to the battle line; who must herself live under +the shadow of hostile aëroplanes, within earshot of the enemy's guns? +What was she thinking of during those fateful hours when, all night +long, King Albert and his Ministers debated the course of Belgium--a +shameful immunity, or a war? What does she think now, when, before the +windows of her villa at La Panne, the ragged and weary remnant of the +brave Belgian Army lines up for review? What does she hope for and +pray for--this Queen without a country? + +What she thinks we cannot know. What she hopes for we may guess--the +end of war; the return of her faithful people to their homes; the +reunion of families; that the guns will cease firing, so the long +lines of ambulances will no longer fill the roads; that the wounded +will recover; and that those that grieve may be comforted. + +She has pawned her jewels. When I saw her she wore a thin gold chain +round her neck, and on it a tiny gold heart. I believe she has +sacrificed everything else. Royal jewels have been pawned before +this--to support extravagant mistresses or to bolster a crumbling +throne; but Elisabeth of Belgium has pawned her jewels to buy supplies +for wounded soldiers. Battle-scarred old Belgium has not always had a +clean slate; but certainly this act of a generous and devoted queen +should mark off many scores. + +The Queen is living at La Panne, a tiny fishing village and resort on +the coast--an ugly village, robbed of quaintness by its rows of villas +owned by summer visitors. The villas are red and yellow brick, built +château fashion and set at random on the sand. Efforts at lawns have +proved abortive. The encroaching dunes gradually cover the grass. Here +and there are streets; and there is one main thoroughfare, along which +is a tramway that formerly connected the town with other villages. + +On one side the sea; on the other the dunes, with little shade and no +beauty--such is the location of the new capital of Belgium. And here, +in one of the six small villas that house the court, the King and +Queen of Belgium, with the Crown Prince, are living. They live very +quietly, walking together along the sands at those times when King +Albert is not with his troops, faring simply, waiting always--as all +Belgium is waiting to-day. Waiting for the end of this terrible time. + +I asked a member of the royal household what they did during those +long winter evenings, when the only sounds in the little village were +the wash of the sea and the continual rumble of the artillery at +Nieuport. + +"What can we do?" he replied. "My wife and children are in Brussels. +It is not possible to read, and it is not wise to think too much. We +wait." + +But waiting does not imply inaction. The members of His Majesty's +household are all officers in the army. I saw only one gentleman in +civilian dress, and he was the King's secretary, M. Ingenbleek. The +King heads this activity, and the Queen of the Belgians is never idle. +The Ocean Ambulance, the great Belgian base hospital, is under her +active supervision, and its location near the royal villa makes it +possible for her to visit it daily. She knows the wounded soldiers, +who adore her. Indeed, she is frankly beloved by the army. Her +appearance is always the signal for a demonstration; and again and +again I saw copies of her photograph nailed up in sentry huts, in +soldiers' billets, in battered buildings that were temporary +headquarters for divisions of the army. + +In return for this devotion the young Queen regards the welfare of the +troops as her especial charge. She visits them when they are wounded, +and many tales are told of her keen memory for their troubles. One, a +wounded Frenchman, had lost his pipe when he was injured. As he +recovered he mourned his pipe. Other pipes were offered, but they were +not the same. There had been something about the curve of the stem of +the old one, or the shape of the bowl--whatever it was, he missed it. +And it had been his sole possession. + +At last the Queen of the Belgians had him describe the old pipe +exactly. I believe he made a drawing--and she secured a duplicate of +it for him. He told me the story himself. + +The Queen had wished to go to the trenches to see the wretchedness of +conditions at the front, and to discover what she could do to +ameliorate them. One excursion she had been permitted at the time I +saw her, to the great anxiety of those who knew of the trip. She was +quite fearless, and went into one of the trenches at the railroad +embankment of Pervyse. I saw that trench afterward. It was proudly +decorated with a sign that said: _Repose de la Reine_. And above the +board was the plaster head of a saint, from one of the churches. Both +sign and head, needless to say, were carefully protected from German +bullets. + +Everywhere I went I found evidences of devotion to this girlish and +tender-hearted Queen. I was told of her farewell to the leading +officials of the army and of the court, when, having remained to the +last possible moment, King Albert insisted on her departure from +Brussels. I was told of her incognito excursions across the dangerous +Channel to see her children in England. I was told of her +single-hearted devotion to the King; her belief in him; her confidence +that he can do no wrong. + +So, when a great and bearded individual, much given to bowing, +presented himself at the door of my room in the hotel at Dunkirk, and +extended to me a notification that the Queen of the Belgians would +receive me the next day at the royal villa at La Panne, I was keenly +expectant. + +I went over my wardrobe. It was exceedingly limited and more than a +little worn. Furs would cover some of the deficiencies, but there was +a difficulty about shoe buttons. Dunkirk apparently laces its shoes. +After a period of desperation, two top buttons were removed and sewed +on lower down, where they would do the most good. That and much +brushing was all that was possible, my total war equipment comprising +one small suitcase, two large notebooks and a fountain pen. + +I had been invited to lunch at a town on my way to La Panne, but the +luncheon was deferred. When I passed through my would-be entertainer +was eating bully beef out of a tin, with a cracker or two; and shells +were falling inhospitably. Suddenly I was not hungry. I did not care +for food. I did not care to stop to talk about food. It was a very +small town, and there were bricks and glass and plaster in the +streets. There were almost no people, and those who were there were +hastily preparing for flight. + +It was a wonderful Sunday afternoon, brilliantly sunny. A German +aëroplane hung overhead and called the bull's-eyes. From the plain +near they were firing at it, but the shells burst below. One could see +how far they fell short by the clouds of smoke that hung suspended +beneath it, floating like shadowy balloons. + +I felt that the aëroplane had its eyes on my car. They drop darts--do +the aëroplanes--two hundred and more at a time; small pencil-shaped +arrows of steel, six inches long, extremely sharp and weighted at the +point end. I did not want to die by a dart. I did not want to die by a +shell. As a matter of fact, I did not want to die at all. + +So the car went on; and, luncheonless, I met the Queen of the +Belgians. + +The royal villa at La Panne faces the sea. It is at the end of the +village and the encroaching dunes have ruined what was meant to be a +small lawn. The long grass that grows out of the sand is the only +vegetation about it; and outside, half-buried in the dune, is a marble +seat. A sentry box or two, and sentries with carbines pacing along the +sand; the constant swish of the sea wind through the dead winter +grass; the half-buried garden seat--that is what the Queen of the +Belgians sees as she looks from the window of her villa. + +The villa itself is small and ugly. The furnishing is the furnishing +of a summer seaside cottage. The windows fit badly and rattle in the +gale. In the long drawing room--really a living room--in which I +waited for the Queen, a heavy red curtain had been hung across the +lower part of the long French windows that face the sea, to keep out +the draft. With that and an open coal fire the room was fairly +comfortable. + +As I waited I looked about. Rather a long room this, which has seen so +many momentous discussions, so much tragedy and real grief. A chaotic +room too; for, in addition to its typical villa furnishing of +chintz-covered chairs and a sofa or two, an ordinary pine table by a +side window was littered with papers. + +On a centre table were books--H.G. Wells' "The War in the Air"; two +American books written by correspondents who had witnessed the +invasion of Belgium; and several newspapers. A hideous marble bust on +a pedestal occupied a corner, and along a wall was a very small +cottage piano. On the white marble mantel were a clock and two +candlesticks. Except for a great basket of heather on a stand--a gift +to Her Majesty---the room was evidently just as its previous owners +had left it. A screen just inside the door, a rather worn rug on the +floor, and a small brocade settee by the fireplace completed the +furnishing. + +The door opened and the Queen entered without ceremony. I had not seen +her before. In her simple blue dress, with its white lawn collar and +cuffs, she looked even more girlish than I had anticipated. Like Queen +Mary of England, she had suffered from the camera. She is indeed +strikingly beautiful, with lovely colouring and hair, and with very +direct wide eyes, set far apart. She is small and slender, and moves +quickly. She speaks beautiful English, in that softly inflected voice +of the Continent which is the envy of all American women. + +I bowed as she entered; and she shook hands with me at once and asked +me to sit down. She sat on the sofa by the fireplace. Like the Queen +of England, like King Albert, her first words were of gratitude to +America. + +It is not my intention to record here anything but the substance of my +conversation with Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. Much that was said was +the free and unrestricted speech of two women, talking over together a +situation which was tragic to them both; for Queen Elisabeth allowed +me to forget, as I think she had ceased to remember, her own exalted +rank, in her anxiety for her people. + +A devoted churchwoman, she grieved over the treatment accorded by the +invading German Army to the priests and nuns of Belgium. She referred +to her own Bavarian birth, and to the confidence both King Albert and +she had always felt in the friendliness of Germany. + +"I am a Bavarian," she said. "I have always, from my childhood, heard +this talk that Germany must grow, must get to the sea. I thought it +was just talk--a pleasantry!" + +She had seen many of the diaries of German soldiers, had read them in +the very room where we were sitting. She went quite white over the +recollection and closed her eyes. + +"It is the women and children!" she said. "It is terrible! There must +be killing. That is war. But not this other thing." + +And later on she said, in reference to German criticism of King +Albert's course during the early days of the war: + +"Any one who knows the King knows that he cannot do a wrong thing. It +is impossible for him. He cannot go any way but straight." + +And Queen Elisabeth was right. Any one who knows King Albert of +Belgium knows that "he cannot go any way but straight." + +The conversation shifted to the wounded soldiers and to the Queen's +anxiety for them. I spoke of her hospital as being a remarkable +one--practically under fire, but moving as smoothly as a great +American institution, thousands of miles from danger. She had looked +very sad, but at the mention of the Ocean Ambulance her face +brightened. She spoke of its equipment; of the difficulty in securing +supplies; of the new surgery, which has saved so many limbs from +amputation. They were installing new and larger sterilisers, she said. + +"Things are in as good condition as can be expected now," she said. +"The next problem will come when we get back into our own country. +What are the people to do? So many of the towns are gone; so many +farms are razed!" + +The Queen spoke of Brand Whitlock and praised highly his work in +Brussels. From that to the relief work was only a step. I spoke of the +interest America was taking in the relief work, and of the desire of +so many American women to help. + +"We are grateful for anything," she said. "The army seems to be as +comfortable as is possible under the circumstances; but the people, of +course, need everything." + +Inevitably the conversation turned again to the treatment of the +Belgian people by the Germans; to the unnecessary and brutal murders +of noncombatants; to the frightful rapine and pillage of the early +months of the war. Her Majesty could not understand the scepticism of +America on this point. I suggested that it was difficult to say what +any army would do when it found itself in a prostrate and conquered +land. + +"The Belgian Army would never have behaved so," said Her Majesty. "Nor +the English; nor the French. Never!" + +And the Queen of the Belgians is a German! True, she has suffered +much. Perhaps she is embittered; but there was no bitterness in her +voice that afternoon in the little villa at La Panne--only sadness and +great sorrow and, with it, deep conviction. What Queen Elisabeth of +Belgium says, she believes; and who should know better? There, to that +house on the sea front, in the fragment of Belgium that remains, go +all the hideous details that are war. She knows them all. King Albert +is not a figure-head; he is the actual fighting head of his army. The +murder of Belgium has been done before his very eyes. + +In those long evenings when he has returned from headquarters; when he +and Queen Elisabeth sit by the fire in the room that overlooks the +sea; when every blast that shakes the windows reminds them both of +that little army, two-thirds gone, shivering in the trenches only a +mile or two away, or of their people beyond the dead line, suffering +both deprivation and terror--what pictures do they see in the glowing +coals? + +It is not hard to know. Queen Elisabeth sees her children, and the +puzzled, boyish faces of those who are going down to the darkness of +death that another nation may find a place in the sun. + +What King Albert sees may not all be written; but this is certain: +Both these royal exiles--this Soldier-King who has won and deserved +the admiration of the world; this Queen who refuses to leave her +husband and her wounded, though day after day hostile aëroplanes are +overhead and the roar of German guns is in her ears--these royal +exiles live in hope and in deep conviction. They will return to +Belgium. Their country will be theirs again. Their houses will be +restored; their fields will be sown and yield harvest--not for +Germany, but for Belgium. Belgium, as Belgium, will live again! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THE RED BADGE OF MERCY + + +Immediately on the declaration of war by the Powers the vast machinery +of mercy was put in the field. The mobilisation of the Red Cross army +began--that great army which is of no nation, but of all nations, of +no creed but of all faiths, of one flag for all the world and that +flag the banner of the Crusaders. + +The Red Cross is the wounded soldier's last defence. Worn as a +brassard on the left arm of its volunteers, it conveys a higher +message than the Victoria Cross of England, the Iron Cross of Germany, +or the Cross of the Legion of Honour of France. It is greater than +cannon, greater than hate, greater than blood-lust, greater than +vengeance. It triumphs over wrath as good triumphs over evil. Direct +descendant of the cross of the Christian faith, it carries on to every +battlefield the words of the Man of Peace: "Blessed are the merciful, +for they shall obtain mercy." + + * * * * * + +The care of the wounded in war has been the problem of the ages. +Richard the Lion-Hearted took a hospital ship to the coast of +Palestine. The German people of the Middle Ages had their wounded in +battle treated by their wives, who followed the army for that purpose. +It remained for Frederick the First of Prussia to establish a military +service in connection with a standing army. + +With the invention of firearms battlefield surgery faced new problems, +notably hemorrhage, and took a step forward to meet these altered +conditions. It was a French surgeon who solved the problem of +hemorrhage by tying the torn blood vessels above the injury. To +England goes the credit for the prevention of sepsis, as far as it may +be prevented on a battlefield. + +As far as it may be prevented on a battlefield! For that is the +question that confronts the machinery of mercy to-day. Transportation +to the hospitals has been solved, to a large extent, by motor +ambulances, by hospital trains, by converted channel steamers +connecting the Continent with England. Hospitals in the western field +of war are now plentiful and some are well equipped. The days of +bedding wounded men down on straw are largely in the past, but how to +prevent the ravages of dirt, the so-called "dirt diseases" of gaseous +gangrene, blood poisoning, tetanus, is the problem. + +I did not see the first exchange of hopelessly wounded prisoners that +took place at Flushing, while I was on the Continent. It must have +been a tragic sight. They lined up in two parties at the railroad +station, German surgeons and nurses with British prisoners, British +surgeons and nurses with German prisoners. + +Then they were counted off, I am told. Ten Germans came forward, ten +British, in wheeled chairs, on crutches, the sightless ones led. The +exchange was made. Then ten more, and so on. What a sight! What a +horror! No man there would ever be whole again. There were men without +legs, without arms, blind men, men twisted by fearful body wounds. Two +hundred and sixteen British officers and men, and as many Germans, +were exchanged that day. + +"They were, however, in the best of spirits," said the London Times of +the next day! + +At Folkestone a crowd was waiting on the quay, and one may be sure +that heads were uncovered as the men limped, or were led or wheeled, +down the gang-plank. Kindly English women gave them nosegays of +snowdrops and violets. + +And then they went on--to what? For a few weeks, or months, they will +be the objects of much kindly sympathy. In the little towns where they +live visitors will be taken to see them. The neighbourhood will exert +itself in kindness. But after a time interest will die away, and +besides, there will be many to divide sympathy. The blind man, or the +man without a leg or an arm, will cease to be the neighbourhood's +responsibility and will become its burden. + +What then? For that is the problem that is facing each nation at +war--to make a whole life out of a fragment, to teach that the spirit +may be greater than the body, to turn to usefulness these sad and +hopeless by-products of battlefields. + +The ravages of war--to the lay mind--consist mainly of wounds. As a +matter of fact, they divide themselves into several classes, all +different, all requiring different care, handling and treatment, and +all, in their several ways, dependent for help on the machinery of +mercy. In addition to injuries on the battlefield there are illnesses +contracted on the field, septic conditions following even slight +abrasions or minor wounds, and nervous conditions--sometimes +approximating a temporary insanity--due to prolonged strain, to +incessant firing close at hand, to depression following continual lack +of success, to the sordid and hideous conditions of unburied dead, +rotting in full view for weeks and even months. + +During the winter frozen feet, sometimes requiring amputation, and +even in mild cases entailing great suffering, took thousands of men +out of the trenches. The trouble resulted from standing for hours and +even days in various depths of cold water, and was sometimes given the +name "waterbite." Soldiers were instructed to rub their boots inside +and out with whale oil, and to grease their feet and legs. Unluckily, +only fortunately situated men could be so supplied, and the suffering +was terrible. Surgeons who have observed many cases of both frost and +water bite say that, curiously enough, the left foot is more +frequently and seriously affected than the right. The reason given is +that right-handed men automatically use the right foot more than the +left, make more movements with it. The order to remove boots twice a +day, for a few moments while in the trenches, had a beneficial effect +among certain battalions. + +The British soldier who wraps tightly a khaki puttee round his leg and +thus hampers circulation has been a particular sufferer from frostbite +in spite of the precaution he takes to grease his feet and legs before +going into the trenches. + +The presence of septic conditions has been appalling. + +This is a dirty war. Men are taken back to the hospitals in incredible +states of filth. Their stiffened clothing must frequently be cut off +to reveal, beneath, vermin-covered bodies. When the problem of +transportation is a serious one, as after a great battle, men must lie +in sheds or railway stations, waiting their turn. Wounds turn green +and hideous. Their first-aid dressing, originally surgically clean, +becomes infected. Lucky the man who has had a small vial of iodine to +pour over the gaping surface of his wound. For the time, at least, he +is well off. + +The very soil of Flanders seems polluted. British surgeons are sighing +for the clean dust of the Boer war of South Africa, although they +cursed it at the time. That it is not the army occupation which is +causing the grave infections of Flanders and France is shown by the +fact that the trouble dates from the beginning of the war. It is not +that living in a trench undermines the vitality of the men and lays +them open to infection. On the contrary, with the exception of frost +bite, there is a curious absence of such troubles as would ordinarily +result from exposure, cold and constant wetting. + +The open-air life has apparently built up the men. Again and again the +extraordinary power of resistance shown has astonished the surgeons. +It is as if, in forcing men to face overwhelming hardships, a watchful +Providence had granted them overwhelming vitality. + +Perhaps the infection of the soil, the typhoid-carrying waters that +seep through and into the trenches, the tetanus and gangrene that may +infect the simplest wounds, are due to the long intensive cultivation +of that fertile country, to the fertilisation by organic matter of its +fields. Doubtless the vermin that cover many of the troops form the +connecting link between the soil and the infected men. In many places +gasoline is being delivered to the troopers to kill these pests, and +it is a German army joke that before a charge on a Russian trench it +is necessary to send ahead men to scatter insect powder! So serious is +the problem in the east indeed that an official order from Berlin now +requires all cars returning from Russia to be placarded "_Aus +Russland_! Before using again thoroughly sterilise and unlouse!" And +no upholstered cars are allowed to be used. + +Generally speaking, a soldier is injured either in his trench or in +front of it in the waste land between the confronting armies. In the +latter case, if the lines are close together the situation is still +further complicated. It may be and often is impossible to reach him at +all. He must lie there for hours or even for days of suffering, until +merciful death overtakes him. When he can be rescued he is, and many +of the bravest deeds of this war have been acts of such salvage. In +addition to the work of the ambulance corps and of volunteer soldiers +who often venture out into a rain of death to bring in fallen officers +and comrades in the western field, some five hundred ambulance dogs +are being used by the Allies to locate the wounded. + +When a man is injured in the trenches his companions take care of him +until night, when it is possible to move him. His first-aid packet is +opened, a sterilised bandage produced, and the dressing applied to the +wound. Frequently he has a small bottle of iodine and the wound is +first painted with that. In cases where iodine is used at once, +chances of infection are greatly lessened. But often he must lie in +the trench until night, when the ambulances come up. His comrades make +him as comfortable as they can. He lies on their overcoats, his head +frequently on his own pack. + +Fighting goes on about him, above him. Other comrades fall in the +trench and are carried and laid near him. In the intervals of +fighting, men bring the injured men water. For that is the first +cry--a great and insistent need--water. When they cannot get water +from the canteens they drink what is in the bottom of the trench. + +At last night falls. The evening artillery duel, except when a charge +is anticipated, is greatly lessened at night, and infantry fire is +only that of "snipers." But over the trench and over the line of +communication behind the trench hang always the enemy's "starlights." + +The ambulances come up. They cannot come as far as the trenches, but +stretchers are brought and the wounded men are lifted out as tenderly +as possible. + +Many soldiers have tried to tell of the horrors of a night journey in +an ambulance or transport; careful driving is out of the question. +Near the front the ambulance can have no lights, and the roads +everywhere have been torn up by shells. + +Men die in transit, and, dying, hark back to early days. They call for +their mothers, for their wives. They dictate messages that no one can +take down. Unloaded at railway stations, the dead are separated from +the living and piled in tiers on trucks. The wounded lie about on +stretchers on the station floor. Sometimes they are operated on there, +by the light of a candle, it may be, or of a smoking lamp. When it is +a well-equipped station there is the mercy of chloroform, the blessed +release of morphia, but more times than I care to think of at night, +there has been no chloroform and no morphia. + +France has sixty hospital trains, England twelve, Belgium not so many. + +I have seen trains drawing in with their burden of wounded men. They +travel slowly, come to a gradual stop, without jolting or jarring; but +instead of the rush of passengers to alight, which usually follows the +arrival of a train, there is silence, infinite quiet. Then, somewhere, +a door is unhurriedly opened. Maybe a priest alights and looks about +him. Perhaps it is a nurse who steps down and takes a comprehensive +survey of conditions. There is no talking, no uproar. A few men may +come up to assist in lifting out the stretchers, an ambulance driver +who salutes and indicates with a gesture where his car is stationed. +There are no onlookers. This is business, the grim business of war. +The line of stretchers on the station platform grows. The men lie on +them, impassive. They have waited so long. They have lain on the +battlefield, in the trench, behind the line at the dressing shed, +waiting, always waiting. What is a little time more or less, now? + +The patience of the injured! I have been in many hospitals. I have +seen pneumonia and typhoid patients lying in the fearful apathy of +disease. They are very sad to see, very tragic, but their patience is +the lethargy of half consciousness. Their fixed eyes see visions. The +patience of the wounded is the resignation of alert faculties. + +Once I saw a boy dying. He was a dark-haired, brown-eyed lad of +eighteen. He had had a leg shattered the day before, and he had lain +for hours unattended on the battlefield. The leg had been amputated, +and he was dying of loss of blood. + +He lay alone, in a small room of what had once been a girls' school. +He had asked to be propped up with pillows, so that he could breathe. +His face was grey, and only his eyes were alive. They burned like +coals. He was alone. The hospital was crowded, and there were others +who could be saved. So he lay there, propped high, alone, and as +conscious as I am now, and waited. The nurse came back at last, and +his eyes greeted her. + +There seemed to be nothing that I could do. Before his conscious eyes +I was an intruder, gazing at him in his extremity. I went away. And +now and then, when I hear this talk of national honour, and am carried +away with a hot flame of resentment so that I, too, would cry for war, +I seem to see that dying boy's eyes, looking through the mists that +are vengeance and hatred and affronted pride, to war as it is--the end +of hope, the gate of despair and agony and death. + +After my return I received these letters. The woman who wrote them +will, I know, forgive me for publishing extracts from them. She is a +Belgian, married to an American. More clearly than any words of mine, +they show where falls the burden of war: + +"I have just learned that my youngest brother has been killed in +action in Flanders. King Albert decorated him for conspicuous bravery +on April 22d, and my poor boy went to his reward on April 26th. In my +leaden heart, through my whirling brain, your words keep repeating +themselves: 'For King and Country!' Yes, he died for them, and died a +hero! I know only that his regiment, the Grenadiers, was decimated. My +poor little boy! God pity us all, and save martyred Belgium!" + +In a second letter: + +"I enclose my dear little boy's obituary notice. He died at the head +of his company and five hundred and seventy-four of his Grenadiers +went down with him. Their regiment effectively checked the German +advance, and in recognition General Joffre pinned the Cross of the +Legion of Honour to his regimental colours. But we are left to +mourn--though I do no begrudge my share of sorrow. The pain is awful, +and I pray that by the grace of God you may never know what it means." + +For King and Country! + +The only leaven in this black picture of war as have seen it, as it +has touched me, has been the scarlet of the Red Cross. To a faith that +the terrible scene at the front had almost destroyed, came every now +and then again the flash of the emblem of mercy Hope, then, was not +dead. There were hands to soothe and labour, as well as hands to kill. +There was still brotherly love in the world. There was a courage that +was not of hate. There was a patience that was not a lying in wait. +There was a flag that was not of one nation, but of all the world; a +flag that needed no recruiting station, for the ranks it led were +always full to overflowing; a flag that stood between the wounded +soldier and death; that knew no defeat but surrender to the will of +the God of Battles. + +And that flag I followed. To the front, to the field hospitals behind +the trenches, to railway stations, to hospital trains and ships, to +great base hospitals. I watched its ambulances on shelled roads. I +followed its brassards as their wearers, walking gently, carried +stretchers with their groaning burdens. And, whatever may have failed +in this war--treaties, ammunition, elaborate strategies, even some of +the humanities--the Red Cross as a symbol of service has never failed. + +I was a critical observer. I am a graduate of a hospital +training-school, and more or less for years I have been in touch with +hospitals. I myself was enrolled under the Red Cross banner. I was +prepared for efficiency. What I was not prepared for was the absolute +self-sacrifice, the indifference to cost in effort, in very life +itself, of a great army of men and women. I saw English aristocrats +scrubbing floors; I found American surgeons working day and night +under the very roar and rattle of guns. I found cultured women of +every nation performing the most menial tasks. I found an army where +all are equal--priests, surgeons, scholars, chauffeurs, poets, women +of the stage, young girls who until now have been shielded from the +very name of death--all enrolled under the red badge of mercy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +IN TERMS OF LIFE AND DEATH + + +One of the first hospitals I saw was in Calais. We entered a muddy +courtyard through a gate, and the building loomed before us. It had +been a girls' convent school, and was now a military hospital for both +the French and British armies, one half the building being used by +each. It was the first war hospital I had seen, and I was taken +through the building by Major S----, of the Royal Army Medical Corps. +It was morning, and the corridors and stairs still bore the mud of the +night, when the ambulances drive into the courtyard and the stretchers +are carried up the stairs. It had been rather a quiet night, said +Major S----. The operations were already over, and now the work of +cleaning up was going on. + +He opened a door, and we entered a long ward. + +I live in a great manufacturing city. Day by day its mills take their +toll in crushed bodies. The sight of broken humanity is not new to me. +In a general way, it is the price we pay for prosperity. Individually, +men so injured are the losers in life's great struggle for food and +shelter. + +I had never before seen men dying of an ideal. + +There is a terrible sameness in war hospitals. There are rows of beds, +and in them rows of unshaven, white-faced men. Some of them turn and +look at visitors. Others lie very still, with their eyes fixed on the +ceiling, or eternity, or God knows what. Now and then one is sleeping. + +"He has slept since he came in," the nurse will say; "utter +exhaustion." + +Often they die. If there is a screen, the death takes place decently +and in order, away from the eyes of the ward. But when there is no +screen, it makes little difference. What is one death to men who have +seen so many? + +Once men thought in terms of a day's work, a night's sleep, of labour +and play and love. But all over Europe to-day, in hospital and out, +men are learning to think in terms of life and death. What will be the +result? A general brutalising? The loss of much that is fine? Perhaps. +There are some who think that it will scourge men's souls clean of +pettiness, teach them proportion, give them a larger outlook. But is +it petty to labour and love? Is the duty of the nation greater than +the duty of the home? Is the nation greater than the individual? Is +the whole greater than the sum of its parts? + +Ward after ward. Rows of quiet men. The occasional thump of a +convalescent's crutch. The swish of a nurse's starched dress. The +strangled grunt of a man as the dressing is removed from his wound. +The hiss of coal in the fireplace at the end of the ward. Perhaps a +priest beside a bed, or a nun. Over all, the heavy odour of drugs and +disinfectants. Brisk nurses go about, cheery surgeons, but there is no +real cheer. The ward is waiting. + +I saw a man who had been shot in the lungs. His lungs were filled with +jagged pieces of steel. He was inhaling oxygen from a tank. There was +an inhaler strapped over his mouth and nostrils, and the oxygen passed +through a bottle of water, to moisten it before it entered his +tortured lungs. + +The water in the bottle seethed and bubbled, and the man lay and +waited. + +He was waiting for the next breath. Above the mask his eyes were +fixed, intent. Would it come? Ah, that was not so bad. Almost a full +breath that time. But he must have another, and another. + +They are all waiting; for death, maybe; for home; for health again, or +such travesty of health as may come, for the hospital is not an end +but a means. It is an interval. It is the connecting link between the +trenches and home, between war and peace, between life and death. + +That one hospital had been a school. The children's lavatory is now +the operating room. There are rows of basins along one side, set a +trifle low for childish hands. When I saw them they were faintly +rimmed with red. There was a locker room too. Once these lockers had +held caps, no doubt, and overshoes, balls and other treasures. Now +they contained torn and stained uniforms, weapons, knapsacks, + +Does it matter how many wards there were, or how many surgeons? Do +figures mean anything to us any more? When we read in the spring of +1915 that the British Army, a small army compared with the others, had +lost already in dead, wounded and missing more than a quarter of a +million men we could not visualise it Multiply one ward by infinity, +one hospital by thousands, and then try to realise the terrible +by-products of war! + +In that Calais hospital I saw for the first time the apparatus for +removing bits of shell and shrapnel directly under the X-ray. Four +years ago such a procedure would have been considered not only +marvelous but dangerous. + +At that time, in Vienna and Berlin, I saw men with hands hopelessly +burned and distorted as the result of merely taking photographic +plates with the X-ray. Then came in lead-glass screens--screens of +glass made with a lead percentage. + +Now, as if science had prepared for this great emergency, operators +use gloves saturated with a lead solution, and right-angled +instruments, and operate directly in the ray. For cases where +immediate extraction is inadvisable or unnecessary there is a +stereoscopic arrangement of plates on the principle of our familiar +stereoscope, which shows an image with perspective and locates the +foreign body exactly. + +One plate I saw had a story attached to it. + +I was stopping in a private house where a tall Belgian surgeon lived. +In the morning, after breakfast, I saw him carefully preparing a tray +and carrying it upstairs. There was a sick boy, still in his teens, up +there. As I passed the door I had seen him lying there, gaunt and +pale, but plainly convalescent. + +Happening to go up shortly after, I saw the tall surgeon by the side +of the bed, the tray on his knees. And later I heard the story: + +The boy was his son. During the winter he had been injured and taken +prisoner. The father, in Calais, got word that his boy was badly +injured and lying in a German hospital in Belgium. He was an only son. + +I do not know how the frenzied father got into Belgium. Perhaps he +crept through the German lines. He may have gone to sea and landed on +the sand dunes near Zeebrugge. It does not matter how, for he found +his boy. He went to the German authorities and got permission to move +him to a private house. The boy was badly hurt. He had a bullet in the +wall of the carotid artery, for one thing, and a fractured thigh. The +father saw that his recovery, if it occurred at all, would be a matter +of skillful surgery and unremitting care, but the father had a post at +Calais and was badly needed. + +He took a wagon to the hospital and got his boy. Then he drove, +disguised I believe as a farmer, over the frontier into Holland. The +boy was covered in the bottom of the wagon. In Holland they got a boat +and went to Calais. All this, with that sharp-pointed German bullet in +the carotid artery! And at Calais they took the plate I have mentioned +and got out the bullet. + +The last time I saw that brave father he was sitting beside his son, +and the boy's hand was between both of his. + +Nearly all the hospitals I saw had been schools. In one that I recall, +the gentle-faced nuns, who by edict no longer exist in France, were +still living in a wing of the school building. They had abandoned +their quaint and beautiful habit for the ugly dress of the French +provinces--odd little bonnets that sat grotesquely on the tops of +their heads, stuffy black dresses, black cotton gloves. They would +like to be useful, but they belonged to the old regime. + +Under their bonnets their faces were placid, but their eyes were sad. +Their schoolrooms are hospital wards, the tiny chapel is piled high +with supplies; in the refectory, where decorous rows of small girls +were wont to file in to the convent meals, unthinkable horrors of +operations go on all day and far into the night. The Hall of the Holy +Rosary is a convalescent room, where soldiers smoke and play at cards. +The Room of the Holy Angels contains a steriliser. Through the +corridors that once re-echoed to the soft padding of their felt shoes +brisk English nurses pass with a rustle of skirts. + +Even the cross by which they lived has turned red, the colour of +blood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE LOSING GAME + + +I saw a typhoid hospital in charge of two women doctors. It was +undermanned. There were not enough nurses, not enough orderlies. + +One of the women physicians had served through the Balkan war. + +"There was typhoid there," she said, "but nothing to compare with this +in malignancy. Nearly all the cases have come from one part of +Belgium." + +Some of the men were wounded, in addition to the fever. She told me +that it was impossible to keep things in proper order with the help +they had. + +"And food!" she said. "We cannot have eggs. They are prohibitive at +twenty-five centimes--five cents--each; nor many broths. Meat is dear +and scarce, and there are no chickens. We give them stewed macaroni +and farinaceous things. It's a terrible problem." + +The charts bore out what she had said about the type of the disease. +They showed incredible temperatures, with the sudden drop that is +perforation or hemorrhage. + +The odour was heavy. Men lay there, far from home, babbling in +delirium or, with fixed eyes, picking at the bed clothes. One was +going to die that day. Others would last hardly longer. + +"They are all Belgians here," she said. "The British and French troops +have been inoculated against typhoid." + +So here again the Belgians were playing a losing game. Perhaps they +are being inoculated now. I do not know. To inoculate an army means +much money, and where is the Belgian Government to get it? ft seems +the tragic irony of fate that that heroic little army should have been +stationed in the infested territory. Are there any blows left to rain +on Belgium? + +In a letter from the Belgian lines the writer says: + +"This is just a race for life. The point is, which will get there +first, disease and sickness caused by drinking water unspeakably +contaminated, or sterilising plants to avoid such a disaster." + +Another letter from a different writer, also in Belgium at the front, +says: + +"A friend of mine has just been invalided home with enteritis. He had +been drinking from a well with a dead Frenchman in it!" + +The Belgian Soldiers' Fund in the spring of 1915 sent out an appeal, +which said: + +"The full heat of summer will soon be upon the army, and the dust of +the battlefield will cause the men to suffer from an intolerable +thirst." + +This is a part of the appeal: + +"It is said that out of the 27,000 men who gave their lives in the +South African war 7000 only were killed, whilst 20,000 died of +enteritis, contracted by drinking impure water. + +"In order to save their army from the fatal effects of contaminated +water, the Belgian Army medical authorities have, after careful tests, +selected the following means of sterilisation--boiling, ozone and +violet rays--as the most reliable methods for obtaining large supplies +of pure water rapidly. + +"Funds are urgently needed to help the work of providing and +distributing a pure water supply in the following ways: + +"1. By small portable sterilising plants for every company to produce +and distribute from twenty to a hundred gallons of pure cold water per +hour. + +"2. By sterilisers easy of adjustment for all field hospitals, +convalescent homes, medical depots, and so forth. + +"3. By large sterilising plants, capable of producing from 150 gallons +upward per hour, to provide a pure water supply for all the devastated +towns through which the army must pass. + +"4. By the sterilisation of contaminated pools and all surface water, +under the direction of leading scientific experts who have generously +offered their services. + +"5. By pocket filters for all who may have to work out of reach of the +sterilising plants, and so forth. + +"6. By two hundred field kitchens on the battlefield to serve out +soup, coffee or other drinks to the men fighting in the trenches or on +the march." + +Everywhere, at the front, I found the gravest apprehension as to water +supply in case the confronting armies remained in approximately the +same position. Sir John French spoke of it, and the British are +providing a system of sterilised water for their men. Merely providing +so many human beings with water is a tremendous problem. Along part of +the line, quite aside from typhoid contamination, the water is now +impregnated with salt water from the sea. If even wells contain dead +bodies, how about the open water-courses? Wounded men must have water. +It is their first and most insistent cry. + +People will read this who have never known the thirst of the +battlefield or the parched throat that follows loss of blood; people +who, by the turning of a tap, may have all the water they want. +Perhaps among them there are some who will face this problem of water +as America has faced Belgium's problem of food. For the Belgian Army +has no money at all for sterilisers, for pocket filters; has not the +means to inoculate the army against typhoid; has little of anything. +The revenues that would normally support the army are being +collected--in addition to a war indemnity--by Germany. + +Any hope that conditions would be improved by a general spring +movement into uncontaminated territory has been dispelled. The war has +become a gigantic siege, varied only by sorties and assaults. As long +ago as November, 1914, the situation as to drinking water was +intolerable. I quote again from the diary taken from the body of a +German officer after the battle of the Yser--a diary published in full +in an earlier chapter. + +"The water is bad, quite green, indeed; but all the same we drink +it--we can get nothing else. Man is brought down to the level of the +brute beast." + +There is little or no typhoid among the British troops. They, too, no +doubt, have realised the value of conservation, and to inoculation +have added careful supervision of wells and of watercourses. But when +I was at the front the Belgian Army of fifty thousand trained soldiers +and two hundred thousand recruits was dependent on springs oozing from +fields that were vast graveyards; on sluggish canals in which lay the +bodies of men and horses; and on a few tank wagons that carried fresh +water daily to the front. + +A quarter of a million dollars would be needed to install a water +supply for the Belgian Army and for the civilians--residents and +refugees--gathered behind the lines. To ask the American people to +shoulder this additional burden is out of the question. But perhaps, +somewhere among the people who will read this, there is one +great-hearted and wealthy American who would sleep better of nights +for having lifted to the lips of a wounded soldier the cup of pure +water that he craves; for having furnished to ten thousand wounds a +sterile and soothing wet compress. + +Dunkirk was full of hospitals when I was there. Probably the +subsequent shelling of the town destroyed some of them. I do not know. +A letter from Calais, dated May 21st, 1915, says: + +"I went through Dunkirk again. Last time I was there it was a +flourishing and busy market day. This time the only two living souls I +saw were the soldiers who let us in at one gate and out at the other. +In the interval, as you know, the town had been shelled by +fifteen-inch guns from a distance of twenty-three miles. Many +buildings in the main streets had been reduced to ruins, and nearly +all the windows in the town had been smashed." + +There is, or was, a converted Channel steamer at Dunkirk that is now a +hospital. Men in all stages of mutilation are there. The salt winds of +the Channel blow in through the open ports. The boat rises and falls +to the swell of the sea. The deck cabins are occupied by wounded +officers, and below, in the long saloon, are rows of cots. + +I went there on a bright day in February. There was a young officer on +the deck. He had lost a leg at the hip, and he was standing supported +by a crutch and looking out to sea. He did not even turn his head when +we approached. + +General M----, the head of the Belgian Army medical service, who had +escorted me, touched him on the arm, and he looked round without +interest. + +"For conspicuous bravery!" said the General, and showed me the medal +he wore on his breast. + +However, the young officer's face did not lighten, and very soon he +turned again to the sea. The time will come, of course, when the +tragedy of his mutilation will be less fresh and poignant, when the +Order of Leopold on his breast will help to compensate for many +things; but that sunny morning, on the deck of the hospital ship, it +held small comfort for him. + +We went below. At our appearance at the top of the stairs those who +were convalescent below rose and stood at attention. They stood in a +line at the foot of their beds, boys and grizzled veterans, clad in +motley garments, supported by crutches, by sticks, by a hand on the +supporting back of a chair. Men without a country, where were they to +go when the hospital ship had finished with them? Those who were able +would go back to the army, of course. But what of that large +percentage who will never be whole again? The machinery of mercy can +go so far, and no farther. France cannot support them. Occupied with +her own burden, she has persistently discouraged Belgian refugees. +They will go to England probably--a kindly land but of an alien +tongue. And there again they will wait. + +The waiting of the hospital will become the waiting of the refugee. +The Channel coast towns of England are full of human derelicts who +stand or sit for hours, looking wistfully back toward what was once +home. + +The story of the hospitals is not always gloomy. Where the +surroundings are favourable, defeat is sometimes turned to victory. +Tetanus is being fought and conquered by means of a serum. The open +treatment of fractures--that is, by cutting down and exposing the +jagged edges of splintered bones, and then uniting them--has saved +many a limb. Conservation is the watchword of the new surgery, to save +whenever possible. The ruthless cutting and hacking of previous wars +is a thing of the past. + +I remember a boy in a French hospital whose leg bones had been fairly +shattered. Eight pieces, the surgeon said there had been. Two linear +incisions, connected by a centre one, like a letter H, had been made. +The boy showed me the leg himself, and a mighty proud and happy +youngster he was. There was no vestige of deformity, no shortening. +The incisions had healed by first intention, and the thin, white lines +of the H were all that told the story. + +As if to offset the cheer of that recovery, a man in the next bed was +dying of an abdominal injury. I saw the wound. May the mother who bore +him, the wife he loved, never dream of that wound! + +I have told of the use of railway stations as temporary resting places +for injured soldiers. One is typical of them all. As my visit was made +during a lull in the fighting, conditions were more than usually +favourable. There was no congestion. + +On a bright afternoon early in March I went to the railway station +three miles behind the trenches at E----. Only a mile away a town was +being shelled. One could look across the fields at the changing roof +line, at a church steeple that had so far escaped. But no shells were +falling in E----. + +The station was a small village one. In the room corresponding to our +baggage-room straw had been spread over the floor, and men just out of +the trenches lay there in every attitude of exhaustion. In a tiny room +just beyond two or three women were making soup. As fast as one kettle +was ready it was served to the hungry men. There were several +kettles--all the small stove would hold. Soup was there in every +state, from the finished product to the raw meat and vegetables on a +table. + +Beyond was a waiting-room, with benches. Here were slightly injured +men, bandaged but able to walk about. A few slept on the benches, +heads lolled back against the whitewashed wall. The others were paying +no attention to the incessant, nearby firing, but were watching a boy +who was drawing. + +He had a supply of coloured crayons, and the walls as high as he could +reach were almost covered. There were priests, soldier types, +caricatures of the German Emperor, the arms of France and Belgium--I +do not remember what all. And it was exceedingly well done. The boy +was an artist to his finger tips. + +At a clever caricature of the German Emperor the soldiers laughed and +clapped their hands. While they were laughing I looked through an open +door. + +Three men lay on cots in an inner room--rather, two men and a boy. I +went in. + +One of the men was shot through the spine and paralysed. The second +one had a bullet in his neck, and his face already bore the dark flush +and anxious look of general infection. The boy smiled. + +They had been there since the day before, waiting for a locomotive to +come and move the hospital train that waited outside. In that railway +station the boy had had his leg taken off at the knee. + +They lay there, quite alone. The few women were feeding starving men. +Now and then one would look in to see if there was any change. There +was nothing to be done. They lay there, and the shells burst +incessantly a mile away, and the men in the next room laughed and +applauded at some happy stroke of the young artist. + +"I am so sorry," I said to the boy. The others had not roused at my +entrance, but he had looked at me with quick, intelligent eyes. + +"It is nothing!" was his reply. + +Outside, in the village, soldiers thronged the streets. The sun was +shining with the first promise of spring. In an area way regimental +butchering was going on, and a great sow, escaping, ran frenzied down +the street, followed by a throng of laughing, shouting men. And still +the shells fell, across a few fields, and inside the station the three +men lay and waited. + +That evening at dusk the bombardment ceased, and I went through the +shelled town. It was difficult to get about. Walls had fallen across +the way, interiors that had been homes gaped open to the streets. +Shattered beds and furnishings lay about--kitchen utensils, broken +dishes. On some of the walls holy pictures still hung, grouped about a +crucifix. There are many to tell how the crucifix has escaped in the +wholesale destruction of towns. + +A shoemaker had come back into the village for the night, and had +opened his shop. For a time he seemed to be the only inhabitant of +what I had known, a short time before, as a prosperous and thriving +market town. Then through an aperture that had been a window I saw +three women sitting round a candle. And in the next street I found a +man on his knees on the pavement, working with bricks and a trowel. + +He explained that he had closed up a small cellar-way. His family had +no place else to go and were coming in from the fields, where they had +sought safety, to sleep in the cellar for the night. He was leaving a +small aperture, to be closed with bags of sand, so that if the house +was destroyed over them in the night they could crawl out and escape. + +He knelt on the bricks in front of the house, a patient, resigned +figure, playing no politics, interested not at all in war and +diplomacy, in a way to the sea or to a place in the sun--one of the +millions who must adapt themselves to new and fearsome situations and +do their best. + +That night, sitting at dinner in a hotel, I saw two pretty nurses come +in. They had been relieved for a few hours from their hospital and +were on holiday. + +One of them had a clear, although musical voice. What she said came to +me with great distinctness, and what she was wishing for was a glass +of American soda water! + +Now, long months before I had had any idea of going to the war I had +read an American correspondent's story of the evacuation of Antwerp, +and of a tall young American girl, a nurse, whom the others called +Morning Glory. He never knew the rest of her name. Anyhow, Morning +Glory leaped into my mind and stayed there, through soup, through +rabbit, which was called on the menu something entirely different, +through hard cakes and a withered orange. + +So when a young lieutenant asked permission to bring them over to meet +me, I was eager. It was Morning Glory! Her name is really Glory, and +she is a Southern girl Somewhere among my papers I have a snapshot of +her helping to take a wounded soldier out of an ambulance, and if the +correspondent wants it I shall send it to him. Also her name, which he +never knew. And I will verify his opinion that it is better to be a +Morning Glory in Flanders than to be a good many other things that I +can think of. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +HOW AMERICANS CAN HELP + + +With the possible exception of Germany, which seems to have +anticipated everything, no one of the nations engaged appears to have +expected the fearful carnage of this war. The destructive effect of +the modern, high-explosive shell has been well known, but it is the +trench form of warfare which, by keeping troops in stationary +positions, under grilling artillery fire, has given such shells their +opportunity. Shrapnel has not been so deadly to the men in the +trenches. + +The result of the vast casualty lists has been some hundreds of +isolated hospitals scattered through France, not affiliated with any +of the Red Cross societies, unorganised, poverty-stricken, frequently +having only the services of a surgeon who can come but once a week. +They have no dressings, no nurses save peasants, no bedding, no coal +to cook even the scanty food that the villagers can spare. + +No coal, for France is facing a coal famine to-day. Her coal mines are +in the territory held by the Germans. Even if she had the mines, where +would she get men to labour in them, or trains to transport the coal? + +There are more than three hundred such hospitals scattered through +isolated French villages, hospitals where everything is needed. For +whatever else held fast during the first year of the war, the nursing +system of France absolutely failed. Some six hundred miles of hospital +wards there are to-day in France, with cots so close together that one +can hardly step between. It is true that with the passing of time, the +first chaos is giving way to order. But France, unlike England, has +the enemy within her boundaries, on her soil. Her every resource is +taxed. And the need is still great. + +The story of the town of D----, in Brittany, is very typical of what +the war has brought into many isolated communities. + +D---- is a little town of two thousand inhabitants, with a +thirteenth-century church, with mediaeval houses with quaint stone +porticoes and outside staircases. There is one street, shaped like a +sickle, with a handle that is the station road. + +War was declared and the men of D---- went away. The women and +children brought in the harvest, and waited for news. What little came +was discouraging. + +One day in August one of the rare trains stopped at the station, and +an inspector got off and walked up the sickle-handle to the +schoolhouse. He looked about and made the comment that it would hold +eighty beds. Whereupon he went away, and D---- waited for news and +gathered the harvest. + +On the fifth of September, 1914, the terrific battle of the Marne +commenced. The French strategic retreat was at an end, and with her +allies France resumed the offensive. What happened in the little +village of D----? + +And remember that D---- is only one of hundreds of tiny interior +towns. D---- has never heard of the Red Cross, but D---- venerated, in +its thirteenth-century church, the Cross of Christ. + +This is what happened: + +One day in the first week of September a train drew up at the box-like +station, a heterogeneous train--coaches, luggage vans, cattle and +horse cars. The doors opened, and the work of emptying the cars began. +The women and children, aghast and bewildered, ran down the +sickle-handle road and watched. Four hundred wounded men were taken +out of the cars, laid prone on the station platform, and the train +went on. + +There were no surgeons in D----, but there was a chemist who knew +something of medicine and who, for one reason or another, had not been +called to the ranks. There were no horses to draw carts. There was +nothing. + +The chemist was a man of action. Very soon the sickle and the old +church saw a curious sight. They saw women and children, a procession, +pushing wounded men to the school in the hand carts that country +people use for milk cans and produce. They saw brawny peasant women +carrying chairs in which sat injured men with lolling heads and sunken +eyes. + +Bales of straw were brought into the school. Tender, if unaccustomed, +hands washed fearful wounds, but there were no dressings, no bandages. + +Any one who knows the French peasant and his poverty will realise the +plight of the little town. The peasant has no reserves of supplies. +Life is reduced to its simplest elements. There is nothing that is not +in use. + +D---- solved part of its problem by giving up its own wooden beds to +the soldiers. It tore up its small stock of linen, its towels, its +dusters; but the problem of food remained. + +There was a tiny stove, on which the three or four teachers of the +school had been accustomed to cook their midday meal. There was no +coal, only wood, and green wood at that. All day, and all day now, +D---- cooks the _pot-à-feu_ for the wounded on that tiny stove. +_Pot-à-feu_ is good diet for convalescents, but the "light diets" must +have eggs, broth, whatever can be found. + +So the peasant woman of D---- comes to the hospital, bringing a few +eggs, the midday meal of her family, who will do without. + +I have spoken mainly in the past tense, but conditions in D---- are +not greatly changed to-day. An old marquise, impoverished by the war, +darns the pathetic socks of the wounded men and mends their uniforms. +At the last report I received, the corridors and schoolrooms were +still filled--every inch of space--with a motley collection of beds, +on which men lay in their uniforms, for lack of other clothing. They +were covered with old patchwork quilts, with anything that can be +used. There were, of course, no sheets. All the sheets were used long +ago for dressings. A friend of mine there recently saw a soldier with +one leg, in the kitchen, rolling wretched scraps and dusters for +bandages. There was no way to sterilise them, of course. Once a week a +surgeon comes. When he goes away he takes his instruments with him. + +This is not an isolated case, nor an exaggerated one. There are things +I do not care to publish. Three hundred and more such hospitals are +known. The French Government pays, or will pay, twenty-five cents a +day to keep these men. Black bread and _pot-à-feu_ is all that can be +managed on that amount. + +Convalescents sit up in bed and painfully unravel their tattered socks +for wool. They tie the bits together, often two or three inches in +length, and knit new feet in old socks, or--when they secure +enough--new socks. For the Germans hold the wool cities of France. +Ordinarily worsted costs eighteen and nineteen francs in Dinard and +Saint Malo, or from three dollars and sixty cents to three dollars and +eighty cents a pound. Much of the government reserves of woollen +underwear for the soldiers was in the captured towns, and German +prisoners have been found wearing woollens with the French Government +stamp. + +Every sort of building is being used for these isolated +hospitals--garages, town halls, private dwellings, schools. At first +they had no chloroform, no instruments. There are cases on record +where automobile tools were used in emergency, kitchen knives, saws, +anything. In one case, last spring, two hundred convalescents, leaving +one of these hospitals on a cold day in March, were called back, on +the arrival of a hundred freshly wounded men, that every superfluous +bandage on their wounds might be removed, to be used again. + +Naturally, depending entirely on the unskilled nursing of the village +women, much that we regard as fundamental in hospital practice is +ignored. Wounded men, typhoid and scarlet fever cases are found in the +same wards. In one isolated town a single clinical thermometer is +obliged to serve for sixty typhoid and scarlet fever patients.[F] + +[Footnote F: Written in June, 1915.] + +Sometimes the men in these isolated and ill-equipped refuges realise +the horror and hopelessness of their situation. The nights are +particularly bad. Any one who knows hospitals well, knows the night +terrors of the wards; knows, too, the contagion of excitement that +proceeds from a hysterical or delirious patient. + +In some of these lonely hospitals hell breaks loose at night. The +peasant women must sleep. Even the tireless nuns cannot labour forever +without rest. The men have come from battlefields of infinite horror. +A frenzied dream, a delirious soldier calling them to the charge, and +panic rages. + +To offset these horrors of the night the peasants have, here and +there, resorted to music. It is naïve, pathetic. Where there is a +piano it is moved into the school, or garage, or whatever the building +may be, and at twilight a nun or a volunteer musician plays quietly, +to soothe the men to sleep. In one or two towns a village band, or +perhaps a lone cornetist, plays in the street outside. + +So the days go on, and the nights. Supplies are begged for and do not +always come. Dressings are washed, to be used again and again. + +An attempt is now being made to better these conditions. A Frenchwoman +helping in one of these hospitals, and driven almost to madness by the +outcries of men and boys undergoing operations without anæsthetics, +found her appeals for help unanswered. She decided to go to England to +ask her friends there for chloroform, and to take it back on the next +boat. She was successful. She carried back with her, on numerous +journeys, dressings, chloroform, cotton, even a few instruments. She +is still doing this work. Others interested in isolated hospitals, +hearing of her success, appealed to her; and now regular, if small, +shipments of chloroform and dressings are going across the Channel. + +Americans willing to take their own cars, and willing to work, will +find plenty to do in distributing such supplies over there. A request +has come to me to find such Americans. Surgeons who can spare a +scalpel, an artery clip or two, ligatures--catgut or silk--and +forceps, may be certain of having them used at once. Bandages rolled +by kindly American hands will not lie unclaimed on the quay at Havre +or Calais. + +So many things about these little hospitals of France are touching, +without having any particular connection. There was a surgeon in one +of these isolated villages, with an X-ray machine but no gloves or +lead screen to protect himself. He worked on, using the deadly rays to +locate pieces of shell, bullets and shrapnel, and knowing all the time +what would happen. He has lost both hands. + +Since my return to America the problems of those who care for the sick +and wounded have been further complicated, among the Allies, by the +inhuman use of asphyxiating gases. + +Sir John French says of these gases: + +"The effect of this poison is not merely disabling, or even painlessly +fatal, as suggested in the German press. Those of its victims who do +not succumb on the field and who can be brought into hospitals suffer +acutely and, in a large proportion of cases, die a painful and +lingering death. Those who survive are in little better case, as the +injury to their lungs appears to be of a permanent character and +reduces them to a condition that points to their being invalids for +life." + +I have received from the front one of the respirators given out to the +troops to be used when the gas clouds appear. + +"It is prepared with hypophosphite of soda," wrote the surgeon who +sent it, "and all they have to do before putting it on is to dip it in +the water in the trenches. They are all supplied in addition with +goggles, which are worn on their caps," + +This is from the same letter: + +"That night a German soldier was brought in wounded, and jolly glad he +was to be taken. He told us he had been turned down three times for +phthisis--tuberculosis--and then in the end was called up and put into +the trenches after eight weeks' training. All of which is very +significant. Another wounded German told the men at the ambulance that +they must move on as soon as they could, as very soon the Germans +would be in Calais. + +"All the German soldiers write home now on the official cards, which +have Calais printed on the top of them!" + +Not all. I have before me a card from a German officer in the trenches +in France. It is a good-natured bit of raillery, with something of +grimness underneath. + + "_Dear Madame_: + + "'I nibble them'--Joffre. See your article in the _Saturday Evening + Post_ of May 29th, 1915. Really, Joffre has had time! It is + September now, and we are not nibbled yet. Still we stand deep in + France. Au revoir à Paris, Madame." + +He signs it "Yours truly," and then his name. + +Not Calais, then, but Paris! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +AN ARMY OF CHILDREN + + +It is undeniably true that the humanities are failing us as the war +goes on. Not, thank God, the broad humanity of the Red Cross, but that +individual compassion of a man for his wounded brother, of which the +very fabric of mercy is woven. There is too much death, too much +suffering. Men grow calloused. As yet the loss is not irretrievable, +but the war is still only a matter of months. What if it is to be of +years? + +France and Belgium were suffering from a wave of atheism before the +war. But there comes a time in the existence of nations, as in the +lives of individuals, when human endeavour seems useless, when the +world and the things thereof have failed. At such time nations and +individuals alike turn at last to a Higher Power. France is on her +knees to-day. Her churches are crowded. Not perhaps since the days of +chivalry, when men were shriven in the churches before going out to +battle, has France so generally knelt and bowed her head--but it is to +the God of Battles that she prays. + +On her battlefields the priests have most signally distinguished +themselves. Some have exchanged the soutane for the uniform, and have +fought bravely and well. Others, like the priests who stood firm in +the midst of Jordan, have carried their message of hope to the dying +into the trenches. + +No article on the work of the Red Cross can be complete without a +reference to the work of these priests, not perhaps affiliated with +the society, but doing yeoman work of service among the wounded. They +are everywhere, in the trenches or at the outposts, in the hospitals +and hospital trains, in hundreds of small villages, where the entire +community plus its burden of wounded turns to the _curé_ for +everything, from advice to the sacrament. + +In prostrate Belgium the demands on the priests have been extremely +heavy. Subjected to insult, injury and even death during the German +invasion, where in one diocese alone thirteen were put to death--their +churches destroyed, or used as barracks by the enemy--that which was +their world has turned to chaos about them. Those who remained with +their conquered people have done their best to keep their small +communities together and to look after their material needs--which +has, indeed, been the lot of the priests of battle-scarred Flanders +for many generations. + +Others have attached themselves to the hospital service. All the +Belgian trains of wounded are cared for solely by these priests, who +perform every necessary service for their men, and who, as I have said +before, administer the sacrament and make coffee to cheer the flagging +spirits of the wounded, with equal courage and resource. + +Surgeons, nurses, priests, nuns, volunteer workers who substitute for +lack of training both courage and zeal, these are a part of the +machinery of mercy. There is another element--the boy scouts. + +During the early days of the war the boy scouts of England, then on +school holiday, did marvellous work. Boys of fourteen made repeated +trips across the Channel, bringing back from France children, +invalids, timorous women. They volunteered in the hospitals, ran +errands, carried messages, were as useful as only willing boys can be. +They did scout service, too, guarding the railway lines and assisting +in watching the Channel coast; but with the end of the holiday most of +the English boy scouts were obliged to go back to school. Their +activities were not over, but they were largely curtailed. + +There were five thousand boy scouts in Belgium at the beginning of the +war. I saw them everywhere--behind the battle lines, on the driving +seats of ambulances, at the doors of hospitals. They were very calm. +Because I know a good deal about small boys I smothered a riotous +impulse to hug them, and spoke to them as grown-up to grown-up. Thus +approached, they met my advances with dignity, but without excitement. + +And after a time I learned something about them from the Chief Scout +of Belgium; perhaps it will show the boy scouts of America what they +will mean to the country in time of war. Perhaps it will make them +realise that being a scout is not, after all, only camping in the +woods, long hikes, games in the open. The long hikes fit a boy for +dispatch carrying, the camping teaches him to care for himself when, +if necessity arises, he is thrown on the country, like his older +brother, the fighting man. + +A small cog, perhaps, in the machinery of mercy, but a necessary one. +A vital cog in the vast machinery of war--that is the boy scout +to-day. + +The day after the declaration of war the Belgian scouts were +mobilised, by order of the minister of war--five thousand boys, then, +ranging in age from twelve to eighteen, an army of children. What a +sight they must have been! How many grown-ups can think of it with dry +eyes? What a terrible emergency was this, which must call the children +into battle! + +They were placed at the service of the military authorities, to do any +and every kind of work. Some, with ordinary bicycles or motorcyles, +were made dispatch riders. The senior scouts were enlisted in the +regular army, armed, and they joined the soldiers in barracks. The +younger boys, between thirteen and sixteen, were letter-carriers, +messengers in the different ministries, or orderlies in the hospitals +that were immediately organised. Those who could drive automobiles +were given that to do. + +Others of the older boys, having been well trained in scouting, were +set to watch points of importance, or given carbines and attached to +the civic guard. During the siege of Liège between forty and fifty boy +scouts were constantly employed carrying food and ammunition to the +beleaguered troops. + +The Germans finally realised that every boy scout was a potential spy, +working for his country. The uniform itself then became a menace, +since boys wearing it were frequently shot. The boys abandoned it, the +older ones assuming the Belgian uniform and the younger ones returning +to civilian dress. But although, in the chaos that followed the +invasion and particularly the fall of Liège, they were virtually +disbanded, they continued their work as spies, as dispatch riders, as +stretcher-bearers. + +There are still nine boy scouts with the famous Ninth Regiment, which +has been decorated by the king. + +One boy scout captured, single-handed, two German officers. Somewhere +or other he had got a revolver, and with it was patrolling a road. The +officers were lost and searching for their regiments. As they stepped +out of a wood the boy confronted them, with his revolver levelled. +This happened near Liège. + +Trust a boy to use his wits in emergency! Here is another lad, aged +fifteen, who found himself in Liège after its surrender, and who +wanted to get back to the Belgian Army. He offered his services as +stretcher-bearer in the German Army, and was given a German Red Cross +pass. Armed with this pass he left Liège, passed successfully many +sentries, and at last got to Antwerp by a circuitous route. On the way +he found a dead German and, being only a small boy after all, he took +off the dead man's stained uniform and bore it in his arms into +Antwerp! + +There is no use explaining about that uniform. If you do not know boys +you will never understand. If you do, it requires no explanation. + +Here is a fourteen-year-old lad, intrusted with a message of the +utmost importance for military headquarters in Antwerp. He left +Brussels in civilian clothing, but he had neglected to take off his +boy scout shirt--boy-fashion! The Germans captured him and stripped +him, and they burned the boy scout shirt. Then they locked him up, but +they did not find his message. + +All day he lay in duress, and part of the night. Perhaps he shed a few +tears. He was very young, and things looked black for him. Boy scouts +were being shot, remember! But it never occurred to him to destroy the +message that meant his death if discovered. + +He was clever with locks and such things, after the manner of boys, +and for most of the night he worked with the window and shutter lock. +Perhaps he had a nail in his pocket, or some wire. Most boys have. And +just before dawn he got window and shutter opened, and dropped, a long +drop, to the ground. He lay there for a while, getting his breath and +listening. Then, on his stomach, he slid away into the darkest hour +that is just before the dawn. + +Later on that day a footsore and weary but triumphant youngster +presented himself at the headquarters of the Belgian Army in Antwerp +and insisted on seeing the minister of war. Being at last admitted, he +turned up a very travel-stained and weary little boy's foot and +proceeded to strip a piece of adhesive plaster from the sole. + +Underneath the plaster was the message! + + * * * * * + +War is a thing of fearful and curious anomalies. It has shown that +humane units may comprise a brutal whole; that civilisation is a shirt +over a coat of mail. It has shown that hatred and love are kindred +emotions, boon companions, friends. It has shown that in every man +there are two men, devil and saint; that there are two courages, that +of the mind, which is bravest, that of the heart, which is greatest. + +It has shown that government by men only is not an appeal to reason, +but an appeal to arms; that on women, without a voice to protest, must +fall the burden. It is easier to die than to send a son to death. + +It has shown that a single hatred may infect a world, but it has shown +that mercy too may spread among nations. That love is greater than +cannon, greater than hate, greater than vengeance; that it triumphs +over wrath, as good triumphs over evil. + +Direct descendant of the cross of the Christian faith, the Red Cross +carries onto every battlefield the words of the Man of Mercy: + +"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." + +On a day in March I went back to England. March in England is spring. +Masses of snowdrops lined the paths in Hyde Park. The grass was green, +the roads hard and dry under the eager feet of Kitchener's great army. +They marched gayly by. The drums beat. The passers-by stopped. Here +and there an open carriage or an automobile drew up, and pale men, +some of them still in bandages, sat and watched. In their eyes was the +same flaming eagerness, the same impatience to get back, to be loosed +against the old lion's foes. + +All through England, all through France, all through the tragic corner +of Belgium that remains to her, were similar armies drilling and +waiting, equally young, equally eager, equally resolute. And the thing +that they were going to I knew. I had seen it in that mysterious +region that had swallowed up those who had gone before; in the +trenches, in the operating rooms of field hospitals, at outposts where +the sentries walked hand in hand with death. + +War is not two great armies meeting in the clash and frenzy of battle. +War is a boy carried on a stretcher, looking up at God's blue sky with +bewildered eyes that are soon to close; war is a woman carrying a +child that has been injured by a shell; war is spirited horses tied in +burning buildings and waiting for death; war is the flower of a race, +battered, hungry, bleeding, up to its knees in filthy water; war is an +old woman burning a candle before the Mater Dolorosa for the son she +has given. + +For King and Country! + + + THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Kings, Queens And Pawns, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS *** + +***** This file should be named 14457-8.txt or 14457-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/4/5/14457/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Richard Lammers and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/14457-8.zip b/old/14457-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4fdca4f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14457-8.zip diff --git a/old/14457.txt b/old/14457.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bc3fa27 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14457.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11631 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Kings, Queens And Pawns, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Kings, Queens And Pawns + An American Woman at the Front + +Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart + +Release Date: December 25, 2004 [EBook #14457] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Richard Lammers and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + +[Illustration: MARY ROBERTS RINEHART RETURNING FROM THE WAR-ZONE +AND CAPTAIN FINCH ON S.S. "ARABIC."] + + + + + + KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS + + _An American Woman at the Front_ + + BY + MARY ROBERTS RINEHART + AUTHOR OF + "K" + + + NEW YORK + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + 1915 + + + + +CONTENTS + + FOR KING AND COUNTRY + + I. TAKING A CHANCE + + II. "SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE" + + III. LA PANNE + + IV. "'TWAS A FAMOUS VICTORY" + + V. A TALK WITH THE KING OF THE BELGIANS + + VI. THE CAUSE + + VII. THE STORY WITH AN END + + VIII. THE NIGHT RAID ON DUNKIRK + + IX. NO MAN'S LAND + + X. THE IRON DIVISION + + XI. AT THE HOUSE OF THE BARRIER + + XII. NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES + + XIII. "WIPERS" + + XIV. LADY DECIES' STORY + + XV. RUNNING THE BLOCKADE + + XVI. THE MAN OF YPRES + + XVII. IN THE LINE OF THE "MITRAILLEUSE" + + XVIII. FRENCH GUNS IN ACTION + + XIX. "I NIBBLE THEM" + + XX. DUNKIRK: FROM MY JOURNAL + + XXI. TEA WITH THE AIR-FIGHTERS + + XXII. THE WOMEN AT THE FRONT + + XXIII. THE LITTLE "SICK AND SORRY" HOUSE + + XXIV. FLIGHT + + XXV. VOLUNTEERS AND PATRIOTS + + XXVI. A LUNCHEON AT BRITISH HEADQUARTERS + + XXVII. A STRANGE PARTY + +XXVIII. SIR JOHN FRENCH + + XXIX. ALONG THE GREAT BETHUNE ROAD + + XXX. THE MILITARY SECRET + + XXXI. QUEEN MARY OF ENGLAND + + XXXII. THE QUEEN OF THE BELGIANS + +XXXIII. THE RED BADGE OF MERCY + + XXXIV. IN TERMS OF LIFE AND DEATH + + XXXV. THE LOSING GAME + + XXXVI. HOW AMERICANS CAN HELP + +XXXVII. AN ARMY OF CHILDREN + + + + +KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS + + + + + +KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS + +FOR KING AND COUNTRY + + +March in England is spring. Early in the month masses of snowdrops +lined the paths in Hyde Park. The grass was green, the roads hard and +dry under the eager feet of Kitchener's great army. For months they +had been drilling, struggling with the intricacies of a new career, +working and waiting. And now it was spring, and soon they would be +off. Some had already gone. + +"Lucky beggars!" said the ones who remained, and counted the days. + +And waiting, they drilled. Everywhere there were squads: Scots in +plaid kilts with khaki tunics; less picturesque but equally imposing +regiments in the field uniform, with officers hardly distinguishable +from their men. Everywhere the same grim but cheerful determination to +get over and help the boys across the Channel to assist in holding +that more than four hundred miles of battle line against the invading +hosts of Germany. + +Here in Hyde Park that spring day was all the panoply of war: bands +playing, the steady tramp of numberless feet, the muffled clatter of +accoutrements, the homage of the waiting crowd. And they deserved +homage, those fine, upstanding men, many of them hardly more than +boys, marching along with a fine, full swing. There is something +magnificent, a contagion of enthusiasm, in the sight of a great +volunteer army. The North and the South knew the thrill during our own +great war. Conscription may form a great and admirable machine, but it +differs from the trained army of volunteers as a body differs from a +soul. But it costs a country heavy in griefs, does a volunteer army; +for the flower of the country goes. That, too, America knows, and +England is learning. + +They marched by gaily. The drums beat. The passers-by stopped. Here +and there an open carriage or an automobile drew up, and pale men, +some of them still in bandages, sat and watched. In their eyes was the +same flaming eagerness, the same impatience to get back, to be loosed +against the old lion's foes. + +For King and Country! + +All through England, all through France, all through that tragic +corner of Belgium which remains to her, are similar armies, drilling +and waiting, equally young, equally eager, equally resolute. And the +thing they were going to I knew. I had seen it in that mysterious +region which had swallowed up those who had gone before; in the +trenches, in the operating, rooms of field hospitals, at outposts +between the confronting armies where the sentries walked hand in hand +with death. I had seen it in its dirt and horror and sordidness, this +thing they were going to. + +War is not two great armies meeting in a clash and frenzy of battle. +It is much more than that. War is a boy carried on a stretcher, +looking up at God's blue sky with bewildered eyes that are soon to +close; war is a woman carrying a child that has been wounded by a +shell; war is spirited horses tied in burning buildings and waiting +for death; war is the flower of a race, torn, battered, hungry, +bleeding, up to its knees in icy water; war is an old woman burning a +candle before the Mater Dolorosa for the son she has given. For King +and Country! + + + + +CHAPTER I + +TAKING A CHANCE + + +I started for the Continent on a bright day early in January. I was +searched by a woman from Scotland Yard before being allowed on the +platform. The pockets of my fur coat were examined; my one piece of +baggage, a suitcase, was inspected; my letters of introduction were +opened and read. + +"Now, Mrs. Rinehart," she said, straightening, "just why are you +going?" + +I told her exactly half of why I was going. I had a shrewd idea that +the question in itself meant nothing. But it gave her a good chance to +look at me. She was a very clever woman. + +And so, having been discovered to be carrying neither weapons nor +seditious documents, and having an open and honest eye, I was allowed +to go through the straight and narrow way that led to possible +destruction. Once or twice, later on, I blamed that woman for letting +me through. I blamed myself for telling only half of my reasons for +going. Had I told her all she would have detained me safely in +England, where automobiles sometimes go less than eighty miles an +hour, and where a sharp bang means a door slamming in the wind and not +a shell exploding, where hostile aeroplanes overhead with bombs and +unpleasant little steel darts, were not always between one's eyes and +heaven. She let me through, and I went out on the platform. + +The leaving of the one-o'clock train from Victoria Station, London, is +an event and a tragedy. Wounded who have recovered are going back; +soldiers who have been having their week at home are returning to that +mysterious region across the Channel, the front. + +Not the least of the British achievements had been to transport, +during the deadlock of the first winter of the war, almost the entire +army, in relays, back to England for a week's rest. It had been done +without the loss of a man, across a channel swarming with hostile +submarines. They came in thousands, covered with mud weary, eager, +their eyes searching the waiting crowd for some beloved face. And +those who waited and watched as the cars emptied sometimes wept with +joy and sometimes turned and went away alone. + +Their week over, rested, tidy, eyes still eager but now turned toward +France, the station platform beside the one-o'clock train was filled +with soldiers going back. There were few to see them off; there were +not many tears. Nothing is more typical of the courage and patriotism +of the British women than that platform beside the one-o'clock train +at Victoria. The crowd was shut out by ropes and Scotland Yard men +stood guard. And out on the platform, saying little because words are +so feeble, pacing back and forth slowly, went these silent couples. +They did not even touch hands. One felt that all the unselfish +stoicism and restraint would crumble under the familiar touch. + +The platform filled. Sir Purtab Singh, an Indian prince, with his +suite, was going back to the English lines. I had been a neighbour of +his at Claridge's Hotel in London. I caught his eye. It was filled +with cold suspicion. It said quite plainly that I could put nothing +over on him. But whether he suspected me of being a newspaper writer +or a spy I do not know. + +Somehow, considering that the train was carrying a suspicious and +turbaned Indian prince, any number of impatient officers and soldiers, +and an American woman who was carefully avoiding the war office and +trying to look like a buyer crossing the Channel for hats, the whistle +for starting sounded rather inadequate. It was not martial. It was +thin, effeminate, absurd. And so we were off, moving slowly past that +line on the platform, where no one smiled; where grief and tragedy, in +that one revealing moment, were written deep. I shall never forget the +faces of the women as the train crept by. + +And now the train was well under way. The car was very quiet. The +memory of those faces on the platform was too fresh. There was a brown +and weary officer across from me. He sat very still, looking straight +ahead. Long after the train had left London, and was moving smoothly +through the English fields, so green even in winter, he still sat in +the same attitude. + +I drew a long breath, and ordered luncheon. I was off to the war. I +might be turned back at Folkstone. There was more than a chance that I +might not get beyond Calais, which was under military law. But at +least I had made a start. + +This is a narrative of personal experience. It makes no pretensions, +except to truth. It is pure reporting, a series of pictures, many of +them disconnected, but all authentic. It will take a hundred years to +paint this war on one canvas. A thousand observers, ten thousand, must +record what they have seen. To the reports of trained men must be +added a bit here and there from these untrained observers, who without +military knowledge, ignorant of the real meaning of much that they +saw, have been able to grasp only a part of the human significance of +the great tragedy of Europe. + +I was such an observer. + +My errand was primarily humane, to visit the hospitals at or near the +front, and to be able to form an opinion of what supplies were needed, +of conditions generally. Rumour in America had it that the medical and +surgical situation was chaotic. Bands of earnest and well-intentioned +people were working quite in the dark as to the conditions they hoped +to relieve. And over the hospital situation, as over the military, +brooded the impenetrable silence that has been decreed by the Allies +since the beginning of the war. I had met everywhere in America tales +from both the German and the Allies' lines that had astounded me. It +seemed incredible that such conditions could exist in an age of +surgical enlightenment; that, even in an unexpected and unprepared-for +war, modern organisation and efficiency should have utterly failed. + +On the steamer crossing the Atlantic, with the ship speeding on her +swift and rather precarious journey windows and ports carefully closed +and darkened, one heard the same hideous stories: of tetanus in +uncounted cases, of fearful infections, of no bandages--worst of all, +of no anaesthetics. + +I was a member of the American Red Cross Association, but I knew that +the great work of the American Red Cross was in sending supplies. The +comparatively few nurses they had sent to the western field of war +were not at the front or near it. The British, French, Belgian and +Dutch nursing associations were in charge of the field hospitals, so +far as I could discover. + +To see these hospitals, to judge and report conditions, then, was a +part of my errand. Only a part, of course; for I had another purpose. +I knew nothing of strategy or tactics, of military movements and their +significance. I was not interested in them particularly. But I meant +to get, if it was possible, a picture of this new warfare that would +show it for the horror that it is; a picture that would give pause to +that certain percentage of the American people that is always so eager +to force a conservative government into conflict with other nations. + +There were other things to learn. What was France doing? The great +sister republic had put a magnificent army into the field. Between +France and the United States were many bonds, much reciprocal good +feeling. The Statue of Liberty, as I went down the bay, bespoke the +kindly feeling between the two republics. I remembered Lafayette. +Battle-scarred France, where liberty has fought so hard for life--what +was France doing? Not saying much, certainly. Fighting, surely, as the +French have always fought. For certainly England, with her gallant but +at that time meagre army, was not fighting alone the great war. + +But there were three nations fighting the allied cause in the west. +What had become of the heroic Belgian Army? Was it resting on its +laurels? Having done its part, was it holding an honorary position in +the great line-up? Was it a fragment or an army, an entity or a +memory? + +The newspapers were full of details that meant nothing: names of +strange villages, movements backward and forward as the long battle +line bent and straightened again. But what was really happening beyond +the barriers that guarded the front so jealously? How did the men live +under these new and strange conditions? What did they think? Or fear? +Or hope? + +Great lorries and transports went out from the French coast towns and +disappeared beyond the horizon; motor ambulances and hospital trains +came in with the grim harvest. Men came and, like those who had gone +before, they too went out and did not come back. "Somewhere in +France," the papers said. Such letters as they wrote came from +"somewhere in France." What was happening then, over there, beyond the +horizon, "somewhere in France"? + +And now that I have been beyond the dead line many of these questions +have answered themselves. France is saying nothing, and fighting +magnificently, Belgium, with two-thirds of her army gone, has still +fifty thousand men, and is preparing two hundred thousand more. + +Instead of merely an honorary position, she is holding tenaciously, +against repeated onslaughts and under horrible conditions, the flooded +district between Nieuport and Dixmude. England, although holding only +thirty-two miles of front, beginning immediately south of Ypres, is +holding that line against some of the most furious fighting of the +war, and is developing, at the same time, an enormous fighting machine +for the spring movement.[A] + +[Footnote A: This is written of conditions in the early spring of +1915. Although the relative positions of the three armies are the +same, the British are holding a considerably longer frontage.] + +The British soldier is well equipped, well fed, comfortably +transported. When it is remembered that England is also assisting to +equip all the allied armies, it will be seen that she is doing much +more than holding the high seas. + +To see the wounded, then; to follow the lines of hospital trains to +that mysterious region, the front; to see the men in the trenches and +in their billets; to observe their _morale_, the conditions under +which they lived--and died. It was too late to think of the cause of +the war or of the justice or injustice of that cause. It will never be +too late for its humanities and inhumanities, its braveries and its +occasional flinchings, its tragedies and its absurdities. + +It was through the assistance of the Belgian Red Cross that I got out +of England and across the Channel. I visited the Anglo-Belgian +Committee at its quarters in the Savoy Hotel, London, and told them of +my twofold errand. They saw at once the point I made. America was +sending large amounts of money and vast quantities of supplies to the +Belgians on both sides of the line. What was being done in interned +Belgium was well known. But those hospital supplies and other things +shipped to Northern France were swallowed up in the great silence. The +war would not be ended in a day or a month. + +"Let me see conditions as they really are," I said. "It is no use +telling me about them. Let me see them. Then I can tell the American +people what they have already done in the war zone, and what they may +be asked to do." + +Through a piece of good luck Doctor Depage, the president, had come +across the Channel to a conference, and was present. A huge man, in +the uniform of a colonel of the Belgian Army, with a great military +cape, he seemed to fill and dominate the little room. + +They conferred together in rapid French. + +"Where do you wish to go?" I was asked. + +"Everywhere." + +"Hospitals are not always cheerful to visit." + +"I am a graduate of a hospital training-school. Also a member of the +American Red Cross." + +They conferred again. + +"Madame will not always be comfortable--over there." + +"I don't want to be comfortable," I said bravely. + +Another conference. The idea was a new one; it took some mental +readjustment. But their cause was just, and mingled with their desire +to let America know what they were doing was a justifiable pride. They +knew what I was to find out--that one of the finest hospitals in the +world, as to organisation, equipment and results, was situated almost +under the guns of devastated Nieuport, so close that the roar of +artillery is always in one's ears. + +I had expected delays, a possible refusal. Everyone had encountered +delays of one sort and another. Instead, I found a most courteous and +agreeable permission given. I was rather dazed. And when, a day or so +later, through other channels, I found myself in possession of letters +to the Baron de Broqueville, Premier and Minister of War for Belgium, +and to General Melis, Inspector General of the Belgian Army Medical +Corps, I realised that, once in Belgian territory, my troubles would +probably be at an end. + +For getting out of England I put my faith in a card given me by the +Belgian Red Cross. There are only four such cards in existence, and +mine was number four. + +From Calais to La Panne! If I could get to Calais I could get to the +front, for La Panne is only four miles from Nieuport, where the +confronting lines of trenches begin. But Calais was under military +law. Would I be allowed to land? + +Such writers as reached there were allowed twenty-four hours, and were +then shipped back across the Channel or to some innocuous destination +south. Yet this little card, if all went well, meant the privilege of +going fifty miles northeast to the actual front. True, it gave no +chance for deviation. A mile, a hundred feet off the straight and +tree-lined road north to La Panne, and I should be arrested. But the +time to think about that would come later on. + +As a matter of fact, I have never been arrested. Except in the +hospitals, I was always practically where I had no business to be. I +had a room in the Hotel des Arcades, in Dunkirk, for weeks, where, +just round the corner, the police had closed a house for a month as a +punishment because a room had been rented to a correspondent. The +correspondent had been sentenced to five years' imprisonment, but had +been released after five weeks. I was frankly a writer. I was almost +aggressively a writer. I wrote down carefully and openly everything I +saw. I made, but of course under proper auspices and with the +necessary permits, excursions to the trenches from Nieuport to the La +Bassee region and Bethune, along Belgian, French and English lines, +always openly, always with a notebook. And nothing happened! + +As my notebook became filled with data I grew more and more anxious, +while the authorities grew more calm. Suppose I fell into the hands of +the Germans! It was a large notebook, filled with much information. I +could never swallow the thing, as officers are supposed to swallow the +password slips in case of capture. After a time the general spy alarm +got into my blood. I regarded the boy who brought my morning coffee +with suspicion, and slept with my notes under my pillow. And nothing +happened! + +I had secured my passport _vise_ at the French and Belgian Consulates, +and at the latter legation was able also to secure a letter asking the +civil and military authorities to facilitate my journey. The letter +had been requested for me by Colonel Depage. + +It was almost miraculously easy to get out of England. It was almost +suspiciously easy. My passport frankly gave the object of my trip as +"literary work." Perhaps the keen eyes of the inspectors who passed me +onto the little channel boat twinkled a bit as they examined it. + +The general opinion as to the hopelessness of my trying to get nearer +than thirty miles to the front had so communicated itself to me that +had I been turned back there on the quay at Folkstone, I would have +been angry, but hardly surprised. + +Not until the boat was out in the channel did I feel sure that I was +to achieve even this first leg of the journey. + +Even then, all was not well. With Folkstone and the war office well +behind, my mind turned to submarines as a sunflower to the sun. +Afterward I found that the thing to do is not to think about +submarines. To think of politics, or shampoos, or of people one does +not like, but not of submarines. They are like ghosts in that respect. +They are perfectly safe and entirely innocuous as long as one thinks +of something else. + +And something went wrong almost immediately. + +It was imperative that I get to Calais. And the boat, which had +intended making Calais, had had a report of submarines and headed for +Boulogne. This in itself was upsetting. To have, as one may say, one's +teeth set for Calais, and find one is biting on Boulogne, is not +agreeable. I did not want Boulogne. My pass was from Calais. I had +visions of waiting in Boulogne, of growing old and grey waiting, or of +trying to walk to Calais and being turned back, of being locked in a +cow stable and bedded down on straw. For fear of rousing hopes that +must inevitably be disappointed, again nothing happened. + +There were no other women on board: only British officers and the +turbaned and imposing Indians. The day was bright, exceedingly cold. +The boat went at top speed, her lifeboats slung over the sides and +ready for lowering. There were lookouts posted everywhere. I did not +think they attended to their business. Every now and then one lifted +his head and looked at the sky or at the passengers. I felt that I +should report him. What business had he to look away from the sea? I +went out to the bow and watched for periscopes. There were black +things floating about. I decided that they were not periscopes, but +mines. We went very close to them. They proved to be buoys marking the +Channel. + +I hated to take my eyes off the sea, even for a moment. If you have +ever been driven at sixty miles an hour over a bad road, and felt that +if you looked away the car would go into the ditch, and if you will +multiply that by the exact number of German submarines and then add +the British Army, you will know how I felt. + +Afterward I grew accustomed to the Channel crossing. I made it four +times. It was necessary for me to cross twice after the eighteenth of +February, when the blockade began. On board the fated Arabic, later +sunk by a German submarine, I ran the blockade again to return to +America. It was never an enjoyable thing to brave submarine attack, +but one develops a sort of philosophy. It is the same with being under +fire. The first shell makes you jump. The second you speak of, +commenting with elaborate carelessness on where it fell. This is a +gain over shell number one, when you cannot speak to save your life. +The third shell you ignore, and the fourth you forget about--if you +can. + +Seeing me alone the captain asked me to the canvas shelter of the +bridge. I proceeded to voice my protest at our change of destination. +He apologised, but we continued to Boulogne. + +"What does a periscope look like?" I asked. "I mean, of course, from +this boat?" + +"Depends on how much of it is showing. Sometimes it's only about the +size of one of those gulls. It's hard to tell the difference." + +I rather suspect that captain now. There were many gulls sitting on +the water. I had been looking for something like a hitching post +sticking up out of the water. Now my last vestige of pleasure and +confidence was gone. I went almost mad trying to watch all the gulls +at once. + +"What will you do if you see a submarine?' + +"Run it down," said the captain calmly. "That's the only chance we've +got. That is, if we see the boat itself. These little Channel steamers +make about twenty-six knots, and the submarine, submerged, only about +half of that. Sixteen is the best they can do on the surface. Run them +down and sink them, that's my motto." + +"What about a torpedo?" + +"We can see them coming. It will be hard to torpedo this boat--she +goes too fast." + +Then and there he explained to me the snowy wake of the torpedo, a +white path across the water; the mechanism by which it is kept true to +its course; the detonator that explodes it. From nervousness I shifted +to enthusiasm. I wanted to see the white wake. I wanted to see the +Channel boat dodge it. My sporting blood was up. I was willing to take +a chance. I felt that if there was a difficulty this man would escape +it. I turned and looked back at the khaki-coloured figures on the deck +below. + +Taking a chance! They were all taking a chance. And there was one, an +officer, with an empty right sleeve. And suddenly what for an +enthusiastic moment, in that bracing sea air, had seemed a game, +became the thing that it is, not a game, but a deadly and cruel war. I +never grew accustomed to the tragedy of the empty sleeve. And as if to +accentuate this thing toward which I was moving so swiftly, the +British Red Cross ship, from Boulogne to Folkstone, came in sight, +hurrying over with her wounded, a great white boat, garnering daily +her harvest of wounded and taking them "home." + +Land now--a grey-white line that is the sand dunes at Ambleteuse, +north of Boulogne. I knew Ambleteuse. It gave a sense of strangeness +to see the old tower at the water's edge loom up out of the sea. The +sight of land was comforting, but vigilance was not relaxed. The +attacks of submarines have been mostly made not far outside the +harbours, and only a few days later that very boat was to make a +sensational escape just outside the harbour of Boulogne. + +All at once it was twilight, the swift dusk of the sea. The boat +warped in slowly. I showed my passport, and at last I was on French +soil. North and east, beyond the horizon, lay the thing I had come to +see. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +"SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE" + + +Many people have seen Boulogne and have written of what they have +seen: the great hotels that are now English hospitals; the crowding of +transport wagons; the French signs, which now have English signs added +to them; the mixture of uniforms--English khaki and French blue; the +white steamer waiting at the quay, with great Red Crosses on her snowy +funnels. Over everything, that first winter of the war, hung the damp +chill of the Continental winter, that chill that sinks in and never +leaves, that penetrates fur and wool and eats into the spirit like an +acid. + +I got through the customs without much difficulty. I had a large +package of cigarettes for the soldiers, for given his choice, food or +a smoke, the soldier will choose the latter. At last after much talk I +got them in free of duty. And then I was footfree. + +Here again I realise that I should have encountered great +difficulties. I should at least have had to walk to Calais, or to have +slept, as did one titled Englishwoman I know, in a bathtub. I did +neither. I took a first-class ticket to Calais, and waited round the +station until a train should go. + +And then I happened on one of the pictures that will stand out always +in my mind. Perhaps it was because I was not yet inured to suffering; +certainly I was to see many similar scenes, much more of the flotsam +and jetsam of the human tide that was sweeping back and forward over +the flat fields of France and Flanders. + +A hospital train had come in, a British train. The twilight had +deepened into night. Under the flickering arc lamps, in that cold and +dismal place, the train came to a quiet stop. Almost immediately it +began to unload. A door opened and a British nurse alighted. Then +slowly and painfully a man in a sitting position slid forward, pushing +himself with his hands, his two bandaged feet held in the air. He sat +at the edge of the doorway and lowered his feet carefully until they +hung free. + +"Frozen feet from the trenches," said a man standing beside me. + +The first man was lifted down and placed on a truck, and his place was +filled immediately by another. As fast as one man was taken another +came. The line seemed endless. One and all, their faces expressed keen +apprehension, lest some chance awkwardness should touch or jar the +tortured feet. Ten at a time they were wheeled away. And still they +came and came, until perhaps two hundred had been taken off. But now +something else was happening. Another car of badly wounded was being +unloaded. Through the windows could be seen the iron framework on +which the stretchers, three in a tier, were swung. + +Halfway down the car a wide window was opened, and two tall +lieutenants, with four orderlies, took their places outside. It was +very silent. Orders were given in low tones. The muffled rumble of the +trucks carrying the soldiers with frozen feet was all that broke the +quiet, and soon they, too, were gone; and there remained only the six +men outside, receiving with hands as gentle as those of women the +stretchers so cautiously worked over the window sill to them. One by +one the stretchers came; one by one they were added to the lengthening +line that lay prone on the stone flooring beside the train. There was +not a jar, not an unnecessary motion. One great officer, very young, +took the weight of the end as it came toward him, and lowered it with +marvellous gentleness as the others took hold. He had a trick of the +wrist that enabled him to reach up, take hold and lower the stretcher, +without freeing his hands. He was marvellously strong, marvellously +tender. + +The stretchers were laid out side by side. Their occupants did not +speak or move. It was as if they had reached their limit of endurance. +They lay with closed eyes, or with impassive, upturned faces, swathed +in their brown blankets against the chill. Here and there a knitted +neck scarf had been loosely wrapped about a head. All over America +women were knitting just such scarfs. + +And still the line grew. The car seemed inexhaustible of horrors. And +still the young lieutenant with the tender hands and the strong wrists +took the onus of the burden, the muscles of his back swelling under +his khaki tunic. If I were asked to typify the attitude of the British +Army and of the British people toward their wounded, I should point to +that boy. Nothing that I know of in history can equal the care the +English are taking of their wounded in this, the great war. They have, +of course, the advantage of the best nursing system in Europe. + +France is doing her best, but her nursing had always been in the hands +of nuns, and there are not nearly enough nuns in France to-day to cope +with the situation. Belgium, with some of the greatest surgeons in the +world, had no organised nursing system when war broke out. She is +largely dependent apparently on the notable work of her priests, and +on English and Dutch nurses. + +When my train drew out, the khaki-clad lieutenant and his assistants +were still at work. One car was emptied. They moved on to a second. +Other willing hands were at work on the line that stretched along the +stone flooring, carrying the wounded to ambulances, but the line +seemed hardly to shrink. Always the workers inside the train brought +another stretcher and yet another. The rumble of the trucks had +ceased. It was very cold. I could not look any longer. + +It took three hours to go the twenty miles to Calais, from six o'clock +to nine. I wrapped myself in my fur coat. Two men in my compartment +slept comfortably. One clutched a lighted cigarette. It burned down +close to his fingers. It was fascinating to watch. But just when it +should have provided a little excitement he wakened. It was +disappointing. + +We drifted into conversation, the gentleman of the cigarette and I. He +was an Englishman from a London newspaper. He was counting on his luck +to get him into Calais and his wit to get him out. He told me his +name. Just before I left France I heard of a highly philanthropic and +talented gentleman of the same name who was unselfishly going through +the hospitals as near the front as he could, giving a moving-picture +entertainment to the convalescent soldiers. I wish him luck; he +deserves it. And I am sure he is giving a good entertainment. His wit +had got him out of Calais! + +Calais at last, and the prospect of food. Still greater comfort, here +my little card became operative. I was no longer a refugee, fleeing +and hiding from the stern eyes of Lord Kitchener and the British War +Office. I had come into my own, even to supper. + +I saw no English troops that night. The Calais station was filled with +French soldiers. The first impression, after the trim English uniform, +was not particularly good. They looked cold, dirty, unutterably weary. +Later, along the French front, I revised my early judgment. But I have +never reconciled myself to the French uniform, with its rather +slovenly cut, or to the tendency of the French private soldier to +allow his beard to grow. It seems a pity that both French and +Belgians, magnificent fighters that they are, are permitted this +slackness in appearance. There are no smarter officers anywhere than +the French and Belgian officers, but the appearance of their troops +_en masse_ is not imposing. + +Later on, also, a close inspection of the old French uniform revealed +it as made of lighter cloth than the English, less durable, assuredly +less warm. The new grey-blue uniform is much heavier, but its colour +is questionable. It should be almost invisible in the early morning +mists, but against the green of spring and summer, or under the +magnesium flares--called by the English "starlights"--with which the +Germans illuminate the trenches of the Allies during the night, it +appeared to me that it would be most conspicuous. + +I have before me on my writing table a German fatigue cap. Under the +glare of my electric lamp it fades, loses colour and silhouette, is +eclipsed. I have tried it in sunlight against grass. It does the same +thing. A piece of the same efficient management that has distributed +white smocks and helmet covers among the German troops fighting in the +rigours of Poland, to render them invisible against the snow! + +Calais then, with food to get and an address to find. For Doctor +Depage had kindly arranged a haven for me. Food, of a sort, I got at +last. The hotel dining room was full of officers. Near me sat fourteen +members of the aviation corps, whose black leather coats bore, either +on left breast or left sleeve, the outspread wings of the flying +division. There were fifty people, perhaps, and two waiters, one a +pale and weary boy. The food was bad, but the crisp French bread was +delicious. Perhaps nowhere in the world is the bread average higher +than in France--just as in America, where fancy breads are at their +best, the ordinary wheat loaf is, taking the average, exceedingly +poor. + +Calais was entirely dark. The Zeppelin attack, which took place four +or five weeks later, was anticipated, and on the night of my arrival +there was a general feeling that the birthday of the German Emperor +the next day would produce something spectacular in the way of an air +raid. That explained, possibly, the presence so far from the +front--fifty miles from the nearest point--of so many flying men. + +As my French conversational powers are limited, I had some difficulty +in securing a vehicle. This was explained later by the discovery the +next day that no one is allowed on the streets of Calais after ten +o'clock. Nevertheless I secured a hack, and rode blithely and +unconsciously to the house where I was to spend the night. I have lost +the address of that house. I wish I could remember it, for I left +there a perfectly good and moderately expensive pair of field glasses. +I have been in Calais since, and have had the wild idea of driving +about the streets until I find it and my glasses. But a close scrutiny +of the map of Calais has deterred me. Age would overtake me, and I +should still be threading the maze of those streets, seeking an old +house in an old garden, both growing older all the time. + +A very large house it was, large and cold. I found that I was +expected; but an air of unreality hung over everything. I met three or +four most kindly Belgian people of whom I knew nothing and who knew +nothing of me. I did not know exactly why I was there, and I am sure +the others knew less. I went up to my room in a state of bewilderment. +It was a huge room without a carpet, and the tiny fire refused to +light. There was a funeral wreath over the bed, with the picture of +the deceased woman in the centre. It was bitterly cold, and there was +a curious odor of disinfectants in the air. + +By a window was a narrow black iron bed without a mattress. It looked +sinister. Where was the mattress? Had its last occupant died and the +mattress been burned? I sniffed about it; the odour of disinfectant +unmistakably clung to it. I do not yet know the story of that room or +of that bed. Perhaps there is no story. But I think there is. I put on +my fur coat and went to bed, and the lady of the wreath came in the +night and talked French to me. + +I rose in the morning at seven degrees Centigrade and dressed. At +breakfast part of the mystery was cleared up. The house was being used +as a residence by the chief surgeon of the Ambulance Jeanne d'Arc, the +Belgian Red Cross hospital in Calais, and by others interested in the +Red Cross work. It was a dormitory also for the English nurses from +the ambulance. This explained, naturally, my being sent there, the +somewhat casual nature of the furnishing and the odour of +disinfectants. It does not, however, explain the lady of the wreath or +the black iron bed. + +After breakfast some of the nurses came in from night duty at the +ambulance. I saw their bedroom, one directly underneath mine, with +four single beds and no pretence at comfort. It was cold, icy cold. + +"You are very courageous," I said. "Surely this is not very +comfortable. I should think you might at least have a fire." + +"We never think of a fire," a nurse said simply. "The best we can do +seems so little to what the men are doing, doesn't it?" + +She was not young. Some one told me she had a son, a boy of nineteen, +in the trenches. She did not speak of him. But I have wondered since +what she must feel during those grisly hours of the night when the +ambulances are giving up their wounded at the hospital doors. No doubt +she is a tender nurse, for in every case she is nursing vicariously +that nineteen-year-old boy of hers in the trenches. + +That morning I visited the various Calais hospitals. It was a bright +morning, sunny and cold. Lines of refugees with packs and bundles were +on their way to the quay. + +The frightful congestion of the autumn of 1914 was over, but the +hospitals were all full. They were surgical hospitals, typhoid +hospitals, hospitals for injured civilians, hospital boats. One and +all they were preparing as best they could for the mighty conflict of +the spring, when each side expected to make its great onward movement. + +As it turned out, the terrible fighting of the spring failed to break +the deadlock, but the preparations made by the hospitals were none too +great for the sad by-products of war. + +The Belgian hospital question was particularly grave. To-day, several +months later, it is still a matter for anxious thought. In case the +Germans retire from Belgium the Belgians will find themselves in their +own land, it is true, but a land stripped of everything. It is for +this contingency that the Allies are preparing. In whichever direction +the line moves, the arrangements that have served during the impasse +of the past year will no longer answer. Portable field hospital +pavilions, with portable equipment, will be required. The destructive +artillery fire, with its great range, will leave no buildings intact +near the battle line. + +One has only to follow the present line, fringed as it is with +destroyed or partially destroyed towns, to realise what the situation +will be if a successful offensive movement on the part of the Allies +drives the battle line back. Artillery fire leaves no buildings +standing. Even the roads become impassable,--masses of broken stone +with gaping holes, over which ambulances travel with difficulty. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LA PANNE + + +From Calais to La Panne is fifty miles. Calais is under military law. +It is difficult to enter, almost impossible to leave in the direction +in which I wished to go. But here again the Belgian Red Cross achieved +the impossible. I was taken before the authorities, sharply +questioned, and in the end a pink slip was passed over to the official +of the Red Cross who was to take me to the front. I wish I could have +secured that pink slip, if only because of its apparent fragility and +its astounding wearing qualities. All told, between Calais and La +Panne it was inspected--texture, weight and reading matter, front and +reverse sides, upside down and under glass--by some several hundred +sentries, officials and petty highwaymen. It suffered everything but +attack by bayonet. I found myself repeating that way to madness of +Mark Twain's: + + _Punch, brothers, punch with care, + Punch in the presence of the passenjaire, + A pink trip slip for a five-cent fare_-- + +and so on. + +Northeast then, in an open grey car with "Belgian Red Cross" on each +side of the machine. Northeast in a bitter wind, into a desolate and +almost empty country of flat fields, canals and roads bordered by +endless rows of trees bent forward like marching men. Northeast +through Gravelines, once celebrated of the Armada and now a +manufacturing city. It is curious to think that a part of the Armada +went ashore at Gravelines, and that, by the shifting of the English +Channel, it is now two miles inland and connected with the sea by a +ship canal. Northeast still, to Dunkirk. + +From Calais to Gravelines there had been few signs of war--an +occasional grey lorry laden with supplies for the front; great +ambulances, also grey, and with a red cross on the top as a warning to +aeroplanes; now and then an armoured car. At Gravelines the country +took on a more forbidding appearance. Trenches flanked the roads, +which were partly closed here and there by overlapping earthworks, so +that the car must turn sharply to the left and then to the right to +get through. At night the passage is closed by barbed wire. In one +place a bridge was closed by a steel rope, which a sentry lowered +after another operation on the pink slip. + +The landscape grew more desolate as the daylight began to fade, more +desolate and more warlike. There were platforms for lookouts here and +there in the trees, prepared during the early days of the war before +the German advance was checked. And there were barbed-wire +entanglements in the fields. I had always thought of a barbed-wire +entanglement as probably breast high. It was surprising to see them +only from eighteen inches to two feet in height. It was odd, too, to +think that most of the barbed wire had been made in America. Barbed +wire is playing a tremendous part in this war. The English say that +the Boers originated this use for it in the South African War. +Certainly much tragedy and an occasional bit of grim humour attach to +its present use. + +With the fortified town of Dunkirk--or Dunkerque--came the real +congestion of war. The large square of the town was filled with +soldiers and marines. Here again were British uniforms, British +transports and ambulances. As a seaport for the Allied Armies in the +north, it was bustling with activity. The French and Belgians +predominated, with a sprinkling of Spahis on horseback and Turcos. An +air of activity, of rapid coming and going, filled the town. Despatch +riders on motor cycles, in black leather uniforms with black leather +hoods, flung through the square at reckless speed. Battered +automobiles, their glass shattered by shells, mud guards crumpled, +coated with clay and riddled with holes, were everywhere, coming and +going at the furious pace I have since learned to associate with war. + +And over all, presiding in heroic size in the centre of the Square, +the statue of Jean Bart, Dunkirk's privateer and pirate, now come into +his own again, was watching with interest the warlike activities of +the Square. Things have changed since the days of Jean Bart, however. +The cutlass that hangs by his side would avail him little now. The +aeroplane bombs that drop round him now and then, and the processions +of French "seventy-five" guns that rumble through the Square, must +puzzle him. He must feel rather a piker in this business of modern +war. + +Dunkirk is generally referred to as the "front." It is not, however. +It is near enough for constant visits from German aeroplanes, and has +been partially destroyed by German guns, firing from a distance of +more than twenty miles. But the real line begins fifteen miles farther +along the coast at Nieuport. + +So we left Dunkirk at once and continued toward La Panne. A drawbridge +in the wall guards the road out of the city in that direction. And +here for the first time the pink slip threatened to fail us. The Red +Cross had been used by spies sufficiently often to cover us with cold +suspicion. And it was worse than that. Women were not allowed, under +any circumstances, to go in that direction--a new rule, being enforced +with severity. My little card was produced and eyed with hostility. + +My name was assuredly of German origin. I got out my passport and +pointed to the picture on it. It had been taken hastily in Washington +for passport purposes, and there was a cast in the left eye. I have no +cast in the left eye. Timid attempts to squint with that eye failed. + +But at last the officer shrugged his shoulders and let us go. The two +sentries who had kept their rifles pointed at me lowered them to a +more comfortable angle. A temporary sense of cold down my back retired +again to my feet, whence it had risen. We went over the ancient +drawbridge, with its chains by which it may be raised, and were free. +But our departure was without enthusiasm. I looked back. Some eight +sentries and officers were staring after us and muttering among +themselves. + +Afterward I crossed that bridge many times. They grew accustomed to +me, but they evidently thought me quite mad. Always they protested and +complained, until one day the word went round that the American lady +had been received by the King. After that I was covered with the +mantle of royalty. The sentries saluted as I passed. I was of the +elect. + +There were other sentries until the Belgian frontier was passed. After +that there was no further challenging. The occasional distant roar of +a great gun could be heard, and two French aeroplanes, winging home +after a reconnaissance over the German lines, hummed overhead. Where +between Calais and Dunkirk there had been an occasional peasant's cart +in the road or labourer in the fields, now the country was deserted, +save for long lines of weary soldiers going to their billets, lines +that shuffled rather than marched. There was no drum to keep them in +step with its melancholy throbbing. Two by two, heads down, laden with +intrenching tools in addition to their regular equipment, grumbling as +the car forced them off the road into the mud that bordered it, +swathed beyond recognition against the cold and dampness, in the +twilight those lines of shambling men looked grim, determined, +sinister. + +"We are going through Furnes," said my companion. "It has been shelled +all day, but at dusk they usually stop. It is out of our way, but you +will like to see it." + +I said I was perfectly willing, but that I hoped the Germans would +adhere to their usual custom. I felt all at once that, properly +conserved, a long and happy life might lie before me. I mentioned that +I was a person of no importance, and that my death would be of no +military advantage. And, as if to emphasise my peaceful fireside at +home, and dinner at seven o'clock with candles on the table, the fire +re-commenced. + +"Artillery," I said with conviction, "seems to me barbarous and +unnecessary. But in a moving automobile--" + +It was a wrong move. He hastened to tell me of people riding along +calmly in automobiles, and of the next moment there being nothing but +a hole in the road. Also he told me how shrapnel spread, scattering +death over large areas. If I had had an idea of dodging anything I saw +coming it vanished. + +We went into the little town of Furnes. Nothing happened. Only one +shell was fired, and I have no idea where it fell. The town was a dead +town, its empty streets full of brick and glass. I grew quite calm and +expressed some anxiety about the tires. Although my throat was dry, I +was able to enunciate clearly! We dared not light the car lamps, and +our progress was naturally slow. + +Furnes is not on the coast, but three miles inland. So we turned sharp +to the left toward La Panne, our destination, a small seaside resort +in times of peace, but now the capital of Belgium. It was dark now, +and the roads were congested with the movements of troops, some going +to the trenches, those out of the trenches going back to their billets +for twenty-four hours' rest, and the men who had been on rest moving +up as pickets or reserves. Even in the darkness it was easy to tell +the rested men from the ones newly relieved. Here were mostly +Belgians, and the little Belgian soldier is a cheery soul. He asks +very little, is never surly. A little food, a little sleep--on straw, +in a stable or a church--and he is happy again. Over and over, as I +saw the Belgian Army, I was impressed with its cheerfulness under +unparalleled conditions. + +Most of them have been fighting since Liege. Of a hundred and fifty +thousand men only fifty thousand remain. Their ration is meagre +compared with the English and the French, their clothing worn and +ragged. They are holding the inundated district between Nieuport and +Dixmude, a region of constant struggle for water-soaked trenches, +where outposts at the time I was there were being fought for through +lakes of icy water filled with barbed wire, where their wounded fall +and drown. And yet they are inveterately cheerful. A brave lot, the +Belgian soldiers, brave and uncomplaining! It is no wonder that the +King of Belgium loves them, and that his eyes are tragic as he looks +at them. + +La Panne at last, a straggling little town of one street and rows of +villas overlooking the sea. La Panne, with the guns of Nieuport +constantly in one's ears, and the low, red flash of them along the +sandy beach; with ambulances bringing in their wounded now that night +covers their movements; with English gunboats close to the shore and a +searchlight playing over the sea. La Panne, with just over the sand +dunes the beginning of that long line of trenches that extends south +and east and south again, four hundred and fifty miles of death. + +It was two weeks and four days since I had left America, and less than +thirty hours since I boarded the one-o'clock train at Victoria +Station, London. Later on I beat the thirty-hour record twice, once +going from the Belgian front to England in six hours, and another time +leaving the English lines at Bethune, motoring to Calais, and arriving +in my London hotel the same night. Cars go rapidly over the French +roads, and the distance, measured by miles, is not great. Measured by +difficulties, it is a different story. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"'TWAS A FAMOUS VICTORY" + + +FROM MY JOURNAL: + +LA PANNE, January 25th, 10 P.M. + +I am at the Belgian Red Cross hospital to-night. Have had supper and +have been given a room on the top floor, facing out over the sea. + +This is the base hospital for the Belgian lines. The men come here +with the most frightful injuries. As I entered the building to-night +the long tiled corridor was filled with the patient and quiet figures +that are the first fruits of war. They lay on portable cots, waiting +their turn in the operating rooms, the white coverings and bandages +not whiter than their faces. + +11 P.M. The Night Superintendent has just been in to see me. She says +there is a baby here from Furnes with both legs off, and a nun who +lost an arm as she was praying in the garden of her convent. The baby +will live, but the nun is dying. + +She brought me a hot-water bottle, for I am still chilled from my long +ride, and sat down for a moment's talk. She is English, as are most of +the nurses. She told me with tears in her eyes of a Dutch Red Cross +nurse who was struck by a shell in Furnes, two days ago, as she +crossed the street to her hospital, which was being evacuated. She was +brought here. + +"Her leg was shattered," she said. "So young and so pretty she was, +too! One of the surgeons was in love with her. It seemed as if he +could not let her die." + +How terrible! For she died. + +"But she had a casket," the Night Superintendent hastened to assure +me. "The others, of course, do not. And two of the nurses were +relieved to-day to go with her to the grave." + +I wonder if the young surgeon went. I wonder-- + +The baby is near me. I can hear it whimpering. + +Midnight. A man in the next room has started to moan. Good God, what a +place! He has shell in both lungs, and because of weakness had to be +operated on without an anaesthetic. + +2 A.M. I cannot sleep. He is trying to sing "Tipperary." + +English battleships are bombarding the German batteries at Nieuport +from the sea. The windows rattle all the time. + +6 A.M. A new day now. A grey and forbidding dawn. Sentries every +hundred yards along the beach under my window. The gunboats are moving +out to sea. A number of French aeroplanes are scouting overhead. + +The man in the next room is quiet. + + * * * * * + +Imagine one of our great seaside hotels stripped of its bands, its gay +crowds, its laughter. Paint its many windows white, with a red cross +in the centre of each one. Imagine its corridors filled with wounded +men, its courtyard crowded with ambulances, its parlours occupied by +convalescents who are blind or hopelessly maimed, its card room a +chapel trimmed with the panoply of death. For bathchairs and bathers +on the sands substitute long lines of weary soldiers drilling in the +rain and cold. And over all imagine the unceasing roar of great guns. +Then, but feebly, you will have visualised the Ambulance Ocean at La +Panne as I saw it that first winter of the war. + +The town is built on the sand dunes, and is not unlike Ostend in +general situation; but it is hardly more than a village. Such trees as +there are grow out of the sand, and are twisted by the winds from the +sea. Their trunks are green with smooth moss. And over the dunes is +long grass, then grey and dry with winter, grass that was beaten under +the wind into waves that surge and hiss. + +The beach is wide and level. There is no surf. The sea comes in in +long, flat lines of white that wash unheralded about the feet of the +cavalry horses drilling there. Here and there a fisherman's boat close +to the line of villas marks the limit of high tide; marks more than +that; marks the fisherman who has become a soldier; marks the end of +the peaceful occupations of the little town; marks the change from a +sea that was a livelihood to a sea that has become a menace and a +hidden death. + +The beach at La Panne has its story. There are guns there now, +waiting. The men in charge of them wait, and, waiting, shiver in the +cold. And just a few minutes away along the sands there was a house +built by a German, a house whose foundation was a cemented site for a +gun. The house is destroyed now. It had been carefully located, +strategically, and built long before the war began. A gun on that +foundation would have commanded Nieuport. + +Here, in six villas facing the sea, live King Albert and Queen +Elisabeth and their household, and here the Queen, grief-stricken at +the tragedy that has overtaken her innocent and injured people, visits +the hospital daily. + +La Panne has not been bombarded. Hostile aeroplanes are always +overhead. The Germans undoubtedly know all about the town; but it has +not been touched. I do not believe that it will be. For one thing, it +is not at present strategically valuable. Much more important, Queen +Elisabeth is a Bavarian princess by birth. Quite aside from both +reasons, the outcry from the civilised world which would result from +injury to any member of the Belgian royal house, with the present +world-wide sympathy for Belgium, would make such an attack +inadvisable. + +And yet who knows? So much that was considered fundamental in the +ethics of modern warfare has gone by the board; so certainly is this +war becoming one of reprisals, of hate and venom, that before this is +published La Panne may have been destroyed, or its evacuation by the +royal family have been decided. + +The contrast between Brussels and La Panne is the contrast between +Belgium as it was and as it is. The last time I was in Belgium, before +this war, I was in Brussels. The great modern city of three-quarters +of a million people had grown up round the ancient capital of Brabant. +Its name, which means "the dwelling on the marsh," dates from the +tenth century. The huge Palais de Justice is one of the most +remarkable buildings in the world. + +Now in front of that great building German guns are mounted, and the +capital of Belgium is a fishing village on the sand dunes. The King of +Belgium has exchanged the magnificent Palais du Roi for a small and +cheaply built house--not that the democratic young King of Belgium +cares for palaces. But the contrast of the two pictures was impressed +on me that winter morning as I stood on the sands at La Panne and +looked at the royal villa. All round were sentries. The wind from the +sea was biting. It set the long grey grass to waving, and blew the +fine sand in clouds about the feet of the cavalry horses filing along +the beach. + +I was quite unmolested as I took photographs of the stirring scenes +about. It was the first daylight view I had had of the Belgian +soldiers. These were men on their twenty-four hours' rest, with a part +of the new army that was being drilled for the spring campaign. The +Belgian system keeps a man twenty-four hours in the trenches, gives +him twenty-four hours for rest well back from the firing line, and +then, moving him up to picket or reserve duty, holds him another +twenty-four hours just behind the trenches. The English system is +different. Along the English front men are four days in the trenches +and four days out. All movements, of course, are made at night. + +The men I watched that morning were partly on rest, partly in reserve. +They were shabby, cold and cheery. I created unlimited surprise and +interest. They lined up eagerly to be photographed. One group I took +was gathered round a sack of potatoes, paring raw potatoes and eating +them. For the Belgian soldier is the least well fed of the three +armies in the western field. When I left, a good Samaritan had sent a +case or two of canned things to some of the regiments, and a favoured +few were being initiated into the joys of American canned baked beans. +They were a new sensation. To watch the soldiers eat them was a joy +and a delight. + +I wish some American gentleman, tiring of storing up his treasures +only in heaven, would send a can or a case or a shipload of baked +beans to the Belgians. This is alliterative, but earnest. They can +heat them in the trenches in the cans; they can thrive on them and +fight on them. And when the cans are empty they can build fires in +them or hang them, filled with stones, on the barbed-wire +entanglements in front of the trenches, so that they ring like bells +on a herd of cows to warn them of an impending attack. + +And while we are on this subject, I wish some of the women who are +knitting scarfs would stop,[B] now that winter is over, and make jelly +and jam for the brave and cheerful little Belgian army. I am aware +that it is less pleasant than knitting. It cannot be taken to lectures +or musicales. One cannot make jam between the courses of a luncheon or +a dinner party, or during the dummy hand at bridge. But the men have +so little--unsweetened coffee and black bread for breakfast; a stew of +meat and vegetables at mid-day, taken to them, when it can be taken, +but carried miles from where it is cooked, and usually cold. They pour +off the cold liquor and eat the unpalatable residue. Supper is like +breakfast with the addition of a ration of minced meat and potatoes, +also cold and not attractive at the best. + +[Footnote B: This was written in the spring. By the time this book is +published knitted woollens will be again in demand. Socks and mittens, +abdominal belts and neck scarfs are much liked. A soldier told me he +liked his scarf wide, and eight feet long, so he can carry it around +his body and fasten it in the back.] + +Sometimes they have bully beef. I have eaten bully beef, which is a +cooked and tinned beef, semi-gelatinous. The Belgian bully beef is +drier and tougher than the English. It is not bad; indeed, it is quite +good. But the soldier needs variety. The English know this. Their +soldiers have sugar, tea, jam and cheese. + +If I were asked to-day what the Belgian army needs, now that winter is +over and they need no longer shiver in their thin clothing, I should +say, in addition to the surgical supplies that are so terribly +necessary, portable kitchens, to give them hot and palatable food. +Such kitchens may be bought for two hundred and fifty dollars, with a +horse to draw them. They are really sublimated steam cookers, with the +hot water used to make coffee when they reach the trenches. I should +say, then, surgical supplies and hospital equipment, field kitchens, +jams of all sorts, canned beans, cigarettes and rubber boots! A number +of field kitchens have already been sent over. A splendid Englishman +attached to the Belgian Army has secured funds for a few more. But +many are needed. I have seen a big and brawny Belgian officer, with a +long record of military bravery behind him, almost shed tears over the +prospect of one of these kitchens for his men. + +I took many pictures that morning--of dogs, three abreast, hauling +_mitrailleuse_, the small and deadly quick-firing guns, from the word +_mitraille_, a hail of balls; of long lines of Belgian lancers on +their undipped and shaggy horses, each man carrying an eight-foot +lance at rest; of men drilling in broken boots, in wooden shoes +stuffed with straw, in carpet slippers. I was in furs from head to +foot--the same fur coat that has been, in turn, lap robe, bed clothing +and pillow--and I was cold. These men, smiling into my camera, were +thinly dressed, with bare, ungloved hands. But they were smiling. + +Afterward I learned that many of them had no underclothing, that the +blue tunics and trousers were all they had. Always they shivered, but +often also they smiled. Many of them had fought since Liege; most of +them had no knowledge of their families on the other side of the line +of death. When they return to their country, what will they go back +to? Their homes are gone, their farm buildings destroyed, their horses +and cattle killed. + +But they are a courageous people, a bravely cheery people. Flor every +one of them that remained there, two had gone, either to death, +captivity or serious injury. They were glad to be alive that morning +on the sands of La Panne, under the incessant roaring of the guns. The +wind died down; the sun came out. It was January. In two months, or +three, it would be spring and warm. In two months, or three, they +confidently expected to be on the move toward their homes again. + +What mattered broken boots and the mud and filth of their trenches? +What mattered the German aeroplane overhead? Or cold and insufficient +food? Or the wind? Nothing mattered but death, and they still lived. +And perhaps, beyond the line-- + +That afternoon, from the Ambulance Ocean, a young Belgian officer was +buried. + +It was a bright, sunny afternoon, but bitterly cold. Troops were lined +up before the hospital in the square; a band, too, holding its +instruments with blue and ungloved fingers. + +He had been a very brave officer, and very young. The story of what he +had done had been told about. So, although military funerals are many, +a handful of civilians had gathered to see him taken away to the +crowded cemetery. The three English gunboats were patrolling the sea. +Tall Belgian generals, in high blue-and-gold caps and great cape +overcoats, met in the open space and conferred. + +The dead young officer lay in state in the little chapel of the +hospital. Ten tall black standards round him held burning candles, the +lights of faith. His uniform, brushed of its mud and neatly folded, +lay on top of the casket, with his pathetic cap and with the sword +that would never lead another charge. He had fought very hard to live, +they said at the hospital. But he had died. + +The crowd opened, and the priest came through. He wore a purple velvet +robe, and behind him came his deacons and four small acolytes in +surplices. Up the steps went the little procession. And the doors of +the hospital closed behind it. + +The civilians turned and went away. The soldiers stood rigid in the +cold sunshine, and waited. A little boy kicked a football over the +sand. The guns at Nieuport crashed and hammered. + +After a time the doors opened again. The boy picked up his football +and came closer. The musicians blew on their fingers to warm them. The +dead young officer was carried out. His sword gleamed in the sun. They +carried the casket carefully, not to disorder the carefully folded +tunic or the pathetic cap. The body was placed in an ambulance. At a +signal the band commenced to play and the soldiers closed in round the +ambulance. + +The path of glory, indeed! + +But it was not this boyish officer's hope of glory that had brought +this scene to pass. He died fighting a defensive war, to save what was +left to him of the country he loved. He had no dream of empire, no +vision of commercial supremacy, no thrill of conquest as an invaded +and destroyed country bent to the inevitable. For months since Liege +he had fought a losing fight, a fight that Belgium knew from the +beginning must be a losing fight, until such time as her allies could +come to her aid. Like the others, he had nothing to gain by this war +and everything to lose. + +He had lost. The ambulance moved away. + +I was frequently in La Panne after that day. I got to know well the +road from Dunkirk, with its bordering of mud and ditch, its heavy +transports, its grey gunboats in the canals that followed it on one +side, its long lines of over-laden soldiers, its automobiles that +travelled always at top speed. I saw pictures that no artist will ever +paint--of horrors and beauties, of pathos and comedy; of soldiers +washing away the filth of the trenches in the cold waters of canals +and ditches; of refugees flying by day from the towns, and returning +at night to their ruined houses to sleep in the cellars; of long +processions of Spahis, Arabs from Algeria, silhouetted against the +flat sky line against a setting sun, their tired horses moving slowly, +with drooping heads, while their riders, in burnoose and turban, rode +with loose reins; of hostile aeroplanes sailing the afternoon breeze +like lazy birds, while shells from the anti-aircraft guns burst +harmlessly below them in small balloon-shaped clouds of smoke. + +But never in all that time did I overcome the sense of unreality, and +always I was obsessed by the injustice, the wanton waste and cost and +injustice of it all. The baby at La Panne--why should it go through +life on stumps instead of legs? The boyish officer--why should he have +died? The little sixteen-year-old soldier who had been blinded and who +sat all day by the phonograph, listening to Madame Butterfly, +Tipperary, and Harry Lauder's A Wee Deoch-an'-Doris--why should he +never see again what I could see from the window beside him, the +winter sunset over the sea, the glistening white of the sands, the +flat line of the surf as it crept in to the sentries' feet? Why? Why? + +All these wrecks of boys and men, where are they to go? What are they +to do? Blind and maimed, weak from long privation followed by great +suffering, what is to become of them when the hospital has fulfilled +its function and they are discharged "cured"? Their occupations, their +homes, their usefulness are gone. They have not always even clothing +in which to leave the hospital. If it was not destroyed by the shell +or shrapnel that mutilated them it was worn beyond belief and +redemption. Such ragged uniforms as I have seen! Such tragedies of +trousers! Such absurd and heart-breaking tunics! + +When, soon after, I was presented to the King of the Belgians, these +very questions had written lines in his face. It is easy to believe +that King Albert of Belgium has buried his private anxieties in the +common grief and stress of his people. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A TALK WITH THE KING OF THE BELGIANS + + +The letter announcing that I was to have an audience with the King of +the Belgians reached me at Dunkirk, France, on the evening of the day +before the date set. It was brief and to the effect that the King +would receive me the next afternoon at two o'clock at the Belgian Army +headquarters. + +The object of my visit was well known; and, because I wished an +authoritative statement to give to America, I had requested that the +notes of my conversation with His Majesty should be officially +approved. This request was granted. The manuscript of the interview +that follows was submitted to His Majesty for approval. It is +published as it occurred, and nothing has been added to the record. + +A general from the Ministry of War came to the Hotel des Arcades, in +Dunkirk, and I was taken in a motor car to the Belgian Army +headquarters some miles away. As the general who conducted me had +influenza, and I was trying to keep my nerves in good order, it was +rather a silent drive. The car, as are all military cars--and there +are no others--was driven by a soldier-chauffeur by whose side sat the +general's orderly. Through the narrow gate, with its drawbridge +guarded by many sentries, we went out into the open country. + +The road, considering the constant traffic of heavy transports and +guns, was very fair. It is under constant repair. At first, during +this severe winter, on account of rain and snow, accidents were +frequent. The road, on both sides, was deep in mud and prolific of +catastrophe; and even now, with conditions much better, there are +numerous accidents. Cars all travel at frightful speed. There are no +restrictions, and it is nothing to see machines upset and abandoned in +the low-lying fields that border the road. + +Conditions, however, are better than they were. Part of the +conservation system has been the building of narrow ditches at right +angles to the line of the road, to lead off the water. Every ten feet +or so there is a gutter filled with fagots. + +I had been in the general's car before. The red-haired Fleming with +the fierce moustache who drove it was a speed maniac, and passing the +frequent sentries was only a matter of the password. A signal to slow +down, given by the watchful sentry, a hoarse whisper of the password +as the car went by, and on again at full speed. There was no bothering +with papers. + +On each side of the road were trenches, barbed-wire entanglements, +earthen barriers, canals filled with barges. And on the road were +lines of transports and a file of Spahis on horseback, picturesque in +their flowing burnouses, bearded and dark-skinned, riding their +unclipped horses through the roads under the single rows of trees. We +rode on through a village where a pig had escaped from a +slaughterhouse and was being pursued by soldiers--and then, at last, +army headquarters and the King of the Belgians. + +There was little formality. I was taken in charge by the King's +equerry, who tapped at a closed door. I drew a long breath. + +"Madame Rinehart!" said the equerry, and stood aside. + +There was a small screen in front of the door. I went round it. +Standing alone before the fire was Albert I, King of the Belgians. I +bowed; then we shook hands and he asked me to sit down. + +It was to be a conversation rather than an interview; but as it was to +be given as accurately as possible to the American people, I was +permitted to make careful notes of both questions and answers. It was +to be, in effect, a statement of the situation in Belgium as the King +of the Belgians sees it. + +I spoke first of a message to America. + +"I have already sent a message to America," he informed me; "quite a +long message. We are, of course, intensely appreciative of what +Americans have done for Belgium." + +"They are anxious to do what they can. The general feeling is one of +great sympathy." + +"Americans are both just and humane," the King replied; "and their +system of distribution is excellent. I do not know what we should have +done without the American Relief Committees." + +"Is there anything further Your Majesty can suggest?" + +"They seem to have thought of everything," the King said simply. "The +food is invaluable--particularly the flour. It has saved many from +starvation." + +"But there is still need?" + +"Oh, yes--great need." + +It was clear that the subject was a tragic one. The King of the +Belgians loves his people, as they love him, with a devotion that is +completely unselfish. That he is helpless to relieve so much that they +are compelled to endure is his great grief. + +His face clouded. Probably he was seeing, as he must always see, the +dejected figures of the peasants in the fields; the long files of his +soldiers as they made their way through wet and cold to the trenches; +the destroyed towns; the upheaval of a people. + +"What is possible to know of the general condition of affairs in that +part of Belgium occupied by the Germans?" I asked. "I do not mean in +regard to food only, but the general condition of the Belgian people." + +"It is impossible to say," was the answer. "During the invasion it was +very bad. It is a little better now, of course; but here we are on the +wrong side of the line to form any ordered judgment. To gain a real +conception of the situation it would be necessary to go through the +occupied portions from town to town, almost from house to house. Have +you been in the other part of Belgium?" + +"Not yet; I may go." + +"You should do that--see Louvain, Aerschot, Antwerp--see the destroyed +towns for yourself. No one can tell you. You must see them." + +I was not certain that I should be permitted to make such a journey, +but the King waved my doubts aside with a gesture. + +"You are an American," he said. "It would be quite possible and you +would see just what has happened. You would see open towns that were +bombarded; other towns that were destroyed after occupation! You would +see a country ruthlessly devastated; our wonderful monuments +destroyed; our architectural and artistic treasures sacrificed without +reason--without any justification." + +"But as a necessity of war?" I asked. + +"Not at all. The Germans have saved buildings when it suited their +convenience to do so. No military necessity dictated the destruction +of Louvain. It was not bombarded. It was deliberately destroyed. But, +of course, you know that." + +"The matter of the violation of Belgium's neutrality still remains an +open question," I said. "I have seen in American facsimile copies of +documents referring to conversations between staff officers of the +British and Belgian armies--documents that were found in the +ministerial offices at Brussels when the Germans occupied that city +last August. Of course I think most Americans realise that, had they +been of any real importance, they would have been taken away. There +was time enough. But there are some, I know, who think them +significant." + +The King of the Belgians shrugged his shoulders. + +"They were of an unofficial character and entirely without importance. +The German Staff probably knew all about them long before the +declaration of war. They themselves had, without doubt, discussed and +recorded similar probabilities in case of war with other countries. It +is a common practice in all army organisations to prepare against +different contingencies. It is a question of military routine only." + +"There was no justification, then, for the violation of Belgian +neutrality?" I inquired. + +"None whatever! The German violation of Belgian neutrality was wrong," +he said emphatically. "On the fourth of August their own chancellor +admitted it. Belgium had no thought of war. The Belgians are a +peace-loving people, who had every reason to believe in the friendship +of Germany." + +The next question was a difficult one. I inquired as to the behaviour +of the Germans in the conquered territory; but the King made no +sweeping condemnation of the German Army. + +"Fearful things have been done, particularly during the invasion," he +said, weighing his words carefully; "but it would be unfair to condemn +the whole German Army. Some regiments have been most humane; but +others behaved very badly. Have you seen the government report?" + +I said I had not seen it, though I had heard that a careful +investigation had been made. + +"The government was very cautious," His Majesty said. "The +investigation was absolutely impartial and as accurate as it could be +made. Doubts were cast on all statements--even those of the most +dependable witnesses--until they could be verified." + +"They were verified?" + +"Yes; again and again." + +"By the victims themselves?" + +"Not always. The victims of extreme cruelty do not live to tell of it; +but German soldiers themselves have told the story. We have had here +many hundreds of journals, taken from dead or imprisoned Germans, +furnishing elaborate details of most atrocious acts. The government is +keeping these journals. They furnish powerful and incontrovertible +testimony of what happened in Belgium when it was swept over by a +brutal army. That was, of course, during the invasion--such things are +not happening now so far as we know." + +He had spoken quietly, but there was a new note of strain in his +voice. The burden of the King of the Belgians is a double one. To the +horror of war has been added the unnecessary violation and death of +noncombatants. + +The King then referred to the German advance through Belgian +territory. + +"Thousands of civilians have been killed without reason. The execution +of noncombatants is not war, and no excuse can be made for it. Such +deeds cannot be called war." + +"But if the townspeople fired on the Germans?" I asked. + +"All weapons had been deposited in the hands of the town authorities. +It is unlikely that any organised attack by civilians could have been +made. However, if in individual cases shots were fired at the German +soldiers, this may always be condoned in a country suffering invasion. +During an occupation it would be different, naturally. No excuse can +be offered for such an action in occupied territory." + +"Various Belgian officers have told me of seeing crowds of men, women +and children driven ahead of the German Army to protect the troops. +This is so incredible that I must ask whether it has any foundation of +truth." + +"It is quite true. It is a barbarous and inhuman system of protecting +the German advance. When the Belgian soldiers fired on the enemy they +killed their own people. Again and again innocent civilians of both +sexes were sacrificed to protect the invading army during attacks. A +terrible slaughter!" + +His Majesty made no effort to conceal his great grief and indignation. +And again, as before, there seemed to be nothing to say. + +"Even now," I said, "when the Belgians return the Grerman artillery +fire they are bombarding their own towns." + +"That is true, of course; but what can we do? And the civilian +population is very brave. They fear invasion, but they no longer pay +any attention to bombs. They work in the fields quite calmly, with +shells dropping about. They must work or starve." + +He then spoke of the morale of the troops, which is excellent, and of +his sympathy for their situation. + +"Their families are in Belgium," he said. "Many of them have heard +nothing for months. But they are wonderful. They are fighting for life +and to regain their families, their homes and their country. Christmas +was very sad for them." + +"In the event of the German Army's retiring from Belgium, do you +believe, as many do, that there will be more destruction of cities? +Brussels, for instance?" + +"I think not." + +I referred to my last visit to Belgium, when Brussels was the capital; +and to the contrast now, when La Panne a small seaside resort hardly +more than a village, contains the court, the residence of the King and +Queen, and of the various members of his household. It seemed to me +unlikely that La Panne would be attacked, as the Queen of the Belgians +is a Bavarian. + +"Do you think La Panne will be bombarded?" I asked. + +"Why not?" + +"I thought that possibly, on account of Your Majesty and the Queen +being there, it would be spared. + +"They are bombarding Furnes, where I go every day," he replied. "And +there are German aeroplanes overhead all the time." + +The mention of Furnes brought to my mind the flooded district near +that village, which extends from Nieuport to Dixmude. + +"Belgium has made a great sacrifice in flooding her lowlands," I said. +"Will that land be as fertile as before?" + +"Not for several years. The flooding of the productive land in the +Yser district was only carried out as a military necessity. The water +is sea water, of course, and will have a bad effect on the soil. Have +you seen the flooded district?" + +I told His Majesty that I had been to the Belgian trenches, and then +across the inundated country to one of the outposts; a remarkable +experience--one I should never forget. + +The conversation shifted to America and her point of view; to American +women who have married abroad. His Majesty mentioned especially Lady +Curzon. Two children of the King were with Lord Curzon, in England, at +the time. The Crown Prince, a boy of fourteen, tall and straight like +his father, was with the King and Queen. + +The King had risen and was standing in his favourite attitude, his +elbow on the mantelpiece. I rose also. + +"I was given some instructions as to the ceremonial of this audience," +I said. "I am afraid I have not followed them!" + +"What were you told to do?" said His Majesty, evidently amused. Then, +without waiting for a reply; + +"We are very democratic--we Belgians," he said. "More democratic than +the Americans. The President of the United States has great +power--very great power. He is a czar." + +He referred to President Wilson in terms of great esteem--not only as +the President but as a man. He spoke, also, with evident admiration of +Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. McKinley, both of whom he had met. + +I looked at the clock. It was after three and the interview had begun +at two. I knew it was time for me to go, but I had been given no +indication that the interview was at an end. Fragments of the coaching +I had received came to my mind, but nothing useful; so I stated my +difficulty frankly, and again the King's serious face lighted up with +a smile. + +"There is no formality here; but if you are going we must find the +general for you." + +So we shook hands and I went out; but the beautiful courtesy of the +soldier King of the Belgians brought him out to the doorstep with me. + +That is the final picture I have of Albert I, King of the Belgians--a +tall young man, very fair and blue-eyed, in the dark blue uniform of a +lieutenant-general of his army, wearing no orders or decorations, +standing bareheaded in the wind and pointing out to me the direction +in which I should go to find the general who had brought me. + +He is a very courteous gentleman, with the eyes of one who loves the +sea, for the King of the Belgians is a sailor in his heart; a tragic +and heroic figure but thinking himself neither--thinking of himself +not at all, indeed; only of his people, whose griefs are his to share +but not to lighten; living day and night under the rumble of German +artillery at Nieuport and Dixmude in that small corner of Belgium +which remains to him. + +He is a King who, without suspicion of guilt, has lost his country; +who has seen since August of 1914 two-thirds of his army lost, his +beautiful and ancient towns destroyed, his fertile lands thrown open +to the sea. + +I went on. The guns were still at work. At Nieuport, Dixmude, Furnes, +Pervyse--all along that flat, flooded region--the work of destruction +was going on. Overhead, flying high, were two German aeroplanes--the +eyes of the war. + + * * * * * + +Not politically, but humanely, it was time to make to America an +authoritative statement as to conditions in Belgium. + +The principle of non-interference in European politics is one of +national policy and not to be questioned. But there can be no +justification for the destruction of property and loss of innocent +lives in Belgium. Germany had plead to the neutral nations her +necessity, and had plead eloquently. On the other hand, the English +and French authorities during the first year of the war had preserved +a dignified silence, confident of the justice of their cause. + +And official Belgium had made no complaint. She had bowed to the +judgment of her allies, knowing that a time would come, at the end +of the war, to speak of her situation and to demand justifiable +redress. + +But a million homeless Belgians in England and Holland proclaimed and +still proclaim their wretchedness broadcast. The future may bring +redress, but the present story of Belgium belongs to the world. +America, the greatest of the neutral countries, has a right to know +now the suffering and misery of this patient, hard-working people. + +This war may last a long time; the western armies are at a deadlock. +Since November of 1914 the line has varied only slightly here and +there; has been pushed out or back only to straighten again. + +Advances may be counted by feet. From Nieuport to Ypres attacks are +waged round solitary farms which, by reason of the floods, have become +tiny islands protected by a few men, mitrailleuses, and entanglements +of barbed wire. Small attacking bodies capture such an outpost, wading +breast-deep--drowning when wounded--in the stagnant water. There are +no glorious charges here, no contagion of courage; simply a dogged and +desperate struggle--a gain which the next day may see forfeited. The +only thing that goes on steadily is the devastating work of the heavy +guns on each side. + +Meantime, both in England and in France, there has been a growing +sentiment that the government's policy of silence has been a mistake. +The cudgel of public opinion is a heavy one. The German propaganda in +America has gone on steadily. There is no argument where one side only +is presented. That splendid and solid part of the American people, the +German population, essentially and naturally patriotic, keeping their +faith in the Fatherland, is constantly presenting its case; and +against that nothing official has been offered. + +England is fighting heroically, stoically; but her stoicism is a vital +mistake. This silence has nothing whatever to do with military +movements, their success or their failure. It is more fundamental, an +inherent characteristic of the English character, founded on +reserve--perhaps tinged with that often misunderstood conviction of +the Britisher that other persons cannot be really interested in what +is strictly another's affairs. + +The Allies are beginning to realise, however, that this war is not +their own affair alone. It affects the world too profoundly. Mentally, +morally, spiritually and commercially, it is an upheaval in which all +must suffer. + +And the English people, who have sent and are sending the very flower +of their country's manhood to the front, are beginning to regret the +error in judgment that has left the rest of the English-speaking world +in comparative ignorance of the true situation. + +They are sending the best they have--men of high ideals, who, as +volunteers, go out to fight for what they consider a just cause. The +old families, in which love of country and self-sacrifice are +traditions, have suffered heavily. + +The crux of the situation is Belgium--the violation of her neutrality; +the conduct of the invading army; her unnecessary and unjustifiable +suffering. And Belgium has felt that the time to speak has come. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE CAUSE + + +The Belgian Red Cross may well be proud of the hospital at La Panne. +It is modern, thoroughly organised, completely equipped. Within two +weeks of the outbreak of the war it was receiving patients. It was not +at the front then. But the German tide has forced itself along until +now it is almost on the line. + +Generally speaking, order had taken the place of the early chaos in +the hospital situation when I was at the front. The British hospitals +were a satisfaction to visit. The French situation was not so good. +The isolated French hospitals were still in need of everything, even +of anaesthetics. The lack of an organised nursing system was being +keenly felt. + +But the early handicaps of unpreparedness and overwhelming numbers of +patients had been overcome to a large extent. Scientific management +and modern efficiency had stepped in. Things were still capable of +improvement. Gentlemen ambulance drivers are not always to be depended +on. Nurses are not all of the same standard of efficiency. Supplies of +one sort exceeded the demand, while other things were entirely +lacking. Food of the kind that was needed by the very ill was scarce, +expensive and difficult to secure at any price. + +But the things that have been done are marvellous. Surgery has not +failed. The stereoscopic X-ray and antitetanus serum are playing their +active part. Once out of the trenches a soldier wounded at the front +has as much chance now as a man injured in the pursuit of a peaceful +occupation. + +Once out of the trenches! For that is the question. The ambulances +must wait for night. It is not in the hospitals but in the ghastly +hours between injury and darkness that the case of life or death is +decided. That is where surgical efficiency fails against the brutality +of this war, where the Red Cross is no longer respected, where it is +not possible to gather in the wounded under the hospital flag, where +there is no armistice and no pity. This is war, glorious war, which +those who stay at home say smugly is good for a nation. + +But there are those who are hurt, not in the trenches but in front of +them. In that narrow strip of No Man's Land between the confronting +armies, and extending four hundred and fifty miles from the sea +through Belgium and France, each day uncounted numbers of men fall, +and, falling, must lie. The terrible thirst that follows loss of blood +makes them faint; the cold winds and snows and rains of what has been +a fearful winter beat on them; they cannot have water or shelter. The +lucky ones die, but there are some that live, and live for days. This +too is war, glorious war, which is good for a nation, which makes its +boys into men, and its men into these writhing figures that die so +slowly and so long. + +I have seen many hospitals. Some of the makeshifts would be amusing +were they not so pathetic. Old chapels with beds and supplies piled +high before the altar; kindergarten rooms with childish mottoes on the +walls, from which hang fever charts; nuns' cubicles thrown open to +doctors and nurses as living quarters. + +At La Panne, however, there are no makeshifts. There are no wards, so +called. But many of the large rooms hold three beds. All the rooms are +airy and well lighted. True, there is no lift, and the men must be +carried down the staircases to the operating rooms on the lower floor, +and carried back again. But the carrying is gently done. + +There are two operating rooms, each with two modern operating tables. +The floors are tiled, the walls, ceiling and all furnishings white. +Attached to the operating rooms is a fully equipped laboratory and an +X-ray room. I was shown the stereoscopic X-ray apparatus by which the +figure on the plate stands out in relief, like any stereoscopic +picture. Every large hospital I saw had this apparatus, which is +invaluable in locating bullets and pieces of shell or shrapnel. Under +the X-ray, too, extraction frequently takes place, the operators using +long-handled instruments and gloves that are soaked in a solution of +lead and thus become impervious to the rays so destructive to the +tissues. + +Later on I watched Doctor DePage operate at this hospital. I was put +into a uniform, and watched a piece of shell taken from a man's brain +and a great blood clot evacuated. Except for the red cross on each +window and the rattle of the sash under the guns, I might have been in +one of the leading American hospitals and war a century away. There +were the same white uniforms on the surgeons; the same white gauze +covering their heads and swathing their faces to the eyes; the same +silence, the same care as to sterilisation; the same orderly rows of +instruments on a glass stand; the same nurses, alert and quiet; the +same clear white electric light overhead; the same rubber gloves, the +same anaesthetists and assistants. + +It was twelve minutes from the time the operating surgeon took the +knife until the wound was closed. The head had been previously shaved +by one of the assistants, and painted with iodine. In twelve minutes +the piece of shell lay in my hand. The stertorous breathing was +easier, bandages were being adjusted, the next case was being +anaesthetised and prepared. + +I wish I could go further. I wish I could follow that peasant-soldier +to recovery and health. I wish I could follow him back to his wife and +children, to his little farm in Belgium. I wish I could even say he +recovered. But I cannot. I do not know. The war is a series of +incidents with no beginning and no end. The veil lifts for a moment +and drops again. + +I saw other cases brought down for operation at the Ambulance Ocean. +One I shall never forget. Here was a boy again, looking up with +hopeful, fully conscious eyes at the surgeons. He had been shot +through the spine. From his waist down he was inert, helpless. He +smiled. He had come to be operated on. Now all would be well. The +great surgeons would work over him, and he would walk again. + +When after a long consultation they had to tell him they could not +operate, I dared not look at his eyes. + +Again, what is he to do? Where is he to go? He is helpless, in a +strange land. He has no country, no people, no money. And he will +live, think of it! + +I wish I could leaven all this with something cheerful. I wish I could +smile over the phonograph playing again and again A Wee +Deoch-an'-Doris in that room for convalescents that overlooks the sea. +I wish I could think that the baby with both legs off will grow up +without missing what it has never known. I wish I could be reconciled +because the dead young officer had died the death of a patriot and a +soldier, or that the boy I saw dying in an upper room, from shock and +loss of blood following an amputation, is only a pawn in the great +chess game of empires. I wish I could believe that the two women on +the floor below, one with both arms gone, another with one arm off and +her back ripped open by a shell, are the legitimate fruits of a holy +war. I cannot. I can see only greed and lust of battle and ambition. + +In a bright room I saw a German soldier. He had the room to himself. +He was blue eyed and yellow haired, with a boyish and contagious +smile. He knew no more about it all than I did. It must have +bewildered him in the long hours that he lay there alone. He did not +hate these people. He never had hated them. It was clear, too, that +they did not hate him. For they had saved a gangrenous leg for him +when all hope seemed ended. He lay there, with his white coverlet +drawn to his chin, and smiled at the surgeon. They were evidently on +the best of terms. + +"How goes it?" asked the surgeon cheerfully in German. + +"_Sehr gut_," he said, and eyed me curiously. + +He was very proud of the leg, and asked that I see it. It was in a +cast. He moved it about triumphantly. Probably all over Germany, as +over France and this corner of Belgium, just such little scenes occur +daily, hourly. + +The German peasant, like the French and the Belgian, is a peaceable +man. He is military but not militant. He is sentimental rather than +impassioned. He loves Christmas and other feast days. He is not +ambitious. He fights bravely, but he would rather sing or make a +garden. + +It is over the bent shoulders of these peasants that the great +Continental army machines must march. The German peasant is poor, +because for forty years he has been paying the heavy tax of endless +armament. The French peasant is poor, because for forty years he has +been struggling to recover from the drain of the huge war indemnity +demanded by Germany in 1871. The Russian peasant toils for a remote +government, with which his sole tie is the tax-gatherer; toils with +childish faith for The Little Father, at whose word he may be sent to +battle for a cause of which he knows nothing. + +Germany's militarism, England's navalism, Russia's autocracy, France, +graft-ridden in high places and struggling for rehabilitation after a +century of war--and, underneath it all, bearing it on bent shoulders, +men like this German prisoner, alone in his room and puzzling it out! +It makes one wonder if the result of this war will not be a great and +overwhelming individualism, a protest of the unit against the mass; if +Socialism, which has apparently died of an ideal, will find this ideal +but another name for tyranny, and rise from its grave a living force. + +Now and then a justifiable war is fought, for liberty perhaps, or like +our Civil War, for a great principle. There are wars that are +inevitable. Such wars are frequently revolutions and have their +origins in the disaffection of a people. + +But here is a world war about which volumes are being written to +discover the cause. Here were prosperous nations, building wealth and +culture on a basis of peace. Europe was apparently more in danger of +revolution than of international warfare. It is not only war without a +known cause, it is an unexpected war. Only one of the nations involved +showed any evidence of preparation. England is not yet ready. Russia +has not yet equipped the men she has mobilised. + +Is this war, then, because the balance of power is so nicely adjusted +that a touch turns the scale, whether that touch be a Kaiser's dream +of empire or the eyes of a Czar turned covetously toward the South? + +I tried to think the thing out during the long nights when the sound +of the heavy guns kept me awake. It was hard, because I knew so +little, nothing at all of European politics, or war, or diplomacy. +When I tried to be logical, I became emotional. Instead of reason I +found in myself only a deep resentment. + +I could see only that blue-eyed German in his bed, those cheery and +cold and ill-equipped Belgians drilling on the sands at La Panne. + +But on one point I was clear. Away from all the imminent questions +that filled the day, the changing ethics of war, its brutalities, its +hideous necessities, one point stood out clear and distinct. That the +real issue is not the result, but the cause of this war. That the +world must dig deep into the mire of European diplomacy to find that +cause, and having found it must destroy it. That as long as that cause +persists, be it social or political, predatory or ambitious, there +will be more wars. Again it will be possible for a handful of men in +high place to overthrow a world. + +And one of the first results of the discovery of that cause will be a +demand of the people to know what their representatives are doing. +Diplomacy, instead of secret whispering, a finger to its lips, must +shout from the housetops. Great nations cannot be governed from +cellars. Diplomats are not necessarily conspirators. There is such a +thing as walking in the sunlight. + +There is no such thing in civilisation as a warlike people. There are +peaceful people, or aggressive people, or military people. But there +are none that do not prefer peace to war, until, inflamed and roused +by those above them who play this game of empires, they must don the +panoply of battle and go forth. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE STORY WITH AN END + + +In its way that hospital at La Panne epitomised the whole tragedy of +the great war. Here were women and children, innocent victims when the +peaceful nearby market town of Furnes was being shelled; here was a +telegraph operator who had stuck to his post under furious bombardment +until both his legs were crushed. He had been decorated by the king +for his bravery. Here were Belgian aristocrats without extra clothing +or any money whatever, and women whose whole lives had been shielded +from pain or discomfort. One of them, a young woman whose father is +among the largest landowners in Belgium, is in charge of the villa +where the uniforms of wounded soldiers are cleaned and made fit for +use again. Over her white uniform she wore, in the bitter wind, a thin +tan raincoat. We walked together along the beach. I protested. + +"You are so thinly clad," I said. "Surely you do not go about like +that always!" + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"It is all I have," she said philosophically. "And I have no +money--none. None of us has." + +A titled Belgian woman with her daughter had just escaped from +Brussels. She was very sad, for she had lost her only boy. But she +smiled a little as she told me of their having nothing but what they +wore, and that the night before they had built a fire in their room, +washed their linen, and gone to bed, leaving it until morning to dry. + +Across the full width of the hospital stretched the great drawing-room +of the hotel, now a recreation place for convalescent soldiers. Here +all day the phonograph played, the nurses off duty came in to write +letters, the surgeons stopped on their busy rounds to speak to the men +or to watch for a few minutes the ever-changing panorama of the beach, +with its background of patrolling gunboats, its engineers on rest +playing football, its occasional aeroplanes, carrying each two men--a +pilot and an observer. + +The men sat about. There were boys with the stringy beards of their +twenty years. There were empty sleeves, many crutches, and some who +must be led past the chairs and tables--who will always have to be +led. + +They were all cheerful. But now and then, when the bombardment became +more insistent, some of them would raise their heads and listen, with +the strained faces of those who see a hideous picture. + +The young woman who could not buy a heavy coat showed me the villa +adjoining the hospital, where the clothing of wounded soldiers is +cared for. It is placed first in a fumigating plant in the basement +and thoroughly sterilised. After that it is brushed of its encrusted +mud and blood stains are taken out by soaking in cold water. It is +then dried and thoroughly sunned. Then it is ready for the second +floor. + +Here tailors are constantly at work mending garments apparently +unmendable, pressing, steaming, patching, sewing on buttons. The +ragged uniforms come out of that big bare room clean and whole, ready +to be tied up in new burlap bags, tagged, and placed in racks of fresh +white cedar. There is no odour in this room, although innumerable old +garments are stored in it. + +In an adjoining room the rifles and swords of the injured men stand in +racks, the old and unserviceable rifles with which Belgium was forced +to equip so many of her soldiers side by side with the new and +scientific German guns. Along the wall are officers' swords, and above +them, on shelves, the haversacks of the common soldiers, laden with +the things that comprise their whole comfort. + +I examined one. How few the things were and how worn! And yet the +haversack was heavy. As he started for the trenches, this soldier who +was carried back, he had on his shoulders this haversack of hide +tanned with the hair on. In it he had two pairs of extra socks, worn +and ragged, a tattered and dirty undershirt, a photograph of his wife, +rags for cleaning his gun, a part of a loaf of dry bread, the remnant +of what had been a pair of gloves, now fingerless and stiff with rain +and mud, a rosary, a pair of shoes that the woman of the photograph +would have wept and prayed over, some extra cartridges and a piece of +leather. Perhaps he meant to try to mend the shoes. + +And here again I wish I could finish the story. I wish I could tell +whether he lived or died--whether he carried that knapsack back to +battle, or whether he died and its pitiful contents were divided among +those of his comrades who were even more needy than he had been. But +the veil lifts for a moment and drops again. + +Two incidents stand out with distinctness from those first days in La +Panne, when, thrust with amazing rapidity into the midst of war, my +mind was a chaos of interest, bewilderment and despair. + +One is of an old abbe, talking earnestly to a young Belgian noblewoman +who had recently escaped from Brussels with only the clothing she +wore. + +The abbe was round of face and benevolent. I had met him before, at +Calais, where he had posed me in front of a statue and taken my +picture. His enthusiasm over photography was contagious. He had made a +dark room from a closet in an old convent, and he owned a little +American camera. With this carefully placed on a tripod and covered +with a black cloth, he posed me carefully, making numerous excursions +under the cloth. In that cold courtyard, under the marble figure of +Joan of Arc, he was a warm and human and most alive figure, in his +flat black shoes, his long black soutane with its woollen sash, his +woollen muffler and spectacles, with the eternal cigarette, that is +part and parcel of every Belgian, dangling loosely from his lower lip. + +The surgeons and nurses who were watching the operation looked on with +affectionate smiles. They loved him, this old priest, with his +boyishness, his enthusiasms, his tiny camera, his cigarette, his +beautiful faith. He has promised me the photograph and what he +promises he fulfils. But perhaps it was a failure. I hope not. He +would be so disappointed--and so would I. + +So I was glad to meet him again at La Panne--glad and surprised, for +he was fifty miles north of where we had met before. But the abbe was +changed. He was without the smile, without the cigarette. And he was +speaking beseechingly to the smiling young refugee. This is what he +was saying: + +"I am glad, daughter, to help you in every way that I can. I have +bought for you in Calais everything that you requested. But I implore +you, daughter, do not ask me to purchase any more ladies' underlinen. +It is most embarrassing." + +"But, father--" + +"No underlinen," he repeated firmly. But it hurt him to refuse. One +could see that. One imagined, too, that in his life of service there +were few refusals. I left them still debating. The abbe's eyes were +desperate but his posture firm. One felt that there would be no +surrender. + +Another picture, and I shall leave La Panne for a time. + +I was preparing to go. A telephone message to General Melis, of the +Belgian Army, had brought his car to take me to Dunkirk. I was about +to leave the protection of the Belgian Red Cross and place myself in +the care of the ministry of war. I did not know what the future would +bring, and the few days at La Panne and the Ambulance Ocean had made +friends for me there. Things move quickly in war time. The +conventions with which we bind up our souls in ordinary life are cut +away. La Panne was already familiar and friendly territory. + +I went down the wide staircase. An ambulance had stopped and its +burden was being carried in. The bearers rested the stretcher gently +on the floor, and a nurse was immediately on her knees beside it. + +"Shell!" she said. + +The occupant was a boy of perhaps nineteen--a big boy. Some mother +must have been very proud of him. He was fully conscious, and he +looked up from his stained bandages with the same searching glance +that now I have seen so often--the glance that would read its chances +in the faces of those about. With his uninjured arm he threw back the +blanket. His right arm was wounded, broken in two places, but not +shattered. + +"He'll do nicely," said the nurse. "A broken jaw and the arm." + +His eyes were on me, so I bent over. + +"The nurse says you will do nicely," I assured him. "It will take +time, but you will be very comfortable here, and--" + +The nurse had been making further investigation. Now she turned back +the other end of the blanket His right leg had been torn off at the +hip. + +That story has an end; for that boy died. + +The drive back to Dunkirk was a mad one. Afterward I learned to know +that red-headed Flemish chauffeur, with his fiercely upcurled +moustache and his contempt of death. Rather, perhaps, I learned to +know his back. It was a reckless back. He wore a large army overcoat +with a cape and a cap with a tassel. When he really got under way at +anything from fifty miles an hour to the limit of the speedometer, +which was ninety miles, the gilt tassel, which in the Belgian cap +hangs over and touches the forehead, had a way of standing up; the +cape overcoat blew out in the air, cutting off my vision and my last +hope. + +I regard that chauffeur as a menace on the high road. Certainly he is +not a lady's chauffeur. He never will be. Once at night he took +me--and the car--into an iron railroad gate, and bent the gate into a +V. I was bent into the whole alphabet. + +The car was a limousine. After that one cold ride from Calais to La +Panne I was always in a limousine--always, of course, where a car +could go at all. There may be other writers who have been equally +fortunate, but most of the stories are of frightful hardships. I was +not always comfortable. I was frequently in danger. But to and from +the front I rode soft and warm and comfortable. Often I had a bottle +of hot coffee and sandwiches. Except for the two carbines strapped to +the speedometer, except for the soldier-chauffeur and the orderly who +sat together outside, except for the eternal consulting of maps and +showing of passes, I might have been making a pleasure tour of the +towns of Northern France and Belgium. In fact, I have toured abroad +during times of peace and have been less comfortable. + +I do not speak Flemish, so I could not ask the chauffeur to desist, +slow down, or let me out to walk. I could only sit tight as the +machine flew round corners, elbowed transports, and threw a warning +shriek to armoured cars. I wondered what would happen if we skidded +into a wagon filled with high explosives. I tried to remember the +conditions of my war insurance policy at Lloyd's. Also I recalled the +unpleasant habit the sentries have of firing through the back of any +car that passes them. + +I need not have worried. Except that once we killed a brown chicken, +and that another time we almost skidded into the canal, the journey +was uneventful, almost calm. One thing cheered me--all the other +machines were going as fast as mine. A car that eased up its pace +would be rammed from behind probably. I am like the English--I prefer +a charge to a rearguard engagement. + +My pass took me into Dunkirk. + +It was dusk by that time. I felt rather lost and alone. I figured out +what time it was at home. I wished some one would speak English. And I +hated being regarded as a spy every mile or so, and depending on a +slip of paper as my testimonial of respectability. The people I knew +were lunching about that time, or getting ready for bridge or the +matinee. I wondered what would happen to me if the pass blew out of +the orderly's hands and was lost in the canal. + +The chauffeur had been instructed to take me to the _Mairie_ a great +dark building of stone halls and stairways, of sentries everywhere, of +elaborate officers and much ceremony. But soon, in a great hall of the +old building piled high with army supplies, I was talking to General +Melis, and my troubles were over. A kindly and courteous gentleman, he +put me at my ease at once. More than that, he spoke some English. He +had received letters from England about me, and had telegraphed that +he would meet me at Calais. He had, indeed, taken the time out of his +busy day to go himself to Calais, thirty miles by motor, to meet me. + +I was aghast. "The boat went to Boulogne," I explained. "I had no +idea, of course, that you would be there." + +"Now that you are here," he said, "it is all right. But--exactly what +can I do for you?" + +So I told him. He listened attentively. A very fine and gallant +soldier he was, sitting in that great room in the imposing uniform of +his rank; a busy man, taking a little time out of his crowded day to +see an American woman who had come a long way alone to see this +tragedy that had overtaken his country. Orderlies and officers came +and went; the _Mairie_ was a hive of seething activities. But he +listened patiently. + +"Where do you want to go?" he asked when I had finished. + +"I should like to stay here, if I may. And from here, of course, I +should like to get to the front." + +"Where?" + +"Can I get to Ypres?" + +"It is not very safe." + +I proclaimed instantly and loudly that I was as brave as a lion; that +I did not know fear. He smiled. But when the interview was over it was +arranged that I should have a _permis de sejour_ to stay in Dunkirk, +and that on the following day the general himself and one of his +officers having an errand in that direction would take me to Ypres. + +That night the town of Dunkirk was bombarded by some eighteen German +aeroplanes. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE NIGHT RAID ON DUNKIRK + + +I found that a room had been engaged for me at the Hotel des Arcades. +It was a very large room looking out over the public square and the +statue of Jean Bart. It was really a princely room. No wonder they +showed it to me proudly, and charged it to me royally. It was an +upholstered room. Even the doors were upholstered. And because it was +upholstered and expensive and regal, it enjoyed the isolation of +greatness. The other people in the hotel slept above or underneath. + +There were times when I longed for neighbours, when I yearned for some +one to occupy the other royal apartment next door. But except for a +Russian prince who stayed two days, and who snored in Russian and kept +two _valets de chambre_ up all night in the hall outside my door +polishing his boots and cleaning his uniform, I was always alone in +that part of the hotel. + +At my London hotel I had been lodged on the top floor, and twice in +the night the hall porter had telephoned me to say that German +Zeppelins were on their way to London. So I took care to find that in +the Hotel des Arcades there were two stories and two layers of Belgian +and French officers overhead. + +I felt very comfortable--until the air raid. The two stories seemed +absurd, inadequate. I would not have felt safe in the subcellar of the +Woolworth Building. + +There were no women in the hotel at that time, with the exception of a +hysterical lady manager, who sat in a boxlike office on the lower +floor, and two chambermaids. A boy made my bed and brought me hot +water. For several weeks at intervals he knocked at the door twice a +day and said: "Et wat." I always thought it was Flemish for "May I +come in?" At last I discovered that he considered this the English for +"hot water." The waiters in the cafe were too old to be sent to war, +but I think the cook had gone. There was no cook. Some one put the +food on the fire, but he was not a cook. + +Dunkirk had been bombarded several times, I learned. + +"They come in the morning," said my informant. "Every one is ordered +off the streets. But they do little damage. One or two machines come +and drop a bomb or two. That is all. Very few are killed." + +I protested. I felt rather bitter about it. I expected trouble along +the lines, I explained. I knew I would be quite calm when I was +actually at the front, and when I had my nervous system prepared for +trouble. But in Dunkirk I expected to rest and relax. I needed sleep +after La Panne. I thought something should be done about it. + +My informant shrugged his shoulders. He was English, and entirely +fair. + +"Dunkirk is a fortified town," he explained. "It is quite legitimate. +But you may sleep to-night. The raids are always daylight ones." + +So I commenced dinner calmly. I do not remember anything about that +dinner. The memory of it has gone. I do recall looking about the +dining room, and feeling a little odd and lonely, being the only +woman. Then a gun boomed somewhere outside, and an alarm bell +commenced to ring rapidly almost overhead. Instantly the officers in +the room were on their feet, and every light went out. + +The _maitre d'hotel_, Emil, groped his way to my table and struck a +match. + +"Aeroplanes!" he said. + +There was much laughing and talking as the officers moved to the door. +The heavy velvet curtains were drawn. Some one near the door lighted a +candle. + +"Where shall I go?" I asked. + +Emil, unlike the officers, was evidently nervous. + +"Madame is as safe here as anywhere," he said. "But if she wishes to +join the others in the cellar--" + +I wanted to go to the cellar or to crawl into the office safe. But I +felt that, as the only woman and the only American about, I held the +reputation of America and of my sex in my hands. The waiters had gone +to the cellar. The officers had flocked to the cafe on the ground +floor underneath. The alarm bell was still ringing. Over the candle, +stuck in a saucer, Emil's face looked white and drawn. + +"I shall stay here," I said. "And I shall have coffee." + +The coffee was not bravado. I needed something hot. + +The gun, which had ceased, began to fire again. And then suddenly, not +far away, a bomb exploded. Even through the closed and curtained +windows the noise was terrific. Emil placed my coffee before me with +shaking hands, and disappeared. + +Another crash, and another, both very close! + +There is nothing that I know of more hideous than an aerial +bombardment. It requires an entire mental readjustment. The sky, which +has always symbolised peace, suddenly spells death. Bombardment by the +big guns of an advancing army is not unexpected. There is time for +flight, a chance, too, for a reprisal. But against these raiders of +the sky there is nothing. One sits and waits. And no town is safe. One +moment there is a peaceful village with war twenty, fifty miles away. +The next minute hell breaks loose. Houses are destroyed. Sleeping +children die in their cradles. The streets echo and reecho with the +din of destruction. The reply of the anti-aircraft guns is feeble, and +at night futile. There is no bustle of escape. The streets are empty +and dead, and in each house people, family groups, noncombatants, folk +who ask only the right to work and love and live, sit and wait with +blanched faces. + +More explosions, nearer still. They were trying for the _Mairie_, +which was round the corner. + +In the corridor outside the dining room a candle was lighted, and the +English officer who had reassured me earlier in the evening came in. + +"You need not be alarmed," he said cheerfully. "It is really nothing. +But out in the corridor it is quite safe and not so lonely." + +I went out. Two or three Belgian officers were there, gathered round a +table on which was a candle stuck in a glass. They were having their +after-dinner liqueurs and talking of many things. No one spoke of what +was happening outside. I was given a corner, as being out of the +draft. + +The explosion were incessant now. With each one the landlady +downstairs screamed. As they came closer, cries and French adjectives +came up the staircase beside me in a nerve-destroying staccato of +terror. + +At nine-thirty, when the aeroplanes had been overhead for +three-quarters of an hour, there came a period of silence. There were +no more explosions. + +"It is over," said one of the Belgian officers, smiling. "It is over, +and madame lives!" + +But it was not over. + +I took advantage of the respite to do the forbidden thing and look out +through one of the windows. The moon had come up and the square was +flooded with light. All around were silent houses. No ray of light +filtered through their closed and shuttered windows. The street lamps +were out. Not an automobile was to be seen, not a hurrying human +figure, not a dog. No night prowler disturbed that ghastly silence. +The town lay dead under the clear and peaceful light of the moon. The +white paving stones of the square gleamed, and in the centre, +saturnine and defiant, stood uninjured the statue of Jean Bart, +privateer and private of Dunkirk. + +Crash again! It was not over. The attack commenced with redoubled +fury. If sound were destructive the little town of Dunkirk would be +off the map of Northern France to-day. Sixty-seven bombs were dropped +in the hour or so that the Germans were overhead. + +The bombardment continued. My feet were very cold, my head hot. The +lady manager was silent; perhaps she had fainted. But Emil reappeared +for a moment, his round white face protruding above the staircase +well, to say that a Zeppelin was reported on the way. + +Then at last silence, broken soon by the rumble of ambulances as they +started on their quest for the dead and the wounded. And Emil was +wrong. There was no Zeppelin. The night raid on Dunkirk was history. + +The lights did not come on again. From that time on for several weeks +Dunkirk lay at night in darkness. Houses showing a light were fined by +the police. Automobiles were forbidden the use of lamps. One crept +along the streets and the roads surrounding the town in a mysterious +and nerve-racking blackness broken only by the shaded lanterns of the +sentries as they stepped out with their sharp command to stop. + +The result of the raid? It was largely moral, a part of that campaign +of terrorisation which is so strangely a part of the German system, +which has set its army to burning cities, to bombarding the +unfortified coast towns of England, to shooting civilians in conquered +Belgium, and which now sinks the pitiful vessels of small traders and +fishermen in the submarine-infested waters of the British Channel. It +gained no military advantage, was intended to gain no military +advantage. Not a soldier died. The great stores of military supplies +were not wrecked. The victims were, as usual, women and children. The +houses destroyed were the small and peaceful houses of noncombatants. +Only two men were killed. They were in a side street when the first +bomb dropped, and they tried to find an unlocked door, an open house, +anything for shelter. It was impossible. Built like all French towns, +without arcades or sheltering archways, the flat facades of the closed +and barricaded houses refused them sanctuary. The second bomb killed +them both. + +Through all that night after the bombardment I could hear each hour +the call of the trumpet from the great overhanging tower, a double +note at once thin and musical, that reported no enemy in sight in the +sky and all well. From far away, at the gate in the wall, came the +reply of the distant watchman's horn softened by distance. + +"All well here also," it said. + +Following the trumpets the soft-toned chimes of the church rang out a +hymn that has chimed from the old tower every hour for generations, +extolling and praising the Man of Peace. + +The ambulances had finished their work. The dead lay with folded +hands, surrounded by candles, the lights of faith. And under the +fading moon the old city rested and watched. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +NO MAN'S LAND + + +FROM MY JOURNAL: + +I have just had this conversation with the little French chambermaid +at my hotel. "You have not gone to mass, Mademoiselle?" + +"I? No." + +"But here, so near the lines, I should think--" + +"I do not go to church. There is no God." She looked up with +red-rimmed, defiant eyes. "My husband has been killed," she said. +"There is no God. If there was a God, why should my husband be killed? +He had done nothing." + +This afternoon at three-thirty I am to start for the front. I am to +see everything. The machine leaves the _Mairie_ at three-thirty. + + * * * * * + +Do you recall the school map on which the state of Texas was always +pink and Rhode Island green? And Canada a region without colour, and +therefore without existence? + +The map of Europe has become a battle line painted in three colours: +yellow for the Belgian Army, blue for the British and red for the +French. It is really a double line, for the confronting German Army is +drawn in black. It is a narrow line to signify what it does--not only +death and wanton destruction, but the end of the myth of civilisation; +a narrow line to prove that the brotherhood of man is a dream, that +modern science is but an improvement on fifth-century barbarity; that +right, after all, is only might. + +It took exactly twenty-four hours to strip the shirt off the diplomacy +of Europe and show the coat of mail underneath. + +It will take a century to hide that coat of mail. It will take a +thousand years to rebuild the historic towns of Belgium. But not +years, nor a reclothed diplomacy, nor the punishment of whichever +traitor to the world brought this thing to pass, nor anything but +God's great eternity, will ever restore to one mother her uselessly +sacrificed son; will quicken one of the figures that lie rotting along +the battle line; will heal this scar that extends, yellow and blue and +red and black, across the heart of Western Europe. + +It is a long scar--long and irregular. It begins at Nieuport, on the +North Sea, extends south to the region of Soissons, east to Verdun, +and then irregularly southeast to the Swiss border. + +The map from which I am working was coloured and marked for me by +General Foch, commander of the French Army of the North, at his +headquarters. It is a little map, and so this line, which crosses +empires and cuts civilisation in half, is only fourteen inches long, +although it represents a battle line of over four hundred miles. Of +this the Belgian front is one-half inch, or approximately +one-twenty-eighth. The British front is a trifle more than twice as +long. All the rest of that line is red--French. + +That is the most impressive thing about the map, the length of the +French line. + +With the arrival of Kitchener's army this last spring the blue portion +grew somewhat. The yellow remained as it was, for the Belgian +casualties have been two-thirds of her army. There have been many +tragedies in Belgium. That is one of them. + +In the very north then, yellow; then a bit of red; below that blue; +then red again in that long sweeping curve that is the French front. +Occasionally the line moves a trifle forward or back, like the +shifting record of a fever chart; but in general it remains the same. +It has remained the same since the first of November. A movement to +thrust it forward in any one place is followed by a counter-attack in +another place. The reserves must be drawn off and hurried to the +threatened spot. Automatically the line straightens again. + +The little map is dated the twenty-third of February. All through the +spring and summer the line has remained unchanged. There will be no +change until one side or the other begins a great offensive movement. +After that it will be a matter of the irresistible force and the +immovable body, a question not of maps but of empires. + +Between the confronting lines lies that tragic strip of No Man's Land, +which has been and is the scene of so much tragedy. No Man's Land is +of fixed length but of varying width. There are places where it is +very narrow, so narrow that it is possible to throw across a hand +grenade or a box of cigarettes, depending on the nearness of an +officer whose business is war. Again it is wide, so that friendly +relations are impossible, and sniping becomes a pleasure as well as an +art. + +It was No Man's Land that I was to visit the night of the entry in my +journal. + +From the neighbourhood of Ypres to the Swiss border No Man's Land +varies. The swamps and flat ground give way to more rolling country, +and this to hills. But in the north No Man's Land is a series of +shallow lakes, lying in flat, unprotected country. + +For Belgium, in desperation, last October opened the sluices and let +in the sea. It crept in steadily, each high tide advancing the flood +farther. It followed the lines of canal and irrigation ditches mile +after mile till it had got as far south as Ypres, beyond Ypres indeed. +To the encroachment of the sea was added the flooding resulting from +an abnormally rainy winter. Ordinarily the ditches have carried off +the rain; now even where the inundation does not reach it lies in +great ponds. Belgium's fertile sugar-beet fields are under salt water. + +The method was effectual, during the winter, at least, in retarding +the German advance. Their artillery destroyed the towns behind the +opposing trenches of the Allies, but their attempts to advance through +the flood failed. + +Even where the floods were shallow--only two feet or so--they served +their purpose in masking the character of the land. From a wading +depth of two feet, charging soldiers stepped frequently into a deep +ditch and drowned ignominiously. + +It is a noble thing, war! It is good for a country. It unites its +people and develops national spirit! + +Great poems have been written about charges. Will there ever be any +great poems about these men who have been drowned in ditches? Or about +the soldiers who have been caught in the barbed wire with which these +inland lakes are filled? Or about the wounded who fall helpless into +the flood? + +The inland lakes that ripple under the wind from the sea, or gleam +silver in the light of the moon, are beautiful, hideous, filled with +bodies that rise and float, face down. And yet here and there the +situation is not without a sort of grim humour. Brilliant engineers on +one side or the other are experimenting with the flood. Occasionally +trenches hitherto dry and fairly comfortable find themselves +unexpectedly filling with water, as the other side devises some clever +scheme for turning the flood from a menace into a military asset. + +In No Man's Land are the outposts. + +The fighting of the winter has mystified many noncombatants, with its +advances and retreats, which have yet resulted in no definite change +of the line. In many instances this sharp fighting has been a matter +of outposts, generally farms, churches or other isolated buildings, +sometimes even tiny villages. In the inundated portion of Belgium +these outposts are buildings which, situated on rather higher land, a +foot or two above the flood, have become islands. Much of the fighting +in the north has been about these island outposts. Under the +conditions, charges must be made by relatively small bodies of men. +The outposts can similarly house but few troops. + +They are generally defended by barbed wire and a few quick-firing +guns. Their purpose is strategical; they are vantage points from which +the enemy may be closely watched. They change sides frequently; are +won and lost, and won again. + +Here and there the side at the time in command of the outpost builds +out from its trenches through the flood a pathway of bags of earth, +topped by fascines or bundles of fagots tied together. Such a path +pays a tribute of many lives for every yard of advance. It is built +under fire; it remains under fire. It is destroyed and reconstructed. + +When I reached the front the British, Belgian and French troops in the +north had been fighting under these conditions for four months. My +first visit to the trenches was made under the auspices of the Belgian +Ministry of War. The start was made from the _Mairie_ in Dunkirk, +accompanied by the necessary passes and escorted by an attache of the +Military Cabinet. + +I was taken in an automobile from Dunkirk to the Belgian Army +Headquarters, where an officer of the headquarters staff, Captain +F----, took charge. The headquarters had been a brewery. + +Stripped of the impedimenta of its previous occupation, it now housed +the officers of the staff. + +Since that time I have frequently visited the headquarters staffs of +various armies or their divisions. I became familiar with the long, +bare tables stacked with papers, the lamps, the maps on the walls, the +telephones, the coming and going of dispatch riders in black leather. +I came to know something of the chafing restlessness of these men who +must sit, well behind the firing line, and play paper battles on which +lives and empires hang. + +But one thing never ceased to puzzle me. + +That night, in a small kitchen behind the Belgian headquarters rooms, +a French peasant woman was cooking the evening meal. Always, at all +the headquarters that were near the front, somewhere in a back room +was a resigned-looking peasant woman cooking a meal. Children hung +about the stove or stood in corners looking out at the strange new +life that surrounded them. Peasants too old for war, their occupations +gone, sat listlessly with hanging hands, their faces the faces of +bewildered children; their clean floors were tracked by the muddy +boots of soldiers; their orderly lives disturbed, uprooted; their once +tidy farmyards were filled with transports; their barns with army +horses; their windmills, instead of housing sacks of grain, were +occupied by _mitrailleuses_. + +What were the thoughts of these people? What are they thinking +now?--for they are still there. What does it all mean to them? Do they +ever glance at the moving cord of the war map on the wall? Is this war +to them only a matter of a courtyard or a windmill? Of mud and the +upheaval of quiet lives? They appear to be waiting--for spring, +probably, and the end of hostilities; for spring and the planting of +crops, for quiet nights to sleep and days to labour. + +The young men are always at the front. They who are left express +confidence that these their sons and husbands will return. And yet in +the spring many of them ploughed shallow over battlefields. + +It had been planned to show me first a detail map of the places I was +to visit, and with this map before me to explain the present position +of the Belgian line along the embankment of the railroad from Nieuport +to Dixmude. The map was ready on a table in the officers' mess, a bare +room with three long tables of planks, to which a flight of half a +dozen steps led from the headquarters room below. + +Twilight had fallen by that time. It had commenced to rain. I could +see through the window heavy drops that stirred the green surface of +the moat at one side of the old building. On the wall hung the +advertisement of an American harvester, a reminder of more peaceful +days. The beating of the rain kept time to the story Captain F---- +told that night, bending over the map and tracing his country's ruin +with his forefinger. + +Much of it is already history. The surprise and fury of the Germans on +discovering that what they had considered a contemptible military +force was successfully holding them back until the English and French +Armies could get into the field; the policy of systematic terrorism +that followed this discovery; the unpreparedness of Belgium's allies, +which left this heroic little army practically unsupported for so long +against the German tidal wave. + +The great battle of the Yser is also history. I shall not repeat the +dramatic recital of the Belgian retreat to this point, fighting a +rear-guard engagement as they fell back before three times their +number; of the fury of the German onslaught, which engaged the entire +Belgian front, so that there was no rest, not a moment's cessation. In +one night at Dixmude the Germans made fifteen attacks. Is it any +wonder that two-thirds of Belgium's Army is gone? + +They had fought since the third of August. It was on the twenty-first +of October that they at last retired across the Yser and two days +later took up their present position at the railway embankment. On +that day, the twenty-third of October, the first French troops arrived +to assist them, some eighty-five hundred reaching Nieuport. + +It was the hope of the Belgians that, the French taking their places +on the line, they could retire for a time as reserves and get a little +rest. But the German attack continuing fiercely against the combined +armies of the Allies, the Belgians were forced to go into action +again, weary as they were, at the historic curve of the Yser, where +was fought the great battle of the war. At British Headquarters later +on I was given the casualties of that battle, when the invading German +Army flung itself again and again, for nineteen days, against the +forces of the Allies: The English casualties for that period were +forty-five thousand; the French, seventy thousand; the German, by +figures given out at Berlin, two hundred and fifty thousand. The +Belgian I do not know. + +"It was after that battle," said Captain F----, "that the German dead +were taken back and burned, to avoid pestilence." + +The Belgians had by this time reached the limit of their resources. It +was then that the sluices were opened and their fertile lowlands +flooded. + +On the thirty-first of October the water stopped the German advance +along the Belgian lines. As soon as they discovered what had been done +the Germans made terrific and furious efforts to get forward ahead of +it. They got into the towns of Ramscappelle and Pervyse, where furious +street fighting occurred. + +Pervyse was taken five times and lost five times. But all their +efforts failed. The remnant of the Belgian Army had retired to the +railroad embankment. The English and French lines held firm. + +For the time, at least, the German advance was checked. + +That was Captain F----'s story of the battle of the Yser. + +When he had finished he drew out of his pocket the diary of a German +officer killed at the Yser during the first days of the fighting, and +read it aloud. It is a great human document. I give here as nearly as +possible a literal translation. + +It was written during the first days of the great battle. For fifteen +days after he was killed the German offensive kept up. General Foch, +who commanded the French Army of the North during that time, described +their method to me. "The Germans came," he said, "like the waves of +the sea!" + + * * * * * + +The diary of a German officer, killed at the Yser:-- + +Twenty-fourth of October, 1914: + +"The battle goes on--we are trying to effect a crossing of the Yser. +Beginning at 5:45 P.M. the engineers go on preparing their bridging +materials. Marching quickly over the country, crossing fields and +ditches, we are exposed to continuous heavy fire. A spent bullet +strikes me in the back, just below the coat collar, but I am not +wounded. + +"Taking up a position near Vandewonde farm, we are able to obtain a +little shelter from the devastating fire of the enemy's artillery. How +terrible is our situation! By taking advantage of all available cover +we arrive at the fifth trench, where the artillery is in action and +rifle fire is incessant. We know nothing of the general situation. I +do not know where the enemy is, or what numbers are opposed to us, and +there seems no way of getting the desired information. + +"Everywhere along the line we are suffering heavy losses, altogether +out of proportion to the results obtained. The enemy's artillery is +too well sheltered, too strong; and as our own guns, fewer in number, +have not been able to silence those of the enemy, our infantry is +unable to make any advance. We are suffering heavy and useless losses. + +"The medical service on the field has been found very wanting. At +Dixmude, in one place, no less than forty frightfully wounded men were +left lying uncared, for. The medical corps is kept back on the other +side of the Yser without necessity. It is equally impossible to +receive water and rations in any regular way. + +"For several days now we have not tasted a warm meal; bread and other +things are lacking; our reserve rations are exhausted. The water is +bad, quite green, indeed; but all the same we drink it--we can get +nothing else. Man is brought down to the level of the brute beast. +Myself, I have nothing left to eat; I left what I had with me in the +saddlebags on my horse. In fact, we were not told what we should have +to do on this side of the Yser, and we did not know that our horses +would have to be left on the other side. That is why we could not +arrange things. + +"I am living on what other people, like true comrades, are willing to +give me, but even then my share is only very small. There is no +thought of changing our linen or our clothes in any way. It is an +incredible situation! On every hand farms and villages are burning. +How sad a spectacle, indeed, to see this magnificent region all in +ruins, wounded and dead lying everywhere all round." + +Twenty-fifth of October, 1914: + +"A relatively undisturbed night. The safety of the bridge over the +Yser has been assured for a time. The battle has gone on the whole day +long. We have not been given any definite orders. One would not think +this is Sunday. The infantry and artillery combat is incessant, but no +definite result is achieved. Nothing but losses in wounded and killed. +We shall try to get into touch with the sixth division of the Third +Reserve Army Corps on our right." + +Twenty-sixth of October, 1914: + +"What a frightful night has gone by! There was a terrible rainstorm. I +felt frozen. I remained standing knee-deep in water. To-day an +uninterrupted fusillade meets us in front. We shall throw a bridge +across the Yser, for the enemy's artillery has again destroyed one we +had previously constructed. + +"The situation is practically unchanged. No progress has been made in +spite of incessant fighting, in spite of the barking of the guns and +the cries of alarm of those human beings so uselessly killed. The +infantry is worthless until our artillery has silenced the enemy's +guns. Everywhere we must be losing heavily; our own company has +suffered greatly so far. The colonel, the major, and, indeed, many +other officers are already wounded; several are dead. + +"There has not yet been any chance of taking off our boots and washing +ourselves. The Sixth Division is ready, but its help is insufficient. +The situation is no clearer than before; we can learn nothing of what +is going on. Again we are setting off for wet trenches. Our regiment +is mixed up with other regiments in an inextricable fashion. No +battalion, no company, knows anything about where the other units of +the regiment are to be found. Everything is jumbled under this +terrible fire which enfilades from all sides. + +"There are numbers of _francs-tireurs_. Our second battalion is going +to be placed under the order of the Cyckortz Regiment, made up of +quite diverse units. Our old regiment is totally broken up. The +situation is terrible. To be under a hail of shot and shell, without +any respite, and know nothing whatever of one's own troops! + +"It is to be hoped that soon the situation will be improved. These +conditions cannot be borne very much longer. I am hopeless. The +battalion is under the command of Captain May, and I am reduced to +acting as _Fourier_. It is not at all an easy thing to do in our +present frightful situation. In the black night soldiers must be sent +some distance in order to get and bring back the food so much needed +by their comrades. They have brought back, too, cards and letters from +those we love. What a consolation in our cheerless situation! We +cannot have a light, however, so we are forced to put into our +pockets, unread, the words of comfort sent by our dear ones--we have +to wait till the following morning. + +"So we spend the night again on straw, huddled up close one to another +in order to keep warm. It is horribly cold and damp. All at once a +violent rattle of rifle fire raises us for the combat; hastily we get +ready, shivering, almost frozen." + +Twenty-seventh of October, 1914: + +"At dawn I take advantage of a few moments' respite to read over the +kind wishes which have come from home. What happiness! Soon, however, +the illusion leaves me. The situation here is still all confusion; we +cannot think of advancing--" + +The last sentence is a broken one. For he died. + + * * * * * + +Morning came and he read his letters from home. They cheered him a +little; we can be glad of that, at least. And then he died. + +That record is a great human document. It is absolutely genuine. He +was starving and cold. As fast as they built a bridge to get back it +was destroyed. From three sides he and the others with him were being +shelled. He must have known what the inevitable end would be. But he +said very little. And then he died. + +There were other journels taken from the bodies of other German +officers at that terrible battle of the Yser. They speak of it as a +"hell"--a place of torment and agony impossible to describe. Some of +them I have seen. There is nowhere in the world a more pitiful or +tragic or thought-compelling literature than these diaries of German +officers thrust forward without hope and waiting for the end. + +At six o'clock it was already entirely dark and raining hard. Even in +the little town the machine was deep in mud. I got in and we started +off again, moving steadily toward the front. Captain F---- had brought +with him a box of biscuits, large, square, flaky crackers, which were +to be my dinner until some time in the night. He had an electric flash +and a map. The roads were horrible; it was impossible to move rapidly. +Here and there a sentry's lantern would show him standing on the edge +of a flooded field. The car careened, righted itself and kept on. As +the roads became narrower it was impossible to pass another vehicle. +The car drew out at crossroads here and there to allow transports to +get by. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE IRON DIVISION + + +It was bitterly cold, and the dead officer's diary weighed on my +spirit. The two officers in the machine pored over the map; I sat +huddled in my corner. I had come a long distance to do the thing I was +doing. But my enthusiasm for it had died. I wished I had not heard the +diary. + +"At dawn I take advantage of a few moments' respite to read over the +kind wishes which have come from home. What happiness!" And then he +died. + +The car jolted on. + +The soldier and the military chauffeur out in front were drenched. The +wind hurled the rain at them like bullets. We were getting close to +the front. There were shellholes now, great ruts into which the car +dropped and pulled out again with a jerk. + +Then at last a huddle of dark houses and a sentry's challenge. The car +stopped and we got out. Again there were seas of mud, deeper even than +before. I had reached the headquarters of the Third Division of the +Belgian Army, commonly known as the Iron Division, so nicknamed for +its heroic work in this war. + +The headquarters building was ironically called the "chateau." It had +been built by officers and men, of fresh boards and lined neatly +inside with newspapers. Some of them were illustrated French papers. +It had much the appearance of a Western shack during the early days of +the gold fever. On one of the walls was a war map of the Eastern +front, the line a cord fastened into place with flag pins. The last +time I had seen such a map of the Eastern front was in the Cabinet +Room at Washington. + +A large stove in the centre of the room heated the building, which was +both light and warm. Some fifteen officers received us. I was the only +woman who had been so near the front, for out here there are no +nurses. One by one they were introduced and bowed. There were fifteen +hosts and extremely few guests! + +Having had telephone notice of our arrival, they showed me how +carefully they had prepared for it. The long desk was in beautiful +order; floors gleamed snow white; the lamp chimneys were polished. +There were sandwiches and tea ready to be served. + +In one room was the telephone exchange, which connected the +headquarters with every part of the line. In another, a long line of +American typewriters and mimeographing machines wrote out and copied +the orders which were regularly distributed to the front. + +"Will you see our museum?" said a tall officer, who spoke beautiful +English. His mother was an Englishwoman. So I was taken into another +room and shown various relics of the battlefield--pieces of shells, +rifles and bullets. + +"Early German shells," said the officer who spoke English, "were like +this. You see how finely they splintered. The later ones are not so +good; the material is inferior, and here is an aluminum nose which +shows how scarce copper is becoming in Germany to-day." + +I have often thought of that visit to the "chateau," of the beautiful +courtesy of those Belgian officers, their hospitality, their eagerness +to make an American woman comfortable and at home. And I was to have +still further proof of their kindly feeling, for when toward daylight +I came back from the trenches they were still up, the lamps were still +burning brightly, the stove was red hot and cheerful, and they had +provided food for us against the chill of the winter dawn. Out through +the mud and into the machine again. And now we were very near the +trenches. The car went without lights and slowly. A foot off the +centre of the road would have made an end to the excursion. + +We began to pass men, long lines of them standing in the drenching +rain to let us by. They crowded close against the car to avoid the +seas of mud. Sometimes they grumbled a little, but mostly they were +entirely silent. That is the thing that impressed me always about the +lines of soldiers I saw going to and from the trenches--their silence. +Even their feet made no noise. They loomed up like black shadows which +the night swallowed immediately. + +The car stopped again. We had made another leg of the journey. And +this time our destination was a church. We were close behind the +trenches now and our movements were made with extreme caution. Captain +F---- piloted me through the mud. + +"We will go quietly," he said. "Many of them are doubtless sleeping; +they are but just out of the trenches and very tired." + +Now and then one encounters in this war a picture that cannot be +painted. Such a picture is that little church just behind the Belgian +lines at L----. There are no pews, of course, in Continental churches. +The chairs had been piled up in a corner near the altar, and on the +stone floor thus left vacant had been spread quantities of straw. +Lying on the straw and covered by their overcoats were perhaps two +hundred Belgian soldiers. They lay huddled close together for warmth; +the mud of the trenches still clung to them. The air was heavy with +the odour of damp straw. + +The high vaulted room was a cave of darkness. The only lights were +small flat candles here and there, stuck in saucers or on haversacks +just above the straw. These low lights, so close to the floor, fell on +the weary faces of sleeping men, accentuating the shadows, bringing +pinched nostrils into relief, showing lines of utter fatigue and +exhaustion. + +But the picture was not all sombre. Here were four men playing cards +under an image of Our Lady, which was just overhead. They were muffled +against the cold and speaking in whispers. In a far corner a soldier +sat alone, cross-legged, writing by the light of a candle. His letter +rested on a flat loaf of bread, which was his writing table. Another +soldier had taken a loaf of bread for his pillow and was comfortably +asleep on it. + +Captain F---- led the way through the church. He stepped over the men +carefully. When they roused and looked up they would have risen to +salute, but he told them to lie still. + +It was clear that the relationship between the Belgian officers and +their troops was most friendly. Not only in that little church at +midnight, but again and again I have seen the same thing. The officers +call their men their "little soldiers," and eye them with affection. + +One boy insisted on rising and saluting. He was very young, and on his +chin was the straggly beard of his years. The Captain stooped, and +lifting a candle held it to his face. + +"The handsomest beard in the Belgian Army!" he said, and the men round +chuckled. + +And so it went, a word here, a nod there, an apology when we disturbed +one of the sleepers. + +"They are but boys," said the Captain, and sighed. For each day there +were fewer of them who returned to the little church to sleep. + +On the way back to the car, making our way by means of the Captain's +electric flash through the crowded graveyard, he turned to me. + +"When you write of this, madame," he said, "you will please not +mention the location of this church. So far it has escaped--perhaps +because it is small. But the churches always suffer." + +I regretted this. So many of the churches are old and have the +interest of extreme age, even when they are architecturally +insignificant. But I found these officers very fair, just as I had +found the King of the Belgians disinclined to condemn the entire +German Army for the brutalities of a part of it. + +"There is no reason why churches should not be destroyed if they are +serving military purposes," one of them said. "When a church tower +shelters a gun, or is used for observations, it is quite legitimate +that it be subject to artillery fire. That is a necessity of war." + +We moved cautiously. Behind the church was a tiny cluster of small +houses. The rain had ceased, but the electric flashlight showed great +pools of water, through which we were obliged to walk. The hamlet was +very silent--not a dog barked. There were no dogs. + +I do not recall seeing any dogs at any time along the front, except at +La Panne. What has become of them? There were cats in the destroyed +towns, cats even in the trenches. But there were no dogs. It is not +because the people are not fond of dogs. Dunkirk was full of them when +I was there. The public square resounded with their quarrels and noisy +playing. They lay there in the sun and slept, and ambulances turned +aside in their headlong career to avoid running them down. But the +villages along the front were silent. + +I once asked an officer what had become of the dogs. + +"The soldiers eat them!" he said soberly. + +I heard the real explanation later. The strongest dogs had been +commandeered for the army, and these brave dogs of Flanders, who have +always laboured, are now drawing _mitrailleuses_, as I saw them at +L----. The little dogs must be fed, and there is no food to spare. And +so the children, over whose heads passes unheeded the real +significance of this drama that is playing about them, have their own +small tragedies these days. + +We got into the car again and it moved off. With every revolution of +the engine we were advancing toward that sinister line that borders No +Man's Land. We were very close. The road paralleled the trenches, and +shelling had begun again. + +It was not close, and no shells dropped in our vicinity. But the low, +horizontal red streaks of the German guns were plainly visible. + +With the cessation of the rain had begun again the throwing over the +Belgian trenches of the German magnesium flares, which the British +call starlights. The French call them _fusees_. Under any name I do +not like them. One moment one is advancing in a comfortable obscurity. +The next instant it is the Fourth of July, with a white rocket +bursting overhead. There is no noise, however. The thing is +miraculously beautiful, silent and horrible. I believe the light +floats on a sort of tiny parachute. For perhaps sixty seconds it hangs +low in the air, throwing all the flat landscape into clear relief. + +I do not know if one may read print under these _fusees_. I never had +either the courage or the print for the experiment. But these eyes of +the night open and close silently all through the hours of darkness. +They hang over the trenches, reveal the movements of troops on the +roads behind, shine on ammunition trains and ambulances, on the +righteous and the unrighteous. All along the German lines these +_fusees_ go up steadily. I have seen a dozen in the air at once. Their +silence and the eternal vigilance which they reveal are most +impressive. On the quietest night, with only an occasional shot being +fired, the horizon is ringed with them. + +And on the horizon they are beautiful. Overhead they are distinctly +unpleasant. + +"They are very uncomfortable," I said to Captain F----. "The Germans +can see us plainly, can't they?" + +"But that is what they are for," he explained. "All movements of +troops and ammunition trains to and from the trenches are made during +the night, so they watch us very carefully." + +"How near are we to the trenches?" I asked. + +"Very near, indeed." + +"To the first line?" + +For I had heard that there were other lines behind, and with the +cessation of the rain my courage was rising. Nothing less than the +first line was to satisfy me. + +"To the first line," he said, and smiled. + +The wind which had driven the rain in sheets against the car had blown +the storm away. The moon came out, a full moon. From the car I could +see here and there the gleam of the inundation. The road was +increasingly bad, with shell holes everywhere. Buildings loomed out of +the night, roofless and destroyed. The _fusees_ rose and burst +silently overhead; the entire horizon seemed encircled with them. We +were so close to the German lines that we could see an electric signal +sending its message of long and short flashes, could even see the +reply. It seemed to me most unmilitary. + +"Any one who knew telegraphy and German could read that message," I +protested. + +"It is not so simple as that. It is a cipher code, and is probably +changed daily." + +Nevertheless, the officers in the car watched the signalling closely, +and turning, surveyed the country behind us. In so flat a region, with +trees and shrubbery cut down and houses razed, even a pocket flash can +send a signal to the lines of the enemy. And such signals are sent. +The German spy system is thorough and far-reaching. + +I have gone through Flanders near the lines at various times at night. +It is a dead country apparently. There are destroyed houses, sodden +fields, ditches lipful of water. But in the most amazing fashion +lights spring up and disappear. Follow one of these lights and you +find nothing but a deserted farm, or a ruined barn, or perhaps nothing +but a field of sugar beets dying in the ground. + +Who are these spies? Are they Belgians and French, driven by the ruin +of everything they possess to selling out to the enemy? I think not. +It is much more probable that they are Germans who slip through the +lines in some uncanny fashion, wading and swimming across the +inundation, crawling flat where necessary, and working, an inch at a +time, toward the openings between the trenches. Frightful work, of +course. Impossible work, too, if the popular idea of the trenches were +correct--that is, that they form one long, communicating ditch from +the North Sea to Switzerland! They do not, of course. There are blank +spaces here and there, fully controlled by the trenches on either +side, and reenforced by further trenches behind. But with a knowledge +of where these openings lie it is possible to work through. + +Possible, not easy. And there is no mercy for a captured spy. + +The troops who had been relieved were moving out of the trenches. Our +progress became extremely slow. The road was lined with men. They +pressed their faces close to the glass of the car and laughed and +talked a little among themselves. Some of them were bandaged. Their +white bandages gleamed in the moonlight. Here and there, as they +passed, one blew on his fingers, for the wind was bitterly cold. + +"In a few moments we must get out and walk," I was told. "Is madame a +good walker?" + +I said I was a good walker. I had a strong feeling that two or three +people might walk along that road under those starlights much more +safely and inconspicuously than an automobile could move. For +automobiles at the front mean generals as a rule, and are always +subject to attack. + +Suddenly the car stopped and a voice called to us sharply. There were +soldiers coming up a side road. I was convinced that we had surprised +an attack, and were in the midst of the German advance. One of the +officers flung the door open and looked out. + +But we were only on the wrong road, and must get into reverse and turn +the machine even closer to the front. I know now that there was no +chance of a German attack at that point, that my fears were absurd. +Nevertheless, so keen was the tension that for quite ten minutes my +heart raced madly. + +On again. The officers in the car consulted the map and, having +decided on the route, fell into conversation. The officer of the Third +Division, whose mother had been English, had joined the party. He had +been on the staff of General Leman at the time of the capture of +Liege, and he told me of the sensational attempt made by the Germans +to capture the General. + +"I was upstairs with him at headquarters," he said, "when word came up +that eight Englishmen had just entered the building with a request to +see him. I was suspicious and we started down the staircase together. +The 'Englishmen' were in the hallway below. As we appeared on the +stairs the man in advance put his hand in his pocket and drew a +revolver. They were dressed in civilians' clothes, but I saw at once +that they were German. + +"I was fortunate in getting my revolver out first, and shot down the +man in advance. There was a struggle, in which the General made his +escape and all of the eight were either killed or taken prisoners. +They were uhlans, two officers and six privates." + +"It was very brave," I said. "A remarkable exploit." + +"Very brave indeed," he agreed with me. "They are all very brave, the +Germans." + +Captain F---- had been again consulting his map. Now he put it away. + +"Brave but brutal," he said briefly. "I am of the Third Division. I +have watched the German advance protected by women and children. In +the fighting the civilians fell first. They had no weapons. It was +terrible. It is the German system," he went on, "which makes +everything of the end, and nothing at all of the means. It is seen in +the way they have sacrificed their own troops." + +"They think you are equally brutal," I said. "The German soldiers +believe that they will have their eyes torn out if they are captured." + +I cited a case I knew of, where a wounded German had hidden in the +inundation for five days rather than surrender to the horrors he +thought were waiting for him. When he was found and taken to a +hospital his long days in the water had brought on gangrene and he +could not be saved. + +"They have been told that to make them fight more savagely," was the +comment. "What about the official German order for a campaign of +'frightfulness' in Belgium?" + +And here, even while the car is crawling along toward the trenches, +perhaps it is allowable to explain the word "frightfulness," which now +so permeates the literature of the war. Following the scenes of the +German invasion into Belgium, where here and there some maddened +civilian fired on the German troops and precipitated the deaths of his +townsmen,[C] Berlin issued, on August twenty-seventh, a declaration, +of which this paragraph is a part: + +[Footnote C: The Belgians contend that, in almost every case, such +firing by civilians was the result of attack on their women.] + +"The only means of preventing surprise attacks from the civil +population has been to interfere with unrelenting severity and to +create examples which, by their frightfulness, would be a warning to +the whole country." + +A Belgian officer once quoted it to me, with a comment. + +"This is not an order to the army. It is an attempt at justification +for the very acts which Berlin is now attempting to deny!" + +That is how "frightfulness" came into the literature of the war. + +Captain F---- stopped the car. Near the road was a ruin of an old +church. + +"In that church," he said, "our soldiers were sleeping when the +Germans, evidently informed by a spy, began to shell it. The first +shot smashed that house there, twenty-five yards away; the second shot +came through the roof and struck one of the supporting pillars, +bringing the roof down. Forty-six men were killed and one hundred and +nine wounded." + +He showed me the grave from a window of the car, a great grave in +front of the church, with a wooden cross on it. It was too dark to +read the inscription, but he told me what it said: + +"Here lie forty-six _chasseurs_." Beneath are the names, one below the +other in two columns, and underneath all: "_Morts pour la Patrie_." + +We continued to advance. Our lamps were out, but the _fusees_ made +progress easy. And there was the moon. We had left behind us the lines +of the silent men. The scene was empty, desolate. Suddenly we stopped +by a low brick house, a one-story building with overhanging eaves. +Sentries with carbines stood under the eaves, flattened against the +wall for shelter from the biting wind. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AT THE HOUSE OF THE BARRIER + + +A narrow path led up to the house. It was flanked on both sides by +barbed wire, and progress through it was slow. The wind caught my rain +cape and tore it against the barbs. I had to be disentangled. The +sentries saluted, and the low door, through which the officers were +obliged to stoop to enter, was opened by an orderly from within. + +We entered The House of the Mill of Saint ----. + +The House of the Mill of Saint ---- was less pretentious than its +name. Even at its best it could not have been imposing. Now, partially +destroyed and with its windows carefully screened inside by grain +sacks nailed to the frames for fear of a betraying ray of light, it +was not beautiful. But it was hospitable. A hanging lamp in its one +livable room, a great iron stove, red and comforting, and a large +round table under the lamp made it habitable and inviting. It was +Belgian artillery headquarters, and I was to meet here Colonel +Jacques, one of the military idols of Belgium, the hero of the Congo, +and now in charge of Belgian batteries. In addition, since it was +midnight, we were to sup here. + +We were expected, and Colonel Jacques himself waited inside the +living-room door. A tall man, as are almost all the Belgian +officers--which is curious, considering that the troops seem to be +rather under average size--he greeted us cordially. I fancied that +behind his urbanity there was the glimmer of an amused smile. But his +courtesy was beautiful. He put me near the fire and took the next +chair himself. + +I had a good chance to observe him. He is no longer a young man, and +beyond a certain military erectness and precision in his movements +there is nothing to mark him the great soldier he has shown himself to +be. + +"We are to have supper," he said smilingly in French. "Provided you +have brought something to eat with you!" + +"We have brought it," said Captain F----. + +The officers of the staff came in and were formally presented. There +was much clicking of heels, much deep and courteous bowing. Then +Captain F---- produced his box of biscuits, and from a capacious +pocket of his army overcoat a tin of bully beef. The House of the Mill +of Saint ---- contributed a bottle of thin white native wine and, +triumphantly, a glass. There are not many glasses along the front. + +There was cheese too. And at the end of the meal Colonel Jacques, with +great _empressement_, laid before me a cake of sweet chocolate. + +I had to be shown the way to use the bully beef. One of the hard flat +biscuits was split open, spread with butter and then with the beef in +a deep layer. It was quite good, but what with excitement and fatigue +I was not hungry. Everybody ate; everybody talked; and, after asking +my permission, everybody smoked. I sat near the stove and dried my +steaming boots. + +Afterward I remembered that with all the conversation there was very +little noise. Our voices were subdued. Probably we might have cheered +in that closed and barricaded house without danger. But the sense of +the nearness of the enemy was over us all, and the business of war was +not forgotten. There were men who came, took orders and went away. +There were maps on the walls and weapons in every corner. Even the +sacking that covered the windows bespoke caution and danger. + +Here it was too near the front for the usual peasant family huddled +round its stove in the kitchen, and looking with resignation on these +strange occupants of their house. The humble farm buildings outside +were destroyed. + +I looked round the room; a picture or two still hung on the walls, and +a crucifix. There is always a crucifix in these houses. There was a +carbine just beneath this one. + +Inside of one of the picture frames one of the Colonel's medals had +been placed, as if for safety. + +Colonel Jacques sat at the head of the table and beamed at us all. He +has behind him many years of military service. He has been decorated +again and again for bravery. But, perhaps, when this war is over and +he has time to look back he will smile over that night supper with the +first woman he had seen for months, under the rumble of his own and +the German batteries. + +It was time to go to the advance trenches. But before we left one of +the officers who had accompanied me rose and took a folded paper from +a pocket of his tunic. He was smiling. + +"I shall read," he said, "a little tribute from one of Colonel +Jacques' soldiers to him." + +So we listened. Colonel Jacques sat and smiled; but he is a modest +man, and his fingers were beating a nervous tattoo on the table. The +young officer stood and read, glancing up now and then to smile at his +chief's embarrassment. The wind howled outside, setting the sacks at +the windows to vibrating. + +This is a part of the poem: + + _III_ + + "_Comme chef nous avons l'homme a la hauteur + Un homme aime et adore de tous + L'Colonel Jacques; de lui les hommes sont fous + En lui nous voyons l'embleme de l'honneur. + Des compagnes il en a des tas: En Afrique + Haecht et Dixmude, Ramsdonck et Sart-Tilmau + Et toujours premier et toujours en avant + Toujours en tet' de son beau regiment, + Toujours railleur + Chef au grand coeur_. + + _REFRAIN_ + "_L'Colo du 12me passe + Regardez ce vaillant + Quand il crie dans l'espace + Joyeus'ment 'En avant!' + Ses hommes, la mine heureuse + Gaiment suivent sa trace + Sur la route glorieuse. + Saluez-le, l'Colo du 12me passe_. + + "_AD. DAUVISTER_, + "SOUS-LIEUTENANT." + +We applauded. It is curious to remember how cheerful we were, how warm +and comfortable, there at the House of the Mill of Saint ----, with +war only a step away now. Curious, until we think that, of all the +created world, man is the most adaptable. Men and horses! Which is as +it should be now, with both men and horses finding themselves in +strange places, indeed, and somehow making the best of it. + +The copy of the poem, which had been printed at the front, probably on +an American hand press, was given to me with Colonel Jacques' +signature on the back, and we prepared to go. There was much donning +of heavy wraps, much bowing and handshaking. Colonel Jacques saw us +out into the wind-swept night. Then the door of the little house +closed again, and we were on our way through the barricade. + +Until now our excursion to the trenches, aside from the discomfort of +the weather and the mud, had been fairly safe, although there was +always the chance of a shell. To that now was to be added a fresh +hazard--the sniping that goes on all night long. + +Our car moved quietly for a mile, paralleling the trenches. Then it +stopped. The rest of the journey was to be on foot. + +All traces of the storm had passed, except for the pools of mud, +which, gleaming like small lakes, filled shell holes in the road. An +ammunition lorry had drawn up in the shadow of a hedge and was +cautiously unloading. Evidently the night's movement of troops was +over, for the roads were empty. + +A few feet beyond the lorry we came up to the trenches. We were behind +them, only head and shoulders above. + +There was no sign of life or movement, except for the silent _fusees_ +that burst occasionally a little to our right. Walking was bad. The +Belgian blocks of the road were coated with slippery mud, and from +long use and erosion the stones themselves were rounded, so that our +feet slipped over them. At the right was a shallow ditch three or four +feet wide. Immediately beyond that was the railway embankment where, +as Captain F---- had explained, the Belgian Army had taken up its +position after being driven back across the Yser. + +The embankment loomed shoulder high, and between it and the ditch were +the trenches. There was no sound from them, but sentries halted us +frequently. On such occasions the party stopped abruptly--for here +sentries are apt to fire first and investigate afterward--and one +officer advanced with the password. + +There is always something grim and menacing about the attitude of the +sentry as he waits on such occasions. His carbine is not over his +shoulder, but in his hands, ready for use. The bayonet gleams. His +eyes are fixed watchfully on the advance. A false move, and his +overstrained nerves may send the carbine to his shoulder. + +We walked just behind the trenches in the moonlight for a mile. No one +said anything. The wind was icy. Across the railroad embankment it +chopped the inundation into small crested waves. Only by putting one's +head down was it possible to battle ahead. From Dixmude came the +intermittent red flashes of guns. But the trenches beside us were +entirely silent. + +At the end of a mile we stopped. The road turned abruptly to the right +and crossed the railroad embankment, and at this crossing was the ruin +of what had been the House of the Barrier, where in peaceful times the +crossing tender lived. + +It had been almost destroyed. The side toward the German lines was +indeed a ruin, but one room was fairly whole. However, the door had +been shot away. To enter, it was necessary to lift away an +extemporised one of planks roughly nailed together, which leaned +against the aperture. + +The moving of the door showed more firelight, and a very small, shaded +and smoky lamp on a stand. There were officers here again. The little +house is slightly in front of the advanced trenches, and once inside +it was possible to realise its exposed position. Standing as it does +on the elevation of the railroad, it is constantly under fire. It is +surrounded by barbed wire and flanked by trenches in which are +_mitrailleuses_. + +The walls were full of shell holes, stuffed with sacks of straw or +boarded over. What had been windows were now jagged openings, +similarly closed. The wind came through steadily, smoking the chimney +of the lamp and making the flame flicker. + +There was one chair. + +I wish I could go farther. I wish I could say that shells were +bursting overhead, and that I sat calmly in the one chair and made +notes. I sat, true enough, but I sat because I was tired and my feet +were wet. And instead of making notes I examined my new six-guinea +silk rubber rain cape for barbed-wire tears. Not a shell came near. +The German battery across had ceased firing at dusk that evening, and +was playing pinochle four hundred yards away across the inundation. +The snipers were writing letters home. + +It is true that any time an artilleryman might lose a game and go out +and fire a gun to vent his spleen or to keep his hand in. And the +snipers might begin to notice that the rain was over, and that there +was suspicious activity at the House of the Barrier. And, to take away +the impression of perfect peace, big guns were busy just north and +south of us. Also, just where we were the Germans had made a terrific +charge three nights before to capture an outpost. But the fact remains +that I brought away not even a bullet hole through the crown of my +soft felt hat. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES + + +When I had been thawed out they took me into the trenches. Because of +the inundation directly in front, they are rather shallow, and at this +point were built against the railroad embankment with earth, boards, +and here and there a steel rail from the track. Some of them were +covered, too, but not with bombproof material. The tops were merely +shelters from the rain and biting wind. + +The men lay or sat in them--it was impossible to stand. Some of them +were like tiny houses into which the men crawled from the rear, and by +placing a board, which served as a door, managed to keep out at least +a part of the bitter wind. + +In the first trench I was presented to a bearded major. He was lying +flat and apologised for not being able to rise. There was a machine +gun beside him. He told me with some pride that it was an American +gun, and that it never jammed. When a machine gun jams the man in +charge of it dies and his comrades die, and things happen with great +rapidity. On the other side of him was a cat, curled up and sound +asleep. There was a telephone instrument there. It was necessary to +step over the wire that was stretched along the ground. + +All night long he lies there with his gun, watching for the first +movement in the trenches across. For here, at the House of the +Barrier, has taken place some of the most furious fighting of this +part of the line. + +In the next division of the trench were three men. They were cleaning +and oiling their rifles round a candle. + +The surprise of all of these men at seeing a woman was almost absurd. +Word went down the trenches that a woman was visiting. Heads popped +out and cautious comments were made. It was concluded that I was +visiting royalty, but the excitement died when it was discovered that +I was not the Queen. Now and then, when a trench looked clean and dry, +I was invited in. It was necessary to get down and crawl in on hands +and knees. + +Here was a man warming his hands over a tiny fire kindled in a tin +pail. He had bored holes in the bottom of the pail for air, and was +shielding the glow carefully with his overcoat. + +Many people have written about the trenches--the mud, the odours, the +inhumanity of compelling men to live under such foul conditions. +Nothing that they have said can be too strong. Under the best +conditions the life is ghastly, horrible, impossible. + +That night, when from a semi-shielded position I could look across to +the German line, the contrast between the condition of the men in the +trenches and the beauty of the scenery was appalling. In each +direction, as far as one could see, lay a gleaming lagoon of water. +The moon made a silver path across it, and here and there on its +borders were broken and twisted winter trees. + +"It is beautiful," said Captain F----, beside me, in a low voice. "But +it is full of the dead. They are taken out whenever it is possible; +but it is not often possible." + +"And when there is an attack the attacking side must go through the +water?" + +"Not always, but in many places." + +"What will happen if it freezes over?" + +He explained that it was salt water, and would not freeze easily. And +the cold of that part of the country is not the cold of America in the +same latitude. It is not a cold of low temperature; it is a damp, +penetrating cold that goes through garments of every weight and seems +to chill the very blood in a man's body. + +"How deep is the water?" I asked. + +"It varies--from two to eight feet. Here it is shallow." + +"I should think they would come over." + +"The water is full of barbed wire," he said grimly. "And some, a great +many, have tried--and failed." + +As of the trenches, many have written of the stenches of this war. But +the odour of that beautiful lagoon was horrible. I do not care to +emphasize it. It is one of the things best forgotten. But any +lingering belief I may have had in the grandeur and glory of war died +that night beside that silver lake--died of an odour, and will never +live again. + +And now came a discussion. + +The road crossing the railroad embankment turned sharply to the left +and proceeded in front of the trenches. There was no shelter on that +side of the embankment. The inundation bordered the road, and just +beyond the inundation were the German trenches. + +There were no trees, no shrubbery, no houses; just a flat road, paved +with Belgian blocks, that gleamed in the moonlight. + +At last the decision was made. We would go along the road, provided I +realised from the first that it was dangerous. One or two could walk +there with a good chance for safety, but not more. The little group +had been augmented. It must break up; two might walk together, and +then two a safe distance behind. Four would certainly be fired on. + +I wanted to go. It was not a matter of courage. I had simply, +parrot-fashion, mimicked the attitude of mind of the officers. One +after another I had seen men go into danger with a shrug of the +shoulders. + +"If it comes it comes!" they said, and went on. So I, too, had become +a fatalist. If I was to be shot it would happen, if I had to buy a +rifle and try to clean it myself to fulfil my destiny. + +So they let me go. I went farther than they expected, as it turned +out. There was a great deal of indignation and relief when it was +over. But that is later on. + +A very tall Belgian officer took me in charge. It was necessary to +work through a barbed-wire barricade, twisting and turning through its +mazes. The moonlight helped. It was at once a comfort and an anxiety, +for it seemed to me that my khaki-coloured suit gleamed in it. The +Belgian officers in their dark blue were less conspicuous. I thought +they had an unfair advantage of me, and that it was idiotic of the +British to wear and advocate anything so absurd as khaki. My cape +ballooned like a sail in the wind. I felt at least double my ordinary +size, and that even a sniper with a squint could hardly miss me. And, +by way of comfort, I had one last instruction before I started: + +"If a _fusee_ goes up, stand perfectly still. If you move they will +fire." + +The entire safety of the excursion depended on a sort of tacit +agreement that, in part at least, obtains as to sentries. + +This is a new warfare, one of artillery, supported by infantry in +trenches. And it has been necessary to make new laws for it. One of +the most curious is a sort of _modus vivendi_ by which each side +protects its own sentries by leaving the enemy's sentries unmolested +so long as there is no active fighting. They are always in plain view +before the trenches. In case of a charge they are the first to be +shot, of course. But long nights and days have gone by along certain +parts of the front where the hostile trenches are close together, and +the sentries, keeping their monotonous lookout, have been undisturbed. + +No doubt by this time the situation has changed to a certain extent; +there has been more active fighting, larger bodies of men are +involved. The spring floods south of the inundation will have dried +up. No Man's Land will have ceased to be a swamp and the deadlock may +be broken. + +But on that February night I put my faith in this agreement, and it +held. + +The tall Belgian officer asked me if I was frightened. I said I was +not. This was not exactly the truth; but it was no time for the truth. + +"They are not shooting," I said. "It looks perfectly safe." + +He shrugged his shoulders and glanced toward the German trenches. + +"They have been sleeping during the rain," he said briefly. "But when +one of them wakes up, look out!" + +After that there was little conversation, and what there was was in +whispers. + +As we proceeded the stench from the beautiful moonlit water grew +overpowering. The officer told me the reason. + +A little farther along a path of fascines had been built out over the +inundation to an outpost halfway to the German trenches. The building +of this narrow roadway had cost many lives. + +Half a mile along the road we were sharply challenged by a sentry. +When he had received the password he stood back and let us pass. +Alone, in that bleak and exposed position in front of the trenches, +always in full view as he paced back and forward, carbine on shoulder, +with not even a tree trunk or a hedge for shelter, the first to go at +the whim of some German sniper or at any indication of an attack, he +was a pathetic, almost a tragic, figure. He looked very young too. I +stopped and asked him in a whisper how old he was. + +He said he was nineteen! + +He may have been. I know something about boys, and I think he was +seventeen at the most. There are plenty of boys of that age doing just +what that lad was doing. + +Afterward I learned that it was no part of the original plan to take a +woman over the fascine path to the outpost; that Captain F---- ground +his teeth in impotent rage when he saw where I was being taken. But it +was not possible to call or even to come up to us. So, blithely and +unconsciously the tall Belgian officer and I turned to the right, and +I was innocently on my way to the German trenches. + +After a little I realised that this was rather more war than I had +expected. The fascines were slippery; the path only four or five feet +wide. On each side was the water, hideous with many secrets. + +I stopped, a third of the way out, and looked back. It looked about as +dangerous in one direction as another. So we went on. Once I slipped +and fell. And now, looming out of the moonlight, I could see the +outpost which was the object of our visit. + +I have always been grateful to that Belgian lieutenant for his +mistake. Just how grateful I might have been had anything untoward +happened, I cannot say. But the excursion was worth all the risk, and +more. + +On a bit of high ground stands what was once the tiny hamlet of +Oudstuyvenskerke--the ruins of two small white houses and the tower of +the destroyed church--hardly a tower any more, for only three sides of +it are standing and they are riddled with great shell holes. + +Six hundred feet beyond this tower were the German trenches. The +little island was hardly a hundred feet in its greatest dimension. + +I wish I could make those people who think that war is good for a +country see that Belgian outpost as I saw it that night under the +moonlight. Perhaps we were under suspicion; I do not know. Suddenly +the _fusees_, which had ceased for a time, began again, and with their +white light added to that of the moon the desolate picture of that +tiny island was a picture of the war. There was nothing lacking. There +was the beauty of the moonlit waters, there was the tragedy of the +destroyed houses and the church, and there was the horror of unburied +bodies. + +There was heroism, too, of the kind that will make Belgium live in +history. For in the top of that church tower for months a Capuchin +monk has held his position alone and unrelieved. He has a telephone, +and he gains access to his position in the tower by means of a rope +ladder which he draws up after him. + +Furious fighting has taken place again and again round the base of the +tower. The German shells assail it constantly. But when I left Belgium +the Capuchin monk, who has become a soldier, was still on duty; still +telephoning the ranges of the gun; still notifying headquarters of +German preparations for a charge. + +Some day the church tower will fall and he will go with it, or it will +be captured; one or the other is inevitable. Perhaps it has already +happened; for not long ago I saw in the newspapers that furious +fighting was taking place at this very spot. + +He came down and I talked to him--a little man, regarding his +situation as quite ordinary, and looking quaintly unpriestlike in his +uniform of a Belgian officer with its tasselled cap. Some day a great +story will be written of these priests of Belgium who have left their +churches to fight. + +We spoke in whispers. There was after all very little to say. It would +have embarrassed him horribly had any one told him that he was a +heroic figure. And the ordinary small talk is not currency in such a +situation. + +We shook hands and I think I wished him luck. Then he went back again +to the long hours and days of waiting. + +I passed under his telephone wires. Some day he will telephone that a +charge is coming. He will give all the particulars calmly, concisely. +Then the message will break off abruptly. He will have sent his last +warning. For that is the way these men at the advance posts die. + +As we started again I was no longer frightened. Something of his +courage had communicated itself to me, his courage and his philosophy, +perhaps his faith. + +The priest had become a soldier; but he was still a priest in his +heart. For he had buried the German dead in one great grave before the +church, and over them had put the cross of his belief. + +It was rather absurd on the way back over the path of death to be +escorted by a cat. It led the way over the fascines, treading daintily +and cautiously. Perhaps one of the destroyed houses at the outpost had +been its home, and with a cat's fondness for places it remained there, +though everything it knew had gone; though battle and sudden death had +usurped the place of its peaceful fireside, though that very fireside +was become a heap of stone and plaster, open to winds and rain. + +Again and again in destroyed towns I have seen these forlorn cats +stalking about, trying vainly to adjust themselves to new conditions, +cold and hungry and homeless. + +We were challenged repeatedly on the way back. Coming from the +direction we did we were open to suspicion. It was necessary each time +to halt some forty feet from the sentry, who stood with his rifle +pointed at us. Then the officer advanced with the word. + +Back again, then, along the road, past the youthful sentry, past other +sentries, winding through the barbed-wire barricade, and at last, +quite whole, to the House of the Barrier again. We had walked three +miles in front of the Belgian advanced trenches, in full view of the +Germans. There had been no protecting hedge or bank or tree between us +and that ominous line two hundred yards across. And nothing whatever +had happened. + +Captain F---- was indignant. The officers in the House of the Barrier +held up their hands. For men such a risk was legitimate, necessary. In +a woman it was foolhardy. Nevertheless, now that it was safely over, +they were keenly interested and rather amused. But I have learned that +the gallant captain and the officer with him had arranged, in case +shooting began, to jump into the water, and by splashing about draw +the fire in their direction! + +We went back to the automobile, a long walk over the shell-eaten roads +in the teeth of a biting wind. But a glow of exultation kept me warm. +I had been to the front. I had been far beyond the front, indeed, and +I had seen such a picture of war and its desolation there in the +centre of No Man's Land as perhaps no one not connected with an army +had seen before; such a picture as would live in my mind forever. + +I visited other advanced trenches that night as we followed the +Belgian lines slowly northward toward Nieuport. + +Save the varying conditions of discomfort, they were all similar. +Always they were behind the railroad embankment. Always they were +dirty and cold. Frequently they were full of mud and water. To reach +them one waded through swamps and pools. Just beyond them there was +always the moonlit stretch of water, now narrow, now wide. + +I was to see other trenches later on, French and English. But only +along the inundation was there that curious combination of beauty and +hideousness, of rippling water with the moonlight across it in a +silver path, and in that water things that had been men. + +In one place a cow and a pig were standing on ground a little bit +raised. They had been there for weeks between the two armies. Neither +side would shoot them, in the hope of some time obtaining them for +food. + +They looked peaceful, rather absurd. + +Now so near that one felt like whispering, and now a quarter of a mile +away, were the German trenches. We moved under their _fusees_, passing +destroyed towns where shell holes have become vast graves. + +One such town was most impressive. It had been a very beautiful town, +rather larger than the others. At the foot of the main street ran the +railroad embankment and the line of trenches. There was not a house +left. + +It had been, but a day or two before, the scene of a street fight, +when the Germans, swarming across the inundation, had captured the +trenches at the railroad and got into the town itself. + +At the intersection of two streets, in a shell hole, twenty bodies had +been thrown for burial. But that was not novel or new. Shell-hole +graves and destroyed houses were nothing. The thing I shall never +forget is the cemetery round the great church. + +Continental cemeteries are always crowded. They are old, and graves +almost touch one another. The crosses which mark them stand like rows +of men in close formation. + +This cemetery had been shelled. There was not a cross in place; they +lay flung about in every grotesque position. The quiet God's Acre had +become a hell. Graves were uncovered; the dust of centuries exposed. +In one the cross had been lifted up by an explosion and had settled +back again upside down, so that the Christ was inverted. + +It was curious to stand in that chaos of destruction, that ribald +havoc, that desecration of all we think of as sacred, and see, +stretched from one broken tombstone to another, the telephone wires +that connect the trenches at the foot of the street with headquarters +and with the "chateau." + +Ninety-six German soldiers had been buried in one shell hole in that +cemetery. Close beside it there was another, a great gaping wound in +the earth, half full of water from the evening's rain. + +An officer beside me looked down into it. + +"See," he said, "they dig their own graves!" + +It was almost morning. The automobile left the pathetic ruin of the +town and turned back toward the "chateau." There was no talking; a +sort of heaviness of spirit lay on us all. The officers were seeing +again the destruction of their country through my shocked eyes. We +were tired and cold, and I was heartsick. + +A long drive through the dawn, and then the "chateau." + +The officers were still up, waiting. They had prepared, against our +arrival, sandwiches and hot drinks. + +The American typewriters in the next room clicked and rattled. At the +telephone board messages were coming in from the very places we had +just left--from the instrument at the major's elbow as he lay in his +trench beside the House of the Barrier; from the priest who had left +his cell and become a soldier; from that desecrated and ruined +graveyard with its gaping shell holes that waited, open-mouthed, +for--what? + +When we had eaten, Captain F---- rose and made a little speech. It was +simply done, in the words of a soldier and a patriot speaking out of a +full heart. + +"You have seen to-night a part of what is happening to our country," +he said. "You have seen what the invading hosts of Germany have made +us suffer. But you have seen more than that. You have seen that the +Belgian Army still exists; that it is still fighting and will continue +to fight. The men in those trenches fought at Liege, at Louvain, at +Antwerp, at the Yser. They will fight as long as there is a drop of +Belgian blood to shed. + +"Beyond the enemy's trenches lies our country, devastated; our +national life destroyed; our people under the iron heel of Germany. +But Belgium lives. Tell America, tell the world, that destroyed, +injured as she is, Belgium lives and will rise again, greater than +before!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +"WIPERS" + + +FROM MY JOURNAL: + +An aeroplane man at the next table starts to-night on a dangerous +scouting expedition over the German lines. In case he does not return +he has given a letter for his mother to Captain T----. + +It now appears quite certain that I am to be sent along the French and +English lines. I shall be the first correspondent, I am told, to see +the British front, as "Eyewitness," who writes for the English papers, +is supposed to be a British officer. + +I have had word also that I am to see Mr. Winston Churchill, the First +Lord of the British Admiralty. But to-day I am going to Ypres. The +Tommies call it "Wipers." + + * * * * * + +Before I went abroad I had two ambitions among others: One was to be +able to pronounce Ypres; the other was to bring home and exhibit to my +admiring friends the pronunciation of Przemysl. To a moderate extent I +have succeeded with the first. I have discovered that the second one +must be born to. + +Two or three towns have stood out as conspicuous points of activity in +the western field. Ypres is one of these towns. Day by day it figures +in the reports from the front. The French are there, and just to the +east the English line commences.[D] The line of trenches lies beyond +the town, forming a semicircle round it. + +[Footnote D: Written in May, 1915.] + +A few days later I saw this semicircle, the flat and muddy battlefield +of Ypres. But on this visit I was to see only the town, which, +although completely destroyed, was still being shelled. + +The curve round the town gave the invading army a great advantage in +its destruction. It enabled them to shell it from three directions, so +that it was raked by cross fire. For that reason the town of Ypres +presents one of the most hideous pictures of desolation of the present +war. + +General M---- had agreed to take me to Ypres. But as he was a Belgian +general, and the town of Ypres is held by the French, it was a part of +the etiquette of war that we should secure the escort of a French +officer at the town of Poperinghe. + +For war has its etiquette, and of a most exacting kind. And yet in the +end it simplifies things. It is to war what rules are to +bridge--something to lead by! Frequently I was armed with passes to +visit, for instance, certain batteries. My escort was generally a +member of the Headquarters' Staff of that particular army. But it was +always necessary to visit first the officer in command of that +battery, who in his turn either accompanied us to the battlefield or +deputised one of his own staff. The result was an imposing number of +uniforms of various sorts, and the conviction, as I learned, among the +gunners that some visiting royalty was on an excursion to the front! + +It was a cold winter day in February, a grey day with a fine snow that +melted as soon as it touched the ground. Inside the car we were +swathed in rugs. The chauffeur slapped his hands at every break in the +journey, and sentries along the road hugged such shelter as they could +find. + +As we left Poperinghe the French officer, Commandant D----, pointed to +a file of men plodding wearily through the mud. + +"The heroes of last night's attack," he said. "They are very tired, as +you see." + +We stopped the car and let the men file past. They did not look like +heroes; they looked tired and dirty and depressed. Although our +automobile generally attracted much attention, scarcely a man lifted +his head to glance at us. They went on drearily through the mud under +the pelting sleet, drooping from fatigue and evidently suffering from +keen reaction after the excitement of the night before. + +I have heard the French soldier criticised for this reaction. It may +certainly be forgiven him, in view of his splendid bravery. But part +of the criticism is doubtless justified. The English Tommy fights as +he does everything else. There is a certain sporting element in what +he does. He puts into his fighting the same fairness he puts into +sport, and it is a point of honour with him to keep cool. The English +gunner will admire the enemy's marksmanship while he is ducking a +shell. + +The French soldier, on the other hand, fights under keen excitement. +He is temperamental, imaginative; as he fights he remembers all the +bitterness of the past, its wrongs, its cruelties. He sees blood. +There is nothing that will hold him back. The result has made history, +is making history to-day. + +But he has the reaction of his temperament. Who shall say he is not +entitled to it? + +Something of this I mentioned to Monsieur le Commandant as the line +filed past. + +"It is because it is fighting that gets nowhere," he replied. "If our +men, after such an attack, could advance, could do anything but crawl +back into holes full of water and mud, you would see them gay and +smiling to-day." + +After a time I discovered that the same situation holds to a certain +extent in all the armies. If his fighting gets him anywhere the +soldier is content. The line has made a gain. What matter wet +trenches, discomfort, freezing cold? The line has made a gain. It is +lack of movement that sends their spirits down, the fearful boredom of +the trenches, varied only by the dropping shells, so that they term +themselves, ironically, "Cannon food." + +We left the victorious company behind, making their way toward +whatever church bedded down with straw, or coach-house or drafty barn +was to house them for their rest period. + +"They have been fighting waist-deep in water," said the Commandant, +"and last night was cold. The British soldier rubs his body with oil +and grease before he dresses for the trenches. I hope that before long +our men may do this also. It is a great protection." + +I have in front of me now a German soldier's fatigue cap, taken by one +of those men from a dead soldier who lay in front of the trench. + +It is a pathetic cap, still bearing the crease which showed how he +folded it to thrust it into his pocket. When his helmet irked him in +the trenches he was allowed to take it <off and put this on. He +belonged to Bavarian Regiment Number Fifteen, and the cap was given +him in October, 1914. There is a blood-stain on one side of it. Also +it is spotted with mud inside and out. It is a pathetic little cap, +because when its owner died, that night before, a thousand other +Germans died with him, died to gain a trench two hundred yards from +their own line, a trench to capture which would have gained them +little but glory, and which, since they failed, lost them everything, +even life itself. + +We were out of the town by this time, and started on the road to +Ypres. Between Poperinghe and Ypres were numerous small villages with +narrow, twisting streets. They were filled with soldiers at rest, with +tethered horses being re-shod by army blacksmiths, with small fires in +sheltered corners on which an anxious cook had balanced a kettle. + +In each town a proclamation had been nailed to a wall and the +townspeople stood about it, gaping. + +"An inoculation proclamation," explained the Commandant. "There is +typhoid here, so the civilians are to be inoculated. They are very +much excited about it. It appears to them worse than a bombardment." + +We passed a file of Spahis, native Algerians who speak Arabic. They +come from Tunis and Algeria, and, as may be imagined, they were +suffering bitterly from the cold. + +They peered at us with bright, black eyes from the encircling folds of +the great cloaks with pointed hoods which they had drawn closely about +them. They have French officers and interpreters, and during the +spring fighting they probably proved very valuable. During the winter +they gave me the impression of being out of place and rather forlorn. +Like the Indian troops with the British, they were fighting a new +warfare. For gallant charges over dry desert sands had been +substituted mud and mist and bitter cold, and the stagnation of +armies. + +Terrible tales have been told of the ferocity of these Arabs, and of +the Turcos also. I am inclined to think they are exaggerated. But +certainly, met with on a lonely road, these long files of men in their +quaint costumes moving silently along with heads lowered against the +wind were sombre, impressive and rather alarming. + +The car, going furiously, skidded, was pulled sharply round and +righted itself. The conversation went on. No one appeared to notice +that we had been on the edge of eternity, and it was not for me to +mention it. But I made a jerky entry in my notebook: + +"Very casual here about human life. Enlarge on this." + +The general, who was a Belgian, continued his complaint. It was about +the Belgian absentee tax. + +The Germans now in control in Belgium had imposed an absentee tax of +ten times the normal on all Belgians who had left the country and did +not return by the fifteenth of March. The general snorted his rage and +disgust. + +"But," I said innocently, "I should think it would make very little +difference to you. You are not there, so of course you cannot pay it." + +"Not there!" he said. "Of course I am not there. But everything I own +in the world is there, except this uniform that I have on my back." + +"They would confiscate it?" I asked. "Not the uniform, of course; I +mean your property." + +He broke into a torrent of rapid French. I felt quite sure that he was +saying that they would confiscate it; that they would annihilate it, +reduce it to its atomic constituents; take it, acres and buildings and +shade trees and vegetable garden, back to Germany. But as his French +was of the ninety horse-power variety and mine travels afoot, like +Bayard Taylor, and limps at that, I never caught up with him. + +Later on, in a calmer moment, I had the thing explained to me. + +It appears that the Germans have instituted a tax on all the Belgian +refugees of ten times the normal tax; the purpose being to bring back +into Belgium such refugees as wish to save the remnants of their +property. This will mean bringing back people of the better class who +have property to save. It will mean to the far-seeing German mind a +return of the better class of Belgians to reorganise things, to put +that prostrate country on its feet again, to get the poorer classes to +work, to make it self-supporting. + +"The real purpose, of course," said my informant, "is so that American +sympathy, now so potent, will cease for both refugees and interned +Belgians. If the factories start, and there is work for them, and the +refugees still refuse to return, you can see what it means." + +He may be right; I do not think so. I believe that at this moment +Germany regards Belgium as a new but integral part of the German +Empire, and that she wishes to see this new waste land of hers +productive. Assuredly Germany has made a serious effort to reorganise +and open again some of the great Belgian factories that are now idle. + +In one instance that I know of a manufacturer was offered a large +guarantee to come back and put his factory into operation again. He +refused, although he knew that it spelled ruin. The Germans, unable +themselves at this time to put skilled labour in his mill, sent its +great machines by railroad back into Germany. I have been told that +this has happened in a number of instances. Certainly it sounds +entirely probable. + +The factory owner in question is in America at the time I am writing +this, obtaining credit and new machines against the time of the +retirement of the German Army. + +From the tax the conversation went on to the finances of Belgium. I +learned that the British Government, through the Bank of England, is +guaranteeing the payment of the Belgian war indemnity to Germany! The +war indemnity is over nineteen million pounds, or approximately +ninety-six millions of dollars. Of this the Belgian authorities are +instructed to pay over nine million dollars each month. + +The Societe Generale de Belgique has been obliged by the German +Government to accept the power of issuing notes, on a strict +understanding that it must guarantee the note issue on the gold +reserve and foreign bill book, which is at present deposited in the +Bank of England at London. If the Societe Generale de Belgique had not +done so, all notes of the Bank of Belgium would have been declared +valueless by Germany. + +A very prominent Englishman, married to a Belgian lady, told me a +story about this gold reserve which is amusing enough to repeat, and +which has a certain appearance of truth. + +When the Germans took possession of Brussels, he said, their first +move was to send certain officers to the great Brussels Bank, in whose +vaults the gold reserve was kept. The word had been sent ahead that +they were coming, and demanding that certain high officials of the +bank were to be present. + +The officials went to the bank, and the German officers presented +themselves promptly. + +The conversation was brief. + +"Take us to the vaults," said one of the German officers. + +"To the vaults?" said the principal official of the bank. + +"To the vaults," was the curt reply. + +"I am not the vault keeper. We shall have to send for him." + +The bank official was most courteous, quite bland, indeed. The officer +scowled, but there was nothing to do but wait. + +The vault keeper was sent for. It took some time to find him. + +The bank official commented on the weather, which was, he considered, +extremely warm. + +At last the vault keeper came. He was quite breathless. But it seemed +that, not knowing why he came, he had neglected to bring his keys. The +bank official regretted the delay. The officers stamped about. + +"It looks like a shower," said the bank official. "Later in the day it +may be cooler." + +The officers muttered among themselves. + +It took the vault keeper a long time to get his keys and return, but +at last he arrived. They went down and down, through innumerable doors +that must be unlocked before them, through gratings and more steel +doors. And at last they stood in the vaults. + +The German officers stared about and then turned to the Belgian +official. + +"The gold!" they said furiously. "Where is the gold?" + +"The gold!" said the official, much surprised. "You wished to see the +gold? I am sorry. You asked for the vaults and I have shown you the +vaults. The gold, of course, is in England." + +We sped on, the same flat country, the same grey fields, the same +files of soldiers moving across those fields toward distant billets, +the same transports and ambulances, and over all the same colourless +sky. + +Not very long ago some inquiring British scientist discovered that on +foggy days in London the efficiency of the average clerk was cut down +about fifty per cent. One begins to wonder how much of this winter +_impasse_ is due to the weather, and what the bright and active days +of early spring will bring. Certainly the weather that day weighed on +me. It was easier to look out through the window of the car than to +get out and investigate. The penetrating cold dulled our spirits. + +A great lorry had gone into the mud at the side of the road and was +being dug out. A horse neatly disembowelled lay on its back in the +road, its four stark legs pointed upward. + +"They have been firing at a German _Taube_," said the Commandant, "and +naturally what goes up must come down." + +On the way back we saw the same horse. It was dark by that time, and +some peasants had gathered round the carcass with a lantern. The hide +had been cut away and lay at one side, and the peasants were carving +the animal into steaks and roasts. For once fate had been good to +them. They would dine that night. + +Everywhere here and there along the road we had passed the small sheds +that sentries built to protect themselves against the wind, little +huts the size of an American patrol box, built of the branches of +trees and thatched all about with straw. + +Now we passed one larger than the others, a shed with the roof +thatched and the sides plastered with mud to keep out the cold. + +The Commandant halted the car. There was one bare little room with a +wooden bench and a door. The bench and the door had just played their +part in a tragedy. + +I have been asked again and again whether it is true that on both +sides of the line disheartened soldiers have committed suicide during +this long winter of waiting. I have always replied that I do not know. +On the Allied side it is thought that many Germans have done so; I +daresay the Germans make the same contention. This one instance is +perfectly true. But it was the result of an accident, not of +discouragement. + +The sentry was alone in his hut, and he was cleaning his gun. For a +certain length of time he would be alone. In some way the gun exploded +and blew off his right hand. There was no one to call on for help. He +waited quite a while. It was night. Nobody came; he was suffering +frightfully. + +Perhaps, sitting there alone, he tried to think out what life would be +without a right hand. In the end he decided that it was not worth +while. But he could not pull the trigger of his gun with his left +hand. He tried it and failed. So at last he tied a stout cord to the +trigger, fastened the end of it to the door, and sitting on the bench +kicked the door to. They had just taken him away. + +Just back of Ypres there is a group of buildings that had been a great +lunatic asylum. It is now a hospital for civilians, although it is +partially destroyed. + +"During the evacuation of the town," said the Commandant, "it was +decided that the inmates must be taken out. The asylum had been hit +once and shells were falling in every direction. So the nuns dressed +their patients and started to march them back along the route to the +nearest town. Shells were falling all about them; the nuns tried to +hurry them, but as each shell fell or exploded close at hand the +lunatics cheered and clapped their hands. They could hardly get them +away at all; they wanted to stay and see the excitement." + +That is a picture, if you like. It was a very large asylum, containing +hundreds of patients. The nuns could not hurry them. They stood in the +roads, faces upturned to the sky, where death was whining its shrill +cry overhead. When a shell dropped into the road, or into the familiar +fields about them, tearing great holes, flinging earth and rocks in +every direction, they cheered. They blocked the roads, so that gunners +with badly needed guns could not get by. And behind and all round them +the nuns urged them on in vain. Some of them were killed, I believe. +All about great holes in fields and road tell the story of the hell +that beat about them. + +Here behind the town one sees fields of graves marked each with a +simple wooden cross. Here and there a soldier's cap has been nailed to +the cross. + +The officers told me that in various places the French peasants had +placed the dead soldier's number and identifying data in a bottle and +placed it on the grave. But I did not see this myself. + +Unlike American towns, there is no gradual approach to these cities of +Northern France; no straggling line of suburbs. Many of them were laid +out at a time when walled cities rose from the plain, and although the +walls are gone the tradition of compactness for protection still holds +good. So one moment we were riding through the shell-holed fields of +Northern France and the next we were in the city of Ypres. + +At the time of my visit few civilians had seen the city of Ypres since +its destruction. I am not sure that any had been there. I have seen no +description of it, and I have been asked frequently if it is really +true that the beautiful Cloth Hall is gone--that most famous of all +the famous buildings of Flanders. + +Ypres! + +What a tragedy! Not a city now; hardly a skeleton of a city. Rumour is +correct, for the wonderful Cloth Hall is gone. There is a fragment +left of the facade, but no repairing can ever restore it. It must all +come down. Indeed, any storm may finish its destruction. The massive +square belfry, two hundred and thirty feet high and topped by its four +turrets, is a shell swaying in every gust of wind. + +The inimitable arcade at the end is quite gone. Nothing indeed is left +of either the Cloth Hall, which, built in the year 1200, was the most +remarkable edifice of Belgium, or of the Cathedral behind it, erected +in 1300 to succeed an earlier edifice. General M---- stood by me as I +stared at the ruins of these two great buildings. Something of the +tragedy of Belgium was in his face. + +"We were very proud of it," he said. "If we started now to build +another it would take more than seven hundred years to give it +history." + +There were shells overhead. But they passed harmlessly, falling either +into the open country or into distant parts of the town. We paid no +attention to them, but my curiosity was roused. + +"It seems absurd to continue shelling the town," I said. "There is +nothing left." + +Then and there I had a lesson in the new warfare. Bombardment of the +country behind the enemy's trenches is not necessarily to destroy +towns. Its strategical purpose, I was told, is to cut off +communications, to prevent, if possible, the bringing up of reserve +troops and transport wagons, to destroy ammunition trains. I was new +to war, with everything to learn. This perfectly practical explanation +had not occurred to me. + +"But how do they know when an ammunition train is coming?" I asked. + +"There are different methods. Spies, of course, always. And aeroplanes +also." + +"But an ammunition train moves." + +It was necessary then to explain the various methods by which +aeroplanes signal, giving ranges and locations. I have seen since that +time the charts carried by aviators and airship crews, in which every +hedge, every ditch, every small detail of the landscape is carefully +marked. In the maps I have seen the region is divided into lettered +squares, each square made up of four small squares, numbered. Thus B 3 +means the third block of the B division, and so on. By wireless or in +other ways the message is sent to the batteries, and B 3, along which +an ammunition train is moving, suddenly finds itself under fire. Thus +ended the second lesson! + +An ammunition train, having safely escaped B 3 and all the other +terrors that are spread for such as it, rumbled by, going through the +Square. The very vibration of its wheels as they rattled along the +street set parts of the old building to shaking. Stones fell. It was +not safe to stand near the belfry. + +Up to this time I had found a certain philosophy among the French and +Belgian officers as to the destruction of their towns. Not of Louvain, +of course, or those earlier towns destroyed during the German +invasion, but of the bombardment which is taking place now along the +battle line. But here I encountered furious resentment. + +There is nothing whatever left of the city for several blocks in each +direction round the Cloth Hall. At the time it was destroyed the army +of the Allies was five miles in advance of the town. The shells went +over their heads for days, weeks. + +So accurate is modern gunnery that given a chart of a city the gunner +can drop a shell within a few yards of any desired spot. The Germans +had a chart of Ypres. They might have saved the Cloth Hall, as they +did save the Cathedral at Antwerp. But they were furious with thwarted +ambition--the onward drive had been checked. Instead of attempting to +save the Cloth Hall they focussed all their fire on it. There was +nothing to gain by this wanton destruction. + +It is a little difficult in America, where great structures are a +matter of steel and stone erected in a year or so, to understand what +its wonderful old buildings meant to Flanders. In a way they typified +its history, certainly its art. The American likes to have his art in +his home; he buys great paintings and puts them on the walls. He +covers his floors with the entire art of a nomadic people. But on the +Continent the method is different. They have built their art into +their buildings; their great paintings are in churches or in +structures like the Cloth Hall. Their homes are comparatively +unadorned, purely places for living. All that they prize they have +stored, open to the world, in their historic buildings. It is for that +reason that the destruction of the Cloth Hall of Ypres is a matter of +personal resentment to each individual of the nation to which it +belonged. So I watched the faces of the two officers with me. There +could be no question as to their attitude. It was a personal loss they +had suffered. The loss of their homes they had accepted stoically. But +this was much more. It was the loss of their art, their history, their +tradition. And it could not be replaced. + +The firing was steady, unemotional. + +As the wind died down we ventured into the ruins of the Cloth Hall +itself. The roof is gone, of course. The building took fire from the +bombardment, and what the shells did not destroy the fire did. Melted +lead from ancient gutters hung in stalactites. In one place a wall was +still standing, with a bit of its mural decoration. I picked up a bit +of fallen gargoyle from under the fallen tower and brought it away. It +is before me now. + +It is seven hundred and fifteen years since that gargoyle was lifted +into its place. The Crusades were going on about that time; the robber +barons were sallying out onto the plains on their raiding excursions. +The Norman Conquest had taken place. From this very town of Ypres had +gone across the Channel "workmen and artisans to build churches and +feudal castles, weavers and workers of many crafts." + +In those days the Yperlee, a small river, ran open through the town. +But for many generations it has been roofed over and run under the +public square. + +It was curious to stand on the edge of a great shell hole and look +down at the little river, now uncovered to the light of day for the +first time in who knows how long. + +In all that chaos, with hardly a wall intact, at the corner of what +was once the cathedral, stood a heroic marble figure of Burgomaster +Vandenpeereboom. It was quite untouched and as placid as the little +river, a benevolent figure rising from the ruins of war. + +"They have come like a pestilence," said the General. "When they go +they will leave nothing. What they will do is written in what they +have done." + +Monsieur le Commandant had disappeared. Now he returned triumphant, +carrying a great bundle in both arms. + +"I have been to what was the house of a relative," he explained. "He +has told me that in the cellar I would find these. They will interest +you." + +"These" proved to be five framed photographs of the great paintings +that had decorated the walls of the great Cloth Hall. Although they +had been hidden in a cellar, fragments of shell had broken and torn +them. But it was still possible to gain from them a faint idea of the +interior beauty of the old building before its destruction. + +I examined them there in the public square, with a shell every now and +then screeching above but falling harmlessly far away. + +A priest joined us. He told pathetically of watching the destruction +of the Arcade, of seeing one arch after another go down until there +was nothing left. + +"They ate it," said the priest graphically. "A bite at a time." + +We walked through the town. One street after another opened up its +perspective of destruction. The strange antics that shell fire plays +had left doors and lintels standing without buildings, had left intact +here and there pieces of furniture. There was an occasional picture on +an exposed wall; iron street lamps had been twisted into travesties; +whole panes of glass remained in facades behind which the buildings +were gone. A part of the wooden scaffolding by which repairs were +being made to the old tower of the Cloth Hall hung there uninjured by +either flame or shell. + +On one street all the trees had been cut off as if by one shell, about +ten feet above the ground, but in another, where nothing whatever +remained but piles of stone and mortar, a great elm had apparently not +lost a single branch. + +Much has been written about the desolation of these towns. To get a +picture of it one must realise the solidity with which even the +private houses are built. They are stone, or if not, the walls are of +massive brick coated with plaster. There are no frame buildings; wood +is too expensive for that purpose. It is only in prodigal America that +we can use wood. + +So the destruction of a town there means the destruction of buildings +that have stood for centuries, and would in the normal course of +events have stood for centuries more. + +A few civilians had crept back into the town. As in other places, they +had come back because they had no place else to go. At any time a +shell might destroy the fragment of the building in which they were +trying to reestablish themselves. There were no shops open, because +there were no shops to open. Supplies had to be brought from long +distances. As all the horses and automobiles had been commandeered by +the government, they had no way to get anything. Their situation was +pitiable, tragic. And over them was the daily, hourly fear that the +German Army would concentrate for its onward drive at some near-by +point. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +LADY DECIES' STORY + + +It was growing dark; the chauffeur was preparing to light the lamps of +the car. Shells were fewer. With the approach of night the activity +behind the lines increased; more ammunition trains made their way over +the debris; regiments prepared for the trenches marched through the +square on their way to the front. + +They were laden, as usual, with extra food and jars of water. Almost +every man had an additional loaf of bread strapped to the knapsack at +his back. They were laughing and talking among themselves, for they +had had a sleep and hot food; for the time at least they were dry and +fed and warm. + +On the way out of the town we passed a small restaurant, one of a row +of houses. It was the only undestroyed building I saw in Ypres. + +"It is the only house," said the General, "where the inhabitants +remained during the entire bombardment. They made coffee for the +soldiers and served meals to officers. Shells hit the pavement and +broke the windows; but the house itself is intact. It is +extraordinary." + +We stopped at the one-time lunatic asylum on our way back. It had been +converted into a hospital for injured civilians, and its long wards +were full of women and children. An English doctor was in charge. + +Some of the buildings had been destroyed, but in the main it had +escaped serious injury. By a curious fatality that seems to have +followed the chapels and churches of Flanders, the chapel was the only +part that was entirely gone. One great shell struck it while it was +housing soldiers, as usual, and all of them were killed. As an example +of the work of one shell the destruction of that building was +enormous. There was little or nothing left. + +"The shell was four feet high," said the Doctor, and presented me with +the nose of it. + +"You may get more at any moment," I said. + +He shrugged his shoulders. "What must be, must be," he said quietly. + +When the bombardment was at its height, he said, they took their +patients to the cellar and continued operating there. They had only a +candle or two. But it was impossible to stop, for the wards were full +of injured women and children. + +I walked through some of the wards. It was the first time I had seen +together so many of the innocent victims of this war--children blind +and forever cut off from the light of day, little girls with arms +gone, women who will never walk again. + +It was twilight. Here and there a candle gleamed, for any bright +illumination was considered unwise. + +What must they think as they lie there during the long dark hours +between twilight and the late winter morning? Like the sentry, many of +them must wonder if it is worth while. These are people, most of them, +who have lived by their labour. What will they do when the war is +over, or when, having made such recovery as they may, the hospital +opens its doors and must perforce turn them out on the very threshold +of war? + +And yet they cling to life. I met a man who crossed the Channel--I +believe it was from Flushing--with the first lot of hopelessly wounded +English prisoners who had been sent home to England from Germany in +exchange for as many wrecked and battered Germans on their way back to +the Fatherland. + +One young boy was all eagerness. His home was on the cliff above the +harbour which was their destination. He alternately wept and cheered. + +"They'll be glad enough to see me, all right," he said. "It's six +months since they heard from me. More than likely they think I'm lying +over there with some of the other chaps." + +He was in a wheeled chair. In his excitement the steamer rug slipped +down. Both his legs were gone above the knees! + +Our hands were full. The General had picked up a horseshoe on the +street at Ypres and given it to me to bring me luck; the Commandant +had the framed pictures. The General carried the gargoyle wrapped in a +newspaper. I had the nose of the shell. + +We walked through the courtyard, with its broken fountain and cracked +walks, out to the machine. The password for the night was "Ecosse," +which means "Scotland." The General gave the word to the orderly and +we went on again toward Poperinghe, where we were to have coffee. + +The firing behind us had ceased. Possibly the German gunners were +having coffee also. We went at our usual headlong speed through almost +empty roads. Now and then a lantern waved. We checked our headlong +speed to give the password, and on again. More lanterns; more +challenges. + +Since we passed, a few hours before, another car had been wrecked by +the road. One sees these cars everywhere, lying on their sides, turned +turtle in ditches, bent and twisted against trees. No one seems to be +hurt in these accidents; at least one hears nothing of them, if they +are. And now we were back at Poperinghe again. + +The Commandant had his headquarters in the house of a notary. Except +in one instance, all the houses occupied by the headquarters' staffs +that I visited were the houses of notaries. Perhaps the notary is the +important man of a French town. I do not know. + +This was a double house with a centre hall, a house of some pretension +in many ways. But it had only one lamp. When we went from one room to +another we took the lamp with us. It was not even a handsome lamp. In +that very comfortable house it was one of the many anomalies of war. + +One or two of the best things from the museum at Ypres had been +secured and brought back here. On a centre table was a bronze +equestrian statue in miniature of a Crusader, a beautiful piece of +work. + +While we were waiting for coffee the Commandant opened the lower +drawer of a secretary and took out a letter. + +"This may interest Madame," he said. "I have just received it. It is +from General Leman, the hero of Liege." + +He held it close to the lamp and read it. I have the envelope before +me now. It is addressed in lead pencil and indorsed as coming from +General Leman, Prisoner of War at Magdeburg, Germany. + +The letter was a soldier's simple letter, written to a friend. I wish +I had made a copy of it; but I remember in effect what it said. +Clearly the hero of Liege has no idea that he is a hero. He said he +had a good German doctor, but that he had been very ill. It is known, +of course, that his foot was injured during the destruction of one of +the fortresses just before he was captured. + +"I have a very good German doctor," he wrote. "But my foot gives me a +great deal of trouble. Gangrene set in and part of it had to be +amputated. The wound refuses to heal, and in addition my heart is +bad." + +He goes on to ask for his family, for news of them, especially of his +daughter. I saw this letter in March. He had been taken a prisoner the +previous August. He had then been seven or eight months without news +of his family. + +"I am no longer young," he wrote in effect, for I am not quoting him +exactly, "and I hope my friends will not forget me, in case of an +exchange of prisoners." + +He will never be forgotten. But of course he does not realise that. He +is sixty-four and very ill. One read through all the restraint of the +letter his longing to die among his own people. He hopes he will not +be forgotten in an exchange of prisoners! + +The Commandant's orderly announced that coffee was served, and we +followed the lamp across the hall. An English officer made a fourth at +the table. + +It was good coffee, served with cream, the first I had seen for weeks. +With it the Commandant served small, very thin cakes, with a layer of +honey in the centre. "A specialty of the country," he said. + +We talked of many things: of the attitude of America toward the war, +her incredulity as to atrocities, the German propaganda, and a rumour +that had reached the front of a German-Irish coalition in the House of +Representatives at Washington. + +From that the talk drifted to uniforms. The Commandant wished that the +new French uniforms, instead of being a slaty blue, had been green, +for use in the spring fighting. + +I criticised the new Belgian uniform, which seemed to me much thinner +than the old. + +"That is wrong. It is of excellent cloth," said the General, and +brought his cape up under the lamp for examination. + +The uniforms of three armies were at the table--the French, the +Belgian and the English. It was possible to compare them under the +light of a single lamp. + +The General's cloak, in spite of my criticism, was the heaviest of the +three. But all of them seemed excellent. The material was like felt in +body, but much softer. + +All of the officers were united in thinking khaki an excellent +all-round colour. + +"The Turcos have been put into khaki," said the Commandant. "They +disliked it at first; but their other costumes were too conspicuous. +Now they are satisfied." + +The Englishman offered the statement that England was supplying all of +the Allies, including Russia, with cloth. + +Sitting round the table under the lamp, the Commandant read a postcard +taken from the body of a dead German in the attack the night before. +There was a photograph with it, autographed. The photograph was of the +woman who had written the card. It began "Beloved Otto," and was +signed "Your loving wife, Hedwig." + +This is the postcard: + + "_Beloved Otto_: To-day your dear cards came, so full of anxiety + for us. So that now at last I know that you have received my + letters. I was convinced you had not. We have sent you so many + packages of things you may need. Have you got any of them? To-day I + have sent you my photograph. I wished to send a letter also instead + of this card, but I have no writing paper. All week I have been + busy with the children's clothing. We think of you always, dear + Otto. Write to us often. Greetings from your Hedwig and the + children." + +So she was making clothing for the children and sending him little +packages. And Otto lay dead under the stars that night--dead of an +ideal, which is that a man must leave his family and all that he loves +and follow the beckoning finger of empire. + +"For king and country!" + +The Commandant said that when a German soldier surrenders he throws +down his gun, takes off his helmet and jerks off his shoulder straps, +saying over and over, "_Pater familias_." Sometimes, by way of +emphasising that he is a family man, he holds up his fingers--two +children or three children, whatever it may be. Even boys in their +teens will claim huge families. + +I did not find it amusing after the postcard and the photograph. I +found it all very tragic and sad and disheartening. + +It was growing late and the General was impatient to be off. We had +still a long journey ahead of us, and riding at night was not +particularly safe. + +I got into the car and they bundled in after me the damaged pictures, +the horseshoe, the piece of gargoyle from the Cloth Hall and the nose +of the shell. + +The orderly reported that a Zeppelin had just passed overhead; but the +General shrugged his shoulders. + +"They are always seeing Zeppelins," he said. "Me, I do not believe +there is such a thing!" + + * * * * * + +That night in my hotel, after dinner, Gertrude, Lady Decies, told me +the following story: + +"I had only twelve hours' notice to start for the front. I am not a +hospital nurse, but I have taken for several years three months each +summer of special training. So I felt that I would be useful if I +could get over. + +"It was November and very cold. When I got to Calais there was not a +room to be had anywhere. But at the Hotel Centrale they told me I +might have a bathroom to sleep in. + +"At the last moment a gentleman volunteered to exchange with me. But +the next day he left, so that night I slept in a bathtub with a +mattress in it! + +"The following day I got a train for Dunkirk. On the way the train was +wrecked. Several coaches left the track, and there was nothing to do +but to wait until they were put back on. + +"I went to the British Consul at Dunkirk and asked him where I could +be most useful. He said to go to the railroad station at once. + +"I went to the station. The situation there was horrible. Three +doctors and seven dressers were working on four-hour shifts. + +"As the wounded came in only at night, that was when we were needed. I +worked all night from that time on. My first night we had eleven +hundred men. Some of them were dead when they were lifted out onto the +stone floor of the station shed. One boy flung himself out of the +door. I caught him as he fell and he died in my arms. He had +diphtheria, as well as being wounded. + +"The station was frightfully cold, and the men had to be laid on the +stone floors with just room for moving about between them. There was +no heat of any sort. The dead were laid in rows, one on top of +another, on cattle trucks. As fast as a man died they took his body +away and brought in another wounded man. + +"Every now and then the electric lights would go out and leave us +there in black darkness. Finally we got candles and lamps for +emergencies. + +"We had no surgical dressings, but we had some iodine. The odours were +fearful. Some of the men had not had their clothes off for five weeks. +Their garments were like boards. It was almost impossible to cut +through them. And underneath they were coated with vermin. Their +bodies were black with them frequently. + +"In many cases the wounds were green through lack of attention. One +man, I remember, had fifteen. The first two nights I was there we had +no water, which made it terrible. There was a pump outside, but the +water was bad. At last we had a little stove set up, and I got some +kettles and jugs and boiled the water. + +"We were obliged to throw the bandages in a heap on the floor, and +night after night we walked about in blood. My clothing and stockings +were stained with blood to my knees. + +"After the first five nights I kept no record of the number of +wounded; but the first night we had eleven hundred; the second night, +nine hundred; the third night, seven hundred and fifty; the fourth +night, two thousand; the fifth night, fifteen hundred. + +"The men who were working at the station were English Quakers. They +were splendid men. I have never known more heroic work than they did, +and the cure was a splendid fellow. There was nothing too menial for +him to do. He was everywhere." + + * * * * * + +This is the story she told me that night, in her own words. I have not +revised it. Better than anything I know it tells of conditions as they +actually existed during the hard fighting of the first autumn of the +war, and as in the very nature of things they must exist again +whenever either side undertakes an offensive. + +It becomes a little wearying, sometimes, this constant cry of horrors, +the ever-recurring demands on America's pocketbook for supplies, for +dressings, for money to buy the thousands of things that are needed. + +Read Lady Decies' account again, and try to place your own son on that +stone floor on the station platform. Think of that wounded boy, +sitting for hours in a train, and choking to death with diphtheria. + +This is the thing we call war. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +RUNNING THE BLOCKADE + + +From my journal written during an attack of influenza at the Gare +Maritime in Calais: + +Last night I left England on the first boat to cross the Channel after +the blockade. I left London at midnight, with the usual formality of +being searched by Scotland Yard detectives. The train was empty and +very cold. + +"At half-past two in the morning we reached Folkestone. I was quite +alone, and as I stood shivering on the quay waiting to have my papers +examined a cold wind from the harbour and a thin spray of rain made +the situation wretched. At last I confronted the inspector, and was +told that under the new regulations I should have had my Red Cross +card viseed in Paris. It was given back to me with a shrug, but my +passport was stamped. + +"There were four men round the table. My papers and I were inspected +by each of the four in turn. At last I was through. But to my disgust +I found I was not to be allowed on the Calais boat. There was one +going to Boulogne and carrying passengers, but Calais was closed up +tight, except to troops and officers. + +"I looked at the Boulogne boat. It was well lighted and cheerful. +Those few people who had come down from London on the train were +already settling themselves for the crossing. They were on their way +to Paris and peace. + +"I did not want Paris and certainly I did not want peace. I had +telegraphed to Dunkirk and expected a military car to meet me at +Calais. Once across, I knew I could neither telegraph nor telephone to +Dunkirk, all lines of communication being closed to the public. I felt +that I might be going to be ill. I would not be ill in Boulogne. + +"At the end of the quay, dark and sinister, loomed the Calais boat. I +had one moment of indecision. Then I picked up my suitcase and started +toward it in the rain. Luckily the gangway was out. I boarded the boat +with as much assurance as I could muster, and was at once accosted by +the chief officer. + +"I produced my papers. Some of them were very impressive. There were +letters from the French Ambassador in London, Monsieur Cambon, to +leading French generals. There was a letter to Sir John French and +another letter expediting me through the customs, but unluckily the +customs at Boulogne. + +"They left him cold. I threw myself on his mercy. He apologised, but +continued firm. The Boulogne boat drew in its gangway. I mentioned +this, and that, so to speak, I had burned my Boulogne gangway behind +me. I said I had just had an interview with Mr. Winston Churchill, and +that I felt sure the First Lord of the Admiralty would not approve of +my standing there arguing when I was threatened with influenza. He +acted as though he had never heard of the First Lord. + +"At last he was called away. So I went into a deck cabin, and closed +and bolted the door. I remember that, and that I put a life preserver +over my feet, in case of a submarine, and my fur coat over the rest of +me, because of a chill. And that is all I do remember, until this +morning in a grey, rainy dawn I opened the door to find that we were +entering the harbour of Calais. If the officers of the boat were +surprised to see me emerge they concealed it. No doubt they knew that +with Calais under military law I could hardly slip through the fingers +of the police. + +"This morning I have a mild attack of what the English call 'flu.' I +am still at the hotel in Calais. I have breakfasted to the extent of +hot coffee, have taken three different kinds of influenza remedies, +and am now waiting and aching, but at least I am in France. + +"If the car from Dunkirk does not come for me to-day I shall be +deported to-night. + +"Two torpedo boats are coaling in the harbor. They have two large +white letters which answer for their names. One is the BE; the other +is the ER. As they lie side by side these tall white letters spell +B-E-E-R. + +"I have heard an amusing thing: that the English have built duplicates +of all their great battleships, building them of wood, guns and all, +over the hulls of other vessels; and that the Germans have done the +same thing! What would happen if one of the 'dummy' fleets met the +other? Would it be a battle of expletives? Would the German consonant +triumph over the English aspirate, and both ships go down in a sea of +language? + +"The idea is, of course, to delude submarines into the belief that +they are sinking battleships, while the real dreadnoughts are +somewhere else--pure strategy, but amusing, except for the crews of +these sham war flotillas." + + * * * * * + +The French Ambassador in London had given me letters to the various +generals commanding the divisions of the French Army. + +It was realised that America knew very little of what the French were +doing in this great war. We knew, of course, that they were holding a +tremendous battle line and that they were fighting bravely. Rumours we +had heard of the great destruction done by the French seventy-five +millimetre gun, and the names of numerous towns had become familiar to +us in print, even when we could not pronounce them. The Paris +omnibuses had gone to the front. Paris fashions were late in coming to +us, and showed a military trend. For the first time the average +American knew approximately where and what Alsace-Lorraine is, and +that Paris has forts as well as shops and hotels. + +But what else did we know of France and its part in the war? What does +America generally know of France, outside of Paris? Very little. Since +my return, almost the only question I have been asked about France is: +"Is Paris greatly changed?" + +Yet America owes much to her great sister republic; much encouragement +in the arts, in literature, in research. For France has always +extended a kindly hand and a splendid welcome to gifted and artistic +Americans. But her encouragement neither begins nor ends there. + +It was in France that American statesmen received the support that +enabled them to rear the new republic on strong and sturdy +foundations. It is curious to think of that France of Louis the +Sixteenth, with its every tradition opposed to the democracy for which +America was contending, sending the very flower of her chivalry to +assist the new republic. It is amazing to remember that when France +was in a deplorable condition financially it was yet found possible to +lend America six million dollars, and to exempt us from the payment of +interest for a year. + +And the friendship of France was of the people, not alone of the king, +for it survived the downfall of the monarchy and the rise of the +French Republic. When Benjamin Franklin died the National Assembly at +Paris went into three days' mourning for "the great American." + +As a matter of fact, France's help to America precipitated her own +great crisis. The Declaration of Independence was the spark that set +her ablaze. If the king was right in America he was utterly wrong at +home. Lafayette went back from America convinced that "resistance is +the most sacred of duties." + +The French adopted the American belief that liberty is the object of +government, and liberty of the individual--that very belief which +France is standing for to-day as opposed to the nationalism of +Germany. The Frenchman believes, like the American, that pressure +should be from within out, not from without in. In other words, his +own conscience, and not the arbitrary ruling of an arbitrary +government, is his dictator. To reconcile liberty and democracy, then, +has been France's problem, as it has been that of America. She has +faced the same problems against a handicap that America has not +had--the handicap of a discontented nobility. And by sheer force and +determination France has won. + +It has been said that the French in their Revolution were not reckless +innovators. They were confiding followers. And the star they followed +was the same star which, multiplied by the number of states, is the +American flag to-day--Liberty. + +Because of the many ties between the two countries, I had urged on the +French Ambassador the necessity of letting America know a little more +intimately what was being done by the French in this war. Since that +time a certain relaxation has taken place along all the Allied lines. +Correspondents have been taken out on day excursions and have cabled +to America what they saw. But at the time I visited the French Army of +the North there had been no one there. + +Those Americans who had seen the French soldier in times of peace had +not been greatly impressed. His curious, bent-kneed, slouching step, +so carefully taught him--so different from the stately progress of the +British, for instance, but so effective in covering ground--his loose +trousers and huge pack, all conspire against the _ensemble_ effect of +French soldiers on the march. + +I have seen British regiments at ease, British soldiers at rest and in +their billets. Always they are smart, always they are military. A +French regiment at ease ceases to be a part of a great machine. It +shows, perhaps, more humanity. The men let their muscles sag a bit. +They talk, laugh, sing if they are happy. They lie about in every +attitude of complete relaxation. But at the word they fall in again. +They take up the slack, as it were, and move on again in that +remarkable _pas de flexion_ that is so oddly tireless. It is a +difference of method; probably the best thing for men who are Gallic, +temperamental. A more lethargic army is better governed probably by +rule of thumb. + +I had crossed the Channel again to see the French and English lines. +On my previous visit, which had lasted for several weeks, I had seen +the Belgian Army at the front and the French Army in billets and on +reserve. This time I was to see the French Army in action. + +The first step to that end, getting out of Calais, proved simple +enough. The car came from Dunkirk, and brought passes. I took more +influenza medicine, dressed and packed my bag. There was some little +regret mingled with my farewell to the hotel at the Gare Maritime. I +had had there a private bath, with a porcelain tub. More than that, +the tub had been made in my home city. It was, I knew, my last glimpse +of a porcelain tub, probably of any tub, for some time. There were +bath towels also. I wondered if I would ever see a bath towel again. I +left a cake of soap in that bathroom. I can picture its next occupant +walking in, calm and deliberate, and then his eye suddenly falling on +a cake of soap. I can picture his stare, his incredulity. I can see +him rushing to the corridor and ringing the fire bell and calling the +other guests and the strangers without the gates, and the boot boy in +an apron, to come and see that cake of soap. + +But not the management. They would take it away. + +The car which came for me had been at the front all night. It was +filled inside and out with mud, so that it was necessary to cover the +seat before I got in. Of all the cars I have ever travelled in, this +was the most wrecked. Hardly a foot of the metal body was unbroken by +shell or bullet hole. The wind shield had been torn away. Tatters of +curtain streamed out in the wind. The mud guards were bent and +twisted. Even in that region of wrecked cars people turned to look at +it. + +Calais was very gay that Sunday afternoon. The sun was out. At the end +of the drawbridge a soldier was exercising a captured German horse. + +Officers in scarlet and gold, in pale blue, in green and red, in all +the picturesqueness of a Sunday back from the front, were decked for +the public eye. They walked in groups or singly. There were no women +with them. Their wives and sweethearts were far away. A Sunday in +Calais, indifferent food at a hotel, a saunter in the sunlight, and +then--Monday and war again, with the bright colours replaced by sombre +ones, with mud and evil odours and wretchedness. + +They wandered about, smoking eternal cigarettes and watching the +harbour, where ships were coaling, and where, as my car waited, the +drawbridge opened to allow a great Norwegian merchantman to pass. The +blockade was only two days old, but already this Norwegian boat had +her name painted in letters ten feet high along each side of her hull, +flanked on both sides by the Norwegian flag, also painted. Her crew, +leaning over the side, surveyed the quay curiously. So this was +war--this petulant horse with its soldier rider, these gay uniforms! + +It had been hoped that neutral shipping would, by thus indicating +clearly its nationality, escape the attacks of submarines. That very +ship was sunk three days later in the North Sea. + +Convalescent soldiers limped about on crutches; babies were wheeled in +perambulators in the sun; a group of young aviators in black leather +costumes watched a French biplane flying low. English naval officers +from the coaling boats took shore leave and walked along with the free +English stride. + +There were no guns; everything was gaiety and brightness. But for the +limping soldiers, my own battered machine, and the ominous grey ships +in the harbour, it might have been a carnival. + +In spite of the appearance of the machine it went northeast at an +incredible pace, its dried mud flying off like missiles, through those +French villages, which are so tidy because there is nothing to waste; +where there is just enough and no more--no extra paper, no extra +string, or food, or tin cans, or any of the litter that goes to make +the disorder of a wasteful American town; where paper and string and +tin cans and old boots serve their original purpose and then, in the +course of time, become flower-pots or rag carpets or soup meat, or +heaven knows what; and where, having fulfilled this second destiny, +they go on being useful in feeding chickens, or repairing roads, or +fertilising fields. + +For the first time on this journey I encountered difficulty with the +sentries. My Red Cross card had lost its potency. A new rule had gone +out that even a staff car might not carry a woman. Things looked very +serious for a time. But at last we got through. + +There were many aviators out that bright day, going to the front, +returning, or merely flying about taking the air. Women walked along +the roads wearing bright-coloured silk aprons. Here and there the +sentries had stretched great chains across the road, against which the +car brought up sharply. And then at last Dunkirk again, and the royal +apartment, and a soft bed, and--influenza. + +Two days later I started for the French lines. I packed a small bag, +got out a fresh notebook, and, having received the proper passes, the +start was made early in the morning. An officer was to take me to the +headquarters of the French Army of the North. From there I was to +proceed to British headquarters. + +My previous excursions from Dunkirk had all been made east and +southeast. This new route was south. As far as the town of Bergues we +followed the route by which I had gone to Ypres. Bergues, a little +fortified town, has been at times owned by the French, English, +Spanish and Dutch. + +It is odd, remembering the new alignment of the nations, to see +erected in the public square a monument celebrating the victory of the +French over the English in 1793, a victory which had compelled the +British to raise the siege of Dunkirk. + +South of Bergues there was no sign of war. The peasants rode along the +road in their high, two-wheeled carts with bare iron hoops over the +top, hoops over which canvas is spread in wet weather. + +There were trees again; windmills with their great wings turning +peacefully; walled gardens and wayside shrines; holly climbing over +privet hedges; and rows of pollard willows, their early buds a reddish +brown; and tall Lombardy poplars, yellow-green with spring. + +The road stretched straight ahead, a silver line. Nothing could have +been more peaceful, more unwar-like. Peasants trudged along with heavy +milk cans hanging from wooden neck yokes, chickens flew squawking from +the onslaught of the car. There were sheep here and there. + +"It is forbidden to take or kill a sheep--except in self-defence!" +said the officer. + +And then suddenly we turned into a small town and came on hundreds of +French omnibuses, requisitioned from all parts of France and painted a +dingy grey. + +Out of the town again. The road rose now to Cassel, with its three +windmills in a row on the top of a hill. We drove under an arch of +trees, their trunks covered with moss. On each side of the highway +peasants were ploughing in the mud--old peasants, bent to the plough, +or very young boys, who eyed us without curiosity. + +Still south. But now there were motor ambulances and an occasional +long line of motor lorries. At one place in a village we came on a +great three-ton lorry, driven and manned by English Tommies. They knew +no French and were completely lost in a foreign land. But they were +beautifully calm. They sat on the driving seat and smoked pipes and +derided each other, as in turn they struggled to make their difficulty +known. + +"Bailleul," said the Tommies over and over, but they pronounced it +"Berlue," and the villagers only laughed. + +The officer in the car explained. + +"'Berlue,'" he said, "is--what do you Americans say--dotty? They are +telling the villagers they want to go crazy!" + +So he got out and explained. Also he found out their road for them and +sent them off, rather sheepish, but laughing. + +"I never get over the surprises of this war," said the officer when he +returned. "Think of those boys, with not a word of French, taking that +lorry from the coast to the English lines! They'll get there too. They +always do." + +As we left the flat land toward the coast the country grew more and +more beautiful. It rolled gently and there were many trees. + +The white houses with their low thatched roofs, which ended in a +bordering of red tiles, looked prosperous. But there were soldiers +again. We were approaching the war zone. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE MAN OF YPRES + + +The sun was high when we reached the little town where General Foch, +Commander of the Armies of the North, had his headquarters. It was not +difficult to find the building. The French flag furled at the doorway, +a gendarme at one side of the door and a sentry at the other, denoted +the headquarters of the staff. But General Foch was not there at the +moment. He had gone to church. + +The building was near. Thinking that there might be a service, I +decided to go also. Going up a steep street to where at the top stood +a stone church, with an image of the Christ almost covered by that +virgin vine which we call Virginia creeper, I opened the +leather-covered door and went quietly in. + +There was no service. The building was quite empty. And the Commander +of the Armies of the North, probably the greatest general the French +have in the field to-day, was kneeling there alone. + +He never knew I had seen him. I left before he did. Now, as I look +back, it seems to me that that great general on his knees alone in +that little church is typical of the attitude of France to-day toward +the war. + +It is a totally different attitude from the English--not more heroic, +not braver, not more resolute to an end. But it is peculiarly +reverential. The enemy is on the soil of France. The French are +fighting for their homes, for their children, for their country. And +in this great struggle France daily, hourly, on its knees asks for +help. + +I went to the hotel--an ancient place, very small, very clean, very +cold and shabby. The entrance was through an archway into a +cobble-paved courtyard, where on the left, under the roof of a shed, +the saddles of cavalry horses and gendarmes were waiting on saddle +trestles. Beyond, through a glazed door, was a long dining room, with +a bare, white-scrubbed floor and whitewashed walls. Its white +table-cloths, white walls and ceiling and white floor, with no hint of +fire, although a fine snow had commenced to fall, set me to shivering. +Even the attempt at decoration of hanging baskets, of trailing vines +with strings of red peppers, was hardly cheering. + +From the window a steep, walled garden fell away, dreary enough under +the grey sky and the snowfall. The same curious pale-green moss +covered the trees, and beyond the garden wall, in a field, was a hole +where a German aeroplane had dropped a bomb. + +Hot coffee had been ordered, and we went into a smaller room for it. +Here there was a fire, with four French soldiers gathered round it. +One of them was writing at the table. The others were having their +palms read. + +"You have a heart line," said the palmist to one of them--"a heart +line like a windmill!" + +I drank my coffee and listened. I could understand only a part of it, +but it was eminently cheerful. They laughed, chaffed each other, and +although my presence in the hotel must have caused much curiosity in +that land of no women, they did not stare at me. Indeed, it was I who +did the gazing. + +After a time I was given a room. It was at the end of a whitewashed +corridor, from which pine doors opened on either side into bedrooms. +The corridor was bare of carpet, the whole upstairs freezing cold. +There were none of the amenities. My room was at the end. It boasted +two small windows, with a tiny stand between them containing a tin +basin and a pitcher; a bed with one side of the mattress torn open and +exposing a heterogeneous content that did not bear inspection; a pine +chair, a candle and a stove. + +They called it a stove. It had a coal receptacle that was not as large +as a porridge bowl, and one small lump of coal, pulverized, was all it +held. It was lighted with a handful of straw. Turn your back and count +ten, and it was out. Across the foot of the bed was one of the +Continental feather comforts which cover only one's feet and let the +rest freeze. + +It was not so near the front as La Panne, but the windows rattled +incessantly from the bombardment of Ypres. I glanced through one of +the windows. The red tiles I had grown to know so well were not in +evidence. Most of the roofs were blue, a weathered and mottled blue, +very lovely, but, like everything else about the town, exceedingly +cold to look at. + +Shortly after I had unpacked my few belongings I was presented to +General Foch, not at headquarters, but at the house in which he was +living. He came out himself to meet me, attended by several of his +officers, and asked at once if I had had _dejeuner_. I had not, so he +invited me to lunch with him and with his staff. + +_Dejeuner_ was ready and we went in immediately. A long table had been +laid for fourteen. General Foch took his place at the centre of one of +the long sides, and I was placed in the seat of honour directly +across. As his staff is very large, only a dozen officers dine with +him. The others, juniors in the service, are billeted through the town +and have a separate mess. + +Sitting where I did I had a very good opportunity to see the hero of +Ypres, philosopher, strategist and theorist, whose theories were then +bearing the supreme test of war. + +Erect, and of distinguished appearance, General Foch is a man rather +past middle life, with heavy iron-grey hair, rather bushy grey +eyebrows and a moustache. His eyes are grey and extremely direct. His +speech incisive and rather rapid. + +Although some of the staff had donned the new French uniform of +grey-blue, the general wore the old uniform, navy-blue, the only thing +denoting his rank being the three dull steel stars on the embroidered +sleeve of his tunic. + +There was little ceremony at the meal. The staff remained standing +until General Foch and I were seated. Then they all sat down and +_dejeuner_ was immediately served. + +One of the staff told me later that the general is extremely +punctilious about certain things. The staff is expected to be in the +dining room five minutes before meals are served. A punctual man +himself, he expects others to be punctual. The table must always be +the epitome of neatness, the food well cooked and quietly served. + +Punctuality and neatness no doubt are due to his long military +training, for General Foch has always been a soldier. Many of the +officers of France owe their knowledge of strategy and tactics to his +teaching at the _Ecole de Guerre_. + +General Foch led the conversation. Owing to the rapidity of his +speech, it was necessary to translate much of it for me. We spoke, one +may say, through a clearing house. But although he knew it was to be +translated to me, he spoke, not to the interpreter, but to me, and his +keen eyes watched me as I replied. And I did not interview General +Foch. General Foch interviewed me. I made no pretence at speaking for +America. I had no mission. But within my limitations I answered him as +well as I could. + +"There are many ties between America and France," said General Foch. +"We wish America to know what we are doing over here, to realise that +this terrible war was forced on us." + +I mentioned my surprise at the great length of the French line--more +than four hundred miles. + +"You do not know that in America?" he asked, evidently surprised. + +I warned him at once not to judge the knowledge of America by what I +myself knew, that no doubt many quite understood the situation. + +"But you have been very modest," I said. "We really have had little +information about the French Army and what it is doing, unless more +news is going over since I left." + +"We are more modest than the Germans, then?" + +"You are, indeed. There are several millions of German-born Americans +who are not likely to let America forget the Fatherland. There are +many German newspapers also." + +"What is the percentage of German population?" + +I told him. I think I was wrong. I think I made it too great. But I +had not expected to be interviewed. + +"And these German newspapers, are they neutral?" + +"Not at all. Very far from it." + +I told him what I knew of the German propaganda in America, and he +listened intently. + +"What is its effect? Is it influencing public opinion?" + +"It did so undeniably for a time. But I believe it is not doing so +much now. For one thing, Germany's methods on the sea will neutralise +all her agents can say in her favour--that and the relaxation of the +restrictions against the press, so that something can be known of what +the Allies are doing." + +"You have known very little?" + +"Absurdly little." + +There was some feeling in my tone, and he smiled. + +"We wish to have America know the splendid spirit of the French Army," +he said after a moment. "And the justice of its cause also." + +I asked him what he thought of the future. + +"There is no question about the future," he said with decision. "That +is already settled. When the German advance was checked it was checked +for good." + +"Then you do not believe that they will make a further advance toward +Paris?" + +"Certainly not." + +He went on to explain the details of the battle of the Marne, and how +in losing that battle the invading army had lost everything. + +It will do no harm to digress for a moment and explain exactly what +the French did at the battle of the Marne. + +All through August the Allies fell back before the onward rush of the +Germans. But during all that strategic retreat plans were being made +for resuming the offensive again. This necessitated an orderly +retreat, not a rout, with constant counter-engagements to keep the +invaders occupied. It necessitated also a fixed point of retreat, to +be reached by the different Allied armies simultaneously. + +When, on September fifth, the order for assuming the offensive was +given, the extreme limit of the retreat had not yet been reached. But +the audacity of the German march had placed it in a position +favourable for attack, and at the same time extremely dangerous for +the Allies and Paris if they were not checked. + +On the evening of September fifth General Joffre sent this message to +all the commanders of armies: + +"The hour has come to advance at all costs, and do or die where you +stand rather than give way." + +The French did not give way. Paris was saved after a colossal battle, +in which more than two million men were engaged. The army commanded by +General Foch was at one time driven back by overwhelming odds, but +immediately resumed the offensive, and making a flank attack forced +the Germans to retreat. + +Not that he mentioned his part in the battle of the Marne. Not that +any member of his staff so much as intimated it. But these are things +that get back. + +"How is America affected by the war?" + +I answered as best I could, telling him something of the paralysis it +had caused in business, of the war tax, and of our anxiety as to the +status of our shipping. + +"From what I can gather from the newspapers, the sentiment in America +is being greatly influenced by the endangering of American shipping," + +"Naturally. But your press endeavours to be neutral, does it not?" + +"Not particularly," I admitted. "Sooner or later our papers become +partisan. It is difficult not to. In this war one must take sides." + +"Certainly. One must take sides. One cannot be really neutral in this +war. Every country is interested in the result, either actively now or +later on, when the struggle is decided. One cannot be disinterested; +one must be partisan." + +The staff echoed this. + +Having been interviewed by General Foch for some time, I ventured to +ask him a question. So I asked, as I asked every general I met, if the +German advance had been merely ruthless or if it had been barbaric. + +He made no direct reply, but he said: + +"You must remember that the Germans are not only fighting against an +army, they are fighting against nations; trying to destroy their past, +their present, even their future." + +"How does America feel as to the result of this war?" he asked, "I +suppose it feels no doubt as to the result." + +Again I was forced to explain my own inadequacy to answer such a +question and my total lack of authority to voice American sentiment. +While I was confident that many Americans believed in the cause of the +Allies, and had every confidence in the outcome of the war, there +remained always that large and prosperous portion of the population, +either German-born or of German parentage, which had no doubt of +Germany's success. + +"It is natural, of course," he commented. "How many French have you in +the United States?" + +I thought there were about three hundred thousand, and said so. + +"You treat your people so well in France," I said, "that few of them +come to us." + +He nodded and smiled. + +"What do you think of the blockade, General Foch?" I said. "I have +just crossed the Channel and it is far from comfortable." + +"Such a blockade cannot be," was his instant reply; "a blockade must +be continuous to be effective. In a real blockade all neutral shipping +must be stopped, and Germany cannot do this." + +One of the staff said "Bluff!" which has apparently been adopted into +the French language, and the rest nodded their approval. + +Their talk moved on to aeroplanes, to shells, to the French artillery. +General Foch considered that Zeppelins were useful only as air scouts, +and that with the coming of spring, with short nights and early dawns, +there would be no time for them to range far. The aeroplanes he +considered much more valuable. + +"One thing has impressed me," I said, "as I have seen various +artillery duels--the number of shells used with comparatively small +result. After towns are destroyed the shelling continues. I have seen +a hillside where no troops had been for weeks, almost entirely covered +with shell holes." + +He agreed that the Germans had wasted a great deal of their +ammunition. + +Like all great commanders, he was intensely proud of his men and their +spirit. + +"They are both cheerful and healthy," said the general; "splendid men. +We are very proud of them. I am glad that America is to know something +of their spirit, of the invincible courage and resolution of the +French to fight in the cause of humanity and justice." + +Luncheon was over. It had been a good luncheon, of a mound of boiled +cabbage, finely minced beef in the centre, of mutton cutlets and +potatoes, of strawberry jam, cheese and coffee. There had been a +bottle of red wine on the table. A few of the staff took a little, +diluting it with water. General Foch did not touch it. + +We rose. I had an impression that I had had my interview; but the +hospitality and kindness of this French general were to go further. + +In the little corridor he picked up his dark-blue cap and we set out +for official headquarters, followed by several of the officers. He +walked rapidly, taking the street to give me the narrow sidewalk and +going along with head bent against the wind. In the square, almost +deserted, a number of staff cars had gathered, and lorries lumbered +through. We turned to the left, between the sentry and the gendarme, +and climbing a flight of wooden stairs were in the anteroom of the +general's office. Here were tables covered with papers, telephones, +maps, the usual paraphernalia of such rooms. We passed through a pine +door, and there was the general's room--a bare and shabby room, with a +large desk in front of the two windows that overlooked the street, a +shaded lamp, more papers and a telephone. The room had a fireplace, +and in front of it was a fine old chair. And on the mantelpiece, as +out of place as the chair, was a marvellous Louis-Quinze clock, under +glass. There were great maps on the walls, with the opposing battle +lines shown to the smallest detail. General Foch drew my attention at +once to the clock. + +"During the battle of the Yser," he said, "night and day my eyes were +on that clock. Orders were sent. Then it was necessary to wait until +they were carried out. It was by the clock that one could know what +should be happening. The hours dragged. It was terrible." + +It must have been terrible. Everywhere I had heard the same story. +More than any of the great battles of the war, more even than the +battle of the Marne, the great fight along the Yser, from the +twenty-first of October, 1914, to the twelfth of November, seems to +have impressed itself in sheer horror on the minds of those who know +its fearfulness. At every headquarters I have found the same feeling. + +It was General Foch's army that reenforced the British at that battle. +The word had evidently been given to the Germans that at any cost they +must break through. They hurled themselves against the British with +unprecedented ferocity. I have told a little of that battle, of the +frightful casualties, so great among the Germans that they carried +their dead back and burned them in great pyres. The British Army was +being steadily weakened. The Germans came steadily, new lines taking +the place of those that were gone. Then the French came up, and, after +days of struggle, the line held. + +General Foch opened a drawer of the desk and showed me, day by day, +the charts of the battle. They were bound together in a great book, +and each day had a fresh page. The German Army was black. The French +was red. Page after page I lived that battle, the black line +advancing, the blue of the British wavering against overwhelming +numbers and ferocity, the red line of the French coming up. "The Man +of Ypres," they call General Foch, and well they may. + +"They came," said General Foch, "like the waves of the sea." + +It was the second time I had heard the German onslaught so described. + +He shut the book and sat for a moment, his head bent, as though in +living over again that fearful time some of its horror had come back +to him. + +At last: "I paced the floor and watched the clock," he said. + +How terrible! How much easier to take a sword and head a charge! How +much simpler to lead men to death than to send them! There in that +quiet room, with only the telephone and the ticking of the clock for +company, while his staff waited outside for orders, this great +general, this strategist on whose strategy hung the lives of armies, +this patriot and soldier at whose word men went forth to die, paced +the floor. + +He walked over to the clock and stood looking at it, his fine head +erect, his hands behind him. Some of the tragedy of those nineteen +days I caught from his face. + +But the line held. + +To-day, as I write this, General Foch's army in the North and the +British are bearing the brunt of another great attack at Ypres.[E] The +British have made a gain at Neuve Chapelle, and the Germans have +retaliated by striking at their line, some miles farther north. If +they break through it will be toward Calais and the sea. Every +offensive movement in this new warfare of trench and artillery +requires a concentration of reserves. To make their offensive movement +the British have concentrated at Neuve Chapelle. The second move of +this game of death has been made by the other side against the +weakened line of the Allies. During the winter the line, in this +manner, automatically straightened. But what will happen now? + +[Footnote E: Battle of Neuve Chapelle March, 1915.] + +One thing we know: General Foch will send out his brave men, and, +having sent them, will watch the Louis-Quinze clock and wait. And +other great generals will send out their men, and wait also. There +will be more charts, and every fresh line of black or blue or red or +Belgian yellow will mean a thousand deaths, ten thousand deaths. + +They are fighting to-day at Ypres. I have seen that flat and muddy +battlefield. I have talked with the men, have stood by the batteries +as they fired. How many of the boys I watched playing prisoners' base +round their guns in the intervals of firing are there to-day? How many +remain of that little company of soldiers who gave three cheers for me +because I was the only woman they had seen for months? How many of the +officers who shrugged their shoulders when I spoke of danger have gone +down to death? + +Outside the window where I am writing this, Fifth Avenue, New York, +has just left its churches and is flaunting its spring finery in the +sun. Across the sea, such a little way as measured by time, people are +in the churches also. The light comes through the ancient, +stained-glass windows and falls, not on spring finery, not on orchids +and gardenias, but on thousands of tiny candles burning before the +shrine of the Mother of Pity. + +It is so near. And it is so terrible. How can we play? How can we +think of anything else? But for the grace of God, your son and mine +lying there in the spring sunlight on the muddy battlefield of Ypres! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +IN THE LINE OF THE "MITRAILLEUSE" + + +I was taken to see the battlefield of Ypres by Captain Boisseau, of +the French War Academy, and Lieutenant Rene Puaux, of the staff of +General Foch. It was a bright and sunny day, with a cold wind, +however, that set the water in the wayside ditches to rippling. + +All the night before I had wakened at intervals to heavy cannonading +and the sharp cracking of _mitrailleuse_. We were well behind the +line, but the wind was coming from the direction of the battlefield. + +The start was made from in front of General Foch's headquarters. He +himself put me in the car, and bowed an _au revoir_. + +"You will see," he said, "the French soldier in the field, and you +will see him cheerful and well. You will find him full also of +invincible courage and resolution." + +And all that he had said, I found. I found the French soldiers smiling +and cheerful and ruddy in the most wretched of billets. I found them +firing at the enemy, still cheerful, but with a coolness of courage +that made my own shaking nerves steady themselves. + +Today, when that very part of the line I visited is, as was expected +when I was there, bearing the brunt of the German attack in the most +furious fighting of the war, I wonder, of those French soldiers who +crowded round to see the first woman they had beheld for months, how +many are lying on that muddy battlefield? What has happened on that +road, guarded by buried quick-firers, that stretched to the German +trenches beyond the poplar trees? Did the "rabbit trap" do its work? +Only for a time, I think, for was it not there that the Germans broke +through? Did the Germans find and silence that concealed battery of +seventy-five-millimetre guns under its imitation hedge? Who was in the +tree lookout as the enemy swarmed across, and did he get away? + +Except for the constant road repairing there was little to see during +the first part of the journey. Here in a flat field, well beyond the +danger zone, some of the new British Army was digging practice +trenches in the mud. Their tidy uniforms were caked with dirt, their +faces earnest and flushed. At last the long training at Salisbury +Plain was over, and here they were, if not at the front, within +hearing distance of the guns. Any day now a bit of luck would move +them forward, and there would be something doing. + +By now, no doubt, they have been moved up and there has been something +doing. Poor lads! I watched them until even their khaki-coloured tents +had faded into the haze. The tall, blonde, young officer, Lieutenant +Puaux, pointed out to me a detachment of Belgian soldiers mending +roads. As our car passed they leaned on their spades and looked after +us. + +"Belgian carabineers," he said. "They did some of the most heroic work +of the war last summer and autumn. They were decorated by the King. +Now they are worn out and they mend roads!" + +For--and this I had to learn--a man may not fight always, even +although he escapes actual injury. It is the greatest problem of +commanding generals that they must be always moving forward fresh +troops. The human element counts for much in any army. Nerves go after +a time. The constant noise of the guns has sent men mad. + +More than ever, in this new warfare, is the problem serious. For days +the men suffer not only the enemy's guns but the roar of their own +batteries from behind them. They cannot always tell which side they +hear. Their tortured ears ache with listening. And when they charge +and capture an outpost it is not always certain that they will escape +their own guns. In one tragic instance that I know of this happened. + +The route was by way of Poperinghe, with its narrow, crowded streets, +its fresh troops just arrived and waiting patiently, heavy packs +beside them, for orders. In Poperinghe are found all the troops of the +Allies: British, Belgian, French, Hindus, Cingalese, Algerians, +Moroccans. Its streets are a series of colourful pictures, of quaint +uniforms, of a babel of tongues, of that minor confusion that is order +on a great scale. The inevitable guns rumbled along with six horses +and three drivers: a lead driver, a centre driver and wheel driver. +Unlike the British guns, there are generally no gunners with the guns, +but only an officer or two. The gunners go ahead on foot. Lines of +hussars rode by, making their way slowly round a train of British +Red-Cross ambulances. + +At Elverdingue I was to see the men in their billets. Elverdingue was +another Poperinghe--the same crowds of soldiers, the same confusion, +only perhaps more emphasised, for Elverdingue is very near the front, +between Poperinghe and Ypres and a little to the north, where the line +that curves out about Ypres bends back again. + +More guns, more hussars. It was difficult to walk across the narrow +streets. We watched our chance and broke through at last, going into a +house at random. As each house had soldiers billeted in it, it was +certain we would find some, and I was to see not selected quarters but +billets chosen at random. Through a narrow, whitewashed centre hall, +with men in the rooms on either side, and through a muddy kitchen, +where the usual family was huddled round a stove, we went into a tiny, +brick-paved yard. Here was a shed, a roof only, which still held what +remained of the winter's supply of coal. + +Two soldiers were cooking there. Their tiny fire of sticks was built +against a brick wall, and on it was a large can of stewing meat. One +of the cooks--they were company cooks--was watching the kettle and +paring potatoes in a basket. The other was reading a letter aloud. As +the officers entered the men rose and saluted, their bright eyes +taking in this curious party, which included, of all things, a woman! + +"When did you get in from the trenches?" one of the officers asked. + +"At two o'clock this morning, _Monsieur le Capitaine_." + +"And you have not slept?" + +"But no. The men must eat. We have cooked ever since we returned." + +Further questioning elicited the facts that he would sleep when his +company was fed, that he was twenty-two years old, and that--this not +by questions but by investigation--he was sheltered against the cold +by a large knitted muffler, an overcoat, a coat, a green sweater, a +flannel shirt and an undershirt. Under his blue trousers he wore also +the red ones of an old uniform, the red showing through numerous rents +and holes. + +"You have a letter, comrade!" said the Lieutenant to the other man. + +"From my family," was the somewhat sheepish reply. + +Round the doorway other soldiers had gathered to see what was +occurring. They came, yawning with sleep, from the straw they had been +sleeping on, or drifted in from the streets, where they had been +smoking in the sun. They were true republicans, those French soldiers. +They saluted the officers without subservience, but as man to man. And +through a break in the crowd a new arrival was shoved forward. He +came, smiling uneasily. + +"He has the new uniform," I was informed, and he must turn round to +show me how he looked in it. + +We went across the street and through an alleyway to an open place +where stood an old coach house. Here were more men, newly in from the +front. The coach house was a ruin, far from weather-proof and floored +with wet and muddy straw. One could hardly believe that that straw had +been dry and fresh when the troops came in at dawn. It was hideous +now, from the filth of the trenches. The men were awake, and being +advised of our coming by an anxious and loud-voiced member of the +company who ran ahead, they were on their feet, while others, who had +been sleeping in the loft, were on their way down the ladder. + +"They have been in a very bad place all night," said the Captain. +"They are glad to be here, they say." + +"You mean that they have been in a dangerous place?" + +The men were laughing among themselves and pushing forward one of +their number. Urged by their rapid French, he held out his cap to me. +It had been badly torn by a German bullet. Encouraged by his example, +another held out his cap. The crown had been torn almost out of it. + +"You see," said Captain Boisseau, "it was not a comfortable night. But +they are here, and they are content." + +I could understand it, of course, but "here" seemed so pitifully poor +a place--a wet and cold and dirty coach house, open to all the winds +that blew; before it a courtyard stabling army horses that stood to +the fetlocks in mud. For food they had what the boy of twenty-two or +other cooks like him were preparing over tiny fires built against +brick walls. But they were alive, and there were letters from home, +and before very long they expected to drive the Germans back in one of +those glorious charges so dear to the French heart. They were here, +and they were content. + +More sheds, more small fires, more paring of potatoes and onions and +simmering of stews. The meal of the day was in preparation and its +odours were savoury. In one shed I photographed the cook, paring +potatoes with a knife that looked as though it belonged on the end of +a bayonet. And here I was lined up by the fire and the cook--and the +knife--and my picture taken. It has not yet reached me. Perhaps it +went by way of England, and was deleted by the censor as showing +munitions of war! + +From Elverdingue the road led north and west, following the curves of +the trenches. We went through Woesten, where on the day before a +dramatic incident had taken place. Although the town was close to the +battlefield and its church in plain view from the German lines, it had +escaped bombardment. But one Sunday morning a shot was fired. The +shell went through the roof of the church just above the altar, fell +and exploded, killing the priest as he knelt. The hole in the roof of +the building bore mute evidence to this tragedy. It was a small hole, +for the shell exploded inside the building. When I saw it a half dozen +planks had been nailed over it to keep out the rain. + +There were trees outside Woesten, more trees than I had been +accustomed to nearer the sea. Here and there a troop of cavalry horses +was corralled in a grove; shaggy horses, not so large as the English +ones. They were confined by the simple expedient of stretching a rope +from tree to tree in a large circle. + +"French horses," I said, "always look to me so small and light +compared with English horses." + +Then a horse moved about, and on its shaggy flank showed plainly the +mark of a Western branding iron! They were American cow ponies from +the plains. + +"There are more than a hundred thousand American horses here," +observed the Lieutenant. "They are very good horses." + +Later on I stopped to stroke the soft nose of a black horse as it +stood trembling near a battery of heavy guns that was firing steadily. +It was American too. On its flank there was a Western brand. I gave it +an additional caress, and talked a little American into one of its +nervous, silky ears. We were both far from home, a trifle bewildered, +a bit uneasy and frightened. + +And now it was the battlefield--the flat, muddy plain of Ypres. On the +right bodies of men, sheltered by intervening groves and hedges, moved +about. Dispatch riders on motor cycles flew along the roads, and over +the roof of a deserted farmhouse an observation balloon swung in the +wind. Beyond the hedges and the grove lay the trenches, and beyond +them again German batteries were growling. Their shells, however, were +not bursting anywhere near us. + +The balloon was descending. I asked permission to go up in it, but +when I saw it near at hand I withdrew the request. It had no basket, +like the ones I had seen before, but instead the observers, two of +them, sat astride a horizontal bar. + +The English balloons have a basket beneath, I am told. One English +airship man told me that to be sent up in a stationary balloon was the +greatest penalty a man could be asked to pay. The balloon jerks at the +end of its rope like a runaway calf, and "the resulting nausea makes +sea-sickness seem like a trip to the Crystal Palace." + +So I did not go up in that observation balloon on the field of Ypres. +We got out of the car, and trudged after the balloon as it was carried +to its new position by many soldiers. We stood by as it rose again +above the tree tops, the rope and the telephone wire hanging beneath +it. But what the observers saw that afternoon from their horizontal +bar I do not yet know--trenches, of course. But trenches are +interesting in this war only when their occupants have left them and +started forward. Batteries and ammunition trains, probably, the latter +crawling along the enemy's roads. But both of these can be better and +more easily located by aeroplanes. + +The usefulness of the captive balloon in this war is doubtful. It +serves, at the best, to take the place of an elevation of land in this +flat country, is a large and tempting target, and can serve only on +very clear days, when there is no ground mist--a difficult thing to +achieve in Flanders. + +We were getting closer to the front all the time. As the automobile +jolted on, drawing out for transports, for ambulances and ammunition +wagons, the two French officers spoke of the heroism of their men. +They told me, one after the other, of brave deeds that had come under +their own observation. + +"The French common soldier is exceedingly brave--quite reckless," one +of them said. "Take, for instance, the case, a day or so ago, of +Philibert Musillat, of the 168th Infantry. We had captured a +communication trench from the Germans and he was at the end of it, +alone. There was a renewal of the German attack, and they came at him +along the trench. He refused to retreat. His comrades behind handed +him loaded rifles, and he killed every German that appeared until they +lay in a heap. The Germans threw bombs at him, but he would not move. +He stood there for more than twelve hours!" + +There were many such stories, such as that of the boys of the senior +class of the military school of St. Cyr, who took, the day of the +beginning of the war, an oath to put on gala dress, white gloves and a +red, white and blue plume, when they had the honour to receive the +first order to charge. + +They did it, too. Theatrical? Isn't it just splendidly boyish? They +did it, you see. The first of them to die, a young sub-lieutenant, was +found afterward, his red, white and blue plume trampled in the mud, +his brave white gloves stained with his own hot young blood. Another +of these St. Cyr boys, shot in the face hideously and unable to speak, +stood still under fire and wrote his orders to his men. It was his +first day under fire. + +A boy fell injured between the barbed wire in front of his trench and +the enemy, in that No Man's Land of so many tragedies. His comrades, +afraid of hitting him, stopped firing. + +"Go on!" he called to them. "No matter about me. Shoot at them!" + +So they fired, and he writhed for a moment. + +"I got one of yours that time!" he said. + +The Germans retired, but the boy still lay on the ground, beyond +reach. He ceased moving, and they thought he was dead. One may believe +that they hoped he was dead. It was more merciful than the slow dying +of No Man's Land. But after a time he raised his head. + +"Look out," he called. "They are coming again. They are almost up to +me!" + +That is all of that story. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +FRENCH GUNS IN ACTION + + +The car stopped. We were at the wireless and telephone headquarters +for the French Army of the North. It was a low brick building, and +outside, just off the roadway, was a high van full of telephone +instruments. That it was moved from one place to another was shown +when, later in the day, returning by that route, we found the van had +disappeared. + +It was two o'clock. The German wireless from Berlin had just come in. +At three the receiving station would hear from the Eiffel Tower in +Paris. It was curious to stand there and watch the operator, receivers +on his ears, picking up the German message. It was curious to think +that, just a little way over there, across a field or two, the German +operator was doing the same thing, and that in an hour he would be +receiving the French message. + +All the batteries of the army corps are--or were--controlled from that +little station. The colonel in charge came out to greet us, and to him +Captain Boisseau gave General Foch's request to show me batteries in +action. + +The colonel was very willing. He would go with us himself. I conquered +a strong desire to stand with the telephone building between me and +the German lines, now so near, and looked about. A French aeroplane +was overhead, but there was little bustle and activity along the road. +It is a curious fact in this war that the nearer one is to the front +the quieter things become. Three or four miles behind there is bustle +and movement. A mile behind, and only an occasional dispatch rider, a +few men mending roads, an officer's car, a few horses tethered in a +wood, a broken gun carriage, a horse being shod behind a wall, a +soldier on a lookout platform in a tree, thickets and hedges that on +occasion spout fire and death--that is the country round Ypres and +just behind the line, in daylight. + +We were between Ypres and the Allied line, in that arc which the +Germans are, as I write, trying so hard to break through. The papers +say that they are shelling Ypres and that it is burning. They were +shelling it that day also. But now, as then, I cannot believe it is +burning. There was nothing left to burn. + +While arrangements were being made to visit the batteries, Lieutenant +Puaux explained to me a method they had established at that point for +measuring the altitude of hostile aeroplanes for the guns. + +"At some anti-aircfaft batteries," he explained, "they have the +telemeter for that purpose. But here there is none. So they use the +system of _visee laterale_, or side sight, literally." + +He explained it all carefully to me. I understood it at the time, I +think. + +I remember saying it was perfectly clear, and a child could do it, and +a number of other things. But the system of _visee laterale_ has gone +into that part of my mind which contains the Latin irregular verbs, +harmonies, the catechism and answers to riddles. + +There is a curious feeling that comes with the firing of a large +battery at an unseen enemy. One moment the air is still; there is a +peaceful plain round. The sun shines, and heavy cart horses, drawing a +wagon filled with stones for repairing a road, are moving forward +steadily, their heads down, their feet sinking deep in the mud. The +next moment hell breaks loose. The great guns stand with smoking jaws. +The message of death has gone forth. Over beyond the field and that +narrow line of trees, what has happened? A great noise, the furious +recoiling of the guns, an upcurling of smoke--that is the firing of a +battery. But over there, perhaps, one man, or twenty, or fifty men, +lying still. + +So I required assurance that this battery was not being fired for me. +I had no morbid curiosity as to batteries. One of the officers assured +me that I need have no concern. Though they were firing earlier than +had been intended, a German battery had been located and it was their +instructions to disable it. + +The battery had been well concealed. + +"No German aeroplane has as yet discovered it," explained the officer +in charge. + +To tell the truth, I had not yet discovered it myself. We had alighted +from the machine in a sea of mud. There was mud everywhere. + +A farmhouse to the left stood inaccessible in it. Down the road a few +feet a tree with an observation platform rose out of it. A few +chickens waded about in it. A crowd of soldiers stood at a respectful +distance and watched us. But I saw no guns. + +One of the officers stooped and picked up the cast shoe of a battery +horse, and shaking the mud off, presented it to me. + +"To bring you luck," he said, "and perhaps luck to the battery!" + +We left the road, and turning to the right made a floundering progress +across a field to a hedge. Only when we were almost there did I +realise that the hedge was the battery. + +"We built it," said the officer in charge. "We brought the trees and +saplings and constructed it. Madame did not suspect?" + +Madame had not suspected. There were other hedges in the +neighbourhood, and the artificial one had been well contrived. Halfway +through the field the party paused by a curious elevation, flat, +perhaps twenty feet across and circular. + +"The cyclone cellar!" some one said. "We will come here during the +return fire." + +But one look down the crude steps decided me to brave the return fire +and die in the open. The cave below the flat roof, turf-covered +against the keen eyes of aeroplanes, was full of water. The officers +watched my expression and smiled. + +And now we had reached the battery, and eager gunners were tearing +away the trees and shrubbery that covered them. In an incredible space +of time the great grey guns, sinister, potential of death, lay open to +the bright sky. The crews gathered round, each man to his place. The +shell was pushed home, the gunners held the lanyards. + +"Open your mouth wide," said the officer in charge, and gave the +signal. + +The great steel throats were torn open. The monsters recoiled, as if +aghast at what they had done. Their white smoke curled from the +muzzles. The dull horses in the road lifted their heads. + +And over there, beyond the line of poplar trees, what? + +One by one they fired the great guns. Then all together, several +rounds. The air was torn with noise. Other batteries, far and near, +took up the echo. The lassitude of the deadlock was broken. + +And then overhead the bursting shell of a German gun. The return fire +had commenced! + +I had been under fire before. The sound of a bursting shell was not a +new one. But there had always before been a strong element of chance +in my favour. When the Germans were shelling a town, who was I that a +shell should pick me out to fall on or to explode near? But this was +different. They were firing at a battery, and I was beside that +battery. It was all very well for the officer in charge to have said +they had never located his battery. I did not believe him. I still +doubt him. For another shell came. + +The soldiers from the farmhouse had gathered behind us in the field. I +turned and looked at them. They were smiling. So I summoned a shaky +smile myself and refused the hospitality of the cellar full of water. + +One of the troopers stepped out from the others. + +"We have just completed a small bridge," he said--"a bridge over the +canal. Will madame do us the honour of walking across it? It will thus +be inaugurated by the only lady at the front." + +Madame would. Madame did. But without any real enthusiasm. The men +cheered, and another German shell came, and everything was merry as a +marriage bell. + +They invited me to climb the ladder to the lookout in the tree and +look at the enemy's trenches. But under the circumstances I declined. +I felt that it was time to move on and get hence. The honour of being +the only woman who had got to the front at Ypres began to weigh heavy +on me. I mentioned the passing of time and the condition of the roads. + +So at last I got into the car. The officers of the battery bowed, and +the men, some fifty of them, gave me three rousing cheers. I think of +them now, and there is a lump in my throat. They were so interested, +so smiling and cheery, that bright late February afternoon, standing +in the mud of the battlefield of Ypres, with German shells bursting +overhead. Half of them, even then, had been killed or wounded. Each +day took its toll of some of them, one way or another. + +How many of them are left to-day? The smiling officer, so debonair, so +proud of his hidden battery, where is he? The tiny bridge, has it run +red this last week? The watchman in the tree, what did he see, that +terrible day when the Germans got across the canal and charged over +the flat lands? + +The Germans claim to have captured guns at or near this place. One +thing I am sure of: This battery or another, it was not taken while +there were men belonging to it to defend it. The bridge would run red +and the water under the bridge, the muddy field be strewn with bodies, +before those cheery, cool-eyed and indomitable French gunners would +lose their guns. + +The car moved away, fifty feet, a hundred feet, and turned out to +avoid an ammunition wagon, disabled in the road. It was fatal. We slid +off into the mire and settled down. I looked back at the battery. A +fresh shell was bursting high in the air. + +We sat there, interminable hours that were really minutes, while an +orderly and the chauffeur dug us out with spades. We conversed of +other things. But it was a period of uneasiness on my part. And, as if +to point the lesson and adorn the tale, away to the left, rising above +the plain, was the church roof with the hole in it--mute evidence that +even the mantle of righteousness is no protection against a shell. + +Our course was now along a road just behind the trenches and +paralleling them, to an anti-aircraft station. + +I have seen a number of anti-aircraft stations at the front: English +ones near the coast and again south of Ypres; guns mounted, as was +this French battery, on the plain of a battlefield; isolated cannon in +towers and on the tops of buildings and water tanks. I have seen them +in action, firing at hostile planes. I have never yet seen them do any +damage, but they serve a useful purpose in keeping the scouting +machines high in the air, thus rendering difficult the work of the +enemy's observer. The real weapon against the hostile aeroplane is +another machine. Several times I have seen German _Taubes_ driven off +by French aviators, and winging a swift flight back to their lines. +Not, one may be sure, through any lack of courage on the part of +German aviators. They are fearless and extremely skilful. But because +they have evidently been instructed to conserve their machines. + +I had considerable curiosity as to the anti-aircraft batteries. How +was it possible to manipulate a large field gun, with a target moving +at a varying height, and at a speed velocity of, say, sixty miles an +hour? + +The answer was waiting on the field just north of Ypres. + +A brick building by the road was evidently a storehouse for provisions +for the trenches. Unloaded in front of it were sacks of bread, meal +and provisions. And standing there in the sunshine was the commander +of the field battery, Captain Mignot. A tall and bearded man, +essentially grave, he listened while Lieutenant Puaux explained the +request from General Foch that I see his battery. He turned and +scanned the sky. + +"We regret," he said seriously, "that at the moment there is no +aeroplane in sight. We will, however, show Madame everything." + +He led the way round the corner of the building to where a path, +neatly banked, went out through the mud to the battery. + +"Keep to the path," said a tall sign. But there was no temptation to +do otherwise. There must have been fifty acres to that field, unbroken +by hedge or tree. As we walked out, Captain Mignot paused and pointed +his finger up and somewhat to the right. + +"German shrapnel!" he said. True enough, little spherical clouds told +where it had burst harmlessly. + +As cannonading had been going on steadily all the afternoon, no one +paid any particular attention. We walked on in the general direction +of the trenches. + +The gunners were playing prisoner's base just beyond the guns. When +they saw us coming the game ceased, and they hurried to their +stations. Boys they were, most of them. The youth of the French troops +had not impressed me so forcibly as had the boyishness of the English +and the Belgians. They are not so young, on an average, I believe. But +also the deception of maturity is caused by a general indifference to +shaving while in the field. + +But Captain Mignot evidently had his own ideas of military smartness, +and these lads were all clean-shaven. They trooped in from their game, +under that little cloud of shrapnel smoke that still hung in the sky, +for all the world a crowd of overheated and self-conscious schoolboys +receiving an unexpected visit from the master of the school. + +The path ended at the battery. In the centre of the guns was a raised +platform of wood, and a small shelter house for the observer or +officer on duty. There were five guns in pits round this focal point +and forming a circle. And on the platform in the centre was a curious +instrument on a tripod. + +"The telemeter," explained Captain Mignot; "for obtaining the altitude +of the enemy's aeroplane." + +Once again we all scanned the sky anxiously, but uselessly. + +"I don't care to have any one hurt," I said; "but if a plane is coming +I wish it would come now. Or a Zeppelin." + +The captain's serious face lighted in a smile. + +"A Zeppelin!" he said. "We would with pleasure wait all the night for +a Zeppelin!" + +He glanced round at the guns. Every gunner was in his place. We were +to have a drill. + +"We will suppose," he said, "that a German aeroplane is approaching. +To fire correctly we must first know its altitude. So we discover that +with this." He placed his hand on the telemeter. "There are, you +observe, two apertures, one for each eye. In one the aeroplane is seen +right side up. In the other the image is inverted, upside down. Now! +By this screw the images are made to approach, until one is +superimposed exactly over the other. Immediately on the lighted dial +beneath is shown the altitude, in metres." + +I put my eyes to the openings, and tried to imagine an aeroplane +overhead, manoeuvring to drop a bomb or a dart on me while I +calculated its altitude. I could not do it. + +Next I was shown the guns. They were the famous +seventy-five-millimetre guns of France, transformed into aircraft guns +by the simple expedient of installing them in a pit with sloping +sides, so that their noses pointed up and out. To swing them round, so +that they pointed readily toward any portion of the sky, a circular +framework of planks formed a round rim to the pit, and on this runway, +heavily greased, the muzzles were swung about. + +The gun drill began. It was executed promptly, skilfully. There was no +bungling, not a wrong motion or an unnecessary one, as they went +through the movements of loading, sighting and firing the guns. It was +easy to see why French artillery has won its renown. The training of +the French artilleryman is twice as severe as that of the infantryman. +Each man, in addition to knowing his own work on the gun, must be able +to do the work of all the eleven others. Casualties must occur, and in +spite of them the work of the gun must go on. + +Casualties had occurred at that station. More than half the original +battery was gone. The little shelter house was splintered in a hundred +places. There were shell holes throughout the field, and the breech of +one gun had recently been shattered and was undergoing repair. + +The drill was over and the gunners stood at attention. I asked +permission to photograph the battery, and it was cheerfully given. One +after the other I took the guns, until I had taken four. The gunners +waited smilingly expectant. For the last gun I found I had no film, +but I could not let it go at that. So I pointed the empty camera at it +and snapped the shutter. It would never do to show discrimination. + +Somewhere in London are all those pictures. They have never been sent +to me. No doubt a watchful English government pounced on them in the +mail, and, in connection with my name, based on them most unjust +suspicions. They were very interesting. There was Captain Mignot, and +the two imposing officers from General Foch's staff; there were +smiling young French gunners; there was the telemeter, which cost, +they told me, ten thousand francs, and surely deserved to have its +picture taken, and there was one, not too steady, of a patch of sunny +sky and a balloon-shaped white cloud, where another German shrapnel +had burst overhead. + +The drill was over. We went back along the path toward the road. +Behind the storehouse the evening meal was preparing in a shed. The +battery was to have a new ration that night for a change, bacon and +codfish. Potatoes were being pared into a great kettle and there was a +bowl of eggs on a stand. It appeared to me, accustomed to the meagre +ration of the Belgians, that the French were dining well that night on +the plains of Ypres. + +In a stable near at hand a horse whinnied. I patted him as I passed, +and he put his head against my shoulder. + +"He recognises you!" said Captain Boisseau. "He too is American." + +It was late afternoon by that time. The plan to reach the advanced +trenches was frustrated by an increasing fusillade from the front. +There were barbed-wire entanglements everywhere, and every field was +honeycombed with trenches. One looked across the plain and saw +nothing. Then suddenly as we advanced great gashes cut across the +fields, and in these gashes, although not a head was seen, were men. +The firing was continuous. And now, going down a road, with a line of +poplar trees at the foot and the setting sun behind us throwing out +faint shadows far ahead, we saw the flash of water. It was very near. +It was the flooded river and the canal. Beyond, eight hundred yards or +less from where we stood, were the Germans. To one side the inundation +made a sort of bay. + +It was along this part of the field that the Allies expected the +German Army to make its advance when the spring movement commenced. +And as nearly as can be learned from the cabled accounts that is where +the attack was made. + +A captain from General d'Urbal's staff met us at the trenches, and +pointed out the strategical value of a certain place, the certainty of +a German advance, and the preparations that were made to meet it. + +It was odd to stand there in the growing dusk, looking across to where +was the invading army, only a little over two thousand feet away. It +was rather horrible to see that beautiful landscape, the untravelled +road ending in the line of poplars, so very close, where were the +French outposts, and the shining water just beyond, and talk so calmly +of the death that was waiting for the first Germans who crossed the +canal. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +"I NIBBLE THEM" + + +I went into the trenches. The captain was very proud of them. + +"They represent the latest fashion in trenches!" he explained, smiling +faintly. + +It seemed to me that I could easily have improved on that latest +fashion. The bottom was full of mud and water. Standing in the trench, +I could see over the side by making an effort. The walls were +wattled--that is, covered with an interlacing of fagots which made the +sides dry. + +But it was not for that reason only that these trenches were called +the latest fashion. They were divided, every fifteen feet or so, by a +bulwark of earth about two feet thick, round which extended a +communication trench. + +"The object of dividing these trenches in this manner is to limit the +havoc of shells that drop into them," the captain explained. "Without +the earth bulwark a shell can kill every man in the trench. In this +way it can kill only eight. Now stand at this end of the trench. What +do you see?" + +What I saw was a barbed-wire entanglement, leading into a cul-de-sac. + +"A rabbit trap!" he said. "They will come over the field there, and +because they cannot cross the entanglement they will follow it. It is +built like a great letter V, and this is the point." + +The sun had gone down to a fiery death in the west. The guns were +firing intermittently. Now and then from the poplar trees came the +sharp ping of a rifle. The evening breeze had sprung up, ruffling the +surface of the water, and bringing afresh that ever-present and +hideous odour of the battlefield. Behind us the trenches showed signs +of activity as the darkness fell. + +Suddenly the rabbit trap and the trench grew unspeakably loathsome and +hideous to me. What a mockery, this business of killing men! No matter +that beyond the canal there lurked the menace of a foe that had +himself shown unspeakable barbarity and resource in plotting death. No +matter if the very odour that stank in my nostrils called loud for +vengeance. I thought of German prisoners I had seen, German wounded +responding so readily to kindness and a smile. I saw them driven +across that open space, at the behest of frantic officers who were +obeying a guiding ambition from behind. I saw them herded like cattle, +young men and boys and the fathers of families, in that cruel rabbit +trap and shot by men who, in their turn, were protecting their country +and their homes. + +I have in my employ a German gardener. He has been a member of the +household for years. He has raised, or helped to raise, the children, +has planted the trees, and helped them, like the children, through +their early weakness. All day long he works in the garden among his +flowers. He coaxes and pets them, feeds them, moves them about in the +sun. When guests arrive, it is Wilhelm's genial smile that greets +them. When the small calamities of a household occur, it is Wilhelm's +philosophy that shows us how to meet them. + +Wilhelm was a sergeant in the German Army for five years. Now he is an +American citizen, owning his own home, rearing his children to a +liberty his own childhood never knew. + +But, save for the accident of emigration, Wilhelm would to-day be in +the German Army. He is not young, but he is not old. His arms and +shoulders are mighty. But for the accident of emigration, then, +Wilhelm, working to-day in the sun among his Delphiniums and his iris, +his climbing roses and flowering shrubs, would be wearing the helmet +of the invader; for his vine-covered house he would have substituted a +trench; for his garden pick a German rifle. + +For Wilhelm was a faithful subject of Germany while he remained there. +He is a Socialist. He does not believe in war. Live and help others to +live is his motto. But at the behest of the Kaiser, Wilhelm too would +have gone to his appointed place. + +It was of Wilhelm then, and others of his kind, that I thought as I +stood in the end of the new-fashion trench, looking at the rabbit +trap. There must be many Wilhelms in the German Army, fathers, good +citizens, kindly men who had no thought of a place in the sun except +for the planting of a garden. Men who have followed the false gods of +their country with the ardent blue eyes of supreme faith. + +I asked to be taken home. + +On the way to the machine we passed a _mitrailleuse_ buried by the +roadside. Its location brought an argument among the officers. +Strategically it would be valuable for a time, but there was some +question as to its position in view of a retirement by the French. + +I could not follow the argument. I did not try to. I was cold and +tired, and the red sunset had turned to deep purple and gold. The guns +had ceased. Over all the countryside brooded the dreadful peace of +sheer exhaustion and weariness. And in the air, high overhead, a +German plane sailed slowly home. + + * * * * * + +Sentries halted us on the way back holding high lanterns that set the +bayonets of their guns to gleaming. Faces pressed to the glass, they +surveyed us stolidly, making sure that we were as our passes described +us. Long lines of marching men turned out to let us pass. As darkness +settled down, the location of the German line, as it encircled Ypres, +was plainly shown by floating _fusees_. In every hamlet reserves were +lining up for the trenches, dark masses of men, with here and there a +face thrown into relief as a match was held to light a cigarette. Open +doors showed warm, lamp-lit interiors and the glow of fires. + +I sat back in the car and listened while the officers talked together. +They were speaking of General Joffre, of his great ability, of his +confidence in the outcome of the war, and of his method, during those +winter months when, with such steady fighting, there had been so +little apparent movement. One of the officers told me that General +Joffre had put his winter tactics in three words: + +"I nibble them." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +DUNKIRK: FROM MY JOURNAL + + +I wakened early this morning and went to church--a great empty place, +very cold but with the red light of the sanctuary lamp burning before +a shrine. There were perhaps a dozen people there when I went in. +Before the Mater Dolorosa two women in black were praying with +upturned eyes. At the foot of the Cross crouched the tragic figure of +the Mother, with her dead Son in her arms. Before her were these other +mothers, praying in the light of the thin burning candles. Far away, +near the altar, seven women of the Society of the Holy Rosary were +conducting a private service. They were market women, elderly, plain, +raising to the altar faces full of faith and devotion, as they prayed +for France and for their soldier-children. + +Here and there was a soldier or a sailor on his knees on a low +prie-dieu, his cap dangling loose in his hands. Unlike the women, the +lips of these men seldom moved in prayer; they apparently gazed in +wordless adoration at the shrine. Great and swelling thoughts were +theirs, no doubt, kindled by that tiny red flame: thoughts too big for +utterance or even for form. To go out and fight for France, to drive +back the invaders, and, please God, to come back again--that was what +their faces said. + +Other people came in, mostly women, who gathered silently around the +Mater Dolorosa. The great empty Cross; the woman and the dead Christ +at the foot of it; the quiet, kneeling people before it; over all, as +the services began, the silvery bell of the Mass; the bending backs of +the priests before the altar; the sound of fresh, boyish voices +singing in the choir--that is early morning service in the great +Gothic church at Dunkirk. + +Onto this drab and grey and grieving picture came the morning +sunlight, through roof-high windows of red and yellow and of that warm +violet that glows like a jewel. The candles paled in the growing +light. A sailor near me gathered up his cap, which had fallen unheeded +to the floor, and went softly out. The private service was over; the +market women picked up their baskets and, bowing to the altar, +followed the sailor. The great organ pleaded and cried out. I stole +out. I was an intruder, gazing at the grief of a nation. + +It was a transformed square that I walked through on my way back to +the hotel. It was a market morning. All week long it had been crowded +with motor ambulances, lorries, passing guns. Orderlies had held +cavalry horses under the shadow of the statue in the centre. The +fried-potato-seller's van had exuded an appetising odour of cooking, +and had gathered round it crowds of marines in tam-o'-shanters with +red woollen balls in the centre, Turcos in great bloomers, and the +always-hungry French and Belgian troopers. + +Now all was changed. The square had become a village filled with +canvas houses, the striped red-and-white booths of the market people. +War had given way to peace. For the clattering of accoutrements were +substituted high pitched haggling, the cackling of geese in crates, +the squawks of chickens tied by the leg. Little boys in pink-checked +gingham aprons ran about or stood, feet apart, staring with frank +curiosity at tall East Indians. + +There were small and carefully cherished baskets of eggs and bundles +of dead Belgian hares hung by the ears, but no other fresh meats. +There was no fruit, no fancy bread. The vegetable sellers had only +Brussels sprouts, turnips, beets and the small round potatoes of the +country. For war has shorn the market of its gaiety. Food is scarce +and high. The flower booths are offering country laces and finding no +buyers. The fruit sellers have only shrivelled apples to sell. + +Now, at a little after midday, the market is over. The canvas booths +have been taken down, packed on small handcarts and trundled away; +unsold merchandise is on its way back to the farm to wait for another +week and another market. Already the market square has taken on its +former martial appearance, and Dunkirk is at its midday meal of rabbit +and Brussels sprouts. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +TEA WITH THE AIR-FIGHTERS + + +Later: Roland Garros, the French aviator, has just driven off a German +_Taube_. They both circled low over the town for some time. Then the +German machine started east with Garros in pursuit. They have gone out +of sight. + + * * * * * + +War is not all grey and grim and hideous. It has its lighter moments. +The more terrible a situation the more keen is human nature to forget +it for a time. Men play between shells in the trenches. London, +suffering keenly, flocks to a comedy or a farce as a relief from +strain. Wounded men, past their first agony, chaff each other in the +hospitals. There are long hours behind the lines when people have tea +and try to forget for a little while what is happening just ahead. + +Some seven miles behind the trenches, in that vague "Somewhere in +France," the British Army had established a naval air-station, where +one of its dirigible airships was kept. In good weather the airship +went out on reconnoissance. It was not a large airship, as such things +go, and was formerly a training ship. Now it was housed in an +extemporised hangar that was once a carwheel works, and made its +ascent from a plain surrounded by barbed wire. + +The airship men were extremely hospitable, and I made several visits +to the station. On the day of which I am about to write I was taken +for an exhaustive tour of the premises, beginning with the hangar and +ending with tea. Not that it really ended with tea. Tea was rather a +beginning, leading to all sorts of unexpected and surprising things. + +The airship was out when I arrived, and a group of young officers was +watching it, a dot on the horizon near the front. They gave me the +glasses, and I saw it plainly--a long, yellowish, slowly moving object +that turned as I looked and headed back for the station. + +The group watched the sky carefully. A German aeroplane could wreck +the airship easily. But although there were planes in sight none was +of the familiar German lines. + +It came on. Now one could see the car below. A little closer and three +dots were the men in it. On the sandy plain which is the landing field +were waiting the men whose work it is to warp the great balloon into +its hangar. The wind had come up and made landing difficult. It was +necessary to make two complete revolutions over the field before +coming down. Then the blunt yellow nose dipped abruptly. The men below +caught the ropes, the engine was cut off, and His Majesty's airship, +in shape and colour not unlike a great pig, was safely at home again +and being led to the stable. + +"Do you want to know the bravest man in all the world?" one of the +young officers said. "Because here he is. The funny thing about it is +he doesn't know he is brave." + +That is how I met Colonel M----, who is England's greatest airship man +and who is in charge of the naval air station. + +"If you had come a little sooner," he said, "you could have gone out +with us." + +I was grateful but unenthusiastic. I had seen the officers watching +the sky for German planes. I had a keen idea that a German aviator +overhead, armed with a Belgian block or a bomb or a dart, could have +ripped that yellow envelope open from stem to stern, and robbed +American literature of one of its shining lights. Besides, even in +times of peace I am afraid to look out of a third-story window. + +We made a tour of the station, which had been a great factory before +the war began, beginning with the hangar in which the balloon was now +safely housed. + +Entrance to the station is by means of a bridge over a canal. The +bridge is guarded by sentries and the password of the day is necessary +to gain admission. East and west along the canal are canal boats that +have been painted grey and have guns mounted on them. Side by side +with these gunboats are the ordinary canal boats of the region, +serving as homes for that part of the populace which remains, with +women knitting on the decks or hanging out lines of washing overhead. + +The endless traffic of a main highroad behind the lines passes the +station day and night. Chauffeurs drop in to borrow petrol or to +repair their cars; visiting officers from other stations come to watch +the airship perform. For England has been slow to believe in the +airships, pinning her aeronautical faith to heavier-than-air machines. +She has considered the great expense for building and upkeep of each +of these dirigible balloons--as much as that of fifty aeroplanes--the +necessity of providing hangars for them, and their vulnerability to +attack, as overbalancing the advantages of long range, silence as they +drift with the wind with engines cut off, and ability to hover over a +given spot and thus launch aerial bombs more carefully. + +There is a friendly rivalry between the two branches of the air +service, and so far in this war the credit apparently goes to the +aeroplanes. However, until the war is over, and Germany definitely +states what part her Zeppelins have had in both sea and land attacks, +it will be impossible to make any fair comparison. + +The officers at the naval air station had their headquarters in the +administration building of the factory, a long brick building facing +the road. Here in a long room with western windows they rested and +relaxed, lined and talked between their adventurous excursions to the +lines. + +Day by day these men went out, some in the airship for a +reconnoissance, others to man observation balloons. Day by day it was +uncertain who would come back. + +But they were very cheerful. Officers with an hour to spare came up +from the gunboats in the canal to smoke a pipe by the fire. Once in so +often a woman came, stopping halfway her frozen journey to a soup +kitchen or a railroad station, where she looked after wounded +soldiers, to sit in the long room and thaw out; visiting officers from +other parts of the front dropped in for a meal, sure of a welcome and +a warm fire. As compared with the trenches, or even with the gunboats +on the canal, the station represented cheer, warmth; even, after the +working daylight hours, society. + +There were several buildings. Outside near the bridge was the wireless +building, where an operator sat all the time with his receivers over +his ears. Not far from the main group was the great hangar of the +airship, and to that we went first. The hangar had been a machine shop +with a travelling crane. It had been partially cleared but the crane +still towered at one end. High above it, reached by a ladder, was a +door. + +The young captain of the airship pointed up to it. + +"My apartments!" he said. + +"Do you mean to say that you sleep here?" I asked. For the building +was bitterly cold; one end had been knocked out to admit the airship, +and the wall had been replaced by great curtains of sailcloth to keep +out the wind. + +"Of course," he replied. "I am always within call. There are sentries +also to guard the ship. It would be very easy to put it out of +commission." + +The construction of the great balloon was explained to me carefully. +It was made of layer after layer of gold-beater's skin and contained +two ballonets--a small ship compared to the Zeppelins, and non-rigid +in type. + +Underneath the great cigar-shaped bag hangs an aluminum car which +carries a crew of three men. The pilot sits in front at a wheel that +resembles the driving wheel of an automobile. Just behind him is the +observer, who also controls the wireless. The engineer is the third +man. + +The wireless puzzled me. "Do you mean that when you go out on scouting +expeditions you can communicate with the station here?" I asked. + +"It is quite possible. But when the airship goes out a wireless van +accompanies it, following along the roads. Messages are picked up by +the van and by a telephone connection sent to the various batteries." + +It may be well to mention again the airship chart system by which the +entire region is numbered and lettered in small squares. Black lines +drawn across the detail map of the neighbourhood divide it into +lettered squares, A, B, C, and so forth, and these lettered squares +are again subdivided into four small squares, 1, 2, 3, 4. Thus the +direction B 4, or N 2, is a very specific one in directing the fire of +a battery. + +"Did you accomplish much to-day?" I inquired. + +"Not as much as usual. There is a ground haze," replied Colonel M----, +who had been the observer in that day's flight. "Down here it is not +so noticeable, but from above it obscures everything." + +He explained the difficulties of the airship builder, the expense and +tendency to "pinholes" of gold-beaters' skin, the curious fact that +chemists had so far failed to discover a gasproof varnish. + +"But of course," he said, "those things will come. The airship is the +machine of the future. Its stability, its power to carry great +weights, point to that. The difference between an airship and an +aeroplane is the difference between a battleship and a submarine. Each +has its own field of usefulness." + +All round lay great cylinders of pure hydrogen, used for inflating the +balloon. Smoking in the hangar was forbidden. The incessant wind +rattled the great canvas curtains and whistled round the rusting +crane. From the shop next door came the hammering of machines, for the +French Government has put the mill to work again. + +We left the hangar and walked past the machine shop. Halfway along one +of its sides a tall lieutenant pointed to a small hole in the land, +leading under the building. + +"The French government has sent here," he said, "the men who are unfit +for service in the army. Day by day, as German aeroplanes are seen +overhead, the alarm is raised in the shop. The men are panic-stricken. +If there are a dozen alarms they do the same thing. They rush out like +frightened rabbits, throw themselves flat on the sand, and wriggle +through that hole into a cave that they have dug underneath. It is +hysterically funny; they all try to get in at the same time." + +I had hoped to see the thing happen myself. But when, late that +afternoon, a German aeroplane actually flew over the station, the +works had closed down for the day and the men were gone. It was +disappointing. + +Between the machine shop and the administration building is a tall +water tower. On top of this are two observers who watch the sky day +and night. An anti-aircraft gun is mounted there and may be swung to +command any portion of the sky. This precaution is necessary, for the +station has been the object of frequent attacks. The airship itself +has furnished a tempting mark to numerous German airmen. Its best +speed is forty miles an hour, so they are able to circle about it and +attack it from various directions. As it has only two ballonets, a +single shot, properly placed, could do it great damage. The Zeppelin, +with its eighteen great gasbags, can suffer almost any amount of +attack and still remain in the air. + +"Would you like to see the trenches?" said one of the officers, +smiling. + +"Trenches? Seven miles behind the line?" + +"Trenches certainly. If the German drive breaks through it will come +along this road." + +"But I thought you lived in the administration building?" + +"Some of us must hold the trenches," he said solemnly. "What are six +or seven miles to the German Army? You should see the letters of +sympathy we get from home!" + +So he showed me the trenches. They were extremely nice trenches, dug +out of the sand, it is true, but almost luxurious for all that, more +like rooms than ditches, with board shelves and dishes on the shelves, +egg cups and rows of shining glasses, silver spoons, neat little +folded napkins, and, though the beds were on the floor, extremely tidy +beds of mattresses and warm blankets. The floor was boarded over. +There was a chair or two, and though I will not swear to pictures on +the walls there were certainly periodicals and books. Outside the door +was a sort of vestibule of boards which had been built to keep the +wind out. + +"You see!" said the young officer with twinkling eyes. "But of course +this is war. One must put up with things!" + +Nevertheless it was a real trench, egg cups and rows of shining +glasses and electric light and all. It was there for a purpose. In +front of it was a great barbed-wire barricade. Strategically it +commanded the main road over which the German Army must pass to reach +the point it has been striving for. Only seven miles away along that +road it was straining even then for the onward spring movement. Any +day now, and that luxurious trench may be the scene of grim and +terrible fighting. + +And, more than that, these men at the station were not waiting for +danger to come to them. Day after day they were engaged in the most +perilous business of the war. + +At this station some of the queer anomalies of a volunteer army were +to be found. So strongly ingrained in the heart of the British youth +of good family is the love of country, that when he is unable to get +his commission he goes in any capacity. I heard of a little chap, too +small for the regular service, who has gone to the front as a cook! +His uncle sits in the House of Lords. And here, at this naval air +station, there were young noncommissioned officers who were +Honourables, and who were trying their best to live it down. One such +youth was in charge of the great van that is the repair shop for the +airship. Others were in charge of the wireless station. One met them +everywhere, clear-eyed young Englishmen ready and willing to do +anything, no matter what, and proving every moment of their busy day +the essential democracy of the English people. + +As we went into the administration building that afternoon two things +happened: The observers in the water tower reported a German aeroplane +coming toward the station, and a young lieutenant, who had gone to the +front in a borrowed machine, reported that he had broken the wind +shield of the machine. There are plenty of German aeroplanes at that +British airship station, but few wind shields. The aeroplane was +ignored, but the wind shield was loudly and acrimoniously discussed. + +The day was cold and had turned grey and lowering. It was pleasant +after our tour of the station to go into the long living room and sit +by the fire. But the fire smoked. One after another those dauntless +British officers attacked it, charged with poker, almost with bayonet, +and retired defeated. So they closed it up finally with a curious +curved fire screen and let it alone. It was ten minutes after I began +looking at the fire screen before I recognised it for what it was--the +hood from an automobile! + +Along one side of the wall was a piano. It had been brought back from +a ruined house at the front. It was rather a poor piano and no one had +any music, but some of the officers played a little by ear. The top of +the piano was held up by a bandage! It was a piano of German make, and +the nameplate had been wrenched off! + +A long table filled the centre of the room. One end formed the press +censorship bureau, for it was part of the province of the station to +censor and stamp letters going out. The other end was the dining +table. Over the fireplace on the mantel was a baby's shoe, a little +brown shoe picked up on the street of a town that was being destroyed. + +Beside it lay an odd little parachute of canvas with a weighted +letter-carrier beneath. One of the officers saw me examining it and +presented it to me, as it was worn and past service. + +"Now and then," he explained, "it is impossible to use the wireless, +for one reason or another. In that case a message can be dropped by +means of the parachute." + +I brought the message-carrier home with me. On its weighted canvas bag +is written in ink: "Urgent! You are requested to forward this at once +to the inclosed address. From His Majesty's airship ----." + +The sight of the press-censor stamp reminded an English officer, who +had lived in Belgium, of the way letters to and from interned Belgians +have been taken over the frontier into Holland and there dispatched. +Men who are willing to risk their lives for money collect these +letters. At one time the price was as high as two hundred francs for +each one. When enough have been gathered together to make the risk +worth while the bearer starts on his journey. He must slip through the +sentry lines disguised as a workman, or perhaps by crawling through +the barbed wire at the barrier. For fear of capture some of these +bearers, working their way through the line at night, have dragged +their letters behind them, so that in case of capture they could drop +the cord and be found without incriminating evidence on them. For +taking letters into Belgium the process is naturally reversed. But +letters are sent, not to names, but to numbers. The bearer has a list +of numbers which correspond to certain addresses. Thus, even if he is +taken and the letters are found on him, their intended recipients will +not be implicated. I saw a letter which had been received in this way +by a Belgian woman. It was addressed simply to Number Twenty-eight. + +The fire was burning better behind its automobile hood. An orderly had +brought in tea, white bread, butter, a pitcher of condensed cream, and +an English teacake. We gathered round the tea table. War seemed a +hundred miles away. Except for the blue uniforms and brass buttons of +the officers who belonged to the naval air service, the orderly's +khaki and the bayonet from a gun used casually at the other end of the +table as a paperweight, it was an ordinary English tea. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE WOMEN AT THE FRONT + + +It was commencing to rain outside. The rain beat on the windows and +made even the reluctant fire seem cosy. Some one had had a box of +candy sent from home. It was brought out and presented with a +flourish. + +"It is frightful, this life in the trenches!" said the young officer +who passed it about. + +Shortly afterward the party was increased. An orderly came in and +announced that an Englishwoman, whose automobile had broken down, was +standing on the bridge over the canal and asked to be admitted. She +did not know the password and the sentry refused to let her pass by. + +One of the officers went out and returned in a few moments with a +small lady much wrapped in veils and extremely wet. She stood blinking +in the doorway in the accustomed light. She was recognised at once as +a well-known English novelist who is conducting a soup kitchen at a +railroad station three miles behind the Belgian front. + +"A car was to have picked me up," she said, "but I have walked and +walked and it has not come. And I am so cold. Is that tea? And may I +come to the fire?" + +So they settled her comfortably, with her feet thrust out to the +blaze, and gave her hot tea and plenty of bread and butter. + +"It is like the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice in Wonderland," said +one of the officers gaily. "When any fresh person drops in we just +move up one place." + +The novelist sipped her tea and told me about her soup kitchen. + +"It is so very hard to get things to put into the soup," she said. "Of +course I have no car, and now with the new law that no women are to be +allowed in military cars I hardly know what to do." + +"Will you tell me just what you do?" I asked. So she told me, and +later I saw her soup kitchen. + +"Men come in from the front," she explained, "injured and without +food. Often they have had nothing to eat for a long time. We make soup +of whatever meat we can find and any vegetables, and as the hospital +trains come in we carry it out to the men. They are so very grateful +for it." + +That was to be an exceptional afternoon at the naval air-station. For +hardly had the novelist been settled with her tea when two very +attractive but strangely attired young women came into the room. They +nodded to the officers, whom they knew, and went at once to the +business which had brought them. + +"Can you lend us a car?" they asked. "Ours has gone off the road into +the mud, and it looks as though it would never move again." + +That was the beginning of a very strange evening, almost an +extraordinary evening. For while the novelist was on her way back to +peace these young women were on their way home. + +And home to them was one room of a shattered house directly on the +firing line. + +Much has been said about women at the front. As far as I know at that +time there were only two women absolutely at the front. Nurses as a +rule are kept miles behind the line. Here and there a soup kitchen, +like that just spoken of, has held its courageous place three or four +miles back along the lines of communication. + +I have said that they were extraordinarily dressed. Rather they were +most practically dressed. Under khaki-coloured leather coats these two +young women wore khaki riding breeches with puttees and flannel +shirts. They had worn nothing else for six months. They wore knitted +caps on their heads, for the weather was extremely cold, and mittens. + +The fire was blazing high and we urged them to take off their outer +wraps. For a reason which we did not understand at the time they +refused. They sat with their leather coats buttoned to the throat, and +coloured violently when urged to remove them. + +"But what are you doing here?" said one of the officers. "What brings +you so far from P----" + +They said they had had an errand, and went on drinking tea. + +"What sort of an errand?" a young lieutenant demanded. + +They exchanged glances. + +"Shopping," they said, and took more tea. + +"Shopping, for what?" He was smilingly impertinent. + +They hesitated. Then: "For mutton," one of them replied. Both looked +relieved. Evidently the mutton was an inspiration. "We have found some +mutton." They turned to me. "It is a real festival. You have no idea +how long it is since we've had anything of the sort." + +"Mutton!" cried the novelist, with frankly greedy eyes. "It makes +wonderful soup! Where can I get it?" + +They told her, and she stood up, tied on her seven veils and departed, +rejoicing, in a car that had come for her. + +When she was gone Colonel M---- turned to one of the young women. + +"Now," he said, "out with it. What brings you both so far from your +thriving and prosperous little community?" + +The irony of that was lost on me until later, when I discovered that +the said community was a destroyed town with the advance line of +trenches running through it, and that they lived in the only two whole +rooms in the place. + +"Out with it," said the colonel, and scowled ferociously. + +Driven into a corner they were obliged to confess. For three hours +that afternoon they had stood in a freezing wind on a desolate field, +while King Albert of Belgium decorated for bravery various officers +and--themselves. The jealously fastened coats were thrown open. +Gleaming on the breast of each young woman was the star of the Order +of Leopold! + +"But why did you not tell us?" the officers demanded. + +"Because," was the retort, "you have never approved of us; you have +always wanted us sent back to England. The whole British Army has +objected to our being where we are." + +"Much good the objecting has done!" grumbled the officers. But in +their hearts they were very proud. + +Originally there had been three in this valiant little group of young +aristocrats who have proved as true as their brothers to the +traditions of their race. The third one was the daughter of an earl. +She, too, had been decorated. But she had gone to a little town near +by a day or two before. + +"But what do you do?" I asked one of these young women. She was +drawing on her mittens ready to start for their car. + +"Sick and sorry work," she said briefly. "You know the sort of thing. +I wish you would come out and have dinner with us. There is to be +mutton." + +I accepted promptly, but it was the situation and not the mutton that +appealed to me. It was arranged that they should go ahead and set +things in motion for the meal, and that I should follow later. + +At the door one of them turned and smiled at me. + +"They are shelling the village," she said. "You don't mind, do you?" + +"Not at all," I replied. And I meant it. For I was no longer so +gun-shy as I had been earlier in the winter. I had got over turning +pale at the slamming of a door. I was as terrified, perhaps, but my +pride had come to my aid. + +It was the English officers who disapproved so thoroughly who told me +about them when they had gone. + +"Of course they have no business there," they said. "It's a frightful +responsibility to place on the men at that part of the line. But +there's no question about the value of what they are doing, and if +they want to stay they deserve to be allowed to. They go right into +the trenches, and they take care of the wounded until the ambulances +can come up at night. Wait until you see their house and you will +understand why they got those medals." + +And when I had seen their house and spent an evening with them I +understood very well indeed. + +We gathered round the fire; conversation was desultory. Muddy and +weary young officers, who had been at the front all day, came in and +warmed themselves for a moment before going up to their cold rooms. +The owner of the broken wind shield arrived and was placated. +Continuous relays of tea were coming and going. Colonel ----, who had +been in an observation balloon most of the day, spoke of balloon +sickness. + +"I have been in balloons of one sort and another for twenty years," he +said. "I never overcome the nausea. Very few airmen do." + +I spoke to him about a recent night attack by German aviators. + +"It is remarkable work," he commented warmly, "hazardous in the +extreme; and if anything goes wrong they cannot see where they are +coming down. Even when they alight in their own lines, landing safely +is difficult. They are apt to wreck their machines." + +The mention of German aeroplanes reminded one of the officers of an +experience he had had just behind the firing line. + +"I had been to the front," he said, "and a mile or so behind the line +a German aeroplane overtook the automobile. He flew low, with the +evident intention of dropping a bomb on us. The chauffeur, becoming +excited, stalled the engine. At that moment the aviator dropped the +first bomb, killing a sow and a litter of young pigs beside the car +and breaking all the glass. Cranking failed to start the car. It was +necessary, while the machine manoeuvred to get overhead again, to lift +the hood of the engine, examine a spark-plug and then crank the car. +He dropped a second bomb which fell behind the car and made a hole in +the road. Then at last the engine started, and it took us a very short +time to get out of that neighbourhood." + +The car he spoke of was the car in which I had come out to the +station. I could testify that something had broken the glass! + +One of the officers had just received what he said were official +percentages of casualties in killed, wounded and missing among the +Allies, to the first of February. + +The Belgian percentage was 66 2-3, the English 33 1-3 and the French +7. I have no idea how accurate the figures were, or his authority for +them. He spoke of them as official. From casualties to hospitals and +nurses was but a step. I spoke warmly of the work the nurses near the +front were doing. But one officer disagreed with me, although in the +main his views were not held by the others. + +"The nurses at the base hospitals should be changed every three +months," he said. "They get the worst cases there, in incredible +conditions. After a time it tells on them. I've seen it in a number of +cases. They grow calloused to suffering. That's the time to bring up a +new lot." + +I think he is wrong. I have seen many hospitals, many nurses. If there +is a change in the nurses after a time, it is that, like the soldiers +in the field, they develop a philosophy which carries them through +their terrible days. "What must be, must be," say the men in the +trenches. "What must be, must be," say the nurses in the hospital. And +both save themselves from madness. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE LITTLE "SICK AND SORRY" HOUSE + + +And now it was seven o'clock, and raining. Dinner was to be at eight. +I had before me a drive of nine miles along those slippery roads. It +was dark and foggy, with the ground mist of Flanders turning to a fog. +The lamps of the car shining into it made us appear to be riding +through a milky lake. Progress was necessarily slow. + +One of the English officers accompanied me. + +"I shall never forget the last time I dined out here," he said as we +jolted along. "There is a Belgian battery just behind the house. All +evening as we sat and talked I thought the battery was firing; the +house shook under tremendous concussion. Every now and then Mrs. K---- +or Miss C---- would get up and go out, coming back a few moments later +and joining calmly in the conversation. + +"Not until I started back did I know that we had been furiously +bombarded, that the noise I had heard was shells breaking all about +the place. A 'coal-box,' as they call them here, had fallen in the +garden and dug a great hole!" + +"And when the young ladies went out, were they watching the bombs +burst?" I inquired. + +"Not at all," he said. "They went out to go into the trenches to +attend to the wounded. They do it all the time." + +"And they said nothing about it!" + +"They thought we knew. As for going into the trenches, that is what +they are there to do." + +My enthusiasm for mutton began to fade. I felt convinced that I should +not remain calm if a shell fell into the garden. But again, as +happened many times during those eventful weeks at the front, my pride +refused to allow me to turn back. And not for anything in the world +would I have admitted being afraid to dine where those two young women +were willing to eat and sleep and have their being day and night for +months. + +"But of course," I said, "they are well protected, even if they are at +the trenches. That is, the Germans never get actually into the town." + +"Oh, don't they?" said the officer. "That town has been taken by the +Germans five times and lost as many. A few nights ago they got over +into the main street and there was terrific hand-to-hand fighting." + +"Where do they go at such times?" I asked. + +"I never thought about it. I suppose they get into the cellar. But if +they do it is not at all because they are afraid." + +We went on, until some five of the nine miles had been traversed. + +I have said before that the activity at the front commences only with +the falling of night. During the day the zone immediately back of the +trenches is a dead country. But at night it wakens into activity. +Soldiers leave the trenches and fresh soldiers take their places, +ammunition and food are brought up, wires broken during the day by +shells are replaced, ambulances come up and receive their frightful +burdens. + +Now we reached the zone of night activity. A travelling battery passed +us, moving from one part of the line to another; the drivers, three to +each gun, sat stolidly on their horses, their heads dropped against +the rain. They appeared out of the mist beside us, stood in full +relief for a moment in the glow of the lamps, and were swallowed up +again. + +At three miles from our destination, but only one mile from the German +lines, it was necessary to put out the lamps. Our progress, which had +been dangerous enough before, became extremely precarious. It was +necessary to turn out for teams and lorries, for guns and endless +lines of soldiers, and to turn out a foot too far meant slipping into +the mud. Two miles and a half from the village we turned out too far. + +There was a sickening side slip. The car turned over to the right at +an acute angle and there remained. We were mired! + +We got out. It was perfectly dark. Guns were still passing us, so that +it was necessary to warn the drivers of our wrecked car. The road was +full of shell holes, so that to step was to stumble. The German lines, +although a mile away, seemed very near. Between the road and the enemy +was not a tree or a shrub or a fence--only the line of the railway +embankment which marked the Allies' trenches. To add to the dismalness +of the situation the Germans began throwing the familiar magnesium +lights overhead. The flares made the night alike beautiful and +fearful. It was possible when one burst near to see the entire +landscape spread out like a map--ditches full of water, sodden fields, +shell holes in the roads which had become lakes, the long lines of +poplars outlining the road ahead. At one time no less than twenty +starlights hung in the air at one time. When they went out the inky +night seemed blacker than ever. I stepped off the road and was almost +knee-deep in mud at once. + +The battery passed, urging its tired horses to such speed as was +possible. After it came thousands of men, Belgian and French mostly, +on their way out of the trenches. + +We called for volunteers from the line to try to lift the car onto the +road. But even with twenty men at the towing rope it refused to move. +The men were obliged to give it up and run on to catch their +companies. + +Between the _fusees_ the curious shuffling of feet and a deeper shadow +were all that told of the passage of these troops. It was so dark that +one could see no faces. But here and there one saw the light of a +cigarette. The mere hardship of walking for miles along those roads, +paved with round stones and covered with mud on which their feet +slipped continually, must have been a great one, and agonizing for +feet that had been frosted in the water of the trenches. + +Afterward I inquired what these men carried. They loomed up out of the +night like pack horses. I found that each soldier carried, in addition +to his rifle and bayonet, a large knapsack, a canteen, a cartridge +pouch, a brown haversack containing tobacco, soap, towel and food, a +billy-can and a rolled blanket. + +German batteries were firing intermittently as we stood there. The +rain poured down. I had dressed to go out to tea and wore my one and +only good hat. I did the only thing that seemed possible--I took off +that hat and put it in the automobile and let the rain fall on my +unprotected head. The hat had to see me through the campaign, and my +hair would stand water. + +At last an armoured car came along and pulled the automobile onto the +road. But after a progress of only ten feet it lapsed again, and there +remained. + +The situation was now acute. It was impossible to go back, and to go +ahead meant to advance on foot along roads crowded with silent +soldiers--meant going forward, too, in a pouring rain and in +high-heeled shoes. For that was another idiocy I had committed. + +We started on, leaving the apologetic chauffeur by the car. A few feet +and the road, curving to the right, began to near the German line. +Every now and then it was necessary to call sharply to the troops, or +struggling along through the rain they would have crowded us off +knee-deep into the mud. + +"_Attention!"_ the officer would call sharply. And for a time we would +have foot room. There were no more horses, no more guns--only men, +men, men. Some of them had taken off their outer coats and put them +shawl-fashion over their heads. But most of them walked stolidly on, +already too wet and wretched to mind the rain. + +The fog had lifted. It was possible to see that sinister red streak +that follows the firing of a gun at night. The rain gave a peculiar +hollowness to the concussion. The Belgian and French batteries were +silent. + +We seemed to have walked endless miles, and still there was no little +town. We went over a bridge, and on its flat floor I stopped and +rested my aching feet. + +"Only a little farther now," said the British officer cheerfully. + +"How much farther?" + +"Not more than a mile," + +By way of cheering me he told me about the town we were +approaching--how the road we were on was its main street, and that the +advanced line of trenches crossed at the railroad near the foot of the +street. + +"And how far from that are the German trenches?" I asked nervously. + +"Not very far," he said blithely. "Near enough to be interesting." + +On and on. Here was a barn. + +"Is this the town?" I asked feebly. + +"Not yet. A little farther!" + +I was limping, drenched, irritable. But now and then the absurdity of +my situation overcame me and I laughed. Water ran down my head and off +my nose, trickled down my neck under my coat. I felt like a great +sponge. And suddenly I remembered my hat. + +"I feel sure," I said, stopping still in the road, "that the chauffeur +will go inside the car out of the rain and sit on my hat." + +The officer thought this very likely. I felt extremely bitter about +it. The more I thought of it the more I was convinced that he was +exactly the sort of chauffeur who would get into a car and sit on an +only hat. + +At last we came to the town--to what had been a town. It was a town no +longer. Walls without roofs, roofs almost without walls. Here and +there only a chimney standing of what had been a home; a street so +torn up by shells that walking was almost impossible--full of +shell-holes that had become graves. There were now no lights, not even +soldiers. In the silence our footsteps re-echoed against those +desolate and broken walls. + +A day or two ago I happened on a description of this town, written by +a man who had seen it at the time I was there. + +"The main street," he writes, "is like a great museum of prehistoric +fauna. The house roofs, denuded of tiles and the joists left naked, +have tilted forward on to the sidewalks, so that they hang in mid-air +like giant vertebrae.... One house only of the whole village of ---- +had been spared." + +We stumbled down the street toward the trenches and at last stopped +before a house. Through boards nailed across what had once been +windows a few rays of light escaped. There was no roof; a side wall +and an entire corner were gone. It was the residence of the ladies of +the decoration. + +Inside there was for a moment an illusion of entirety. The narrow +corridor that ran through the centre of the house was weatherproof. +But through some unseen gap rushed the wind of the night. At the +right, warm with lamplight, was the reception room, dining room and +bedroom--one small chamber about twelve by fifteen! + +What a strange room it was, furnished with odds and ends from the +shattered houses about! A bed in the corner; a mattress on the floor; +a piano in front of the shell-holed windows, a piano so badly cracked +by shrapnel that panels of the woodwork were missing and keys gone; +two or three odd chairs and what had once been a bookcase, and in the +centre a pine table laid for a meal. + +Mrs. K----, whose uncle was a cabinet minister, was hurrying in with a +frying-pan in her hand. + +"The mutton!" she said triumphantly, and placed it on the table, +frying-pan and all. The other lady of the decoration followed with the +potatoes, also in the pan in which they had been cooked. + +We drew up our chairs, for the mutton must not be allowed to get cold. + +"It's quite a party, isn't it?" said one of the hostesses, and showed +us proudly the dish of fruit on the centre of the table, flanked by +bonbons and nuts which had just been sent from England. + +True, the fruit was a little old and the nuts were few; but they gave +the table a most festive look. + +Some one had taken off my shoes and they were drying by the fire, +stuffed with paper to keep them in shape. My soaking outer garments +had been carried to the lean-to kitchen to hang by the stove, and dry +under the care of a soldier servant who helped with the cooking. I +looked at him curiously. His predecessor had been killed in the room +where he stood. + +The German batteries were firing, and every now and then from the +trenches at the foot of the street came the sharp ping of rifles. No +one paid any attention. We were warm and sheltered from the wind. What +if the town was being shelled and the Germans were only six hundred +feet away? We were getting dry, and there was mutton for dinner. + +It was a very cheerful party--the two young ladies, and a third who +had joined them temporarily, a doctor who was taking influenza and +added little to the conversation, the chauffeur attached to the house, +who was a count in ordinary times, a Belgian major who had come up +from the trenches to have a real meal, and the English officer who had +taken me out. + +Outside the door stood the major's Congo servant, a black boy who +never leaves him, following with dog-like fidelity into the trenches +and sleeping outside his door when the major is in billet. He had +picked him up in the Congo years before during his active service +there. + +The meal went on. The frying-pan was passed. The food was good and the +talk was better. It was indiscriminately rapid French and English. +When it was English I replied. When it was French I ate. + +The hostess presented me with a shrapnel case which had arrived that +day on the doorstep. + +"If you are collecting trophies," said the major, "I shall get you a +German sentry this evening. How would you like that?" + +There was a reckless twinkle in the major's eye. It developed that he +had captured several sentries and liked playing the game. + +But I did not know the man. So I said: "Certainly, it would be most +interesting." + +Whereupon he rose. It took all the combined effort of the dinner party +to induce him to sit down and continue his meal. He was vastly +disappointed. He was a big man with a humorous mouth. The idea of +bringing me a German sentry to take home as a trophy appealed to him. + +The meal went on. No one seemed to consider the circumstances +extraordinary. Now and then I remembered the story of the street +fighting a few nights before. I had an idea that these people would +keep on eating and talking English politics quite calmly in the event +of a German charge. I wondered if I could live up to my reputation for +courage in such a crisis. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +FLIGHT + + +The first part of the meal over, the hostess picked up a nut and threw +it deftly at a door leading into the lean-to-kitchen. + +"Our table bell," she explained to me. And, true enough, a moment +later the orderly appeared and carried out the plates. + +Then we had dessert, which was fruit and candy, and coffee. + +And all the time the guns were firing, and every opening of the door +into the corridor brought a gale of wind into the room. + +Suddenly it struck me that hardly a foot of the plaster interior of +that room was whole. The ceiling was riddled. So were the walls. + +"Shrapnel," said the major, following my gaze. "It gets worse every +day." + +"I think the ceiling is going to fall," said one of the hostesses. + +True enough, there was a great bulge in the centre. But it held for +that night. It may be holding now. + +Everybody took a hand at clearing the table. The lamp was burning low, +and they filled it without putting it out. One of the things that I +have always been taught is never to fill a lighted lamp. I explained +this to them carefully. But they were quite calm. It seems at the +front one does a great many extraordinary things. It is part and +parcel of that utter indifference to danger that comes with war. + +Now appeared the chauffeur, who brought the information that the car +had been dragged out of the mud and towed as far as the house. + +"Towed?" I said blankly. + +"Towed, madame. There is no more petrol." + +The major suggested that we kill him at once. But he was a perfectly +good chauffeur and young. Also it developed that he had not sat on my +hat. So we let him live. + +"Never mind," said Miss C----; "we can give you the chauffeur's bed +and he can go somewhere else." + +But after a time I decided that I would rather walk back than stay +overnight in that house. For the major explained that at eleven +o'clock the batteries behind the town would bombard the German +trenches and the road behind them, along which they had information +that an ammunition train would pass. + +"Another night in the cellar!" said some one. "That means no one will +need any beds, for there will be a return fire, of course." + +"Is there no petrol to be had?" I inquired anxiously. + +"None whatever." + +None, of course. There had been shops in the town, and presumably +petrol and other things. But now there was nothing but ruined walls +and piles of brick and mortar. However, there was a cellar. + +My feet were swollen and painful, for the walk had been one long +agony. I was chilled, too, from my wetting, in spite of the fire. I +sat by the tiny stove and tried to forget the prospect of a night in +the cellar, tried to ignore the pieces of shell and shrapnel cases +lined up on the mantelpiece, shells and shrapnel that had entered the +house and destroyed it. + +The men smoked and talked. An officer came up from the trenches to +smoke his after-dinner pipe, a bearded individual, who apologised for +his muddy condition. He and the major played a duet. They made a great +fuss about their preparation for it. The stool must be so, the top of +the cracked piano raised. They turned and bowed to us profoundly. Then +sat down and played--CHOP STICKS! + +But that was only the beginning. For both of them were accomplished +musicians. The major played divinely. He played a Rhapsodie Hongroise, +the Moonlight Sonata, one of the movements of the Sonata Appassionata. +He played without notes, a bulldog pipe gripped firmly in his teeth, +blue clouds encircling his fair hair. Gone was the reckless soldier +who would have taken his life in his hands for the whim of bringing in +a German sentry. Instead there was a Belgian whose ruined country lay +behind him, whose people lay dead in thousands of hideous graves, +whose heart was torn and aching with the things that it knew and +buried. We sat silent. His pipe died in his mouth; his eyes, fixed on +the shell-riddled wall, grew sombre. When the music ceased his hands +still lay lingeringly on the keys. And, beyond the foot of the street, +the ominous guns of the army that had ruined his country crashed +steadily. + +We were rather subdued when the music died away. But he evidently +regretted having put a weight on the spirits of the party. He rose and +brought me a charming little water-colour sketch he had made of the +bit of No Man's Land in front of his trench, with the German line +beyond it. + +"By the way," he said in his exact English, "I went to art school in +Dresden with an American named Reinhart. Afterward he became a great +painter--Charles Stanley Reinhart. Is he by any chance a relative?" + +"Charles Stanley Reinhart is dead," I said. "He was a Pittsburgher, +too, but the two families are connected only by marriage." + +"Dead! So he is dead too! Everybody is dead. He--he was a very nice +boy." + +Suddenly he stood up and stretched his long arms. + +"It was a long time ago," he said. "Now I go for the sentry." + +They caught him at the door, however, and brought him back. + +"But it is so simple," he protested. "No one is hurt. And the American +lady--" + +The American lady protested. + +"I don't want a German sentry," I said. "I shouldn't know what to do +with a German sentry if I had one." + +So he sat down and explained his method to me. I wish I could tell his +method here. It sounded so easy. Evidently it was a safety-valve, +during that long wait of the deadlock, for his impetuous temperament. +One could picture him sitting in his trench day after day among the +soldiers who adored him, making little water-colour sketches and +smoking his bulldog pipe, and then suddenly, as now, rising and +stretching his long arms and saying: + +"Well, boys, I guess I'll go out and bring one in." + +And doing it. + +I was taken for a tour of the house--up a broken staircase that hung +suspended, apparently from nothing, to what had been the upper story. + +It was quite open to the sky and the rain was coming in. On the side +toward the German line there was no wall. There were no partitions, no +windows, only a few broken sticks of what had been furniture. And in +one corner, partly filled with rain water, a child's cradle that had +miraculously escaped destruction. + +Downstairs to the left of the corridor was equal destruction. There +was one room here that, except for a great shell-hole and for a +ceiling that was sagging and almost ready to fall, was intact. Here on +a stand were surgical supplies, and there was a cot in the corner. A +soldier had just left the cot. He had come up late in the afternoon +with a nosebleed, and had now recovered. + +"It has been a light day," said my guide. "Sometimes we hardly know +which way to turn--when there is much going on, you know. Probably +to-night we shall be extremely busy." + +We went back into the living room and I consulted my watch. It was +half past ten o'clock. At eleven the bombardment was to begin! + +The conversation in the room had turned to spies. Always, everywhere, +I found this talk of spies. It appeared that at night a handful of the +former inhabitants of the town crept back from the fields to sleep in +the cellars of what had been their homes, and some of them were under +suspicion. + +"Every morning," said Miss C----, "before the German bombardment +begins, three small shells are sent over in quick succession. Then +there is about fifteen minutes' wait before the real shelling. I am +convinced that it is a signal to some one to get out." + +The officers pooh-poohed the idea. But Miss C---- stuck to her point. + +"They are getting information somehow," she said. "You may laugh if +you like. I am sure I am right." + +Later on an officer explained to me something about the secret service +of the war. + +"It is a war of spies," he said. "That is one reason for the deadlock. +Every movement is reported to the other side and checkmated almost +before it begins. In the eastern field of war the system is still +inadequate; that accounts for the great movements that have taken +place there." + +Perhaps he is right. It sounds reasonable. I do not know with what +authority he spoke. But certainly everywhere I found this talk of +spies. One of the officers that night told of a recent experience of +his. + +"I was in a church tower at ----," he said. "There were three of us. +We had been looking over toward the German lines. Suddenly I looked +down into the street below. Some one with an electric flash was +signalling across. It was quite distinct. All of us saw it. There was +an answer from the German trenches immediately. While one of us kept +watch on the tower the others rushed down into the street. There was +no one there. But it is certain that that sort of thing goes on all +the time." + +A quarter to eleven! + +Suddenly the whole thing seemed impossible--that the noise at the foot +of the street was really guns; that I should be there; that these two +young women should live there day and night in the midst of such +horrors. For the whole town is a graveyard. Bodies in numbers have +been buried in shell-holes and hastily covered, or float in the +stagnant water of the canal. Every heavy rain uncovers shallow graves +in the fields, allowing a dead arm, part of a rotting trunk, to show. + +And now, after this lapse of time, it still seems incredible. Are they +still there? Report has it that the Germans captured this town and +held it for a time, only to lose it later. What happened to the little +"sick and sorry" house during those fearful days? Did the German +officers sit about that pine table and throw a nut to summon an +orderly? Did they fill the lamp while it was lighted, and play on the +cracked piano, and pick up shrapnel cases as they landed on the +doorstep and set them on the mantel? + +Ten minutes to eleven! + +The chauffeur came to the door and stuck his head in. + +"I have found petrol in a can in an empty shed," he explained. "It is +now possible to go." + +We went. We lost no time on the order of our going. The rain was over, +but the fog had descended again. We lighted our lamps, and were curtly +ordered by a sentry to put them out. In the moment that they remained +alight, carefully turned away from the trenches, it was possible to +see the hopeless condition of the street. + +At last we reached a compromise. One lamp we might have, but covered +with heavy paper. It was very little. The car bumped ominously, sagged +into shell-holes. + +I turned and looked back at the house. Faint rays of light shone +through its boarded windows. A wounded soldier had been brought up the +street and stood, leaning heavily on his companion, at the doorstep. +The door opened, and he was taken in. + +Good-bye, little "sick and sorry" house, with your laughter and tears, +your friendly hands, your open door! Good-bye! + +Five minutes later, as we reached the top of the Street, the +bombardment began. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +VOLUNTEERS AND PATRIOTS + + +I hold a strong brief for the English: For the English at home, +restrained, earnest, determined and unassuming; for the English in the +field, equally all of these things. + +The British Army has borne attacks at La Bassee and Ypres, positions +so strategically difficult to hold that the Germans have concentrated +their assaults at these points. It has borne the horrors of the +retreat from Mons, when what the Kaiser called "General French's +contemptible little army" was forced back by oncoming hosts of many +times its number. It has fought, as the English will always fight, +with unequalled heroism but without heroics. + +To-day, after many months of war, the British Army in the field is as +smart, in a military sense, as tidy--if it will forgive me the +word--as well ordered, as efficiently cared for, as the German Army +was in the beginning. Partly this is due to its splendid equipment. +Mostly it is due to that fetish of the British soldier wherever he may +be--personal neatness. + +Behind the lines he is jaunty, cheerful, smart beyond belief. He hates +the trenches--not because they are dangerous or monotonous but because +it is difficult to take a bath in them. He is four days in the +trenches and four days out. On his days out he drills and marches, to +get back into condition after the forced inaction of the trenches. And +he gets his hair trimmed. + +There is something about the appearance of the British soldier in the +field that got me by the throat. Perhaps because they are, in a sense, +my own people, speaking my tongue, looking at things from a view-point +that I could understand. That partly. But it was more than that. + +These men and boys are volunteers, the very flower of England. They +march along the roads, heads well up, eyes ahead, thousands of them. +What a tragedy for the country that gives them up! Who will take their +places?--these splendid Scots with their picturesque kilts, their +bare, muscular knees, their great shoulders; the cheery Irish, +swaggering a bit and with a twinkle in their blue eyes; these tall +young English boys, showing race in every line; these dashing +Canadians, so impressive that their every appearance on a London +street was certain to set the crowds to cheering. + +I saw them in London, and later on I saw them at the front. Still +later I saw them again, prostrate on the ground, in hospital trains, +on hospital ships. I saw mounds, too, marked with wooden crosses. + +Volunteers and patriots! A race incapable of a mean thing, incapable +of a cruelty. A race of sportsmen, playing this horrible game of war +fairly, almost too honestly. A race, not of diplomats, but of +gentlemen. + +"You will always be fools," said a captured German naval officer to +his English captors, "and we shall never be gentlemen!" + +But they are not fools. It is that attitude toward the English that +may defeat Germany in the end. + +Every man in the British Army to-day has counted the cost. He is there +because he elected to be there. He is going to stay by until the thing +is done, or he is. He says very little about it. He is uncomfortable +if any one else says anything about it. He is rather matter of fact, +indeed, and nonchalant as long as things are being done fairly. But +there is nothing calm about his attitude when his opponent hits below +the belt. It was a sense of fair play, as well as humanity, that made +England rise to the call of Belgium. It is England's sense of fair +play that makes her soldiers and sailors go white with fury at the +drowning of women and children and noncombatants; at the unprincipled +employment of such trickery in war as the use of asphyxiating gases, +or at the insulting and ill-treating of those of their army who have +been captured by the Germans. It is at the English, not at the French +or the Belgians, that Germany is striking in this war. Her whole +attitude shows it. British statesmen knew this from the beginning, but +the people were slow to believe it. But escaped prisoners have told +that they were discriminated against. I have talked with a British +officer who made a sensational escape from a German prison camp. +German soldiers have called across to the French trenches that it was +the English they were after. + +In his official order to his troops to advance, the German Emperor +voiced the general sentiment. + + "It is my Royal and Imperial Command that you concentrate your + energies, for the immediate present, upon one single purpose, and + that is that you address all your skill and all the valour of my + soldiers to exterminate first the treacherous English and walk over + General French's contemptible little army. + + "Headquarters, + + "Aix-la-Chapelle, August 19th, 1914." + +In the name of the dignity of great nations, compare that order with +Lord Kitchener's instructions to his troops, given at the same time. + + "You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French + comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You have to perform + a task which will need your courage, your energy, your patience. + Remember that the honour of the British Army depends on your + individual conduct. It will be your duty not only to set an example + of discipline and perfect steadiness under fire, but also to + maintain the most friendly relations with those whom you are helping + in this struggle. + + "The operations in which you are engaged will, for the most part, + take place in a friendly country, and you can do your own country no + better service than in showing yourselves in France and Belgium in + the true character of a British soldier. + + "Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. Never do anything + likely to injure or destroy property, and always look upon looting + as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet with a welcome and to be + trusted; your conduct will justify that welcome and that trust. Your + duty cannot be done unless your health is sound. So keep constantly + on your guard against any excesses. In this new experience you may + find temptations both in wine and women. You must entirely resist + both temptations, and, while treating all women with perfect + courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy. + + "Do your duty bravely, + + "Fear God, + + "Honour the King. + + "(Signed), KITCHENER, Field Marshal," + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +A LUNCHEON AT BRITISH HEADQUARTERS + + +The same high-crowned roads, with pitfalls of mud at each side; the +same lines of trees; the same coating of ooze, over which the car slid +dangerously. But a new element--khaki. + +Khaki everywhere--uniforms, tents, transports, all of the same hue. +Skins, too, where one happens on the Indian troops. It is difficult to +tell where their faces end and their yellow turbans begin. + +Except for the slightly rolling landscape and the khaki one might have +been behind the Belgian or French Army. There were as usual aeroplanes +overhead, clouds of shrapnel smoke, and not far away the thunder of +cannonading. After a time even that ceased, for I was on my way to +British General Headquarters, well back from the front. + +I carried letters from England to Field Marshal Sir John French, to +Colonel Brinsley Fitzgerald, aid-de-camp to the "Chief," as he is +called, and to General Huguet, the _liaison_ between the French and +English Armies. His official title is something entirely different, +but the French word is apt. He is the connecting link between the +English and French Armies. + +I sent these letters to headquarters, and waited in the small hotel +for developments. The British antipathy to correspondents was well +known. True, there were indications that a certain relaxation was +about to take place. Frederick Palmer in London had been notified that +before long he would be sent across, and I had heard that some of the +London newspapers, the _Times_ and a few others, were to be allowed a +day at the lines. + +But at the time my machine drew into that little French town and +deposited me in front of a wretched inn, no correspondent had been to +the British lines. It was _terra incognita_. Even London knew very +little. It was rumoured that such part of the Canadian contingent as +had left England up to that time had been sent to the eastern field, +to Egypt or the Dardanelles. With the exception of Sir John French's +reports and the "Somewhere in France" notes of "Eyewitness," a British +officer at the front, England was taking her army on faith. + +And now I was there, and there frankly as a writer. Also I was a +woman. I knew how the chivalrous English mind recoiled at the idea of +a woman near the front. Their nurses were kept many miles in the rear. +They had raised loud protests when three English women were permitted +to stay at the front with the Belgian Army. + +My knees were a bit weak as I went up the steps and into the hotel. +They would hardly arrest me. My letters were from very important +persons indeed. But they could send me away with expedition and +dispatch. I had run the Channel blockade to get there, and I did not +wish to be sent away with expedition and dispatch. + +The hotel was cold and bare. Curious eyed officers came in, stared at +me and went out. A French gentleman in a military cape walked round +the bare room, spoke to the canaries in a great cage in the corner, +and came back to where I sat with my fur coat, lap-robe fashion, over +my knees. + +"_Pardon!_" he said. "Are you the Duchess of Sutherland?" + +I regretted that I was not the Duchess of Sutherland. + +"You came just now in a large car?" + +"I did." + +"You intend to stay here for some time?" + +"I have not decided." + +"Where did you come from?" + +"I think," I said after a rather stunned pause, "that I shall not tell +you." + +"Madame is very cautious!" + +I felt convinced that he spoke with the authority of the army, or of +the town _gendarmerie_, behind him. But I was irritated. Besides, I +had been cautioned so much about telling where I had been, except in +general terms, that I was even afraid to talk in my sleep. + +"I think," I said, "that it does not really matter where I came from, +where I am going, or what I am doing here." + +I expected to see him throw back his cape and exhibit a sheriff's +badge, or whatever its French equivalent. But he only smiled. + +"In that case," he said cheerfully, "I shall wish you a good morning." + +"Good-bye," I said coldly. And he took himself off. + +I have never solved the mystery of that encounter. Was he merely +curious? Or scraping acquaintance with the only woman he had seen in +months? Or was he as imposing a person as he looked, and did he go +away for a warrant or whatever was necessary, and return to find me +safe in the lap of the British Army? + +The canary birds sang, and a porter with a leather apron, having +overcome a national inability to light a fire in the middle of the +day, came to take me to my room. There was an odour of stewing onions +in the air, and soapsuds, and a dog sniffed at me and barked because I +addressed him in English. + +And then General Huguet came, friendly and smiling, and speaking +English. And all was well. + +Afterward I learned how that same diplomacy which made me comfortable +and at home with him at once has made smooth the relations between the +English and French Armies. It was Chesterfield, wasn't it, who spoke +of _"Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re"?_ That is General Huguet. A +tall man, dark, keen and of most soldierly bearing; beside the genial +downrightness of the British officers he was urbane, suave, but full +of decision. His post requires diplomacy but not concession. + +Sir John French, he regretted to say, was at the front and would not +return until late in the evening. But Colonel Fitzgerald hoped that I +would come to luncheon at headquarters, so that we might talk over +what was best to be done. He would, if the arrangement suited me, +return at one o'clock for me. + +It was half past twelve. I made such concessions to the occasion as my +travelling bag permitted, and, prompt to the minute, General Huguet's +car drew up at the inn door. It was a wonderful car. I used it all +that afternoon and the next day, and I can testify both to its comfort +and to its speed. I had travelled fast in cars belonging to the +Belgian and French staffs, but never have I gone as I did in that +marvel of a car. Somewhere among my papers I have a sketch that I made +of the interior of the limousine body, with the two soldier-chauffeurs +outside in front, the two carbines strapped to the speedometer between +the _vis-a-vis_ seats inside the car, and the speedometer registering +ninety kilometres and going up. + +We went at once to British Headquarters, with its sentries and its +flag; a large house, which had belonged to a notary, its grim and +forbidding exterior gave little promise of the comfort within. A +passage led to a square centre hall from which opened various rooms--a +library, with a wood fire, the latest possible London and Paris +papers, a flat-topped desk and a large map; a very large drawing-room, +which is Sir John French's private office, with white walls panelled +with rose brocade, a marble mantel, and a great centre table, covered, +like the library desk, with papers; a dining room, wainscoted and +comfortable. There were other rooms, which I did not see. In the +square hall an orderly sat all day, waiting for orders of various +sorts. + +Colonel Fitzgerald greeted me amiably. He regretted that Sir John +French was absent, and was curious as to how I had penetrated to the +fastnesses of British Headquarters without trouble. Now and then, +glancing at him unexpectedly during the excellent luncheon that +followed, I found his eyes fixed on me thoughtfully, intently. It was +not at all an unfriendly gaze. Rather it was the look of a man who is +painstakingly readjusting his mental processes to meet a new +situation. + +He made a delightful host. I sat at his right. At the other end of the +table was General Huguet, and across from me a young English nobleman, +attached to the field marshal's staff, came in, a few minutes late, +and took his place. The Prince of Wales, who lives there, had gone to +the trenches the day before. + +Two soldier-servants served the meal. There was red wine, but none of +the officers touched it. The conversation was general and animated. We +spoke of public opinion in America, of the resources of Germany and +her starvation cry, of the probable length of the war. On this +opinions varied. One of the officers prophesied a quick ending when +the Allies were finally ready to take the offensive. The others were +not so optimistic. But neither here, nor in any of the conversations I +have heard at the headquarters of the Allies, was there a doubt +expressed as to ultimate victory. They had a quiet confidence that was +contagious. There was no bluster, no assertion; victory was simply +accepted as a fact; the only two opinions might be as to when it would +occur, and whether the end would be sudden or a slow withdrawal of the +German forces. + +The French Algerian troops and the Indian forces of Great Britain came +up for discussion, their bravery, their dislike for trench fighting +and intense longing to charge, the inroads the bad weather had made on +them during the winter. + +One of the officers considered the American press rather pro-German. +The recent American note to Sir Edward Grey and his reply, with the +press comments on both, led to this statement. The possibility of +Germany's intentionally antagonising America was discussed, but not at +length. + +From the press to the censorship was but a step. I objected to the +English method as having lost us our perspective on the war. + +"You allow anything to go through the censor's office that is not +considered dangerous or too explicit," I said. "False reports go +through on an equality with true ones. How can America know what to +believe?" + +It was suggested by some one that the only way to make the censorship +more elastic, while retaining its usefulness in protecting military +secrets and movements, was to establish such a censorship at the +front, where it is easier to know what news would be harmful to give +out and what may be printed with safety. + +I mentioned what a high official of the admiralty had said to me about +the censorship--that it was "an infernal nuisance, but necessary." + +"But it is not true that messages are misleadingly changed in +transmission," said one of the officers at the table. + +I had seen the head of the press-censorship bureau, and was able to +repeat what he had said--that where the cutting out of certain phrases +endangered the sense of a message, the words "and" or "the" were +occasionally added, that the sense might be kept clear, but that no +other additions or changes of meaning were ever made. + +Luncheon was over. We went into the library, and there, consulting the +map, Colonel Fitzgerald and General Huguet discussed where I might go +that afternoon. The mist of the morning had turned to rain, and the +roads at the front would be very bad. Besides, it was felt that the +"Chief" should give me permission to go to the front, and he had not +yet returned. + +"How about seeing the Indians?" asked Colonel Fitzgerald, turning from +the map. + +"I should like it very much." + +The young officer was turned to, and agreed, like a British patriot +and gentleman, to show me the Indian villages. General Huguet offered +his car. The officer got his sheepskin-lined coat, for the weather was +cold. + +"Thirty shillings," he said, "and nothing goes through it!" + +I examined that coat. It was smart, substantial, lined throughout with +pure white fur, and it had cost seven dollars and a half. + +There is a very popular English word just making its place in America. +The word is "swank." It is both noun and verb. One swanks when one +swaggers. One puts on swank when one puts on side. And because I hold +a brief for the English, and because I was fortunate enough to meet +all sorts of English people, I want to say that there is very little +swank among them. The example of simplicity and genuineness has been +set by the King and Queen. I met many different circles of people. +From the highest to the lowest, there was a total absence of that +arrogance which the American mind has so long associated with the +English. For fear of being thought to swagger, an Englishman will +understate his case. And so with the various English officers I met at +the front. There was no swank. They were downright, unassuming, +extremely efficient-looking men, quick to speak of German courage, +ready to give the benefit of the doubt where unproved outrages were in +question, but rousing, as I have said, to pale fury where their troops +were being unfairly attacked. + +While the car was being brought to the door General Huguet pointed out +to me on the map where I was going. As we stood there his pencil drew +a light semicircle round the town of Ypres. + +"A great battle," he said, and described it. Colonel Fitzgerald took +up the narrative. So it happened that, in the three different staff +headquarters, Belgian, French and English, executive officers of the +three armies in the western field described to me that great +battle--the frightful slaughter of the English, their re-enforcement +at a critical time by General Foch's French Army of the North, and the +final holding of the line. + +The official figures of casualties were given me again: English +forty-five thousand out of a hundred and twenty thousand engaged; the +French seventy thousand, and the German over two hundred thousand. + +Turning to the table, Colonel Fitzgerald picked up a sheet of paper +covered with figures. + +"It is interesting," he said, "to compare the disease and battle +mortality percentages of this war with the percentages in other wars; +to see, considering the frightful weather and the trenches, how little +disease there has been among our troops. Compare the figures with the +Boer War, for instance. And even then our percentage has been somewhat +brought up by the Indian troops." + +"Have many of them been ill?" + +"They have felt the weather," he replied; "not the cold so much as the +steady rain. And those regiments of English that have been serving in +India have felt the change. They particularly have suffered from +frostbitten feet." + +I knew that. More than once I had seen men being taken back from the +British lines, their faces twisted with pain, their feet great masses +of cotton and bandages which they guarded tenderly, lest a chance blow +add to their agony. Even the English system of allowing the men to rub +themselves with lard and oil from the waist down before going into +flooded trenches has not prevented the tortures of frostbite. + +It was time to go and the motor was waiting. We set off in a driving +sleet that covered the windows of the car and made motoring even more +than ordinarily precarious. But the roads here were better than those +nearer the coast; wider, too, and not so crowded. To Ham, where the +Indian regiment I was to visit had been retired for rest, was almost +twenty miles. "Ham!" I said. "What a place to send Mohammedans to!" + +In his long dispatch of February seventeenth Sir John French said of +the Indian troops: + + "The Indian troops have fought with the utmost steadfastness and + gallantry whenever they have been called upon." + +This is the answer to many varying statements as to the efficacy of +the assistance furnished by her Indian subjects to the British Empire +at this time. For Sir John French is a soldier, not a diplomat. No +question of the union of the Empire influences his reports. The +Indians have been valuable, or he would not say so. He is chary of +praise, is the Field Marshal of the British Army. + +But there is another answer--that everywhere along the British front +one sees the Ghurkas, slant-eyed and Mongolian, with their +broad-brimmed, khaki-coloured hats, filling posts of responsibility. +They are little men, smaller than the Sikhs, rather reminiscent of the +Japanese in build and alertness. + +When I was at the English front some of the Sikhs had been retired to +rest. But even in the small villages on billet, relaxed and resting, +they were a fine and soldierly looking body of men, showing race and +their ancient civilisation. + +It has been claimed that England called on her Indian troops, not +because she expected much assistance from them but to show the +essential unity of the British Empire. The plain truth is, however, +that she needed the troops, needed men at once, needed experienced +soldiers to eke out her small and purely defensive army of regulars. +Volunteers had to be equipped and drilled--a matter of months. + +To say that she called to her aid barbarians is absurd. The Ghurkas +are fierce fighters, but carefully disciplined. Compare the lances of +the Indian cavalry regiments and the _kukri_, the Ghurka knife, with +the petrol squirts, hand grenades, aeroplane darts and asphyxiating +bombs of Germany, and call one barbarian to the advantage of the +other! The truth is, of course, that war itself is barbarous. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +A STRANGE PARTY + + +The road to Ham turned off the main highway south of Aire. It was a +narrow clay road in unspeakable condition. The car wallowed along. +Once we took a wrong turning and were obliged to go back and start +again. + +It was still raining. Indian horsemen beat their way stolidly along +the road. We passed through hamlets where cavalry horses in ruined +stables were scantily protected, where the familiar omnibuses of +London were parked in what appeared to be hundreds. The cocoa and +other advertisements had been taken off and they had been hastily +painted a yellowish grey. Here and there we met one on the road, +filled and overflowing with troops, and looking curiously like the +"rubber-neck wagons" of New York. + +Aside from the transports and a few small Indian ammunition carts, +with open bodies made of slats, and drawn by two mules, with an +impassive turbaned driver calling strange words to his team, there was +no sign of war. No bombarding disturbed the heavy atmosphere; no +aeroplanes were overhead. There was no barbed wire, no trenches. Only +muddy sugarbeet fields on each side of the narrow road, a few winter +trees, and the beat of the rain on the windows. + +At last, with an extra lurch, the car drew up in the village of Ham. +At a gate in a brick wall a Scotch soldier in kilts, carrying a rifle, +came forward. Our errand was explained and he went off to find Makand +Singh, a major in the Lahore Lancers and in charge of the post. + +It was a curious picture that I surveyed through the opened door of +the car. We were in the centre of the village, and at the intersection +of a crossroads was a tall cross with a life-size Christ. Underneath +the cross, in varying attitudes of dampness and curiosity, were a +dozen Indians, Mohammedans by faith. Some of them held horses which, +in spite of the rain, they had been exercising. One or two wore long +capes to the knees, with pointed hoods which fitted up over their +great turbans. Bearded men with straight, sensitive noses and oval +faces, even the absurdity of the cape and pointed hood failed to +lessen their dignity. They were tall, erect, soldierly looking, and +they gazed at me with the bland gravity of the East. + +Makand Singh came hastily forward, a splendid figure of a man, six +foot two or thereabout, and appearing even taller by reason of his +turban. He spoke excellent English. + +"It is very muddy for a lady to alight," he said, and instructed one +of the men to bring bags of sacking, which were laid in the road. + +"You are seeing us under very unfavourable conditions," he said as he +helped me to alight. "But there is a fire if you are cold." + +I was cold. So Makand Singh led the way to his living quarters. To go +to them it was necessary to pass through a long shed, which was now a +stable for perhaps a dozen horses. At a word of command the Indian +grooms threw themselves against the horses' heads and pushed them +back. By stepping over the ground pegs to which they were tethered I +got through the shed somehow and into a small yard. + +Makand Singh turned to the right, and, throwing open the low door of a +peasant's house, stood aside to allow me to enter. "It is not very +comfortable," he explained, "but it is the best we have." + +He was so tall that he was obliged to stoop as he entered the doorway. +Within was an ordinary peasant's kitchen, but cleaner than the +average. In spite of the weather the floor boards were freshly +scrubbed. The hearth was swept, and by the stove lay a sleek +tortoise-shell cat. There was a wooden dresser, a chimney shelf with +rows of plates standing on it, and in a doorway just beyond an elderly +peasant woman watching us curiously. + +"Perhaps," said Makand Singh, "you will have coffee?" + +I was glad to accept, and the young officer, who had followed, +accepted also. We sat down while the kettle was placed on the stove +and the fire replenished. I glanced at the Indian major's tall figure. +Even sitting, he was majestic. When he took the cape off he was +discovered clothed in the khaki uniform of his rank in the British +Army. Except for the olive colour of his skin, his turban, and the +fact that his beard--the soft beard of one who has never shaved--was +drawn up into a black net so that it formed a perfect crescent around +the angle of his jaw, he might have been a gallant and interested +English officer. + +For the situation assuredly interested him. His eyes were alert and +keen. When he smiled he showed rows of beautiful teeth, small and +white. And although his face in repose was grave, he smiled often. He +superintended the making of the coffee by the peasant woman and +instructed her to prepare the table. + +She obeyed pleasantly. Indeed, it was odd to see that between this +elderly Frenchwoman and her strange guests--people of whose existence +on the earth I dare say she had never heard until this war--there was +the utmost good will. Perhaps the Indians are neater than other +troops. Certainly personal cleanliness is a part of their religion. +Anyhow, whatever the reason, I saw no evidence of sulkiness toward the +Indians, although I have seen surly glances directed toward many of +the billeted troops of other nationalities. + +Conversation was rather difficult. We had no common ground to meet on, +and the ordinary currency of polite society seemed inadequate, out of +place. + +"The weather must be terrible after India," I ventured. + +"We do not mind the cold. We come from the north of India, where it is +often cold. But the mud is bad. We cannot use our horses." + +"You are a cavalry regiment?" I asked, out of my abysmal ignorance. + +"We are Lancers. Yes. And horses are not useful in this sort of +fighting." + +From a room beyond there was a movement, followed by the entrance of a +young Frenchman in a British uniform. Makand Singh presented him and +he joined the circle that waited for coffee. + +The newcomer presented an enigma--a Frenchman in a British uniform +quartered with the Indian troops! It developed that he was a pupil +from the Sorbonne, in Paris, and was an interpreter. Everywhere +afterward I found these interpreters with the British Army--Frenchmen +who for various reasons are disqualified from entering the French Army +in active service and who are anxious to do what they can. They wear +the British uniform, with the exception that instead of the stiff +crown of the British cap theirs is soft, They are attached to every +battalion, for Tommy Atkins is in a strange land these days, a land +that knows no more English than he knows French, + +True, he carries little books of French and English which tell him how +to say "Porter, get my luggage and take it to a cab," or "Please bring +me a laundry list," or "Give my kind regards to your parents," Imagine +him trying to find the French for "Look out, they're coming!" to call +to a French neighbour, in the inevitable mix-up of the line during a +_melee_, and finding only "These trousers do not fit well," or "I +would like an ice and then a small piece of cheese." + +It was a curious group that sat in a semicircle around that peasant +woman's stove, waiting for the kettle to boil--the tall Indian major +with his aristocratic face and long, quiet hands, the young English +officer in his Headquarters Staff uniform, the French interpreter, and +I. Just inside the door the major's Indian servant, tall, impassive +and turbaned, stood with folded arms, looking over our heads. And at +the table the placid faced peasant woman cut slices of yellow bread, +made with eggs and milk, and poured our coffee. + +It was very good coffee, served black. The woman brought a small +decanter and placed it near me. + +"It is rum," said the major, "and very good in coffee." + +I declined the rum. The interpreter took a little. The major shook his +head. + +"Although they say that a Sikh never refuses rum!" he said, smiling. + +Coffee over, we walked about the village. Hardly a village--a cluster +of houses along unpaved lanes which were almost impassable. There were +tumbling stables full of horses, groups of Indians standing under +dripping eaves for shelter, sentries, here and there a peasant. The +houses were replicas of the one where Makand Singh had his quarters. + +Although it was still raining, a dozen Indian Lancers were exercising +their horses. They dismounted and stood back to let us pass. Behind +them, as they stood, was the great Cross. + +That was the final picture I had of the village of Ham and the Second +Lahore Lancers--the turbaned Indians with their dripping horses, the +grave bow of Makand Singh as he closed the door of the car, and behind +him a Scotch corporal in kilt and cap, with a cigarette tucked behind +his ear. + +We went on. I looked back, Makand Singh was making his careful way +through the mud; the horses were being led to a stable. The Cross +stood alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +SIR JOHN FRENCH + + +The next day I was taken along the English front, between the first +and the second line of trenches, from Bethune, the southern extremity +of the line, the English right flank, to the northern end of the line +just below Ypres. In a direct line the British front at that time +extended along some twenty-seven miles. But the line was irregular, +and I believe was really well over thirty. + +I have never been in an English trench. I have been close enough to +the advance trenches to be shown where they lay, and to see the slight +break they make in the flat country. I was never in a dangerous +position at the English front, if one excepts the fact that all of +that portion of the country between the two lines of trenches is +exposed to shell fire. + +No shells burst near me. Bethune was being intermittently shelled, but +as far as I know not a shell fell in the town while I was there. I +lunched on a hill surrounded by batteries, with the now celebrated +towns of Messines and Wytschaete just across a valley, so that one +could watch shells bursting over them. And still nothing threatened my +peace of mind or my physical well-being. And yet it was one of the +most interesting days of a not uneventful period. + +In the morning I was taken, still in General Huguet's car, to British +Headquarters again, to meet Sir John French. + +I confess to a thrill of excitement when the door into his private +office was opened and I was ushered in. The Field Marshal of the +British Army was standing by his table. He came forward at once and +shook hands. In his khaki uniform, with the scarlet straps of his rank +on collar and sleeves, he presented a most soldierly and impressive +appearance. + +A man of middle height, squarely and compactly built, he moves easily. +He is very erect, and his tanned face and grey hair are in strong +contrast. A square and determined jaw, very keen blue eyes and a +humorous mouth--that is my impression of Sir John French. + +"We are sending you along the lines," he said when I was seated. "But +not into danger. I hope you do not want to go into danger." + +I wish I might tell of the conversation that followed. It is +impossible. Not that it dealt with vital matters; but it was +understood that Sir John was not being interviewed. He was taking a +little time from a day that must have been crowded, to receive with +beautiful courtesy a visitor from overseas. That was all. + +There can be no objection, I think, to my mentioning one or two things +he spoke of--of his admiration for General Foch, whom I had just seen, +of the tribute he paid to the courage of the Indian troops, and of the +marvellous spirit all the British troops had shown under the adverse +weather conditions prevailing. All or most of these things he has said +in his official dispatches. + +Other things were touched on--the possible duration of the war, the +new problems of what is virtually a new warfare, the possibility of a +pestilence when warm weather came, owing to inadequately buried +bodies. The Canadian troops had not arrived at the front at that time, +although later in the day I saw their transports on the way, or I am +sure he would have spoken of them. I should like to hear what he has +to say about them after their recent gallant fighting. I should like +to see his fine blue eyes sparkle. + +The car was at the door, and the same young officer who had taken me +about on the previous day entered the room. + +"I am putting you in his care," said Sir John, indicating the new +arrival, "because he has a charmed life. Nothing will happen if you +are with him." He eyed the tall young officer affectionately. "He has +been fighting since the beginning," he said, "handling a machine gun +in all sorts of terrible places. And nothing ever touches him." + +A discussion followed as to where I was to be taken. There was a culm +heap near the Givenchy brickyards which was rather favoured as a +lookout spot. In spite of my protests, that was ruled out as being +under fire at the time. Bethune was being shelled, but not severely. I +would be taken to Bethune and along the road behind the trenches. But +nothing was to happen to me. Sir John French knitted his grey brows, +and suggested a visit to a wood where the soldiers had built wooden +walks and put up signs, naming them Piccadilly, Regent Street, and so +on. + +"I should like to see something," I put in feebly. + +I appreciated their kindly solicitude, but after all I was there to +see things; to take risks, if necessary, but to see. + +"Then," said Sir John with decision, "we will send you to a hill from +which you can see." + +The trip was arranged while I waited. Then he went with me to the door +and there we shook hands. He hoped I would have a comfortable trip, +and bowed me out most courteously. But in the doorway he thought of +something. + +"Have you a camera with you?" + +I had, and said so; a very good camera. + +"I hope you do not mind if I ask you not to use it." + +I did not mind. I promised at once to take no pictures, and indeed at +the end of the afternoon I found my unfortunate camera on the floor, +much buffeted and kicked about and entirely ignored. + +The interview with Sir John French had given me an entirely unexpected +impression of the Field Marshal of the British Army. I had read his +reports fully, and from those unemotional reports of battles, of +movements and countermovements, I had formed a picture of a great +soldier without imagination, to whom a battle was an issue, not a +great human struggle--an austere man. + +I had found a man with a fighting jaw and a sensitive mouth; and a man +greatly beloved by the men closest to him. A human man; a soldier, not +a writer. + +And after seeing and talking with Sir John French I am convinced that +it is not his policy that dictates the silence of the army at the +front. He is proud of his men, proud of each heroic regiment, of every +brave deed. He would like, I am sure, to shout to the world the names +of the heroes of the British Army, to publish great rolls of honour. +But silence, or comparative silence, has been the decree. + +There must be long hours of suspense when the Field Marshal of the +British Army paces the floor of that grey and rose brocade +drawing-room; hours when the orders he has given are being translated +into terms of action, of death, of wounds, but sometimes--thank +God!--into terms of victory. Long hours, when the wires and the +dispatch riders bring in news, valiant names, gains, losses; names +that are not to be told; brave deeds that, lacking chroniclers, must +go unrecorded. + +Read this, from the report Sir John French sent out only a day or so +before I saw him: + + "The troops composing the Army of France have been subjected to as + severe a trial as it is possible to impose upon any body of men. The + desperate fighting described in my last dispatch had hardly been + brought to a conclusion when they were called upon to face the + rigours and hardships of a winter campaign. Frost and snow have + alternated with periods of continuous rain." + + "The men have been called upon to stand for many hours together + almost up to their waists in bitterly cold water, separated by only + one or two hundred yards from a most vigilant enemy." + + "Although every measure which science and medical knowledge could + suggest to mitigate these hardships was employed, the sufferings of + the men have been very great." + + "In spite of all this they present a most soldier like, splendid, + though somewhat war-worn appearance. Their spirit remains high and + confident; their general health is excellent, and their condition + most satisfactory." + + "I regard it as most unfortunate that circumstances have prevented + any account of many splendid instances of courage and endurance, in + the face of almost unparalleled hardship and fatigue in war, coming + regularly to the knowledge of the public." + +So it is clearly not the fault of Sir John French that England does +not know the names of her heroes, or that their families are denied +the comfort of knowing that their sons fought bravely and died nobly. +It is not the fault of the British people, waiting eagerly for news +that does not come. Surely, in these inhuman times, some concession +should be made to the humanities. War is not moving pawns in a game; +it is a struggle of quivering flesh and agonised nerves, of men +fighting and dying for ideals. Heroism is much more than duty. It is +idealism. No leader is truly great who discounts this quality. + +America has known more of the great human interest of this war than +England. English people get the news from great American dailies. It +is an unprecedented situation, and so far the English people have +borne it almost in silence. But as the months go on and only bare +official dispatches reach them, there is a growing tendency to +protest. They want the truth, a picture of conditions. They want to +know what their army is doing; what their sons are doing. And they +have a right to know. They are making tremendous sacrifices, and they +have a right to know to what end. + +The greatest agent in the world for moulding public opinion is the +press. The Germans know this, and have used their journals skilfully. +To underestimate the power of the press, to fail to trust to its good +will and discretion, is to refuse to wield the mightiest instrument in +the world for influencing national thought and national action. At +times of great crisis the press has always shown itself sane, +conservative, safe, eminently to be trusted. + +The English know the power of the great modern newspaper, not only to +reflect but to form public opinion. They have watched the American +press because they know to what extent it influences American policy. + +There is talk of conscription in England to-day. Why? Ask the British +people. Ask the London _Times_. Ask rural England where, away from the +tramp of soldiers in the streets, the roll of drums, the visual +evidence of a great struggle, patriotism is asked to feed on the ashes +of war. + +Self-depreciation in a nation is as great an error as +over-complacency. Lack of full knowledge is the cause of much of the +present British discontent. + +Let the British people be told what their army is doing. Let Lord +Kitchener announce its deeds, its courage, its vast unselfishness. Let +him put the torch of publicity to the national pride and see it turn +to a white flame of patriotism. Then it will be possible to tear the +recruiting posters from the walls of London, and the remotest roads of +England will echo to the tramp of marching men. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +ALONG THE GREAT BETHUNE ROAD + + +Again and again through these chapters I have felt apologetic for the +luxurious manner in which I frequently saw the war. And so now I +hesitate to mention the comfort of that trip along the British lines; +the substantial and essentially British foresight and kindness that +had stocked the car with sandwiches wrapped in white paper; the good +roads; the sense of general well-being that spread like a contagion +from a well-fed and well-cared-for army. There is something about the +British Army that inspires one with confidence. It is a pity that +those people who sit at home in Great Britain and shrug their +shoulders over the daily papers cannot see their army at the front. + +It is not a roast beef stolidity. It is rather the steadiness of calm +eyes and good nerves, of physically fit bodies and clean minds. I felt +it when I saw Kitchener's army of clear-eyed boys drilling in Hyde +Park. I got it from the quiet young officer, still in his twenties, +who sat beside me in the car, and who, having been in the war from the +beginning, handling a machine gun all through the battle of Ypres, +when his regiment, the Grenadier Guards, suffered so horribly, was +willing to talk about everything but what he had done. + +We went first to Bethune. The roads as we approached the front were +crowded, but there was no disorder. There were motor bicycles and +side-cars carrying dispatch riders and scouts, travelling kitchens, +great lorries, small light cars for supplies needed in a hurry--cars +which make greater speed than the motor vans--omnibuses full of +troops, and steam tractors or caterpillar engines for hauling heavy +guns. + +The day was sunny and cold. The rain of the day before had turned to +snow in the night, and the fields were dazzling. + +"In the east," said the officer with me, "where there is always snow +in the winter, the Germans have sent out to their troops white helmet +covers and white smocks to cover the uniforms. But snow is +comparatively rare here, and it has not been considered necessary." + +At a small bridge ten miles from Bethune he pointed out a house as +marking the farthest advance of the German Army, reached about the +eleventh of October. There was no evidence of the hard fighting that +had gone on along this road. It was a peaceful scene, the black +branches of the overarching trees lightly powdered with snow. But the +snowy fields were full of unmarked mounds. Another year, and the +mounds will have sunk to the level of the ground. Another year, and +only history will tell the story of that October of 1914 along the +great Bethune road. + +An English aeroplane was overhead. There were armoured cars on the +road, going toward the front; top-heavy machines that made +surprisingly little noise, considering their weight. Some had a sort +of conning tower at the top. They looked sombre, menacing. The driving +of these cars over slippery roads must be difficult. Like the vans, +they keep as near the centre of the road as possible, allowing lighter +traffic to turn out to pass them. A van had broken down and was being +repaired at one of the wayside repair shops maintained everywhere +along the roads for this war of machinery. Men in khaki with leather +aprons were working about it, while the driver stood by, smoking a +pipe. + +As we went on we encountered the Indian troops again. The weather was +better, and they thronged the roads, driving their tiny carts, +cleaning arms and accoutrements in sunny doorways, proud and haughty +in appearence even when attending to the most menial duties. From the +little ammunition carts, like toy wagons, they gazed gravely at the +car, and at the unheard of spectacle of a woman inside. Side by side +with the Indians were Scots in kilts, making up with cheerful +impudence for the Indians' lack of curiosity. + +There were more Ghurkas, carrying rifles and walking lightly beside +forage carts driven by British Tommies. There were hundreds of these +carts taking hay to the cavalry divisions. The Ghurkas looked more +Japanese than ever in the clear light. Their broad-brimmed khaki hats +have a strap that goes under the chin. The strap or their black +slanting eyes or perhaps their rather flattened noses and pointed +chins give them a look of cruelty that the other Indian troops do not +have. They are hard and relentless fighters, I believe; and they look +it. + +The conversation in the car turned to the feeding of the army. + +"The British Army is exceedingly well fed," said the young officer. + +"In the trenches also?" + +"Always. The men are four days in the trenches and four out. When the +weather is too bad for anything but sniping, the inactivity of the +trench life and the abundant ration gets them out of condition. On +their four days in reserve it is necessary to drill them hard to keep +them in condition." + +This proved to be the explanation of the battalions we met everywhere, +marching briskly along the roads. I do not recall the British ration +now, but it includes, in addition to meat and vegetables, tea, cheese, +jam and bacon--probably not all at once, but giving that variety of +diet so lacking to the unfortunate Belgian Army. Food is one of the +principal munitions of war. No man fights well with an empty stomach. +Food sinks into the background only when it is assured and plentiful. +Deprived of it, its need becomes insistent, an obsession that drives +away every other thought. + +So the wise British Army feeds its men well, and lets them think of +other things, such as war and fighting and love of country and brave +deeds. + +But food has not always been plentiful in the British Army. There were +times last fall when, what with German artillery bombardment and +shifting lines, it was difficult to supply the men. + +"My servant," said the officer, "found a hare somewhere, and in a +deserted garden a handful of carrots. Word came to the trench where I +was stationed that at dark that night he would bring out a stew. We +were very hungry and we waited eagerly. But just as it was cooked and +ready a German shell came down the chimney of the house where he was +working and blew up stove and stew and everything. It was one of the +greatest disappointments I ever remember." + +We were in Bethune at last--a crowded town, larger than any I had seen +since I left Dunkirk. So congested were its narrow streets with +soldiers, mounted and on foot, and with all the ghastly machinery of +war, that a traffic squad had taken charge and was directing things. +On some streets it was possible to go only in one direction. I looked +about for the signs of destruction that had grown so familiar to me, +but I saw none. Evidently the bombardment of Bethune has not yet done +much damage. + +A squad of artillerymen marched by in perfect step; their faces were +keen, bronzed. They were fine-looking, well-set-up men, as smart as +English artillerymen always are. I watched them as long as I could see +them. + +We had lost our way, owing to the regulations of the traffic squad. It +was necessary to stop and inquire. Then at last we crossed a small +bridge over the canal, and were on our way along the front, behind the +advanced trenches and just in front of the second line. + +For a few miles the country was very level. The firing was on our +right, the second line of trenches on our left. The congestion of +Bethune had given way to the extreme peace in daylight of the region +just behind the trenches. There were few wagons, few soldiers. Nothing +could be seen except an occasional cloud where shrapnel had burst. The +British Army was keeping me safe, as it had promised! + +There were, however, barbed-wire entanglements everywhere, built, I +thought, rather higher than the French. Roads to the right led to the +advanced trenches, empty roads which at night are thronged with men +going to the front or coming back. + +Here and there one saw a sentry, and behind him a tent of curious +mottled shades of red, brown and green. + +"They look as though they were painted," I said, rather bewildered. + +"They are," the officer replied promptly. "From an aeroplane these +tents are absolutely impossible to locate. They merge into the colors +of the fields." + +Now and then at a crossroads it was necessary to inquire our way. I +had no wish to run into danger, but I was conscious of a wild longing +to have the car take the wrong turning and land abruptly at the +advance trenches. Nothing of the sort happened, however. + +We passed small buildings converted into field hospitals and flying +the white flag with a red cross. + +"There are no nurses in these hospitals," explained the officer. "Only +one surgeon and a few helpers. The men are brought here from the +trenches, and then taken back at night in ambulances to the railroad +or to base hospitals." + +"Are there no nurses at all along the British front?" + +"None whatever. There are no women here in any capacity. That is why +the men are so surprised to see you." + +Here and there, behind the protection of groves and small thickets, +were temporary camps, sometimes tents, sometimes tent-shaped shelters +of wood. There were batteries on the right everywhere, great guns +concealed in farmyards or, like the guns I had seen on the French +front, in artificial hedges. Some of them were firing; but the firing +of a battery amounts to nothing but a great noise in these days of +long ranges. Somewhere across the valley the shells would burst, we +knew that; that was all. + +The conversation turned to the Prince of Wales, and to the +responsibility it was to the various officers to have him in the +trenches. Strenuous efforts had been made to persuade him to be +satisfied with the work at headquarters, where he is attached to Sir +John French's staff. But evidently the young heir to the throne of +England is a man in spite of his youth. He wanted to go out and fight, +and he had at last secured permission. + +"He has had rather remarkable training," said the young officer, who +was also his friend. "First he was in Calais with the transport +service. Then he came to headquarters, and has seen how things are +done there. And now he is at the front." + +Quite unexpectedly round a turn in the road we came on a great line of +Canadian transports--American-built lorries with khaki canvas tops. +Canadians were driving them, Canadians were guarding them. It gave me +a homesick thrill at once to see these other Americans, of types so +familiar to me, there in Northern France. + +Their faces were eager as they pushed ahead. Some of the tent-shaped +wooden buildings were to be temporary barracks for them. In one place +the transports had stopped and the men were cooking a meal beside the +road. Some one had brought a newspaper and a crowd of men had gathered +round it. I wondered if it was an American paper. I would like to have +stood on the running board of the machine, as we went past, and called +out that I, too, was an American, and God bless them! + +But I fancy the young officer with me would have been greatly +disconcerted at such an action. The English are not given to such +demonstrations. But the Canadians would have understood, I know. + +Since that time the reports have brought great news of these Canadian +troops, of their courage, of the loss of almost all their officers in +the fighting at Neuve Chapelle. But that sunny morning, when I saw +them in the north of France, they were untouched by battle or sudden +death. Their faces were eager, intent, earnest. They had come a long +distance and now they had arrived. And what next? + +Into this scene of war unexpectedly obtruded itself a bit of peace. A +great cart came down a side road, drawn by two white oxen with heavy +wooden yokes. Piled high in the cart were sugar beets. Some thrifty +peasant was salvaging what was left of his crop. The sight of the oxen +reminded me that I had seen very few horses. + +"They are farther back," said the officer, "Of course, as you know, +for the last two or three months it has been impossible to use the +cavalry at all." + +Then he told me a curious thing. He said that during the long winter +wait the cavalry horses got much out of condition. The side roads were +thick with mud and the main roads were being reserved for transports. +Adequate exercises for the cavalry seemed impossible. One detachment +discovered what it considered a bright solution, and sent to England +for beagle hounds. Morning after morning the men rode after the hounds +over the flat fields of France. It was a welcome distraction and it +kept the horses in working trim. + +But the French objected. They said their country was at war, was being +devastated by an alien army. They considered riding to hounds, no +matter for What purpose, an indecorous, almost an inhuman, thing to do +under the circumstances. So the hounds were sent back to England, and +the cavalry horses are now exercised in dejected strings along side +roads. + +As we went north the firing increased in intensity. More English +batteries were at work; the German response was insistent. + +We were approaching Ypres, this time from the English side, and the +great artillery duel of late February was in progress. + +The country was slightly rolling. Its unevenness permitted more +activity along our road. Batteries were drawn up at rest in the fields +here and there. In one place a dozen food kitchens in the road were +cooking the midday meal, the khaki-clad cooks frequently smoking as +they worked. + +Ahead of this loomed two hills. They rose abruptly, treeless and +precipitous. On the one nearest to the German lines was a ruined +tower. + +"The tower," said the officer, "would have been a charming place for +luncheon. But the hill has been shelled steadily for several days. I +have no idea why the Germans are shelling it. There is nobody there." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE MILITARY SECRET + + +The second hill was our destination. At the foot of it the car stopped +and we got out. A steep path with here and there a wooden step led to +the summit. At the foot of the path was a sentry and behind him one of +the multicoloured tents. + +"Are you a good climber?" asked the officer. + +I said I was and we set out. The path extended only a part of the way, +to a place perhaps two hundred feet beyond the road, where what we +would call a cyclone cellar in America had been dug out of the +hillside. Like the others of the sort I had seen, it was muddy and +uninviting, practically a cave with a roof of turf. + +The path ceased, and it was necessary to go diagonally up the steep +hillside through the snow. From numberless guns at the base of the +hill came steady reports, and as we ascended it was explained to me +that I was about to visit the headquarters of Major General H----, +commanding an army division. + +"The last person I brought here," said the young officer, smiling, +"was the Prince of Wales." + +We reached the top at last. There was a tiny farmhouse, a low stable +with a thatched roof, and, towering over all, the arms of a great +windmill. Chickens cackled round my feet, a pig grunted in a corner, +and apparently from directly underneath came the ear-splitting reports +of a battery as it fired. + +"Perhaps I would better go ahead and tell them you are coming," said +the officer. "These people have probably not seen a woman in months, +and the shock would be too severe. We must break it gently." + +So he went ahead, and I stood on the crest of that wind-swept hill and +looked across the valley to Messines, to Wytschaete and Ypres. + +The battlefield lay spread out like a map. As I looked, clouds of +smoke over Messines told of the bursting of shells. + +Major General H---- came hurrying out. His quarters occupy the only +high ground, with the exception of the near-by hill with its ruined +tower, in the neighbourhood of Ypres. Here, a week or so before, had +come the King of Belgium, to look with tragic eyes at all that +remained to him of his country. Here had come visiting Russian princes +from the eastern field, the King of England, the Prince of Wales. No +obscurities--except myself--had ever penetrated so far into the +fastness of the British lines. + +Later on in the day I wrote my name in a visitors' book the officers +have established there, wrote under sprawling royal signatures, under +the boyish hand of the Prince of Wales, the irregular chirography of +Albert of Belgium, the blunt and soldierly name of General Joffre. + +There are six officers stationed in the farmhouse, composing General +H----'s staff. And, as things turned out, we did not require the +white-paper sandwiches, for we were at once invited to luncheon. + +"Not a very elaborate luncheon," said General H----, "but it will give +us a great deal of pleasure to share it." + +While the extra places were being laid we went to the brow of the +hill. Across the valley at the foot of a wooded ridge were the British +trenches. The ground rose in front of them, thickly covered with +trees, to the German position on the ridge. + +"It looks from here like a very uncomfortable position," I said. "The +German position is better, isn't it?" + +"It is," said General H---- grimly. "But we shall take that hill +before long." + +I am not sure, and my many maps do not say, but there is little doubt +in my mind that the hill in question is the now celebrated Hill 60, of +which so much has been published. + +As we looked across shells were bursting round the church tower of +Messines, and the batteries beneath were sending out ear-splitting +crashes of noise. Ypres, less than three miles away, but partly hidden +in mist, was echoing the bombardment. And to complete the pandemonium +of sound, as we turned, a _mitrailleuse_ in the windmill opened fire +behind us. + +"Practice!" said General H---- as I started. "It is noisy here, I'm +afraid." + +We went through the muddy farmyard back to the house. The staff was +waiting and we sat down at once to luncheon at a tiny pine table drawn +up before a window. It was not a good luncheon. The French wine was +like vinegar, the food the ordinary food of the peasant whose house it +was. But it was a cheerful meal in spite of the food, and in spite of +a boil on General H----'s neck. The marvel of a woman being there +seemed to grow, not diminish, as the meal went on. + +"Next week," said General H----, "we are to have two parties of +correspondents here. The penny papers come first, and later on the +ha'pennies!" + +That brought the conversation, as usual, to the feeling about the war +in America. Like all the other officers I had met, these men were +anxious to have things correctly reported in America, being satisfied +that the true story of the war would undoubtedly influence any +wavering of public opinion in favour of the Allies. + +One of the officers was a Canadian, and for his benefit somebody told +the following story, possibly by now familiar to America. + +Some of the Canadian troops took with them to England a bit of the +dash and impatience of discipline of the great Northwest. The story in +question is of a group of soldiers at night passing a sentry, who +challenges them: + +"Halt! Who goes there?" + +"Black Watch." + +"Advance, Black Watch, and all's well." + +The next group is similarly challenged: + +"Halt! Who goes there?" + +"Cameronians." + +"Advance, Cameronians." + +The third group comes on. + +"Halt! Who goes there?" + +"What the devil is that to you?" + +"Advance, Canadians!" + +In the burst of mirth that followed the Canadian officer joined. Then +he told an anecdote also: + +"British recruits, practising passing a whispered order from one end +of a trench to the other, received this message to pass along: 'Enemy +advancing on right flank. Send re-enforcements.' When the message +reached the other end of the trench," he said, "it was: 'Enemy +advancing with ham shank. Send three and fourpence!'" + +It was a gay little meal, the only breaks in the conversation when the +great guns drowned out our voices. I wonder how many of those round +that table are living to-day. Not all, it is almost certain. The +German Army almost broke through the English line at that very point +in the late spring. The brave Canadians have lost almost all their +officers in the field and a sickening percentage of their men. That +little valley must have run deep with blood since I saw it that day in +the sunlight. + +Luncheon was over. I wrote my name in the visitors' book, to the tune +of such a bombardment as almost forbade speech, and accompanied by +General H---- we made our way down the steep hillside to the car. + +"Some time to-night I shall be in England," I said as I settled myself +for the return trip. + +The smile died on the general's face. It was as if, in speaking of +home, I had touched the hidden chord of gravity and responsibility +that underlay the cheerfulness of that cheery visit. + +"England!" he said. That was all. + +I looked back as the car started on. A battery was moving up along the +road behind the hill. The sentry stood by his low painted tent. The +general was watching the car, his hand shading his eyes against the +glare of the winter sun. Behind him rose his lonely hill, white with +snow, with the little path leading, by devious ways, up its steep and +shining side. + +It was not considered advisable to return by the road behind the +trenches. The late afternoon artillery duel was going on. So we turned +off a few miles south of the hill and left war behind us. + +Not altogether, of course. There were still transports and troops. And +at an intersection of three roads we were abruptly halted. A line of +military cars was standing there, all peremptorily held up by a +handful of soldiers. + +The young officer got out and inquired. There was little time to +spare, for I was to get to Calais that evening, and to run the Channel +blockade some time in the night. + +The officer came back soon, smiling. + +"A military secret!" he said. "We shall have to wait a little. The +road is closed." + +So I sat in the car and the military secret went by. I cannot tell +about it except that it was thrillingly interesting. My hands itched +to get out my camera and photograph it, just as they itch now to write +about it. But the mystery of what I saw on the highroad back of the +British lines is not mine to tell. It must die with me! + +My visit to the British lines was over. + +As I look back I find that the one thing that stands out with +distinctness above everything else is the quality of the men that +constitute the British Army in the field. I had seen thousands in that +one day. But I had seen them also north of Ypres, at Dunkirk, at +Boulogne and Calais, on the Channel boats. I have said before that +they show race. But it is much more than a matter of physique. It is a +thing of steady eyes, of high-held heads, of a clean thrust of jaw. + +The English are not demonstrative. London, compared with Paris, is +normal. British officers at the front and at headquarters treat the +war as a part of the day's work, a thing not to talk about but to do. +But my frequent meetings with British soldiers, naval men, members of +the flying contingent and the army medical service, revealed under the +surface of each man's quiet manner a grimness, a red heat of +patriotism, a determination to fight fair but to fight to the death. + +They concede to the Germans, with the British sense of fairness, +courage, science, infinite resource and patriotism. Two things they +deny them, civilisation and humanity--civilisation in its spiritual, +not its material, side; humanity of the sort that is the Englishman's +creed and his religion--the safeguarding of noncombatants, the keeping +of the national word and the national honour. + +My visit to the English lines was over. I had seen no valiant charges, +no hand-to-hand fighting. But in a way I had had a larger picture. I +had seen the efficiency of the methods behind the lines, the abundance +of supplies, the spirit that glowed in the eyes of every fighting man. +I had seen the colonial children of England in the field, volunteers +who had risen to the call of the mother country. I had seen and talked +with the commander-in-chief of the British forces, and had come away +convinced that the mother country had placed her honour in fine and +capable hands. And I had seen, between the first and second lines of +trenches, an army of volunteers and patriots--and gentlemen. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +QUEEN MARY OF ENGLAND + + +The great European war affects profoundly all the women of each nation +involved. It affects doubly the royal women. The Queen of England, the +Czarina of Russia, the Queen of the Belgians, the Empress of Germany, +each carries in these momentous days a frightful burden. The young +Prince of Wales is at the front; the King of the Belgians has been +twice wounded; the Empress of Germany has her sons as well as her +husband in the field. + +In addition to these cares these women of exalted rank have the +responsibility that comes always to the very great. To see a world +crisis approaching, to know every detail by which it has been +furthered or retarded, to realise at last its inevitability--to see, +in a word, every movement of the great drama and to be unable to check +its _denouement_--that has been a part of their burden. And when the +_denouement_ came, to sink their private anxieties in the public +welfare, to assume, not a double immunity but a double responsibility +to their people, has been the other part. + +It has required heroism of a high order. It is, to a certain extent, a +new heroism, almost a demonstration of the new faith whose foundation +is responsibility--responsibility of a nation to its sons, of rulers +to their people, of a man to his neighbour. + +It has been my privilege to meet and speak with two of these royal +women, with the Queen of England and with the Queen of the Belgians. +In each instance I carried away with me an ineradicable impression of +this quality--of a grave and wearing responsibility borne quietly and +simply, of a quiet courage that buries its own griefs and asks only to +help. + +From the beginning of the war I had felt a keen interest in the Queen +of England. Here was a great queen who had chosen to be, first of all, +a wife and mother; a queen with courage and a conscience. And into her +reign had come the tragedy of a war that affected every nation of the +world, many of them directly, all of them indirectly. The war had come +unsought, unexpected, unprepared for. Peaceful England had become a +camp. The very palace in which the royal children were housed was open +to an attack from a brutal enemy, which added to the new warfare of +this century the ethics of barbarism. + +What did she think of it all? What did she feel when that terrible +Roll of Honour came in, week by week, that Roll of Honour with its +photographs of splendid types of young manhood that no Anglo-Saxon can +look at without a clutch at his throat? What did she think when, one +by one, the friends of her girlhood put on the black of bereavement +and went uncomplainingly about the good works in which hers was the +guiding hand? What thoughts were hers during those anxious days before +the Prince of Wales went to the front, when, like any other mother, +she took every possible moment to be with him, walking about +arm-in-arm with her boy, talking of everything but the moment of +parting? + +And when at last I was permitted to see the Queen of England, I +understood a part at least of what she was suffering. I had been to +the front. I had seen the English army in the field. I had been quite +close to the very trenches where the boyish Prince of Wales was facing +the enemies of his country and doing it with high courage. And I had +heard the rumble of the great German guns, as Queen Mary of England +must hear them in her sleep. + +Even with no son in the field the Queen of England would be working +for the soldiers. It is a part of the tradition of her house. But a +good mother is a mother to all the world. When Queen Mary is +supervising the great work of the Needlework Guild one feels sure that +into each word of direction has gone a little additional tenderness, +because of this boy of hers at the front. + +It is because of Her Majesty's interest in the material well-being of +the soldiers at the front, and because of her most genuine gratitude +for America's part in this well-being, that I took such pleasure in +meeting the Queen of England. + +It was characteristic of Her Majesty that she put an American woman--a +very nervous American woman--at her ease at once, that she showed that +American woman the various departments of her Needlework Guild under +way, and that she conveyed, in every word she said, a deep feeling of +friendship for America and her assistance to Belgium in this crisis. + +Although our ambassadors are still accredited to the Court of St. +James's, the old palace has ceased to be the royal residence. The King +still holds there his levees, to which only gentlemen are admitted. +But the formal Drawing Rooms are held at Buckingham Palace. To those +who have seen St. James's during a levee, or to those London tourists +who have watched the Scots Guards, or the Coldstream or the +Grenadiers, preceded by a splendid band, swinging into the old Friary +Court to perform the impressive ceremony of changing guard, the change +in these days of war is most amazing. Friary Court is guarded by +London policemen, and filled with great vans piled high with garments +and supplies for the front--that front where the Coldstream and the +Grenadiers and the others, shorn of their magnificence, are waiting +grimly in muddy trenches or leading charges to victory--or the Roll of +Honour. Under the winter sky of London the crenelated towers and brick +walls of the old palace give little indication of the former grandeur +of this most historic of England's palaces, built on the site of an +old leper hospital and still retaining the name of the saint to whom +that hospital was dedicated. + +There had been a shower just before I arrived; and, although it was +February, there was already a hint of spring in the air. The sun came +out, drying the roads in the park close by, and shining brightly on +the lovely English grass, green even then with the green of June at +home. Riders, caught in the shower and standing by the sheltered sides +of trees for protection, took again to the bridle paths. The hollows +of Friary Court were pools where birds were splashing. As I got out of +my car a Boy Scout emerged from the palace and carried a large parcel +to a waiting van. + +"Do you want the Q.M.N.G.?" said a tall policeman. + +This, being interpreted, I was given to understand was Queen Mary's +Needlework Guild. + +Later on, when I was taken to Buckingham Palace to write my name in +the Queen's book, which is etiquette after a presentation, there was +all the formality the visit to St. James's had lacked--the drive into +the inclosure, where the guard was changing, the stately footmen, the +great book with its pages containing the dignitaries and great people +of all the earth. + +But the Boy Scout and the policeman had restored my failing courage +that day at St. James's Palace. Except for a tendency to breathe at +twice my normal rate as the Queen entered the room I felt almost calm. + +As she advanced toward us, stopping to speak cordially to the various +ladies who are carrying on the work of the Guild for her, I had an +opportunity to see this royal woman who has suffered so grossly from +the camera. + +It will be a surprise to many Americans to learn that the Queen of +England is very lovely to look at. So much emphasis has always been +placed on her virtues, and so little has been written of her charm, +that this tribute is only fair to Her Majesty. She is tall, perhaps +five feet eight inches, with deep-blue eyes and beautiful colouring. +She has a rather wide, humorous mouth. There is not a trace of +austerity in her face or in any single feature. The whole impression +was of sincerity and kindliness, with more than a trace of humour. + +I could quite believe, after I saw Her Majesty, the delightful story +that I had heard from a member of her own circle, that now and then, +when during some court solemnity an absurdity occurred, it was +positively dangerous to catch the Queen's eye! + +Queen Mary came up the long room. As she paused and held out her hand, +each lady took it and curtsied at the same time. The Queen talked, +smiling as she spoke. There was no formality. Near at hand the +lady-in-waiting who was in attendance stood, sometimes listening, +sometimes joining in the conversation. The talk was all of supplies, +for these days in England one thinks in terms of war. Certain things +had come in; other things had gone or were going. For the Queen of +England is to-day at the head of a great business, one that in a few +months has already collected and distributed over a million garments, +all new, all practical, all of excellent quality. + +The Queen came toward me and paused. There was an agonised moment +while the lady-in-waiting presented me. Her Majesty held out her hand. +I took it and bowed. The next instant she was speaking. + +She spoke at once of America, of what had already been done by +Americans for the Belgians both in England and in their desolated +country. And she hastened to add her gratitude for the support they +have given her Guild. + +"The response has been more than generous," said Her Majesty. "We are +very grateful. We are glad to find that the sympathy of America is +with us," + +She expressed a desire also to have America know fully just what was +being done with the supplies that are being constantly sent over, both +from Canada and from the United States. + +"Canada has been wonderful," she said. "They are doing everything." + +The ready response of Canada to the demand for both troops and +supplies appeared to have touched Her Majesty. She spoke at length +about the troops, the distance they had come, the fine appearance the +men made, and their popularity with the crowds when they paraded on +the streets of London. I had already noticed this. A Canadian regiment +was sure to elicit cheers at any time, although London, generally +speaking, has ceased any but silent demonstration over the soldiers. + +"Have you seen any of the English hospitals on the Continent?" the +Queen asked. + +"I have seen a number, Your Majesty," + +"Do they seem well supplied?" + +I replied that they appeared to be thoroughly equipped, but that the +amount of supplies required w&s terrifying and that at one time some +of the hospitals had experienced difficulty in securing what they +needed. + +"One hospital in Calais," I said, "received twelve thousand pairs of +bed socks in one week last autumn, and could not get a bandage." + +"Those things happened early in the war. We are doing much better now. +England had not expected war. We were totally unprepared." + +And in the great analysis that is to come, that speech of the Queen of +England is the answer to many questions. England had not expected war. +Every roll of the drum as the men of the new army march along the +streets, every readjustment necessary to a peaceful people suddenly +thrust into war, every month added to the length of time it has taken +to put England in force into the field, shifts the responsibility to +where it belongs. Back of all fine questions of diplomatic negotiation +stands this one undeniable fact. To deny it is absurd; to accept it is +final. + +"What is your impression of the French and Belgian hospitals?" Her +Majesty inquired. + +I replied that none were so good as the English, that France had +always depended on her nuns in such emergencies, and, there being no +nuns in France now, her hospital situation was still not good. + +"The priests of Belgium are doing wonderful work," I said. "They have +suffered terribly during the war." + +"It is very terrible," said Her Majesty. "Both priests and nuns have +suffered, as England has reason to know." + +The Queen spoke of the ladies connected with the Guild. + +"They are really much overworked," she said. "They are giving all +their time day after day. They are splendid. And many of them, of +course, are in great anxiety." + +Already, by her tact and her simplicity of manner, she had put me at +my ease. The greatest people, I have found, have this quality of +simplicity. When she spoke of the anxieties of her ladies, I wished +that I could have conveyed to her, from so many Americans, their +sympathy in her own anxieties, so keen at that time, so unselfishly +borne. But the lady-in-waiting was speaking: + +"Please tell the Queen about your meeting with King Albert." + +So I told about it. It had been unconventional, and the recital amused +Her Majesty. It was then that I realised how humorous her mouth was, +how very blue and alert her eyes. I told it all to her, the things +that insisted on slipping off my lap, and the King's picking them up; +the old envelope he gave me on which to make notes of the interview; +how I had asked him whether he would let me know when the interview +was over, or whether I ought to get up and go! And finally, when we +were standing talking before my departure, how I had suddenly +remembered that I was not to stand nearer to His Majesty than six +feet, and had hastily backed away and explained, to his great +amusement. + +Queen Mary laughed. Then her face clouded. + +"It is all so very tragic," she said. "Have you seen the Queen?" + +I replied that the Queen of the Belgians had received me a few days +after my conversation with the King. + +"She is very sad," said Her Majesty. "It is a terrible thing for her, +especially as she is a Bavarian by birth." + +From that to the ever-imminent subject of the war itself was but a +step. An English officer had recently made a sensational escape from a +German prison camp, and having at last got back to England, had been +sent for by the King. With the strange inconsistencies that seem to +characterise the behaviour of the Germans, the man to whom he had +surrendered after a gallant defence had treated him rather well. But +from that time on his story was one of brutalities and starvation. + +The officer in question had told me his story, and I ventured to refer +to it Her Majesty knew it quite well, and there was no mistaking the +grief in her Voice as she commented on it, especially on that part of +it which showed discrimination against the British prisoners. Major +V---- had especially emphasised the lack of food for the private +soldiers and the fearful trials of being taken back along the lines of +communication, some fifty-two men being locked in one of the small +Continental box cars which are built to carry only six horses. Many of +them were wounded. They were obliged to stand, the floor of the car +being inches deep with filth. For thirty hours they had no water and +no air, and for three days and three nights no food. + +"I am to publish Major V----'s statement in America, Your Majesty," I +said. + +"I think America should know it," said the Queen. "It is most unjust. +German prisoners in England are well cared for. They are well fed, and +games and other amusements are provided for them. They even play +football!" + +I stepped back as Her Majesty prepared to continue her visit round the +long room. But she indicated that I was to accompany her. It was then +that one realised that the Queen of England is the intensely practical +daughter of a practical mother. Nothing that is done in this Guild, +the successor of a similar guild founded by the late Duchess of Teck, +Her Majesty's mother, escapes her notice. No detail is too small if it +makes for efficiency. She selected at random garments from the tables, +and examined them for warmth, for quality, for utility. + +Generally she approved. Before a great heap of heavy socks she paused. + +"The soldiers like the knitted ones, we are told," she said. "These +are not all knitted but they are very warm." + +A baby sweater of a hideous yellow roused in her something like wrath. + +"All that labour!" she said, "and such a colour for a little baby!" +And again, when she happened on a pair of felt slippers, quite the +largest slippers I have ever seen, she fell silent in sheer amazement. +They amused her even while they shocked her. And again, as she smiled, +I regretted that the photographs of the Queen of England may not show +her smiling. + +A small canvas case, skilfully rolled and fastened, caught Her +Majesty's attention. She opened it herself and revealed with evident +pride its numerous contents. Many thousands of such cases had already +been sent to the army. + +This one was a model of packing. It contained in its small compass an +extraordinary number of things--changes of under flannels, extra +socks, an abdominal belt, and, in an inclosure, towel, soap, +toothbrush, nailbrush and tooth powder. I am not certain, but I +believe there was also a pack of cards. + +"I am afraid I should never be able to get it all back again!" said +Her Majesty. So one of the ladies took it in charge, and the Queen +went on. + +My audience was over. As Her Majesty passed me she held out her hand. +I took it and curtsied. + +"Were you not frightened the night you were in the Belgian trenches?" +she inquired. + +"Not half so frightened as I was this afternoon, Your Majesty," I +replied. + +She passed on, smiling. + + * * * * * + +And now, when enough time has elapsed to give perspective to my first +impression of Queen Mary of England, I find that it loses nothing by +this supreme test. I find that I remember her, not as a great Queen +but as a gracious and kindly woman, greatly beloved by those of her +immediate circle, totally without arrogance, and of a simplicity of +speech and manner that must put to shame at times those lesser lights +that group themselves about a throne. + +I find another impression also--that the Queen of England is intensely +and alertly mental--alive to her finger tips, we should say in +America. She has always been active. Her days are crowded. A different +type of royal woman would be content to be the honoured head of the +Queen's Guild. But she is in close touch with it at all times. It is +she who dictates its policy, and so competently that the ladies who +are associated with the work that is being done speak of her with +admiration not unmixed with awe. + +From a close and devoted friend of Queen Mary I obtained other +characteristics to add to my picture: That the Queen is acutely +sensitive to pain or distress in others--it hurts her; that she is +punctual--and this not because of any particular sense of time but +because she does not like to keep other people waiting. It is all a +part of an overwhelming sense of that responsibility to others that +has its origin in true kindliness. + +The work of the Queen's Guild is surprising in its scope. In a way it +is a vast clearing house. Supplies come in from every part of the +world, from India, Ceylon, Java, Alaska, South America, from the most +remote places. I saw the record book. I saw that a woman from my home +city had sent cigarettes to the soldiers through the Guild, that +Africa had sent flannels! Coming from a land where the sending, as +regards Africa, is all the other way, I found this exciting. Indeed, +the whole record seems to show how very small the earth is, and how +the tragedy of a great war has overcome the barriers of distance and +time and language. + +From this clearing house in England's historic old palace, built so +long ago by Bluff King Hal, these offerings of the world are sent +wherever there is need, to Servia, to Egypt, to South and East Africa, +to the Belgians. The work was instituted by the Queen the moment war +broke out, and three things are being very carefully insured: That a +real want exists, that the clothing reaches its proper destination, +and that there shall be no overlapping. + +The result has been most gratifying to the Queen, but it was difficult +to get so huge a business--for, as I have already said, it is a +business now--under way at the beginning. Demand was insistent. There +was no time to organise a system in advance. It had to be worked out +in actual practice. + +One of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting wrote in February, apropos of the +human element in the work: + +"There was a great deal of human element in the start with its various +mistakes. The Queen wished, on the breaking out of war, to start the +Guild in such a way as to prevent the waste and overlapping which +occurred in the Boer War.... The fact that the ladies connected with +the work have toiled daily and unceasingly for seven months is the +most wonderful part of it all." + +Before Christmas nine hundred and seventy thousand belts and socks +were collected and sent as a special gift to the soldiers at the +front, from the Queen and the women of the empire. That in itself is +an amazing record of efficiency. + +It is rather comforting to know that there were mistakes in the +beginning. It is so human. It is comforting to think of this +exceedingly human Queen being a party to them, and being divided +between annoyance and mirth as they developed. It is very comforting +also to think that, in the end, they were rectified. + +We had a similar situation during our Civil War. There were mistakes +then also, and they too were rectified. What the heroic women of the +North and South did during that great conflict the women of Great +Britain are doing to-day. They are showing the same high and +courageous spirit, the same subordination of their personal griefs to +the national cause, the same cheerful relinquishment of luxuries. It +is a United Britain that confronts the enemy in France. It is a united +womanhood, united in spirit, in labour, in faith and high moral +courage, that looks east across the Channel to that land beyond the +horizon, "somewhere in France," where the Empire is fighting for life. + +A united womanhood, and at its head a steadfast and courageous Queen +and mother, Mary of England. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE QUEEN OF THE BELGIANS + + +On the third of August, 1914, the German Army crossed the frontier +into Belgium. And on the following day, the fourth, King Albert made +his now famous speech to the joint meeting of the Belgian Chamber and +Senate. Come what might, the Belgian people would maintain the freedom +that was their birthright. + +"I have faith in our destinies," King Albert concluded. "A country +which defends itself wins respect and cannot perish." + +With these simple and dignified words Belgium took up the struggle. +She was beaten before she began, and she knew it. No matter what the +ultimate out-come of the war, she must lose. The havoc would be hers. +The old battleground of Europe knew what war meant; no country in the +world knew better. And, knowing, Belgium took up the burden. + +To-day, Belgium is prostrate. That she lives, that she will rise +again, no Belgian doubts. It may be after months--even after years; +but never for a moment can there be any doubt of the national +integrity. The Germans are in Belgium, but not of it. Belgium is still +Belgium--not a part of the German Empire. Until the Germans are driven +out she is waiting. + +As I write this, one corner of her territory remains to her, a +wedge-shaped piece, ten miles or so in width at the coast, narrowing +to nothing at a point less than thirty miles inland. And in that +tragic fragment there remains hardly an undestroyed town. Her revenues +are gone, being collected as an indemnity, for God knows what, by the +Germans. King Albert himself has been injured. The Queen of the +Belgians has pawned her jewels. The royal children are refugees in +England. Two-thirds of the army is gone. And, of even that tiny +remaining corner, much is covered by the salt floods of the sea. + +The King of the Belgians is often heard of. We hear of him at the head +of his army, consulting his staff, reviewing his weary and decimated +troops. We know his calibre now, both as man and soldier. He stands +out as one of the truly heroic figures of the war. + +But what of the Bavarian-born Queen of the Belgians? What of this +royal woman who has lost the land of her nativity through the same war +that has cost her the country of her adoption; who must see her +husband go each day to the battle line; who must herself live under +the shadow of hostile aeroplanes, within earshot of the enemy's guns? +What was she thinking of during those fateful hours when, all night +long, King Albert and his Ministers debated the course of Belgium--a +shameful immunity, or a war? What does she think now, when, before the +windows of her villa at La Panne, the ragged and weary remnant of the +brave Belgian Army lines up for review? What does she hope for and +pray for--this Queen without a country? + +What she thinks we cannot know. What she hopes for we may guess--the +end of war; the return of her faithful people to their homes; the +reunion of families; that the guns will cease firing, so the long +lines of ambulances will no longer fill the roads; that the wounded +will recover; and that those that grieve may be comforted. + +She has pawned her jewels. When I saw her she wore a thin gold chain +round her neck, and on it a tiny gold heart. I believe she has +sacrificed everything else. Royal jewels have been pawned before +this--to support extravagant mistresses or to bolster a crumbling +throne; but Elisabeth of Belgium has pawned her jewels to buy supplies +for wounded soldiers. Battle-scarred old Belgium has not always had a +clean slate; but certainly this act of a generous and devoted queen +should mark off many scores. + +The Queen is living at La Panne, a tiny fishing village and resort on +the coast--an ugly village, robbed of quaintness by its rows of villas +owned by summer visitors. The villas are red and yellow brick, built +chateau fashion and set at random on the sand. Efforts at lawns have +proved abortive. The encroaching dunes gradually cover the grass. Here +and there are streets; and there is one main thoroughfare, along which +is a tramway that formerly connected the town with other villages. + +On one side the sea; on the other the dunes, with little shade and no +beauty--such is the location of the new capital of Belgium. And here, +in one of the six small villas that house the court, the King and +Queen of Belgium, with the Crown Prince, are living. They live very +quietly, walking together along the sands at those times when King +Albert is not with his troops, faring simply, waiting always--as all +Belgium is waiting to-day. Waiting for the end of this terrible time. + +I asked a member of the royal household what they did during those +long winter evenings, when the only sounds in the little village were +the wash of the sea and the continual rumble of the artillery at +Nieuport. + +"What can we do?" he replied. "My wife and children are in Brussels. +It is not possible to read, and it is not wise to think too much. We +wait." + +But waiting does not imply inaction. The members of His Majesty's +household are all officers in the army. I saw only one gentleman in +civilian dress, and he was the King's secretary, M. Ingenbleek. The +King heads this activity, and the Queen of the Belgians is never idle. +The Ocean Ambulance, the great Belgian base hospital, is under her +active supervision, and its location near the royal villa makes it +possible for her to visit it daily. She knows the wounded soldiers, +who adore her. Indeed, she is frankly beloved by the army. Her +appearance is always the signal for a demonstration; and again and +again I saw copies of her photograph nailed up in sentry huts, in +soldiers' billets, in battered buildings that were temporary +headquarters for divisions of the army. + +In return for this devotion the young Queen regards the welfare of the +troops as her especial charge. She visits them when they are wounded, +and many tales are told of her keen memory for their troubles. One, a +wounded Frenchman, had lost his pipe when he was injured. As he +recovered he mourned his pipe. Other pipes were offered, but they were +not the same. There had been something about the curve of the stem of +the old one, or the shape of the bowl--whatever it was, he missed it. +And it had been his sole possession. + +At last the Queen of the Belgians had him describe the old pipe +exactly. I believe he made a drawing--and she secured a duplicate of +it for him. He told me the story himself. + +The Queen had wished to go to the trenches to see the wretchedness of +conditions at the front, and to discover what she could do to +ameliorate them. One excursion she had been permitted at the time I +saw her, to the great anxiety of those who knew of the trip. She was +quite fearless, and went into one of the trenches at the railroad +embankment of Pervyse. I saw that trench afterward. It was proudly +decorated with a sign that said: _Repose de la Reine_. And above the +board was the plaster head of a saint, from one of the churches. Both +sign and head, needless to say, were carefully protected from German +bullets. + +Everywhere I went I found evidences of devotion to this girlish and +tender-hearted Queen. I was told of her farewell to the leading +officials of the army and of the court, when, having remained to the +last possible moment, King Albert insisted on her departure from +Brussels. I was told of her incognito excursions across the dangerous +Channel to see her children in England. I was told of her +single-hearted devotion to the King; her belief in him; her confidence +that he can do no wrong. + +So, when a great and bearded individual, much given to bowing, +presented himself at the door of my room in the hotel at Dunkirk, and +extended to me a notification that the Queen of the Belgians would +receive me the next day at the royal villa at La Panne, I was keenly +expectant. + +I went over my wardrobe. It was exceedingly limited and more than a +little worn. Furs would cover some of the deficiencies, but there was +a difficulty about shoe buttons. Dunkirk apparently laces its shoes. +After a period of desperation, two top buttons were removed and sewed +on lower down, where they would do the most good. That and much +brushing was all that was possible, my total war equipment comprising +one small suitcase, two large notebooks and a fountain pen. + +I had been invited to lunch at a town on my way to La Panne, but the +luncheon was deferred. When I passed through my would-be entertainer +was eating bully beef out of a tin, with a cracker or two; and shells +were falling inhospitably. Suddenly I was not hungry. I did not care +for food. I did not care to stop to talk about food. It was a very +small town, and there were bricks and glass and plaster in the +streets. There were almost no people, and those who were there were +hastily preparing for flight. + +It was a wonderful Sunday afternoon, brilliantly sunny. A German +aeroplane hung overhead and called the bull's-eyes. From the plain +near they were firing at it, but the shells burst below. One could see +how far they fell short by the clouds of smoke that hung suspended +beneath it, floating like shadowy balloons. + +I felt that the aeroplane had its eyes on my car. They drop darts--do +the aeroplanes--two hundred and more at a time; small pencil-shaped +arrows of steel, six inches long, extremely sharp and weighted at the +point end. I did not want to die by a dart. I did not want to die by a +shell. As a matter of fact, I did not want to die at all. + +So the car went on; and, luncheonless, I met the Queen of the +Belgians. + +The royal villa at La Panne faces the sea. It is at the end of the +village and the encroaching dunes have ruined what was meant to be a +small lawn. The long grass that grows out of the sand is the only +vegetation about it; and outside, half-buried in the dune, is a marble +seat. A sentry box or two, and sentries with carbines pacing along the +sand; the constant swish of the sea wind through the dead winter +grass; the half-buried garden seat--that is what the Queen of the +Belgians sees as she looks from the window of her villa. + +The villa itself is small and ugly. The furnishing is the furnishing +of a summer seaside cottage. The windows fit badly and rattle in the +gale. In the long drawing room--really a living room--in which I +waited for the Queen, a heavy red curtain had been hung across the +lower part of the long French windows that face the sea, to keep out +the draft. With that and an open coal fire the room was fairly +comfortable. + +As I waited I looked about. Rather a long room this, which has seen so +many momentous discussions, so much tragedy and real grief. A chaotic +room too; for, in addition to its typical villa furnishing of +chintz-covered chairs and a sofa or two, an ordinary pine table by a +side window was littered with papers. + +On a centre table were books--H.G. Wells' "The War in the Air"; two +American books written by correspondents who had witnessed the +invasion of Belgium; and several newspapers. A hideous marble bust on +a pedestal occupied a corner, and along a wall was a very small +cottage piano. On the white marble mantel were a clock and two +candlesticks. Except for a great basket of heather on a stand--a gift +to Her Majesty---the room was evidently just as its previous owners +had left it. A screen just inside the door, a rather worn rug on the +floor, and a small brocade settee by the fireplace completed the +furnishing. + +The door opened and the Queen entered without ceremony. I had not seen +her before. In her simple blue dress, with its white lawn collar and +cuffs, she looked even more girlish than I had anticipated. Like Queen +Mary of England, she had suffered from the camera. She is indeed +strikingly beautiful, with lovely colouring and hair, and with very +direct wide eyes, set far apart. She is small and slender, and moves +quickly. She speaks beautiful English, in that softly inflected voice +of the Continent which is the envy of all American women. + +I bowed as she entered; and she shook hands with me at once and asked +me to sit down. She sat on the sofa by the fireplace. Like the Queen +of England, like King Albert, her first words were of gratitude to +America. + +It is not my intention to record here anything but the substance of my +conversation with Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. Much that was said was +the free and unrestricted speech of two women, talking over together a +situation which was tragic to them both; for Queen Elisabeth allowed +me to forget, as I think she had ceased to remember, her own exalted +rank, in her anxiety for her people. + +A devoted churchwoman, she grieved over the treatment accorded by the +invading German Army to the priests and nuns of Belgium. She referred +to her own Bavarian birth, and to the confidence both King Albert and +she had always felt in the friendliness of Germany. + +"I am a Bavarian," she said. "I have always, from my childhood, heard +this talk that Germany must grow, must get to the sea. I thought it +was just talk--a pleasantry!" + +She had seen many of the diaries of German soldiers, had read them in +the very room where we were sitting. She went quite white over the +recollection and closed her eyes. + +"It is the women and children!" she said. "It is terrible! There must +be killing. That is war. But not this other thing." + +And later on she said, in reference to German criticism of King +Albert's course during the early days of the war: + +"Any one who knows the King knows that he cannot do a wrong thing. It +is impossible for him. He cannot go any way but straight." + +And Queen Elisabeth was right. Any one who knows King Albert of +Belgium knows that "he cannot go any way but straight." + +The conversation shifted to the wounded soldiers and to the Queen's +anxiety for them. I spoke of her hospital as being a remarkable +one--practically under fire, but moving as smoothly as a great +American institution, thousands of miles from danger. She had looked +very sad, but at the mention of the Ocean Ambulance her face +brightened. She spoke of its equipment; of the difficulty in securing +supplies; of the new surgery, which has saved so many limbs from +amputation. They were installing new and larger sterilisers, she said. + +"Things are in as good condition as can be expected now," she said. +"The next problem will come when we get back into our own country. +What are the people to do? So many of the towns are gone; so many +farms are razed!" + +The Queen spoke of Brand Whitlock and praised highly his work in +Brussels. From that to the relief work was only a step. I spoke of the +interest America was taking in the relief work, and of the desire of +so many American women to help. + +"We are grateful for anything," she said. "The army seems to be as +comfortable as is possible under the circumstances; but the people, of +course, need everything." + +Inevitably the conversation turned again to the treatment of the +Belgian people by the Germans; to the unnecessary and brutal murders +of noncombatants; to the frightful rapine and pillage of the early +months of the war. Her Majesty could not understand the scepticism of +America on this point. I suggested that it was difficult to say what +any army would do when it found itself in a prostrate and conquered +land. + +"The Belgian Army would never have behaved so," said Her Majesty. "Nor +the English; nor the French. Never!" + +And the Queen of the Belgians is a German! True, she has suffered +much. Perhaps she is embittered; but there was no bitterness in her +voice that afternoon in the little villa at La Panne--only sadness and +great sorrow and, with it, deep conviction. What Queen Elisabeth of +Belgium says, she believes; and who should know better? There, to that +house on the sea front, in the fragment of Belgium that remains, go +all the hideous details that are war. She knows them all. King Albert +is not a figure-head; he is the actual fighting head of his army. The +murder of Belgium has been done before his very eyes. + +In those long evenings when he has returned from headquarters; when he +and Queen Elisabeth sit by the fire in the room that overlooks the +sea; when every blast that shakes the windows reminds them both of +that little army, two-thirds gone, shivering in the trenches only a +mile or two away, or of their people beyond the dead line, suffering +both deprivation and terror--what pictures do they see in the glowing +coals? + +It is not hard to know. Queen Elisabeth sees her children, and the +puzzled, boyish faces of those who are going down to the darkness of +death that another nation may find a place in the sun. + +What King Albert sees may not all be written; but this is certain: +Both these royal exiles--this Soldier-King who has won and deserved +the admiration of the world; this Queen who refuses to leave her +husband and her wounded, though day after day hostile aeroplanes are +overhead and the roar of German guns is in her ears--these royal +exiles live in hope and in deep conviction. They will return to +Belgium. Their country will be theirs again. Their houses will be +restored; their fields will be sown and yield harvest--not for +Germany, but for Belgium. Belgium, as Belgium, will live again! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THE RED BADGE OF MERCY + + +Immediately on the declaration of war by the Powers the vast machinery +of mercy was put in the field. The mobilisation of the Red Cross army +began--that great army which is of no nation, but of all nations, of +no creed but of all faiths, of one flag for all the world and that +flag the banner of the Crusaders. + +The Red Cross is the wounded soldier's last defence. Worn as a +brassard on the left arm of its volunteers, it conveys a higher +message than the Victoria Cross of England, the Iron Cross of Germany, +or the Cross of the Legion of Honour of France. It is greater than +cannon, greater than hate, greater than blood-lust, greater than +vengeance. It triumphs over wrath as good triumphs over evil. Direct +descendant of the cross of the Christian faith, it carries on to every +battlefield the words of the Man of Peace: "Blessed are the merciful, +for they shall obtain mercy." + + * * * * * + +The care of the wounded in war has been the problem of the ages. +Richard the Lion-Hearted took a hospital ship to the coast of +Palestine. The German people of the Middle Ages had their wounded in +battle treated by their wives, who followed the army for that purpose. +It remained for Frederick the First of Prussia to establish a military +service in connection with a standing army. + +With the invention of firearms battlefield surgery faced new problems, +notably hemorrhage, and took a step forward to meet these altered +conditions. It was a French surgeon who solved the problem of +hemorrhage by tying the torn blood vessels above the injury. To +England goes the credit for the prevention of sepsis, as far as it may +be prevented on a battlefield. + +As far as it may be prevented on a battlefield! For that is the +question that confronts the machinery of mercy to-day. Transportation +to the hospitals has been solved, to a large extent, by motor +ambulances, by hospital trains, by converted channel steamers +connecting the Continent with England. Hospitals in the western field +of war are now plentiful and some are well equipped. The days of +bedding wounded men down on straw are largely in the past, but how to +prevent the ravages of dirt, the so-called "dirt diseases" of gaseous +gangrene, blood poisoning, tetanus, is the problem. + +I did not see the first exchange of hopelessly wounded prisoners that +took place at Flushing, while I was on the Continent. It must have +been a tragic sight. They lined up in two parties at the railroad +station, German surgeons and nurses with British prisoners, British +surgeons and nurses with German prisoners. + +Then they were counted off, I am told. Ten Germans came forward, ten +British, in wheeled chairs, on crutches, the sightless ones led. The +exchange was made. Then ten more, and so on. What a sight! What a +horror! No man there would ever be whole again. There were men without +legs, without arms, blind men, men twisted by fearful body wounds. Two +hundred and sixteen British officers and men, and as many Germans, +were exchanged that day. + +"They were, however, in the best of spirits," said the London Times of +the next day! + +At Folkestone a crowd was waiting on the quay, and one may be sure +that heads were uncovered as the men limped, or were led or wheeled, +down the gang-plank. Kindly English women gave them nosegays of +snowdrops and violets. + +And then they went on--to what? For a few weeks, or months, they will +be the objects of much kindly sympathy. In the little towns where they +live visitors will be taken to see them. The neighbourhood will exert +itself in kindness. But after a time interest will die away, and +besides, there will be many to divide sympathy. The blind man, or the +man without a leg or an arm, will cease to be the neighbourhood's +responsibility and will become its burden. + +What then? For that is the problem that is facing each nation at +war--to make a whole life out of a fragment, to teach that the spirit +may be greater than the body, to turn to usefulness these sad and +hopeless by-products of battlefields. + +The ravages of war--to the lay mind--consist mainly of wounds. As a +matter of fact, they divide themselves into several classes, all +different, all requiring different care, handling and treatment, and +all, in their several ways, dependent for help on the machinery of +mercy. In addition to injuries on the battlefield there are illnesses +contracted on the field, septic conditions following even slight +abrasions or minor wounds, and nervous conditions--sometimes +approximating a temporary insanity--due to prolonged strain, to +incessant firing close at hand, to depression following continual lack +of success, to the sordid and hideous conditions of unburied dead, +rotting in full view for weeks and even months. + +During the winter frozen feet, sometimes requiring amputation, and +even in mild cases entailing great suffering, took thousands of men +out of the trenches. The trouble resulted from standing for hours and +even days in various depths of cold water, and was sometimes given the +name "waterbite." Soldiers were instructed to rub their boots inside +and out with whale oil, and to grease their feet and legs. Unluckily, +only fortunately situated men could be so supplied, and the suffering +was terrible. Surgeons who have observed many cases of both frost and +water bite say that, curiously enough, the left foot is more +frequently and seriously affected than the right. The reason given is +that right-handed men automatically use the right foot more than the +left, make more movements with it. The order to remove boots twice a +day, for a few moments while in the trenches, had a beneficial effect +among certain battalions. + +The British soldier who wraps tightly a khaki puttee round his leg and +thus hampers circulation has been a particular sufferer from frostbite +in spite of the precaution he takes to grease his feet and legs before +going into the trenches. + +The presence of septic conditions has been appalling. + +This is a dirty war. Men are taken back to the hospitals in incredible +states of filth. Their stiffened clothing must frequently be cut off +to reveal, beneath, vermin-covered bodies. When the problem of +transportation is a serious one, as after a great battle, men must lie +in sheds or railway stations, waiting their turn. Wounds turn green +and hideous. Their first-aid dressing, originally surgically clean, +becomes infected. Lucky the man who has had a small vial of iodine to +pour over the gaping surface of his wound. For the time, at least, he +is well off. + +The very soil of Flanders seems polluted. British surgeons are sighing +for the clean dust of the Boer war of South Africa, although they +cursed it at the time. That it is not the army occupation which is +causing the grave infections of Flanders and France is shown by the +fact that the trouble dates from the beginning of the war. It is not +that living in a trench undermines the vitality of the men and lays +them open to infection. On the contrary, with the exception of frost +bite, there is a curious absence of such troubles as would ordinarily +result from exposure, cold and constant wetting. + +The open-air life has apparently built up the men. Again and again the +extraordinary power of resistance shown has astonished the surgeons. +It is as if, in forcing men to face overwhelming hardships, a watchful +Providence had granted them overwhelming vitality. + +Perhaps the infection of the soil, the typhoid-carrying waters that +seep through and into the trenches, the tetanus and gangrene that may +infect the simplest wounds, are due to the long intensive cultivation +of that fertile country, to the fertilisation by organic matter of its +fields. Doubtless the vermin that cover many of the troops form the +connecting link between the soil and the infected men. In many places +gasoline is being delivered to the troopers to kill these pests, and +it is a German army joke that before a charge on a Russian trench it +is necessary to send ahead men to scatter insect powder! So serious is +the problem in the east indeed that an official order from Berlin now +requires all cars returning from Russia to be placarded "_Aus +Russland_! Before using again thoroughly sterilise and unlouse!" And +no upholstered cars are allowed to be used. + +Generally speaking, a soldier is injured either in his trench or in +front of it in the waste land between the confronting armies. In the +latter case, if the lines are close together the situation is still +further complicated. It may be and often is impossible to reach him at +all. He must lie there for hours or even for days of suffering, until +merciful death overtakes him. When he can be rescued he is, and many +of the bravest deeds of this war have been acts of such salvage. In +addition to the work of the ambulance corps and of volunteer soldiers +who often venture out into a rain of death to bring in fallen officers +and comrades in the western field, some five hundred ambulance dogs +are being used by the Allies to locate the wounded. + +When a man is injured in the trenches his companions take care of him +until night, when it is possible to move him. His first-aid packet is +opened, a sterilised bandage produced, and the dressing applied to the +wound. Frequently he has a small bottle of iodine and the wound is +first painted with that. In cases where iodine is used at once, +chances of infection are greatly lessened. But often he must lie in +the trench until night, when the ambulances come up. His comrades make +him as comfortable as they can. He lies on their overcoats, his head +frequently on his own pack. + +Fighting goes on about him, above him. Other comrades fall in the +trench and are carried and laid near him. In the intervals of +fighting, men bring the injured men water. For that is the first +cry--a great and insistent need--water. When they cannot get water +from the canteens they drink what is in the bottom of the trench. + +At last night falls. The evening artillery duel, except when a charge +is anticipated, is greatly lessened at night, and infantry fire is +only that of "snipers." But over the trench and over the line of +communication behind the trench hang always the enemy's "starlights." + +The ambulances come up. They cannot come as far as the trenches, but +stretchers are brought and the wounded men are lifted out as tenderly +as possible. + +Many soldiers have tried to tell of the horrors of a night journey in +an ambulance or transport; careful driving is out of the question. +Near the front the ambulance can have no lights, and the roads +everywhere have been torn up by shells. + +Men die in transit, and, dying, hark back to early days. They call for +their mothers, for their wives. They dictate messages that no one can +take down. Unloaded at railway stations, the dead are separated from +the living and piled in tiers on trucks. The wounded lie about on +stretchers on the station floor. Sometimes they are operated on there, +by the light of a candle, it may be, or of a smoking lamp. When it is +a well-equipped station there is the mercy of chloroform, the blessed +release of morphia, but more times than I care to think of at night, +there has been no chloroform and no morphia. + +France has sixty hospital trains, England twelve, Belgium not so many. + +I have seen trains drawing in with their burden of wounded men. They +travel slowly, come to a gradual stop, without jolting or jarring; but +instead of the rush of passengers to alight, which usually follows the +arrival of a train, there is silence, infinite quiet. Then, somewhere, +a door is unhurriedly opened. Maybe a priest alights and looks about +him. Perhaps it is a nurse who steps down and takes a comprehensive +survey of conditions. There is no talking, no uproar. A few men may +come up to assist in lifting out the stretchers, an ambulance driver +who salutes and indicates with a gesture where his car is stationed. +There are no onlookers. This is business, the grim business of war. +The line of stretchers on the station platform grows. The men lie on +them, impassive. They have waited so long. They have lain on the +battlefield, in the trench, behind the line at the dressing shed, +waiting, always waiting. What is a little time more or less, now? + +The patience of the injured! I have been in many hospitals. I have +seen pneumonia and typhoid patients lying in the fearful apathy of +disease. They are very sad to see, very tragic, but their patience is +the lethargy of half consciousness. Their fixed eyes see visions. The +patience of the wounded is the resignation of alert faculties. + +Once I saw a boy dying. He was a dark-haired, brown-eyed lad of +eighteen. He had had a leg shattered the day before, and he had lain +for hours unattended on the battlefield. The leg had been amputated, +and he was dying of loss of blood. + +He lay alone, in a small room of what had once been a girls' school. +He had asked to be propped up with pillows, so that he could breathe. +His face was grey, and only his eyes were alive. They burned like +coals. He was alone. The hospital was crowded, and there were others +who could be saved. So he lay there, propped high, alone, and as +conscious as I am now, and waited. The nurse came back at last, and +his eyes greeted her. + +There seemed to be nothing that I could do. Before his conscious eyes +I was an intruder, gazing at him in his extremity. I went away. And +now and then, when I hear this talk of national honour, and am carried +away with a hot flame of resentment so that I, too, would cry for war, +I seem to see that dying boy's eyes, looking through the mists that +are vengeance and hatred and affronted pride, to war as it is--the end +of hope, the gate of despair and agony and death. + +After my return I received these letters. The woman who wrote them +will, I know, forgive me for publishing extracts from them. She is a +Belgian, married to an American. More clearly than any words of mine, +they show where falls the burden of war: + +"I have just learned that my youngest brother has been killed in +action in Flanders. King Albert decorated him for conspicuous bravery +on April 22d, and my poor boy went to his reward on April 26th. In my +leaden heart, through my whirling brain, your words keep repeating +themselves: 'For King and Country!' Yes, he died for them, and died a +hero! I know only that his regiment, the Grenadiers, was decimated. My +poor little boy! God pity us all, and save martyred Belgium!" + +In a second letter: + +"I enclose my dear little boy's obituary notice. He died at the head +of his company and five hundred and seventy-four of his Grenadiers +went down with him. Their regiment effectively checked the German +advance, and in recognition General Joffre pinned the Cross of the +Legion of Honour to his regimental colours. But we are left to +mourn--though I do no begrudge my share of sorrow. The pain is awful, +and I pray that by the grace of God you may never know what it means." + +For King and Country! + +The only leaven in this black picture of war as have seen it, as it +has touched me, has been the scarlet of the Red Cross. To a faith that +the terrible scene at the front had almost destroyed, came every now +and then again the flash of the emblem of mercy Hope, then, was not +dead. There were hands to soothe and labour, as well as hands to kill. +There was still brotherly love in the world. There was a courage that +was not of hate. There was a patience that was not a lying in wait. +There was a flag that was not of one nation, but of all the world; a +flag that needed no recruiting station, for the ranks it led were +always full to overflowing; a flag that stood between the wounded +soldier and death; that knew no defeat but surrender to the will of +the God of Battles. + +And that flag I followed. To the front, to the field hospitals behind +the trenches, to railway stations, to hospital trains and ships, to +great base hospitals. I watched its ambulances on shelled roads. I +followed its brassards as their wearers, walking gently, carried +stretchers with their groaning burdens. And, whatever may have failed +in this war--treaties, ammunition, elaborate strategies, even some of +the humanities--the Red Cross as a symbol of service has never failed. + +I was a critical observer. I am a graduate of a hospital +training-school, and more or less for years I have been in touch with +hospitals. I myself was enrolled under the Red Cross banner. I was +prepared for efficiency. What I was not prepared for was the absolute +self-sacrifice, the indifference to cost in effort, in very life +itself, of a great army of men and women. I saw English aristocrats +scrubbing floors; I found American surgeons working day and night +under the very roar and rattle of guns. I found cultured women of +every nation performing the most menial tasks. I found an army where +all are equal--priests, surgeons, scholars, chauffeurs, poets, women +of the stage, young girls who until now have been shielded from the +very name of death--all enrolled under the red badge of mercy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +IN TERMS OF LIFE AND DEATH + + +One of the first hospitals I saw was in Calais. We entered a muddy +courtyard through a gate, and the building loomed before us. It had +been a girls' convent school, and was now a military hospital for both +the French and British armies, one half the building being used by +each. It was the first war hospital I had seen, and I was taken +through the building by Major S----, of the Royal Army Medical Corps. +It was morning, and the corridors and stairs still bore the mud of the +night, when the ambulances drive into the courtyard and the stretchers +are carried up the stairs. It had been rather a quiet night, said +Major S----. The operations were already over, and now the work of +cleaning up was going on. + +He opened a door, and we entered a long ward. + +I live in a great manufacturing city. Day by day its mills take their +toll in crushed bodies. The sight of broken humanity is not new to me. +In a general way, it is the price we pay for prosperity. Individually, +men so injured are the losers in life's great struggle for food and +shelter. + +I had never before seen men dying of an ideal. + +There is a terrible sameness in war hospitals. There are rows of beds, +and in them rows of unshaven, white-faced men. Some of them turn and +look at visitors. Others lie very still, with their eyes fixed on the +ceiling, or eternity, or God knows what. Now and then one is sleeping. + +"He has slept since he came in," the nurse will say; "utter +exhaustion." + +Often they die. If there is a screen, the death takes place decently +and in order, away from the eyes of the ward. But when there is no +screen, it makes little difference. What is one death to men who have +seen so many? + +Once men thought in terms of a day's work, a night's sleep, of labour +and play and love. But all over Europe to-day, in hospital and out, +men are learning to think in terms of life and death. What will be the +result? A general brutalising? The loss of much that is fine? Perhaps. +There are some who think that it will scourge men's souls clean of +pettiness, teach them proportion, give them a larger outlook. But is +it petty to labour and love? Is the duty of the nation greater than +the duty of the home? Is the nation greater than the individual? Is +the whole greater than the sum of its parts? + +Ward after ward. Rows of quiet men. The occasional thump of a +convalescent's crutch. The swish of a nurse's starched dress. The +strangled grunt of a man as the dressing is removed from his wound. +The hiss of coal in the fireplace at the end of the ward. Perhaps a +priest beside a bed, or a nun. Over all, the heavy odour of drugs and +disinfectants. Brisk nurses go about, cheery surgeons, but there is no +real cheer. The ward is waiting. + +I saw a man who had been shot in the lungs. His lungs were filled with +jagged pieces of steel. He was inhaling oxygen from a tank. There was +an inhaler strapped over his mouth and nostrils, and the oxygen passed +through a bottle of water, to moisten it before it entered his +tortured lungs. + +The water in the bottle seethed and bubbled, and the man lay and +waited. + +He was waiting for the next breath. Above the mask his eyes were +fixed, intent. Would it come? Ah, that was not so bad. Almost a full +breath that time. But he must have another, and another. + +They are all waiting; for death, maybe; for home; for health again, or +such travesty of health as may come, for the hospital is not an end +but a means. It is an interval. It is the connecting link between the +trenches and home, between war and peace, between life and death. + +That one hospital had been a school. The children's lavatory is now +the operating room. There are rows of basins along one side, set a +trifle low for childish hands. When I saw them they were faintly +rimmed with red. There was a locker room too. Once these lockers had +held caps, no doubt, and overshoes, balls and other treasures. Now +they contained torn and stained uniforms, weapons, knapsacks, + +Does it matter how many wards there were, or how many surgeons? Do +figures mean anything to us any more? When we read in the spring of +1915 that the British Army, a small army compared with the others, had +lost already in dead, wounded and missing more than a quarter of a +million men we could not visualise it Multiply one ward by infinity, +one hospital by thousands, and then try to realise the terrible +by-products of war! + +In that Calais hospital I saw for the first time the apparatus for +removing bits of shell and shrapnel directly under the X-ray. Four +years ago such a procedure would have been considered not only +marvelous but dangerous. + +At that time, in Vienna and Berlin, I saw men with hands hopelessly +burned and distorted as the result of merely taking photographic +plates with the X-ray. Then came in lead-glass screens--screens of +glass made with a lead percentage. + +Now, as if science had prepared for this great emergency, operators +use gloves saturated with a lead solution, and right-angled +instruments, and operate directly in the ray. For cases where +immediate extraction is inadvisable or unnecessary there is a +stereoscopic arrangement of plates on the principle of our familiar +stereoscope, which shows an image with perspective and locates the +foreign body exactly. + +One plate I saw had a story attached to it. + +I was stopping in a private house where a tall Belgian surgeon lived. +In the morning, after breakfast, I saw him carefully preparing a tray +and carrying it upstairs. There was a sick boy, still in his teens, up +there. As I passed the door I had seen him lying there, gaunt and +pale, but plainly convalescent. + +Happening to go up shortly after, I saw the tall surgeon by the side +of the bed, the tray on his knees. And later I heard the story: + +The boy was his son. During the winter he had been injured and taken +prisoner. The father, in Calais, got word that his boy was badly +injured and lying in a German hospital in Belgium. He was an only son. + +I do not know how the frenzied father got into Belgium. Perhaps he +crept through the German lines. He may have gone to sea and landed on +the sand dunes near Zeebrugge. It does not matter how, for he found +his boy. He went to the German authorities and got permission to move +him to a private house. The boy was badly hurt. He had a bullet in the +wall of the carotid artery, for one thing, and a fractured thigh. The +father saw that his recovery, if it occurred at all, would be a matter +of skillful surgery and unremitting care, but the father had a post at +Calais and was badly needed. + +He took a wagon to the hospital and got his boy. Then he drove, +disguised I believe as a farmer, over the frontier into Holland. The +boy was covered in the bottom of the wagon. In Holland they got a boat +and went to Calais. All this, with that sharp-pointed German bullet in +the carotid artery! And at Calais they took the plate I have mentioned +and got out the bullet. + +The last time I saw that brave father he was sitting beside his son, +and the boy's hand was between both of his. + +Nearly all the hospitals I saw had been schools. In one that I recall, +the gentle-faced nuns, who by edict no longer exist in France, were +still living in a wing of the school building. They had abandoned +their quaint and beautiful habit for the ugly dress of the French +provinces--odd little bonnets that sat grotesquely on the tops of +their heads, stuffy black dresses, black cotton gloves. They would +like to be useful, but they belonged to the old regime. + +Under their bonnets their faces were placid, but their eyes were sad. +Their schoolrooms are hospital wards, the tiny chapel is piled high +with supplies; in the refectory, where decorous rows of small girls +were wont to file in to the convent meals, unthinkable horrors of +operations go on all day and far into the night. The Hall of the Holy +Rosary is a convalescent room, where soldiers smoke and play at cards. +The Room of the Holy Angels contains a steriliser. Through the +corridors that once re-echoed to the soft padding of their felt shoes +brisk English nurses pass with a rustle of skirts. + +Even the cross by which they lived has turned red, the colour of +blood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE LOSING GAME + + +I saw a typhoid hospital in charge of two women doctors. It was +undermanned. There were not enough nurses, not enough orderlies. + +One of the women physicians had served through the Balkan war. + +"There was typhoid there," she said, "but nothing to compare with this +in malignancy. Nearly all the cases have come from one part of +Belgium." + +Some of the men were wounded, in addition to the fever. She told me +that it was impossible to keep things in proper order with the help +they had. + +"And food!" she said. "We cannot have eggs. They are prohibitive at +twenty-five centimes--five cents--each; nor many broths. Meat is dear +and scarce, and there are no chickens. We give them stewed macaroni +and farinaceous things. It's a terrible problem." + +The charts bore out what she had said about the type of the disease. +They showed incredible temperatures, with the sudden drop that is +perforation or hemorrhage. + +The odour was heavy. Men lay there, far from home, babbling in +delirium or, with fixed eyes, picking at the bed clothes. One was +going to die that day. Others would last hardly longer. + +"They are all Belgians here," she said. "The British and French troops +have been inoculated against typhoid." + +So here again the Belgians were playing a losing game. Perhaps they +are being inoculated now. I do not know. To inoculate an army means +much money, and where is the Belgian Government to get it? ft seems +the tragic irony of fate that that heroic little army should have been +stationed in the infested territory. Are there any blows left to rain +on Belgium? + +In a letter from the Belgian lines the writer says: + +"This is just a race for life. The point is, which will get there +first, disease and sickness caused by drinking water unspeakably +contaminated, or sterilising plants to avoid such a disaster." + +Another letter from a different writer, also in Belgium at the front, +says: + +"A friend of mine has just been invalided home with enteritis. He had +been drinking from a well with a dead Frenchman in it!" + +The Belgian Soldiers' Fund in the spring of 1915 sent out an appeal, +which said: + +"The full heat of summer will soon be upon the army, and the dust of +the battlefield will cause the men to suffer from an intolerable +thirst." + +This is a part of the appeal: + +"It is said that out of the 27,000 men who gave their lives in the +South African war 7000 only were killed, whilst 20,000 died of +enteritis, contracted by drinking impure water. + +"In order to save their army from the fatal effects of contaminated +water, the Belgian Army medical authorities have, after careful tests, +selected the following means of sterilisation--boiling, ozone and +violet rays--as the most reliable methods for obtaining large supplies +of pure water rapidly. + +"Funds are urgently needed to help the work of providing and +distributing a pure water supply in the following ways: + +"1. By small portable sterilising plants for every company to produce +and distribute from twenty to a hundred gallons of pure cold water per +hour. + +"2. By sterilisers easy of adjustment for all field hospitals, +convalescent homes, medical depots, and so forth. + +"3. By large sterilising plants, capable of producing from 150 gallons +upward per hour, to provide a pure water supply for all the devastated +towns through which the army must pass. + +"4. By the sterilisation of contaminated pools and all surface water, +under the direction of leading scientific experts who have generously +offered their services. + +"5. By pocket filters for all who may have to work out of reach of the +sterilising plants, and so forth. + +"6. By two hundred field kitchens on the battlefield to serve out +soup, coffee or other drinks to the men fighting in the trenches or on +the march." + +Everywhere, at the front, I found the gravest apprehension as to water +supply in case the confronting armies remained in approximately the +same position. Sir John French spoke of it, and the British are +providing a system of sterilised water for their men. Merely providing +so many human beings with water is a tremendous problem. Along part of +the line, quite aside from typhoid contamination, the water is now +impregnated with salt water from the sea. If even wells contain dead +bodies, how about the open water-courses? Wounded men must have water. +It is their first and most insistent cry. + +People will read this who have never known the thirst of the +battlefield or the parched throat that follows loss of blood; people +who, by the turning of a tap, may have all the water they want. +Perhaps among them there are some who will face this problem of water +as America has faced Belgium's problem of food. For the Belgian Army +has no money at all for sterilisers, for pocket filters; has not the +means to inoculate the army against typhoid; has little of anything. +The revenues that would normally support the army are being +collected--in addition to a war indemnity--by Germany. + +Any hope that conditions would be improved by a general spring +movement into uncontaminated territory has been dispelled. The war has +become a gigantic siege, varied only by sorties and assaults. As long +ago as November, 1914, the situation as to drinking water was +intolerable. I quote again from the diary taken from the body of a +German officer after the battle of the Yser--a diary published in full +in an earlier chapter. + +"The water is bad, quite green, indeed; but all the same we drink +it--we can get nothing else. Man is brought down to the level of the +brute beast." + +There is little or no typhoid among the British troops. They, too, no +doubt, have realised the value of conservation, and to inoculation +have added careful supervision of wells and of watercourses. But when +I was at the front the Belgian Army of fifty thousand trained soldiers +and two hundred thousand recruits was dependent on springs oozing from +fields that were vast graveyards; on sluggish canals in which lay the +bodies of men and horses; and on a few tank wagons that carried fresh +water daily to the front. + +A quarter of a million dollars would be needed to install a water +supply for the Belgian Army and for the civilians--residents and +refugees--gathered behind the lines. To ask the American people to +shoulder this additional burden is out of the question. But perhaps, +somewhere among the people who will read this, there is one +great-hearted and wealthy American who would sleep better of nights +for having lifted to the lips of a wounded soldier the cup of pure +water that he craves; for having furnished to ten thousand wounds a +sterile and soothing wet compress. + +Dunkirk was full of hospitals when I was there. Probably the +subsequent shelling of the town destroyed some of them. I do not know. +A letter from Calais, dated May 21st, 1915, says: + +"I went through Dunkirk again. Last time I was there it was a +flourishing and busy market day. This time the only two living souls I +saw were the soldiers who let us in at one gate and out at the other. +In the interval, as you know, the town had been shelled by +fifteen-inch guns from a distance of twenty-three miles. Many +buildings in the main streets had been reduced to ruins, and nearly +all the windows in the town had been smashed." + +There is, or was, a converted Channel steamer at Dunkirk that is now a +hospital. Men in all stages of mutilation are there. The salt winds of +the Channel blow in through the open ports. The boat rises and falls +to the swell of the sea. The deck cabins are occupied by wounded +officers, and below, in the long saloon, are rows of cots. + +I went there on a bright day in February. There was a young officer on +the deck. He had lost a leg at the hip, and he was standing supported +by a crutch and looking out to sea. He did not even turn his head when +we approached. + +General M----, the head of the Belgian Army medical service, who had +escorted me, touched him on the arm, and he looked round without +interest. + +"For conspicuous bravery!" said the General, and showed me the medal +he wore on his breast. + +However, the young officer's face did not lighten, and very soon he +turned again to the sea. The time will come, of course, when the +tragedy of his mutilation will be less fresh and poignant, when the +Order of Leopold on his breast will help to compensate for many +things; but that sunny morning, on the deck of the hospital ship, it +held small comfort for him. + +We went below. At our appearance at the top of the stairs those who +were convalescent below rose and stood at attention. They stood in a +line at the foot of their beds, boys and grizzled veterans, clad in +motley garments, supported by crutches, by sticks, by a hand on the +supporting back of a chair. Men without a country, where were they to +go when the hospital ship had finished with them? Those who were able +would go back to the army, of course. But what of that large +percentage who will never be whole again? The machinery of mercy can +go so far, and no farther. France cannot support them. Occupied with +her own burden, she has persistently discouraged Belgian refugees. +They will go to England probably--a kindly land but of an alien +tongue. And there again they will wait. + +The waiting of the hospital will become the waiting of the refugee. +The Channel coast towns of England are full of human derelicts who +stand or sit for hours, looking wistfully back toward what was once +home. + +The story of the hospitals is not always gloomy. Where the +surroundings are favourable, defeat is sometimes turned to victory. +Tetanus is being fought and conquered by means of a serum. The open +treatment of fractures--that is, by cutting down and exposing the +jagged edges of splintered bones, and then uniting them--has saved +many a limb. Conservation is the watchword of the new surgery, to save +whenever possible. The ruthless cutting and hacking of previous wars +is a thing of the past. + +I remember a boy in a French hospital whose leg bones had been fairly +shattered. Eight pieces, the surgeon said there had been. Two linear +incisions, connected by a centre one, like a letter H, had been made. +The boy showed me the leg himself, and a mighty proud and happy +youngster he was. There was no vestige of deformity, no shortening. +The incisions had healed by first intention, and the thin, white lines +of the H were all that told the story. + +As if to offset the cheer of that recovery, a man in the next bed was +dying of an abdominal injury. I saw the wound. May the mother who bore +him, the wife he loved, never dream of that wound! + +I have told of the use of railway stations as temporary resting places +for injured soldiers. One is typical of them all. As my visit was made +during a lull in the fighting, conditions were more than usually +favourable. There was no congestion. + +On a bright afternoon early in March I went to the railway station +three miles behind the trenches at E----. Only a mile away a town was +being shelled. One could look across the fields at the changing roof +line, at a church steeple that had so far escaped. But no shells were +falling in E----. + +The station was a small village one. In the room corresponding to our +baggage-room straw had been spread over the floor, and men just out of +the trenches lay there in every attitude of exhaustion. In a tiny room +just beyond two or three women were making soup. As fast as one kettle +was ready it was served to the hungry men. There were several +kettles--all the small stove would hold. Soup was there in every +state, from the finished product to the raw meat and vegetables on a +table. + +Beyond was a waiting-room, with benches. Here were slightly injured +men, bandaged but able to walk about. A few slept on the benches, +heads lolled back against the whitewashed wall. The others were paying +no attention to the incessant, nearby firing, but were watching a boy +who was drawing. + +He had a supply of coloured crayons, and the walls as high as he could +reach were almost covered. There were priests, soldier types, +caricatures of the German Emperor, the arms of France and Belgium--I +do not remember what all. And it was exceedingly well done. The boy +was an artist to his finger tips. + +At a clever caricature of the German Emperor the soldiers laughed and +clapped their hands. While they were laughing I looked through an open +door. + +Three men lay on cots in an inner room--rather, two men and a boy. I +went in. + +One of the men was shot through the spine and paralysed. The second +one had a bullet in his neck, and his face already bore the dark flush +and anxious look of general infection. The boy smiled. + +They had been there since the day before, waiting for a locomotive to +come and move the hospital train that waited outside. In that railway +station the boy had had his leg taken off at the knee. + +They lay there, quite alone. The few women were feeding starving men. +Now and then one would look in to see if there was any change. There +was nothing to be done. They lay there, and the shells burst +incessantly a mile away, and the men in the next room laughed and +applauded at some happy stroke of the young artist. + +"I am so sorry," I said to the boy. The others had not roused at my +entrance, but he had looked at me with quick, intelligent eyes. + +"It is nothing!" was his reply. + +Outside, in the village, soldiers thronged the streets. The sun was +shining with the first promise of spring. In an area way regimental +butchering was going on, and a great sow, escaping, ran frenzied down +the street, followed by a throng of laughing, shouting men. And still +the shells fell, across a few fields, and inside the station the three +men lay and waited. + +That evening at dusk the bombardment ceased, and I went through the +shelled town. It was difficult to get about. Walls had fallen across +the way, interiors that had been homes gaped open to the streets. +Shattered beds and furnishings lay about--kitchen utensils, broken +dishes. On some of the walls holy pictures still hung, grouped about a +crucifix. There are many to tell how the crucifix has escaped in the +wholesale destruction of towns. + +A shoemaker had come back into the village for the night, and had +opened his shop. For a time he seemed to be the only inhabitant of +what I had known, a short time before, as a prosperous and thriving +market town. Then through an aperture that had been a window I saw +three women sitting round a candle. And in the next street I found a +man on his knees on the pavement, working with bricks and a trowel. + +He explained that he had closed up a small cellar-way. His family had +no place else to go and were coming in from the fields, where they had +sought safety, to sleep in the cellar for the night. He was leaving a +small aperture, to be closed with bags of sand, so that if the house +was destroyed over them in the night they could crawl out and escape. + +He knelt on the bricks in front of the house, a patient, resigned +figure, playing no politics, interested not at all in war and +diplomacy, in a way to the sea or to a place in the sun--one of the +millions who must adapt themselves to new and fearsome situations and +do their best. + +That night, sitting at dinner in a hotel, I saw two pretty nurses come +in. They had been relieved for a few hours from their hospital and +were on holiday. + +One of them had a clear, although musical voice. What she said came to +me with great distinctness, and what she was wishing for was a glass +of American soda water! + +Now, long months before I had had any idea of going to the war I had +read an American correspondent's story of the evacuation of Antwerp, +and of a tall young American girl, a nurse, whom the others called +Morning Glory. He never knew the rest of her name. Anyhow, Morning +Glory leaped into my mind and stayed there, through soup, through +rabbit, which was called on the menu something entirely different, +through hard cakes and a withered orange. + +So when a young lieutenant asked permission to bring them over to meet +me, I was eager. It was Morning Glory! Her name is really Glory, and +she is a Southern girl Somewhere among my papers I have a snapshot of +her helping to take a wounded soldier out of an ambulance, and if the +correspondent wants it I shall send it to him. Also her name, which he +never knew. And I will verify his opinion that it is better to be a +Morning Glory in Flanders than to be a good many other things that I +can think of. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +HOW AMERICANS CAN HELP + + +With the possible exception of Germany, which seems to have +anticipated everything, no one of the nations engaged appears to have +expected the fearful carnage of this war. The destructive effect of +the modern, high-explosive shell has been well known, but it is the +trench form of warfare which, by keeping troops in stationary +positions, under grilling artillery fire, has given such shells their +opportunity. Shrapnel has not been so deadly to the men in the +trenches. + +The result of the vast casualty lists has been some hundreds of +isolated hospitals scattered through France, not affiliated with any +of the Red Cross societies, unorganised, poverty-stricken, frequently +having only the services of a surgeon who can come but once a week. +They have no dressings, no nurses save peasants, no bedding, no coal +to cook even the scanty food that the villagers can spare. + +No coal, for France is facing a coal famine to-day. Her coal mines are +in the territory held by the Germans. Even if she had the mines, where +would she get men to labour in them, or trains to transport the coal? + +There are more than three hundred such hospitals scattered through +isolated French villages, hospitals where everything is needed. For +whatever else held fast during the first year of the war, the nursing +system of France absolutely failed. Some six hundred miles of hospital +wards there are to-day in France, with cots so close together that one +can hardly step between. It is true that with the passing of time, the +first chaos is giving way to order. But France, unlike England, has +the enemy within her boundaries, on her soil. Her every resource is +taxed. And the need is still great. + +The story of the town of D----, in Brittany, is very typical of what +the war has brought into many isolated communities. + +D---- is a little town of two thousand inhabitants, with a +thirteenth-century church, with mediaeval houses with quaint stone +porticoes and outside staircases. There is one street, shaped like a +sickle, with a handle that is the station road. + +War was declared and the men of D---- went away. The women and +children brought in the harvest, and waited for news. What little came +was discouraging. + +One day in August one of the rare trains stopped at the station, and +an inspector got off and walked up the sickle-handle to the +schoolhouse. He looked about and made the comment that it would hold +eighty beds. Whereupon he went away, and D---- waited for news and +gathered the harvest. + +On the fifth of September, 1914, the terrific battle of the Marne +commenced. The French strategic retreat was at an end, and with her +allies France resumed the offensive. What happened in the little +village of D----? + +And remember that D---- is only one of hundreds of tiny interior +towns. D---- has never heard of the Red Cross, but D---- venerated, in +its thirteenth-century church, the Cross of Christ. + +This is what happened: + +One day in the first week of September a train drew up at the box-like +station, a heterogeneous train--coaches, luggage vans, cattle and +horse cars. The doors opened, and the work of emptying the cars began. +The women and children, aghast and bewildered, ran down the +sickle-handle road and watched. Four hundred wounded men were taken +out of the cars, laid prone on the station platform, and the train +went on. + +There were no surgeons in D----, but there was a chemist who knew +something of medicine and who, for one reason or another, had not been +called to the ranks. There were no horses to draw carts. There was +nothing. + +The chemist was a man of action. Very soon the sickle and the old +church saw a curious sight. They saw women and children, a procession, +pushing wounded men to the school in the hand carts that country +people use for milk cans and produce. They saw brawny peasant women +carrying chairs in which sat injured men with lolling heads and sunken +eyes. + +Bales of straw were brought into the school. Tender, if unaccustomed, +hands washed fearful wounds, but there were no dressings, no bandages. + +Any one who knows the French peasant and his poverty will realise the +plight of the little town. The peasant has no reserves of supplies. +Life is reduced to its simplest elements. There is nothing that is not +in use. + +D---- solved part of its problem by giving up its own wooden beds to +the soldiers. It tore up its small stock of linen, its towels, its +dusters; but the problem of food remained. + +There was a tiny stove, on which the three or four teachers of the +school had been accustomed to cook their midday meal. There was no +coal, only wood, and green wood at that. All day, and all day now, +D---- cooks the _pot-a-feu_ for the wounded on that tiny stove. +_Pot-a-feu_ is good diet for convalescents, but the "light diets" must +have eggs, broth, whatever can be found. + +So the peasant woman of D---- comes to the hospital, bringing a few +eggs, the midday meal of her family, who will do without. + +I have spoken mainly in the past tense, but conditions in D---- are +not greatly changed to-day. An old marquise, impoverished by the war, +darns the pathetic socks of the wounded men and mends their uniforms. +At the last report I received, the corridors and schoolrooms were +still filled--every inch of space--with a motley collection of beds, +on which men lay in their uniforms, for lack of other clothing. They +were covered with old patchwork quilts, with anything that can be +used. There were, of course, no sheets. All the sheets were used long +ago for dressings. A friend of mine there recently saw a soldier with +one leg, in the kitchen, rolling wretched scraps and dusters for +bandages. There was no way to sterilise them, of course. Once a week a +surgeon comes. When he goes away he takes his instruments with him. + +This is not an isolated case, nor an exaggerated one. There are things +I do not care to publish. Three hundred and more such hospitals are +known. The French Government pays, or will pay, twenty-five cents a +day to keep these men. Black bread and _pot-a-feu_ is all that can be +managed on that amount. + +Convalescents sit up in bed and painfully unravel their tattered socks +for wool. They tie the bits together, often two or three inches in +length, and knit new feet in old socks, or--when they secure +enough--new socks. For the Germans hold the wool cities of France. +Ordinarily worsted costs eighteen and nineteen francs in Dinard and +Saint Malo, or from three dollars and sixty cents to three dollars and +eighty cents a pound. Much of the government reserves of woollen +underwear for the soldiers was in the captured towns, and German +prisoners have been found wearing woollens with the French Government +stamp. + +Every sort of building is being used for these isolated +hospitals--garages, town halls, private dwellings, schools. At first +they had no chloroform, no instruments. There are cases on record +where automobile tools were used in emergency, kitchen knives, saws, +anything. In one case, last spring, two hundred convalescents, leaving +one of these hospitals on a cold day in March, were called back, on +the arrival of a hundred freshly wounded men, that every superfluous +bandage on their wounds might be removed, to be used again. + +Naturally, depending entirely on the unskilled nursing of the village +women, much that we regard as fundamental in hospital practice is +ignored. Wounded men, typhoid and scarlet fever cases are found in the +same wards. In one isolated town a single clinical thermometer is +obliged to serve for sixty typhoid and scarlet fever patients.[F] + +[Footnote F: Written in June, 1915.] + +Sometimes the men in these isolated and ill-equipped refuges realise +the horror and hopelessness of their situation. The nights are +particularly bad. Any one who knows hospitals well, knows the night +terrors of the wards; knows, too, the contagion of excitement that +proceeds from a hysterical or delirious patient. + +In some of these lonely hospitals hell breaks loose at night. The +peasant women must sleep. Even the tireless nuns cannot labour forever +without rest. The men have come from battlefields of infinite horror. +A frenzied dream, a delirious soldier calling them to the charge, and +panic rages. + +To offset these horrors of the night the peasants have, here and +there, resorted to music. It is naive, pathetic. Where there is a +piano it is moved into the school, or garage, or whatever the building +may be, and at twilight a nun or a volunteer musician plays quietly, +to soothe the men to sleep. In one or two towns a village band, or +perhaps a lone cornetist, plays in the street outside. + +So the days go on, and the nights. Supplies are begged for and do not +always come. Dressings are washed, to be used again and again. + +An attempt is now being made to better these conditions. A Frenchwoman +helping in one of these hospitals, and driven almost to madness by the +outcries of men and boys undergoing operations without anaesthetics, +found her appeals for help unanswered. She decided to go to England to +ask her friends there for chloroform, and to take it back on the next +boat. She was successful. She carried back with her, on numerous +journeys, dressings, chloroform, cotton, even a few instruments. She +is still doing this work. Others interested in isolated hospitals, +hearing of her success, appealed to her; and now regular, if small, +shipments of chloroform and dressings are going across the Channel. + +Americans willing to take their own cars, and willing to work, will +find plenty to do in distributing such supplies over there. A request +has come to me to find such Americans. Surgeons who can spare a +scalpel, an artery clip or two, ligatures--catgut or silk--and +forceps, may be certain of having them used at once. Bandages rolled +by kindly American hands will not lie unclaimed on the quay at Havre +or Calais. + +So many things about these little hospitals of France are touching, +without having any particular connection. There was a surgeon in one +of these isolated villages, with an X-ray machine but no gloves or +lead screen to protect himself. He worked on, using the deadly rays to +locate pieces of shell, bullets and shrapnel, and knowing all the time +what would happen. He has lost both hands. + +Since my return to America the problems of those who care for the sick +and wounded have been further complicated, among the Allies, by the +inhuman use of asphyxiating gases. + +Sir John French says of these gases: + +"The effect of this poison is not merely disabling, or even painlessly +fatal, as suggested in the German press. Those of its victims who do +not succumb on the field and who can be brought into hospitals suffer +acutely and, in a large proportion of cases, die a painful and +lingering death. Those who survive are in little better case, as the +injury to their lungs appears to be of a permanent character and +reduces them to a condition that points to their being invalids for +life." + +I have received from the front one of the respirators given out to the +troops to be used when the gas clouds appear. + +"It is prepared with hypophosphite of soda," wrote the surgeon who +sent it, "and all they have to do before putting it on is to dip it in +the water in the trenches. They are all supplied in addition with +goggles, which are worn on their caps," + +This is from the same letter: + +"That night a German soldier was brought in wounded, and jolly glad he +was to be taken. He told us he had been turned down three times for +phthisis--tuberculosis--and then in the end was called up and put into +the trenches after eight weeks' training. All of which is very +significant. Another wounded German told the men at the ambulance that +they must move on as soon as they could, as very soon the Germans +would be in Calais. + +"All the German soldiers write home now on the official cards, which +have Calais printed on the top of them!" + +Not all. I have before me a card from a German officer in the trenches +in France. It is a good-natured bit of raillery, with something of +grimness underneath. + + "_Dear Madame_: + + "'I nibble them'--Joffre. See your article in the _Saturday Evening + Post_ of May 29th, 1915. Really, Joffre has had time! It is + September now, and we are not nibbled yet. Still we stand deep in + France. Au revoir a Paris, Madame." + +He signs it "Yours truly," and then his name. + +Not Calais, then, but Paris! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +AN ARMY OF CHILDREN + + +It is undeniably true that the humanities are failing us as the war +goes on. Not, thank God, the broad humanity of the Red Cross, but that +individual compassion of a man for his wounded brother, of which the +very fabric of mercy is woven. There is too much death, too much +suffering. Men grow calloused. As yet the loss is not irretrievable, +but the war is still only a matter of months. What if it is to be of +years? + +France and Belgium were suffering from a wave of atheism before the +war. But there comes a time in the existence of nations, as in the +lives of individuals, when human endeavour seems useless, when the +world and the things thereof have failed. At such time nations and +individuals alike turn at last to a Higher Power. France is on her +knees to-day. Her churches are crowded. Not perhaps since the days of +chivalry, when men were shriven in the churches before going out to +battle, has France so generally knelt and bowed her head--but it is to +the God of Battles that she prays. + +On her battlefields the priests have most signally distinguished +themselves. Some have exchanged the soutane for the uniform, and have +fought bravely and well. Others, like the priests who stood firm in +the midst of Jordan, have carried their message of hope to the dying +into the trenches. + +No article on the work of the Red Cross can be complete without a +reference to the work of these priests, not perhaps affiliated with +the society, but doing yeoman work of service among the wounded. They +are everywhere, in the trenches or at the outposts, in the hospitals +and hospital trains, in hundreds of small villages, where the entire +community plus its burden of wounded turns to the _cure_ for +everything, from advice to the sacrament. + +In prostrate Belgium the demands on the priests have been extremely +heavy. Subjected to insult, injury and even death during the German +invasion, where in one diocese alone thirteen were put to death--their +churches destroyed, or used as barracks by the enemy--that which was +their world has turned to chaos about them. Those who remained with +their conquered people have done their best to keep their small +communities together and to look after their material needs--which +has, indeed, been the lot of the priests of battle-scarred Flanders +for many generations. + +Others have attached themselves to the hospital service. All the +Belgian trains of wounded are cared for solely by these priests, who +perform every necessary service for their men, and who, as I have said +before, administer the sacrament and make coffee to cheer the flagging +spirits of the wounded, with equal courage and resource. + +Surgeons, nurses, priests, nuns, volunteer workers who substitute for +lack of training both courage and zeal, these are a part of the +machinery of mercy. There is another element--the boy scouts. + +During the early days of the war the boy scouts of England, then on +school holiday, did marvellous work. Boys of fourteen made repeated +trips across the Channel, bringing back from France children, +invalids, timorous women. They volunteered in the hospitals, ran +errands, carried messages, were as useful as only willing boys can be. +They did scout service, too, guarding the railway lines and assisting +in watching the Channel coast; but with the end of the holiday most of +the English boy scouts were obliged to go back to school. Their +activities were not over, but they were largely curtailed. + +There were five thousand boy scouts in Belgium at the beginning of the +war. I saw them everywhere--behind the battle lines, on the driving +seats of ambulances, at the doors of hospitals. They were very calm. +Because I know a good deal about small boys I smothered a riotous +impulse to hug them, and spoke to them as grown-up to grown-up. Thus +approached, they met my advances with dignity, but without excitement. + +And after a time I learned something about them from the Chief Scout +of Belgium; perhaps it will show the boy scouts of America what they +will mean to the country in time of war. Perhaps it will make them +realise that being a scout is not, after all, only camping in the +woods, long hikes, games in the open. The long hikes fit a boy for +dispatch carrying, the camping teaches him to care for himself when, +if necessity arises, he is thrown on the country, like his older +brother, the fighting man. + +A small cog, perhaps, in the machinery of mercy, but a necessary one. +A vital cog in the vast machinery of war--that is the boy scout +to-day. + +The day after the declaration of war the Belgian scouts were +mobilised, by order of the minister of war--five thousand boys, then, +ranging in age from twelve to eighteen, an army of children. What a +sight they must have been! How many grown-ups can think of it with dry +eyes? What a terrible emergency was this, which must call the children +into battle! + +They were placed at the service of the military authorities, to do any +and every kind of work. Some, with ordinary bicycles or motorcyles, +were made dispatch riders. The senior scouts were enlisted in the +regular army, armed, and they joined the soldiers in barracks. The +younger boys, between thirteen and sixteen, were letter-carriers, +messengers in the different ministries, or orderlies in the hospitals +that were immediately organised. Those who could drive automobiles +were given that to do. + +Others of the older boys, having been well trained in scouting, were +set to watch points of importance, or given carbines and attached to +the civic guard. During the siege of Liege between forty and fifty boy +scouts were constantly employed carrying food and ammunition to the +beleaguered troops. + +The Germans finally realised that every boy scout was a potential spy, +working for his country. The uniform itself then became a menace, +since boys wearing it were frequently shot. The boys abandoned it, the +older ones assuming the Belgian uniform and the younger ones returning +to civilian dress. But although, in the chaos that followed the +invasion and particularly the fall of Liege, they were virtually +disbanded, they continued their work as spies, as dispatch riders, as +stretcher-bearers. + +There are still nine boy scouts with the famous Ninth Regiment, which +has been decorated by the king. + +One boy scout captured, single-handed, two German officers. Somewhere +or other he had got a revolver, and with it was patrolling a road. The +officers were lost and searching for their regiments. As they stepped +out of a wood the boy confronted them, with his revolver levelled. +This happened near Liege. + +Trust a boy to use his wits in emergency! Here is another lad, aged +fifteen, who found himself in Liege after its surrender, and who +wanted to get back to the Belgian Army. He offered his services as +stretcher-bearer in the German Army, and was given a German Red Cross +pass. Armed with this pass he left Liege, passed successfully many +sentries, and at last got to Antwerp by a circuitous route. On the way +he found a dead German and, being only a small boy after all, he took +off the dead man's stained uniform and bore it in his arms into +Antwerp! + +There is no use explaining about that uniform. If you do not know boys +you will never understand. If you do, it requires no explanation. + +Here is a fourteen-year-old lad, intrusted with a message of the +utmost importance for military headquarters in Antwerp. He left +Brussels in civilian clothing, but he had neglected to take off his +boy scout shirt--boy-fashion! The Germans captured him and stripped +him, and they burned the boy scout shirt. Then they locked him up, but +they did not find his message. + +All day he lay in duress, and part of the night. Perhaps he shed a few +tears. He was very young, and things looked black for him. Boy scouts +were being shot, remember! But it never occurred to him to destroy the +message that meant his death if discovered. + +He was clever with locks and such things, after the manner of boys, +and for most of the night he worked with the window and shutter lock. +Perhaps he had a nail in his pocket, or some wire. Most boys have. And +just before dawn he got window and shutter opened, and dropped, a long +drop, to the ground. He lay there for a while, getting his breath and +listening. Then, on his stomach, he slid away into the darkest hour +that is just before the dawn. + +Later on that day a footsore and weary but triumphant youngster +presented himself at the headquarters of the Belgian Army in Antwerp +and insisted on seeing the minister of war. Being at last admitted, he +turned up a very travel-stained and weary little boy's foot and +proceeded to strip a piece of adhesive plaster from the sole. + +Underneath the plaster was the message! + + * * * * * + +War is a thing of fearful and curious anomalies. It has shown that +humane units may comprise a brutal whole; that civilisation is a shirt +over a coat of mail. It has shown that hatred and love are kindred +emotions, boon companions, friends. It has shown that in every man +there are two men, devil and saint; that there are two courages, that +of the mind, which is bravest, that of the heart, which is greatest. + +It has shown that government by men only is not an appeal to reason, +but an appeal to arms; that on women, without a voice to protest, must +fall the burden. It is easier to die than to send a son to death. + +It has shown that a single hatred may infect a world, but it has shown +that mercy too may spread among nations. That love is greater than +cannon, greater than hate, greater than vengeance; that it triumphs +over wrath, as good triumphs over evil. + +Direct descendant of the cross of the Christian faith, the Red Cross +carries onto every battlefield the words of the Man of Mercy: + +"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." + +On a day in March I went back to England. March in England is spring. +Masses of snowdrops lined the paths in Hyde Park. The grass was green, +the roads hard and dry under the eager feet of Kitchener's great army. +They marched gayly by. The drums beat. The passers-by stopped. Here +and there an open carriage or an automobile drew up, and pale men, +some of them still in bandages, sat and watched. In their eyes was the +same flaming eagerness, the same impatience to get back, to be loosed +against the old lion's foes. + +All through England, all through France, all through the tragic corner +of Belgium that remains to her, were similar armies drilling and +waiting, equally young, equally eager, equally resolute. And the thing +that they were going to I knew. I had seen it in that mysterious +region that had swallowed up those who had gone before; in the +trenches, in the operating rooms of field hospitals, at outposts where +the sentries walked hand in hand with death. + +War is not two great armies meeting in the clash and frenzy of battle. +War is a boy carried on a stretcher, looking up at God's blue sky with +bewildered eyes that are soon to close; war is a woman carrying a +child that has been injured by a shell; war is spirited horses tied in +burning buildings and waiting for death; war is the flower of a race, +battered, hungry, bleeding, up to its knees in filthy water; war is an +old woman burning a candle before the Mater Dolorosa for the son she +has given. + +For King and Country! + + + THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Kings, Queens And Pawns, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS *** + +***** This file should be named 14457.txt or 14457.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/4/5/14457/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Richard Lammers and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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