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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/19131-8.txt b/19131-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4efcf3e --- /dev/null +++ b/19131-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5129 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Golden Lads, by Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason + +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: Golden Lads + +Author: Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason + +Release Date: August 28, 2006 [EBook #19131] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDEN LADS *** + + + + +Produced by Sigal Alon, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + +[Illustration: _Photo. Excelsior._ + +THE PLAY-BOYS OF THE WESTERN FRONT. + +The famous French Fusiliers Marins. These sailors from Brittany are +called "Les demoiselles au pompon rouge," because of their youth and the +gay red tassel on their cap.] + + + + + GOLDEN LADS + + BY + + ARTHUR GLEASON + + AND + + HELEN HAYES GLEASON + + WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + THEODORE ROOSEVELT + + + _"Golden Lads and Girls all must, + As chimney sweepers, come to dust."_ + + + [Illustration] + + + TORONTO + McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART, LIMITED + 1916 + + Copyright, 1916, by + THE CENTURY CO. + + Copyright, 1915, by the + CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY. + + Copyright, 1916, by the + BUTTERICK PUBLISHING COMPANY. + + Copyright, 1915 and 1916, by the + TRIBUNE ASSOCIATION. + + _Published, April, 1916_ + + (_Printed in the U. S. A._) + + + + + TO THE + SAILORS OF BRITTANY + THE BOY SOLDIERS OF THE FRENCH FUSILIERS MARINS + WHOSE WOUNDED IT WAS OUR PRIVILEGE TO CARRY IN FROM THE + FIELD OF HONOR AT MELLE, DIXMUDE, + AND NIEUPORT + +Profits from the sale of this book will go to "The American Committee +for Training in Suitable Trades the Maimed Soldiers of France." + + + + +CONCERNING THIS BOOK + +It would be futile to publish one more war-book, unless the writer had +been an eye-witness of unusual things. I am an American who saw +atrocities which are recorded in the Bryce Report. This book grows out +of months of day-by-day living in the war zone. I have been a member of +the Hector Munro Ambulance Corps, which was permitted to work at the +front because the Prime Minister of Belgium placed his son in military +command of us. That young man, being brave and adventurous, led us along +the first line of trenches, and into villages under shell fire, so that +we saw the armies in action. + +We started at Ghent in September, 1914, came to Furnes, worked in +Dixmude, Pervyse, Nieuport and Ypres, during moments of pressure on +those strategic points. In the summer of 1915, we were attached to the +French Fusiliers Marins. My wife's experience covers a period of twelve +months in Belgium. My own time at the front was five months. + +Observers at long-distance that are neutral sometimes fail to see +fundamentals in the present conflict, and talk of "negotiations" between +right and wrong. It is easy for people who have not suffered to be +tolerant toward wrongdoing. This war is a long war because of German +methods of frightfulness. These practices have bred an enduring will to +conquer in Frenchman and Briton and Belgian which will not pause till +victory is thorough. Because the German military power has sinned +against women and children, it will be fought with till it is +overthrown. I wish to make clear this determination of the Allies. They +hate the army of Aerschot and Lorraine as a mother hates the defiler of +her child. + +There are two wars on the Western Front. One is the war of aggression. +It was led up to by years of treachery. It was consummated in +frightfulness. It is warfare by machine. Of that war, as carried on by +the "Conquerors," the first half of this book tells. On points that +have been in dispute since the outbreak, I am able to say "I saw." When +the Army of Invasion fell on the little people, I witnessed the signs of +its passage as it wrote them by flame and bayonet on peasant homes and +peasant bodies. + +In the second half of the book, I have tried to tell of a people's +uprising--the fight of the living spirit against the war-machine. A +righteous defensive war, such as Belgium and France are waging, does not +brutalize the nation. It reveals a beauty of sacrifice which makes +common men into "golden lads." + +Was this struggle forced on an unwilling Germany, or was she the +aggressor? + +I believe we have the answer of history in such evidences as I have seen +of her patient ancient spy system that honeycombed Belgium. + +Is she waging a "holy war," ringed around by jealous foes? + +I believe we have the final answer in such atrocities as I witnessed. A +hideous officially ordered method is proof of unrighteousness in the +cause itself. + +Are you indicting a nation? + +No, only a military system that ordered the slow sapping of friendly +neighboring powers. + +Only the host of "tourists," clerks, waiters, gentlemanly officers, that +betrayed the hospitality of people of good will. + +Only an army that practised mutilation and murder on children, and +mothers, and old people,--and that carried it through coldly, +systematically, with admirable discipline. + +I believe there are multitudes of common soldiers who are sorry that +they have outraged the helpless. + +An army of half a million men will return to the home-land with very +bitter memories. Many a simple German of this generation will be unable +to look into the face of his own child without remembering some tiny +peasant face of pain--the child whom he bayoneted, or whom he saw his +comrade bayonet, having failed to put his body between the little one +and death. + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + +THE CONQUERORS + + PAGE + THE SPY 3 + THE ATROCITY 26 + BALLAD OF THE GERMANS 45 + THE STEAM ROLLER 48 + MY EXPERIENCE WITH BAEDEKER 66 + + +GOLDEN LADS + + + THE PLAY-BOYS OF BRITTANY 79 + "ENCHANTED CIGARETTES" 95 + WAS IT REAL? 113 + "CHANTONS, BELGES! CHANTONS!" 127 + FLIES: A FANTASY 152 + WOMEN UNDER FIRE 168 + HOW WAR SEEMS TO A WOMAN 192 + LES TRAVAILLEURS DE LA GUERRE 234 + REMAKING FRANCE 253 + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + PAGE + + The Play-boys of the Western Front _Frontispiece_ + + Peasants' cottages burned by Germans 8 + + The home of a German spy near Coxyde Bains, Belgium 13 + + The green pass, used only by soldiers and officers of the + Belgian Army 33 + + Church in Termonde which the writer saw 42 + + One of the dangerous Belgian franc-tireurs 51 + + Fifteenth century Gothic church in Nieuport 69 + + Sailors lifting a wounded comrade into the motor-ambulance 87 + + Door chalked by the Germans 105 + + Street fighting in Alost 123 + + Belgian officer on the last strip of his country 134 + + A Belgian boy soldier in the uniform of the first army + which served at Liège and Namur 139 + + Belgians in their new Khaki uniform, in praise of which + they wrote a song 145 + + Breton sailors ready for their noon meal in a village under + daily shell fire 187 + + Sleeping quarters for Belgian soldiers 206 + + Belgian soldiers telephoning to an anti-aircraft gun the + approach of a German taube 215 + + Postcards sketched and blocked by a Belgian workman, + A. Van Doorne 229 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +By Theodore Roosevelt + + +On August 4, 1914, the issue of this war for the conscience of the world +was Belgium. Now, in the spring of 1916, the issue remains Belgium. For +eighteen months, our people were bidden by their representative at +Washington to feel no resentment against a hideous wrong. They were +taught to tame their human feelings by polished phrases of neutrality. +Because they lacked the proper outlet of expression, they grew +indifferent to a supreme injustice. They temporarily lost the capacity +to react powerfully against wrongdoing. + +But today they are at last becoming alive to the iniquity of the +crushing of Belgium. Belgium is the battleground of the war on the +western front. But Belgium is also the battleground of the struggle in +our country between the forces of good and of evil. In the ranks of evil +are ranged all the pacifist sentimentalists, the cowards who possess the +gift of clothing their cowardice in soothing and attractive words, the +materialists whose souls have been rotted by exclusive devotion to the +things of the body, the sincere persons who are cursed with a deficient +sense of reality, and all who lack foresight or who are uninformed. +Against them stand the great mass of loyal Americans, who, when they see +the right, and receive moral leadership, show that they have in their +souls as much of the valor of righteousness as the men of 1860 and of +1776. The literary bureau at Washington has acted as a soporific on the +mind and conscience of the American people. Fine words, designed to work +confusion between right and wrong, have put them to sleep. But they now +stir in their sleep. + +The proceeds from the sale of this book are to be used for a charity in +which every intelligent American feels a personal interest. The training +of maimed soldiers in suitable trades is making possible the +reconstruction of an entire nation. It is work carried on by citizens of +the neutral nations. The cause itself is so admirable that it deserves +wide support. It gives an outlet for the ethical feelings of our people, +feelings that have been unnaturally dammed for nearly two years by the +cold and timid policy of our Government. + +The testimony of the book is the first-hand witness of an American +citizen who was present when the Army of Invasion blotted out a little +nation. This is an eye-witness report on the disputed points of this +war. The author saw the wrongs perpetrated on helpless non-combatants by +direct military orders. He shows that the frightfulness practiced on +peasant women and children was the carrying out of a Government policy, +planned in advance, ordered from above. It was not the product of +irresponsible individual drunken soldiers. His testimony is clear on +this point. He goes still further, and shows that individual soldiers +resented their orders, and most unwillingly carried through the cruelty +that was forced on them from Berlin. In his testimony he is kindlier to +the German race, to the hosts of peasants, clerks and simple soldiers, +than the defenders of Belgium's obliteration have been. They seek to +excuse acts of infamy. But the author shows that the average German is +sorry for those acts. + +It is fair to remember in reading Mr. Gleason's testimony concerning +these deeds of the German Army that he has never received a dollar of +money for anything he has spoken or written on the subject. He gave +without payment the articles on the Spy, the Atrocity, and the Steam +Roller to the New York _Tribune_. The profits from the lectures he has +delivered on the same subject have been used for well-known public +charities. The book itself is a gift to a war fund. + +Of Mr. Gleason's testimony on atrocities I have already written (see +page 38). + +What he saw was reported to the Bryce Committee by the young British +subject who accompanied him, and these atrocities, which Mr. Gleason +witnessed, appear in the Bryce Report under the heading of Alost. It is +of value to know that an American witnessed atrocities recorded in the +Bryce Report, as it disposes of the German rejoinders that the Report is +ex-parte and of second-hand rumor. + +His chapter on the Spy System answers the charge that it was Belgium who +violated her own neutrality, and forced an unwilling Germany, threatened +by a ring of foes, to defend herself. + +The chapter on the Steam Roller shows that the same policy of injustice +that was responsible for the original atrocities is today operating to +flatten out what is left of a free nation. + +The entire book is a protest against the craven attitude of our +Government. + + THEODORE ROOSEVELT. + _March 28, 1916._ + + + + +THE CONQUERORS + + + + +THE SPY + + +Germany uses three methods in turning a free nation into a vassal state. +By a spy system, operated through years, she saps the national strength. +By sudden invasion, accompanied by atrocity, she conquers the territory, +already prepared. By continuing occupation, she flattens out what is +left of a once independent people. In England and North America, she has +used her first method. France has experienced both the spy and the +atrocity. It has been reserved for Belgium to be submitted to the +threefold process. I shall tell what I have seen of the spy system, the +use of frightfulness, and the enforced occupation. + +It is a mistake for us to think that the worst thing Germany has done is +to torture and kill many thousands of women and children. She +undermines a country with her secret agents before she lays it waste. In +time of peace, with her spy system, she works like a mole through a wide +area till the ground is ready to cave in. She plays on the good will and +trustfulness of other peoples till she has tapped the available +information. That betrayal of hospitality, that taking advantage of +human feeling, is a baser thing than her unique savagery in war time. + +During my months in Belgium I have been surrounded by evidences of this +spy system, the long, slow preparedness which Germany makes in another +country ahead of her deadly pounce. It is a silent, peaceful invasion, +as destructive as the house-to-house burning and the killing of babies +and mothers to which it later leads. + +The German military power, which is the modern Germany, is able to +obtain agents to carry out this policy, and make its will prevail, by +disseminating a new ethic, a philosophy of life, which came to +expression with Bismarck and has gone on extending its influence since +the victories of 1870-'71. The German people believe they serve a higher +God than the rest of us. We serve (very imperfectly and only part of +the time) such ideals as mercy, pity, and loyalty to the giver of the +bread we eat. The Germans serve (efficiently and all the time) the +State, a supreme deity, who sends them to spy out a land in peace time, +to build gun foundations in innocent-looking houses, buy up +poverty-stricken peasants, measure distances, win friendship, and worm +out secrets. With that information digested and those preparations +completed, the State (an entity beyond good and evil) calls on its +citizens to make war, and, in making it, to practise frightfulness. It +orders its servants to lay aside pity and burn peasants in their homes, +to bayonet women and children, to shoot old men. Of course, there are +exceptions to this. There are Germans of the vintage of '48, and later, +many of them honest and peaceable dwellers in the country which shelters +them. But the imperial system has little use for them. They do not serve +its purpose. + +The issue of the war, as Belgium and France see it, is this: Are they to +live or die? Are they to be charted out once again through years till +their hidden weakness is accurately located, and then is an army to be +let loose on them that will visit a universal outrage on their children +and wives? Peace will be intolerable till this menace is removed. The +restoration of territory in Belgium and Northern France and the return +to the _status quo_ before the war, are not sufficient guarantees for +the future. The _status quo_ before the war means another insidious +invasion, carried on unremittingly month by month by business agents, +commercial travelers, genial tourists, and studious gentlemen in villas. +A crippled, broken Teutonic military power is the only guarantee that a +new army of spies will not take the road to Brussels and Paris on the +day that peace is signed. No simple solution like, "Call it all off, +we'll start in fresh; bygones are bygones," meets the real situation. +The Allied nations have been infested with a cloud of witnesses for many +years. Are they to submit once again to that secret process of the +Germans? + +[Illustration: PEASANTS' COTTAGES BURNED BY GERMANS. + +The separate flame in each cottage is clearly visible, proving that each +house was separately set on fire. Radclyffe Dugmore took this photograph +at Melle, where he and the writer were made prisoners.] + +The French, for instance, want to clear their country of a cloud which +has been thick and black for forty-three years. They always said the +Germans would come again with the looting and the torture and the +foulness. This time they will their fight to a finish. They are sick of +hate, so they are fighting to end war. But it is not an empty peace that +they want--peace, with a new drive when the Krupp howitzers are big +enough, and the spies in Paris thick enough, to make the death of France +a six weeks' picnic. They want a lasting peace, that will take fear from +the wife's heart, and make it a happiness to have a child, not a horror. +They want to blow the ashes off of Lorraine. Peace, as preached by our +Woman's Peace Party and by our pacifist clergy and by the signers of the +plea for an embargo on the ammunitions that are freeing France from her +invaders, is a German peace. If successfully consummated, it will grant +Germany just time enough to rest and breed and lay the traps, and then +release another universal massacre. How can the Allies state their terms +of peace in other than a militant way? There is nothing here to be +arbitrated. Pleasant sentiments of brotherhood evade the point at issue. +The way of just peace is by "converting" Germany. There is only one cure +for long-continued treachery, and that is to demonstrate its failure. +To pause short of a thorough victory over the deep, inset habits and +methods of Germany is to destroy the spirit of France. It will not be +well for a premier race of the world to go down in defeat. We need her +thrifty Lorraine peasants and Brittany sailors, her unfailing gift to +the light of the world, more than we need a thorough German spy system +and a soldiery obedient to commands of vileness. + +Very much more slowly England, too, is learning what the fight is about. + +It is German violation of the fundamental decencies that makes it +difficult to find common ground to build on for the future. It is at +this point that the spy system of slow-seeping treachery and the +atrocity program of dramatic frightfulness overlap. It is in part out of +the habit of betraying hospitality that the atrocities have emerged. It +isn't as if they were extemporized--a sudden flare, with no background. +They are the logical result of doing secretly for years that which +humanity has agreed not to do. + +Some of the members of our Red Cross unit--the Hector Munro Ambulance +Corps--worked for a full year with the French Fusiliers Marins, perhaps +the most famous 6000 fighting men in the western line. They were sailor +boys. They covered the retreat of the Belgian army. They consolidated +the Yser position by holding Dixmude for three weeks against a German +force that outnumbered them. Then for a year, up to a few months ago, +they helped to hold the Nieuport section, the last northern point of the +Allied line. When they entered the fight at Melle in October, 1914, our +corps worked with one of their doctors, and came to know him. Later he +took charge of a dressing station near St. George. Here one day the +Germans made a sudden sortie, drove back the Fusiliers for a few +minutes, and killed the Red Cross roomful, bayoneting the wounded men. +The Fusiliers shortly won back their position, found their favorite +doctor dead, and in a fury wiped out the Germans who had murdered him +and his patients, saving one man alive. They sent him back to the +enemy's lines to say: + +"Tell your men how we fight when you bayonet our wounded." + +That sudden act of German falseness was the product of slow, careful +undermining of moral values. + +One of the best known women in Belgium, whose name I dare not give, told +me of her friends, the G----'s, at L---- (she gave me name and +address). When the first German rush came down on Belgium the household +was asked to shelter German officers, one of whom the lady had known +socially in peace days. The next morning soldiers went through the +house, destroying paintings with the bayonet and wrecking furniture. The +lady appealed to the officer. + +"I know you," she said. "We have met as equals and friends. How can you +let this be done?" + +"This is war," he replied. + +No call of chivalry, of the loyalties of guest and host, is to be +listened to. And for the perpetrating of this cold program years of +silent spy treachery were a perfect preparation. It was no sudden +unrelated horror to which Germans had to force themselves. It was an +astonishing thing to simple Belgian gentlemen and gentlewomen to see the +old friendly German faces of tourists and social guests show up, on +horseback, riding into the cities as conquerors where they had so often +been entertained as friends. Let me give you the testimony of a Belgian +lady whom we know. She is now inside the German lines, so I cannot give +her name. + +[Illustration: THE HOME OF A GERMAN SPY NEAR COXYDE BAINS, BELGIUM. + +He had a deep gun foundation, concealed by tiling, motors, hydraulic +apparatus--a complete fortification inside his villa. + +[This photograph would have been better if it had not been developed in +the ambulance of one of the American Field Service, but it shows the +solid construction of the hidden flooring, the supporting pillars, one +of the motors and one of the gas pipes.]] + +"When the German troops entered Brussels," she states, "we suddenly +discovered that our good friends had been secret agents and were now +officers in charge of the invasion. As the army came in, with their +trumpets and flags and goose-stepping, we picked out our friends +entertained by us in our salons--dinner guests for years. They had +originally come with every recommendation possible--letters from +friends, themselves men of good birth. They had worked their way into +the social-political life of Brussels. They had won their place in our +friendly feeling. And here they had returned to us at the head of troops +to conquer us, after having served as secret agents through the years of +friendly social intercourse." + +After becoming proficient in that kind of betrayal the officers found it +only a slight wrench to pass on to the wholesale murder of the people +whose bread they had eaten and whom they had tricked. The treachery +explains the atrocity. It is worth while to repeat and emphasize this +point. Many persons have asked me, "How do you account for these +terrible acts of mutilation?" The answer is, what the Germans did +suddenly by flame and bayonet is only a continuation of what they have +done for years by poison. + +Here follows the testimony of a man whom I know, Doctor George Sarton, +of the University of Ghent: + +"Each year more Germans came to Belgian summer resorts; Blankenberghe, +for instance, was full of them. They were all very well received and had +plenty of friends in Belgian families, from the court down. When the war +broke out, it immediately became evident that many of these welcomed +guests had been spying, measuring distances, preparing foundations for +heavy guns in their villas located at strategical points, and so on. It +is noteworthy that this spying was not simply done by poor devils who +had not been able to make money in a cleaner way--but by very successful +German business men, sometimes men of great wealth and whose wealth had +been almost entirely built up in Belgium. These men were extremely +courteous and serviceable, they spent much money upon social functions +and in the promotion of charities, German schools, churches and the +like; they had numerous friends, in some cases they had married Belgian +girls and their boys were members of the special corps of our 'National +Guard.' ... Yet at the same time, they were prying into everything, +spying everywhere. + +"When the Germans entered into Belgium, they were guided wherever they +went by some one of their officers or men who knew all about each place. +Directors of factories were startled to recognize some of their work +people transformed into Uhlans. A man who had been a professor at the +University of Brussels had the impudence to call upon his former +'friends' in the uniform of a German officer. + +"When the war is over, when Belgium is free again, it will not be many +years before the Germans come back, at least their peaceful and +'friendly' vanguard. How will they be received this time? It is certain +that it will be extremely difficult for them to make friends again. As +to myself, when I meet them again in my country--I shall ask myself: 'Is +he a friend, or is he a spy?' And the business men will think: 'Are they +coming as faithful partners, or simply to steal and rob?' That will be +their well deserved reward." + +One mile from where we were billeted on the Belgian coast stood a villa +owned by a German. It lay between St. Idesbald and Coxyde Bains, on a +sand dune, commanding the Channel. After the war broke out the Belgians +examined it and found it was a fortification. Its walls were of six-foot +thickness, of heavy blocks of stone and concrete. Its massive flooring +was cleverly disguised by a layer of fancy tiling. Its interior was +fitted with little compartments for hydraulic apparatus for raising +weights, and there was a tangle of wires and pipes. Dynamite cleared +away the upper stories. Workmen hacked away the lower story, piece by +piece, during several weeks of our stay. Two members of our corps +inspected the interior. It lay just off the excellent road that runs +from St. Idesbald to Coxyde Bains, up which ammunition could be fed to +it for its coast defense work. The Germans expected an easy march down +the coast, with these safety stations ready for them at points of +need.[A] + +A Belgian soldier rode into a Belgian village one evening at twilight +during the early days of the war. An old peasant woman, deceived +because of the darkness, and thinking him to be a German Uhlan, rushed +up to him and said, "Look out--the Belgians are here." It was the work +of these spies to give information to the marauding Uhlans as to whether +any hostile garrison was stationed in the town. If no troops were there +to resist, a band of a dozen Uhlans could easily take an entire village. +But if the village had a protecting garrison the Germans must be +forewarned. + +Three days after arriving in Belgium, in the early fall of 1914, a +friend and I met a German outpost, one of the Hussars. We fell into +conversation with him and became quite friendly. He had no cigarettes +and we shared ours with him. He could speak good English, and he let us +walk beside him as he rode slowly along on his way to the main body of +his troops. The Germans had won the day and there seemed to be nothing +at stake, or perhaps he did not expect our little group would be +long-lived, nor should we have been if the German plans had gone +through. It was their custom to use civilian prisoners as a protective +screen for their advancing troops. Whatever his motive, after we had +walked along beside his horse for a little distance, he pointed out to +us the house of the spy whom the Germans had in that village of Melle. +This man was a "half-breed" Englishman, who came out of his house and +walked over to the Hussar and said: + +"You want to keep up your English, for you'll soon be in London." + +In a loud voice, for the benefit of his Belgian neighbors, he shouted +out: + +"Look out! Those fellows shoot! The Germans are devils!" + +He brought out wine for the troops. We followed him into his house, +where he, supposing us to be friends of the Germans, asked us to partake +of his hospitality. That man was a resident of the village, a friend of +the people, but "fixed" for just this job of supplying information to +the invaders when the time came. + +During my five weeks in Ghent I used to eat frequently at the Café +Gambrinus, where the proprietor assured us that he was a Swiss and in +deep sympathy with Belgians and Allies. He had a large custom. When the +Germans captured Ghent he altered into a simon pure German and friend +of the invaders. His place now is the nightly resort of German officers. + +In the hotel where I stayed in Ghent the proprietor, after a couple of +days, believing me to be one more neutral American, told me he was a +German. He went on to say what a mistake the Belgians made to oppose the +Germans, who were irresistible. That was his return to the city and +country that had given him his livelihood. A few hours later a gendarme +friend of mine told me to move out quickly, as we were in the house of a +spy. + +Three members of our corps in Pervyse had evidence many nights of a spy +within our lines. It was part of the routine for a convoy of motor +trucks to bring ammunition forward to the trenches. The enemy during the +day would get the range of the road over which this train had to pass. +Of course, each night the time of ammunition moving was changed in an +attempt to foil the German fire. But this was of no avail, for when the +train of trucks moved along the road to the trenches a bright flash of +light would go up somewhere within our lines, telling the enemy that it +was time to fire upon the convoy. + +Such evidences kept reaching us of German gold at work on the very +country we were occupying. Sometimes the money itself. + +My wife, when stationed by the Belgian trenches at Pervyse, asked the +orderly to purchase potatoes, giving him a five-franc piece. He brought +back the potatoes and a handful of change that included a French franc, +a French copper, a Dutch small coin, a Belgian ten-centime bit, and a +German two-mark piece with its imperial eagle. This meant that some one +in the ranks or among the refugees was peddling information to the +enemy. + +In early October my wife and I were captured by the Uhlans at Zele. Our +Flemish driver, a Ghent man, began expressing his friendliness for them +in fluent German. After weeks of that sort of thing we became suspicious +of almost every one, so thorough and widespread had been the bribery of +certain of the poorer element. The Germans had sowed their seed for +years against the day when they would release their troops and have +need of traitors scattered through the invaded country. + +The thoroughness of this bribery differed at different villages. In one +burned town of 1500 houses we found approximately 100 houses standing +intact, with German script in chalk on their doors; the order of the +officer not to burn. This meant the dwellers had been friendly to the +enemy in certain instances, and in other instances that they were spies +for the Germans. We have the photographs of those chalked houses in +safe-keeping, against such time as there is a direct challenge on the +facts of German methods. But there has come no challenge of facts--we +that have seen have given names, dates and places--only a blanket denial +and counter charges of _franc-tireur_ warfare, as carried on by babies +in arms, white-haired grandmothers and sick women. + +In October, 1914, two miles outside Ostend, I was arrested as a spy by +the Belgians and marched through the streets in front of a gun in the +hands of a very young and very nervous soldier. The Etat Major told me +that German officers had been using American passports to enter the +Allied lines and learn the numbers and disposition of troops. They had +to arrest Americans on sight and find out if they were masqueraders. A +little later one of our American ambassadors verified this by saying to +me that American passports had been flagrantly abused for German +purposes. + +All this devious inside work, misusing the hospitality of friendly, +trustful nations, this buying up of weak individuals, this laying the +traps on neutral ground--all this treachery in peace times--deserves a +second Bryce report. The atrocities are the product of the treachery. +This patient, insidious spy system, eating away at the vitality of the +Allied powers, results in such horrors as I have witnessed. + + + + +THE ATROCITY + + +When the very terrible accounts of frightfulness visited on peasants by +the invading German army crossed the Channel to London, I believed that +we had one more "formula" story. I was fortified against unproved +allegations by thirteen years of newspaper and magazine investigation +and by professional experience in social work. A few months previously I +had investigated the "poison needle" stories of how a girl, rendered +insensible by a drug, was borne away in a taxicab to a house of ill +fame. The cases proved to be victims of hysteria. At another time, I had +looked up certain incidents of "white slavery," where young and innocent +victims were suddenly and dramatically ruined. I had found the cases to +be more complex than the picturesque statements of fiction writers +implied. Again, by the courtesy of the United States Government, +Department of Justice, I had studied investigations into the relation +of a low wage to the life of immorality. These had shown me that many +factors in the home, in the training, in the mental condition, often +contributed to the result. I had grown sceptical of the "plain" +statement of a complex matter, and peculiarly hesitant in accepting +accounts of outrage and cruelty. It was in this spirit that I crossed to +Belgium. To this extent, I had a pro-German leaning. + +On September 7, 1914, with two companions, I was present at the skirmish +between Germans and Belgians at Melle, a couple of miles east of Ghent. +We walked to the German line, where a blue-eyed young Hussar officer, +Rhinebeck, of Stramm, Holstein, led us into a trap by permitting us to +walk along after him and his men as they rode back to camp beyond Melle. +We walked for a quarter mile. At our right a barn was burning brightly. +On our left the homes of the peasants of Melle were burning, twenty-six +little yellow brick houses, each with a separate fire. It was not a +conflagration, by one house burning and gradually lighting the next. The +fires were well started and at equal intensity in each house. The walls +between the houses were still intact. The twenty-six fires burned slowly +and thoroughly through the night. + +These three thousand German soldiers and their officers were neither +drunk nor riotous. The discipline was excellent. The burning was a +clean-cut, cold-blooded piece of work. It was a piece of punishment. +Belgian soldiers had resisted the German army. If Belgian soldiers +resist, peasant non-combatants must be killed. That inspires terror. +That teaches the lesson: "Do not oppose Germany. It is death to oppose +her--death to your wife and child." + +We were surrounded by soldiers and four sentries put over us. Peasants +who walked too close to the camp were brought in and added to our group +of prisoners, till, all told, we numbered thirty. A peasant lying next +to me watched his own house burn to pieces. + +Another of the peasants was an old man, of weak mind. He kept babbling +to himself. It would have been obvious to a child that he was foolish. +The German sentry ordered silence. The old fellow muttered on in +unconsciousness of his surroundings. The sentry drew back his bayonet +to run him through. A couple of the peasants pulled the old man flat to +the ground and stifled his talking. + +At five o'clock in the morning German stretcher bearers marched behind +the burned houses. Out of the house of the peasant lying next to me +three bodies were carried. He broke into a long, slow sobbing. + +At six o'clock a monoplane sailed overhead, bringing orders to our +detachment. The troops intended for Ghent were turned toward Brussels. +The field artillery, which had been rolled toward the west, was swung +about to the east. An officer headed us toward Ghent and let us go. If +the Germans had marched into Ghent we would have been of value as a +cover for the troops. But for the return to Brussels we were only a +nuisance. We hurried away toward Ghent. As we walked through a farmyard +we saw a farmer lying at full length dead in his dooryard. We passed the +convent school of Melle, where Catholic sisters live. The front yard was +strewed with furniture, with bedding, with the contents of the rooms. +The yard was about four hundred feet long and two hundred feet deep. It +was dotted with this intimate household stuff for the full area. I made +inquiry and found that no sister had been violated or bayoneted. The +soldiers had merely ransacked the place. + +One of my companions in this Melle experience was A. Radclyffe Dugmore, +formerly of the Players Club, New York, a well-known naturalist, author +of books on big game in Africa, the beaver, and the caribou. For many +years he was connected with Doubleday, Page & Co. His present address is +Crete Hill, South Nutfield, Surrey. + +At other times and places, German troops have not rested content with +the mere terrorization and humiliation of religious sisters. On February +12, 1916, the German Wireless from Berlin states that Cardinal Mercier +was urged to investigate the allegation of German soldiers attacking +Belgian nuns, and that he declined. As long as the German Government has +seen fit to revive the record of their own brutality, I present what +follows. + +A New York physician whom I know sends me this statement: + +"I was dining in London in the middle of last April with a friend, a +medical man, and I expressed doubt as to the truth of the stories of +atrocity. I said I had combatted such stories often in America. In +reply, he asked me to visit a house which had been made over into an +obstetrical hospital for Belgian nuns. I went with him to the hospital. +Here over a hundred nuns had been and were being cared for." + +On a later Sunday in September I visited the Municipal Hospital of +Ghent. In Salle (Hall) 17, I met and talked with Martha Tas, a peasant +girl of St. Gilles (near Termonde). As she was escaping by train from +the district, and when she was between Alost and Audeghem, she told me +that German soldiers aimed rifle fire at the train of peasants. She was +wounded by a bullet in the thigh. My companion on this visit was William +R. Renton, at one time a resident of Andover, Massachusetts. His present +address is the Coventry Ordnance Works, Coventry. + +A friend of mine has been lieutenant in a battery of 75's stationed near +Pervyse. His summer home is a little distance out from Liège. His wife, +sister-in-law, and his three children were in the house when the Germans +came. Peasants, driven from their village, hid in the cellar. His sister +took one child and hid in a closet. His wife took the two-year-old baby +and the older child and hid in another closet. The troops entered the +house, looted it and set it on fire. As they left they fired into the +cellar. The mother rushed from her hiding place, went to her desk and +found that her money and the family jewels, one a gift from the +husband's family and handed down generation by generation, had been +stolen. With the sister, the baby in arms, the two other children and +the peasants, she ran out of the garden. They were fired on. They hid in +a wood. Then, for two days, they walked. The raw potatoes which they +gathered by the way were unfit for the little one. Without money, and +ill and weakened, they reached Holland. This lady is in a safe place +now, and her testimony in person is available. + +[Illustration: THE GREEN PASS, USED ONLY BY SOLDIERS AND OFFICERS OF THE +BELGIAN ARMY. + +It gives passage to the trenches at any hour. The writer, by holding +this, and working under the Prime Minister's son, became +stretcher-bearer in the Belgian Army.] + +The apologists of the widespread reign of frightfulness say that war is +always "like that," that individual drunken soldiers have always broken +loose and committed terrible acts. This defense does not meet the +facts. It meets neither the official orders, nor the cold method, nor +the immense number of proved murders. The German policy was ordered from +the top. It was carried out by officers and men systematically, under +discipline. The German War Book, issued by the General Staff, and used +by officers, cleverly justifies these acts. They are recorded by the +German soldiers themselves in their diaries, of which photographic +reproductions are obtainable in any large library. The diaries were +found on the persons of dead and wounded Germans. The name of the man +and his company are given. + +On Sunday, September 27, I was present at the battle of Alost, where +peasants came running into our lines from the German side of the canal. +In spite of shell, shrapnel, rifle, and machine fire, these peasants +crossed to us. The reason they had for running into fire was that the +Germans were torturing their neighbors with the bayonet. One peasant, on +the other side of the canal, hurried toward us under the fire, with a +little girl on his right shoulder. + +On Tuesday, September 29, I visited Wetteren Hospital. I went in +company with the Prince L. de Croy, the Due D'Ursel, a senator; the +Count de Briey, Intendant de la Liste Civile du Roy, and the Count Retz +la Barre (all of the Garde du General de Wette, Divisions de Cavalerie). +One at least of these gentlemen is as well and as favorably known in +this country as in his own. I took a young linguist, who was kind enough +to act as secretary for me. In the hospital I found eleven peasants with +bayonet wounds upon them--men, women and a child--who had been marched +in front of the Germans at Alost as a cover for the troops, and cut with +bayonets when they tried to dodge the firing. A priest was ministering +to them, bed by bed. Sisters were in attendance. The priest led us to +the cot of one of the men. On Sunday morning, September 27, the peasant, +Leopold de Man, of No. 90, Hovenier-Straat, Alost, was hiding in the +house with his sister, in the cellar. The Germans made a fire of the +table and chairs in the upper room. Then, catching sight of Leopold, +they struck him with the butts of their guns and forced him to pass +through the fire. Then, taking him outside, they struck him to the +ground and gave him a blow over the head with a gunstock and a cut of +the bayonet, which pierced his thigh all the way through. + +"In spite of my wound," said he, "they made me pass between their lines, +giving me still more blows of the gun-butt in the back in order to make +me march. There were seventeen or eighteen persons with me. They placed +us in front of their lines and menaced us with their revolvers, crying +out that they will make us pay for the losses they have suffered at +Alost. So we march in front of the troops. + +"When the battle began we threw ourselves on our faces to the ground, +but they forced us to rise again. At a certain moment, when the Germans +were obliged to retire, we succeeded in escaping down side streets." + +The priest led the way to the cot of a peasant whose cheeks had the spot +of fever. He was Frans Meulebroeck, of No. 62, Drie Sleutelstraat, +Alost. Sometimes in loud bursts of terror, and then falling back into a +monotone, he talked with us. + +"They broke open the door of my home," he said, "they seized me and +knocked me down. In front of my door the corpse of a German lay +stretched out. The Germans said to me: 'You are going to pay for that to +us.' A few moments later they gave me a bayonet cut in my leg. They +sprinkled naphtha in my house and set it afire. My son was struck down +in the street and I was marched in front of the German troops. I do not +know even yet the fate of my son." + +Gradually as the peasant talked the time of his suffering came on him. +His eyes began to see it again in front of him. They became fixed and +wild, the white of them visible. His voice was shrill and broken with +sobs. + +"My boy," he said, "I haven't seen him." His body shook with sobbing. + +At my request the young man with me took down the statements of these +two peasants, turning them into French from the Flemish, with the aid of +the priest. In the presence of the priest and one of the sisters the two +peasants signed, each man, his statement, making his mark. + +Our group passed into the next room, where the wounded women were +gathered. A sister led us to the bedside of a very old woman, perhaps +eighty years old. She had thin white hair, that straggled across the +pillow. There was no motion to the body, except for faint breathing. She +was cut through the thigh with a bayonet. + +I went across the room and found a little girl, twelve years old. She +was propped up in bed and half bent over, as if she had been broken at +the breast bone. Her body whistled with each breath. One of our +ambulance corps went out next day to the hospital--Dr. Donald Renton. He +writes me: + +"I went out with Davidson, the American sculptor, and Yates, the cinema +man, and there had been brought into the hospital the previous day the +little girl you speak of. She had a gaping wound on, I think, the right +side of her back, and died the next day." + +Dr. Renton's address is 110 Hill Street, Garnet Hill, Glasgow. + +The young man who took down the record is named E. de Niemira, a British +subject. He made the report of what we had seen to the Bryce Committee. +These cases which I witnessed appear in the Bryce Report under the +heading of "Alost."[B] Of such is the Bryce Report made: first-hand +witness by men like myself, who know what they know, who are ready for +any test to be applied, who made careful notes, who had witnesses. + +"Why do the Germans do these things? It is not war. It is cruel and +wrong," that is a remark I heard from noblemen and common soldiers +alike. Such acts are beyond the understanding of the Belgian people. +Their soldiers are kindly, good-humored, fearless. Alien women and +children would be safe in their hands. They do not see why the Germans +bring suffering to the innocent. + +A few understand. They know it is a scientific panic which the German +army was seeking to cultivate. They see that these acts are not done in +the wilful abandon of a few drunken soldiers, beyond discipline, but +that they belong to a cool, careful method by means of which the German +staff hoped to reduce a population to servitude. The Germans regard +these mutilations as pieces of necessary surgery. The young blond +barmaid of the Quatrecht Inn told us on October 4 that a German captain +came and cried like a baby in the taproom on the evening of September 7, +after he had laid waste Quatrecht and Melle. To her fanciful, untrained +mind he was thinking of his own wife and children. So, at least, she +thought as she watched him, after serving him in his thirst. + +One of the sentries patted the shoulder of the peasant at Melle when he +learned that the man had had the three members of his family done to +death. Personally, he was sorry for the man, but orders were orders. + +[Illustration: CHURCH IN TERMONDE WHICH THE WRITER SAW. + +The Germans burned this church and four others, a hospital, an +orphanage, and 1,100 homes, house by house. Priests, nuns and churches +irritated the German Army. This photograph was taken by Radclyffe +Dugmore, who accompanied the writer, to witness the methodical +destruction.] + +I spent September 13 and September 23 in Termonde. Ten days before my +first visit Termonde was a pretty town of 11,000 inhabitants. On their +first visit the Germans burned eleven hundred of the fifteen hundred +houses. They burned the Church of St. Benedict, the Church of St. +Rocus, three other churches, a hospital, and an orphanage. They burned +that town not by accident of shell fire and general conflagration, but +methodically, house by house. In the midst of charred ruins I came on +single houses standing, many of them, and on their doors was German +writing in chalk--"Nicht Verbrennen. Gute Leute wohnen hier." Sometimes +it would be simply "Nicht Verbrennen," sometimes only "Gute Leute," but +always that piece of German script was enough to save that house, though +to the right and left of it were ruins. On several of the saved houses +the name of the German officer was scribbled who gave the order to +spare. About one hundred houses were chalked in the way I have +described. All these were unscathed by the fire, though they stood in +streets otherwise devastated. The remaining three hundred houses had the +good luck to stand at the outskirts and on streets unvisited by the +house-to-house incendiaries. + +Four days after my first visit the Germans burned again the already +wrecked town, turning their attention to the neglected three hundred +houses. I went in as soon as I could safely enter the town, and that was +on the Wednesday after. + +As companions in Termonde I had Tennyson Jesse, Radclyffe Dugmore, and +William R. Renton. Mr. Dugmore took photographs of the chalked houses. + +"Build a fence around Termonde," suggested a Ghent manufacturer, "leave +the ruins untouched. Let the place stand there, with its burned houses, +churches, orphanage, hospital, factories, to show the world what German +culture is. It will be a monument to their methods of conducting war. +There will be no need of saying anything. That is all the proof we need. +Then throw open the place to visitors from all the world, as soon as +this war is over. Let them draw their own conclusions." + + + + +BALLAD OF THE GERMANS + + +In Wetteren Hospital, Flanders, the writer saw a little peasant girl +dying from the bayonet wounds in her back which the German soldiers had +given her. + + Cain slew only a brother, + A lad who was fair and strong, + His murder was careless and honest, + A heated and sudden wrong. + + And Judas was kindly and pleasant, + For he snared an invincible man. + But you--you have spitted the children, + As they toddled and stumbled and ran. + + She heard you sing on the high-road, + She thought you were gallant and gay; + Such men as the peasants of Flanders: + The friends of a child at play. + + She saw the sun on your helmets, + The sparkle of glancing light. + She saw your bayonets flashing, + And she laughed at your Prussian might. + + Then you gave her death for her laughter, + As you looked on her mischievous face. + You hated the tiny peasant, + With the hate of your famous race. + + You were not frenzied and angry; + You were cold and efficient and keen. + Your thrust was as thorough and deadly + As the stroke of a faithful machine. + + You stabbed her deep with your rifle: + You had good reason to sing, + As you footed it on through Flanders + Past the broken and quivering thing. + + Something impedes your advancing, + A dragging has come on your hosts. + And Paris grows dim now, and dimmer, + Through the blur of your raucous boasts. + + Your singing is sometimes broken + By guttural German groans. + Your ankles are wet with _her_ bleeding, + Your pike is blunt from _her_ bones. + + The little peasant has tripped you. + She hangs to your bloody stride. + And the dimpled hands are fastened + Where they fumbled before she died. + + + + +THE STEAM ROLLER + + +The Steam Roller, the final method, now operating in Belgium to flatten +her for all time, is the most deadly and universal of the three. It is a +calculated process to break the human spirit. People speak as if the +injury done Belgium was a thing of the past. It is at its height now. +The spy system with its clerks, waiters, tourists, business managers, +reached directly only some thousands of persons. The atrocities wounded +and killed many thousands of old men, women, and children. But the +German occupation and sovereignty at the present moment are +denationalizing more than six million people. The German conquerors +operate their Steam Roller by clever lies, thus separating Belgium from +her real friends; by taxation, thus breaking Belgium economically; by +enforced work on food supplies, railways, and ammunition, thus forcing +Belgian peasants to feed their enemy's army and destroy their own army, +and so making unwilling traitors out of patriots; by fines and +imprisonment that harass the individual Belgian who retains any sense of +nationality; by official slander from Berlin that the Belgians are the +guilty causes of their own destruction; and finally by the fact of +sovereignty itself, that at one stroke breaks the inmost spirit of a +free nation. + +I was still in Ghent when the Germans moved up to the suburbs. + +"I can put my artillery on Ghent," said the German officer to the +American vice-consul. + +That talk is typical of the tone of voice used to Belgians: threat +backed by murder. + +The whole policy of the Germans of late is to treat the Belgian matter +as a thing accomplished. + +"It is over. Let bygones be bygones." + +It is a process like the trapping of an innocent woman, and when she is +trapped, saying, + +"Now you are compromised, anyway, so you had better submit." + +A friend of mine who remained in Ghent after the German occupation, had +German officers billetted in his home. Daily, industriously, they said +to him that the English had been poor friends of his country, that they +had been late in coming to the rescue. Germany was the friend, not +England. In the homes throughout Belgium, these unbidden guests are +claiming slavery is a beneficent institution, that it is better to be +ruled by the German military, and made efficient for German ends, than +to continue a free people. + +For a year, our Red Cross Corps worked under the direction and authority +of the Belgian prime minister, Baron de Broqueville. The prime minister +in the name of his government has sent to this country an official +protest against the new tax levied by the Germans on his people. The +total tax for the German occupation amounts to $192,000,000. He writes: + +"The German military occupation during the last fifteen months has +entirely prevented all foreign trade, has paralyzed industrial activity, +and has reduced the majority of the laboring classes to enforced +idleness. Upon the impoverished Belgian population whom Germany has +unjustly attacked, upon whom she has brought want and distress, who have +been barely saved from starvation by the importation of food which +Germany should have provided--upon this population, Germany now imposes +a new tax, equal in amount to the enormous tax she has already imposed +and is regularly collecting." + +[Illustration: One of the dangerous Belgian franc-tireurs, who made it +necessary for the German Army to burn and bayonet babies and old women. +His name is Gaspar. He is three years old.] + +The Belgian Legation has protested unavailingly to our Government that +Germany, in violation of The Hague Conventions, has forced Belgian +workmen to perform labor for the German army. Belgian Railway employees +at Malines, Luttre and elsewhere refused to perform work which would +have released from the transportation service and made available for the +trenches an entire German Army Corps. These Belgian workmen were +subjected to coersive measures, which included starvation and cruel +punishments. Because of these penalties on Belgians refusing to be +traitors, many went to hospitals in Germany, and others returned broken +in health to Belgium. + +After reading the chapter on the German spy system, a Belgian wrote me: + +"That spying business is not yet the worst. Since then, the Germans have +succeeded in outdoing all that. The basest and the worst that one can +dream of is it not that campaign of slander and blackmail which they +originated after their violation of Belgium's neutrality? Of course they +did it--as a murderer who slanders his victim--in the hope to justify +their crime." + +It is evil to murder non-combatants. It is more evil to "rationalize" +the act--to invent a moral reason for doing an infamous thing. First, +Belgium suffered a vivisection, a veritable martyrdom. Now, she is +officially informed by her executioners that she was the guilty party. +She is not allowed to protest. She must sit quietly under the charge +that her sacrifice was not a sacrifice at all, but the penalty paid for +her own misbehavior. This is a more cruel thing than the spying that +sapped her and the atrocities practised upon her, because it is more +cruel to take a man's honor than his property and his life. + +"If the peasants had stayed in their houses, they would have been safe." + +When they stayed in their houses they were burned along with the houses. +I saw this done on September 7, 1914, at Melle. + +"The peasants shot from their houses at the advancing German army." + +I saw German atrocities. The peasants did not shoot. It is the old +familiar formula of the _franc-tireur_. That means that the peasant, not +a soldier, dressed in the clothing of a civilian, takes advantage of his +immunity as a noncombatant, to secrete a rifle, and from some shelter +shoot at the enemy army. The Bishop of Namur writes: + +"It is evident that the German army trod the Belgian soil and carried +out the invasion with the preconceived idea that it would meet with +bands of this sort, a reminiscence of the war of 1870. But German +imagination will not suffice to create that which does not exist. + +"There never existed a single body of _francs-tireurs_ in Belgium. + +"No 'isolated instance' even is known of civilians having fired upon the +troops, although there would have been no occasion for surprise if any +individual person had committed an excess. In several of our villages +the population was exterminated because, as the military authorities +alleged, a major had been killed or a young girl had attempted to kill +an officer, and so forth.... In no case has an alleged culprit been +discovered and designated by name." + +This lie--that the peasants brought their own death on themselves--was +rehearsed before the war, as a carefully learned lesson. The army came +prepared to find the excuse for the methodical outrages which they +practised. In the fight in the Dixmude district, a German officer of the +202e Infantry had a letter with this sentence on his body: + +"There are a lot of _francs-tireurs_ with the enemy." + +There were none. He had found what he had been drilled to find, in the +years of preparedness. The front lines of the Yser were raked clear by +shell, rifle, and machine-gun fire. The district was in ruins. I know, +because I worked there with our Red Cross Corps through those three +weeks. The humorous explanation of this is given by one of the Fusilier +Marin Lieutenants--that the blue cap and the red pompon of the famous +fighting sailors of France looked strangely to the Germans, who took the +wearers for _francs-tireurs_, terror suggesting the idea. But this is +the kindly humor of Brittany. The saucy sailor caps could not have +looked strangely to German eyes, because a few weeks earlier those +"Girls with the red pompon" had held the German army corps at Melle, and +not even terror could have made them look other than terribly familiar. +No. The officers had been faithfully trained to find militant peasants +under arms, and to send back letters and reports of their discovery, +which could later be used in official excuses for frightfulness. This +letter is one that did not get back to Berlin, later to appear in a +White Paper, as justification for official murder of non-combatants. + +The picture projected by the Great German Literary Staff is too +imaginative. Think of that Army of the Invasion with its army corps +riding down through village streets--the Uhlan cavalry, the innumerable +artillery, the dense endless infantry, the deadly power and swing of it +all--and then see the girl-child of Alost, and the white-haired woman, +eighty years old--aiming their rifles at that cavalcade. It is a +literary creation, not a statement of fact. I have been in villages +when German troops were entering, had entered, and were about to enter. +I saw helpless, terror-stricken women huddled against the wall, children +hiding in their skirts, old men dazed and vague. + +Then, as the blue-gray uniforms appeared at the head of the street, with +sunlight on the pikes and helmets, came the cry--half a sob, "Les +Allemands." + +The German fabrications are unworthy. Let the little slain children, and +the violated women, sleep in honor. Your race was stern enough in doing +them to death. Let them alone, now that you have cleared them from your +path to Paris. + +Doctor George Sarton, of the University of Ghent writes me: + +"During the last months, the Germans have launched new slanders against +Belgium. Their present tactics are more discreet and seem to be +successful. Many 'neutral' travelers--especially Americans and +Swiss--have been to Belgium to see the battlefields or, perhaps, to get +an idea of what such an occupation by foreign soldiers exactly amounts +to. Of course, these men can see nothing without the assistance of the +German authorities, and they can but see what is shown to them. The +greater their curiosity, the more courtesy extended to them, the more +also they feel indebted to their German hosts. These are well aware of +it: the sightseers are taken in their net, and with a very few +exceptions, their critical sense is quickly obliterated. We have +recently been shown one of the finest specimens of these American +tourists: Mr. George B. McCellan, professor of History at Princeton, who +made himself ridiculous by writing a most superficial and inaccurate +article for the "Sunday Times Magazine". + +"When the good folks of Belgium recollect the spying business that was +carried on at their expense by their German 'friends,' they are not +likely to trust much their German enemies. They know that the Germans +are quite incapable of keeping to themselves any fact that they may +learn--in whatever confidential and intimate circumstances--if this fact +is of the smallest use to their own country. As it is perfectly +impossible to trust them, the best is to avoid them, and that is what +most Belgians are doing. + +"American tourists seeing Belgium through German courtesy are considered +by the Belgians just as untrustworthy as the Germans themselves. This is +the right attitude, as there is no possibility left to the Belgians (in +Belgium) of testing the morality and the neutrality of their visitors. +The result of which is that these visitors are entirely given up to +their German advisers; _all their knowledge is of German origin_. Of +course, the Germans take advantage of this situation and make a show of +German efficiency and organization.--'Don't you know: the Germans have +done so much for Belgium! Why, everybody knows that this country was +very inefficient, very badly managed ... a poor little country without +influence.... See what the Germans have made of it.... There was no +compulsory education, and the number of illiterates was scandalously +high,' (I am sorry to say that this at least is true.) 'They are +introducing compulsory and free education. In the big towns, sexual +morality was rather loose, but the Germans are now regulating all that.' +(You should hear German officers speak of prostitution in Antwerp and +Brussels.) 'The evil was great, but fortunately the Germans came and are +cleaning up the country.'--That is their way of doing and talking. It +does not take them long to convince ingenuous and uncritical Americans +that everything is splendidly regulated by German efficiency, and that +if only the Belgians were complying, everything would be all right in +Belgium. Are not the Belgians very ungrateful? + +"The Belgians do appreciate American generosity; they realize that +almost the only rays of happiness that reach their country come from +America. They will never forget it; that disinterested help coming from +over the seas has a touch of romance; it is great and comforting; it is +the bright and hopeful side of the war. The Belgians know how to value +this. But, as to what the Germans are doing, good or not, they will +never appreciate that--what does it matter? The Belgians do not care one +bit for German reforms; they do not even deign to consider them; they +simply ignore them. There is _one_--only one--reform that they will +appreciate; the German evacuation. All the rest does not count. When +the Germans speak of cleaning the country, the Belgians do not +understand. From their point of view, there is only one way to clean +it--and that is for the Germans to clear out. + +"The Germans are very disappointed that a certain number of Belgians +have been able to escape, either to enlist in the Belgian army or to +live abroad. Of course, the more Belgians are in their hands, the more +pressure they can exert. They are now slandering the Belgians who have +left their country--all the 'rich' people who are 'feasting' abroad +while their countrymen are starving. + +"The fewer Belgians there are in German hands, the better it is. The +Belgians whose ability is the most useful, are considered useful by the +Germans for the latter's sake. Must it not be a terrible source of +anxiety for these Belgians to think that all the work they manage to do +is directly or indirectly done for Germany? It is not astonishing that +she wants to restore 'business, as usual' in Belgium, and that in many +cases she has tried to force the Belgian workers to earn for her. Let +me simply refer to the protest recently published by the Belgian +Legation. But for the American Commission for Relief, the Belgians would +have had to choose between starvation and work--work for +Germany--starvation or treason. Nothing shows better the greatness and +moment of the American work. Without the material and moral presence of +the United States, Belgium would have simply been turned into a nation +of slaves--starvation or treason. + +"If I were in Belgium, I could say nothing; I would have to choose +between silence and prison, or silence and death. Remember Edith Cavell. +An enthusiastic, courageous man is running as many risks in Belgium now, +as he would have in the sixteenth century under the Spanish domination. +The hundred eyes of the Spanish Inquisition were then continually prying +into everything--bodies and souls; one felt them even while one was +sleeping. The German Secret Service is not less pitiless and it is more +efficient. + +"The process of slander and lie carried on by the Germans to 'flatten' +Belgium is, to my judgment, the worst of their war practices. It is +very efficient indeed. But, however efficient it may be, it will be +unsuccessful as to its main purpose. The Germans will not be able to bow +Belgian heads. As long as the Belgians do not admit that they have been +conquered, they are not conquered, and in the meanwhile the Germans are +merely aggravating their infamy. It was an easy thing to over-run the +unprepared Belgian soil--but the Belgian spirit is unconquerable. + +"Belgium may slumber, but die--never." + +When men act as part of an implacable machine, they act apart from their +humanity. They commit unbelievable horrors, because the thing that moves +them is raw force, untouched by fine purpose and the elements of mercy. +When I think of Germans, man by man, as they lay wounded, waiting for us +to bring them in and care for them as faithfully as for our own, I know +that they have become human in their defeat. We are their friends as we +break them. In spite of their treachery and cruelty and cold hatred, we +shall save them yet. Cleared of their evil dream and restored to our +common humanity, they will have a more profound sorrow growing out of +this war than any other people, for Belgium and France only suffered +these things, but the great German race committed them. + + + + +MY EXPERIENCE WITH BAEDEKER + + +When I went to Belgium, friends said to me, "You must take 'Baedeker's +Belgium' with you; it is the best thing on the country." So I did. I +used it as I went around. The author doesn't give much about himself, +and that is a good feature in any book, but I gathered he was a German, +a widely traveled man, and he seems to have spent much time in Belgium, +for I found intimate records of the smallest things. I used his guide +for five months over there. I must say right here I was disappointed in +it. And that isn't just the word, either. I was annoyed by it. It gave +all the effect of accuracy, and then when I got there it wasn't so. He +kept speaking of buildings as "beautiful," "one of the loveliest +unspoiled pieces of thirteenth century architecture in Europe," and when +I took a lot of trouble and visited the building, I found it half down, +or a butt-end, or sometimes ashes. I couldn't make his book tally up. +It doesn't agree with the landscape and the look of things. He will take +a perfectly good detail and stick it in where it doesn't belong, and +leave it there. And he does it all in a painstaking way and with evident +sincerity. + +His volume had been so popular back in his own country that it had +brought a lot of Germans into Belgium. I saw them everywhere. They were +doing the same thing I was doing, checking up what they saw with the map +and text and things. Some of them looked puzzled and angry, as they went +around. I feel sure they will go home and give Baedeker a warm time, +when they tell him they didn't find things as he had represented. + +For one thing, he makes out Belgium a lively country, full of busy, +contented people, innocent peasants, and sturdy workmen and that sort of +thing. Why, it's the saddest place in the world. The people are not +cheery at all. They are depressed. It's the last place I should think of +for a holiday, now that I have seen it. And that's the way it goes, all +through his work. Things are the opposite of what he says with so much +meticulous care. He would speak of "gay café life" in a place that +looked as if an earthquake had hit it, and where the only people were +some cripples and a few half-starved old folks. If he finds that sort of +thing gay as he travels around, he is an easy man to please. It was so +wherever I went. It isn't as if he were wrong at some one detail. He is +wrong all over the place, all over Belgium. It's all different from the +way he says it is. I know his fellow-countrymen who are there now will +bear me out in this. + +Let me show one place. I took his book with me and used it on Nieuport. +That's a perfectly fair test, because Nieuport is like a couple of +hundred other towns. + +"Nieuport," says Herr Baedeker, "a small and quiet place on the Yser." + +It is one of the noisiest places I have ever been in. There was a day +and a half in May when shells dropped into the streets and houses, every +minute. Every day at least a few screaming three-inch shells fall on the +village. Aëroplanes buzz overhead, shrapnel pings in the sky. Rifle +bullets sing like excited telegraph wires. If Baedeker found Nieuport +a quiet place, he was brought up in a boiler factory. + +[Illustration: Baedeker, the distinguished German writer, states that +this Fifteenth Century Gothic church in Nieuport has "a modern timber +roof." We looked for it.] + +His very next phrase puzzled me--"with 3500 inhabitants," he says. + +And I didn't see one. There were dead people in the ruins of the houses. +The soldiers used to unearth them from time to time. I remember that the +poet speaks of "the poor inhabitant below," when he is writing of a body +in a grave. It must be in that sense that Baedeker specifies those 3500 +inhabitants. But he shouldn't do that kind of imaginative touch. It +isn't in his line. And it might mislead people. + +Think of a stranger getting into Nieuport after dark on a wet night, +with his mind all set on the three hotels Baedeker gives him a choice +of. + +"All unpretending," he says. + +Just the wrong word. Why, those hotels are brick dust. They're flat on +the ground. There isn't a room left. He means "demolished." He doesn't +use our language easily. I can see that. It is true they are +unpretending, but that isn't the first word you would use about them, +not if you were fluent. + +Then he gives a detail that is unnecessary. He says you can sleep or eat +there for a "franc and a half." That exactitude is out of place. It is +labored. I ask you what a traveler would make of the "1½ fr. _pour +diner_," when he came on that rubbish heap which is the Hotel of +Hope--"Hotel de l'Espérance." That is like Baedeker, all through his +volume. He will give a detail, like the precise cost of this dinner, +when there isn't any food in the neighborhood. It wouldn't be so bad if +he'd sketch things in general terms. That I could forgive. But it is too +much when he makes a word-picture of a Flemish table d'hôte for a franc +and a half in a section of country where even the cats are starving. + +His next statement is plain twisted. "Nieuport is noted for its +obstinate resistance to the French." + +I saw French soldiers there every day. They were defending the place. +His way of putting it stands the facts on their head. + +"And (is noted) for the 'Battle of the Dunes' in 1600." + +That is where the printer falls down. I was there during the Battle of +the Dunes. The nine is upside down in the date as given. + +I wouldn't object so much if he were careless with facts that were +harmless, like his hotels and his dinner and his dates. But when he +gives bad advice that would lead people into trouble, I think he ought +to be jacked up. Listen to this: + +"We may turn to the left to inspect the locks on the canals to Ostend." + +Baedeker's proposal here means sure death to the reader who tries it. +That section is lined with machine guns. If a man began turning and +inspecting, he would be shot. Baedeker's statement is too casual. It +sounds like a suggestion for a leisurely walk. It isn't a sufficient +warning against doing something which shortens life. The word "inspect" +is unfortunate. It gives the reader the idea he is invited to nose +around those locks, when he had really better quiet down and keep away. +The sentries don't want him there. I should have written that sentence +differently. His kind of unconsidered advice leads to a lot of sadness. + +"The Rue Longue contains a few quaint old houses." + +It doesn't contain any houses at all. There are some heaps of scorched +rubble. "Quaint" is word painting. + +"On the south side of this square rises the dignified Cloth Hall." + +There is nothing dignified about a shattered, burned, tottering old +building. Why will he use these literary words? + +"With a lately restored belfry." + +It seems as if this writer couldn't help saying the wrong thing. A +Zouave gave us a piece of bronze from the big bell. It wasn't restored +at all. It was on the ground, broken. + +"The church has a modern timber roof." + +There he goes again--the exact opposite of what even a child could see +were the facts. And yet in his methodical, earnest way, he has tried to +get these things right. That church, for instance, has no roof at all. +It has a few pillars standing. It looks like a skeleton. I have a good +photograph of it, which the reader can see on page 69. If Baedeker would +stand under that "modern timber roof" in a rainstorm, he wouldn't think +so much of it. + +"The Hotel de Ville contains a small collection of paintings." + +I don't like to keep picking on what he says, but this sentence is +irritating. There aren't any paintings there, because things are +scattered. You can see torn bits strewed around on the floor of the +place, but nothing like a collection. + +I could go on like that, and take him up on a lot more details. But it +sounds as if I were criticising. And I don't mean it that way, because I +believe the man is doing his best. But I do think he ought to get out +another edition of his book, and set these points straight. + +He puts a little poem on his title page: + + Go, little book, God send thee good passage, + And specially let this be thy prayer + Unto them all that thee will read or hear, + Where thou art wrong, after their help to call, + Thee to correct in any part or all. + +That sounds fair enough. So I am going to send him these notes. But it +isn't in "parts" he is "wrong." There is a big mistake somewhere. + + + + +GOLDEN LADS + + "Golden lads and girls all must, + As chimney-sweepers, come to dust." + + + + +THE PLAY-BOYS OF BRITTANY + +LES FUSILIERS MARINS + + +At times in my five months at the front I have been puzzled by the +sacrifice of so much young life; and most I have wondered about the +Belgians. I had seen their first army wiped out; there came a time when +I no longer met the faces I had learned to know at Termonde and Antwerp +and Alost. A new army of boys has dug itself in at the Yser, and the +same wastage by gun-fire and disease is at work on them. One wonders +with the Belgians if the price they pay for honor is not too high. There +is a sadness in the eyes of Belgian boy soldiers that is not easy to +face. Are we quite worthy of their sacrifice? Why should the son of +Ysaye die for me? Are you, comfortable reader, altogether sure that +Pierre Depage and André Simont are called on to spill their blood for +your good name? + +Then one turns with relief to the Fusiliers Marins--the sailors with a +rifle. Here are young men at play. They know they are the incomparable +soldiers. The guns have been on them for fifteen months, but they remain +unbroken. Twice in the year, if they had yielded, this might have been a +short war. But that is only saying that if Brittany had a different +breed of men the world and its future would contain less hope. They +carry the fine liquor of France, and something of their own added for +bouquet. They are happy soldiers--happy in their brief life, with its +flash of daring, and happy in their death. It is still sweet to die for +one's country, and that at no far-flung outpost over the seas and sands, +but just at the home border. As we carried our wounded sailors down from +Nieuport to the great hospital of Zuydcoote on the Dunkirk highway, +there is a sign-board, a bridge, and a custom-house that mark the point +where we pass from Belgium into France. We drove our ambulance with the +rear curtain raised, so that the wounded men, lying on the stretchers, +could be cheered by the flow of scenery. Sometimes, as we crossed that +border-line, one of the men would pick it up with his eye, and would +say to his comrade: "France! Now we are in France, the beautiful +country." + +"What do you mean?" I asked one lad, who had brightened visibly. + +"The other countries," he said, "are flat and dirty. The people are of +mixed races. France is not so." + +It has been my fortune to watch the sailors at work from the start of +the war. I was in Ghent when they came there, late, to a hopeless +situation. Here were youngsters scooped up from the decks, untrained in +trenches, and rushed to the front; but the sea-daring was on them, and +they knew obedience and the hazards. They helped to cover the retreat of +the Belgians and save that army from annihilation by banging away at the +German mass at Melle. Man after man developed a fatalism of war, and +expressed it to us. + +"Nothing can hit you till your time," was often their way of saying it; +"it's no use dodging or being afraid. You won't be hit till your shell +comes." And another favorite belief of theirs that brought them cheer +was this: "The shell that will kill you you won't hear coming. So +you'll never know." + +These sailor lads thrive on lost causes, and it was at Ghent they won +from the Germans their nickname of "Les demoiselles au pompon rouge." +The saucy French of that has a touch beyond any English rendering of +"the girls with the red pompon." "Les demoiselles au pompon rouge" +paints their picture at one stroke, for they thrust out the face of a +youngster from under a rakish blue sailor hat, crowned with a fluffy red +button, like a blue flower with a red bloom at its heart. I rarely saw +an aging _marin_. There are no seasoned troops so boyish. They wear open +dickies, which expose the neck, full, hard, well-rounded. The older +troops, who go laggard to the spading, have beards that extend down the +collar; but a boy has a smooth, clean neck, and these sailors have the +throat of youth. We must once have had such a race in our cow-boys and +Texas rangers--level-eyed, careless men who know no masters, only +equals. The force of gravity is heavy on an old man. But _marins_ are +not weighted down by equipment nor muffled with clothing. They go +bobbing like corks, as though they would always stay on the crest of +things. And riding on top of their lightness is that absurd bright-red +button in their cap. The armies for five hundred miles are sober, +grown-up people, but here are the play-boys of the western front. + +From Ghent they trooped south to Dixmude, and were shot to pieces in +that "Thermopylæ of the North." + +"Hold for four days," was their order. + +They held for three weeks, till the sea came down and took charge. +During those three weeks we motored in and out to get their wounded. +Nothing of orderly impression of those days remains to me. I have only +flashes of the sailor-soldiers curved over and snaking along the +battered streets behind slivers of wall, handfuls of them in the Hotel +de Ville standing around waiting in a roar of noise and a bright blaze +of burning houses--waiting till the shelling fades away.[C] + +Then for over twelve months they held wrecked Nieuport, and I have +watched them there week after week. There is no drearier post on earth. +One day in the pile of masonry thirty feet from our cellar refuge the +sailors began throwing out the bricks, and in a few minutes they +uncovered the body of a comrade. All the village has the smell of +desolation. That smell is compounded of green ditch-water, damp plaster, +wet clothing, blood, straw, and antiseptics. The nose took it as we +crossed the canal, and held it till we shook ourselves on the run home. +Thirty minutes a day in that soggy wreck pulled at my spirits for hours +afterward. But those chaps stood up to it for twenty-four hours a day, +lifting a cheery face from a stinking cellar, hopping about in the +tangle, sleeping quietly when their "night off" comes. As our chauffeur +drew his camera, one of them sprang into a bush entanglement, aimed his +rifle, and posed. + +I recollect an afternoon when we had word of an attack. We were grave, +because the Germans are strong and fearless. + +"Are they coming?" grinned a sailor. "Let them come. We are ready." + +We learned to know many of the Fusiliers Marins and to grow fond of +them. How else could it be when we went and got them, sick and wounded, +dying and dead, two, six, ten of them a day, for many weeks, and brought +them in to the Red Cross post for a dressing, and then on to the +hospital? I remember a young man in our ambulance. His right foot was +shot away, and the leg above was wounded. He lay unmurmuring for all the +tossing of the road over the long miles of the ride. We lifted him from +the stretcher, which he had wet with his blood, into the white cot in +"Hall 15" of Zuydcoote Hospital. The wound and the journey had gone +deeply into his vitality. As he touched the bed, his control ebbed, and +he became violently sick at the stomach. I stooped to carry back the +empty stretcher. He saw I was going away, and said, "Thank you." I knew +I should not see him again, not even if I came early next day. + +There is one unfading impression made on me by those wounded. If I call +it good nature, I have given only one element in it. It is more than +that: it is a dash of fun. They smile, they wink, they accept a light +for their cigarette. It is not stoicism at all. Stoicism is a grim +holding on, the jaws clenched, the spirit dark, but enduring. This is a +thing of wings. They will know I am not making light of their pain in +writing these words. I am only saying that they make light of it. The +judgment of men who are soon to die is like the judgment of little +children. It does not tolerate foolish words. Of all the ways of showing +you care that they suffer there is nothing half so good as the gift of +tobacco. As long as I had any money to spend, I spent it on packages of +cigarettes. + +[Illustration: SAILORS LIFTING A WOUNDED COMRADE INTO THE +MOTOR-AMBULANCE.] + +When the Marin officers found out we were the same people that had +worked with them at Melle five months before, they invited my wife and +three other nurses to luncheon in a Nieuport cellar. Their eye brightens +at sight of a woman, but she is as safe with them as with a cowboy or a +Quaker. The guests were led down into a basement, an eighteen foot room, +six feet high. The sailors had covered the floor and papered the walls +with red carpet. A tiny oil stove added to the warmth of that blazing +carpet. More than twenty officers and doctors crowded into the room, and +took seats at the table, lighted by two lamps. There were a dozen plates +of _patisserie_, a choice of tea, coffee, or chocolate, all hot, white +and red wine, and then champagne. An orderly lifted in a little wooden +yacht, bark-rigged, fourteen inches long, with white painted sails. A +nurse spilled champagne over the tiny ship, till it was drenched, and +christened. The chief doctor made a speech of thanks. Then the ship went +around the table, and each guest wrote her name on the sails. The party +climbed out into the garden, where the shells were going high overhead +like snowballs. In amongst the blackened flowers, a 16-inch shell had +left a hole of fifty feet diameter. One could have dropped two motor +cars into the cavity. + +Who but Marins would have devised a celebration for us on July 4? The +commandant, the captain, and a brace of lieutenants opened eleven +bottles of champagne in the Café du Sport at Coxyde in honor of our +violation of neutrality. It was little enough we were doing for those +men, but they were moved to graceful speech. We were hard put to it, +because one had to tell them that much of the giving for a hundred years +had been from France to us, and our showing in this war is hardly the +equal of the aid they sent us when we were invaded by Hessian troops and +a German king. + +Marins whom we know have the swift gratitude of simple natures, not too +highly civilized to show when they are pleased. After we had sent a +batch of their wounded by hospital train from Adinkerke, the two +sailors, who had helped us, invited my American friend and me into the +_estaminet_ across the road from the station, and bought us drinks for +an hour. We had been good to their mates, so they wanted to be good to +us. + +When we lived in barraquement, just back of the admiral's house, our +cook was a Marin with a knack at omelettes. If we had to work through +the night, going into black Nieuport, and down the ten-mile road to +Zuydcoote, returning weary at midnight, a brave supper was laid out for +us of canned meats, wines, and jellies--all set with the touch of one +who cared. It was no hasty, slapped-down affair. We were carrying his +comrades, and he was helping us to do it. + +It was an officer of a quite other regiment who, one time when we were +off duty, asked us to carry him to his post in the Dunes. We made the +run for him, and, as he jumped from the car, he offered us a franc. +Marins pay back in friendship. The Red Cross station to which we +reported, Poste de Secours des Marins, was conducted by Monsieur le +Docteur Rolland, and Monsieur Le Doze. Our workers were standing guests +at their officers' mess. The little sawed-off sailor in the Villa Marie +where I was billetted made coffee for two of us each morning. + +Our friends have the faults of young men, flushed with life. They are +scornful of feeble folk, of men who grow tired, who think twice before +dying. They laugh at middle age. The sentries amuse them, the elderly +chaps who duck into their caves when a few shells are sailing overhead. +They have no charity for frail nerves. They hate races who don't rally +to a man when the enemy is hitting the trail. They must wait for age to +gain pity, and the Bretons will never grow old. They are killed too +fast. And yet, as soon as I say that, I remember their rough pity for +their hurt comrades. They are as busy as a hospital nurse in laying a +blanket and swinging the stretcher for one of their own who has been +"pinked." They have a hovering concern. I have had twenty come to the +ambulance to help shove in a "blessé," and say good-by to him, and wave +to him as long as the road left him in their sight. The wounded man, +unless his back bound him down, would lift his head from the stretcher, +to give back their greetings. It was an eager exchange between the whole +men and the injured one. They don't believe they can be broken till the +thing comes, and there is curiosity to see just what has befallen one +like themselves. + +When it came my time to say good-by, my sailor friend, who had often +stopped by my car to tell me that all was going well, ran over to share +in the excitement. I told him I was leaving, and he gave me a smile of +deep-understanding amusement. Tired so soon? That smile carried a live +consciousness of untapped power, of the record he and his comrades had +made. It showed a disregard of my personal feelings, of all adult human +weakness. That was the picture I carried away from the Nieuport +line--the smiling boy with his wounded arm, alert after his year of war, +and more than a little scornful of one who had grown weary in conditions +so prosperous for young men. + +I rode away from him, past the Coxyde encampment of his comrades. There +they were as I had often seen them, with the peddlers cluttering their +camp--candy men, banana women; a fringe of basket merchants about their +grim barracks; a dozen peasants squatting with baskets of cigarettes, +fruit, vegetables, foolish, bright trinkets. And over them bent the +boys, dozens of them in blue blouses, stooping down to pick up trays, +fingering red apples and shining charms, chaffing, dickering, shoving +one another, the old loves of their childhood still tangled in their +being. + +So when I am talking about the sailors as if they were heroes, suddenly +something gay comes romping in. I see them again, as I have so often +seen them in the dunes of Flanders, and what I see is a race of +children. + +"Don't forget we are only little ones," they say. "We don't die; we are +just at play." + + + + +"ENCHANTED CIGARETTES" + + +Where does the comfort of the trenches lie? What solace do the soldiers +find for a weary life of unemployment and for sudden death? Of course, +they find it in the age-old things that have always sufficed, or, if +these things do not here altogether suffice, at least they help. For a +certain few out of every hundred men, religion avails. Some of our dying +men were glad of the last rites. Some wore their Catholic emblems. The +quiet devout men continued faithful as they had been at home. Art is +playing the true part it plays at all times of fundamental need. The men +busy themselves with music, with carving, and drawing. Security and +luxury destroy art, for it is no longer a necessity when a man is +stuffed with foods, and his fat body whirled in hot compartments from +point to point of a tame world. But when he tumbles in from a gusty +night out of a trenchful of mud, with the patter from slivers of shell, +then he turns to song and color, odd tricks with the knife, and the +tales of an ancient adventure. After our group had brought food and +clothing to a regiment, I remember the pride with which one of the +privates presented to our head nurse a sculptured group, done in mud of +the Yser. + +But the greatest thing in the world to soldiers is plain comradeship. +That is where they take their comfort. And the expression of that +comradeship is most often found in the social smoke. The meager +happiness of fighting-men is more closely interwoven with tobacco than +with any other single thing. To rob them of that would be to leave them +poor indeed. It would reduce their morale. It would depress their cheery +patience. The wonder of tobacco is that it fits itself to each one of +several needs. It is the medium by which the average man maintains +normality at an abnormal time. It is a device to soothe jumping nerves, +to deaden pain, to chase away brooding. Tobacco connects a man with the +human race, and his own past life. It gives him a little thing to do in +a big danger, in seeping loneliness, and the grip of sharp pain. It +brings back his café evenings, when black horror is reaching out for +him. + +If you have weathered around the world a bit, you know how everywhere +strange situations turn into places for plain men to feel at home. +Sailors on a Nova Scotia freight schooner, five days out, sit around in +the evening glow and take a pipe and a chat with the same homely +accustomedness, as if they were at a tavern. It is so in the jungle and +at a lumber camp. Now, that is what the millions of average men have +done to war. They have taken a raw, disordered, muddied, horrible thing, +and given it a monotony and regularity of its own. They have smoked away +its fighting tension, its hideous expectancy. They refuse to let +mangling and murder put crimps in their spirit. Apparently there is +nothing hellish enough to flatten the human spirit. Not all the +sprinkled shells and caravans of bleeding victims can cow the boys of +the front line. In this work of lifting clear of horror, tobacco has +been a friend to the soldiers of the Great War. + +"I wouldn't know a good cigarette if I saw it," said Geoffrey Gilling, +after a year of ambulance work at Fumes and Coxyde. He had given up all +that makes the life of an upper-class Englishman pleasant, and I think +that the deprivation of high-grade smoking material was a severe item in +his sacrifice. + +Four of us in Red Cross work spent weary hours each day in a filthy room +in a noisy wine-shop, waiting for fresh trouble to break loose. The +dreariness of it made B---- petulant and T---- mournfully silent, and +finally left me melancholy. But sturdy Andrew MacEwan, the Scotchman +with the forty-inch barrel chest, would reach out for his big can of +naval tobacco, slipped to him by the sailors at Dunkirk when the +commissariat officer wasn't looking, and would light his short stocky +pipe, shaped very much like himself, and then we were all off together +on a jaunt around the world. He had driven nearly all known "makes" of +motor-car over most of the map, apparently about one car to each +country. Twelve months of bad roads in a shelled district had left him +full of talk, as soon as he was well lit. + +Up at Nieuport, last northern stand of the Allied line, a walking +merchant would call each day, a basket around his throat, and in the +hamper chocolate, fruit, and tobacco. A muddy, unshaven Brittany +sailor, out of his few sous a week, bought us cigars. The less men have, +the more generous they are. That is an old saying, but it drove home to +me when I had poor men do me courtesy day by day for five months. As we +motored in and out of Nieuport in the dark of the night, we passed +hundreds of silent men trudging through the mud of the gutter. They were +troops that had been relieved who were marching back for a rest. As soon +as they came out of the zone where no sound can be made and no light +shown, we saw here and there down the invisible ranks the sudden flare +of a match, and then the glow in the cup of the hand, as the man +prepared to cheer himself. + +A more somber and lonely watch even than that of these French sailors +was the vigil kept by our good Belgian friend, Commandant Gilson, in the +shattered village of Pervyse. With his old Maltese cat, he prowled +through the wrecked place till two and three of the morning, waiting for +Germans to cross the flooded fields. For him cigarettes were an endless +chain that went through his life. From the expiring stub he lit his +fresh smoke, as if he were maintaining a vestal flame. He kept puffing +till the live butt singed his upturned mustache. He squinted his eyes to +escape the ascending smoke. + +Always the cigarette for him and for the other men. Our cellar of nurses +in Pervyse kept a stock of pipes and of cigarettes ready for tired +soldiers off duty. The pipes remained as intact as a collection in a +museum. The cigarettes never equaled the demand. We once took out a +carful of supplies to 300 Belgian soldiers. We gave them their choice of +cigarettes or smoking tobacco, and about 250 of them selected +cigarettes. That barrack vote gives the popularity of the cigarette +among men of French blood. Some cigars, some pipes, but everywhere the +shorter smoke. Tobacco and pipe exhaust precious pocket room. The +cigarette is portable. Cigars break and peel in the kneading motion of +walking and crouching. But the cigarette is protected in its little box. +And yet, rather than lose a smoke, a soldier will carry one lonesome +cigarette, rained on and limp and fraying at the end, drag it from the +depths of a kit, dry it out, and have a go. For, after all, it isn't +for theoretical advantages over larger, longer smokes he likes it, but +because it is fitted to his temperament. It is a French and Belgian +smoke, short-lived and of a light touch, as dear to memory and liking as +the wines of La Champagne. + +Twice, in dramatic setting, I have seen tobacco intervene to give men a +release from overstrained nerves. Once it was at a skirmish. Behind a +street defense, crouched thirty Belgian soldiers. Shrapnel began to +burst over us, and the bullets tumbled on the cobbles. With each puff of +the shrapnel, like a paper bag exploding, releasing a handful of white +smoke, the men flattened against the walls and dove into the open doors. +The sound of shrapnel is the same sound as hailstones, a crisp crackle +as they strike and bounce. We ran and picked them up. They were blunted +by smiting on the paving. Any one of them would have plowed into soft +flesh and found the bone and shattered it. They seem harmless because +they make so little noise. They don't scream and wail and thunder. Our +guns, back on the hillocks of the Ghent road, grew louder and more +frequent. Each minute now was cut into by a roar, or a fainter rumble. +The battle was on. Our barricaded street was a pocket in the storm, like +the center of a typhoon. + +Yonder we could see the canal, fifty feet away, at the foot of our +street. On the farther side behind the river front houses lay the +Germans, ready to sally out and charge. It would be all right if they +came quickly. But a few hours of waiting for them on an empty stomach, +and having them disappoint us, was wearing. We wished they would hurry +and have it over with, or else go away for good. Civilians stumbling and +bleeding went past us. + +And that was how the morning went by, heavy footed, unrelieved, with a +sense of waiting for a sudden crash and horror. It was peaceful, in a +way, but, at the heart of the calm, a menace. So we overlaid the tension +with casual petty acts. We made an informal pool of our resources in +tobacco, each man sharing with his neighbor, till nearly every one of us +was puffing away, and deciding there was nothing to this German attack, +after all. A smoke makes just the difference between sticking it out or +acting the coward's part. + +Each one of us in a lifetime has a day of days, when external event is +lively, and our inner mood dances to the tune. Some of us will perhaps +always feel that we spent our day on October 21, 1914. For we were +allowed to go into a town that fell in that one afternoon and to come +out again alive. It was the afternoon when Dixmude was leveled from a +fair upstanding city to a heap of scorched brick and crumbled plaster. +The enemy guns from over the Yser were accurate on its houses. + +We received our first taste of the dread to come, while we were yet a +little way out. In the road ahead of us, a shell had just splashed an +artillery convoy. Four horses, the driver, and the splintered wood of +the wagon were all worked together into one pulp, so that our car +skidded on it. We entered the falling town of Dixmude. It was a thick +mess into which we rode, with hot smoke and fine masonry dust blowing +into the eyes. Houses around us crumpled up at one blast, and then shot +a thick brown cloud of dust, and out of the cloud a high central flame +that leaped and spread. With the wailing of shells in the air, every +few seconds, the thud and thunder of their impact, the scattering of the +shattered metal, it was one of the hot, thorough bombardments of the +war. It cleared the town of troops, after tearing their ranks. But it +left wounded men in the cellar of the Hotel de Ville. The Grand Place +and the Hotel were the center of the fire. Here we had to wait fifteen +minutes, while the wounded were made ready for our two cars. It was then +we turned to tobacco as to a friend. I remember the easement that came +when I found I had cigars in my waistcoat pocket. The act of lighting a +cigar, and pulling at it briskly, was a relief. + +There was a second of time when we could hear a shell, about to burst +close, before it struck. It came, sharpening its nose on the air, making +a shrill whistle with a moan in it, that gathered volume as it neared. +There was a menace in the sound. It seemed to approach in a vast +enveloping mass that can't be escaped, filling all out-doors, and sure +to find you. It was as if the all-including sound were the missile +itself, with no hiding place offered. And yet the shell is generally a +little three-or-four inch thing, like a flower-pot, hurtling through +the scenery. But bruised nerves refuse to listen to reason, and again +and again I ducked as I heard that high wail, believing I was about to +be struck. + +[Illustration: DOOR CHALKED BY THE GERMANS. + +One of the 100 houses in Termonde with the direction "Do not Burn" +written in German. One thousand one hundred houses were burned, house by +house. Photograph by Radclyffe Dugmore.] + +In that second of tension, it was a pleasant thing to draw in on a +butt--to discharge the smoke, a second later, carelessly, as who should +say, "It is nothing." The little cylinder was a lightning conductor to +lead away the danger from a vital part. It let the nervousness leak off +into biting and puffing, and making a play of fingering the stub, +instead of striking into the stomach and the courage. It gave the +troubled face something to do, and let the writhing hand busy itself. It +saved me from knowing just how frightened I was. + +But what of the wounded themselves? They have to endure all that +dreariness of long waiting, and the pressure of danger, and then, for +good measure, a burden of pain. So I come to the men who are revealing +human nature at a higher pitch than any others in the war. The +trench-digging, elderly chaps are patient and long-enduring, and the +fighting men are as gallant as any the ballad-mongers used to rime +about. + +But it is of the wounded that one would like to speak in a way to win +respect for them rather than pity. I think some American observers have +missed the truth about the wounded. They have told of the groaning and +screaming, the heavy smells, the delays and neglect. It is a picture of +vivid horror. But the final impression left on me by caring for many +hundred wounded men is that of their patience and cheeriness. I think +they would resent having a sordid pen picture made of their suffering +and letting it go at that. After all, it is their wound: they suffered +it for a purpose, and they conquer their bodily pain by will power and +the Gallic touch of humor. Suffering borne nobly merits something more +than an emphasis on the blood and the moan. To speak of these wounded +men as of a heap of futile misery is like missing the worthiness of +motherhood in the details of obstetrics. + +It was thought we moderns had gone soft, but it seems we were storing up +reserves of stoic strength and courage. This war has drawn on them more +heavily than any former test, and they have met all its demands. +Sometimes, being tired, I would drop my corner of the stretcher, a few +inches suddenly. This would draw a quick intake of the breath from the +hurt man and an "aahh"--but not once a word of blame. I should want to +curse the careless hand that wrenched my wound, but these soldiers of +France and Belgium whom I carried had passed beyond littleness. + +Once we had a French Zouave officer on the stretcher. He was wounded in +the right arm and the stomach. Every careen of the ambulance over cobble +and into shell-hole was a thrust into his hurt. We had to carry him all +the way from the Nieuport cellar to Zuydcoote Hospital, ten miles. The +driver was one more of the American young men who have gone over into +France to pay back a little of what we owe her. I want to give his name, +Robert Cardell Toms, because it is good for us to know that we have +brave and tender gentlemen. On this long haul, as always, he drove with +extreme care, changing his speed without the staccato jerk, avoiding +bumps and holes of the trying road. When we reached the hospital, he +ran ahead into the ward to prepare the bed. The officer beckoned me to +him. He spoke with some difficulty, as the effort caught him in the +wound of his stomach. + +"Please be good enough," he said, "to give my thanks to the chauffeur. +He has driven me down with much consideration. He cares for wounded +men." + +Where other races are grateful and inarticulate, the French are able to +put into speech the last fine touch of feeling. + +My friend kept a supply of cigarettes for his ambulance cases, and as +soon as the hour-long drive began we dealt them out to the bandaged men. +How often we have started with a groaning man for the ride to Zuydcoote, +and how well the trip went, when we had lighted his cigarette for him. +It brought back a little of the conversation and the merriment which it +had called out in better days. It is such a relief to be wounded. You +have done your duty, and now you are to have a little rest. With a clear +conscience, you can sink back into laziness, far away from noise and +filth. Luck has come along and pulled the pack off your back, and the +responsibility from your sick mind. No weary city clerk ever went to his +seashore holiday with more blitheness than some of our wounded showed as +they came riding in from the Nieuport trenches at full length on the +stretcher, and singing all the way. What is a splintered forehead or a +damaged leg compared to the happiness of an honorable discharge? Nothing +to do for a month but lie quietly, and watch the wholesome, clean-clad +nurse. I am not forgetting the sadness of many men, nor the men hurt to +death, who lay motionless and did not sing, and some of whom died while +we were on the road to help. I am only trying to tell of the one man in +every four who was glad of his enforced rest, and who didn't let a +little thing like agony conquer his gaiety. Those men were the Joyous +Wounded. I have seldom seen men more light hearted. + +Word came to my wife one day that several hundred wounded were +side-tracked at Furnes railway station. With two nurses she hurried to +them, carrying hot soup. The women went through the train, feeding the +soldiers, giving them a drink of cold water, and bringing some of them +hot water for washing. Then, being fed, they were ready for a smoke, and +my wife began walking down the foul-smelling ambulance car with boxes of +supplies, letting each man take out a cigarette and a match. The car was +slung with double layers of stretcher bunks. Some men were freshly +wounded, others were convalescent. A few lay in a stupor. She provided +ten or a dozen soldiers with their pleasure, and they lighted up and +were well under way. She had so many patients that day that she was not +watching the individual man in her general distribution. She came half +way down the car, and held out her store to a soldier without looking at +him. He glanced up and grinned. The men in the bunks around him laughed +heartily. Then she looked down at him. He was flapping the two stumps of +his arms and was smiling. His hands had been blown off. She put the +cigarette in his mouth and lit it for him. Only his hands were gone. +Comradeship was left for him, and here was the lighted cigarette +expressing that comradeship. + + + + +WAS IT REAL? + + +The man was an old-time friend. In the days of our youth, we had often +worked together. He was small and nervous, with a quick eye. He always +wore me down after a few hours, because he was restless and untiring. He +was named Romeyn Rossiter--one of those well-born names. We had met in +times before the advent of the telescopic lens, and he used a box +camera, tuned to a fiftieth of a second. Together we snapped polo +ponies, coming at full tilt after the ball, riding each other off, while +he would stand between the goal-posts, as they zigzagged down on him. I +had to shove him out of the way, at the last tick, when the hoofs were +loud. I often wondered if those ponies didn't look suddenly large and +imminent on the little glass rectangle into which he was peering. That +was the kind of person he was. He was glued to his work. He was a +curious man, because that nerve of fear, which is well developed in most +of us, was left out of his make-up. No credit to him. It merely wasn't +there. He was color-blind to danger. He had spent his life everywhere by +bits, so he had the languages. I used to admire that in him, the way he +could career along with a Frenchman, and exchange talk with a German +waiter: high speed, and a kind of racy quality. + +I used to write the text around his pictures, captions underneath them, +and then words spilled out over the white paper between his six by tens. +We published in the country life magazines. They gave generous big +display pages. In those days people used to read what I wrote, because +they wanted to find out about the pictures, and the pictures were fine. +You must have seen Rossiter's work--caribou, beavers, Walter Travis +coming through with a stroke, and Holcombe Ward giving a twist delivery. +We had the field to ourselves for two or three years, before the other +fellows caught the idea, and broke our partnership. I turned to +literature, and he began drifting around the world for long shots. He'd +be gone six months, and then turn up with big game night pictures out of +Africa--a lion drinking under a tropical moon. Two more years, and I +had lost him entirely. But I knew we should meet. He was one of those +chaps that, once in your life, is like the _motif_ in an opera, or like +the high-class story, which starts with an insignificant loose brick on +a coping and ends with that brick smiting the hero's head. + +It was London where I ran into him at last. + +"Happy days?" I said, with a rising inflection. + +"So, so," he answered. + +He was doing the free-lance game. He had drifted over to England with +his $750 moving-picture machine to see what he could harvest with a +quiet eye, and they had rung in the war on him. He wasn't going to be +happy till he could get the boys in action. Would I go to Belgium with +him? I would. + +Next day, we took the Channel ferry from Dover to Ostend, went by train +to Ghent, and trudged out on foot to the battle of Alost. + +Those were the early days of the war when you could go anywhere, if you +did it nicely. The Belgians are a friendly people. They can't bear to +say No, and if they saw a hard-working man come along with his eye on +his job, they didn't like to turn him back, even if he was mussing up an +infantry formation or exposing a trench. They'd rather share the risk, +as long as it brought him in returns. + +When we footed it out that morning, we didn't know we were in for one of +the Famous Days of history. You never can tell in this war. Sometimes +you'll trot out to the front, all keyed up, and then sit around among +the "Set-Sanks" for a month playing pinochle, and watching the flies +chase each other across the marmalade. And then a sultry dull day will +suddenly show you things.... + +Out from the Grand Place of Alost radiate narrow little streets that run +down to the canal, like spokes of a wheel. Each little street had its +earthworks and group of defenders. Out over the canal stretched +footbridges, and these were thickly sown with barbed wire. + +"Great luck," said Rossiter. "They're making an old-time barricade. It's +as good as the days of the Commune. Do you remember your street-fighting +in Les Miserables?" + +"I surely do," I replied. "Breast high earthworks, and the 'citizens' +crouched behind under the rattle of bullets." + +"This is going to be good," he went on in high enthusiasm. The soldiers +were rolling heavy barrels to the gutter, and knocking off the heads. +The barrels were packed with fish, about six inches long, with scales +that went blue and white in the fresh morning light. The fish slithered +over the cobbles, and the soldiers stumbled on their slippery bodies. +They set the barrels on end, side by side, and heaped the cracks between +and the face with sods of earth, thick-packed clods, with grass growing. +The grass was bright green, unwilted. A couple of peasant hand-carts +were tilted on end, and the flooring sodded like the barrels. + +"Look who's coming," pointed Rossiter, swiveling his lens sharply +around. + +Steaming gently into our narrow street from the Grand Place came a great +Sava mitrailleuse--big steel turret, painted lead blue, three men +sitting behind the swinging turret. One of the men, taller by a head +than his fellows, had a white rag bound round his head, where a bullet +had clipped off a piece of his forehead the week before. His face was +set and pale. Sitting on high, in the grim machine, with his bandage +worn as a plume, he looked like the presiding spirit of the fracas. + +"It's worth the trip," muttered Romeyn, grinding away on his crank. + +There was something silent and efficient in the look of the big man and +the big car, with its slim-waisted, bright brass gun shoving through. + +"Here, have a cigarette," said Rossiter, as the powerful thing glided +by. + +He passed up a box to the three gunners. + +"_Bonne chance_," said the big man, as he puffed out rings and fondled +the trim bronze body of his Lady of Death. They let the car slide down +the street to the left end of the barricade, where it came to rest. + +Over the canal, out from the smoke-misted houses, came a peasant +running. In his arms he carried a little girl. Her hair was light as +flax, and crested with a knot of very bright red ribbon. Hair and gay +ribbon caught the eye, as soon as they were borne out of the doomed +houses. The father carried the little one to the bridge at the foot of +our street, and began crossing towards us. The barbed wire looked angry +in the morning sun. He had to weave his way patiently, with the child +held flat to his shoulder. Any hasty motion would have torn her face on +the barbs. Shrapnel was sailing high overhead between the two forces, +and there, thirty feet under the crossfire, this man and his child +squirmed their way through the barrier. They won through, and were +lifted over the barricade. As the father went stumbling past me, I +looked into the face of the girl. Her eyes were tightly closed. She +nestled contentedly. + +"Did you get it, man? Did you get it?" I asked Rossiter. + +"Too far," he replied, mournfully, "only a dot at that distance." + +Now, all the parts had fitted into the pattern, the gay green grass +growing out of the stacked barrels and carts, and the sullen, silent, +waiting mitrailleuse which can spit death in a wide swathe as it +revolves from side to side, like the full stroke of a scythe on nodding +daisies. The bark of it is as alarming as its bite--an incredibly rapid +rat-tat that makes men fall on their faces when they hear, like +worshipers at the bell of the Transubstantiation. + +"She talks three hundred words to the minute," said Romeyn to me. + +"How are you coming?" I asked. + +"Great," he answered, "great stuff. Now, if only something happens." + +He had planted his tripod fifty feet back of the barricade, plumb +against a red-brick, three-story house, so that the lens raked the +street and its defenses diagonally. Thirty minutes we waited, with shell +fire far to the right of us, falling into the center of the town with a +rumble, like a train of cars heard in the night, when one is half +asleep. That was the sense of things to me, as I stood in the street, +waiting for hell to blow off its lid. It was a dream world, and I was +the dreamer, in the center of the strange unfolding sight, seeing it all +out of a muffled consciousness. + +Another quarter hour, and Rossiter began to fidget. + +"Do you call this a battle?" he asked. + +"The liveliest thing in a month," replied the lieutenant. + +"We've got to brisk it up," Rossiter said. "Now, I tell you what we'll +do. Let's have a battle that looks something like. These real things +haven't got speed enough for a five-cent house." + +In a moment, all was action. Those amazing Belgians, as responsive as +children in a game, fell to furiously to create confusion and swift +event out of the trance of peace. The battered giant in the Sava +released a cloud of steam from his car. The men aimed their rifles in +swift staccato. The lieutenant dashed back and forth from curb to curb, +plunging to the barricade, and then to the half dozen boys who were +falling back, crouching on one knee, firing, and then retreating. He +cheered them with pats on the shoulder, pointed out new unsuspected +enemies. Then, man by man, the thirty perspiring fighters began to +tumble. They fell forward on their faces, lay stricken on their backs, +heaved against the walls of houses, wherever the deadly fire had caught +them. The street was littered with Belgian bodies. There stood Rossiter +grinding away on his handle, snickering green-clad Belgians lying strewn +on the cobbles, a half dozen of them tense and set behind the barricade, +leveling rifles at the piles of fish. Every one was laughing, and all of +them intent on working out a picture with thrills. + +The enemy guns had been growing menacing, but Rossiter and the Belgians +were very busy. + +"The shells are dropping just back of us," I called to him. + +"Good, good," he said, "but I haven't time for them just yet. They must +wait. You can't crowd a film." + +Ten minutes passed. + +"It is immense," began he, wiping his face and lighting a smoke, and +turning his handle. "Gentlemen, I thank you." + +"Gentlemen, we thank you," I said. + +"There's been nothing like it," he went on. "Those Liège pictures of +Wilson's at the Hippodrome were tame." + +He'd got it all in, and was wasting a few feet for good measure. +Sometimes you need a fringe in order to bring out the big minute in your +action. + +[Illustration: STREET FIGHTING IN ALOST. + +This is part of the motion-picture which we took while the Germans were +bombarding the town.] + +Suddenly, we heard the wailing overhead and louder than any of the other +shells. Louder meant closer. It lasted a second of time, and then +crashed into the second story of the red house, six feet over Rossiter's +head. A shower of brown brick dust, and a puff of gray-black smoke +settled down over the machine and man, and blotted him out of sight for +a couple of seconds. Then we all coughed and spat, and the air cleared. +The tripod had careened in the fierce rush of air, but Rossiter had +caught it and was righting it. He went on turning. His face was streaked +with black, and his clothes were brown with dust. + +"Trying to get the smoke," he called, "but I'm afraid it won't +register." + +Maybe you want to know how that film took. We hustled it back to London, +and it went with a whizz. One hundred and twenty-six picture houses +produced "STREET FIGHTING IN ALOST." The daily illustrated +papers ran it front page. The only criticism of it that I heard was +another movie man, who was sore--a chap named Wilson. + +"That picture is faked," he asserted. + +"I'll bet you," I retorted, "that picture was taken under shell fire +during the bombardment of Alost. That barricade is the straight goods. +The fellow that took it was shot full of gas while he was taking it. +What's your idea of the real thing?" + +"That's all right," he said; "the ruins are good, and the smoke is +there. But I've seen that reel three times, and every time the dead man +in the gutter laughed." + + + + +"CHANTONS, BELGES! CHANTONS!" + + +Here at home I am in a land where the wholesale martyrdom of Belgium is +regarded as of doubtful authenticity. We who have witnessed widespread +atrocities are subjected to a critical process as cold as if we were +advancing a new program of social reform. I begin to wonder if anything +took place in Flanders. Isn't the wreck of Termonde, where I thought I +spent two days, perhaps a figment of the fancy? Was the bayoneted girl +child of Alost a pleasant dream creation? My people are busy and +indifferent, generous and neutral, but yonder several races are living +at a deeper level. In a time when beliefs are held lightly, with tricky +words tearing at old values, they have recovered the ancient faiths of +the race. Their lot, with all its pain, is choicer than ours. They at +least have felt greatly and thrown themselves into action. It is a stern +fight that is on in Europe, and few of our countrymen realize it is our +fight that the Allies are making. + +Europe has made an old discovery. The Greek Anthology has it, and the +ballads, but our busy little merchants and our clever talkers have never +known it. The best discovery a man can make is that there is something +inside him bigger than his fear, a belief in something more lasting than +his individual life. When he discovers that, he knows he, too, is a man. +It is as real for him as the experience of motherhood for a woman. He +comes out of it with self-respect and gladness. + +The Belgians were a soft people, pleasure-loving little chaps, social +and cheery, fond of comfort and the café brightness. They lacked the +intensity of blood of unmixed single strains. They were cosmopolitan, +often with a command over three languages and snatches of several +dialects. They were easy in their likes. They "made friends" lightly. +They did not have the reserve of the English, the spiritual pride of the +Germans. Some of them have German blood, some French, some Dutch. Part +of the race is gay and volatile, many are heavy and inarticulate; it is +a mixed race of which any iron-clad generalization is false. But I have +seen many thousands of them under crisis, seen them hungry, dying, men +from every class and every region; and the mass impression is that they +are affectionate, easy to blend with, open-handed, trusting. + +This kindly, haphazard, unformed folk were suddenly lifted to a national +self-sacrifice. By one act of defiance Albert made Belgium a nation. It +had been a mixed race of many tongues, selling itself little by little, +all unconsciously, to the German bondage. I saw the marks of this +spiritual invasion on the inner life of the Belgians--marks of a +destruction more thorough than the shelling of a city. The ruins of +Termonde are only the outward and visible sign of what Germany has +attempted on Belgium for more than a generation. + +Perhaps it was better that people should perish by the villageful in +honest physical death through the agony of the bayonet and the flame +than that they should go on bartering away their nationality by +piece-meal. Who knows but Albert saw in his silent heart that the only +thing to weld his people together, honeycombed as they were, was the +shedding of blood? Perhaps nothing short of a supreme sacrifice, +amounting to a martyrdom, could restore a people so tangled in German +intrigue, so netted into an ever-encroaching system of commerce, +carrying with it a habit of thought and a mouthful of guttural phrases. +Let no one underestimate that power of language. If the idiom has passed +into one, it has brought with it molds of thought, leanings of sympathy. +Who that can even stumble through the "_Marchons! Marchons_!" of the +"Marseillaise" but is a sharer for a moment in the rush of glory that +every now and again has made France the light of the world? So, when the +German phrase rings out, "Was wir haben bleibt Deutsch"--"What we are +now holding by force of arms shall remain forever German"--there is an +answering thrill in the heart of every Antwerp clerk who for years has +been leaking Belgian government gossip into German ears in return for a +piece of money. Secret sin was eating away Belgium's vitality--the sin +of being bought by German money, bought in little ways, for small bits +of service, amiable passages destroying nationality. By one act of full +sacrifice Albert has cleared his people from a poison that might have +sapped them in a few more years without the firing of one gun. + +That sacrifice to which they are called is an utter one, of which they +have experienced only the prelude. I have seen this growing sadness of +Belgium almost from the beginning. I have seen thirty thousand refugees, +the inhabitants of Alost, come shuffling down the road past me. They +came by families, the father with a bag of clothes and bread, the mother +with a baby in arms, and one, two, or three children trotting along. +Aged women were walking, Sisters of Charity, religious brothers. A +cartful of stricken old women lay patiently at full length while the +wagon bumped on. They were so nearly drowned by suffering that one more +wave made little difference. All that was sad and helpless was dragged +that morning into the daylight. All that had been decently cared for in +quiet rooms was of a sudden tumbled out upon the pavement and jolted +along in farm-wagons past sixteen miles of curious eyes. But even with +the sick and the very old there was no lamentation. In this procession +of the dispossessed that passed us on the country road there was no one +crying, no one angry. + +I have seen 5000 of these refugees at night in the Halle des Fêtes of +Ghent, huddled in the straw, their faces bleached white under the glare +of the huge municipal lights. On the wall, I read the names of the +children whose parents had been lost, and the names of the parents who +reported a lost baby, a boy, a girl, and sometimes all the children +lost. + +A little later came the time when the people learned their last +stronghold was tottering. I remember sitting at dinner in the home of +Monsieur Caron, a citizen of Ghent. I had spent that day in Antwerp, and +the soldiers had told me of the destruction of the outer rim of forts. +So I began to say to the dinner guests that the city was doomed. As I +spoke, I glanced at Madame Caron. Her eyes filled with tears. I turned +to another Belgian lady, and had to look away. Not a sound came from +them. + +[Illustration: BELGIAN OFFICER ON THE LAST STRIP OF HIS COUNTRY.] + +When the handful of British were sent to the rescue of Antwerp, we went +up the road with them. There was joy on the Antwerp road that day. +Little cottages fluttered flags at lintel and window. The sidewalks were +thronged with peasants, who believed they were now to be saved. We rode +in glory from Ghent to the outer works of Antwerp. Each village on all +the line turned out its full population to cheer us ecstatically. A +bitter month had passed, and now salvation had come. It is seldom in a +lifetime one is present at a perfect piece of irony like that of those +shouting Flemish peasants. + +As Antwerp was falling, a letter was given to me by a friend. It was +written by Aloysius Coen of the artillery, Fort St. Catherine Wavre, +Antwerp. He died in the bombardment, thirty-four years old. He wrote: + + Dear wife and children: + + At the moment that I am writing you this the enemy is before us, + and the moment has come for us to do our duty for our country. When + you will have received this I shall have changed the temporary life + for the eternal life. As I loved you all dearly, my last breath + will be directed toward you and my darling children, and with a + last smile as a farewell from my beloved family am I undertaking + the eternal journey. + + I hope, whatever may be your later call, you will take good care of + my dear children, and always keep them in mind of the straight + road, always ask them to pray for their father, who in sadness, + though doing his duty for his country, has had to leave them so + young. + + Say good-by for me to my dear brothers and sisters, from whom I + also carry with me a great love. + + Farewell, dear wife, children, and family. + + Your always remaining husband, father, and brother. + + ALOYS. + +Then Antwerp fell, and a people that had for the first time in memory +found itself an indivisible and self-conscious state broke into sullen +flight, and its merry, friendly army came heavy-footed down the road to +another country. Grieved and embittered, they served under new leaders +of another race. Those tired soldiers were like spirited children who +had been playing an exciting game which they thought would be applauded. +And suddenly the best turned out the worst. + + Sing, Belgians, sing, though our wounds are bleeding. + +writes the poet of Flanders; but the song is no earthly song. It is the +voice of a lost cause that cries out of the trampled dust as it +prepares to make its flight beyond the place of betrayal. + +For the Belgian soldiers no longer sang, or made merry in the evening. A +young Brussels corporal in our party suddenly broke into sobbing when he +heard the chorus of "Tipperary" float over the channel from a transport +of untried British lads. The Belgians are a race of children whose +feelings have been hurt. The pathos of the Belgian army is like the +pathos of an orphan-asylum: it is unconscious. + +They are very lonely, the loneliest men I have known. Back of the +fighting Frenchman, you sense the gardens and fields of France, the +strong, victorious national will. In a year, in two years, having made +his peace with honor, he will return to a happiness richer than any that +France has known in fifty years. And the Englishman carries with him to +the stresses of the first line an unbroken calm which he has inherited +from a thousand years of his island peace. His little moment of pain and +death cannot trouble that consciousness of the eternal process in which +his people have been permitted to play a continuing part. For him the +present turmoil is only a ripple on the vast sea of his racial history. +Behind the Tommy is his Devonshire village, still secure. His mother and +his wife are waiting for him, unmolested, as when he left them. But the +Belgian, schooled in horror, faces a fuller horror yet when the guns of +his friends are put on his bell-towers and birthplace, held by the +invaders. + +"My father and mother are inside the enemy lines," said a Belgian +officer to me as we were talking of the final victory. That is the +ever-present thought of an army of boys whose parents are living in +doomed houses back of German trenches. It is louder than the near guns, +the noise of the guns to come that will tear at Bruges and level the +Tower of St. Nicholas. That is what the future holds for the Belgian. He +is only at the beginning of his loss. The victory of his cause is the +death of his people. It is a sacrifice almost without a parallel. + +[Illustration: A BELGIAN BOY SOLDIER IN THE UNIFORM OF THE FIRST ARMY +WHICH SERVED AT LIEGE AND NAMUR. + +In the summer of 1915 this costume was exchanged for khaki (see page +148). The present Belgian Army is largely made up of boys like this.] + +And now a famous newspaper correspondent has returned to us from his +motor trips to the front and his conversations with officers to tell us +that he does not highly regard the fighting qualities of the +Belgians. I think that statement is not the full truth, and I do not +think it will be the estimate of history on the resistance of the +Belgians. If the resistance had been regarded by the Germans as +half-hearted, I do not believe their reprisals on villages and towns and +on the civilian population would have been so bitter. The burning and +the murder that I saw them commit throughout the month of September, +1914, was the answer to a resistance unexpectedly firm and telling. At a +skirmish in September, when fifteen hundred Belgians stood off three +thousand Germans for several hours, I counted more dead Germans than +dead Belgians. The German officer in whose hands we were as captives +asked us with great particularity as to how many Belgians he had killed +and wounded. While he was talking with us, his stretcher-bearers were +moving up and down the road for his own casualties. At Alost the street +fighting by Belgian troops behind fish-barrels, with sods of earth for +barricade, was so stubborn that the Germans felt it to be necessary to +mutilate civilian men, women, and children with the bayonet to express +in terms at all adequate their resentment. I am of course speaking of +what I know. Around Termonde, three times in September, the fighting of +Belgians was vigorous enough to induce the Germans on entering the town +to burn more than eleven hundred homes, house by house. If the Germans +throughout their army had not possessed a high opinion of Belgian +bravery and power of retardation, I doubt if they would have released so +widespread and unique a savagery. + +At Termonde, Alost, Balière, and a dozen other points in the Ghent +sector, and, later, at Dixmude, Ramscappelle, Pervyse, Caeskerke, and +the rest of the line of the Yser, my sight of Belgians has been that of +troops as gallant as any. The cowards have been occasional, the brave +men many. I still have flashes of them as when I knew them. I saw a +Belgian officer ride across a field within rifle range of the enemy to +point out to us a market-cart in which lay three wounded. On his horse, +he was a high figure, well silhouetted. Another day, I met a Belgian +sergeant, with a tousled red head of hair, and with three medals for +valor on his left breast. He kept going out into the middle of the road +during the times when Germans were reported approaching, keeping his men +under cover. If there was risk to be taken, he wanted first chance. My +friend Dr. van der Ghinst, of Cabour Hospital, captain in the Belgian +army, remained three days in Dixmude under steady bombardment, caring +unaided for his wounded in the Hospital of St. Jean, just at the Yser, +and finally brought out thirty old men and women who had been frightened +into helplessness by the flames and noise. Because he was needed in that +direction, I saw him continue his walk past the point where fifty feet +ahead of him a shell had just exploded. I watched him walk erect where +even the renowned fighting men of an allied race were stooping and +hiding, because he held his life as nothing when there were wounded to +be rescued. I saw Lieutenant Robert de Broqueville, son of the prime +minister of Belgium, go into Dixmude on the afternoon when the town was +leveled by German guns. He remained there under one of the heaviest +bombardments of the war for three hours, picking up the wounded who lay +on curbs and in cellars and under debris. The troops had been ordered +to evacuate the town, and it was a lonely job that this youngster of +twenty-seven years carried on through that day. + +I have seen the Belgians every day for several months. I have seen +several skirmishes and battles and many days of shell-fire, and the +impression of watching many thousand Belgians in action is that of +excellent fighting qualities, starred with bits of sheer daring as +astonishing as that of the other races. With no country left to fight +for, homes either in ruin or soon to be shelled, relatives under an +alien rule, the home Government on a foreign soil, still this second +army, the first having been killed, fights on in good spirit. Every +morning of the summer I have passed boys between eighteen and +twenty-five, clad in fresh khaki, as they go riding down the poplar lane +from La Panne to the trenches, the first twenty with bright silver +bugles, their cheeks puffed and red with the blowing. Twelve months of +wounds and wastage, wet trenches and tinned food, and still they go out +with hope. + +[Illustration: BELGIANS IN THEIR NEW KHAKI UNIFORM. IN PRAISE OF WHICH +THEY WROTE A SONG. + +Albert's son, the Crown Prince Leopold, has been a common soldier in +this regiment.] + +And the helpers of the army have shown good heart. Breaking the silence +of Rome, the splendid priesthood of Belgium, from the cardinal to the +humblest curé, has played the man. On the front line near Pervyse, where +my wife lived for three months, a soldier-monk has remained through the +daily shell-fire to take artillery observations and to comfort the +fighting men. Just before leaving Flanders, I called on the sisters in +the convent school of Furnes. They were still cheery and busy in their +care of sick and wounded civilians. Every few days the Germans shell the +town from seven miles away, but the sisters will continue there through +the coming months as through the last year. The spirit of the best of +the race is spoken in what King Albert said recently in an unpublished +conversation to the gentlemen of the English mission: + +"The English will cease fighting before the Belgians. If there is talk +of yielding, it will come from the English, not from us." + +That was a playful way of saying that there will be no yielding by any +of the Western Allies. The truth is still as true as it was at Liège +that the Belgians held up the enemy till France was ready to receive +them. And the price Belgium paid for that resistance was the massacre +of women and children and the house-to-house burning of homes. + +Since rendering that service for all time to France and England, through +twenty months of such a life as exiles know, the Belgians have fought on +doggedly, recovering from the misery of the Antwerp retreat, and showing +a resilience of spirit equaled only by the Fusiliers Marins of France. +One afternoon in late June my friend Robert Toms was sitting on the +beach at La Panne, watching the soldiers swimming in the channel. +Suddenly he called to me, and aimed his camera. There on the sand in the +sunlight the Belgian army was changing its clothes. The faithful suits +of blue, rained on and trench-worn, were being tossed into great heaps +on the beach and brand-new yellow khaki, clothes and cap, was buckled +on. It was a transformation. We had learned to know that army, and their +uniform had grown familiar and pleasant to us. The dirt, ground in till +it became part of the texture; the worn cloth, shapeless, but yet molded +to the man by long association--all was an expression of the stocky +little soldier inside. The new khaki hung slack. Caps were overlarge for +Flemish heads. To us, watching the change, it was the loss of the last +possession that connected them with their past; with homes and country +gone, now the very clothing that had covered them through famous fights +was shuffled off. It was as if the Belgian army had been swallowed up in +the sea at our feet, like Pharaoh's phalanx, and up from the beach to +the barracks scuffled an imitation English corps. + +We went about miserable for a few days. But not they. They spattered +their limp, ill-fitting garments with jest, and soon they had produced a +poem in praise of the change. These are the verses which a Belgian +soldier, clad in his fresh yellow, sang to us as we grouped around him +on a sand dune: + + +EN KHAKI + + I + + Depuis onze mois que nous sommes partis en guerre, + A tous les militaires, + On a décidé de plaire. + Aussi depuis ce temps là, à l'intendance c'est dit, + De nous mettr' tous en khaki. + Maint'nant voilà l'beau temps qui vient d' paraître + Aussi répètons tous le coeur en fête. + + REFRAIN + + Regardez nos p'tits soldats, + Ils ont l'air d'être un peu là, + Habilles + D'la tête jusqu'aux pieds + En khaki, en khaki, + Ils sont contents de servir, + Mais non pas de mourir, + Et cela c'est parce qu' on leur a mis, + En quelque sorte, la t'nue khaki. + + II + + Maintenant sur toutes les grand's routes vous pouvez voir + Parcourant les trottoirs + Du matin jusqu'au soir + Les défenseurs Belges, portant tous la même tenue + Depuis que l'ancienne a disparue, + Aussi quand on voit I'9e défiler + C' n'est plus régiment des panachés. + Même Refrain. + + III + + Nous sommes tous heureux d'avoir le costume des Anglais + Seul'ment ce qu'il fallait, + Pour que ça soit complet. + Et je suis certain si l'armée veut nous mettre à l'aise + C'est d'nous donner la solde Anglaise. + Le jour qu'nous aurions ça, ah! quell' affaire + Nous n' serions plus jamais dans la misère. + + REFRAIN + + Vous les verriez nos p'tits soldats, + J'vous assure qu'ils seraient un peu là, + Habilles, + D'la tête jusqu'aux pieds, + En khaki, en khaki, + Ils seraient fiers de repartir, + Pour le front avec plaisir, + Si les quatre poches étaient bien games + De billets bleus couleur khaki. + + + + +FLIES: A FANTASY + + +Outside the window stretched the village street, flat, with bits of dust +and dung rising on the breaths of wind and volleying into rooms upon the +tablecloth and into pages of books. It was a street of small yellow +brick houses, a shapeless church, a convent school--freckled buildings, +dingy. Up and down the length of it, it was without one touch of beauty. +It gave back dust in the eyes. It sounded with thunder of transports, +rattle of wagons, soft whirr of officers' speed cars, yelp of motor +horns, and the tap-tap of wooden shoes on tiny peasants, boys and girls. +A little sick black dog slunk down the pavement, smelling and staring. A +cart bumped over the cobbles, the horse with a great tumor in its +stomach, the stomach as if blown out on the left side, and the tumor +with a rag upon it where it touched the harness. + +Inside the window, a square room with a litter of six-penny novels in a +corner, fifty or sixty books flung haphazard, some of them open with the +leaves crushed back by the books above. In another corner, a heap of +commissariat stuff, tins of bully beef, rabbit, sardines, herring, and +glasses of jam, and marmalade. On the center table, a large jug of +marmalade, ants busy in the yellow trickle at the rim. Filth had worked +its way into the red table-cover. Filth was on every object in the room, +like a soft mist, blurring the color and outlines of things. In the +corners, under books and tins, insects moved, long, thin, crawling. A +hot noon sun came dimly through the dirty glass of the closed window, +and slowly baked a sleeping man in the large plush armchair. Around the +chair, as if it were a promontory in a heaving sea, were billows of +stale crumpled newspapers, some wadded into a ball, others torn across +the page, all flung aside in _ennui_. + +The face of the man was weary and weak. It showed all of his forty-one +years, and revealed, too, a great emptiness. Flies kept rising and +settling again on the hands, the face, and the head of the man--moist +flies whose feet felt damp on the skin. They were slow and languid flies +which wanted to settle and stay. It was his breathing that made them +restless, but not enough to clear them away, only enough to make a low +buzzing in the sultry room. Across the top of his head a bald streak ran +from the forehead, and it was here they returned to alight, after each +twitching and heave of the sunken body. + +In the early months he had fought a losing fight with them. The walls +and ceiling and panes of glass were spotted with the marks of his long +battle. But his foes had advanced in ever-fresh force, clouds and swarms +of them beyond number. He had gone to meet them with a wire-killer, and +tightly rolled newspapers. He had imported fly paper from Dunkirk. But +they could afford to sacrifice the few hundreds, which his strokes could +reach, and still overwhelm him. Lately, he had given up the struggle, +and let them take possession of the room. They harassed him when he +read, so he gave up reading. They got into the food, so he ate less. +Between his two trips to the front daily at 8 A.M. and 2 +P.M., he slept. He found he could lose himself in sleep. Into +that kingdom of sleep, they could not enter. As the weeks rolled on, he +was able to let himself down more and more easily into silence. That +became his life. A slothfulness, a languor, even when awake, a +half-conscious forcing of himself through the routine work, a looking +forward to the droning room, and then the settling deep into the old +plush chair, and the blessed unconsciousness. + +He drove a Red Cross ambulance to the French lines at Nieuport, +collected the sick and wounded soldiers and brought them to the Poste de +Secours, two miles back of the trenches. He lived a hundred feet from +the Poste, always within call. But the emergency call rarely came. There +were only the set runs, for the war had settled to its own regularity. A +wonderful idleness hung over the lines, where millions of men were +unemployed, waiting with strange patience for some unseen event. Only +the year before, these men were chatting in cafés, and busy in a +thousand ways. Now, the long hours of the day were lived without +activity in thoughtless routine. Under the routine there was always the +sense of waiting for a sudden crash and horror. + +The man was an English gentleman. It was his own car he had brought, +paid for by him, and he had offered his car and services to the +Fusiliers Marins. They had been glad of his help, and for twelve months +he had performed his daily duty and returned to his loneliness. The men +under whom he worked were the French doctors of the Poste--the chief +doctor, Monsieur Claude-Marie Le Bot, with four stripes on his arm, and +the courteous, grave administrator, Eustache-Emmanuel Couillandre, a +three-stripes man, and a half dozen others, of three stripes and two. +They had welcomed him to their group when he came to them from London. +They had found him lively and likable, bringing gossip of the West End +with a dash of Leicester Square. Then slowly a change had come on him. +He went moody and silent. + +"What's the matter with you?" asked Doctor Le Bot one day. + +"Nothing's the matter with me," answered the man. "It's war that's the +matter." + +"What do you mean by that?" put in one of the younger doctors. + +"The trouble with war," began the man slowly, "isn't that there's danger +and death. They are easy. The trouble with war is this. It's dull, +damned deadly dull. It's the slowest thing in the world. It wears away +at your mind, like water dripping on a rock. The old Indian torture of +letting water fall on your skull, drop by drop, till you went raving +crazy, is nothing to what war does to the mind of millions of men. They +can't think of anything else but war, and they have no thoughts about +that. They can't talk of another blessed thing, and the result is they +have nothing to say at all." + +As he talked a flush came into his face. He gathered speed, while he +spoke, till his words came with a rush, as if he were relieving himself +of inner pain. + +"Have you ever heard the true inside account of an Arctic expedition?" +he went on. "There's a handful of men locked up inside a little ship for +thirteen or fourteen months. Nothing to look out on but snow and ice, +one color and a horizonful of it. Nothing to dream of but arriving at a +Pole--and that is a theoretical point in infinite space. There's no such +thing. The midnight sun and the frozen stuff get on their nerves--same +old sun in the same old place, same kind of weather. What happens? The +natural thing, of course. They get so they hate each other like poison. +They go around with a mad on. They carry hate against the commander and +the cook and the fellow whose berth creaks every time he shifts. Each +man thinks the shipload is the rottenest gang ever thrown together. He +wonders why they didn't bring somebody decent along. He gets to scoring +up grudges against the different people, and waits his chance to get +back." + +He stopped a minute, and looked around at the doctors, who were giving +him close attention. Then he went on with the same intensity. + +"Now that's war, only war is more so. Here you are in one place for +sixteen months. You shovel yourself into a stinking hole in the ground. +At seven in the morning, you boil yourself some muddy coffee that tastes +like the River Thames at Battersea Bridge. You take a knife that's had +knicks hacked out of it, and cut a hunk of dry bread that chews like +sand. You eat some 'bully beef out of a tin, same tinned stuff as you've +been eating ever since your stomach went on strike a year ago. Once a +week for a treat, you cut a steak off the flank of a dead horse. That +tastes better, because it's fresh meat. When you're sent back a few +miles, _en 'piquet_, you sleep in a village that looks like Sodom after +the sulphur struck it. Houses singed and tumbled, dead bodies in the +ruins, a broken-legged dog, trailing its hind foot, in front of the +house where you are. Tobacco--surely. You'd die if you didn't have a +smoke. But the rotten little cigarettes with no taste to them that smoke +like chopped hay. And the cigars made out of rags and shredded +toothpicks--" + +"Here, have a cigarette," suggested the youngest doctor. + +But the man was too busy in working out his own thoughts. + +"The whole thing," he continued, "is a mixture of a morgue and a +hospital--only those places have running water, and people in white +aprons to tidy things up. And a battle--Three days under bombardment, +living in the cellar. The guns going off five, six times to the minute, +and then waiting a couple of hours and dropping one in, next door. The +crumpling noise when a little brick house caves in, like a man when you +hit him in the stomach, just going all together in a heap. And the sick +smell that comes out of the mess from plaster and brick dust. + +"And getting wounded, that's jolly, isn't it? Rifle ball through your +left biceps. Dick walks you back to the dressing station. Doctor busy at +luncheon with a couple of visiting officers. Lie down in the straw. +Straw has a pleasant smell when it's smeared with iodine and blood. Wait +till the doctor has had his bottle of wine. + +"'Nothing very much,' he says, when he gets around to you. Drops some +juice in, ties the white rag around, and you go back to your straw. +Three, four hours, and along come the body snatchers--the chauffeur chap +doesn't know how to drive, bumps into every shell hole for seven miles. +Every half mile, drive down into the ditch mud, to get out of the way of +some ammunition wagons going to the front. The wheel gets stuck. Put on +power, in jumps, to bump the car out. Every jerk tears at your open +sore, as if the wheel had got stuck in your arm and was being pulled +out. Two hours to do the seven miles. Get to the field hospital. No time +for you. Lie on your stretcher in the court, where the flies swarm on +you. Always flies. Flies on the blood of the wounded, glued to the +bandage. Flies on the face of the dead." + +So he had once spoken and left them wondering. But that whirling burst +of words was long before, in those earlier days of his work. Nothing +like that had happened in weeks. No such vivid pictures lighted him now. +The man slept on. + +There was a scratching at the window, then a steady tapping, then a +resounding fist on the casement. Gradually, the sleeping man came up +through the deep waters of unconsciousness. His eyes were heavy. He sat +a moment, brooding, then turned toward the insistent noise. + +"Monsieur Watts!" said a voice. + +"Yes," answered the man. He stretched himself, and raised the sash. A +brisk little French Marin was at the window. + +"The doctors are at luncheon. They are waiting for you," the soldier +said in rapid Breton French; "today you are their guest." + +"Of course," replied the man, "I had forgotten. I will come at once." + +He stretched his arms over his head--a tall figure of a man, but bent at +the shoulders, as if all the dreariness of his surroundings had settled +there. He had the stoop of an old man, and the walk. He stepped out of +his room, into the street, and stood a moment in the midday sunshine, +blinking. Then he walked down the village street to the Poste, and +pushed through the dressing-rooms to the dining-room at the rear. The +doctors looked up as he entered. He nodded, but gave no speech back for +their courteous, their cordial greeting. In silence he ate the simple +relishes of sardines and olives. Then the treat of the luncheon was +brought in by the orderly. It was a duckling, taken from a refugee farm, +and done to a brown crisp. The head doctor carved and served it. + +"See here," said Watts loudly. He lifted his wing of the duckling where +a dead fly was cooked in with the gravy. He pushed his chair back. It +grated shrilly on the stone floor. He rose. + +"Flies," he said, and left the room. + + * * * * * + +Watts was the guest at the informal trench luncheon. The officers showed +him little favors from time to time, for he had served their wounded +faithfully for many months. It is the highest honor they can pay when +they admit a civilian to the first line of trenches. Shelling from +Westend was mild and inaccurate, going high overhead and falling with a +mutter into the seven-times wrecked and thoroughly deserted houses of +Nieuport village. But the sound of it gave a gentle tingle to the act of +eating. There was occasional rifle fire, the bullet singing close. + +"They're improving," said the Commandant, "a fellow reached over the +trench this morning for his Billy-can, and they got him in the hand." + +Two Marins cleared away the plank on which bread and coffee and tinned +meat had been served. + +The hot August sun cooked the loose earth, and heightened the smells of +food. A swarm of flies poured over the outer rim and dropped down on +squatting men and the scattered commissariat. Watts was sitting at a +little distance from the group. He closed his eyes, but soon began +striking methodically at the settling flies. He fought them with the +right arm and the left in long heavy strokes, patiently, without +enthusiasm. The soldiers brought out a pack of cards, and leaned forward +for the deal. Suddenly Watts rose, lifted his arms above the trench, and +deliberately stretched. Three faint cracks sounded from across the +hillock, and he tumbled out at full length, as if some one had flung him +away. The men hastened to him, coming crouched over but swiftly. + +"Got him in the right arm," said the Commandant. + +"Thank God," muttered Watts, sleepily. + + * * * * * + +It was the Convent Hospital of Furnes. There was quiet in the ward of +twenty-five beds, where side by side slept the wounded of France and +Germany and Belgium and England. Suddenly, a resounding whack rang +through the ward. A German boy jumped up sitting in his cot. The sound +had awakened memories. He looked over to the tall Englishman in the next +cot, who had struck out at one of the heavy innumerable flies, who hover +over wounded men, and pry down under bandages. + +"Let me tell you," said the youth eagerly, "I have a preparation--I'm a +chemist, you know--I've worked out a powder that kills flies." + +Watts looked up from his pillow. His face was weary. + +"It's sweet, you know, and attracts them," went on the boy, "then the +least sniff of it finishes them. They trail away, and die in a few +minutes. You can clear a room in half an hour. Then all you have to do +is to sweep up." + +"See here," he said, "I'll show you. Sister," he called. The nurse +hurried to his side. + +"Sister? You were kind enough to save my kit. May I have it a moment?" + +He took out a tin flask, and squeezed it--a brown powder puffed through +the pin-point holes at the mouth. It settled in a dust on the white +coverlet. + +"Please be very quiet," he said. He settled back, as if for sleep, but +his half-shut eyes were watchful. A couple of minutes passed, then a fly +circled his head, and made for the spot on the spread. It nosed its way +in, crawled heavily a few inches up the coverlet, and turned its legs +up. Two more came, alighted, sniffed and died. + +"You see," he said. + + * * * * * + +Next day, the head of the Coxyde Poste motored over to Furnes for a call +on his wounded helper. + +"Where does all that chatter come from?" he asked. + +Sister Teresa smiled. + +"It's your silent friend," she said. "He is the noisiest old thing in +the ward." + +"Talking to himself?" inquired the doctor. + +"Have a look for yourself," urged the nurse. They stepped into the ward, +and down the stone floor, till they came to the supply table. Here they +pretended to busy themselves with lint. + +"Most interesting," Watts was saying. "That is a new idea to me. Here +they've been telling me for a year that there's no way but the slow +push, trench after trench--" + +"Let me say to you," interrupted the Saxon lad. + +"You will pardon me, if I finish what I am saying," went on Watts in +full tidal flow. "What was it I was saying? Oh, yes, I remember--that +slow hard push is not the only way, after all. You tell me--" + +"That's the way it is all day long," explained the sister. "Chatter, +chatter, chatter. They are telling each other all they know. You would +think they would get fed up. But as fast as one of them says something, +that seems to be a new idea to the other. Mr. Watts acts like a man who +has been starved." + +Watts caught sight of his friend. + +"We've killed all the flies," he shouted. + + + + +WOMEN UNDER FIRE + + +This war has been a revelation of womanhood. To see one of these cool, +friendly creatures, American and English, shove her motor car into +shell-fire, make her rescue of helpless crippled men, and steam back to +safety, is to watch a resourceful and disciplined being. They may be, +they are, "ministering angels," but there is nothing meek in their +demeanor. They have stepped to a vantage from which nothing in man's +contemptuous philosophy will ever dislodge them. They have always +existed to astonish those who knew them best, and have turned life into +a surprise party from Eden to the era of forcible feeding. But assuredly +it would make the dogmatists on the essentially feminine nature, like +Kipling, rub their eyes, to watch modern women at work under fire. They +haven't the slightest fear of being killed. Give them a job under +bombardment, and they unfold the stretcher, place the pillow and tuck in +the blanket, without a quiver of apprehension. That, too, when some of +the men are scampering for cover, and ducking chance pellets from the +woolly white cloud that breaks overhead. The women will eat their +luncheon with relish within three hundred feet of a French battery in +full blaze. Is there a test left to the pride of man that the modern +woman does not take lightly and skilfully? Gone are the Victorian nerves +and the eighteenth-century fainting. All the old false delicacies have +been swamped. She has been held back like a hound from the hunting, till +we really believed we had a harmless household pet, who loved security. +We had forgotten the pioneer women who struck across frontiers with a +hardihood that matched that of their mates. And now the modern woman +emerges from her protected home, and pushes forward, careless and +curious. + +"What are women going to do about this war?" That question my wife and I +asked each other at the outbreak of the present conflict. There were +several attitudes that they might take. They could deplore war, because +it destroyed their own best products. They could form peace leagues and +pass resolutions against war. They could return to their ancient job of +humble service, and resume their familiar location in the background. +They did all these things and did them fervently; but they did something +else in this war--they stepped out into the foreground, where the air +was thick with danger, and demonstrated their courage. The mother no +longer says: "Return, my gallant one, with your shield or on it," and +goes back to her baking. She packs her kit and jumps into a motor +ambulance headed for the dressing station. + +We have had an excellent chance to watch women in this war. Our corps +have had access to every line from Nieuport on the sea, down for twenty +miles. We were able to run out to skirmishes, to reach the wounded where +they had fallen. We have gone where the fighting had been at such close +range that in one barnyard in Ramscappelle lay thirteen dead--Germans, +French and Belgians. We brought back three wounded Germans from the +stable. We were in Dixmude on the afternoon when the Germans destroyed +the town by artillery fire. We were in Ypres on November first, the day +after the most terrible battle in history, when fifty thousand English +out of a hundred and twenty thousand fell. For three months my wife +lived in Pervyse, with two British women. Not one house in the town +itself is left untouched by shell-fire. The women lived in a cellar for +the first weeks. Then they moved into a partially demolished house, and +a little later a shell exploded in the kitchen. The women were at work +in the next room. We have had opportunity for observing women in war, +for we have seen several hundred of them--nurses, helpers, chauffeurs, +writers--under varying degrees of strain and danger. + +The women whom I met in Belgium were all alike. They refused to take +"their place." They were not interested in their personal welfare. There +have been individual men, a few of them--English, French and Belgian, +soldiers, chauffeurs and civilians--who have turned tail when the danger +was acute. But the women we have watched are strangely lacking in fear. +I asked a famous war writer, whose breast was gay with the ribbons of +half a dozen campaigns, what was the matter with all these women, that +they did not tremble and go green under fire, as some of us did. He +said: + +"They don't belong out here. They have no business to be under fire. +They ought to be back at the hospitals down at Dunkirk. They don't +appreciate danger. That's the trouble with them; they have no +imagination." + +That's an easy way out. But the real reasons lie deeper than a mental +inferiority. These women certainly had quite as good an equipment in +mentality as the drivers and stretcher bearers. They could not bear to +let immense numbers of men lie in pain. They wished to bring their +instinct for help to the place where it was needed. + +The other reason is a product of their changed thinking under modern +conditions. "I want to see the shells," said a discontented lady at +Dunkirk. She was weary of the peace and safety of a town twenty miles +back from the front. Women suddenly saw their time had come to strip man +of one more of his monopolies. For some thousand years he had been +bragging of his carriage and bearing in battle. He had told the women +folks at home how admirable he had been under strain, and he went on to +claim special privileges as the reward for his gallant behavior. He +posed as their protector. He assumed the right to tax them because they +did not lend a hand when invasion came. Now women are campaigning in +France and Belgium to show that man's much-advertised quality of courage +is a race possession. + +They had already shown it while peace was still in the land, but their +demonstration met with disfavor. Just before the war broke out I saw a +woman suffragist thrown into a pond of water at Denmark Hill. I saw +another mauled and bruised by a crowd of men in Hyde Park. They were the +same sort of women as these hundreds at the front, who are affirming a +new value. The argument is hotly contended whether women belong in the +war zone. Conservative Englishmen deem them a nuisance, and wish them +back in London. Meanwhile, they come and stay. English officials tried +to send home the three of our women who had been nursing within thirty +yards of the trenches at Pervyse. But the King of the Belgians, and +Baron de Broqueville, Prime minister of Belgium, had been watching +their work, and refused to move them. + +One morning we came into the dining-room of our Convent Hospital at +Furnes, and there on a stretcher on the floor was a girl sleeping +profoundly. We thought at first we had one more of our innumerable +wounded who overflowed the beds and wards during those crowded days. She +rested through the morning and through the noon meal. The noise about +did not disturb her. She did not stir in her heavy sleep, lying under +the window, her face of olive skin, with a touch of red in the right +cheek, turned away from the light. She awoke after twenty hours. +Silently, she had come in the evening before, wearied to exhaustion +after a week of nursing in the Belgian trenches. + +That was the thing you were confronted with--woman after woman hurling +herself at the war till spent. They wished to share with men the +hardship and peril. If risks were right for the men, then they were +right for women. If the time had come for nations to risk death, these +women refused to claim the exemptions of sex difference. If war was +unavoidable, then it was equally proper for women to be present and +carry on the work of salvage. + +Of a desire to kill they have none. A certain type of man under +excitement likes to shoot and reach his mark. I have had soldiers tell +me with pride of the number of enemies they have potted. It sounds very +much like an Indian score-card of scalps or a grouse hunter's bag of +game. Our women did not talk in these terms, nor did they act so. They +gave the same care to German wounded as to Belgian, French and English +wounded, and that though they knew they would not receive mercy if the +enemy came across the fields and stormed the trenches. A couple of +machine guns placed on the trench at Pervyse could have raked the ruined +village and killed our three nurses. They shared the terms of peril with +the soldiers; but they had no desire for retaliation, no wish to wreak +their will on human life. Their instinct is to help. The danger does not +excite them to a nervous explosion where they grab for a gun and shoot +the other fellow. + +I was with an English physician one day before he was seasoned. We were +under the bank at Grembergen, just across the river from Termonde. The +enemy were putting over shells about one hundred yards from where we +were crawling toward a machine-shop sheltering wounded men. The _obus_ +were noisy and the dirt flew high. Scattered bits of metal struck the +bank. As we heard the shell moaning for that second of time when it +draws close, we would crawl into one of the trenches scooped out in the +green bank, an earthen cave with a roof of boughs. + +"Let's get out of this," said the doctor. "It's too hot for our kind of +work. If I had a rifle and could shoot back I shouldn't mind it. But +this waiting round and doing nothing in return till you are hit, I don't +like it." + +But that is the very power that women possess. They can wait round +without wishing to strike back. Saving life gives them sufficient +spiritual resource to stand up to artillery. They have no wish to +relieve their nervousness by sighting an alien head and cracking it. + +One of our corps was the daughter of an earl. She had all the +characteristics of what we like to think is the typical American girl. +She had a bonhomie that swept class distinctions aside. Her talk was +swift and direct. She was pretty and executive, swift to act and always +on the go. + +One day, as we were on the road to the dressing stations, the noise of +guns broke out. The young Belgian soldier who was driving her stopped +his motor and jumped out. + +"I do not care to go farther," he said. + +Lady ----, who is a skilful driver, climbed to the front seat, drove the +car to the dressing station and brought back the wounded. I have seen +her drive a touring car, carrying six wounded men, from Nieuport to +Furnes at eight o'clock on a pitch-dark night, no lights allowed, over a +narrow, muddy road on which the car skidded. She had to thread her way +through silent marching troops, turn out for artillery wagons, follow +after tired horses. + +She was not a trained nurse, but when Dr. Hector Munro was working over +a man with a broken leg she prepared a splint and held the leg while he +set it and bound it. She drove a motor into Nieuport when the troops +were marching out of it. Her guest for the afternoon was a war +correspondent. + +"This is a retreat," he said. "It is never safe to enter a place when +the troops are leaving it. I have had experience." + +"We are going in to get the wounded," she replied. They went in. + +At Ypres she dodged round the corner because she saw a captain who +doesn't believe in women at the front. A shell fell in the place where +she had been standing a moment before. It blew the arm from a soldier. +Her nerve was unbroken, and she continued her work through the morning. + +Her notion of courage is that people have a right to feel frightened, +but that they have no right to fail to do the job even if they are +frightened. They are entitled to their feelings, but they are not +entitled to shirk the necessary work of war. She believes that cowardice +is not like other failings of weakness, which are pretty much man's own +business. Cowardice is dangerous to the group. + +Lady ----'s attitude at a bombardment was that of a child seeing a +hailstorm--open-eyed wonder. She was the purest exhibit of careless +fearlessness, carrying a buoyancy in danger. Generations of riding to +hounds and of big game shooting had educated fear out of her stock. Her +ancestors had always faced uncertainty as one of the ingredients of +life: they accepted danger in accepting life. The savage accepted fear +because he had to. With the English upper class, danger is a fine art, a +cult. It is an element in the family honor. One cannot possibly shrink +from the test. The English have expressed themselves in sport. People +who are good sportsmen are, of course, honorable fighters. The Germans +have allowed their craving for adventure to seethe inside themselves, +and then have aimed it seriously at human life. But the English have +taken off their excess vitality by outdoor contests. + +What Lady ---- is the rest of the women are. Miss Smith, an English girl +nurse, jumped down from the ambulance that was retreating before the +Germans, and walked back into Ghent, held by the Germans, to nurse an +English officer till he died. A few days later she escaped, by going in +a peasant's cart full of market vegetables, and rejoined us at Furnes. + +Sally Macnaughtan is a gray-haired gentlewoman of independent means who +writes admirable fiction. She has laid aside her art and for months +conducted a soup kitchen in the railway station at Furnes. She has fed +thousands of weakened wounded men, working till midnight night after +night. She remained until the town was thoroughly shelled. + +The order is strict that no officer's wife must be near the front. The +idea is that she will divert her husband's mind from the work in hand. +He will worry about her safety. But Mrs. B----, a Belgian, joined our +women in Pervyse, and did useful work, while her husband, a doctor with +the rank of officer, continued his work along the front. She is a girl +of twenty-one years. + +Recently the Queen of the Belgians went into the trenches at a time when +there was danger of artillery and rifle fire breaking loose from the +enemy. She had to be besought to keep back where the air was quieter, as +her life was of more value to the Belgian troops and the nation than +even a gallant death. + +One afternoon most of the corps were out on the road searching for +wounded. Mairi Chisholm, a Scotch girl eighteen years old, and a young +American woman had been left behind in the Furnes Hospital. With them +was a stretcher bearer, a man of twenty-eight. A few shells fell into +Furnes. The civilian population began running in dismay. The girls +climbed up into the tower of the convent to watch the work of the +shells. The man ordered the women to leave the town with him and go to +Poperinghe. The two girls refused to go. + +For weeks Furnes was under artillery fire from beyond Nieuport. One of +our hospital nurses was killed as she was walking in the Grand Place. + +I saw an American girl covered by the pistol of an Uhlan officer. She +did not change color, but regarded the incident as a lark. I happened to +be watching her when she was sitting on the front seat of an ambulance +at Oudecappelle, eating luncheon. A shell fell thirty yards from her in +the road. The roar was loud. The dirt flew high. The metal fragments +tinkled on the house walls. The hole it dug was three feet deep. She +laughed and continued with her luncheon. + +I saw the same girl stand out in a field while this little drama took +place: The French artillery in the field were well covered by shrubbery. +They had been pounding away from their covert till the Germans grew +irritated. A German Taube flew into sight, hovered high overhead and +spied the hidden guns. It dropped three smoke bombs. These puffed out +their little clouds into the air, and gave the far-away marksmen the +location for firing. Their guns broke out and shrapnel shells came +overhead, burst into trailing smoke and scattered their hundreds of +bullets. The girl stood on the arena itself. Of concern for her personal +safety she had none. It was all like a play on the stage to her. You +watch the blow and flash but you are not a part of the action. + +Each night the Furnes Hospital was full with one hundred wounded. In the +morning we carried out one or two or one-half dozen dead. The wounds +were severe, the air of the whole countryside was septic from the sour +dead in the fields, who kept working to the surface from their shallow +burial. There was a morning when we had gone early to the front on a +hurry call. In our absence two girl nurses carried out ten dead from the +wards into the convent lot, to the edge of the hasty graves made ready +for their coming. + +There is one woman whom we have watched at work for twelve months. She +is a trained nurse, a certified midwife, a licensed motor-car driver, a +veterinarian and a woman of property. Her name is Mrs. Elsie Knocker, a +widow with one son. She helped to organize our corps. I was with her one +evening when a corporal ordered her to go up a difficult road. He was +the driver of a high-power touring car which could rise on occasion to +seventy miles an hour. He carried a rifle in his car, and told us he had +killed over fifty Germans since Liège. He dressed in bottle green, the +uniform of a cyclist, and he looked like a rollicking woodlander of the +Robin Hood band. It was seven o'clock of the evening. The night was +dark. He pitched a bag of bandages into the motor ambulance. + +"Take those to the dressing station that lies two miles to the west of +Caeskerke," he ordered Mrs. Knocker. I cranked up the machine; Mrs. +Knocker sat at the wheel. We were at Oudecappelle. The going was halfway +decent as far as the crossroads of Caeskerke. Here we turned west on a +road through the fields which had been intermittently shelled for +several days. The road had shell holes in it from one to three feet +deep. We could not see them because we carried no lights and the sky +overhead was black. A mile to our right a village was burning. There +were sheets of flame rising from the lowland, and the flame revealed the +smoke that was thick over the ruins. We bumped in and out of the holes. +All roads in Belgium were scummy with mud. It is like butter on bread. +The big brown-canopied ambulance skidded in this paste. + +We reached the dressing station and delivered one bag of bandages. In +return we received three severely wounded men, who lay at length on the +stretched canvas and swung on straps. Then we started back over the same +mean road. This was the journey that tested Mrs. Knocker's driving, +because now she had helpless men who must not be jerked by the swaying +car. Motion tore at their wounds. Above all, they must not be +overturned. An overturn would kill a man who was seriously wounded. +Driving meant drawing all her nervous forces into her directing brain +and her two hands. A village on fire at night is an eerie sight. A dark +road, pitted with shell holes and slimy with mud, is chancy. The car +with its human freight, swaying, bumping, sliding, is heavy on the +wrist. The whole focused drive of it falls on the muscles of the +forearm. And when on the skill of that driver depends the lives of three +men the situation is one that calls for nerve. It was only luck that the +artillery from beyond the Yser did not begin tuning up. The Germans had +shelled that road diligently for many days and some evenings. Back to +the crossroads Mrs. Knocker brought her cargo, and on to Oudecappelle, +and so to the hospital at Furnes, a full ten miles. Safely home in the +convent yard, the journey done, the wounded men lifted into the ward, +she broke down. She had put over her job, and her nerves were tired. +Womanlike she refused to give in till the work was successfully +finished. + +How would a man have handled such a strain? I will tell you how one man +acted. Our corporal drove his touring car toward Dixmude one morning. He +ordered Tom, the cockney driver, to follow with the motor ambulance. In +it were Mrs. Knocker and Miss Chisholm, sitting with Tom on the front of +the car. Things looked thick. The corporal slowed up, and so did Tom +just behind him. Now there is one sure rule for rescue work at the +front--when you hear the guns close, always turn your car toward home, +away from the direction of the enemy. Turn it before you get your +wounded, even though they are at the point of death, and leave your +power on, even when you are going to stay for a quarter of an hour. +Pointed toward safety, and under power, the car can carry you out of +range of a sudden shelling or a bayonet charge. The enemy's guns began +to place shrapnel over the road. The cloud puffs were hovering about a +hundred feet overhead a little farther down the way. The bullets +clicked on the roadbed. The corporal jumped out of his touring car. + +[Illustration: BRETON SAILORS READY FOR THEIR NOON MEAL IN A VILLAGE +UNDER DAILY SHELL FIRE. + +Throughout this Yser district British nurses drove their ambulances and +rescued the wounded.] + +"Turn my car," he shouted to Tom. Tom climbed from the ambulance, +boarded the touring car and turned it. The corporal peered out from his +shelter, behind the ambulance, saw the going was good and ran to his own +motor. He jumped in and sped out of range at full tilt. The two women +sat quietly in the ambulance, watching the shrapnel. Tom came to them, +turned the car and brought them beyond the range of fire. + +But the steadiest and most useful piece of work done by the women was +that at Pervyse. Mrs. Knocker and two women helpers, one Scotch and one +American, fitted up a miniature hospital in the cellar of a house in +ruined Pervyse. They were within three minutes of the trenches. Here, as +soon as the soldiers were wounded, they could be brought for immediate +treatment. A young private had received a severe lip wound. Unskilful +army medical handling had left it gangrened, and it had swollen. His +face was on the way to being marred for life. Mrs. Knocker treated him +every few hours for ten days--and brought him back to normal. A man +came in with his hand a pulp from splintered shell. The glove he had +been wearing was driven into the red flesh. Mrs. Knocker worked over his +hand for half an hour, picking out the shredded glove bit by bit. + +Except for a short walk in the early morning and another after dark, +these women lived immured in their dressing station, which they moved +from the cellar to a half-wrecked house. They lived in the smell of +straw, blood and antiseptic. The Germans have thrown shells into the +wrecked village almost every day. Some days shelling has been vigorous. +The churchyard is choked with dead. The fields are dotted with hummocks +where men and horses lie buried. Just as I was sailing for America in +March, 1915, the house where the women live and work was shelled. They +came to La Panne, but later Mrs. Knocker and Miss Chisholm returned to +Pervyse to go on with their work, which is famous throughout the Belgian +army. + +As regiment after regiment serves its turn in the trenches of Pervyse it +passes under the hands of these women. "The women of Pervyse" are known +alike to generals, colonels and privates who held steady at Liège and +who have struggled on ever since. For many months these nurses have +endured the noise of shell fire and the smells of the dead and the +stricken. The King of the Belgians has with his own hands pinned upon +them the Order of Leopold II. The King himself wears the Order of +Leopold I. They have eased and saved many hundreds of his men. + +"No place for a woman," remarked a distinguished Englishman after a +flying visit to their home. + +"By the law of probabilities, your corps will be wiped out sooner or +later," said a war correspondent. + +Meantime the women will go on with their cool, expert work. The only way +to stop them is to stop the war. + + + + +HOW WAR SEEMS TO A WOMAN + +(BY MRS. ARTHUR GLEASON) + + +Life at the front is not organized like a business office, with sharply +defined duties for each worker. War is raw and chaotic, and you take +hold wherever you can lock your grip. We women that joined the Belgian +army and spent a year at the front, did duty as ambulance riders, "dirty +nurses," in a Red Cross rescue station at the Yser trenches, in relief +work for refugees, and in the commissariat department. We tended wounded +soldiers, sick soldiers, sick peasants, wounded peasants, mothers, +babies, and colonies of refugees. + +This war gave women one more chance to prove themselves. For the first +time in history, a few of us were allowed through the lines to the front +trenches. We needed a man's costume, steady masculine nerves, physical +strength. But the work itself became the ancient work of woman--nursing +suffering, making a home for lonely, hungry, dirty men. This new thrust +of womanhood carried her to the heart of war. But, once arriving there, +she resumed her old job, and became the nurse and cook and mother to +men. Woman has been rebelling against being put into her place by man. +But the minute she wins her freedom in the new dramatic setting, she +finds expression in the old ways as caretaker and home-maker. Her +rebellion ceases as soon as she is allowed to share the danger. She is +willing to make the fires, carry the water, and do the washing, because +she believes the men are in the right, and her labor frees them for +putting through their work. + +It all began for me in Paris. I was studying music, and living in the +American Art Students' Club, in the summer of 1914. That war was +declared meant nothing to me. There was I in a comfortable room with a +delightful garden, the Luxembourg, just over the way. That was the first +flash of war. I went down to the Louvre to see the Venus, and found the +building "Fermé." I went over to the Luxembourg Galleries--"Fermé," +again--and the Catacombs. Then it came into my consciousness that all +Paris was closed to me. The treasures had been taken away from me. The +things planned couldn't be done. War had snatched something from me +personally. + +Next, I took solace in the streets. I had to walk. Paris went mad with +official speed--commandeered motors flashed officers down the boulevards +under martial law. They must get a nation ready, and Paris was the +capital. War made itself felt, still more, because we had to go through +endless lines,--_permis de sejours_ at little police stations--standing +on line all day, dismissed without your paper, returning next morning. +Friends began to leave Paris for New York. I was considered queer for +wishing to stay on. The chance to study in Paris was the dream of a +lifetime. But, now, the sound of the piano was forbidden in the city, +and that made the desolation complete. Work and recreation had been +taken away, and only war was left. And when Marie, our favorite maid in +the club, sent her husband, our doorkeeper, to the front, that brought +war inside our household. + +As the Germans drew near Paris, many of the club girls thought that they +would be endangered. Every one was talking about the French Revolution. +People expected the horrors of the Revolution to be repeated. Jaures had +just been shot, the syndicalists were wrecking German milk shops, and at +night the streets had noisy mobs. People were fearing revolution inside +Paris, more than the enemy outside the city gates. War was going to let +loose that terrible thing which we believed to be subliminal in the +French nature. + +Women had to be off the streets before nine o'clock. By day we went up +the block to the Boulevard, and there were the troops--a band, the +tricolor, the officers, the men in sky blue. Their sweethearts, their +wives and children went marching hand in hand with them, all singing the +"Marseillaise." In a time like that, where there is song, there is +weeping. The marching, singing women were sometimes sobbing without +knowing it, and we that were watching them in the street crowd were +moved like them. + +When I crossed to England, I found that I wanted to go back and have +more of the wonder of war, which I had tasted in Paris. The wonder was +the sparkle of equipment. It was plain curiosity to see troops line up, +to watch the military pageant. There I had been seeing great handsome +horses, men in shining helmets with the horsehair tail of the casque +flowing from crest to shoulder, the scarlet breeches, the glistening +boots with spurs. It was pictures of childhood coming true. I had hardly +ever seen a man in military uniform, and nothing so startling as those +French cuirassiers. And I knew that gay vivid thing was not a passing +street parade, but an array that was going into action. What would the +action be? It is what makes me fond of moving pictures--variety, color, +motion, and mystery. The story was just beginning. How would the plot +come out? + +Those pictures of troops and guns, grouping and dissolving, during all +the twelve months in Flanders, never failed to grip. But rarely again +did I see that display of fine feathers. For the fighting men with whom +I lived became mud-covered. Theirs was a dug-in and blown-out existence, +with the spatterings of storm and black nights on them. Their clothing +took on the soberer colors and weather-worn aspect of the life itself +which was no sunny boulevard affair, but an enduring of wet trenches and +slimy roads. Those people in Paris needed that high key to send them +out, and the early brilliance lifted them to a level which was able to +endure the monotony. + +I went to the war because those whom I loved were in the war. I wished +to go where they were. + +Finally, there was real appeal in that a little unprotected lot of +people were being trampled. + +I crossed in late September to Ostend as a member of the Hector Munro +Ambulance Corps. With us were two women, Elsie Knocker, an English +trained nurse, and Mairi Chisholm Gooden-Chisholm, a Scotch girl. There +were a round dozen of us, doctors, chauffeurs, stretcher bearers. Our +idea of what was to be required of women at the front was vague. We +thought that we ought to know how to ride horseback, so that we could +catch the first loose horse that galloped by and climb on him. What we +were to do with the wounded wasn't clear, even in our own minds. We +bought funny little tents and had tent practice in a vacant yard. The +motor drive from Ostend to Ghent was through autumn sunshine and beauty +of field flowers. It was like a dream, and the dream continued in Ghent, +where we were tumbled into the Flandria Palace Hotel with a suite of +rooms and bath, and two convalescing soldiers to care for us. We looked +at ourselves and smiled and wondered if this was war. My first work was +the commissariat for our corps. + +Then came the English Naval Reserves and Marines _en route_ to Antwerp. +They had been herded into the cars for twelve hours. They were happy to +have great hunks of hot meat, bread, and cigarettes. Just across the +platform, a Belgian Red Cross train pulled in--nine hundred wounded men, +bandaged heads with only the eyes showing, stumps of arms flapping a +welcome. The Belgians had been shot to pieces, holding the line. And, +now, here were the English come to save them. + +This looked more like war to us. From the Palace windows we hung out +over the balcony to see the Taubes. I knew that at last we were on the +fringes of war. Later, we were to be at the heart of it. It was at Melle +that I learned I was on the front lines. + +We went up the road from Ghent to Melle in blithe ignorance, we three +women. The day before, the enemy had held the corner with a machine gun. + +"Let's go on foot, and see where the Germans were," suggested "Scotch." +We came to burned peasants' houses. Inside the wreckage, soldiers +crouched with rifles ready at the peek-holes. A Reckitt's bluing factory +was burning, and across the field were the Germans. The cottages without +doors and windows were like toothless old women. Piles of used +cartridges were strewed around. There stood a gray motor-car, a wounded +German in the back seat, his hands riddled, the car shot through, with +blood in the bottom from two dead Germans. I realized the power of the +bullet, which had penetrated the driver, the padded seat, the sheet +metal and splintered the wood of the tonneau. We saw a puff of white +smoke over the field from a shrapnel. That was the first shell I had +seen close. It meant nothing to me. In those early days, the hum of a +shell seemed no more than the chattering of sparrows. That was the way +with all my impressions of war--first a flash, a spectacle; later a +realization, and experience. + +I went into Alost during a mild bombardment. The crashing of timbers was +fascinating. It is in human nature to enjoy destruction. I used to love +to jump on strawberry boxes in the woodshed and hear them crackle. And +with the plunge of the shells, something echoed back to the delight of +my childhood. I enjoyed the crash, for something barbaric stirred. There +was no connection in my mind between the rumble and wounded men. The +curiosity of ignorance wanted to see a large crash. Shell-fire to me was +a noise. + +I still had no idea of war. Of course I knew that there would be hideous +things which I didn't have in home life. I knew I could stand up to +dirty monotonous work, but I was afraid I should faint if I saw blood. +When very young, I had seen a dog run over, and I had seen a boy +playmate mutilate a turtle. I was sickened. Years later, I came on a +little child crying, holding up its hand. The wrist was bent back +double, and the blood spurting till the little one was drenched. Those +shocks had left a horror in me of seeing blood. But this thing that I +feared most turned out not to have much importance. I found that the man +who bled most heavily lay quiet. It was not the bloodshed that unnerved +me. It was the writhing and moaning of men that communicated their pain +to me. I seemed to see those whom I loved lying there. I transferred the +wound to the ones I love. Sometimes soldiers gave me the address of wife +and mother, to have me write that they were well. Then when the wounded +came in, I thought of these wives and mothers. I knew how they felt, +because I felt so. I knew, as the Belgian and French women know, that +the war must be waged without wavering, and yet I always see war as +hideous. There was no glory in those stricken men. I had no fear of +dying, but I had a fear of being mangled. + +One evening I walked into the Convent Hospital where the wounded lay so +thickly that I had to step over the stretcher loads. The beds were full, +the floor blocked, only one door open. There was a smell of foul blood, +medicines, the stench of trench clothes. It came on an empty stomach, at +the end of a tired day. + +"Sister, will you hold this lamp?" a nurse said to me. + +I held it over a man with a yawning hole in his abdomen. He lay +unmurmuring. When the doctor pressed, the muscles twitched. I asked some +one to hold the lamp. I went into the courtyard, and fainted. Hard work +would have saved me. + +One other time, there had been a persistent fire all day. A boy of +nineteen was brought in screaming. He wanted water and he wanted his +mother. In our dressing station room were crowded two doctors, three +women, two stretcher bearers, a chauffeur, and ten soldiers. They cut +away his uniform and boots. His legs were jelly, with red mouths of +wounds. His leg gave at the knee, like a piece of limp twine. I went +into the next room, and recovered myself. Then I returned, and stayed +with the wounded. The greatest comfort was a doctor, who said it was a +matter of stomach, not of nerve. A sound woman doesn't faint at the +sight of blood any quicker than a man does. Those two experiences were +the only times when the horror was too much for me. I saw terrible +things and was able to see them. With the dead it seems different. They +are at peace. It is motion in the wounded that transfers suffering to +oneself. A red quiver is worse than a red calm. + +Antwerp fell. The retreating Belgian army swarmed around us, passed us. +In the excitement every one lost her kit and before two days of actual +warfare were over we had completely forgotten those little tents that we +had practised pitching so carefully, and that we had meant to sleep in +at night. Little, dirty, unkempt, broken-hearted men came shuffling in +the dust of the road by day, shambling along the road at night. +Thousands of them passed. No sound, save the fall of footsteps. No +contrast, save where a huddle of refugees passed, their children beside +them, their household goods, or their old people, on their backs. We +picked up the wounded. There was no time for the dead. In and out and +among that army of ants, retreating to the edge of Belgium and the sea, +we went. There seemed nothing but to return to England. + +The war minister of Belgium saw us. He placed his son, Lieutenant Robert +de Broqueville, in military command of us. We had access to every line, +all the way to the trench and battlefield. We became a part of the +Belgian army. We made our headquarters at Furnes. Luckily, a physician's +house had been deserted, with china and silver on the table, apples, +jellies and wines in the cellar. We commandeered it. + +Winter came. The soldiers needed a dressing station somewhere along the +front from Nieuport to Dixmude. Mrs. Knocker established one thirty +yards behind the front line of trenches at Pervyse. Miss Chisholm and I +joined her. In its cellar we found a rough bedstead of two pieces of +unplaned lumber, with clean straw for a mattress, awaiting us. Any +Englishwoman is respected in the Belgian lines. The two soldiers who had +been living in our room had given it up cheerily. They had searched the +village for a clean sheet, and showed it to us with pride. They lumped +the straw for our pillows, and stood outside through the night, +guarding our home with fixed bayonets. It was the most moving courtesy +we had in the twelve months of war. The air in the little room was both +foul and chilly. We took off our boots, and that was the extent of our +undressing. + +[Illustration: SLEEPING QUARTERS FOR BELGIAN SOLDIERS. + +Disguised as a haystack, this shelter stands out in a field within easy +shell fire of the enemy. A concealed battery, in which these boys are +gunners, is near by. In their spare time they smoke, read, swim, carve +rings out of shrapnel, play cards and forget the strain of war.] + +The dreariness of war never came on us till we went out there to live +behind the trenches. To me it was getting up before dawn, and washing in +ice-cold water, no time to comb the hair, always carrying a feeling of +personal mussiness, with an adjustment to dirt. It is hard to sleep in +one's clothes, week after week, to look at hands that have become +permanently filthy. One morning our chauffeur woke up, feeling grumpy. +He had slept with a visiting doctor. He said the doctor's revolver had +poked him all night long in the back. The doctor had worn his entire +equipment for warmth, like the rest of us. I suffered from cold wet +feet. I hated it that there was never a moment I could be alone. The +toothbrush was the one article of decency clung to. I seemed never to go +into the back garden to clean my teeth without bringing on shell-fire. I +got a sense of there being a connection between brushing the teeth and +the enemy's guns. You find in roughing it that a coating of dirt seems +to keep out chill. We women suffered, but we knew that the boys in +tennis shoes suffered more in that wet season, and the soldiers without +socks, just the bare feet in boots. + +In the late fall, we rooted around in the deserted barns for potatoes. +Once, creeping into a farm, which was islanded by water, "Jane Pervyse," +our homeless dog, led us up to the wrecked bedroom. A bonnet and best +dress were in the cupboard. A soldier put on the bonnet and grimaced. +Always after that, in passing the house, "Jane Pervyse" trembled and +whined as if it had been her home till the destruction came. + +In our house, we cleaned vegetables. There was nothing romantic about +our work in these first days. It was mostly cooking, peeling hundreds of +potatoes, slicing bushels of onions, cutting up chunks of meat, until +our arms were aching. These bits were boiled together in great black +pots. Our job, when it wasn't to cook the stew, was to take buckets of +it to the trenches. Here we ladled it out to each soldier. Always we +went early, while mist still hung over the ground, for we could see the +Germans on clear days. It was an adventure, tramping in the freezing +cold of night to the outposts and in early morning to the trenches, back +to the house to refill the buckets, back to the trenches. The mornings +were bitterly cold. Very early in my career as a nurse, I rid myself of +skirts. Boots, covered with rubber boots to the knees in wet weather, or +bound with puttees in warm; breeches; a leather coat and as many jerseys +as I could walk in--these were my clothes. But, as I slept in them, they +didn't keep me very warm in the early morning. + +We had one real luxury in the dressing station--a piano. While we cooked +and scrubbed and pared potatoes, men from the lines played for us. + +There were other things, necessities, that we lacked. Water, except for +the stagnant green liquid that lay in the ditches where dead men and +dead horses rotted, we went without--once for as long as three days. +During that time we boiled the ditch water and made tea of it. Even +then, it was a deep purplish black and tasted bitter. + +All we could do to help the wounded was to wash off mud and apply the +simplest of first-aids, iodine and bandages. We burned bloody clothing +and scoured mackintoshes and scrubbed floors. The odors were bad, a +mixture of decaying matter and raw flesh and cooking food and +disinfectant. + +Pervyse was one more dear little Flemish village, with yawning holes in +the houses, and through the holes you saw into the home, the precious +intimate things which revealed how the household lived--the pump, +muffled for winter, the furniture placed for occupancy, a home lately +inhabited. In the burgomaster's house, there were two old mahogany +frames with rare prints, his store of medicines, the excellent piano +which cheered us, in his attic a skeleton. So you saw him in his home +life as a quiet, scholarly man of taste and education. You entered +another gaping house, with two or three bits of inherited +mahogany--clearly, the heirlooms of an old family. Another house +revealed bran new commonplace trinkets. Always the status of the family +was plain to see--their mental life, their tastes, and ambitions. You +would peek in through a broken front and see a cupboard with crotched +mahogany trimmings, one door splintered, the other perfect. You would +catch a glimpse of a round center table with shapely legs, a sofa drawn +up in front of a fireplace. When we went, Pervyse was still partly +upstanding, but the steady shelling of the winter months slowly +flattened it into a wreck. It is the sense of sight through which war +makes its strongest impression on me. + +The year falls into a series of pictures, evenings of song when a boy +soldier would improvise verses to our head nurse; a fight between a +Belgian corporal and an English nurse with seltzer bottles; the night +when our soldiers were short of ammunition and we sat up till dawn +awaiting the attack that might send us running for our lives; the black +nights when some spy back of our lines flashed electric messages to the +enemy and directed their fire on our ammunition wagons. + +And deeper than those pictures is the consciousness of how adaptable is +the human spirit. Human nature insists on creating something. Under +hunger and danger, it develops a wealth of resource--in art and music, +and carving, making finger-rings of shrapnel, playing songs of the +Yser. Something artistic and playful comes to the rescue. Instead of war +getting us as Andreieff's "Red Laugh" says it does, making regiments of +men mad, we "got" war, and remained sane. If we hadn't conquered it by +spells of laughing relief, we shouldn't have had nerve when the time +came. Too much strain would break down the bravest Belgian and the +gayest Fusilier Marin. + +I came to feel I would rather get "pinked" in Pervyse than retire to +Furnes, seven miles back of the trenches. Pervyse seemed home, because +we belonged there with necessary work to do. Then, too, there was a +certain regularity in the German gun-fire. If they started shelling from +the Château de Vicoigne, they were likely to continue shelling from that +point. So we lived that day in the front bedroom. If they shelled from +Ramscappelle, the back kitchen became the better room, for we had a +house in between. We were so near their guns, that we could plot the arc +of flight. Pervyse seemed to visitors full of death, simply because it +received a daily dose of shell-fire, like a little child sitting up and +gulping its medicine. With what unconcern in those days we went out by +ambulance to some tight angle, and waited for something to happen. + +"We're right by a battery." But the battery was interesting. + +"If this is danger, all right. It's great to be in danger." I have sat +all day writing letters by our artillery. Every time a gun went off my +pencil slid. The shock was so sudden, my nerves never took it on. Yet I +was able to sleep a few yards in front of a battery. It would pound +through the night, and I never heard it. The nervous equipment of an +American would ravel out, if it were not for sound sleep. If shells came +no nearer than four hundred yards, we considered it a quiet day. + +One day I learned the full meaning of fear. We had had several quiet +safe hours. Night was coming on, and we were putting up the shutters, +when a shell fell close by in the trench. Next, our floor was covered +with dripping men, five of them unbandaged. Shells and wounds were +connected in my mind by that close succession. + +No one was secure in that wrecked village of Pervyse. Along the streets, +homeless dogs prowled, pigeons circled, hungry cats howled. Behind the +trenches, the men had buried their dead and had left great mounds where +they had tried to bury the horses. Shells dropped every day, some days +all day. I have seen men running along the streets, flattening +themselves against a house whenever they heard the whirr of a shell. + +It is not easy to eat, and sleep, and live together in close quarters, +sometimes with rush work, sometimes through severer hours of aimless +waiting. Again and again, we became weary of one another, impatient over +trifles. + +[Illustration: BELGIAN SOLDIERS TELEPHONING TO AN ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUN THE +APPROACH OF A GERMAN TAUBE. + +These lookout posts for observing and directing gun fire carry a +portable telephone, adapted to sudden changes of position.] + +What war does is to reveal human nature. It does not alter it. It +heightens the brutality and the heroism. Selfishness shines out nakedly +and kindliness is seen clearer than in routine peace days. War brings +out what is inside the person. Sentimental pacifists sit around three +thousand miles away and say, "War brutalizes men," and when I hear them +I think of the English Tommies giving me their little stock of +cigarettes for the Belgian soldiers. Then I read the militarists and +they say, "Be hard. Live dangerously. War is beneficent," and I see the +wrecked villages of Belgium, with the homeless peasants and the orphaned +babies. War ennobles some men by sacrifice, by heroism. It debases other +men by handing over the weak to them for torture and murder. What is in +the man comes out under the supreme test, where there are no courts of +appeal, no public opinion, no social restraint; only the soldier alone +with helpless victims. + +You can't share the chances of life and death with people, without +feeling a something in common with them, that you do not have even with +life-long friends. The high officer and the cockney Tommy have that +linking up. There was one person whom I couldn't grow to like. But with +him I have shared a ticklish time, and there is that cord of connection. +Then, too, one is glad of a record of oneself. There is some one to +verify what you say. You have passed through an unbelievable thing +together, and you have a witness. + +Henri, our Belgian orderly, has that feeling for us, and we for him. It +isn't respect, nor fondness, alone. Companionship meant for him new +shirts, dry boots, more chocolate, a daily supply of cigarettes. It +meant our seeing the picture of wife and child in Liège, hearing about +his home. It was the sharing of danger, the facing together of the +horror that underlies life, and which we try to forget in soft peace +days. The friendships of war are based on a more fundamental thing than +the friendships of safe living. In the supreme experience of motherhood, +the woman goes down alone into the place of suffering, leaving the man, +however dear, far away. But in this supreme experience of facing death +to save life, you go together. The little Belgian soldier is at your +side. Together you sit tight under fire, put the bandages on the +wounded, and speed back to a safer place. + +Once I went to the farthest outpost. A Belgian soldier stepped out of +the darkness. + +"Come along, miss, I've a good gun. I'll take you." + +Walking up the road, not in the middle where machine guns could rake us, +but huddled up by the trees at the siding, we went. It will be a +different thing to meet him one day in Antwerp, than it will be to greet +again the desk-clerk of the La Salle Hotel in Chicago. It lies deeper +than doing you favors, and assigning a sunny room. + +The men are not impersonal units in an army machine. They become +individuals to us, with sharply marked traits. It is impossible to see +them as cases. Out of the individuals, we built our types--we +constructed our Belgian soldier, out of the hundreds who had told us of +their work and home. + +"You must have met so many you never came to know their stories." + +It was the opposite. Paul Collaer, who played beautifully; Gilson, the +mystic; Henri of Liège; the son of Ysaye, they were all clear to us. +There was a splendid fat doctor who felt physical fear, but never +shirked his job. He used to go and hide behind the barn, with his pipe, +till there was work for him. His wasn't the fear that spreads disaster +through a crowd. He was fat and funny. A fat man is comfortable to have +around, at any time, even when he is unhappy. No one lost respect for +this man. Every one enjoyed him thoroughly. + +Commandant Gilson of the Belgian army was one of our firm friends. My +introduction to him was when I heard a bit of a Liszt rhapsody floating +into the kitchen from our piano, the fingers rapid and fluent, and long +nails audible on the keys. I remember the first meal with him, a +luncheon of fried sardines, fruit cake, bread and cheese. The doctor +across the way had sent a bottle of champagne. After luncheon he +received word of an attack. He kissed the hand of each of us, said +good-by, and went out to clean his gun. We did not think we should see +him again. He retook the outpost and had many more meals with us. He +would rise from broken English into swift French--stories of the Congo, +one night till 2 a.m. Always smoking a cigarette--his mustache sometimes +singed from the fire of the diminishing butt. For orderly, he had a +black fat Congo boy, in dark blue Belgian uniform, flat-nosed, with +wrinkles down the forehead. He was Gilson's man, never looking at him in +speaking, and using an open vowel dialect. Before one of the attacks, a +soldier came to Gilson with his wife's picture, watch, ring, and money, +and his home address. + +"I'm not going to come out," said the soldier. + +It happened so. + +The Commandant's pockets were heavy with these mementoes of the +predestined--the letters of boys to their mothers. He had that +tenderness and agreeable sentiment which seem to go with bravery. He +filled his uniform with souvenirs of pleasant times, a china +slipper--our dinner favor to him--a roadside weed, a paper napkin from a +happy luncheon--a score or more little pieces of sentimental value. When +he went into dangerous action, he never ordered any one to follow him. +He called for volunteers, and was grieved that it was the lads of +sixteen and seventeen years that were always the first to offer. + +We had grown to care for these men. From the first, soldiers of France +and Belgium had given us courtesy. In Paris, it was a soldier who stood +in line for me, and got the paper. It was a soldier who shared his food +and wine on the fourteen-hour trip from Paris to Dieppe--four hours in +peace days, fourteen hours in mobilization. It was a soldier who left +the car and found out the change of train and the hour--always a soldier +who did the helpful thing. It did not require war to create their +quality of friendliness and unselfish courtesy. + +How could Red Cross work be impersonal? No one would go over to be shot +at on an impersonal errand of mercy. You risk yourself for individual +men, for men in whose cause you believe. Surely, the loyal brave German +women feel as we felt. Red Cross work is not only a service to suffering +flesh. It is work to remake a soldier, who will make right prevail. The +Red Cross worker is aiming her rifle at the enemy by every bandage she +ties on wounded Belgians. She is rebuilding the army. She is as +efficient and as deadly as the workman that makes the powder, the +chauffeur that drives it to the trench in transports, and the gunner +that shoots it into the hostile line. The mother does not extend her +motherliness to the destroyer of her family. There is no hater like the +mother when she faces that which violates her brood. The same mother +instinct makes you take care of your own, and fight for your own. We all +of us would go for a Belgian first, and tend to a Belgian first. We +would take one of our own by the roadside in preference, if there was +room only for one. But if you brought in a German, wounded, he became an +individual in need of help. There was a high pride in doing well by him. +We would show them of what stuff the Allies were made. Clear of hate and +bitterness, we had nothing but good will for the gallant little German +boys, who smiled at us from their cots in Furnes hospital. And who could +be anything but kindly for the patient German fathers of middle age, who +lay in pain and showed pictures of "Frau" and the home country, where +some of them would never return. Two or three times, the Queen of the +Belgians stopped at our base hospital. She talked with the wounded +Germans exactly as she talked to her own Belgians--the same modest +courtesy and gift of personal caring. + +I think the key to our experience was the mother instinct in the three +women. What we tried to do was to make a home out of an emergency +station at the heart of war. We took hold of a room knee-high with +battered furniture and wet plaster, cleaned it, spread army blankets on +springs, found a bowl and jug, and made a den for the chauffeur. In our +own room, we arranged an old lamp, then a shade to soften the light. On +a mantel, were puttees, cold cream and a couple of books; in the wall, +nails for coats and scarfs. The soldiers, entering, said it was +homelike. It was a rest after the dreariness of the trench. We brought +glass from Furnes, and patched the windows. We dined, slept, lived, and +tended wounded men in the one room. In another room, a shell had sprayed +the ceiling, so we had to pull the plaster down to the bare lathing. We +commandeered a stove from a ruined house. Night after night, we carried +a sick man there and had a fire for him. We treated him for a bad +throat, and put him to bed. A man dripping from the inundations, we +dried out. For a soldier with bruised feet, we prepared a pail of hot +water, and gave a thorough soaking. + +In the early morning we took down the shutters, carried our own coal, +built our own fires, brought water from a ditch, scrubbed table tops +and swept the floor, prepared tincture of iodine, the bandages, and +cotton wool. We went up the road around 8.30, for the Germans had a +habit of shelling at 9 o'clock. Sometimes they broke their rule, and +began lopping them in at half-past eight. Then we had to wait till ten. +We kept water hot for sterilizing instruments. We sat around, reading, +thinking, chatting, letter-writing, waiting for something to happen. +There would be long days of waiting. There were days when there was no +shelling. Besides the wounded, we had visits from important +personages--the Mayor of Paris, the Queen of the Belgians, officers from +headquarters, Maxine Elliott. For a very special supper, we would jug a +Belgian hare or cook curry and rice, and add beer, jam, and black army +bread. An officer gave us an order for one hundred kilos of meat, and we +could send daily for it. On Christmas Day, 1914, for eight of us, we had +plum puddings, a bottle of port, a bottle of champagne, a tiny pheasant +and a small chicken, and a box of candies. We had a steady stream of +shells, and a few wounded. It was a day of sunshine on a light fall of +snow. + +I learned in the Pervyse work that an up-to-date skirt is no good for a +man's work. With rain five days out of seven, rubber boots, breeches, +raincoat, two pairs of stockings, and three jerseys are the correct +costume. We were criticized for going to Dunkirk in breeches. So I put +on a skirt one time when I went there for supplies. I fell in alighting +from the motor-car, collecting a bigger crowd by sprawling than any of +us had collected by our uniform. Later, again in a skirt, I jumped on a +military motor-car, and couldn't climb the side. I had to pull my skirt +up, and climb over as a man climbs. If women are doing the work of a +man, they must have the dress of a man. + +That way of dressing and of living released me from the sense of +possession, once and for all. When I first went to Belgium with a pair +of fleece-lined gloves, I was sure, if I ever lost that pair, that they +were irreplaceable. I lost them. I lost article after article, and was +freed from the clinging. I lost a pin for the bodice. I left my laundry +with a washerwoman. Her village was bombarded, and we had to move on. I +lost my kit. A woman has a tie-in with those material things, and the +new life brought freedom from that. + +I put on a skirt to return to London for a rest. I found there people +dressed modishly, and it looked uncomfortable. Styles had been changing: +women were in funny shoes and hats. I went wondering that they could +dress like that. + +And then an overpowering desire for pretty things came on me--for a +piece of old lace, a pink ribbon. After sleeping by night in the clothes +worn through the day, wearing the same two shirts for four months, no +pajamas, no sheets, with spots of grease and blood on all the costume, I +had a longing for frivolous things, such as a pink tea gown. Old +slippers and a bath and shampoo seemed good. I had a wholesome delight +in a modest clean blouse and in buying a new frock. + +I returned to Pervyse. The Germans changed their range: an evening, a +morning and an afternoon--three separate bombardments with heavy +shells. The wounded were brought in. Nearly every one died. We piled +them together, anywhere that they wouldn't be tripped over. To the back +kitchen we carried the bodies of two boys. One of the orderlies knew +them. He went in with us to remove the trinkets from their necks. Every +now and then, he went back again, to look at them. They were very +beautiful, young, healthy, lying there together in the back kitchen. It +was a quiet half hour for us, after luncheon. The doctors and nurses +were reading or smoking. I was writing a letter. + +A shell drove itself through the back kitchen wall and exploded over the +dead boys, bringing rafters and splintered glass and bricks down on +them. My pencil slid diagonally across the sheet, and I got up. Our two +orderlies and three soldiers rushed in, holding their eyes from the blue +fumes of the explosion. When one shell comes, the chances are that it +will be followed by three more, aimed at the same place. It had always +been my philosophy that it is better to be "pinked" in the house than on +the road, but not on this particular day. An army ambulance was standing +opposite our door, with its nose turned toward the trenches. The +Belgian driver rushed for the door, slammed it shut because of the +shells, opened it again. He ran to the car, cranked it, turned it +around. We stood in the doorway and waited, watching the shells dropping +with a wail, tearing up the road here, then there. After that we moved +back to La Panne. + +[Illustration: POSTCARDS SKETCHED AND BLOCKED BY A BELGIAN WORKMAN, A. +VAN DOORNE. + +Belgium suffering, but united, is the idea he brings out in his work.] + +There I stayed on with Miss Georgie Fyfe, who is doing such excellent +work among the Belgian refugees. She is chief of the evacuation of +civilians who still remain in the bombarded villages and farms. She +brings the old and the sick and the children out of shell fire and finds +them safe homes. To the Refugee House she takes the little ones to be +cared for till there are fifty. Then she sends them to Switzerland, +where brothers and sisters are kept unseparated in family groups until +the war is over. The Queen busies herself with these children. For the +newest generation of Belgians Miss Fyfe has established a Maternity +Hospital. Nearly one hundred babies have come to live there. + +It was my work to keep track of clothes and supplies. On a flying trip +to Paris, I told the American Relief Committee the story of this work, +and Geoffrey Dodge sent thirty complete layettes, bran-new, four big +cases, four gunny-sack bags, full of clothing for men, women, and +children, special brands of milk for young mothers in our maternity +hospital. Later, he sent four more sacks and four great wooden cases. + +We used to tramp through many fields, over a single plank bridging the +ditches, to reach the lonely shelled farm, and persuade the stubborn, +unimaginative Flemish parents to give up their children for a safe home. +One mother had a yoke around her neck, and two heavy pails. + +"When can I send my child?" she asked. + +She had already sent two and had received happy letters from them. Other +mothers are suspicious of us, and flatly refuse, keeping their children +in the danger zone till death comes. During a shelling, the curé would +telephone for our ambulance. He would collect the little ones and sick +old people. Miss Fyfe could persuade them to come more easily when the +shells were falling. At the moment of parting, everybody cries. The +children are dressed. The one best thing they own is put on--a pair of +shoes from the attic, stiff new shoes, worked on the little feet unused +to shoes. Out of a family of ten children we would win perhaps three. +Back across the fields they trooped to our car, clean faces, matted +dirty hair, their wee bundle tied up in a colored handkerchief, no hats, +under the loose dark shirt a tiny Catholic charm. We lifted the little +people into the big yellow ambulance--big brother and sister, sitting at +the end to pin them in. We carried crackers and chocolate. They are soon +happy with the sweets, chattering, enjoying their first motor-car ride, +and eager for the new life. + + + + +LES TRAVAILLEURS DE LA GUERRE + + The boy soldier is willing to make any day his last if it is a good + day. It is not so with the middle-aged man. He is puzzled by the + war. What he has to struggle with more than bodily weakness is the + malady of thought. Is the bloody business worth while? + + +I SAW him first, my middle-aged man, one afternoon on the boards of an +improvised stage in the sand-dunes of Belgium. On that last thin strip +of the shattered kingdom English and French and Belgians were grimly +massed. He was a Frenchman, and he was cheering up his comrades. With +shining black hair and volatile face, he played many parts that day. He +recited sprightly verses of Parisian life. He carried on amazing +twenty-minute dialogues with himself, mimicking the voice of girl and +woman, bully and dandy. His audience had come in stale from the +everlasting spading and marching. They brightened visibly under his +gaiety. If he cared to make that effort in the saddened place, they +were ready to respond. When he dismissed them, the last flash of him was +of a smiling, rollicking improvisator, bowing himself over to the +applause till his black hair was level with our eyes. + +And then next day as I sat in my ambulance, waiting orders, he trudged +by in his blue, "the color of heaven" once, but musty now from nights +under the rain. His head of hair, which the glossy black wig had +covered, was gray-white. The sparkling, pantomimic face had dropped into +wrinkles. He was patient and old and tired. Perhaps he, too, would have +been glad of some one to cheer him up. He was just one more +territorial--trench-digger and sentry and filler-in. He became for me +the type of all those faithful, plodding soldiers whose first strength +is spent. In him was gathered up all that fatigue and sadness of men for +whom no glamour remains. + +They went past me every day, hundreds of them, padding down the Nieuport +road, their feet tired from service and their boots road-worn--crowds of +men beyond numbering, as far as one could see into the dry, volleying +dust and beyond the dust; men coming toward me, a nation of them. They +came at a long, uneven jog, a cluttered walk. Every figure was sprinkled +and encircled by dust--dust on their gray temples, and on their wet, +streaming faces, dust coming up in puffs from their shuffling feet, too +tired to lift clear of the heavy roadbed. There was a hot, pitiless sun, +and every man of them was shrouded in the long, heavy winter coat, as +soggy as a horse blanket, and with thick leather gaiters, loose, +flapping, swathing their legs as if with bandages. On the man's back was +a pack, with the huge swell of the blanket rising up beyond the neck and +generating heat-waves; a loaf of tough black bread fastened upon the +knapsack or tied inside a faded red handkerchief; and a dingy, scarred +tin Billy-can. At his shapeless, rolling waist his belt hung heavy with +a bayonet in its casing. On the shoulder rested a dirt-caked spade, with +a clanking of metal where the bayonet and the Billy-can struck the +handle of the spade. Under a peaked cap showed the bearded face and the +white of strained eyes gleaming through dust and sweat. The man was too +tired to smile and talk. The weight of the pack, the weight of the +clothes, the dust, the smiting sun--all weighted down the man, leaving +every line in his body sagging and drooping with weariness. + +These are the men that spade the trenches, drive the food-transports and +ammunition-wagons, and carry through the detail duties of small honor +that the army may prosper. When has it happened before that the older +generation holds up the hands of the young? At the western front they +stand fast that the youth may go forward. They fill in the shell-holes +to make a straight path for less-tired feet. They drive up food to give +good heart to boys. + +War is easy for the young. The boy soldier is willing to make any day +his last if it is a good day. It is not so with the middle-aged man. He +is puzzled by the war. What he has to struggle with more than bodily +weakness is the malady of thought. Is the bloody business worth while? +Is there any far-off divine event which his death will hasten? The wines +of France are good wines, and his home in fertile Normandy was pleasant. + +As we stood in the street in the sun one hot afternoon, four men came +carrying a wounded man. The stretcher was growing red under its burden. +The man's face was greenish white, with a stubble of beard. The flesh of +his body was as white as snow from loss of blood. It was torn at the +chest and sides. They carried him to the dressing-station, and half an +hour later lifted him into our car. We carried him in for two miles. +Four flies fed on the red rim of his closed left eye. He lay silent, +motionless. Only a slight flutter of the coverlet, made by his +breathing, gave a sign of life. At the Red Cross post we stopped. The +coverlet still slightly rose and fell. The doctor, brown-bearded, in +white linen, stepped into the car, tapped the man's wrist, tested his +pulse, put a hand over his heart. Then the doctor muttered, drew the +coverlet over the greenish-white face, and ordered the marines to remove +him. In the moment of arrival the wounded man had died. + +In the courtyard next our post two men were carrying in long strips of +wood. This wood was for coffins, and one of them would be his. + +A funeral passes our car, one every day, sometimes two: a wooden cross +in front, carried by a soldier; the white-robed chaplain chanting; the +box of light wood, on a frame of black; the coffin draped in the +tricolor, a squad of twenty soldiers following the dead. That is the +funeral of the middle-aged man. There is no time wasted on him in the +brisk business of war; but his comrades bury him. One in particular +faithful at funerals I had learned to know--M. Le Doze. War itself is so +little the respecter of persons that this man had found himself of value +in paying the last small honor to the obscure dead as they were carried +from his Red Cross post to the burial-ground. One hopes that he will +receive no hasty trench burial when his own time comes. + +I cannot write of the middle-aged man of the Belgians because he has +been killed. That first mixed army, which in thin line opposed its body +to an immense machine, was crushed by weight and momentum. Little is +left but a memory. But I shall not forget the veteran officer of the +first army, near Lokeren, who kept his men under cover while he ran out +into the middle of the road to see if the Uhlans were coming. The only +Belgian army today is an army of boys. Recently we had a letter from +André Simont, of the "Obusiers Lourdes, Beiges," and he wrote: + + If you promise me you will come back for next summer, I won't get + pinked. If I ever do, it doesn't matter. I have had twenty years of + very happy life. + +If he were forty-five, he would say, as a French officer at Coxyde said +to me: + +"Four months, and I haven't heard from my wife and children. We had a +pleasant home. I was well to do. I miss the good wines of my cellar. +This beer is sour. We have done our best, we French, our utmost, and it +isn't quite enough. We have made a supreme effort, but it hasn't cleared +the enemy from our country. _La guerre--c'est triste._" + +He, too, fights on, but that overflow of vitality does not visit him, as +it comes to the youngsters of the first line. It is easy for the boys of +Brittany to die, those sailors with a rifle, the stanch Fusiliers +Marins, who, outnumbered, held fast at Melle and Dixmude, and for twelve +months made Nieuport, the extreme end of the western battle-line, a +great rock. It is easy, because there is a glory in the eyes of boys. +But the older man lives with second thoughts, with a subdued philosophy, +a love of security. He is married, with a child or two; his garden is +warm in the afternoon sun. He turns wistfully to the young, who are so +sure, to cheer him. With him it is bloodshed, the moaning of shell-fire, +and harsh command. + +One afternoon at Coxyde, in the camp of the middle-aged--the +territorials--an open-air entertainment was given. Massed up the side of +a sand-dune, row on row, were the bearded men, two thousand of them. +There were flashes of youth, of course--marines in dark blue, with +jaunty round hat with fluffy red centerpiece; Zouaves with dusky +Algerian skin, yellow-sorrel jacket, and baggy harem trousers; Belgians +in fresh khaki uniform; and Red Cross British Quakers. But the mass of +the men were middle-aged--territorials, with the light-blue long-coat, +good for all weathers and the sharp night, and the peaked cap. Over the +top of the dune where the soldiers sat an observation balloon was +suspended in a cloudless blue sky, like a huge yellow caterpillar. +Beyond the pasteboard stage, high on a western dune, two sentries stood +with their bayonets touched by sunlight. To the south rose a monument to +the territorial dead. To the north an aëroplane flashed along the line, +full speed, while gun after gun threw shrapnel at it. + +As I looked on the people, suddenly I thought of the Sermon on the +Mount, with the multitude spread about, tier on tier, hungry for more +than bread. It was a scene of summer beauty, with the glory of the sky +thrown in, and every now and then the music of the heart. Half the songs +of the afternoon were gay, and half were sad with long enduring, and the +memory of the dear ones distant and of the many dead. Not in lightness +or ignorance were these men making war. When I saw the multitude and how +they hungered, I wished that Bernhardt could come to them in the dunes +and express in power what is only hinted at by humble voices. I thought +how everywhere we wait for some supreme one to gather up the hope of the +nations and the anguish of the individual, and make a music that will +send us forward to the Rhine. + +But a better thing than that took place. One of their own came and +shaped their suffering into song. And together, he and they, they made a +song that is close to the great experience of war. A Belgian, one of the +boy soldiers, came forward to sing to the bearded men. And the song that +he sang was "_La valse des obus_"--"The Dance of the Shells." + +"Dear friends, I'm going to sing you some rhymes on the war at the +Yser." + +The men to whom he was singing had been holding the Yser for ten months. + +"I want you to know that life in the trenches, night by night, isn't +gay." + +Two thousand men, unshaved and tousled, with pain in their joints from +those trench nights, were listening. + +"As soon as you get there, you must set to work. It doesn't matter +whether it's a black night or a full moon; without making a sound, close +to the enemy, you must fill the sand-bags for the fortifications." + +Every man on the hill had been doing just that thing for a year. + +Then came his chorus: + +"Every time we are in the trenches, _Crack!_ There breaks the shell." + +But his French has a verve that no literal translation will give. Let us +take it as he sang it: + +"_Crack!_ Il tombe des obus," sang the slight young Belgian, leaning out +toward the two thousand men of many colors, many nations; and soon the +sky in the north was spotted with white clouds of shrapnel-smoke. + +"There we are, all of us, crouching with bent back--_Crack!_ Once more +an obus. The shrapnel, which try to stop us at our job, drive us out; +but the things that bore us still more--_Crack!_--are just those obus." + +With each "_Crack!_ Il tombe des obus," the big bass-drum boomed like +the shell he sang of. His voice was as tense and metallic as a taut +string, and he snapped out the lilting line in swift staccato as if he +were flaying his audience with a whip. Man after man on the hillside +took up the irresistible rhythm in an undertone, and "Cracked" with the +singer. In front of me was being created a folk-song. The bitterness +and glory of their life were being told to them, and they were hearing +the singer gladly. Their leader was lifting the dreary trench night and +death itself into a surmounting and joyous thing. + +"When you've made your entrenchment, then you must go and guard it +without preliminaries. All right; go ahead. But just as you're moving, +you have to squat down for a day and a night--yes, for a full +twenty-four hours--because things are hot. Somebody gives you half a +drop of coffee. Thirst torments you. The powder-fumes choke you." + +Here and there in the crowd, listening intently, men were stirring. The +lad was speaking to the exact intimate detail of their experience. This +was the life they knew. What would he make of it? + +"Despite our sufferings, we cherish the hope some day of returning and +finding our parents, our wives, and our little ones. Yes, that is my +hope, my joyous hope. But to come to that day, so like a dream, we must +be of good cheer. It is only by enduring patience, full of confidence, +that we shall force back our oppressors. To chase away those cursed +Prussians--_Crack_! We need the obus. My captain calling, '_Crack_! +More, still more of those obus!' Giving them the bayonet in the bowels, +we shall chase them clean beyond the Rhine. And our victory will be won +to the waltz of the obus." + +It was a song out of the heart of an unconquerable boy. It climbed the +hillock to the top. The response was the answer of men moved. His song +told them why they fought on. There is a Belgium, not under an alien +rule, which the shells have not shattered, and that dear kingdom is +still uninvaded. The mother would rather lose her husband and her son +than lose the France that made them. Their earthly presence is less +precious than the spirit that passed into them out of France. That is +why these weary men continue their fight. The issue will rest in +something more than a matter of mathematics. It is the last stand of the +human spirit. + +What is this idea of country, so passionately held, that the women walk +to the city gates with son and husband and send them out to die? It is +the aspect of nature shared in by folk of one blood, an arrangement of +hill and pasture which grew dear from early years, sounds and echoes of +sound that come from remembered places. It is the look of a land that is +your land, the light that flickers in an English lane, the bells that +used to ring in Bruges. + + ++----------------------------------------------------------------+ +|Transcribers note: In the original and html version this poem is| +|centered, in this text is is rendered flat to the margin. | ++----------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + +LA VALSE DES OBUS + + I + + Chers amis, je vais + Vous chanter des couplets, + Sur la guerre, + A l'Yser. + Pour vous faire savoir, + Que la vie, tous les soirs, + Aux tranchées, + N'est pas gaie. + A peine arrivé, + 'l Faut aller travailler. + Qu'il fasse noir' ou qu'il y ait clair de lune, + Et sans fair' du bruit, + Nous allons près de l'ennemi, + Remplir des sacs pour fair' des abris. + + Ir et IIe Refrain + + Chaqu' fois que nous sommes aux tranchées, + Crack! Il tombe des obus. + + Nous sommes tous là, le dos courbée + Crack! Encore un obus. + Les shrapnels pour nous divetir, + Au travail, nous font déguerpir. + Mais, et qui nous ennuie le plus, + Crack! se sont les obus. + + II + + L'abri terminé, + 'l Faut aller l'occuper, + Sans façons. + Allez-donc. + Pas moyen d' se bouger + Donc, on doit y rester + Accroupi, + Jour et nuit, + Pendant la chaleur, + Pour passer vingt-quatr' heures. + On nous donn' une d'mi gourde de café. + La soif nous tourmente, + Et la poudre asphyxiante, + Nous étouffe au dessus du marché. + + III + + Malgré nos souffrances, + Nous gardons l'espérance + D' voir le jour, + De notr' retour + De r'trouver nos parents, + Nos femmes et nos enfants. + Plein de joie, + Oui ma foi, + Mais pour arriver, + A ce jour tant rêvé, + Nous devons tous y mettre du coeur, + C'est avec patience, + Et plein de confiance, + Que nous repouss'rons les oppresseurs. + + Refrain + + Pour chasser ces maudits All'mands + Crack! Il faut des obus. + En plein dedans mon commandant, + Crack! Encore des obus. + Et la baionnett' dans les reins, + Nous les chass'rons au delà du Rhin. + La victoire des Alliés s'ra dûe + A la valse des obus. + + + + + _There is little value in telling of suffering unless something can + be done about it. So I close this book with an appeal for help in a + worthy work._ + + + + +REMAKING FRANCE + + +There was a young peasant farmer who went out with his fellows, and +stopped the most powerful and perfectly equipped army of history. He +saved France, and the cause of gentleness and liberty. He did it by the +French blood in him--in gay courage and endurance. He was happy in doing +it, or, if not happy, yet glorious. But he paid the price. The enemy +artillery sent a splinter of shell that mangled his arm. He lay out +through the long night on the rich infected soil. Then the stretcher +bearers found him and lifted him to the car, and carried him to the +field hospital. There they had to operate swiftly, for infection was +spreading. So he was no longer a whole man, but he was still of good +spirit, for he had done his bit for France. Then they bore him to a base +hospital, where he had white sheets and a wholesome nurse. He lay there +weak and content. Every one was good to him. But there came a day when +they told him he must leave to make room for the fresher cases of need. +So he was turned loose into a world that had no further use for him. A +cripple, he couldn't fight and he couldn't work, for his job needed two +arms, and he had given one, up yonder on the Marne. He drifted from shop +to shop in Paris. But he didn't know a trade. Life was through with him, +so one day, he shot himself. + +That, we learn from authoritative sources, is the story of more than one +broken soldier of Joffre's army. + +To be shot clean dead is an easier fate than to be turned loose into +life, a cripple, who must beg his way about. Shall these men who have +defended France be left to rot? All they ask is to be allowed to work. +It is gallant and stirring to fight, and when wounded the soldier is +tenderly cared for. But when he comes out, broken, he faces the +bitterest thing in war. After the hospital--what? Too bad, he's +hurt--but there is no room in the trades for any but a trained man. + +Why not train him? Why not teach him a trade? Build a bridge that will +lead him from the hospital over into normal life. That is better than +throwing him out among the derelicts. Pauperism is an ill reward for the +service that shattered him, and it is poor business for a world that +needs workers. If these crippled ones are not permitted to reconstruct +their working life, the French nation will be dragged down by the +multitude of maimed unemployable men, who are being turned loose from +the hospitals--unfit to fight, untrained to work: a new and +ever-increasing Army of The Miserable. The stout backbone and stanch +spirit of even France will be snapped by this dead-weight of suffering. + +In our field hospital at Fumes, we had one ward where a wave of gaiety +swept the twenty beds each morning. It came when the leg of the bearded +man was dressed by the nurse. He thrust it out from under the covering: +a raw stump, off above the ankle. It was an old wound, gone sallow with +the skin lapped over. The men in the cots close by shouted with laughter +at the look of it, and the man himself laughed till he brought pain to +the wound. Then he would lay hold of the sides of the bed to control +his merriment. The dressing proceeded, with brisk comment from the +wardful of men, and swift answers from the patient under treatment. The +grim wound had so obviously made an end of the activity of that +particular member and, as is war's way, had done it so evilly, with such +absence of beauty, that only the human spirit could cover that hurt. So +he and his comrades had made it the object of gaiety. + +For legless men, there are a dozen trades open, if they are trained. +They can be made into tailors, typists, mechanicians. The soldiers' +schools, already established, report success in shoemaking, for +instance. The director sends us this word:-- + +"From the first we had foreseen for this the greatest success--the +results have surpassed our hopes. We are obliged to double the size of +the building, and increase the number of professors. + +"Why? + +"Because, more than any other profession, that of shoemaking is the most +feasible in the country, in the village, in the small hamlet. This is +the one desire of most of these wounded soldiers: before everything, +they wish to be able to return to their homes. And all the more if a +wife and children wait them there, in a little house with a patch of +garden. Out of our fifty men now learning shoemaking, twenty-nine were +once sturdy farm laborers. The profession is not fatiguing and, in spite +of our fears, not one of our leg-amputated men has given up his +apprenticeship on account of fatigue or physical inability." + +Very many of the soldiers are maimed in hand or arm. On the broad beach +of La Panne, in front of the Ocean Hospital of Dr. Depage, a young +soldier talked with my wife one afternoon. Early in the war his right +arm had been shot through the bicep muscle. He had been sent to London, +where a specialist with infinite care linked the nerves together. Daily +the wounded boy willed strength into the broken member, till at last he +found he could move the little finger. It was his hope to bring action +back to the entire hand, finger by finger. + +"You can't do anything--you can't even write," they said to him. So he +met that, by schooling his left hand to write. + +"Your fighting days are over," they said. He went to a shooting gallery, +and with his left arm learned how to hold a rifle and aim it. Through +the four months of his convalescence he practised to be worthy of the +front line. The military authorities could not put up an objection that +he did not meet. So he won his way back to the Yser trenches. And there +he had received his second hurt and this time the enemy wounded him +thoroughly. And now he was sitting on the sands wondering what the +future held for him. + +Spirit like that does not deserve to be broken by despair. Apparatus has +been devised to supply the missing section of the arm, and such a trade +as toy-making offers a livelihood. It is carried on with a sense of fun +even in the absence of all previous education. One-armed men are largely +employed in it. Let us enter the training shop at Lyon, and watch the +work. The wood is being shot out from the sawing-machine in thin strips +and planed on both sides. This is being done by a man, who used to earn +his living as a packer, and suffered an amputation of his right leg. The +boards are assembled in thicknesses of twenty, and cut out by a "ribbon +saw." This is the occupation of a former tile layer, with his left leg +gone. Others employed in the process are one-armed men. + +Of carpentry the report from the men is this: "This work seems to +generate good humor and liveliness. For this profession two arms are +almost necessary. It can be practised by a man whose leg has been +amputated, preferably the right leg, for the resting point, in handling +the plane, is on the left leg. However, we cannot forget that one-armed +men have achieved wonderful results." + +The profits of the work are divided in full among the pupils as soon as +they have reached the period of production. Each section has its +individual fund box. The older members divide among themselves two +thirds of the gain. The more recently trained take the remainder. The +new apprentices have nothing, because they make no finished product as +yet. That was the rule of the shop. But certain sections petitioned that +the profits should be equally divided among all, without distinction. +They said that among the newcomers there were many as needy as the +older apprentices. + +The director says: + +"This request came from too noble a sentiment not to be granted, +especially as in this way we are certain that our pupils will see to the +discipline of the workshops, being the first concerned that no one shall +shirk." + +He adds: + +"I wish to cite an incident. One of the pupils of the group of +shoemakers, having been obliged to remain over a month in the hospital, +had his share fall to nothing. His comrades got together and raised +among themselves a sum equal to their earnings, so that his enforced +absence would not cause him to suffer any loss. These are features one +is happy to note, because they reveal qualities of heart in our pupils, +much to be appreciated in those who have suffered, and because they show +that our efforts have contributed to keep around them an atmosphere +where these qualities can develop." + +The war has been ingenious in devising cruel hurts, robbing the painter +of his hand, the musician of his arm, the horseman of his leg. It has +taken the peasant from his farm, and the mason from his building. Their +suffering has enriched them with the very quality that will make them +useful citizens, if they can be set to work, if only some one will show +them what to do. For each of these men there is an answer for his +wrecked life, and the answer is found in these workshops where disabled +soldiers can learn the new trade fitted to their crippled condition. + +It costs only four to five francs a day to support the man during his +period of education. The length of time of his tuition depends on the +man and his trade--sometimes three months, sometimes six months. One +hundred dollars will meet the average of all cases. The Americans in +Paris raised $20,000 immediately on learning of this need. In our +country we are starting the "American Committee for Training in Suitable +Trades the Maimed Soldiers of France." Mrs. Edmund Lincoln Baylies is +chairman for the United States. Her address is Room B, Plaza Hotel, New +York. + +We have been owing France through a hundred years for that little +matter of first aid in our American Revolution. Here is an admirable +chance to show we are still warmed by the love and succor she rendered +us then. + +At this moment 30,000 maimed soldiers are asking for work; 30,000 jobs +are ready for them. The employers of France are holding the positions +open, because they need these workers. Only the training is lacking. +This society to train maimed soldiers is not in competition with any +existing form of relief work: it supplements all the others--ambulances +and hospitals and dressing stations. They are temporary, bridging the +month of calamity. This gives back to the men the ten, twenty, thirty +years of life still remaining. They must not remain the victims of their +own heroism. They ask only to be permitted to go on with their work for +France. They will serve in the shop and the factory as they have served +at the Aisne and the Yser. This is a charity to do away with the need of +charity. It is help that leads directly to self-help. + + +THE END + + + + +FOOTNOTES + +[A] When I first published these statements the following letter +appeared in the "New York Tribune":-- + + GERMANY'S SPY SYSTEM + + To the Editor of "The Tribune." + + Sir: I was particularly interested in the article by Mr. Gleason in + this morning's "Tribune" because, having spent several months in + this region in ambulance work, I am able to support several of his + statements from personal observation. + + The house he mentions on the beach near Coxyde Bains was beyond + doubt intended for the purpose he describes. I visited it several + times before it was completely destroyed, and have now in my + possession photographs which show the nature of the building, + besides a tile from the flooring. + + Two instances in which spies were detected came to my knowledge; in + one case the person in question was the mayor of the town, in the + other a peasant woman. One other time I know of information was + given undetected which resulted in the shelling of a road at a time + when a convoy of motors was about to pass. + + The high esteem in which the Red Cross flag is held by German + gunners (as a target) is only too forcibly impressed upon one in + that service. + + MALCOLM T. ROBERTSON. + +Mr. Robertson is a member of the Junior Class in Princeton University. + + +[B] When this record was first made public the "New York Tribune" stated +editorially:-- + +"The writer of the foregoing communication was for several years a +member of 'The Tribune' staff. For the utter trustworthiness of any +statement made by Mr. Gleason, this newspaper is willing to vouch. Mr. +Gleason was at the front caring for the Belgian wounded. He speaks with +full knowledge and complete authority and 'The Tribune' is glad to be +able to submit to its readers a first-hand, eye-witness account of +atrocities written by an American. It calls attention again to the fact, +cited by Mr. Gleason, that his testimony is included in the Bryce +Report, which should give Americans new insight into the value of this +document." + +When Theodore Roosevelt read this record of German atrocity, he made the +following public statement: + +"Remember, there is not the slightest room for honest question either as +to the dreadful, the unspeakably hideous, outrages committed on the +Belgians, or as to the fact that these outrages were methodically +committed by the express command of the German Government in order to +terrorize both the Belgians and among neutrals those men who are as cold +and timid and selfish as our governmental leaders have shown themselves +to be. Let any man who doubts read the statement of an American +eye-witness of these fearful atrocities, Mr. Arthur H. Gleason, in the +'New York Tribune' of November 25, 1915." + +From the Bryce Report, English edition, Page 167. + +_British subject_:-- + +"The girl was at the point of death. Mr. G---- was with me and can +corroborate me as to this and also as to the other facts mentioned +below. On the same day at the same place I saw one L. de M----. I took +this statement from him.... He signed his statement in my pocket book, +and I hold my pocket book at the disposal of the Belgian and English +authorities. + +"I also saw at the hospital an old woman of eighty who was run clean +through by a bayonet thrust. + +"I next went up to another wounded Belgian in the same ward. His name +was F. M----. I wrote his statement in my pocket book and he signed it +after having read it." + +The full statement in the Bryce Report of the atrocities which I +witnessed covers a page. The above sentences are extracts. Mr. Niemira +had neglected to make a note of the exact date in his pocket book, and +calls it "about the 15th of September." It was September 29. + + +[C] If any one wants a history of them, and the world ought to want it, +the book of their acts, is it not written in singing prose in Le +Goffic's "Dixmude, un Chapitre de l'histoire des Fusiliers Marins"? Le +Goffic is a Breton and his own son is with the fighting sailors. He +deals with their autumn exploits in Dixmude on the Yser, that butt-end +of wreck. Legends will spring out of them and the soil they have +reddened. We have heard little of the French in this war--and almost +nothing at all from them. And yet it is the French that have held the +decisive battle line. Unprepared and peace-loving, they have stood the +shock of a perfectly equipped and war-loving army. + +Monsieur Le Goffic is the official historian of the Fusiliers Marins. +His book has gone through forty-nine editions. He is a poet, novelist +and critic. That American sympathy is appreciated is proved by this +sentence from a letter of Le Goffic to an American who had expressed +admiration for the Breton sailors:--"Merci, Monsieur, au nom de mon +pays, merci pour nos marins, et merci pour moi meme." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Golden Lads, by +Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDEN LADS *** + +***** This file should be named 19131-8.txt or 19131-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/1/3/19131/ + +Produced by Sigal Alon, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +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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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: Golden Lads + +Author: Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason + +Release Date: August 28, 2006 [EBook #19131] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDEN LADS *** + + + + +Produced by Sigal Alon, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/imgcover.jpg" alt="COVER" title="COVER" /></div> + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> +<h1>GOLDEN LADS</h1> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p><a name="PLAY_BOYS" id="PLAY_BOYS"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/img002.jpg" + alt="Photo. Excelsior." /><br /> + <i>Photo. Excelsior.</i> + </div> + +<h4>THE PLAY-BOYS OF THE WESTERN FRONT.</h4> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>The famous French Fusiliers Marins. These sailors from Brittany are +called "Les demoiselles au pompon rouge," because of their youth and the +gay red tassel on their cap.</p></blockquote> +<p><br /><br /></p> + + + + + <h1>GOLDEN LADS</h1> + + <h4>BY</h4> + + <h2>ARTHUR GLEASON</h2> + + <h4>AND</h4> + + <h2>HELEN HAYES GLEASON</h2> + + <h4>WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY</h4> + <h3>THEODORE ROOSEVELT</h3> + + + <p class='center'><i>"Golden Lads and Girls all must, + As chimney sweepers, come to dust."</i></p> + + <div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img003.jpg" alt="MOTIF" title="MOTIF" /></div> + + + <p class='center'>TORONTO<br /> + McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART, Limited<br /> + 1916<br /><br /> + Copyright, 1916, by<br /> + The Century Co.<br /><br /> + Copyright, 1915, by the<br /> + Curtis Publishing Company.<br /> + Copyright, 1916, by the<br /> + Butterick Publishing Company.<br /> + Copyright, 1915 and 1916, by the<br /> + Tribune Association.<br /><br /> + <i>Published, April, 1916</i><br /> + (<i>Printed in the U. S. A.</i>) +</p> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>Profits from the sale of this book will go to "The American Committee +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>for Training in Suitable Trades the Maimed Soldiers of France."</p> +</blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><br /><br /></p> + + + <h3>TO THE<br /> + SAILORS OF BRITTANY<br /> + THE BOY SOLDIERS OF THE FRENCH FUSILIERS MARINS<br /> + WHOSE WOUNDED IT WAS OUR PRIVILEGE TO CARRY IN FROM THE<br /> + FIELD OF HONOR AT MELLE, DIXMUDE, AND NIEUPORT</h3> + + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>CONCERNING THIS BOOK</h3> + +<p>It would be futile to publish one more war-book, unless the writer had +been an eye-witness of unusual things. I am an American who saw +atrocities which are recorded in the Bryce Report. This book grows out +of months of day-by-day living in the war zone. I have been a member of +the Hector Munro Ambulance Corps, which was permitted to work at the +front because the Prime Minister of Belgium placed his son in military +command of us. That young man, being brave and adventurous, led us along +the first line of trenches, and into villages under shell fire, so that +we saw the armies in action.</p> + +<p>We started at Ghent in September, 1914, came to Furnes, worked in +Dixmude, Pervyse, Nieuport and Ypres, during moments of pressure on +those strategic points. In the summer of 1915, we were attached to the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>French Fusiliers Marins. My wife's experience covers a period of twelve +months in Belgium. My own time at the front was five months.</p> + +<p>Observers at long-distance that are neutral sometimes fail to see +fundamentals in the present conflict, and talk of "negotiations" between +right and wrong. It is easy for people who have not suffered to be +tolerant toward wrongdoing. This war is a long war because of German +methods of frightfulness. These practices have bred an enduring will to +conquer in Frenchman and Briton and Belgian which will not pause till +victory is thorough. Because the German military power has sinned +against women and children, it will be fought with till it is +overthrown. I wish to make clear this determination of the Allies. They +hate the army of Aerschot and Lorraine as a mother hates the defiler of +her child.</p> + +<p>There are two wars on the Western Front. One is the war of aggression. +It was led up to by years of treachery. It was consummated in +frightfulness. It is warfare by machine. Of that war, as carried on by +the "Conquerors," the first half of this book tells. On points that +have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span> been in dispute since the outbreak, I am able to say "I saw." When +the Army of Invasion fell on the little people, I witnessed the signs of +its passage as it wrote them by flame and bayonet on peasant homes and +peasant bodies.</p> + +<p>In the second half of the book, I have tried to tell of a people's +uprising—the fight of the living spirit against the war-machine. A +righteous defensive war, such as Belgium and France are waging, does not +brutalize the nation. It reveals a beauty of sacrifice which makes +common men into "golden lads."</p> + +<p>Was this struggle forced on an unwilling Germany, or was she the +aggressor?</p> + +<p>I believe we have the answer of history in such evidences as I have seen +of her patient ancient spy system that honeycombed Belgium.</p> + +<p>Is she waging a "holy war," ringed around by jealous foes?</p> + +<p>I believe we have the final answer in such atrocities as I witnessed. A +hideous officially ordered method is proof of unrighteousness in the +cause itself.</p> + +<p>Are you indicting a nation?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span></p> + +<p>No, only a military system that ordered the slow sapping of friendly +neighboring powers.</p> + +<p>Only the host of "tourists," clerks, waiters, gentlemanly officers, that +betrayed the hospitality of people of good will.</p> + +<p>Only an army that practised mutilation and murder on children, and +mothers, and old people,—and that carried it through coldly, +systematically, with admirable discipline.</p> + +<p>I believe there are multitudes of common soldiers who are sorry that +they have outraged the helpless.</p> + +<p>An army of half a million men will return to the home-land with very +bitter memories. Many a simple German of this generation will be unable +to look into the face of his own child without remembering some tiny +peasant face of pain—the child whom he bayoneted, or whom he saw his +comrade bayonet, having failed to put his body between the little one +and death.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS"> +<tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr> +<tr><th colspan="2">THE CONQUERORS</th></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE SPY</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_3'><b>3</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE ATROCITY</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_26'><b>26</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>BALLAD OF THE GERMANS</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_45'><b>45</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE STEAM ROLLER</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_48'><b>48</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>MY EXPERIENCE WITH BAEDEKER</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_66'><b>66</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr> +<tr><th colspan="2">GOLDEN LADS</th></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE PLAY-BOYS OF BRITTANY</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_79'><b>79</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"ENCHANTED CIGARETTES"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_95'><b>95</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>WAS IT REAL?</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_113'><b>113</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"CHANTONS, BELGES! CHANTONS!"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>FLIES: A FANTASY</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_152'><b>152</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>WOMEN UNDER FIRE</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_168'><b>168</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>HOW WAR SEEMS TO A WOMAN</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_192'><b>192</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>LES TRAVAILLEURS DE LA GUERRE</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_234'><b>234</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>REMAKING FRANCE</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS"> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Play-boys of the Western Front</td><td align='right'><a href='#PLAY_BOYS'><b><i>Frontispiece</i></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Peasants' cottages burned by Germans</td><td align='right'><a href='#COTTAGES_BURNED'><b>8</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The home of a German spy near Coxyde Bains, Belgium</td><td align='right'><a href='#HOME_OF_A_GERMAN_SPY'><b>13</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The green pass, used only by soldiers and officers of the Belgian Army</td><td align='right'><a href='#GREEN_PASS'><b>33</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Church in Termonde which the writer saw</td><td align='right'><a href='#CHURCH_IN_TERMONDE'><b>42</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>One of the dangerous Belgian franc-tireurs</td><td align='right'><a href='#GASPAR'><b>51</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Fifteenth century Gothic church in Nieuport</td><td align='right'><a href='#GOTHIC_CHURCH'><b>69</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sailors lifting a wounded comrade into the motor-ambulance</td><td align='right'><a href='#SAILORS'><b>87</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Door chalked by the Germans</td><td align='right'><a href='#DOOR_CHALKED'><b>105</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Street fighting in Alost</td><td align='right'><a href='#STREET_FIGHTING'><b>123</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Belgian officer on the last strip of his country</td><td align='right'><a href='#BELGIAN_OFFICER'><b>134</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A Belgian boy soldier in the uniform of the first army which served at Liège and Namur</td><td align='right'><a href='#BELGIAN_BOY'><b>139</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Belgians in their new Khaki uniform, in praise of which they wrote a song</td><td align='right'><a href='#NEW_KHAKI_UNIFORM'><b>145</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Breton sailors ready for their noon meal in a village under daily shell fire</td><td align='right'><a href='#BRETON_SAILORS'><b>187</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sleeping quarters for Belgian soldiers</td><td align='right'><a href='#SLEEPING_QUARTERS'><b>206</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Belgian soldiers telephoning to an anti-aircraft gun the approach of a German taube</td><td align='right'><a href='#SOLDIERS_TELEPHONING'><b>215</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Postcards sketched and blocked by a Belgian workman, A. Van Doorne</td><td align='right'><a href='#POSTCARDS'><b>229</b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2> + +<h3>By Theodore Roosevelt</h3> + + +<p>On August 4, 1914, the issue of this war for the conscience of the world +was Belgium. Now, in the spring of 1916, the issue remains Belgium. For +eighteen months, our people were bidden by their representative at +Washington to feel no resentment against a hideous wrong. They were +taught to tame their human feelings by polished phrases of neutrality. +Because they lacked the proper outlet of expression, they grew +indifferent to a supreme injustice. They temporarily lost the capacity +to react powerfully against wrongdoing.</p> + +<p>But today they are at last becoming alive to the iniquity of the +crushing of Belgium. Belgium is the battleground of the war on the +western front. But Belgium is also the battleground of the struggle in +our country between the forces of good and of evil. In the ranks of evil +are ranged all the pacifist sentimentalists, the cowards who possess the +gift of clothing their cowardice in soothing and attractive words, the +materialists whose souls have been rotted by exclusive devotion to the +things of the body, the sincere persons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span> who are cursed with a deficient +sense of reality, and all who lack foresight or who are uninformed. +Against them stand the great mass of loyal Americans, who, when they see +the right, and receive moral leadership, show that they have in their +souls as much of the valor of righteousness as the men of 1860 and of +1776. The literary bureau at Washington has acted as a soporific on the +mind and conscience of the American people. Fine words, designed to work +confusion between right and wrong, have put them to sleep. But they now +stir in their sleep.</p> + +<p>The proceeds from the sale of this book are to be used for a charity in +which every intelligent American feels a personal interest. The training +of maimed soldiers in suitable trades is making possible the +reconstruction of an entire nation. It is work carried on by citizens of +the neutral nations. The cause itself is so admirable that it deserves +wide support. It gives an outlet for the ethical feelings of our people, +feelings that have been unnaturally dammed for nearly two years by the +cold and timid policy of our Government.</p> + +<p>The testimony of the book is the first-hand witness of an American +citizen who was present when the Army of Invasion blotted out a little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span> +nation. This is an eye-witness report on the disputed points of this +war. The author saw the wrongs perpetrated on helpless non-combatants by +direct military orders. He shows that the frightfulness practiced on +peasant women and children was the carrying out of a Government policy, +planned in advance, ordered from above. It was not the product of +irresponsible individual drunken soldiers. His testimony is clear on +this point. He goes still further, and shows that individual soldiers +resented their orders, and most unwillingly carried through the cruelty +that was forced on them from Berlin. In his testimony he is kindlier to +the German race, to the hosts of peasants, clerks and simple soldiers, +than the defenders of Belgium's obliteration have been. They seek to +excuse acts of infamy. But the author shows that the average German is +sorry for those acts.</p> + +<p>It is fair to remember in reading Mr. Gleason's testimony concerning +these deeds of the German Army that he has never received a dollar of +money for anything he has spoken or written on the subject. He gave +without payment the articles on the Spy, the Atrocity, and the Steam +Roller to the New York <i>Tribune</i>. The profits from the lectures he has +delivered on the same subject have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span> been used for well-known public +charities. The book itself is a gift to a war fund.</p> + +<p>Of Mr. Gleason's testimony on atrocities I have already written (see +page 38).</p> + +<p>What he saw was reported to the Bryce Committee by the young British +subject who accompanied him, and these atrocities, which Mr. Gleason +witnessed, appear in the Bryce Report under the heading of Alost. It is +of value to know that an American witnessed atrocities recorded in the +Bryce Report, as it disposes of the German rejoinders that the Report is +ex-parte and of second-hand rumor.</p> + +<p>His chapter on the Spy System answers the charge that it was Belgium who +violated her own neutrality, and forced an unwilling Germany, threatened +by a ring of foes, to defend herself.</p> + +<p>The chapter on the Steam Roller shows that the same policy of injustice +that was responsible for the original atrocities is today operating to +flatten out what is left of a free nation.</p> + +<p>The entire book is a protest against the craven attitude of our +Government.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;" class="smcap">Theodore Roosevelt.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>March 28, 1916.</i></span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<h2>THE CONQUERORS</h2> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE SPY</h2> + + +<p>Germany uses three methods in turning a free nation into a vassal state. +By a spy system, operated through years, she saps the national strength. +By sudden invasion, accompanied by atrocity, she conquers the territory, +already prepared. By continuing occupation, she flattens out what is +left of a once independent people. In England and North America, she has +used her first method. France has experienced both the spy and the +atrocity. It has been reserved for Belgium to be submitted to the +threefold process. I shall tell what I have seen of the spy system, the +use of frightfulness, and the enforced occupation.</p> + +<p>It is a mistake for us to think that the worst thing Germany has done is +to torture and kill many thousands of women and children. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +undermines a country with her secret agents before she lays it waste. In +time of peace, with her spy system, she works like a mole through a wide +area till the ground is ready to cave in. She plays on the good will and +trustfulness of other peoples till she has tapped the available +information. That betrayal of hospitality, that taking advantage of +human feeling, is a baser thing than her unique savagery in war time.</p> + +<p>During my months in Belgium I have been surrounded by evidences of this +spy system, the long, slow preparedness which Germany makes in another +country ahead of her deadly pounce. It is a silent, peaceful invasion, +as destructive as the house-to-house burning and the killing of babies +and mothers to which it later leads.</p> + +<p>The German military power, which is the modern Germany, is able to +obtain agents to carry out this policy, and make its will prevail, by +disseminating a new ethic, a philosophy of life, which came to +expression with Bismarck and has gone on extending its influence since +the victories of 1870-'71. The German people believe they serve a higher +God than the rest of us. We serve (very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> imperfectly and only part of +the time) such ideals as mercy, pity, and loyalty to the giver of the +bread we eat. The Germans serve (efficiently and all the time) the +State, a supreme deity, who sends them to spy out a land in peace time, +to build gun foundations in innocent-looking houses, buy up +poverty-stricken peasants, measure distances, win friendship, and worm +out secrets. With that information digested and those preparations +completed, the State (an entity beyond good and evil) calls on its +citizens to make war, and, in making it, to practise frightfulness. It +orders its servants to lay aside pity and burn peasants in their homes, +to bayonet women and children, to shoot old men. Of course, there are +exceptions to this. There are Germans of the vintage of '48, and later, +many of them honest and peaceable dwellers in the country which shelters +them. But the imperial system has little use for them. They do not serve +its purpose.</p> + +<p>The issue of the war, as Belgium and France see it, is this: Are they to +live or die? Are they to be charted out once again through years till +their hidden weakness is accurately located, and then is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> an army to be +let loose on them that will visit a universal outrage on their children +and wives? Peace will be intolerable till this menace is removed. The +restoration of territory in Belgium and Northern France and the return +to the <i>status quo</i> before the war, are not sufficient guarantees for +the future. The <i>status quo</i> before the war means another insidious +invasion, carried on unremittingly month by month by business agents, +commercial travelers, genial tourists, and studious gentlemen in villas. +A crippled, broken Teutonic military power is the only guarantee that a +new army of spies will not take the road to Brussels and Paris on the +day that peace is signed. No simple solution like, "Call it all off, +we'll start in fresh; bygones are bygones," meets the real situation. +The Allied nations have been infested with a cloud of witnesses for many +years. Are they to submit once again to that secret process of the +Germans?</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="COTTAGES_BURNED" id="COTTAGES_BURNED"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img026.jpg" alt="PEASANTS' COTTAGES" title="PEASANTS' COTTAGES" /></div> + +<h4>PEASANTS' COTTAGES BURNED BY GERMANS.</h4> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>The separate flame in each cottage is clearly visible, proving that each +house was separately set on fire. Radclyffe Dugmore took this photograph +at Melle, where he and the writer were made prisoners.</p></blockquote> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>The French, for instance, want to clear their country of a cloud which +has been thick and black for forty-three years. They always said the +Germans would come again with the looting and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>torture and the +foulness. This time they will their fight to a finish. They are sick of +hate, so they are fighting to end war. But it is not an empty peace that +they want—peace, with a new drive when the Krupp howitzers are big +enough, and the spies in Paris thick enough, to make the death of France +a six weeks' picnic. They want a lasting peace, that will take fear from +the wife's heart, and make it a happiness to have a child, not a horror. +They want to blow the ashes off of Lorraine. Peace, as preached by our +Woman's Peace Party and by our pacifist clergy and by the signers of the +plea for an embargo on the ammunitions that are freeing France from her +invaders, is a German peace. If successfully consummated, it will grant +Germany just time enough to rest and breed and lay the traps, and then +release another universal massacre. How can the Allies state their terms +of peace in other than a militant way? There is nothing here to be +arbitrated. Pleasant sentiments of brotherhood evade the point at issue. +The way of just peace is by "converting" Germany. There is only one cure +for long-continued treachery, and that is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> to demonstrate its failure. +To pause short of a thorough victory over the deep, inset habits and +methods of Germany is to destroy the spirit of France. It will not be +well for a premier race of the world to go down in defeat. We need her +thrifty Lorraine peasants and Brittany sailors, her unfailing gift to +the light of the world, more than we need a thorough German spy system +and a soldiery obedient to commands of vileness.</p> + +<p>Very much more slowly England, too, is learning what the fight is about.</p> + +<p>It is German violation of the fundamental decencies that makes it +difficult to find common ground to build on for the future. It is at +this point that the spy system of slow-seeping treachery and the +atrocity program of dramatic frightfulness overlap. It is in part out of +the habit of betraying hospitality that the atrocities have emerged. It +isn't as if they were extemporized—a sudden flare, with no background. +They are the logical result of doing secretly for years that which +humanity has agreed not to do.</p> + +<p>Some of the members of our Red Cross unit—the Hector Munro Ambulance +Corps—worked for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> a full year with the French Fusiliers Marins, perhaps +the most famous 6000 fighting men in the western line. They were sailor +boys. They covered the retreat of the Belgian army. They consolidated +the Yser position by holding Dixmude for three weeks against a German +force that outnumbered them. Then for a year, up to a few months ago, +they helped to hold the Nieuport section, the last northern point of the +Allied line. When they entered the fight at Melle in October, 1914, our +corps worked with one of their doctors, and came to know him. Later he +took charge of a dressing station near St. George. Here one day the +Germans made a sudden sortie, drove back the Fusiliers for a few +minutes, and killed the Red Cross roomful, bayoneting the wounded men. +The Fusiliers shortly won back their position, found their favorite +doctor dead, and in a fury wiped out the Germans who had murdered him +and his patients, saving one man alive. They sent him back to the +enemy's lines to say:</p> + +<p>"Tell your men how we fight when you bayonet our wounded."</p> + +<p>That sudden act of German falseness was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> product of slow, careful +undermining of moral values.</p> + +<p>One of the best known women in Belgium, whose name I dare not give, told +me of her friends, the G——'s, at L—— (she gave me name and +address). When the first German rush came down on Belgium the household +was asked to shelter German officers, one of whom the lady had known +socially in peace days. The next morning soldiers went through the +house, destroying paintings with the bayonet and wrecking furniture. The +lady appealed to the officer.</p> + +<p>"I know you," she said. "We have met as equals and friends. How can you +let this be done?"</p> + +<p>"This is war," he replied.</p> + +<p>No call of chivalry, of the loyalties of guest and host, is to be +listened to. And for the perpetrating of this cold program years of +silent spy treachery were a perfect preparation. It was no sudden +unrelated horror to which Germans had to force themselves. It was an +astonishing thing to simple Belgian gentlemen and gentlewomen to see the +old friendly German faces of tourists and social<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>guests show up, on +horseback, riding into the cities as conquerors where they had so often +been entertained as friends. Let me give you the testimony of a Belgian +lady whom we know. She is now inside the German lines, so I cannot give +her name.</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="HOME_OF_A_GERMAN_SPY" id="HOME_OF_A_GERMAN_SPY"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img031.jpg" alt="PEASANTS' COTTAGES" title="PEASANTS' COTTAGES" /></div> + + +<h4>THE HOME OF A GERMAN SPY NEAR COXYDE BAINS, BELGIUM.</h4> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>He had a deep gun foundation, concealed by tiling, motors, hydraulic +apparatus—a complete fortification inside his villa.</p> + +<p class='center'>[This photograph would have been better if it had not been developed in +the ambulance of one of the American Field Service, but it shows the +solid construction of the hidden flooring, the supporting pillars, one +of the motors and one of the gas pipes.]</p></blockquote> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>"When the German troops entered Brussels," she states, "we suddenly +discovered that our good friends had been secret agents and were now +officers in charge of the invasion. As the army came in, with their +trumpets and flags and goose-stepping, we picked out our friends +entertained by us in our salons—dinner guests for years. They had +originally come with every recommendation possible—letters from +friends, themselves men of good birth. They had worked their way into +the social-political life of Brussels. They had won their place in our +friendly feeling. And here they had returned to us at the head of troops +to conquer us, after having served as secret agents through the years of +friendly social intercourse."</p> + +<p>After becoming proficient in that kind of betrayal the officers found it +only a slight wrench to pass on to the wholesale murder of the people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +whose bread they had eaten and whom they had tricked. The treachery +explains the atrocity. It is worth while to repeat and emphasize this +point. Many persons have asked me, "How do you account for these +terrible acts of mutilation?" The answer is, what the Germans did +suddenly by flame and bayonet is only a continuation of what they have +done for years by poison.</p> + +<p>Here follows the testimony of a man whom I know, Doctor George Sarton, +of the University of Ghent:</p> + +<p>"Each year more Germans came to Belgian summer resorts; Blankenberghe, +for instance, was full of them. They were all very well received and had +plenty of friends in Belgian families, from the court down. When the war +broke out, it immediately became evident that many of these welcomed +guests had been spying, measuring distances, preparing foundations for +heavy guns in their villas located at strategical points, and so on. It +is noteworthy that this spying was not simply done by poor devils who +had not been able to make money in a cleaner way—but by very successful +German business men, sometimes men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> of great wealth and whose wealth had +been almost entirely built up in Belgium. These men were extremely +courteous and serviceable, they spent much money upon social functions +and in the promotion of charities, German schools, churches and the +like; they had numerous friends, in some cases they had married Belgian +girls and their boys were members of the special corps of our 'National +Guard.' ... Yet at the same time, they were prying into everything, +spying everywhere.</p> + +<p>"When the Germans entered into Belgium, they were guided wherever they +went by some one of their officers or men who knew all about each place. +Directors of factories were startled to recognize some of their work +people transformed into Uhlans. A man who had been a professor at the +University of Brussels had the impudence to call upon his former +'friends' in the uniform of a German officer.</p> + +<p>"When the war is over, when Belgium is free again, it will not be many +years before the Germans come back, at least their peaceful and +'friendly' vanguard. How will they be received this time? It is certain +that it will be extremely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> difficult for them to make friends again. As +to myself, when I meet them again in my country—I shall ask myself: 'Is +he a friend, or is he a spy?' And the business men will think: 'Are they +coming as faithful partners, or simply to steal and rob?' That will be +their well deserved reward."</p> + +<p>One mile from where we were billeted on the Belgian coast stood a villa +owned by a German. It lay between St. Idesbald and Coxyde Bains, on a +sand dune, commanding the Channel. After the war broke out the Belgians +examined it and found it was a fortification. Its walls were of six-foot +thickness, of heavy blocks of stone and concrete. Its massive flooring +was cleverly disguised by a layer of fancy tiling. Its interior was +fitted with little compartments for hydraulic apparatus for raising +weights, and there was a tangle of wires and pipes. Dynamite cleared +away the upper stories. Workmen hacked away the lower story, piece by +piece, during several weeks of our stay. Two members of our corps +inspected the interior. It lay just off the excellent road that runs +from St. Idesbald to Coxyde Bains,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> up which ammunition could be fed to +it for its coast defense work. The Germans expected an easy march down +the coast, with these safety stations ready for them at points of +need.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p> + +<p>A Belgian soldier rode into a Belgian village one evening at twilight +during the early days of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> the war. An old peasant woman, deceived +because of the darkness, and thinking him to be a German Uhlan, rushed +up to him and said, "Look out—the Belgians are here." It was the work +of these spies to give information to the marauding Uhlans as to whether +any hostile garrison was stationed in the town. If no troops were there +to resist, a band of a dozen Uhlans could easily take an entire village. +But if the village had a protecting garrison the Germans must be +forewarned.</p> + +<p>Three days after arriving in Belgium, in the early fall of 1914, a +friend and I met a German outpost, one of the Hussars. We fell into +conversation with him and became quite friendly. He had no cigarettes +and we shared ours with him. He could speak good English, and he let us +walk beside him as he rode slowly along on his way to the main body of +his troops. The Germans had won the day and there seemed to be nothing +at stake, or perhaps he did not expect our little group would be +long-lived, nor should we have been if the German plans had gone +through. It was their custom to use civilian prisoners as a protective +screen for their advancing troops. Whatever his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> motive, after we had +walked along beside his horse for a little distance, he pointed out to +us the house of the spy whom the Germans had in that village of Melle. +This man was a "half-breed" Englishman, who came out of his house and +walked over to the Hussar and said:</p> + +<p>"You want to keep up your English, for you'll soon be in London."</p> + +<p>In a loud voice, for the benefit of his Belgian neighbors, he shouted +out:</p> + +<p>"Look out! Those fellows shoot! The Germans are devils!"</p> + +<p>He brought out wine for the troops. We followed him into his house, +where he, supposing us to be friends of the Germans, asked us to partake +of his hospitality. That man was a resident of the village, a friend of +the people, but "fixed" for just this job of supplying information to +the invaders when the time came.</p> + +<p>During my five weeks in Ghent I used to eat frequently at the Café +Gambrinus, where the proprietor assured us that he was a Swiss and in +deep sympathy with Belgians and Allies. He had a large custom. When the +Germans captured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> Ghent he altered into a simon pure German and friend +of the invaders. His place now is the nightly resort of German officers.</p> + +<p>In the hotel where I stayed in Ghent the proprietor, after a couple of +days, believing me to be one more neutral American, told me he was a +German. He went on to say what a mistake the Belgians made to oppose the +Germans, who were irresistible. That was his return to the city and +country that had given him his livelihood. A few hours later a gendarme +friend of mine told me to move out quickly, as we were in the house of a +spy.</p> + +<p>Three members of our corps in Pervyse had evidence many nights of a spy +within our lines. It was part of the routine for a convoy of motor +trucks to bring ammunition forward to the trenches. The enemy during the +day would get the range of the road over which this train had to pass. +Of course, each night the time of ammunition moving was changed in an +attempt to foil the German fire. But this was of no avail, for when the +train of trucks moved along the road to the trenches a bright flash of +light would go up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> somewhere within our lines, telling the enemy that it +was time to fire upon the convoy.</p> + +<p>Such evidences kept reaching us of German gold at work on the very +country we were occupying. Sometimes the money itself.</p> + +<p>My wife, when stationed by the Belgian trenches at Pervyse, asked the +orderly to purchase potatoes, giving him a five-franc piece. He brought +back the potatoes and a handful of change that included a French franc, +a French copper, a Dutch small coin, a Belgian ten-centime bit, and a +German two-mark piece with its imperial eagle. This meant that some one +in the ranks or among the refugees was peddling information to the +enemy.</p> + +<p>In early October my wife and I were captured by the Uhlans at Zele. Our +Flemish driver, a Ghent man, began expressing his friendliness for them +in fluent German. After weeks of that sort of thing we became suspicious +of almost every one, so thorough and widespread had been the bribery of +certain of the poorer element. The Germans had sowed their seed for +years against the day when they would release their troops and have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +need of traitors scattered through the invaded country.</p> + +<p>The thoroughness of this bribery differed at different villages. In one +burned town of 1500 houses we found approximately 100 houses standing +intact, with German script in chalk on their doors; the order of the +officer not to burn. This meant the dwellers had been friendly to the +enemy in certain instances, and in other instances that they were spies +for the Germans. We have the photographs of those chalked houses in +safe-keeping, against such time as there is a direct challenge on the +facts of German methods. But there has come no challenge of facts—we +that have seen have given names, dates and places—only a blanket denial +and counter charges of <i>franc-tireur</i> warfare, as carried on by babies +in arms, white-haired grandmothers and sick women.</p> + +<p>In October, 1914, two miles outside Ostend, I was arrested as a spy by +the Belgians and marched through the streets in front of a gun in the +hands of a very young and very nervous soldier. The Etat Major told me +that German officers had been using American passports to enter the +Allied lines<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> and learn the numbers and disposition of troops. They had +to arrest Americans on sight and find out if they were masqueraders. A +little later one of our American ambassadors verified this by saying to +me that American passports had been flagrantly abused for German +purposes.</p> + +<p>All this devious inside work, misusing the hospitality of friendly, +trustful nations, this buying up of weak individuals, this laying the +traps on neutral ground—all this treachery in peace times—deserves a +second Bryce report. The atrocities are the product of the treachery. +This patient, insidious spy system, eating away at the vitality of the +Allied powers, results in such horrors as I have witnessed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE ATROCITY</h2> + + +<p>When the very terrible accounts of frightfulness visited on peasants by +the invading German army crossed the Channel to London, I believed that +we had one more "formula" story. I was fortified against unproved +allegations by thirteen years of newspaper and magazine investigation +and by professional experience in social work. A few months previously I +had investigated the "poison needle" stories of how a girl, rendered +insensible by a drug, was borne away in a taxicab to a house of ill +fame. The cases proved to be victims of hysteria. At another time, I had +looked up certain incidents of "white slavery," where young and innocent +victims were suddenly and dramatically ruined. I had found the cases to +be more complex than the picturesque statements of fiction writers +implied. Again, by the courtesy of the United States Government, +Department of Justice, I had studied investigations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> into the relation +of a low wage to the life of immorality. These had shown me that many +factors in the home, in the training, in the mental condition, often +contributed to the result. I had grown sceptical of the "plain" +statement of a complex matter, and peculiarly hesitant in accepting +accounts of outrage and cruelty. It was in this spirit that I crossed to +Belgium. To this extent, I had a pro-German leaning.</p> + +<p>On September 7, 1914, with two companions, I was present at the skirmish +between Germans and Belgians at Melle, a couple of miles east of Ghent. +We walked to the German line, where a blue-eyed young Hussar officer, +Rhinebeck, of Stramm, Holstein, led us into a trap by permitting us to +walk along after him and his men as they rode back to camp beyond Melle. +We walked for a quarter mile. At our right a barn was burning brightly. +On our left the homes of the peasants of Melle were burning, twenty-six +little yellow brick houses, each with a separate fire. It was not a +conflagration, by one house burning and gradually lighting the next. The +fires were well started and at equal intensity in each house. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> walls +between the houses were still intact. The twenty-six fires burned slowly +and thoroughly through the night.</p> + +<p>These three thousand German soldiers and their officers were neither +drunk nor riotous. The discipline was excellent. The burning was a +clean-cut, cold-blooded piece of work. It was a piece of punishment. +Belgian soldiers had resisted the German army. If Belgian soldiers +resist, peasant non-combatants must be killed. That inspires terror. +That teaches the lesson: "Do not oppose Germany. It is death to oppose +her—death to your wife and child."</p> + +<p>We were surrounded by soldiers and four sentries put over us. Peasants +who walked too close to the camp were brought in and added to our group +of prisoners, till, all told, we numbered thirty. A peasant lying next +to me watched his own house burn to pieces.</p> + +<p>Another of the peasants was an old man, of weak mind. He kept babbling +to himself. It would have been obvious to a child that he was foolish. +The German sentry ordered silence. The old fellow muttered on in +unconsciousness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> of his surroundings. The sentry drew back his bayonet +to run him through. A couple of the peasants pulled the old man flat to +the ground and stifled his talking.</p> + +<p>At five o'clock in the morning German stretcher bearers marched behind +the burned houses. Out of the house of the peasant lying next to me +three bodies were carried. He broke into a long, slow sobbing.</p> + +<p>At six o'clock a monoplane sailed overhead, bringing orders to our +detachment. The troops intended for Ghent were turned toward Brussels. +The field artillery, which had been rolled toward the west, was swung +about to the east. An officer headed us toward Ghent and let us go. If +the Germans had marched into Ghent we would have been of value as a +cover for the troops. But for the return to Brussels we were only a +nuisance. We hurried away toward Ghent. As we walked through a farmyard +we saw a farmer lying at full length dead in his dooryard. We passed the +convent school of Melle, where Catholic sisters live. The front yard was +strewed with furniture, with bedding, with the contents of the rooms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +The yard was about four hundred feet long and two hundred feet deep. It +was dotted with this intimate household stuff for the full area. I made +inquiry and found that no sister had been violated or bayoneted. The +soldiers had merely ransacked the place.</p> + +<p>One of my companions in this Melle experience was A. Radclyffe Dugmore, +formerly of the Players Club, New York, a well-known naturalist, author +of books on big game in Africa, the beaver, and the caribou. For many +years he was connected with Doubleday, Page & Co. His present address is +Crete Hill, South Nutfield, Surrey.</p> + +<p>At other times and places, German troops have not rested content with +the mere terrorization and humiliation of religious sisters. On February +12, 1916, the German Wireless from Berlin states that Cardinal Mercier +was urged to investigate the allegation of German soldiers attacking +Belgian nuns, and that he declined. As long as the German Government has +seen fit to revive the record of their own brutality, I present what +follows.</p> + +<p>A New York physician whom I know sends me this statement:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I was dining in London in the middle of last April with a friend, a +medical man, and I expressed doubt as to the truth of the stories of +atrocity. I said I had combatted such stories often in America. In +reply, he asked me to visit a house which had been made over into an +obstetrical hospital for Belgian nuns. I went with him to the hospital. +Here over a hundred nuns had been and were being cared for."</p> + +<p>On a later Sunday in September I visited the Municipal Hospital of +Ghent. In Salle (Hall) 17, I met and talked with Martha Tas, a peasant +girl of St. Gilles (near Termonde). As she was escaping by train from +the district, and when she was between Alost and Audeghem, she told me +that German soldiers aimed rifle fire at the train of peasants. She was +wounded by a bullet in the thigh. My companion on this visit was William +R. Renton, at one time a resident of Andover, Massachusetts. His present +address is the Coventry Ordnance Works, Coventry.</p> + +<p>A friend of mine has been lieutenant in a battery of 75's stationed near +Pervyse. His summer home is a little distance out from Liège. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> wife, +sister-in-law, and his three children were in the house when the Germans +came. Peasants, driven from their village, hid in the cellar. His sister +took one child and hid in a closet. His wife took the two-year-old baby +and the older child and hid in another closet. The troops entered the +house, looted it and set it on fire. As they left they fired into the +cellar. The mother rushed from her hiding place, went to her desk and +found that her money and the family jewels, one a gift from the +husband's family and handed down generation by generation, had been +stolen. With the sister, the baby in arms, the two other children and +the peasants, she ran out of the garden. They were fired on. They hid in +a wood. Then, for two days, they walked. The raw potatoes which they +gathered by the way were unfit for the little one. Without money, and +ill and weakened, they reached Holland. This lady is in a safe place +now, and her testimony in person is available.</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="GREEN_PASS" id="GREEN_PASS"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img051.jpg" alt="THE GREEN PASS" title="THE GREEN PASS" /></div> + + +<h4>THE GREEN PASS, USED ONLY BY SOLDIERS AND OFFICERS OF THE +BELGIAN ARMY.</h4> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>It gives passage to the trenches at any hour. The writer, by holding +this, and working under the Prime Minister's son, became +stretcher-bearer in the Belgian Army.</p></blockquote> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>The apologists of the widespread reign of frightfulness say that war is +always "like that," that individual drunken soldiers have always broken +loose and committed terrible acts. This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>defense does not meet the +facts. It meets neither the official orders, nor the cold method, nor +the immense number of proved murders. The German policy was ordered from +the top. It was carried out by officers and men systematically, under +discipline. The German War Book, issued by the General Staff, and used +by officers, cleverly justifies these acts. They are recorded by the +German soldiers themselves in their diaries, of which photographic +reproductions are obtainable in any large library. The diaries were +found on the persons of dead and wounded Germans. The name of the man +and his company are given.</p> + +<p>On Sunday, September 27, I was present at the battle of Alost, where +peasants came running into our lines from the German side of the canal. +In spite of shell, shrapnel, rifle, and machine fire, these peasants +crossed to us. The reason they had for running into fire was that the +Germans were torturing their neighbors with the bayonet. One peasant, on +the other side of the canal, hurried toward us under the fire, with a +little girl on his right shoulder.</p> + +<p>On Tuesday, September 29, I visited Wetteren<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> Hospital. I went in +company with the Prince L. de Croy, the Due D'Ursel, a senator; the +Count de Briey, Intendant de la Liste Civile du Roy, and the Count Retz +la Barre (all of the Garde du General de Wette, Divisions de Cavalerie). +One at least of these gentlemen is as well and as favorably known in +this country as in his own. I took a young linguist, who was kind enough +to act as secretary for me. In the hospital I found eleven peasants with +bayonet wounds upon them—men, women and a child—who had been marched +in front of the Germans at Alost as a cover for the troops, and cut with +bayonets when they tried to dodge the firing. A priest was ministering +to them, bed by bed. Sisters were in attendance. The priest led us to +the cot of one of the men. On Sunday morning, September 27, the peasant, +Leopold de Man, of No. 90, Hovenier-Straat, Alost, was hiding in the +house with his sister, in the cellar. The Germans made a fire of the +table and chairs in the upper room. Then, catching sight of Leopold, +they struck him with the butts of their guns and forced him to pass +through the fire. Then, taking him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> outside, they struck him to the +ground and gave him a blow over the head with a gunstock and a cut of +the bayonet, which pierced his thigh all the way through.</p> + +<p>"In spite of my wound," said he, "they made me pass between their lines, +giving me still more blows of the gun-butt in the back in order to make +me march. There were seventeen or eighteen persons with me. They placed +us in front of their lines and menaced us with their revolvers, crying +out that they will make us pay for the losses they have suffered at +Alost. So we march in front of the troops.</p> + +<p>"When the battle began we threw ourselves on our faces to the ground, +but they forced us to rise again. At a certain moment, when the Germans +were obliged to retire, we succeeded in escaping down side streets."</p> + +<p>The priest led the way to the cot of a peasant whose cheeks had the spot +of fever. He was Frans Meulebroeck, of No. 62, Drie Sleutelstraat, +Alost. Sometimes in loud bursts of terror, and then falling back into a +monotone, he talked with us.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They broke open the door of my home," he said, "they seized me and +knocked me down. In front of my door the corpse of a German lay +stretched out. The Germans said to me: 'You are going to pay for that to +us.' A few moments later they gave me a bayonet cut in my leg. They +sprinkled naphtha in my house and set it afire. My son was struck down +in the street and I was marched in front of the German troops. I do not +know even yet the fate of my son."</p> + +<p>Gradually as the peasant talked the time of his suffering came on him. +His eyes began to see it again in front of him. They became fixed and +wild, the white of them visible. His voice was shrill and broken with +sobs.</p> + +<p>"My boy," he said, "I haven't seen him." His body shook with sobbing.</p> + +<p>At my request the young man with me took down the statements of these +two peasants, turning them into French from the Flemish, with the aid of +the priest. In the presence of the priest and one of the sisters the two +peasants signed, each man, his statement, making his mark.</p> + +<p>Our group passed into the next room, where the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> wounded women were +gathered. A sister led us to the bedside of a very old woman, perhaps +eighty years old. She had thin white hair, that straggled across the +pillow. There was no motion to the body, except for faint breathing. She +was cut through the thigh with a bayonet.</p> + +<p>I went across the room and found a little girl, twelve years old. She +was propped up in bed and half bent over, as if she had been broken at +the breast bone. Her body whistled with each breath. One of our +ambulance corps went out next day to the hospital—Dr. Donald Renton. He +writes me:</p> + +<p>"I went out with Davidson, the American sculptor, and Yates, the cinema +man, and there had been brought into the hospital the previous day the +little girl you speak of. She had a gaping wound on, I think, the right +side of her back, and died the next day."</p> + +<p>Dr. Renton's address is 110 Hill Street, Garnet Hill, Glasgow.</p> + +<p>The young man who took down the record is named E. de Niemira, a British +subject. He made the report of what we had seen to the Bryce Com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>mittee. +These cases which I witnessed appear in the Bryce Report under the +heading of "Alost."<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> Of such is the Bryce Report made: first-hand +witness by men like myself, who know what they know, who are ready for +any test to be applied, who made careful notes, who had witnesses.</p> + +<p>"Why do the Germans do these things? It is not war. It is cruel and +wrong," that is a remark I heard from noblemen and common soldiers +alike. Such acts are beyond the understanding of the Belgian people. +Their soldiers are kindly, good-humored, fearless. Alien women and +children would be safe in their hands. They do not see why the Germans +bring suffering to the innocent.</p> + +<p>A few understand. They know it is a scientific panic which the German +army was seeking to cultivate. They see that these acts are not done in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +the wilful abandon of a few drunken soldiers, beyond discipline, but +that they belong to a cool, careful method by means of which the German +staff hoped to reduce a population to servitude. The Germans regard +these mutilations as pieces of necessary surgery. The young blond +barmaid of the Quatrecht Inn told us on October 4 that a German captain +came and cried like a baby in the taproom on the evening of September 7, +after he had laid waste Quatrecht and Melle. To her fanciful, untrained +mind he was thinking of his own wife and children. So, at least, she +thought as she watched him, after serving him in his thirst.</p> + +<p>One of the sentries patted the shoulder of the peasant at Melle when he +learned that the man had had the three members of his family done to +death. Personally, he was sorry for the man, but orders were orders.</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="CHURCH_IN_TERMONDE" id="CHURCH_IN_TERMONDE"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img061.jpg" alt="CHURCH IN TERMONDE" title="CHURCH IN TERMONDE" /></div> + + +<h4>CHURCH IN TERMONDE WHICH THE WRITER SAW.</h4> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>The Germans burned this church and four others, a hospital, an +orphanage, and 1,100 homes, house by house. Priests, nuns and churches +irritated the German Army. This photograph was taken by Radclyffe +Dugmore, who accompanied the writer, to witness the methodical +destruction.</p></blockquote> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>I spent September 13 and September 23 in Termonde. Ten days before my +first visit Termonde was a pretty town of 11,000 inhabitants. On their +first visit the Germans burned eleven hundred of the fifteen hundred +houses. They burned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>the Church of St. Benedict, the Church of St. +Rocus, three other churches, a hospital, and an orphanage. They burned +that town not by accident of shell fire and general conflagration, but +methodically, house by house. In the midst of charred ruins I came on +single houses standing, many of them, and on their doors was German +writing in chalk—"Nicht Verbrennen. Gute Leute wohnen hier." Sometimes +it would be simply "Nicht Verbrennen," sometimes only "Gute Leute," but +always that piece of German script was enough to save that house, though +to the right and left of it were ruins. On several of the saved houses +the name of the German officer was scribbled who gave the order to +spare. About one hundred houses were chalked in the way I have +described. All these were unscathed by the fire, though they stood in +streets otherwise devastated. The remaining three hundred houses had the +good luck to stand at the outskirts and on streets unvisited by the +house-to-house incendiaries.</p> + +<p>Four days after my first visit the Germans burned again the already +wrecked town, turning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> their attention to the neglected three hundred +houses. I went in as soon as I could safely enter the town, and that was +on the Wednesday after.</p> + +<p>As companions in Termonde I had Tennyson Jesse, Radclyffe Dugmore, and +William R. Renton. Mr. Dugmore took photographs of the chalked houses.</p> + +<p>"Build a fence around Termonde," suggested a Ghent manufacturer, "leave +the ruins untouched. Let the place stand there, with its burned houses, +churches, orphanage, hospital, factories, to show the world what German +culture is. It will be a monument to their methods of conducting war. +There will be no need of saying anything. That is all the proof we need. +Then throw open the place to visitors from all the world, as soon as +this war is over. Let them draw their own conclusions."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>BALLAD OF THE GERMANS</h2> + + +<p>In Wetteren Hospital, Flanders, the writer saw a little peasant girl +dying from the bayonet wounds in her back which the German soldiers had +given her.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cain slew only a brother,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A lad who was fair and strong,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His murder was careless and honest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A heated and sudden wrong.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Judas was kindly and pleasant,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For he snared an invincible man.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But you—you have spitted the children,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As they toddled and stumbled and ran.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She heard you sing on the high-road,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She thought you were gallant and gay;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such men as the peasants of Flanders:</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The friends of a child at play.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She saw the sun on your helmets,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The sparkle of glancing light.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She saw your bayonets flashing,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And she laughed at your Prussian might.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then you gave her death for her laughter,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As you looked on her mischievous face.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You hated the tiny peasant,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With the hate of your famous race.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You were not frenzied and angry;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">You were cold and efficient and keen.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your thrust was as thorough and deadly</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As the stroke of a faithful machine.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You stabbed her deep with your rifle:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">You had good reason to sing,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As you footed it on through Flanders</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Past the broken and quivering thing.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Something impedes your advancing,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A dragging has come on your hosts.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Paris grows dim now, and dimmer,</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Through the blur of your raucous boasts.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your singing is sometimes broken</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By guttural German groans.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your ankles are wet with <i>her</i> bleeding,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Your pike is blunt from <i>her</i> bones.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The little peasant has tripped you.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She hangs to your bloody stride.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the dimpled hands are fastened</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where they fumbled before she died.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE STEAM ROLLER</h2> + +<p>The Steam Roller, the final method, now operating in Belgium to flatten +her for all time, is the most deadly and universal of the three. It is a +calculated process to break the human spirit. People speak as if the +injury done Belgium was a thing of the past. It is at its height now. +The spy system with its clerks, waiters, tourists, business managers, +reached directly only some thousands of persons. The atrocities wounded +and killed many thousands of old men, women, and children. But the +German occupation and sovereignty at the present moment are +denationalizing more than six million people. The German conquerors +operate their Steam Roller by clever lies, thus separating Belgium from +her real friends; by taxation, thus breaking Belgium economically; by +enforced work on food supplies, railways, and ammunition, thus forcing +Belgian peasants to feed their enemy's army and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> destroy their own army, +and so making unwilling traitors out of patriots; by fines and +imprisonment that harass the individual Belgian who retains any sense of +nationality; by official slander from Berlin that the Belgians are the +guilty causes of their own destruction; and finally by the fact of +sovereignty itself, that at one stroke breaks the inmost spirit of a +free nation.</p> + +<p>I was still in Ghent when the Germans moved up to the suburbs.</p> + +<p>"I can put my artillery on Ghent," said the German officer to the +American vice-consul.</p> + +<p>That talk is typical of the tone of voice used to Belgians: threat +backed by murder.</p> + +<p>The whole policy of the Germans of late is to treat the Belgian matter +as a thing accomplished.</p> + +<p>"It is over. Let bygones be bygones."</p> + +<p>It is a process like the trapping of an innocent woman, and when she is +trapped, saying,</p> + +<p>"Now you are compromised, anyway, so you had better submit."</p> + +<p>A friend of mine who remained in Ghent after the German occupation, had +German officers billetted in his home. Daily, industriously, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> said +to him that the English had been poor friends of his country, that they +had been late in coming to the rescue. Germany was the friend, not +England. In the homes throughout Belgium, these unbidden guests are +claiming slavery is a beneficent institution, that it is better to be +ruled by the German military, and made efficient for German ends, than +to continue a free people.</p> + +<p>For a year, our Red Cross Corps worked under the direction and authority +of the Belgian prime minister, Baron de Broqueville. The prime minister +in the name of his government has sent to this country an official +protest against the new tax levied by the Germans on his people. The +total tax for the German occupation amounts to $192,000,000. He writes:</p> + +<p>"The German military occupation during the last fifteen months has +entirely prevented all foreign trade, has paralyzed industrial activity, +and has reduced the majority of the laboring classes to enforced +idleness. Upon the impoverished Belgian population whom Germany has +unjustly attacked, upon whom she has brought want and distress, who have +been barely saved from starva<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>tion by the importation of food which +Germany should have provided—upon this population, Germany now imposes +a new tax, equal in amount to the enormous tax she has already imposed +and is regularly collecting."</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="GASPAR" id="GASPAR"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img070.jpg" alt="GASPAR" title="GASPAR" /></div> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>One of the dangerous Belgian franc-tireurs, who made it +necessary for the German Army to burn and bayonet babies and old women. +His name is Gaspar. He is three years old.</p></blockquote> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>The Belgian Legation has protested unavailingly to our Government that +Germany, in violation of The Hague Conventions, has forced Belgian +workmen to perform labor for the German army. Belgian Railway employees +at Malines, Luttre and elsewhere refused to perform work which would +have released from the transportation service and made available for the +trenches an entire German Army Corps. These Belgian workmen were +subjected to coersive measures, which included starvation and cruel +punishments. Because of these penalties on Belgians refusing to be +traitors, many went to hospitals in Germany, and others returned broken +in health to Belgium.</p> + +<p>After reading the chapter on the German spy system, a Belgian wrote me:</p> + +<p>"That spying business is not yet the worst. Since then, the Germans have +succeeded in outdo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>ing all that. The basest and the worst that one can +dream of is it not that campaign of slander and blackmail which they +originated after their violation of Belgium's neutrality? Of course they +did it—as a murderer who slanders his victim—in the hope to justify +their crime."</p> + +<p>It is evil to murder non-combatants. It is more evil to "rationalize" +the act—to invent a moral reason for doing an infamous thing. First, +Belgium suffered a vivisection, a veritable martyrdom. Now, she is +officially informed by her executioners that she was the guilty party. +She is not allowed to protest. She must sit quietly under the charge +that her sacrifice was not a sacrifice at all, but the penalty paid for +her own misbehavior. This is a more cruel thing than the spying that +sapped her and the atrocities practised upon her, because it is more +cruel to take a man's honor than his property and his life.</p> + +<p>"If the peasants had stayed in their houses, they would have been safe."</p> + +<p>When they stayed in their houses they were burned along with the houses. +I saw this done on September 7, 1914, at Melle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The peasants shot from their houses at the advancing German army."</p> + +<p>I saw German atrocities. The peasants did not shoot. It is the old +familiar formula of the <i>franc-tireur</i>. That means that the peasant, not +a soldier, dressed in the clothing of a civilian, takes advantage of his +immunity as a noncombatant, to secrete a rifle, and from some shelter +shoot at the enemy army. The Bishop of Namur writes:</p> + +<p>"It is evident that the German army trod the Belgian soil and carried +out the invasion with the preconceived idea that it would meet with +bands of this sort, a reminiscence of the war of 1870. But German +imagination will not suffice to create that which does not exist.</p> + +<p>"There never existed a single body of <i>francs-tireurs</i> in Belgium.</p> + +<p>"No 'isolated instance' even is known of civilians having fired upon the +troops, although there would have been no occasion for surprise if any +individual person had committed an excess. In several of our villages +the population was exterminated because, as the military authorities +alleged, a major had been killed or a young girl had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> attempted to kill +an officer, and so forth.... In no case has an alleged culprit been +discovered and designated by name."</p> + +<p>This lie—that the peasants brought their own death on themselves—was +rehearsed before the war, as a carefully learned lesson. The army came +prepared to find the excuse for the methodical outrages which they +practised. In the fight in the Dixmude district, a German officer of the +202,<sup>e</sup> Infantry had a letter with this sentence on his body:</p> + +<p>"There are a lot of <i>francs-tireurs</i> with the enemy."</p> + +<p>There were none. He had found what he had been drilled to find, in the +years of preparedness. The front lines of the Yser were raked clear by +shell, rifle, and machine-gun fire. The district was in ruins. I know, +because I worked there with our Red Cross Corps through those three +weeks. The humorous explanation of this is given by one of the Fusilier +Marin Lieutenants—that the blue cap and the red pompon of the famous +fighting sailors of France looked strangely to the Germans, who took the +wearers for <i>francs-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>tireurs</i>, terror suggesting the idea. But this is +the kindly humor of Brittany. The saucy sailor caps could not have +looked strangely to German eyes, because a few weeks earlier those +"Girls with the red pompon" had held the German army corps at Melle, and +not even terror could have made them look other than terribly familiar. +No. The officers had been faithfully trained to find militant peasants +under arms, and to send back letters and reports of their discovery, +which could later be used in official excuses for frightfulness. This +letter is one that did not get back to Berlin, later to appear in a +White Paper, as justification for official murder of non-combatants.</p> + +<p>The picture projected by the Great German Literary Staff is too +imaginative. Think of that Army of the Invasion with its army corps +riding down through village streets—the Uhlan cavalry, the innumerable +artillery, the dense endless infantry, the deadly power and swing of it +all—and then see the girl-child of Alost, and the white-haired woman, +eighty years old—aiming their rifles at that cavalcade. It is a +literary creation, not a statement of fact. I have been in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> villages +when German troops were entering, had entered, and were about to enter. +I saw helpless, terror-stricken women huddled against the wall, children +hiding in their skirts, old men dazed and vague.</p> + +<p>Then, as the blue-gray uniforms appeared at the head of the street, with +sunlight on the pikes and helmets, came the cry—half a sob, "Les +Allemands."</p> + +<p>The German fabrications are unworthy. Let the little slain children, and +the violated women, sleep in honor. Your race was stern enough in doing +them to death. Let them alone, now that you have cleared them from your +path to Paris.</p> + +<p>Doctor George Sarton, of the University of Ghent writes me:</p> + +<p>"During the last months, the Germans have launched new slanders against +Belgium. Their present tactics are more discreet and seem to be +successful. Many 'neutral' travelers—especially Americans and +Swiss—have been to Belgium to see the battlefields or, perhaps, to get +an idea of what such an occupation by foreign soldiers exactly amounts +to. Of course, these men can see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> nothing without the assistance of the +German authorities, and they can but see what is shown to them. The +greater their curiosity, the more courtesy extended to them, the more +also they feel indebted to their German hosts. These are well aware of +it: the sightseers are taken in their net, and with a very few +exceptions, their critical sense is quickly obliterated. We have +recently been shown one of the finest specimens of these American +tourists: Mr. George B. McCellan, professor of History at Princeton, who +made himself ridiculous by writing a most superficial and inaccurate +article for the "Sunday Times Magazine".</p> + +<p>"When the good folks of Belgium recollect the spying business that was +carried on at their expense by their German 'friends,' they are not +likely to trust much their German enemies. They know that the Germans +are quite incapable of keeping to themselves any fact that they may +learn—in whatever confidential and intimate circumstances—if this fact +is of the smallest use to their own country. As it is perfectly +impossible to trust them, the best is to avoid them, and that is what +most Belgians are doing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> + +<p>"American tourists seeing Belgium through German courtesy are considered +by the Belgians just as untrustworthy as the Germans themselves. This is +the right attitude, as there is no possibility left to the Belgians (in +Belgium) of testing the morality and the neutrality of their visitors. +The result of which is that these visitors are entirely given up to +their German advisers; <i>all their knowledge is of German origin</i>. Of +course, the Germans take advantage of this situation and make a show of +German efficiency and organization.—'Don't you know: the Germans have +done so much for Belgium! Why, everybody knows that this country was +very inefficient, very badly managed ... a poor little country without +influence.... See what the Germans have made of it.... There was no +compulsory education, and the number of illiterates was scandalously +high,' (I am sorry to say that this at least is true.) 'They are +introducing compulsory and free education. In the big towns, sexual +morality was rather loose, but the Germans are now regulating all that.' +(You should hear German officers speak of prostitution in Antwerp and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +Brussels.) 'The evil was great, but fortunately the Germans came and are +cleaning up the country.'—That is their way of doing and talking. It +does not take them long to convince ingenuous and uncritical Americans +that everything is splendidly regulated by German efficiency, and that +if only the Belgians were complying, everything would be all right in +Belgium. Are not the Belgians very ungrateful?</p> + +<p>"The Belgians do appreciate American generosity; they realize that +almost the only rays of happiness that reach their country come from +America. They will never forget it; that disinterested help coming from +over the seas has a touch of romance; it is great and comforting; it is +the bright and hopeful side of the war. The Belgians know how to value +this. But, as to what the Germans are doing, good or not, they will +never appreciate that—what does it matter? The Belgians do not care one +bit for German reforms; they do not even deign to consider them; they +simply ignore them. There is <i>one</i>—only one—reform that they will +appreciate; the German evacuation. All the rest does not count.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> When +the Germans speak of cleaning the country, the Belgians do not +understand. From their point of view, there is only one way to clean +it—and that is for the Germans to clear out.</p> + +<p>"The Germans are very disappointed that a certain number of Belgians +have been able to escape, either to enlist in the Belgian army or to +live abroad. Of course, the more Belgians are in their hands, the more +pressure they can exert. They are now slandering the Belgians who have +left their country—all the 'rich' people who are 'feasting' abroad +while their countrymen are starving.</p> + +<p>"The fewer Belgians there are in German hands, the better it is. The +Belgians whose ability is the most useful, are considered useful by the +Germans for the latter's sake. Must it not be a terrible source of +anxiety for these Belgians to think that all the work they manage to do +is directly or indirectly done for Germany? It is not astonishing that +she wants to restore 'business, as usual' in Belgium, and that in many +cases she has tried to force the Belgian workers to earn for her. Let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +me simply refer to the protest recently published by the Belgian +Legation. But for the American Commission for Relief, the Belgians would +have had to choose between starvation and work—work for +Germany—starvation or treason. Nothing shows better the greatness and +moment of the American work. Without the material and moral presence of +the United States, Belgium would have simply been turned into a nation +of slaves—starvation or treason.</p> + +<p>"If I were in Belgium, I could say nothing; I would have to choose +between silence and prison, or silence and death. Remember Edith Cavell. +An enthusiastic, courageous man is running as many risks in Belgium now, +as he would have in the sixteenth century under the Spanish domination. +The hundred eyes of the Spanish Inquisition were then continually prying +into everything—bodies and souls; one felt them even while one was +sleeping. The German Secret Service is not less pitiless and it is more +efficient.</p> + +<p>"The process of slander and lie carried on by the Germans to 'flatten' +Belgium is, to my judg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>ment, the worst of their war practices. It is +very efficient indeed. But, however efficient it may be, it will be +unsuccessful as to its main purpose. The Germans will not be able to bow +Belgian heads. As long as the Belgians do not admit that they have been +conquered, they are not conquered, and in the meanwhile the Germans are +merely aggravating their infamy. It was an easy thing to over-run the +unprepared Belgian soil—but the Belgian spirit is unconquerable.</p> + +<p>"Belgium may slumber, but die—never."</p> + +<p>When men act as part of an implacable machine, they act apart from their +humanity. They commit unbelievable horrors, because the thing that moves +them is raw force, untouched by fine purpose and the elements of mercy. +When I think of Germans, man by man, as they lay wounded, waiting for us +to bring them in and care for them as faithfully as for our own, I know +that they have become human in their defeat. We are their friends as we +break them. In spite of their treachery and cruelty and cold hatred, we +shall save them yet. Cleared of their evil dream and restored to our +common humanity, they will have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> a more profound sorrow growing out of +this war than any other people, for Belgium and France only suffered +these things, but the great German race committed them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>MY EXPERIENCE WITH BAEDEKER</h2> + + +<p>When I went to Belgium, friends said to me, "You must take 'Baedeker's +Belgium' with you; it is the best thing on the country." So I did. I +used it as I went around. The author doesn't give much about himself, +and that is a good feature in any book, but I gathered he was a German, +a widely traveled man, and he seems to have spent much time in Belgium, +for I found intimate records of the smallest things. I used his guide +for five months over there. I must say right here I was disappointed in +it. And that isn't just the word, either. I was annoyed by it. It gave +all the effect of accuracy, and then when I got there it wasn't so. He +kept speaking of buildings as "beautiful," "one of the loveliest +unspoiled pieces of thirteenth century architecture in Europe," and when +I took a lot of trouble and visited the building, I found it half down, +or a butt-end, or sometimes ashes. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> couldn't make his book tally up. +It doesn't agree with the landscape and the look of things. He will take +a perfectly good detail and stick it in where it doesn't belong, and +leave it there. And he does it all in a painstaking way and with evident +sincerity.</p> + +<p>His volume had been so popular back in his own country that it had +brought a lot of Germans into Belgium. I saw them everywhere. They were +doing the same thing I was doing, checking up what they saw with the map +and text and things. Some of them looked puzzled and angry, as they went +around. I feel sure they will go home and give Baedeker a warm time, +when they tell him they didn't find things as he had represented.</p> + +<p>For one thing, he makes out Belgium a lively country, full of busy, +contented people, innocent peasants, and sturdy workmen and that sort of +thing. Why, it's the saddest place in the world. The people are not +cheery at all. They are depressed. It's the last place I should think of +for a holiday, now that I have seen it. And that's the way it goes, all +through his work. Things are the opposite of what he says with so much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +meticulous care. He would speak of "gay café life" in a place that +looked as if an earthquake had hit it, and where the only people were +some cripples and a few half-starved old folks. If he finds that sort of +thing gay as he travels around, he is an easy man to please. It was so +wherever I went. It isn't as if he were wrong at some one detail. He is +wrong all over the place, all over Belgium. It's all different from the +way he says it is. I know his fellow-countrymen who are there now will +bear me out in this.</p> + +<p>Let me show one place. I took his book with me and used it on Nieuport. +That's a perfectly fair test, because Nieuport is like a couple of +hundred other towns.</p> + +<p>"Nieuport," says Herr Baedeker, "a small and quiet place on the Yser."</p> + +<p>It is one of the noisiest places I have ever been in. There was a day +and a half in May when shells dropped into the streets and houses, every +minute. Every day at least a few screaming three-inch shells fall on the +village. Aëroplanes buzz overhead, shrapnel pings in the sky. Rifle +bullets sing like excited telegraph wires. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>Baedeker found Nieuport +a quiet place, he was brought up in a boiler factory.</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="GOTHIC_CHURCH" id="GOTHIC_CHURCH"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img088.jpg" alt="GOTHIC CHURCH" title="GOTHIC CHURCH" /></div> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>Baedeker, the distinguished German writer, states that +this Fifteenth Century Gothic church in Nieuport has "a modern timber +roof." We looked for it.</p></blockquote> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>His very next phrase puzzled me—"with 3500 inhabitants," he says.</p> + +<p>And I didn't see one. There were dead people in the ruins of the houses. +The soldiers used to unearth them from time to time. I remember that the +poet speaks of "the poor inhabitant below," when he is writing of a body +in a grave. It must be in that sense that Baedeker specifies those 3500 +inhabitants. But he shouldn't do that kind of imaginative touch. It +isn't in his line. And it might mislead people.</p> + +<p>Think of a stranger getting into Nieuport after dark on a wet night, +with his mind all set on the three hotels Baedeker gives him a choice +of.</p> + +<p>"All unpretending," he says.</p> + +<p>Just the wrong word. Why, those hotels are brick dust. They're flat on +the ground. There isn't a room left. He means "demolished." He doesn't +use our language easily. I can see that. It is true they are +unpretending, but that isn't the first word you would use about them, +not if you were fluent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then he gives a detail that is unnecessary. He says you can sleep or eat +there for a "franc and a half." That exactitude is out of place. It is +labored. I ask you what a traveler would make of the "1½ fr. <i>pour +diner</i>," when he came on that rubbish heap which is the Hotel of +Hope—"Hotel de l'Espérance." That is like Baedeker, all through his +volume. He will give a detail, like the precise cost of this dinner, +when there isn't any food in the neighborhood. It wouldn't be so bad if +he'd sketch things in general terms. That I could forgive. But it is too +much when he makes a word-picture of a Flemish table d'hôte for a franc +and a half in a section of country where even the cats are starving.</p> + +<p>His next statement is plain twisted. "Nieuport is noted for its +obstinate resistance to the French."</p> + +<p>I saw French soldiers there every day. They were defending the place. +His way of putting it stands the facts on their head.</p> + +<p>"And (is noted) for the 'Battle of the Dunes' in 1600."</p> + +<p>That is where the printer falls down. I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> there during the Battle of +the Dunes. The nine is upside down in the date as given.</p> + +<p>I wouldn't object so much if he were careless with facts that were +harmless, like his hotels and his dinner and his dates. But when he +gives bad advice that would lead people into trouble, I think he ought +to be jacked up. Listen to this:</p> + +<p>"We may turn to the left to inspect the locks on the canals to Ostend."</p> + +<p>Baedeker's proposal here means sure death to the reader who tries it. +That section is lined with machine guns. If a man began turning and +inspecting, he would be shot. Baedeker's statement is too casual. It +sounds like a suggestion for a leisurely walk. It isn't a sufficient +warning against doing something which shortens life. The word "inspect" +is unfortunate. It gives the reader the idea he is invited to nose +around those locks, when he had really better quiet down and keep away. +The sentries don't want him there. I should have written that sentence +differently. His kind of unconsidered advice leads to a lot of sadness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The Rue Longue contains a few quaint old houses."</p> + +<p>It doesn't contain any houses at all. There are some heaps of scorched +rubble. "Quaint" is word painting.</p> + +<p>"On the south side of this square rises the dignified Cloth Hall."</p> + +<p>There is nothing dignified about a shattered, burned, tottering old +building. Why will he use these literary words?</p> + +<p>"With a lately restored belfry."</p> + +<p>It seems as if this writer couldn't help saying the wrong thing. A +Zouave gave us a piece of bronze from the big bell. It wasn't restored +at all. It was on the ground, broken.</p> + +<p>"The church has a modern timber roof."</p> + +<p>There he goes again—the exact opposite of what even a child could see +were the facts. And yet in his methodical, earnest way, he has tried to +get these things right. That church, for instance, has no roof at all. +It has a few pillars standing. It looks like a skeleton. I have a good +photograph of it, which the reader can see on page 69. If Baedeker would +stand under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> that "modern timber roof" in a rainstorm, he wouldn't think +so much of it.</p> + +<p>"The Hotel de Ville contains a small collection of paintings."</p> + +<p>I don't like to keep picking on what he says, but this sentence is +irritating. There aren't any paintings there, because things are +scattered. You can see torn bits strewed around on the floor of the +place, but nothing like a collection.</p> + +<p>I could go on like that, and take him up on a lot more details. But it +sounds as if I were criticising. And I don't mean it that way, because I +believe the man is doing his best. But I do think he ought to get out +another edition of his book, and set these points straight.</p> + +<p>He puts a little poem on his title page:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Go, little book, God send thee good passage,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And specially let this be thy prayer</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Unto them all that thee will read or hear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where thou art wrong, after their help to call,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thee to correct in any part or all.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>That sounds fair enough. So I am going to send him these notes. But it +isn't in "parts" he is "wrong." There is a big mistake somewhere.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><br /><br /></p> +<h2>GOLDEN LADS</h2> + +<p class='center'> +"Golden lads and girls all must,<br /> +As chimney-sweepers, come to dust."<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE PLAY-BOYS OF BRITTANY</h2> + +<h3>LES FUSILIERS MARINS</h3> + + +<p>At times in my five months at the front I have been puzzled by the +sacrifice of so much young life; and most I have wondered about the +Belgians. I had seen their first army wiped out; there came a time when +I no longer met the faces I had learned to know at Termonde and Antwerp +and Alost. A new army of boys has dug itself in at the Yser, and the +same wastage by gun-fire and disease is at work on them. One wonders +with the Belgians if the price they pay for honor is not too high. There +is a sadness in the eyes of Belgian boy soldiers that is not easy to +face. Are we quite worthy of their sacrifice? Why should the son of +Ysaye die for me? Are you, comfortable reader, altogether sure that +Pierre Depage and André Simont are called on to spill their blood for +your good name?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then one turns with relief to the Fusiliers Marins—the sailors with a +rifle. Here are young men at play. They know they are the incomparable +soldiers. The guns have been on them for fifteen months, but they remain +unbroken. Twice in the year, if they had yielded, this might have been a +short war. But that is only saying that if Brittany had a different +breed of men the world and its future would contain less hope. They +carry the fine liquor of France, and something of their own added for +bouquet. They are happy soldiers—happy in their brief life, with its +flash of daring, and happy in their death. It is still sweet to die for +one's country, and that at no far-flung outpost over the seas and sands, +but just at the home border. As we carried our wounded sailors down from +Nieuport to the great hospital of Zuydcoote on the Dunkirk highway, +there is a sign-board, a bridge, and a custom-house that mark the point +where we pass from Belgium into France. We drove our ambulance with the +rear curtain raised, so that the wounded men, lying on the stretchers, +could be cheered by the flow of scenery. Sometimes, as we crossed that +border-line, one of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> men would pick it up with his eye, and would +say to his comrade: "France! Now we are in France, the beautiful +country."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" I asked one lad, who had brightened visibly.</p> + +<p>"The other countries," he said, "are flat and dirty. The people are of +mixed races. France is not so."</p> + +<p>It has been my fortune to watch the sailors at work from the start of +the war. I was in Ghent when they came there, late, to a hopeless +situation. Here were youngsters scooped up from the decks, untrained in +trenches, and rushed to the front; but the sea-daring was on them, and +they knew obedience and the hazards. They helped to cover the retreat of +the Belgians and save that army from annihilation by banging away at the +German mass at Melle. Man after man developed a fatalism of war, and +expressed it to us.</p> + +<p>"Nothing can hit you till your time," was often their way of saying it; +"it's no use dodging or being afraid. You won't be hit till your shell +comes." And another favorite belief of theirs that brought them cheer +was this: "The shell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> that will kill you you won't hear coming. So +you'll never know."</p> + +<p>These sailor lads thrive on lost causes, and it was at Ghent they won +from the Germans their nickname of "Les demoiselles au pompon rouge." +The saucy French of that has a touch beyond any English rendering of +"the girls with the red pompon." "Les demoiselles au pompon rouge" +paints their picture at one stroke, for they thrust out the face of a +youngster from under a rakish blue sailor hat, crowned with a fluffy red +button, like a blue flower with a red bloom at its heart. I rarely saw +an aging <i>marin</i>. There are no seasoned troops so boyish. They wear open +dickies, which expose the neck, full, hard, well-rounded. The older +troops, who go laggard to the spading, have beards that extend down the +collar; but a boy has a smooth, clean neck, and these sailors have the +throat of youth. We must once have had such a race in our cow-boys and +Texas rangers—level-eyed, careless men who know no masters, only +equals. The force of gravity is heavy on an old man. But <i>marins</i> are +not weighted down by equipment nor muffled with clothing. They go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +bobbing like corks, as though they would always stay on the crest of +things. And riding on top of their lightness is that absurd bright-red +button in their cap. The armies for five hundred miles are sober, +grown-up people, but here are the play-boys of the western front.</p> + +<p>From Ghent they trooped south to Dixmude, and were shot to pieces in +that "Thermopylæ of the North."</p> + +<p>"Hold for four days," was their order.</p> + +<p>They held for three weeks, till the sea came down and took charge. +During those three weeks we motored in and out to get their wounded. +Nothing of orderly impression of those days remains to me. I have only +flashes of the sailor-soldiers curved over and snaking along the +battered streets behind slivers of wall, handfuls of them in the Hotel +de Ville standing around waiting in a roar of noise and a bright blaze +of burning houses—waiting till the shelling fades away.<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then for over twelve months they held wrecked Nieuport, and I have +watched them there week after week. There is no drearier post on earth. +One day in the pile of masonry thirty feet from our cellar refuge the +sailors began throwing out the bricks, and in a few minutes they +uncovered the body of a comrade. All the village has the smell of +desolation. That smell is compounded of green ditch-water, damp plaster, +wet clothing, blood, straw, and antiseptics. The nose took it as we +crossed the canal, and held it till we shook ourselves on the run home. +Thirty minutes a day in that soggy wreck pulled at my spirits for hours +afterward. But those chaps stood up to it for twenty-four hours a day, +lifting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> a cheery face from a stinking cellar, hopping about in the +tangle, sleeping quietly when their "night off" comes. As our chauffeur +drew his camera, one of them sprang into a bush entanglement, aimed his +rifle, and posed.</p> + +<p>I recollect an afternoon when we had word of an attack. We were grave, +because the Germans are strong and fearless.</p> + +<p>"Are they coming?" grinned a sailor. "Let them come. We are ready."</p> + +<p>We learned to know many of the Fusiliers Marins and to grow fond of +them. How else could it be when we went and got them, sick and wounded, +dying and dead, two, six, ten of them a day, for many weeks, and brought +them in to the Red Cross post for a dressing, and then on to the +hospital? I remember a young man in our ambulance. His right foot was +shot away, and the leg above was wounded. He lay unmurmuring for all the +tossing of the road over the long miles of the ride. We lifted him from +the stretcher, which he had wet with his blood, into the white cot in +"Hall 15" of Zuydcoote Hospital. The wound and the journey had gone +deeply into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> his vitality. As he touched the bed, his control ebbed, and +he became violently sick at the stomach. I stooped to carry back the +empty stretcher. He saw I was going away, and said, "Thank you." I knew +I should not see him again, not even if I came early next day.</p> + +<p>There is one unfading impression made on me by those wounded. If I call +it good nature, I have given only one element in it. It is more than +that: it is a dash of fun. They smile, they wink, they accept a light +for their cigarette. It is not stoicism at all. Stoicism is a grim +holding on, the jaws clenched, the spirit dark, but enduring. This is a +thing of wings. They will know I am not making light of their pain in +writing these words. I am only saying that they make light of it. The +judgment of men who are soon to die is like the judgment of little +children. It does not tolerate foolish words. Of all the ways of showing +you care that they suffer there is nothing half so good as the gift of +tobacco. As long as I had any money to spend, I spent it on packages of +cigarettes.</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="SAILORS" id="SAILORS"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img106.jpg" alt="SAILORS" title="SAILORS" /></div> + + +<h4>SAILORS LIFTING A WOUNDED COMRADE INTO THE +MOTOR-AMBULANCE.</h4> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>When the Marin officers found out we were the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>same people that had +worked with them at Melle five months before, they invited my wife and +three other nurses to luncheon in a Nieuport cellar. Their eye brightens +at sight of a woman, but she is as safe with them as with a cowboy or a +Quaker. The guests were led down into a basement, an eighteen foot room, +six feet high. The sailors had covered the floor and papered the walls +with red carpet. A tiny oil stove added to the warmth of that blazing +carpet. More than twenty officers and doctors crowded into the room, and +took seats at the table, lighted by two lamps. There were a dozen plates +of <i>patisserie</i>, a choice of tea, coffee, or chocolate, all hot, white +and red wine, and then champagne. An orderly lifted in a little wooden +yacht, bark-rigged, fourteen inches long, with white painted sails. A +nurse spilled champagne over the tiny ship, till it was drenched, and +christened. The chief doctor made a speech of thanks. Then the ship went +around the table, and each guest wrote her name on the sails. The party +climbed out into the garden, where the shells were going high overhead +like snowballs. In amongst the blackened flowers, a 16-inch shell had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +left a hole of fifty feet diameter. One could have dropped two motor +cars into the cavity.</p> + +<p>Who but Marins would have devised a celebration for us on July 4? The +commandant, the captain, and a brace of lieutenants opened eleven +bottles of champagne in the Café du Sport at Coxyde in honor of our +violation of neutrality. It was little enough we were doing for those +men, but they were moved to graceful speech. We were hard put to it, +because one had to tell them that much of the giving for a hundred years +had been from France to us, and our showing in this war is hardly the +equal of the aid they sent us when we were invaded by Hessian troops and +a German king.</p> + +<p>Marins whom we know have the swift gratitude of simple natures, not too +highly civilized to show when they are pleased. After we had sent a +batch of their wounded by hospital train from Adinkerke, the two +sailors, who had helped us, invited my American friend and me into the +<i>estaminet</i> across the road from the station, and bought us drinks for +an hour. We had been good to their mates, so they wanted to be good to +us.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + +<p>When we lived in barraquement, just back of the admiral's house, our +cook was a Marin with a knack at omelettes. If we had to work through +the night, going into black Nieuport, and down the ten-mile road to +Zuydcoote, returning weary at midnight, a brave supper was laid out for +us of canned meats, wines, and jellies—all set with the touch of one +who cared. It was no hasty, slapped-down affair. We were carrying his +comrades, and he was helping us to do it.</p> + +<p>It was an officer of a quite other regiment who, one time when we were +off duty, asked us to carry him to his post in the Dunes. We made the +run for him, and, as he jumped from the car, he offered us a franc. +Marins pay back in friendship. The Red Cross station to which we +reported, Poste de Secours des Marins, was conducted by Monsieur le +Docteur Rolland, and Monsieur Le Doze. Our workers were standing guests +at their officers' mess. The little sawed-off sailor in the Villa Marie +where I was billetted made coffee for two of us each morning.</p> + +<p>Our friends have the faults of young men, flushed with life. They are +scornful of feeble<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> folk, of men who grow tired, who think twice before +dying. They laugh at middle age. The sentries amuse them, the elderly +chaps who duck into their caves when a few shells are sailing overhead. +They have no charity for frail nerves. They hate races who don't rally +to a man when the enemy is hitting the trail. They must wait for age to +gain pity, and the Bretons will never grow old. They are killed too +fast. And yet, as soon as I say that, I remember their rough pity for +their hurt comrades. They are as busy as a hospital nurse in laying a +blanket and swinging the stretcher for one of their own who has been +"pinked." They have a hovering concern. I have had twenty come to the +ambulance to help shove in a "blessé," and say good-by to him, and wave +to him as long as the road left him in their sight. The wounded man, +unless his back bound him down, would lift his head from the stretcher, +to give back their greetings. It was an eager exchange between the whole +men and the injured one. They don't believe they can be broken till the +thing comes, and there is curiosity to see just what has befallen one +like themselves.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>When it came my time to say good-by, my sailor friend, who had often +stopped by my car to tell me that all was going well, ran over to share +in the excitement. I told him I was leaving, and he gave me a smile of +deep-understanding amusement. Tired so soon? That smile carried a live +consciousness of untapped power, of the record he and his comrades had +made. It showed a disregard of my personal feelings, of all adult human +weakness. That was the picture I carried away from the Nieuport +line—the smiling boy with his wounded arm, alert after his year of war, +and more than a little scornful of one who had grown weary in conditions +so prosperous for young men.</p> + +<p>I rode away from him, past the Coxyde encampment of his comrades. There +they were as I had often seen them, with the peddlers cluttering their +camp—candy men, banana women; a fringe of basket merchants about their +grim barracks; a dozen peasants squatting with baskets of cigarettes, +fruit, vegetables, foolish, bright trinkets. And over them bent the +boys, dozens of them in blue blouses, stooping down to pick up trays, +fingering red apples and shining charms, chaffing,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> dickering, shoving +one another, the old loves of their childhood still tangled in their +being.</p> + +<p>So when I am talking about the sailors as if they were heroes, suddenly +something gay comes romping in. I see them again, as I have so often +seen them in the dunes of Flanders, and what I see is a race of +children.</p> + +<p>"Don't forget we are only little ones," they say. "We don't die; we are +just at play."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>"ENCHANTED CIGARETTES"</h2> + + +<p>Where does the comfort of the trenches lie? What solace do the soldiers +find for a weary life of unemployment and for sudden death? Of course, +they find it in the age-old things that have always sufficed, or, if +these things do not here altogether suffice, at least they help. For a +certain few out of every hundred men, religion avails. Some of our dying +men were glad of the last rites. Some wore their Catholic emblems. The +quiet devout men continued faithful as they had been at home. Art is +playing the true part it plays at all times of fundamental need. The men +busy themselves with music, with carving, and drawing. Security and +luxury destroy art, for it is no longer a necessity when a man is +stuffed with foods, and his fat body whirled in hot compartments from +point to point of a tame world. But when he tumbles in from a gusty +night out of a trenchful of mud, with the patter from slivers of shell, +then he turns to song and color, odd tricks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> with the knife, and the +tales of an ancient adventure. After our group had brought food and +clothing to a regiment, I remember the pride with which one of the +privates presented to our head nurse a sculptured group, done in mud of +the Yser.</p> + +<p>But the greatest thing in the world to soldiers is plain comradeship. +That is where they take their comfort. And the expression of that +comradeship is most often found in the social smoke. The meager +happiness of fighting-men is more closely interwoven with tobacco than +with any other single thing. To rob them of that would be to leave them +poor indeed. It would reduce their morale. It would depress their cheery +patience. The wonder of tobacco is that it fits itself to each one of +several needs. It is the medium by which the average man maintains +normality at an abnormal time. It is a device to soothe jumping nerves, +to deaden pain, to chase away brooding. Tobacco connects a man with the +human race, and his own past life. It gives him a little thing to do in +a big danger, in seeping loneliness, and the grip of sharp pain. It +brings back his café evenings, when black horror is reaching out for +him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> + +<p>If you have weathered around the world a bit, you know how everywhere +strange situations turn into places for plain men to feel at home. +Sailors on a Nova Scotia freight schooner, five days out, sit around in +the evening glow and take a pipe and a chat with the same homely +accustomedness, as if they were at a tavern. It is so in the jungle and +at a lumber camp. Now, that is what the millions of average men have +done to war. They have taken a raw, disordered, muddied, horrible thing, +and given it a monotony and regularity of its own. They have smoked away +its fighting tension, its hideous expectancy. They refuse to let +mangling and murder put crimps in their spirit. Apparently there is +nothing hellish enough to flatten the human spirit. Not all the +sprinkled shells and caravans of bleeding victims can cow the boys of +the front line. In this work of lifting clear of horror, tobacco has +been a friend to the soldiers of the Great War.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't know a good cigarette if I saw it," said Geoffrey Gilling, +after a year of ambulance work at Fumes and Coxyde. He had given up all +that makes the life of an upper-class English<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>man pleasant, and I think +that the deprivation of high-grade smoking material was a severe item in +his sacrifice.</p> + +<p>Four of us in Red Cross work spent weary hours each day in a filthy room +in a noisy wine-shop, waiting for fresh trouble to break loose. The +dreariness of it made B—— petulant and T—— mournfully silent, and +finally left me melancholy. But sturdy Andrew MacEwan, the Scotchman +with the forty-inch barrel chest, would reach out for his big can of +naval tobacco, slipped to him by the sailors at Dunkirk when the +commissariat officer wasn't looking, and would light his short stocky +pipe, shaped very much like himself, and then we were all off together +on a jaunt around the world. He had driven nearly all known "makes" of +motor-car over most of the map, apparently about one car to each +country. Twelve months of bad roads in a shelled district had left him +full of talk, as soon as he was well lit.</p> + +<p>Up at Nieuport, last northern stand of the Allied line, a walking +merchant would call each day, a basket around his throat, and in the +hamper chocolate, fruit, and tobacco. A muddy, un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>shaven Brittany +sailor, out of his few sous a week, bought us cigars. The less men have, +the more generous they are. That is an old saying, but it drove home to +me when I had poor men do me courtesy day by day for five months. As we +motored in and out of Nieuport in the dark of the night, we passed +hundreds of silent men trudging through the mud of the gutter. They were +troops that had been relieved who were marching back for a rest. As soon +as they came out of the zone where no sound can be made and no light +shown, we saw here and there down the invisible ranks the sudden flare +of a match, and then the glow in the cup of the hand, as the man +prepared to cheer himself.</p> + +<p>A more somber and lonely watch even than that of these French sailors +was the vigil kept by our good Belgian friend, Commandant Gilson, in the +shattered village of Pervyse. With his old Maltese cat, he prowled +through the wrecked place till two and three of the morning, waiting for +Germans to cross the flooded fields. For him cigarettes were an endless +chain that went through his life. From the expiring stub he lit his +fresh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> smoke, as if he were maintaining a vestal flame. He kept puffing +till the live butt singed his upturned mustache. He squinted his eyes to +escape the ascending smoke.</p> + +<p>Always the cigarette for him and for the other men. Our cellar of nurses +in Pervyse kept a stock of pipes and of cigarettes ready for tired +soldiers off duty. The pipes remained as intact as a collection in a +museum. The cigarettes never equaled the demand. We once took out a +carful of supplies to 300 Belgian soldiers. We gave them their choice of +cigarettes or smoking tobacco, and about 250 of them selected +cigarettes. That barrack vote gives the popularity of the cigarette +among men of French blood. Some cigars, some pipes, but everywhere the +shorter smoke. Tobacco and pipe exhaust precious pocket room. The +cigarette is portable. Cigars break and peel in the kneading motion of +walking and crouching. But the cigarette is protected in its little box. +And yet, rather than lose a smoke, a soldier will carry one lonesome +cigarette, rained on and limp and fraying at the end, drag it from the +depths of a kit, dry it out, and have a go. For, after all,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> it isn't +for theoretical advantages over larger, longer smokes he likes it, but +because it is fitted to his temperament. It is a French and Belgian +smoke, short-lived and of a light touch, as dear to memory and liking as +the wines of La Champagne.</p> + +<p>Twice, in dramatic setting, I have seen tobacco intervene to give men a +release from overstrained nerves. Once it was at a skirmish. Behind a +street defense, crouched thirty Belgian soldiers. Shrapnel began to +burst over us, and the bullets tumbled on the cobbles. With each puff of +the shrapnel, like a paper bag exploding, releasing a handful of white +smoke, the men flattened against the walls and dove into the open doors. +The sound of shrapnel is the same sound as hailstones, a crisp crackle +as they strike and bounce. We ran and picked them up. They were blunted +by smiting on the paving. Any one of them would have plowed into soft +flesh and found the bone and shattered it. They seem harmless because +they make so little noise. They don't scream and wail and thunder. Our +guns, back on the hillocks of the Ghent road, grew louder and more +frequent. Each minute now was cut into by a roar, or a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> fainter rumble. +The battle was on. Our barricaded street was a pocket in the storm, like +the center of a typhoon.</p> + +<p>Yonder we could see the canal, fifty feet away, at the foot of our +street. On the farther side behind the river front houses lay the +Germans, ready to sally out and charge. It would be all right if they +came quickly. But a few hours of waiting for them on an empty stomach, +and having them disappoint us, was wearing. We wished they would hurry +and have it over with, or else go away for good. Civilians stumbling and +bleeding went past us.</p> + +<p>And that was how the morning went by, heavy footed, unrelieved, with a +sense of waiting for a sudden crash and horror. It was peaceful, in a +way, but, at the heart of the calm, a menace. So we overlaid the tension +with casual petty acts. We made an informal pool of our resources in +tobacco, each man sharing with his neighbor, till nearly every one of us +was puffing away, and deciding there was nothing to this German attack, +after all. A smoke makes just the difference between sticking it out or +acting the coward's part.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + +<p>Each one of us in a lifetime has a day of days, when external event is +lively, and our inner mood dances to the tune. Some of us will perhaps +always feel that we spent our day on October 21, 1914. For we were +allowed to go into a town that fell in that one afternoon and to come +out again alive. It was the afternoon when Dixmude was leveled from a +fair upstanding city to a heap of scorched brick and crumbled plaster. +The enemy guns from over the Yser were accurate on its houses.</p> + +<p>We received our first taste of the dread to come, while we were yet a +little way out. In the road ahead of us, a shell had just splashed an +artillery convoy. Four horses, the driver, and the splintered wood of +the wagon were all worked together into one pulp, so that our car +skidded on it. We entered the falling town of Dixmude. It was a thick +mess into which we rode, with hot smoke and fine masonry dust blowing +into the eyes. Houses around us crumpled up at one blast, and then shot +a thick brown cloud of dust, and out of the cloud a high central flame +that leaped and spread. With the wailing of shells in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> air, every +few seconds, the thud and thunder of their impact, the scattering of the +shattered metal, it was one of the hot, thorough bombardments of the +war. It cleared the town of troops, after tearing their ranks. But it +left wounded men in the cellar of the Hotel de Ville. The Grand Place +and the Hotel were the center of the fire. Here we had to wait fifteen +minutes, while the wounded were made ready for our two cars. It was then +we turned to tobacco as to a friend. I remember the easement that came +when I found I had cigars in my waistcoat pocket. The act of lighting a +cigar, and pulling at it briskly, was a relief.</p> + +<p>There was a second of time when we could hear a shell, about to burst +close, before it struck. It came, sharpening its nose on the air, making +a shrill whistle with a moan in it, that gathered volume as it neared. +There was a menace in the sound. It seemed to approach in a vast +enveloping mass that can't be escaped, filling all out-doors, and sure +to find you. It was as if the all-including sound were the missile +itself, with no hiding place offered. And yet the shell is generally a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>little three-or-four inch thing, like a flower-pot, hurtling through +the scenery. But bruised nerves refuse to listen to reason, and again +and again I ducked as I heard that high wail, believing I was about to +be struck.</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="DOOR_CHALKED" id="DOOR_CHALKED"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img124.jpg" alt="DOOR CHALKED" title="DOOR CHALKED" /></div> + + +<h4>DOOR CHALKED BY THE GERMANS.</h4> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>One of the 100 houses in Termonde with the direction "Do not Burn" +written in German. One thousand one hundred houses were burned, house by +house. Photograph by Radclyffe Dugmore.</p></blockquote> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>In that second of tension, it was a pleasant thing to draw in on a +butt—to discharge the smoke, a second later, carelessly, as who should +say, "It is nothing." The little cylinder was a lightning conductor to +lead away the danger from a vital part. It let the nervousness leak off +into biting and puffing, and making a play of fingering the stub, +instead of striking into the stomach and the courage. It gave the +troubled face something to do, and let the writhing hand busy itself. It +saved me from knowing just how frightened I was.</p> + +<p>But what of the wounded themselves? They have to endure all that +dreariness of long waiting, and the pressure of danger, and then, for +good measure, a burden of pain. So I come to the men who are revealing +human nature at a higher pitch than any others in the war. The +trench-digging, elderly chaps are patient and long-enduring, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> the +fighting men are as gallant as any the ballad-mongers used to rime +about.</p> + +<p>But it is of the wounded that one would like to speak in a way to win +respect for them rather than pity. I think some American observers have +missed the truth about the wounded. They have told of the groaning and +screaming, the heavy smells, the delays and neglect. It is a picture of +vivid horror. But the final impression left on me by caring for many +hundred wounded men is that of their patience and cheeriness. I think +they would resent having a sordid pen picture made of their suffering +and letting it go at that. After all, it is their wound: they suffered +it for a purpose, and they conquer their bodily pain by will power and +the Gallic touch of humor. Suffering borne nobly merits something more +than an emphasis on the blood and the moan. To speak of these wounded +men as of a heap of futile misery is like missing the worthiness of +motherhood in the details of obstetrics.</p> + +<p>It was thought we moderns had gone soft, but it seems we were storing up +reserves of stoic strength and courage. This war has drawn on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> them more +heavily than any former test, and they have met all its demands. +Sometimes, being tired, I would drop my corner of the stretcher, a few +inches suddenly. This would draw a quick intake of the breath from the +hurt man and an "aahh"—but not once a word of blame. I should want to +curse the careless hand that wrenched my wound, but these soldiers of +France and Belgium whom I carried had passed beyond littleness.</p> + +<p>Once we had a French Zouave officer on the stretcher. He was wounded in +the right arm and the stomach. Every careen of the ambulance over cobble +and into shell-hole was a thrust into his hurt. We had to carry him all +the way from the Nieuport cellar to Zuydcoote Hospital, ten miles. The +driver was one more of the American young men who have gone over into +France to pay back a little of what we owe her. I want to give his name, +Robert Cardell Toms, because it is good for us to know that we have +brave and tender gentlemen. On this long haul, as always, he drove with +extreme care, changing his speed without the staccato jerk, avoiding +bumps and holes of the trying road. When we reached the hospital, he +ran<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> ahead into the ward to prepare the bed. The officer beckoned me to +him. He spoke with some difficulty, as the effort caught him in the +wound of his stomach.</p> + +<p>"Please be good enough," he said, "to give my thanks to the chauffeur. +He has driven me down with much consideration. He cares for wounded +men."</p> + +<p>Where other races are grateful and inarticulate, the French are able to +put into speech the last fine touch of feeling.</p> + +<p>My friend kept a supply of cigarettes for his ambulance cases, and as +soon as the hour-long drive began we dealt them out to the bandaged men. +How often we have started with a groaning man for the ride to Zuydcoote, +and how well the trip went, when we had lighted his cigarette for him. +It brought back a little of the conversation and the merriment which it +had called out in better days. It is such a relief to be wounded. You +have done your duty, and now you are to have a little rest. With a clear +conscience, you can sink back into laziness, far away from noise and +filth. Luck has come along and pulled the pack off your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> back, and the +responsibility from your sick mind. No weary city clerk ever went to his +seashore holiday with more blitheness than some of our wounded showed as +they came riding in from the Nieuport trenches at full length on the +stretcher, and singing all the way. What is a splintered forehead or a +damaged leg compared to the happiness of an honorable discharge? Nothing +to do for a month but lie quietly, and watch the wholesome, clean-clad +nurse. I am not forgetting the sadness of many men, nor the men hurt to +death, who lay motionless and did not sing, and some of whom died while +we were on the road to help. I am only trying to tell of the one man in +every four who was glad of his enforced rest, and who didn't let a +little thing like agony conquer his gaiety. Those men were the Joyous +Wounded. I have seldom seen men more light hearted.</p> + +<p>Word came to my wife one day that several hundred wounded were +side-tracked at Furnes railway station. With two nurses she hurried to +them, carrying hot soup. The women went through the train, feeding the +soldiers, giving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> them a drink of cold water, and bringing some of them +hot water for washing. Then, being fed, they were ready for a smoke, and +my wife began walking down the foul-smelling ambulance car with boxes of +supplies, letting each man take out a cigarette and a match. The car was +slung with double layers of stretcher bunks. Some men were freshly +wounded, others were convalescent. A few lay in a stupor. She provided +ten or a dozen soldiers with their pleasure, and they lighted up and +were well under way. She had so many patients that day that she was not +watching the individual man in her general distribution. She came half +way down the car, and held out her store to a soldier without looking at +him. He glanced up and grinned. The men in the bunks around him laughed +heartily. Then she looked down at him. He was flapping the two stumps of +his arms and was smiling. His hands had been blown off. She put the +cigarette in his mouth and lit it for him. Only his hands were gone. +Comradeship was left for him, and here was the lighted cigarette +expressing that comradeship.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WAS IT REAL?</h2> + + +<p>The man was an old-time friend. In the days of our youth, we had often +worked together. He was small and nervous, with a quick eye. He always +wore me down after a few hours, because he was restless and untiring. He +was named Romeyn Rossiter—one of those well-born names. We had met in +times before the advent of the telescopic lens, and he used a box +camera, tuned to a fiftieth of a second. Together we snapped polo +ponies, coming at full tilt after the ball, riding each other off, while +he would stand between the goal-posts, as they zigzagged down on him. I +had to shove him out of the way, at the last tick, when the hoofs were +loud. I often wondered if those ponies didn't look suddenly large and +imminent on the little glass rectangle into which he was peering. That +was the kind of person he was. He was glued to his work. He was a +curious man, because that nerve of fear, which is well developed in most +of us, was left out of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> make-up. No credit to him. It merely wasn't +there. He was color-blind to danger. He had spent his life everywhere by +bits, so he had the languages. I used to admire that in him, the way he +could career along with a Frenchman, and exchange talk with a German +waiter: high speed, and a kind of racy quality.</p> + +<p>I used to write the text around his pictures, captions underneath them, +and then words spilled out over the white paper between his six by tens. +We published in the country life magazines. They gave generous big +display pages. In those days people used to read what I wrote, because +they wanted to find out about the pictures, and the pictures were fine. +You must have seen Rossiter's work—caribou, beavers, Walter Travis +coming through with a stroke, and Holcombe Ward giving a twist delivery. +We had the field to ourselves for two or three years, before the other +fellows caught the idea, and broke our partnership. I turned to +literature, and he began drifting around the world for long shots. He'd +be gone six months, and then turn up with big game night pictures out of +Africa—a lion drinking un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>der a tropical moon. Two more years, and I +had lost him entirely. But I knew we should meet. He was one of those +chaps that, once in your life, is like the <i>motif</i> in an opera, or like +the high-class story, which starts with an insignificant loose brick on +a coping and ends with that brick smiting the hero's head.</p> + +<p>It was London where I ran into him at last.</p> + +<p>"Happy days?" I said, with a rising inflection.</p> + +<p>"So, so," he answered.</p> + +<p>He was doing the free-lance game. He had drifted over to England with +his $750 moving-picture machine to see what he could harvest with a +quiet eye, and they had rung in the war on him. He wasn't going to be +happy till he could get the boys in action. Would I go to Belgium with +him? I would.</p> + +<p>Next day, we took the Channel ferry from Dover to Ostend, went by train +to Ghent, and trudged out on foot to the battle of Alost.</p> + +<p>Those were the early days of the war when you could go anywhere, if you +did it nicely. The Belgians are a friendly people. They can't bear to +say No, and if they saw a hard-working man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> come along with his eye on +his job, they didn't like to turn him back, even if he was mussing up an +infantry formation or exposing a trench. They'd rather share the risk, +as long as it brought him in returns.</p> + +<p>When we footed it out that morning, we didn't know we were in for one of +the Famous Days of history. You never can tell in this war. Sometimes +you'll trot out to the front, all keyed up, and then sit around among +the "Set-Sanks" for a month playing pinochle, and watching the flies +chase each other across the marmalade. And then a sultry dull day will +suddenly show you things....</p> + +<p>Out from the Grand Place of Alost radiate narrow little streets that run +down to the canal, like spokes of a wheel. Each little street had its +earthworks and group of defenders. Out over the canal stretched +footbridges, and these were thickly sown with barbed wire.</p> + +<p>"Great luck," said Rossiter. "They're making an old-time barricade. It's +as good as the days of the Commune. Do you remember your street-fighting +in Les Miserables?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I surely do," I replied. "Breast high earthworks, and the 'citizens' +crouched behind under the rattle of bullets."</p> + +<p>"This is going to be good," he went on in high enthusiasm. The soldiers +were rolling heavy barrels to the gutter, and knocking off the heads. +The barrels were packed with fish, about six inches long, with scales +that went blue and white in the fresh morning light. The fish slithered +over the cobbles, and the soldiers stumbled on their slippery bodies. +They set the barrels on end, side by side, and heaped the cracks between +and the face with sods of earth, thick-packed clods, with grass growing. +The grass was bright green, unwilted. A couple of peasant hand-carts +were tilted on end, and the flooring sodded like the barrels.</p> + +<p>"Look who's coming," pointed Rossiter, swiveling his lens sharply +around.</p> + +<p>Steaming gently into our narrow street from the Grand Place came a great +Sava mitrailleuse—big steel turret, painted lead blue, three men +sitting behind the swinging turret. One of the men, taller by a head +than his fellows, had a white rag bound round his head, where a bullet +had clipped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> off a piece of his forehead the week before. His face was +set and pale. Sitting on high, in the grim machine, with his bandage +worn as a plume, he looked like the presiding spirit of the fracas.</p> + +<p>"It's worth the trip," muttered Romeyn, grinding away on his crank.</p> + +<p>There was something silent and efficient in the look of the big man and +the big car, with its slim-waisted, bright brass gun shoving through.</p> + +<p>"Here, have a cigarette," said Rossiter, as the powerful thing glided +by.</p> + +<p>He passed up a box to the three gunners.</p> + +<p>"<i>Bonne chance</i>," said the big man, as he puffed out rings and fondled +the trim bronze body of his Lady of Death. They let the car slide down +the street to the left end of the barricade, where it came to rest.</p> + +<p>Over the canal, out from the smoke-misted houses, came a peasant +running. In his arms he carried a little girl. Her hair was light as +flax, and crested with a knot of very bright red ribbon. Hair and gay +ribbon caught the eye, as soon as they were borne out of the doomed +houses.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> The father carried the little one to the bridge at the foot of +our street, and began crossing towards us. The barbed wire looked angry +in the morning sun. He had to weave his way patiently, with the child +held flat to his shoulder. Any hasty motion would have torn her face on +the barbs. Shrapnel was sailing high overhead between the two forces, +and there, thirty feet under the crossfire, this man and his child +squirmed their way through the barrier. They won through, and were +lifted over the barricade. As the father went stumbling past me, I +looked into the face of the girl. Her eyes were tightly closed. She +nestled contentedly.</p> + +<p>"Did you get it, man? Did you get it?" I asked Rossiter.</p> + +<p>"Too far," he replied, mournfully, "only a dot at that distance."</p> + +<p>Now, all the parts had fitted into the pattern, the gay green grass +growing out of the stacked barrels and carts, and the sullen, silent, +waiting mitrailleuse which can spit death in a wide swathe as it +revolves from side to side, like the full stroke of a scythe on nodding +daisies. The bark of it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> as alarming as its bite—an incredibly rapid +rat-tat that makes men fall on their faces when they hear, like +worshipers at the bell of the Transubstantiation.</p> + +<p>"She talks three hundred words to the minute," said Romeyn to me.</p> + +<p>"How are you coming?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Great," he answered, "great stuff. Now, if only something happens."</p> + +<p>He had planted his tripod fifty feet back of the barricade, plumb +against a red-brick, three-story house, so that the lens raked the +street and its defenses diagonally. Thirty minutes we waited, with shell +fire far to the right of us, falling into the center of the town with a +rumble, like a train of cars heard in the night, when one is half +asleep. That was the sense of things to me, as I stood in the street, +waiting for hell to blow off its lid. It was a dream world, and I was +the dreamer, in the center of the strange unfolding sight, seeing it all +out of a muffled consciousness.</p> + +<p>Another quarter hour, and Rossiter began to fidget.</p> + +<p>"Do you call this a battle?" he asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The liveliest thing in a month," replied the lieutenant.</p> + +<p>"We've got to brisk it up," Rossiter said. "Now, I tell you what we'll +do. Let's have a battle that looks something like. These real things +haven't got speed enough for a five-cent house."</p> + +<p>In a moment, all was action. Those amazing Belgians, as responsive as +children in a game, fell to furiously to create confusion and swift +event out of the trance of peace. The battered giant in the Sava +released a cloud of steam from his car. The men aimed their rifles in +swift staccato. The lieutenant dashed back and forth from curb to curb, +plunging to the barricade, and then to the half dozen boys who were +falling back, crouching on one knee, firing, and then retreating. He +cheered them with pats on the shoulder, pointed out new unsuspected +enemies. Then, man by man, the thirty perspiring fighters began to +tumble. They fell forward on their faces, lay stricken on their backs, +heaved against the walls of houses, wherever the deadly fire had caught +them. The street was littered with Belgian bodies. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> stood Rossiter +grinding away on his handle, snickering green-clad Belgians lying strewn +on the cobbles, a half dozen of them tense and set behind the barricade, +leveling rifles at the piles of fish. Every one was laughing, and all of +them intent on working out a picture with thrills.</p> + +<p>The enemy guns had been growing menacing, but Rossiter and the Belgians +were very busy.</p> + +<p>"The shells are dropping just back of us," I called to him.</p> + +<p>"Good, good," he said, "but I haven't time for them just yet. They must +wait. You can't crowd a film."</p> + +<p>Ten minutes passed.</p> + +<p>"It is immense," began he, wiping his face and lighting a smoke, and +turning his handle. "Gentlemen, I thank you."</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, we thank you," I said.</p> + +<p>"There's been nothing like it," he went on. "Those Liège pictures of +Wilson's at the Hippodrome were tame."</p> + +<p>He'd got it all in, and was wasting a few feet for good measure. +Sometimes you need a fringe in order to bring out the big minute in your +action.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="STREET_FIGHTING" id="STREET_FIGHTING"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img142.jpg" alt="STREET FIGHTING" title="STREET FIGHTING" /></div> + +<h4>STREET FIGHTING IN ALOST.</h4> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>This is part of the motion-picture which we took while the Germans were +bombarding the town.]<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> + +<p>Suddenly, we heard the wailing overhead and louder than any of the other +shells. Louder meant closer. It lasted a second of time, and then +crashed into the second story of the red house, six feet over Rossiter's +head. A shower of brown brick dust, and a puff of gray-black smoke +settled down over the machine and man, and blotted him out of sight for +a couple of seconds. Then we all coughed and spat, and the air cleared. +The tripod had careened in the fierce rush of air, but Rossiter had +caught it and was righting it. He went on turning. His face was streaked +with black, and his clothes were brown with dust.</p> + +<p>"Trying to get the smoke," he called, "but I'm afraid it won't +register."</p> + +<p>Maybe you want to know how that film took. We hustled it back to London, +and it went with a whizz. One hundred and twenty-six picture houses +produced "<span class="smcap">Street Fighting in Alost.</span>" The daily illustrated +papers ran it front page. The only criticism of it that I heard was +another movie man, who was sore—a chap named Wilson.</p> + +<p>"That picture is faked," he asserted.</p> + +<p>"I'll bet you," I retorted, "that picture was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> taken under shell fire +during the bombardment of Alost. That barricade is the straight goods. +The fellow that took it was shot full of gas while he was taking it. +What's your idea of the real thing?"</p> + +<p>"That's all right," he said; "the ruins are good, and the smoke is +there. But I've seen that reel three times, and every time the dead man +in the gutter laughed."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>"CHANTONS, BELGES! CHANTONS!"</h2> + + +<p>Here at home I am in a land where the wholesale martyrdom of Belgium is +regarded as of doubtful authenticity. We who have witnessed widespread +atrocities are subjected to a critical process as cold as if we were +advancing a new program of social reform. I begin to wonder if anything +took place in Flanders. Isn't the wreck of Termonde, where I thought I +spent two days, perhaps a figment of the fancy? Was the bayoneted girl +child of Alost a pleasant dream creation? My people are busy and +indifferent, generous and neutral, but yonder several races are living +at a deeper level. In a time when beliefs are held lightly, with tricky +words tearing at old values, they have recovered the ancient faiths of +the race. Their lot, with all its pain, is choicer than ours. They at +least have felt greatly and thrown themselves into action. It is a stern +fight that is on in Europe, and few of our coun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>trymen realize it is our +fight that the Allies are making.</p> + +<p>Europe has made an old discovery. The Greek Anthology has it, and the +ballads, but our busy little merchants and our clever talkers have never +known it. The best discovery a man can make is that there is something +inside him bigger than his fear, a belief in something more lasting than +his individual life. When he discovers that, he knows he, too, is a man. +It is as real for him as the experience of motherhood for a woman. He +comes out of it with self-respect and gladness.</p> + +<p>The Belgians were a soft people, pleasure-loving little chaps, social +and cheery, fond of comfort and the café brightness. They lacked the +intensity of blood of unmixed single strains. They were cosmopolitan, +often with a command over three languages and snatches of several +dialects. They were easy in their likes. They "made friends" lightly. +They did not have the reserve of the English, the spiritual pride of the +Germans. Some of them have German blood, some French, some Dutch. Part +of the race is gay and volatile, many are heavy and inarticulate;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> it is +a mixed race of which any iron-clad generalization is false. But I have +seen many thousands of them under crisis, seen them hungry, dying, men +from every class and every region; and the mass impression is that they +are affectionate, easy to blend with, open-handed, trusting.</p> + +<p>This kindly, haphazard, unformed folk were suddenly lifted to a national +self-sacrifice. By one act of defiance Albert made Belgium a nation. It +had been a mixed race of many tongues, selling itself little by little, +all unconsciously, to the German bondage. I saw the marks of this +spiritual invasion on the inner life of the Belgians—marks of a +destruction more thorough than the shelling of a city. The ruins of +Termonde are only the outward and visible sign of what Germany has +attempted on Belgium for more than a generation.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was better that people should perish by the villageful in +honest physical death through the agony of the bayonet and the flame +than that they should go on bartering away their nationality by +piece-meal. Who knows but Albert saw in his silent heart that the only +thing to weld his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> people together, honeycombed as they were, was the +shedding of blood? Perhaps nothing short of a supreme sacrifice, +amounting to a martyrdom, could restore a people so tangled in German +intrigue, so netted into an ever-encroaching system of commerce, +carrying with it a habit of thought and a mouthful of guttural phrases. +Let no one underestimate that power of language. If the idiom has passed +into one, it has brought with it molds of thought, leanings of sympathy. +Who that can even stumble through the "<i>Marchons! Marchons</i>!" of the +"Marseillaise" but is a sharer for a moment in the rush of glory that +every now and again has made France the light of the world? So, when the +German phrase rings out, "Was wir haben bleibt Deutsch"—"What we are +now holding by force of arms shall remain forever German"—there is an +answering thrill in the heart of every Antwerp clerk who for years has +been leaking Belgian government gossip into German ears in return for a +piece of money. Secret sin was eating away Belgium's vitality—the sin +of being bought by German money, bought in little ways, for small bits +of service, amiable passages destroy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>ing nationality. By one act of full +sacrifice Albert has cleared his people from a poison that might have +sapped them in a few more years without the firing of one gun.</p> + +<p>That sacrifice to which they are called is an utter one, of which they +have experienced only the prelude. I have seen this growing sadness of +Belgium almost from the beginning. I have seen thirty thousand refugees, +the inhabitants of Alost, come shuffling down the road past me. They +came by families, the father with a bag of clothes and bread, the mother +with a baby in arms, and one, two, or three children trotting along. +Aged women were walking, Sisters of Charity, religious brothers. A +cartful of stricken old women lay patiently at full length while the +wagon bumped on. They were so nearly drowned by suffering that one more +wave made little difference. All that was sad and helpless was dragged +that morning into the daylight. All that had been decently cared for in +quiet rooms was of a sudden tumbled out upon the pavement and jolted +along in farm-wagons past sixteen miles of curious eyes. But even with +the sick and the very old there was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> no lamentation. In this procession +of the dispossessed that passed us on the country road there was no one +crying, no one angry.</p> + +<p>I have seen 5000 of these refugees at night in the Halle des Fêtes of +Ghent, huddled in the straw, their faces bleached white under the glare +of the huge municipal lights. On the wall, I read the names of the +children whose parents had been lost, and the names of the parents who +reported a lost baby, a boy, a girl, and sometimes all the children +lost.</p> + +<p>A little later came the time when the people learned their last +stronghold was tottering. I remember sitting at dinner in the home of +Monsieur Caron, a citizen of Ghent. I had spent that day in Antwerp, and +the soldiers had told me of the destruction of the outer rim of forts. +So I began to say to the dinner guests that the city was doomed. As I +spoke, I glanced at Madame Caron. Her eyes filled with tears. I turned +to another Belgian lady, and had to look away. Not a sound came from +them.</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="BELGIAN_OFFICER" id="BELGIAN_OFFICER"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img153.jpg" alt="BELGIAN OFFICER" title="BELGIAN OFFICER" /></div> + + +<h4>BELGIAN OFFICER ON THE LAST STRIP OF HIS COUNTRY.</h4> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>When the handful of British were sent to the rescue of Antwerp, we went +up the road with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>them. There was joy on the Antwerp road that day. +Little cottages fluttered flags at lintel and window. The sidewalks were +thronged with peasants, who believed they were now to be saved. We rode +in glory from Ghent to the outer works of Antwerp. Each village on all +the line turned out its full population to cheer us ecstatically. A +bitter month had passed, and now salvation had come. It is seldom in a +lifetime one is present at a perfect piece of irony like that of those +shouting Flemish peasants.</p> + +<p>As Antwerp was falling, a letter was given to me by a friend. It was +written by Aloysius Coen of the artillery, Fort St. Catherine Wavre, +Antwerp. He died in the bombardment, thirty-four years old. He wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dear wife and children:</p> + +<p>At the moment that I am writing you this the enemy is before us, +and the moment has come for us to do our duty for our country. When +you will have received this I shall have changed the temporary life +for the eternal life. As I loved you all dearly, my last breath +will be directed toward you and my darling children, and with a +last smile as a farewell from my beloved family am I undertaking +the eternal journey.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<p>I hope, whatever may be your later call, you will take good care of +my dear children, and always keep them in mind of the straight +road, always ask them to pray for their father, who in sadness, +though doing his duty for his country, has had to leave them so +young.</p> + +<p>Say good-by for me to my dear brothers and sisters, from whom I +also carry with me a great love.</p> + +<p>Farewell, dear wife, children, and family.</p> + +<p>Your always remaining husband, father, and brother.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Aloys.</span></p></div> + +<p>Then Antwerp fell, and a people that had for the first time in memory +found itself an indivisible and self-conscious state broke into sullen +flight, and its merry, friendly army came heavy-footed down the road to +another country. Grieved and embittered, they served under new leaders +of another race. Those tired soldiers were like spirited children who +had been playing an exciting game which they thought would be applauded. +And suddenly the best turned out the worst.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sing, Belgians, sing, though our wounds are bleeding.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>writes the poet of Flanders; but the song is no earthly song. It is the +voice of a lost cause that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> cries out of the trampled dust as it +prepares to make its flight beyond the place of betrayal.</p> + +<p>For the Belgian soldiers no longer sang, or made merry in the evening. A +young Brussels corporal in our party suddenly broke into sobbing when he +heard the chorus of "Tipperary" float over the channel from a transport +of untried British lads. The Belgians are a race of children whose +feelings have been hurt. The pathos of the Belgian army is like the +pathos of an orphan-asylum: it is unconscious.</p> + +<p>They are very lonely, the loneliest men I have known. Back of the +fighting Frenchman, you sense the gardens and fields of France, the +strong, victorious national will. In a year, in two years, having made +his peace with honor, he will return to a happiness richer than any that +France has known in fifty years. And the Englishman carries with him to +the stresses of the first line an unbroken calm which he has inherited +from a thousand years of his island peace. His little moment of pain and +death cannot trouble that consciousness of the eternal process in which +his people have been permitted to play a continu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>ing part. For him the +present turmoil is only a ripple on the vast sea of his racial history. +Behind the Tommy is his Devonshire village, still secure. His mother and +his wife are waiting for him, unmolested, as when he left them. But the +Belgian, schooled in horror, faces a fuller horror yet when the guns of +his friends are put on his bell-towers and birthplace, held by the +invaders.</p> + +<p>"My father and mother are inside the enemy lines," said a Belgian +officer to me as we were talking of the final victory. That is the +ever-present thought of an army of boys whose parents are living in +doomed houses back of German trenches. It is louder than the near guns, +the noise of the guns to come that will tear at Bruges and level the +Tower of St. Nicholas. That is what the future holds for the Belgian. He +is only at the beginning of his loss. The victory of his cause is the +death of his people. It is a sacrifice almost without a parallel.</p> + + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="BELGIAN_BOY" id="BELGIAN_BOY"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img158.jpg" alt="BELGIAN BOY" title="BELGIAN BOY" /></div> + +<h4>A BELGIAN BOY SOLDIER IN THE UNIFORM OF THE FIRST ARMY +WHICH SERVED AT LIEGE AND NAMUR.</h4> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>In the summer of 1915 this costume was exchanged for khaki (<a href='#Page_148'><b>see page 148</b></a>). The present Belgian Army is largely made up of boys like this.</p></blockquote> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>And now a famous newspaper correspondent has returned to us from his +motor trips to the front and his conversations with officers to tell us +that he does not highly regard the fighting qual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>ities of the +Belgians. I think that statement is not the full truth, and I do not +think it will be the estimate of history on the resistance of the +Belgians. If the resistance had been regarded by the Germans as +half-hearted, I do not believe their reprisals on villages and towns and +on the civilian population would have been so bitter. The burning and +the murder that I saw them commit throughout the month of September, +1914, was the answer to a resistance unexpectedly firm and telling. At a +skirmish in September, when fifteen hundred Belgians stood off three +thousand Germans for several hours, I counted more dead Germans than +dead Belgians. The German officer in whose hands we were as captives +asked us with great particularity as to how many Belgians he had killed +and wounded. While he was talking with us, his stretcher-bearers were +moving up and down the road for his own casualties. At Alost the street +fighting by Belgian troops behind fish-barrels, with sods of earth for +barricade, was so stubborn that the Germans felt it to be necessary to +mutilate civilian men, women, and children with the bayonet to express +in terms at all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> adequate their resentment. I am of course speaking of +what I know. Around Termonde, three times in September, the fighting of +Belgians was vigorous enough to induce the Germans on entering the town +to burn more than eleven hundred homes, house by house. If the Germans +throughout their army had not possessed a high opinion of Belgian +bravery and power of retardation, I doubt if they would have released so +widespread and unique a savagery.</p> + +<p>At Termonde, Alost, Balière, and a dozen other points in the Ghent +sector, and, later, at Dixmude, Ramscappelle, Pervyse, Caeskerke, and +the rest of the line of the Yser, my sight of Belgians has been that of +troops as gallant as any. The cowards have been occasional, the brave +men many. I still have flashes of them as when I knew them. I saw a +Belgian officer ride across a field within rifle range of the enemy to +point out to us a market-cart in which lay three wounded. On his horse, +he was a high figure, well silhouetted. Another day, I met a Belgian +sergeant, with a tousled red head of hair, and with three medals for +valor on his left breast. He kept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> going out into the middle of the road +during the times when Germans were reported approaching, keeping his men +under cover. If there was risk to be taken, he wanted first chance. My +friend Dr. van der Ghinst, of Cabour Hospital, captain in the Belgian +army, remained three days in Dixmude under steady bombardment, caring +unaided for his wounded in the Hospital of St. Jean, just at the Yser, +and finally brought out thirty old men and women who had been frightened +into helplessness by the flames and noise. Because he was needed in that +direction, I saw him continue his walk past the point where fifty feet +ahead of him a shell had just exploded. I watched him walk erect where +even the renowned fighting men of an allied race were stooping and +hiding, because he held his life as nothing when there were wounded to +be rescued. I saw Lieutenant Robert de Broqueville, son of the prime +minister of Belgium, go into Dixmude on the afternoon when the town was +leveled by German guns. He remained there under one of the heaviest +bombardments of the war for three hours, picking up the wounded who lay +on curbs and in cellars and under debris.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> The troops had been ordered +to evacuate the town, and it was a lonely job that this youngster of +twenty-seven years carried on through that day.</p> + +<p>I have seen the Belgians every day for several months. I have seen +several skirmishes and battles and many days of shell-fire, and the +impression of watching many thousand Belgians in action is that of +excellent fighting qualities, starred with bits of sheer daring as +astonishing as that of the other races. With no country left to fight +for, homes either in ruin or soon to be shelled, relatives under an +alien rule, the home Government on a foreign soil, still this second +army, the first having been killed, fights on in good spirit. Every +morning of the summer I have passed boys between eighteen and +twenty-five, clad in fresh khaki, as they go riding down the poplar lane +from La Panne to the trenches, the first twenty with bright silver +bugles, their cheeks puffed and red with the blowing. Twelve months of +wounds and wastage, wet trenches and tinned food, and still they go out +with hope.</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="NEW_KHAKI_UNIFORM" id="NEW_KHAKI_UNIFORM"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img164.jpg" alt="NEW KHAKI UNIFORM" title="NEW KHAKI UNIFORM" /></div> + + +<h4>BELGIANS IN THEIR NEW KHAKI UNIFORM. IN PRAISE OF WHICH +THEY WROTE A SONG.</h4> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>Albert's son, the Crown Prince Leopold, has been a common soldier in +this regiment.</p></blockquote> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>And the helpers of the army have shown good heart. Breaking the silence +of Rome, the splen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>did priesthood of Belgium, from the cardinal to the +humblest curé, has played the man. On the front line near Pervyse, where +my wife lived for three months, a soldier-monk has remained through the +daily shell-fire to take artillery observations and to comfort the +fighting men. Just before leaving Flanders, I called on the sisters in +the convent school of Furnes. They were still cheery and busy in their +care of sick and wounded civilians. Every few days the Germans shell the +town from seven miles away, but the sisters will continue there through +the coming months as through the last year. The spirit of the best of +the race is spoken in what King Albert said recently in an unpublished +conversation to the gentlemen of the English mission:</p> + +<p>"The English will cease fighting before the Belgians. If there is talk +of yielding, it will come from the English, not from us."</p> + +<p>That was a playful way of saying that there will be no yielding by any +of the Western Allies. The truth is still as true as it was at Liège +that the Belgians held up the enemy till France was ready to receive +them. And the price Belgium<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> paid for that resistance was the massacre +of women and children and the house-to-house burning of homes.</p> + +<p>Since rendering that service for all time to France and England, through +twenty months of such a life as exiles know, the Belgians have fought on +doggedly, recovering from the misery of the Antwerp retreat, and showing +a resilience of spirit equaled only by the Fusiliers Marins of France. +One afternoon in late June my friend Robert Toms was sitting on the +beach at La Panne, watching the soldiers swimming in the channel. +Suddenly he called to me, and aimed his camera. There on the sand in the +sunlight the Belgian army was changing its clothes. The faithful suits +of blue, rained on and trench-worn, were being tossed into great heaps +on the beach and brand-new yellow khaki, clothes and cap, was buckled +on. It was a transformation. We had learned to know that army, and their +uniform had grown familiar and pleasant to us. The dirt, ground in till +it became part of the texture; the worn cloth, shapeless, but yet molded +to the man by long association—all was an expression of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> stocky +little soldier inside. The new khaki hung slack. Caps were overlarge for +Flemish heads. To us, watching the change, it was the loss of the last +possession that connected them with their past; with homes and country +gone, now the very clothing that had covered them through famous fights +was shuffled off. It was as if the Belgian army had been swallowed up in +the sea at our feet, like Pharaoh's phalanx, and up from the beach to +the barracks scuffled an imitation English corps.</p> + +<p>We went about miserable for a few days. But not they. They spattered +their limp, ill-fitting garments with jest, and soon they had produced a +poem in praise of the change. These are the verses which a Belgian +soldier, clad in his fresh yellow, sang to us as we grouped around him +on a sand dune:</p> + +<h3>EN KHAKI</h3> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><b>I</b></span><br /><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Depuis onze mois que nous sommes partis en guerre,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A tous les militaires,</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 3em;">On a décidé de plaire.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Aussi depuis ce temps là, à l'intendance c'est dit,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">De nous mettr' tous en khaki.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Maint'nant voilà l'beau temps qui vient d' paraître</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Aussi répètons tous le cœur en fête.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;" class="smcap"><b>Refrain</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Regardez nos p'tits soldats,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Ils ont l'air d'être un peu là,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Habilles</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">D'la tête jusqu'aux pieds</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">En khaki, en khaki,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ils sont contents de servir,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mais non pas de mourir,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Et cela c'est parce qu' on leur a mis,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">En quelque sorte, la t'nue khaki.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><b>II</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Maintenant sur toutes les grand's routes vous pouvez voir</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Parcourant les trottoirs</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Du matin jusqu'au soir</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Les défenseurs Belges, portant tous la même tenue</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Depuis que l'ancienne a disparue,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Aussi quand on voit I'9<sup>e</sup> défiler</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">C' n'est plus régiment des panachés.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Même Refrain.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><b>III</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nous sommes tous heureux d'avoir le costume des Anglais</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Seul'ment ce qu'il fallait,</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Pour que ça soit complet.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Et je suis certain si l'armée veut nous mettre à l'aise</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">C'est d'nous donner la solde Anglaise.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Le jour qu'nous aurions ça, ah! quell' affaire</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nous n' serions plus jamais dans la misère.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;" class="smcap"><b>Refrain</b></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vous les verriez nos p'tits soldats,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">J'vous assure qu'ils seraient un peu là,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Habilles,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">D'la tête jusqu'aux pieds,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">En khaki, en khaki,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ils seraient fiers de repartir,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Pour le front avec plaisir,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Si les quatre poches étaient bien games</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">De billets bleus couleur khaki.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>FLIES: A FANTASY</h2> + + +<p>Outside the window stretched the village street, flat, with bits of dust +and dung rising on the breaths of wind and volleying into rooms upon the +tablecloth and into pages of books. It was a street of small yellow +brick houses, a shapeless church, a convent school—freckled buildings, +dingy. Up and down the length of it, it was without one touch of beauty. +It gave back dust in the eyes. It sounded with thunder of transports, +rattle of wagons, soft whirr of officers' speed cars, yelp of motor +horns, and the tap-tap of wooden shoes on tiny peasants, boys and girls. +A little sick black dog slunk down the pavement, smelling and staring. A +cart bumped over the cobbles, the horse with a great tumor in its +stomach, the stomach as if blown out on the left side, and the tumor +with a rag upon it where it touched the harness.</p> + +<p>Inside the window, a square room with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> litter of six-penny novels in a +corner, fifty or sixty books flung haphazard, some of them open with the +leaves crushed back by the books above. In another corner, a heap of +commissariat stuff, tins of bully beef, rabbit, sardines, herring, and +glasses of jam, and marmalade. On the center table, a large jug of +marmalade, ants busy in the yellow trickle at the rim. Filth had worked +its way into the red table-cover. Filth was on every object in the room, +like a soft mist, blurring the color and outlines of things. In the +corners, under books and tins, insects moved, long, thin, crawling. A +hot noon sun came dimly through the dirty glass of the closed window, +and slowly baked a sleeping man in the large plush armchair. Around the +chair, as if it were a promontory in a heaving sea, were billows of +stale crumpled newspapers, some wadded into a ball, others torn across +the page, all flung aside in <i>ennui</i>.</p> + +<p>The face of the man was weary and weak. It showed all of his forty-one +years, and revealed, too, a great emptiness. Flies kept rising and +settling again on the hands, the face, and the head<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> of the man—moist +flies whose feet felt damp on the skin. They were slow and languid flies +which wanted to settle and stay. It was his breathing that made them +restless, but not enough to clear them away, only enough to make a low +buzzing in the sultry room. Across the top of his head a bald streak ran +from the forehead, and it was here they returned to alight, after each +twitching and heave of the sunken body.</p> + +<p>In the early months he had fought a losing fight with them. The walls +and ceiling and panes of glass were spotted with the marks of his long +battle. But his foes had advanced in ever-fresh force, clouds and swarms +of them beyond number. He had gone to meet them with a wire-killer, and +tightly rolled newspapers. He had imported fly paper from Dunkirk. But +they could afford to sacrifice the few hundreds, which his strokes could +reach, and still overwhelm him. Lately, he had given up the struggle, +and let them take possession of the room. They harassed him when he +read, so he gave up reading. They got into the food, so he ate less. +Between his two trips to the front daily at 8 <span class="smcap">A.M.</span> and 2 +<span class="smcap">P.M.</span>, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> slept. He found he could lose himself in sleep. Into +that kingdom of sleep, they could not enter. As the weeks rolled on, he +was able to let himself down more and more easily into silence. That +became his life. A slothfulness, a languor, even when awake, a +half-conscious forcing of himself through the routine work, a looking +forward to the droning room, and then the settling deep into the old +plush chair, and the blessed unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>He drove a Red Cross ambulance to the French lines at Nieuport, +collected the sick and wounded soldiers and brought them to the Poste de +Secours, two miles back of the trenches. He lived a hundred feet from +the Poste, always within call. But the emergency call rarely came. There +were only the set runs, for the war had settled to its own regularity. A +wonderful idleness hung over the lines, where millions of men were +unemployed, waiting with strange patience for some unseen event. Only +the year before, these men were chatting in cafés, and busy in a +thousand ways. Now, the long hours of the day were lived without +activity in thoughtless routine.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> Under the routine there was always the +sense of waiting for a sudden crash and horror.</p> + +<p>The man was an English gentleman. It was his own car he had brought, +paid for by him, and he had offered his car and services to the +Fusiliers Marins. They had been glad of his help, and for twelve months +he had performed his daily duty and returned to his loneliness. The men +under whom he worked were the French doctors of the Poste—the chief +doctor, Monsieur Claude-Marie Le Bot, with four stripes on his arm, and +the courteous, grave administrator, Eustache-Emmanuel Couillandre, a +three-stripes man, and a half dozen others, of three stripes and two. +They had welcomed him to their group when he came to them from London. +They had found him lively and likable, bringing gossip of the West End +with a dash of Leicester Square. Then slowly a change had come on him. +He went moody and silent.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you?" asked Doctor Le Bot one day.</p> + +<p>"Nothing's the matter with me," answered the man. "It's war that's the +matter."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?" put in one of the younger doctors.</p> + +<p>"The trouble with war," began the man slowly, "isn't that there's danger +and death. They are easy. The trouble with war is this. It's dull, +damned deadly dull. It's the slowest thing in the world. It wears away +at your mind, like water dripping on a rock. The old Indian torture of +letting water fall on your skull, drop by drop, till you went raving +crazy, is nothing to what war does to the mind of millions of men. They +can't think of anything else but war, and they have no thoughts about +that. They can't talk of another blessed thing, and the result is they +have nothing to say at all."</p> + +<p>As he talked a flush came into his face. He gathered speed, while he +spoke, till his words came with a rush, as if he were relieving himself +of inner pain.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever heard the true inside account of an Arctic expedition?" +he went on. "There's a handful of men locked up inside a little ship for +thirteen or fourteen months. Nothing to look out on but snow and ice, +one color and a horizon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>ful of it. Nothing to dream of but arriving at a +Pole—and that is a theoretical point in infinite space. There's no such +thing. The midnight sun and the frozen stuff get on their nerves—same +old sun in the same old place, same kind of weather. What happens? The +natural thing, of course. They get so they hate each other like poison. +They go around with a mad on. They carry hate against the commander and +the cook and the fellow whose berth creaks every time he shifts. Each +man thinks the shipload is the rottenest gang ever thrown together. He +wonders why they didn't bring somebody decent along. He gets to scoring +up grudges against the different people, and waits his chance to get +back."</p> + +<p>He stopped a minute, and looked around at the doctors, who were giving +him close attention. Then he went on with the same intensity.</p> + +<p>"Now that's war, only war is more so. Here you are in one place for +sixteen months. You shovel yourself into a stinking hole in the ground. +At seven in the morning, you boil yourself some muddy coffee that tastes +like the River Thames at Battersea Bridge. You take a knife that's had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +knicks hacked out of it, and cut a hunk of dry bread that chews like +sand. You eat some 'bully beef out of a tin, same tinned stuff as you've +been eating ever since your stomach went on strike a year ago. Once a +week for a treat, you cut a steak off the flank of a dead horse. That +tastes better, because it's fresh meat. When you're sent back a few +miles, <i>en 'piquet</i>, you sleep in a village that looks like Sodom after +the sulphur struck it. Houses singed and tumbled, dead bodies in the +ruins, a broken-legged dog, trailing its hind foot, in front of the +house where you are. Tobacco—surely. You'd die if you didn't have a +smoke. But the rotten little cigarettes with no taste to them that smoke +like chopped hay. And the cigars made out of rags and shredded +toothpicks—"</p> + +<p>"Here, have a cigarette," suggested the youngest doctor.</p> + +<p>But the man was too busy in working out his own thoughts.</p> + +<p>"The whole thing," he continued, "is a mixture of a morgue and a +hospital—only those places have running water, and people in white<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +aprons to tidy things up. And a battle—Three days under bombardment, +living in the cellar. The guns going off five, six times to the minute, +and then waiting a couple of hours and dropping one in, next door. The +crumpling noise when a little brick house caves in, like a man when you +hit him in the stomach, just going all together in a heap. And the sick +smell that comes out of the mess from plaster and brick dust.</p> + +<p>"And getting wounded, that's jolly, isn't it? Rifle ball through your +left biceps. Dick walks you back to the dressing station. Doctor busy at +luncheon with a couple of visiting officers. Lie down in the straw. +Straw has a pleasant smell when it's smeared with iodine and blood. Wait +till the doctor has had his bottle of wine.</p> + +<p>"'Nothing very much,' he says, when he gets around to you. Drops some +juice in, ties the white rag around, and you go back to your straw. +Three, four hours, and along come the body snatchers—the chauffeur chap +doesn't know how to drive, bumps into every shell hole for seven miles. +Every half mile, drive down into the ditch mud, to get out of the way of +some ammunition wagons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> going to the front. The wheel gets stuck. Put on +power, in jumps, to bump the car out. Every jerk tears at your open +sore, as if the wheel had got stuck in your arm and was being pulled +out. Two hours to do the seven miles. Get to the field hospital. No time +for you. Lie on your stretcher in the court, where the flies swarm on +you. Always flies. Flies on the blood of the wounded, glued to the +bandage. Flies on the face of the dead."</p> + +<p>So he had once spoken and left them wondering. But that whirling burst +of words was long before, in those earlier days of his work. Nothing +like that had happened in weeks. No such vivid pictures lighted him now. +The man slept on.</p> + +<p>There was a scratching at the window, then a steady tapping, then a +resounding fist on the casement. Gradually, the sleeping man came up +through the deep waters of unconsciousness. His eyes were heavy. He sat +a moment, brooding, then turned toward the insistent noise.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Watts!" said a voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered the man. He stretched him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>self, and raised the sash. A +brisk little French Marin was at the window.</p> + +<p>"The doctors are at luncheon. They are waiting for you," the soldier +said in rapid Breton French; "today you are their guest."</p> + +<p>"Of course," replied the man, "I had forgotten. I will come at once."</p> + +<p>He stretched his arms over his head—a tall figure of a man, but bent at +the shoulders, as if all the dreariness of his surroundings had settled +there. He had the stoop of an old man, and the walk. He stepped out of +his room, into the street, and stood a moment in the midday sunshine, +blinking. Then he walked down the village street to the Poste, and +pushed through the dressing-rooms to the dining-room at the rear. The +doctors looked up as he entered. He nodded, but gave no speech back for +their courteous, their cordial greeting. In silence he ate the simple +relishes of sardines and olives. Then the treat of the luncheon was +brought in by the orderly. It was a duckling, taken from a refugee farm, +and done to a brown crisp. The head doctor carved and served it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> + +<p>"See here," said Watts loudly. He lifted his wing of the duckling where +a dead fly was cooked in with the gravy. He pushed his chair back. It +grated shrilly on the stone floor. He rose.</p> + +<p>"Flies," he said, and left the room.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Watts was the guest at the informal trench luncheon. The officers showed +him little favors from time to time, for he had served their wounded +faithfully for many months. It is the highest honor they can pay when +they admit a civilian to the first line of trenches. Shelling from +Westend was mild and inaccurate, going high overhead and falling with a +mutter into the seven-times wrecked and thoroughly deserted houses of +Nieuport village. But the sound of it gave a gentle tingle to the act of +eating. There was occasional rifle fire, the bullet singing close.</p> + +<p>"They're improving," said the Commandant, "a fellow reached over the +trench this morning for his Billy-can, and they got him in the hand."</p> + +<p>Two Marins cleared away the plank on which bread and coffee and tinned +meat had been served.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<p>The hot August sun cooked the loose earth, and heightened the smells of +food. A swarm of flies poured over the outer rim and dropped down on +squatting men and the scattered commissariat. Watts was sitting at a +little distance from the group. He closed his eyes, but soon began +striking methodically at the settling flies. He fought them with the +right arm and the left in long heavy strokes, patiently, without +enthusiasm. The soldiers brought out a pack of cards, and leaned forward +for the deal. Suddenly Watts rose, lifted his arms above the trench, and +deliberately stretched. Three faint cracks sounded from across the +hillock, and he tumbled out at full length, as if some one had flung him +away. The men hastened to him, coming crouched over but swiftly.</p> + +<p>"Got him in the right arm," said the Commandant.</p> + +<p>"Thank God," muttered Watts, sleepily.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was the Convent Hospital of Furnes. There was quiet in the ward of +twenty-five beds,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> where side by side slept the wounded of France and +Germany and Belgium and England. Suddenly, a resounding whack rang +through the ward. A German boy jumped up sitting in his cot. The sound +had awakened memories. He looked over to the tall Englishman in the next +cot, who had struck out at one of the heavy innumerable flies, who hover +over wounded men, and pry down under bandages.</p> + +<p>"Let me tell you," said the youth eagerly, "I have a preparation—I'm a +chemist, you know—I've worked out a powder that kills flies."</p> + +<p>Watts looked up from his pillow. His face was weary.</p> + +<p>"It's sweet, you know, and attracts them," went on the boy, "then the +least sniff of it finishes them. They trail away, and die in a few +minutes. You can clear a room in half an hour. Then all you have to do +is to sweep up."</p> + +<p>"See here," he said, "I'll show you. Sister," he called. The nurse +hurried to his side.</p> + +<p>"Sister? You were kind enough to save my kit. May I have it a moment?"</p> + +<p>He took out a tin flask, and squeezed it—a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> brown powder puffed through +the pin-point holes at the mouth. It settled in a dust on the white +coverlet.</p> + +<p>"Please be very quiet," he said. He settled back, as if for sleep, but +his half-shut eyes were watchful. A couple of minutes passed, then a fly +circled his head, and made for the spot on the spread. It nosed its way +in, crawled heavily a few inches up the coverlet, and turned its legs +up. Two more came, alighted, sniffed and died.</p> + +<p>"You see," he said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Next day, the head of the Coxyde Poste motored over to Furnes for a call +on his wounded helper.</p> + +<p>"Where does all that chatter come from?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Sister Teresa smiled.</p> + +<p>"It's your silent friend," she said. "He is the noisiest old thing in +the ward."</p> + +<p>"Talking to himself?" inquired the doctor.</p> + +<p>"Have a look for yourself," urged the nurse. They stepped into the ward, +and down the stone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> floor, till they came to the supply table. Here they +pretended to busy themselves with lint.</p> + +<p>"Most interesting," Watts was saying. "That is a new idea to me. Here +they've been telling me for a year that there's no way but the slow +push, trench after trench—"</p> + +<p>"Let me say to you," interrupted the Saxon lad.</p> + +<p>"You will pardon me, if I finish what I am saying," went on Watts in +full tidal flow. "What was it I was saying? Oh, yes, I remember—that +slow hard push is not the only way, after all. You tell me—"</p> + +<p>"That's the way it is all day long," explained the sister. "Chatter, +chatter, chatter. They are telling each other all they know. You would +think they would get fed up. But as fast as one of them says something, +that seems to be a new idea to the other. Mr. Watts acts like a man who +has been starved."</p> + +<p>Watts caught sight of his friend.</p> + +<p>"We've killed all the flies," he shouted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WOMEN UNDER FIRE</h2> + + +<p>This war has been a revelation of womanhood. To see one of these cool, +friendly creatures, American and English, shove her motor car into +shell-fire, make her rescue of helpless crippled men, and steam back to +safety, is to watch a resourceful and disciplined being. They may be, +they are, "ministering angels," but there is nothing meek in their +demeanor. They have stepped to a vantage from which nothing in man's +contemptuous philosophy will ever dislodge them. They have always +existed to astonish those who knew them best, and have turned life into +a surprise party from Eden to the era of forcible feeding. But assuredly +it would make the dogmatists on the essentially feminine nature, like +Kipling, rub their eyes, to watch modern women at work under fire. They +haven't the slightest fear of being killed. Give them a job under +bombardment, and they unfold the stretcher, place the pillow and tuck in +the blanket, without a quiver<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> of apprehension. That, too, when some of +the men are scampering for cover, and ducking chance pellets from the +woolly white cloud that breaks overhead. The women will eat their +luncheon with relish within three hundred feet of a French battery in +full blaze. Is there a test left to the pride of man that the modern +woman does not take lightly and skilfully? Gone are the Victorian nerves +and the eighteenth-century fainting. All the old false delicacies have +been swamped. She has been held back like a hound from the hunting, till +we really believed we had a harmless household pet, who loved security. +We had forgotten the pioneer women who struck across frontiers with a +hardihood that matched that of their mates. And now the modern woman +emerges from her protected home, and pushes forward, careless and +curious.</p> + +<p>"What are women going to do about this war?" That question my wife and I +asked each other at the outbreak of the present conflict. There were +several attitudes that they might take. They could deplore war, because +it destroyed their own best products. They could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> form peace leagues and +pass resolutions against war. They could return to their ancient job of +humble service, and resume their familiar location in the background. +They did all these things and did them fervently; but they did something +else in this war—they stepped out into the foreground, where the air +was thick with danger, and demonstrated their courage. The mother no +longer says: "Return, my gallant one, with your shield or on it," and +goes back to her baking. She packs her kit and jumps into a motor +ambulance headed for the dressing station.</p> + +<p>We have had an excellent chance to watch women in this war. Our corps +have had access to every line from Nieuport on the sea, down for twenty +miles. We were able to run out to skirmishes, to reach the wounded where +they had fallen. We have gone where the fighting had been at such close +range that in one barnyard in Ramscappelle lay thirteen dead—Germans, +French and Belgians. We brought back three wounded Germans from the +stable. We were in Dixmude on the afternoon when the Germans destroyed +the town by artillery fire. We were in Ypres on No<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>vember first, the day +after the most terrible battle in history, when fifty thousand English +out of a hundred and twenty thousand fell. For three months my wife +lived in Pervyse, with two British women. Not one house in the town +itself is left untouched by shell-fire. The women lived in a cellar for +the first weeks. Then they moved into a partially demolished house, and +a little later a shell exploded in the kitchen. The women were at work +in the next room. We have had opportunity for observing women in war, +for we have seen several hundred of them—nurses, helpers, chauffeurs, +writers—under varying degrees of strain and danger.</p> + +<p>The women whom I met in Belgium were all alike. They refused to take +"their place." They were not interested in their personal welfare. There +have been individual men, a few of them—English, French and Belgian, +soldiers, chauffeurs and civilians—who have turned tail when the danger +was acute. But the women we have watched are strangely lacking in fear. +I asked a famous war writer, whose breast was gay with the ribbons of +half a dozen campaigns, what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> was the matter with all these women, that +they did not tremble and go green under fire, as some of us did. He +said:</p> + +<p>"They don't belong out here. They have no business to be under fire. +They ought to be back at the hospitals down at Dunkirk. They don't +appreciate danger. That's the trouble with them; they have no +imagination."</p> + +<p>That's an easy way out. But the real reasons lie deeper than a mental +inferiority. These women certainly had quite as good an equipment in +mentality as the drivers and stretcher bearers. They could not bear to +let immense numbers of men lie in pain. They wished to bring their +instinct for help to the place where it was needed.</p> + +<p>The other reason is a product of their changed thinking under modern +conditions. "I want to see the shells," said a discontented lady at +Dunkirk. She was weary of the peace and safety of a town twenty miles +back from the front. Women suddenly saw their time had come to strip man +of one more of his monopolies. For some thousand years he had been +bragging of his carriage and bearing in battle. He had told the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> women +folks at home how admirable he had been under strain, and he went on to +claim special privileges as the reward for his gallant behavior. He +posed as their protector. He assumed the right to tax them because they +did not lend a hand when invasion came. Now women are campaigning in +France and Belgium to show that man's much-advertised quality of courage +is a race possession.</p> + +<p>They had already shown it while peace was still in the land, but their +demonstration met with disfavor. Just before the war broke out I saw a +woman suffragist thrown into a pond of water at Denmark Hill. I saw +another mauled and bruised by a crowd of men in Hyde Park. They were the +same sort of women as these hundreds at the front, who are affirming a +new value. The argument is hotly contended whether women belong in the +war zone. Conservative Englishmen deem them a nuisance, and wish them +back in London. Meanwhile, they come and stay. English officials tried +to send home the three of our women who had been nursing within thirty +yards of the trenches at Pervyse. But the King of the Belgians, and +Baron de Broqueville, Prime<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> minister of Belgium, had been watching +their work, and refused to move them.</p> + +<p>One morning we came into the dining-room of our Convent Hospital at +Furnes, and there on a stretcher on the floor was a girl sleeping +profoundly. We thought at first we had one more of our innumerable +wounded who overflowed the beds and wards during those crowded days. She +rested through the morning and through the noon meal. The noise about +did not disturb her. She did not stir in her heavy sleep, lying under +the window, her face of olive skin, with a touch of red in the right +cheek, turned away from the light. She awoke after twenty hours. +Silently, she had come in the evening before, wearied to exhaustion +after a week of nursing in the Belgian trenches.</p> + +<p>That was the thing you were confronted with—woman after woman hurling +herself at the war till spent. They wished to share with men the +hardship and peril. If risks were right for the men, then they were +right for women. If the time had come for nations to risk death, these +women refused to claim the exemptions of sex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> difference. If war was +unavoidable, then it was equally proper for women to be present and +carry on the work of salvage.</p> + +<p>Of a desire to kill they have none. A certain type of man under +excitement likes to shoot and reach his mark. I have had soldiers tell +me with pride of the number of enemies they have potted. It sounds very +much like an Indian score-card of scalps or a grouse hunter's bag of +game. Our women did not talk in these terms, nor did they act so. They +gave the same care to German wounded as to Belgian, French and English +wounded, and that though they knew they would not receive mercy if the +enemy came across the fields and stormed the trenches. A couple of +machine guns placed on the trench at Pervyse could have raked the ruined +village and killed our three nurses. They shared the terms of peril with +the soldiers; but they had no desire for retaliation, no wish to wreak +their will on human life. Their instinct is to help. The danger does not +excite them to a nervous explosion where they grab for a gun and shoot +the other fellow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> + +<p>I was with an English physician one day before he was seasoned. We were +under the bank at Grembergen, just across the river from Termonde. The +enemy were putting over shells about one hundred yards from where we +were crawling toward a machine-shop sheltering wounded men. The <i>obus</i> +were noisy and the dirt flew high. Scattered bits of metal struck the +bank. As we heard the shell moaning for that second of time when it +draws close, we would crawl into one of the trenches scooped out in the +green bank, an earthen cave with a roof of boughs.</p> + +<p>"Let's get out of this," said the doctor. "It's too hot for our kind of +work. If I had a rifle and could shoot back I shouldn't mind it. But +this waiting round and doing nothing in return till you are hit, I don't +like it."</p> + +<p>But that is the very power that women possess. They can wait round +without wishing to strike back. Saving life gives them sufficient +spiritual resource to stand up to artillery. They have no wish to +relieve their nervousness by sighting an alien head and cracking it.</p> + +<p>One of our corps was the daughter of an earl.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> She had all the +characteristics of what we like to think is the typical American girl. +She had a bonhomie that swept class distinctions aside. Her talk was +swift and direct. She was pretty and executive, swift to act and always +on the go.</p> + +<p>One day, as we were on the road to the dressing stations, the noise of +guns broke out. The young Belgian soldier who was driving her stopped +his motor and jumped out.</p> + +<p>"I do not care to go farther," he said.</p> + +<p>Lady ——, who is a skilful driver, climbed to the front seat, drove the +car to the dressing station and brought back the wounded. I have seen +her drive a touring car, carrying six wounded men, from Nieuport to +Furnes at eight o'clock on a pitch-dark night, no lights allowed, over a +narrow, muddy road on which the car skidded. She had to thread her way +through silent marching troops, turn out for artillery wagons, follow +after tired horses.</p> + +<p>She was not a trained nurse, but when Dr. Hector Munro was working over +a man with a broken leg she prepared a splint and held the leg while he +set it and bound it. She drove a motor into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> Nieuport when the troops +were marching out of it. Her guest for the afternoon was a war +correspondent.</p> + +<p>"This is a retreat," he said. "It is never safe to enter a place when +the troops are leaving it. I have had experience."</p> + +<p>"We are going in to get the wounded," she replied. They went in.</p> + +<p>At Ypres she dodged round the corner because she saw a captain who +doesn't believe in women at the front. A shell fell in the place where +she had been standing a moment before. It blew the arm from a soldier. +Her nerve was unbroken, and she continued her work through the morning.</p> + +<p>Her notion of courage is that people have a right to feel frightened, +but that they have no right to fail to do the job even if they are +frightened. They are entitled to their feelings, but they are not +entitled to shirk the necessary work of war. She believes that cowardice +is not like other failings of weakness, which are pretty much man's own +business. Cowardice is dangerous to the group.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> + +<p>Lady ——'s attitude at a bombardment was that of a child seeing a +hailstorm—open-eyed wonder. She was the purest exhibit of careless +fearlessness, carrying a buoyancy in danger. Generations of riding to +hounds and of big game shooting had educated fear out of her stock. Her +ancestors had always faced uncertainty as one of the ingredients of +life: they accepted danger in accepting life. The savage accepted fear +because he had to. With the English upper class, danger is a fine art, a +cult. It is an element in the family honor. One cannot possibly shrink +from the test. The English have expressed themselves in sport. People +who are good sportsmen are, of course, honorable fighters. The Germans +have allowed their craving for adventure to seethe inside themselves, +and then have aimed it seriously at human life. But the English have +taken off their excess vitality by outdoor contests.</p> + +<p>What Lady —— is the rest of the women are. Miss Smith, an English girl +nurse, jumped down from the ambulance that was retreating before the +Germans, and walked back into Ghent, held by the Germans, to nurse an +English officer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> till he died. A few days later she escaped, by going in +a peasant's cart full of market vegetables, and rejoined us at Furnes.</p> + +<p>Sally Macnaughtan is a gray-haired gentlewoman of independent means who +writes admirable fiction. She has laid aside her art and for months +conducted a soup kitchen in the railway station at Furnes. She has fed +thousands of weakened wounded men, working till midnight night after +night. She remained until the town was thoroughly shelled.</p> + +<p>The order is strict that no officer's wife must be near the front. The +idea is that she will divert her husband's mind from the work in hand. +He will worry about her safety. But Mrs. B——, a Belgian, joined our +women in Pervyse, and did useful work, while her husband, a doctor with +the rank of officer, continued his work along the front. She is a girl +of twenty-one years.</p> + +<p>Recently the Queen of the Belgians went into the trenches at a time when +there was danger of artillery and rifle fire breaking loose from the +enemy. She had to be besought to keep back where the air was quieter, as +her life was of more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> value to the Belgian troops and the nation than +even a gallant death.</p> + +<p>One afternoon most of the corps were out on the road searching for +wounded. Mairi Chisholm, a Scotch girl eighteen years old, and a young +American woman had been left behind in the Furnes Hospital. With them +was a stretcher bearer, a man of twenty-eight. A few shells fell into +Furnes. The civilian population began running in dismay. The girls +climbed up into the tower of the convent to watch the work of the +shells. The man ordered the women to leave the town with him and go to +Poperinghe. The two girls refused to go.</p> + +<p>For weeks Furnes was under artillery fire from beyond Nieuport. One of +our hospital nurses was killed as she was walking in the Grand Place.</p> + +<p>I saw an American girl covered by the pistol of an Uhlan officer. She +did not change color, but regarded the incident as a lark. I happened to +be watching her when she was sitting on the front seat of an ambulance +at Oudecappelle, eating luncheon. A shell fell thirty yards from her in +the road. The roar was loud. The dirt flew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> high. The metal fragments +tinkled on the house walls. The hole it dug was three feet deep. She +laughed and continued with her luncheon.</p> + +<p>I saw the same girl stand out in a field while this little drama took +place: The French artillery in the field were well covered by shrubbery. +They had been pounding away from their covert till the Germans grew +irritated. A German Taube flew into sight, hovered high overhead and +spied the hidden guns. It dropped three smoke bombs. These puffed out +their little clouds into the air, and gave the far-away marksmen the +location for firing. Their guns broke out and shrapnel shells came +overhead, burst into trailing smoke and scattered their hundreds of +bullets. The girl stood on the arena itself. Of concern for her personal +safety she had none. It was all like a play on the stage to her. You +watch the blow and flash but you are not a part of the action.</p> + +<p>Each night the Furnes Hospital was full with one hundred wounded. In the +morning we carried out one or two or one-half dozen dead. The wounds +were severe, the air of the whole countryside was septic from the sour +dead in the fields,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> who kept working to the surface from their shallow +burial. There was a morning when we had gone early to the front on a +hurry call. In our absence two girl nurses carried out ten dead from the +wards into the convent lot, to the edge of the hasty graves made ready +for their coming.</p> + +<p>There is one woman whom we have watched at work for twelve months. She +is a trained nurse, a certified midwife, a licensed motor-car driver, a +veterinarian and a woman of property. Her name is Mrs. Elsie Knocker, a +widow with one son. She helped to organize our corps. I was with her one +evening when a corporal ordered her to go up a difficult road. He was +the driver of a high-power touring car which could rise on occasion to +seventy miles an hour. He carried a rifle in his car, and told us he had +killed over fifty Germans since Liège. He dressed in bottle green, the +uniform of a cyclist, and he looked like a rollicking woodlander of the +Robin Hood band. It was seven o'clock of the evening. The night was +dark. He pitched a bag of bandages into the motor ambulance.</p> + +<p>"Take those to the dressing station that lies two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> miles to the west of +Caeskerke," he ordered Mrs. Knocker. I cranked up the machine; Mrs. +Knocker sat at the wheel. We were at Oudecappelle. The going was halfway +decent as far as the crossroads of Caeskerke. Here we turned west on a +road through the fields which had been intermittently shelled for +several days. The road had shell holes in it from one to three feet +deep. We could not see them because we carried no lights and the sky +overhead was black. A mile to our right a village was burning. There +were sheets of flame rising from the lowland, and the flame revealed the +smoke that was thick over the ruins. We bumped in and out of the holes. +All roads in Belgium were scummy with mud. It is like butter on bread. +The big brown-canopied ambulance skidded in this paste.</p> + +<p>We reached the dressing station and delivered one bag of bandages. In +return we received three severely wounded men, who lay at length on the +stretched canvas and swung on straps. Then we started back over the same +mean road. This was the journey that tested Mrs. Knocker's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> driving, +because now she had helpless men who must not be jerked by the swaying +car. Motion tore at their wounds. Above all, they must not be +overturned. An overturn would kill a man who was seriously wounded. +Driving meant drawing all her nervous forces into her directing brain +and her two hands. A village on fire at night is an eerie sight. A dark +road, pitted with shell holes and slimy with mud, is chancy. The car +with its human freight, swaying, bumping, sliding, is heavy on the +wrist. The whole focused drive of it falls on the muscles of the +forearm. And when on the skill of that driver depends the lives of three +men the situation is one that calls for nerve. It was only luck that the +artillery from beyond the Yser did not begin tuning up. The Germans had +shelled that road diligently for many days and some evenings. Back to +the crossroads Mrs. Knocker brought her cargo, and on to Oudecappelle, +and so to the hospital at Furnes, a full ten miles. Safely home in the +convent yard, the journey done, the wounded men lifted into the ward, +she broke down. She had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> put over her job, and her nerves were tired. +Womanlike she refused to give in till the work was successfully +finished.</p> + +<p>How would a man have handled such a strain? I will tell you how one man +acted. Our corporal drove his touring car toward Dixmude one morning. He +ordered Tom, the cockney driver, to follow with the motor ambulance. In +it were Mrs. Knocker and Miss Chisholm, sitting with Tom on the front of +the car. Things looked thick. The corporal slowed up, and so did Tom +just behind him. Now there is one sure rule for rescue work at the +front—when you hear the guns close, always turn your car toward home, +away from the direction of the enemy. Turn it before you get your +wounded, even though they are at the point of death, and leave your +power on, even when you are going to stay for a quarter of an hour. +Pointed toward safety, and under power, the car can carry you out of +range of a sudden shelling or a bayonet charge. The enemy's guns began +to place shrapnel over the road. The cloud puffs were hovering about a +hundred feet overhead a little farther down the way. The bullets<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>clicked on the roadbed. The corporal jumped out of his touring car.</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="BRETON_SAILORS" id="BRETON_SAILORS"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img206.jpg" alt="BRETON SAILORS" title="BRETON SAILORS" /></div> + + +<h4>BRETON SAILORS READY FOR THEIR NOON MEAL IN A VILLAGE +UNDER DAILY SHELL FIRE.</h4> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>Throughout this Yser district British nurses drove their ambulances and +rescued the wounded.</p></blockquote> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>"Turn my car," he shouted to Tom. Tom climbed from the ambulance, +boarded the touring car and turned it. The corporal peered out from his +shelter, behind the ambulance, saw the going was good and ran to his own +motor. He jumped in and sped out of range at full tilt. The two women +sat quietly in the ambulance, watching the shrapnel. Tom came to them, +turned the car and brought them beyond the range of fire.</p> + +<p>But the steadiest and most useful piece of work done by the women was +that at Pervyse. Mrs. Knocker and two women helpers, one Scotch and one +American, fitted up a miniature hospital in the cellar of a house in +ruined Pervyse. They were within three minutes of the trenches. Here, as +soon as the soldiers were wounded, they could be brought for immediate +treatment. A young private had received a severe lip wound. Unskilful +army medical handling had left it gangrened, and it had swollen. His +face was on the way to being marred for life. Mrs. Knocker treated him +every few hours for ten days—and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> brought him back to normal. A man +came in with his hand a pulp from splintered shell. The glove he had +been wearing was driven into the red flesh. Mrs. Knocker worked over his +hand for half an hour, picking out the shredded glove bit by bit.</p> + +<p>Except for a short walk in the early morning and another after dark, +these women lived immured in their dressing station, which they moved +from the cellar to a half-wrecked house. They lived in the smell of +straw, blood and antiseptic. The Germans have thrown shells into the +wrecked village almost every day. Some days shelling has been vigorous. +The churchyard is choked with dead. The fields are dotted with hummocks +where men and horses lie buried. Just as I was sailing for America in +March, 1915, the house where the women live and work was shelled. They +came to La Panne, but later Mrs. Knocker and Miss Chisholm returned to +Pervyse to go on with their work, which is famous throughout the Belgian +army.</p> + +<p>As regiment after regiment serves its turn in the trenches of Pervyse it +passes under the hands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> of these women. "The women of Pervyse" are known +alike to generals, colonels and privates who held steady at Liège and +who have struggled on ever since. For many months these nurses have +endured the noise of shell fire and the smells of the dead and the +stricken. The King of the Belgians has with his own hands pinned upon +them the Order of Leopold II. The King himself wears the Order of +Leopold I. They have eased and saved many hundreds of his men.</p> + +<p>"No place for a woman," remarked a distinguished Englishman after a +flying visit to their home.</p> + +<p>"By the law of probabilities, your corps will be wiped out sooner or +later," said a war correspondent.</p> + +<p>Meantime the women will go on with their cool, expert work. The only way +to stop them is to stop the war.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>HOW WAR SEEMS TO A WOMAN</h2> + +<h4>(<span class="smcap">By Mrs. Arthur Gleason</span>)</h4> + + +<p>Life at the front is not organized like a business office, with sharply +defined duties for each worker. War is raw and chaotic, and you take +hold wherever you can lock your grip. We women that joined the Belgian +army and spent a year at the front, did duty as ambulance riders, "dirty +nurses," in a Red Cross rescue station at the Yser trenches, in relief +work for refugees, and in the commissariat department. We tended wounded +soldiers, sick soldiers, sick peasants, wounded peasants, mothers, +babies, and colonies of refugees.</p> + +<p>This war gave women one more chance to prove themselves. For the first +time in history, a few of us were allowed through the lines to the front +trenches. We needed a man's costume, steady masculine nerves, physical +strength. But the work itself became the ancient work of woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>—nursing +suffering, making a home for lonely, hungry, dirty men. This new thrust +of womanhood carried her to the heart of war. But, once arriving there, +she resumed her old job, and became the nurse and cook and mother to +men. Woman has been rebelling against being put into her place by man. +But the minute she wins her freedom in the new dramatic setting, she +finds expression in the old ways as caretaker and home-maker. Her +rebellion ceases as soon as she is allowed to share the danger. She is +willing to make the fires, carry the water, and do the washing, because +she believes the men are in the right, and her labor frees them for +putting through their work.</p> + +<p>It all began for me in Paris. I was studying music, and living in the +American Art Students' Club, in the summer of 1914. That war was +declared meant nothing to me. There was I in a comfortable room with a +delightful garden, the Luxembourg, just over the way. That was the first +flash of war. I went down to the Louvre to see the Venus, and found the +building "Fermé." I went over to the Luxembourg Galleries<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>—"Fermé," +again—and the Catacombs. Then it came into my consciousness that all +Paris was closed to me. The treasures had been taken away from me. The +things planned couldn't be done. War had snatched something from me +personally.</p> + +<p>Next, I took solace in the streets. I had to walk. Paris went mad with +official speed—commandeered motors flashed officers down the boulevards +under martial law. They must get a nation ready, and Paris was the +capital. War made itself felt, still more, because we had to go through +endless lines,—<i>permis de sejours</i> at little police stations—standing +on line all day, dismissed without your paper, returning next morning. +Friends began to leave Paris for New York. I was considered queer for +wishing to stay on. The chance to study in Paris was the dream of a +lifetime. But, now, the sound of the piano was forbidden in the city, +and that made the desolation complete. Work and recreation had been +taken away, and only war was left. And when Marie, our favorite maid in +the club, sent her husband, our doorkeeper, to the front, that brought +war inside our household.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + +<p>As the Germans drew near Paris, many of the club girls thought that they +would be endangered. Every one was talking about the French Revolution. +People expected the horrors of the Revolution to be repeated. Jaures had +just been shot, the syndicalists were wrecking German milk shops, and at +night the streets had noisy mobs. People were fearing revolution inside +Paris, more than the enemy outside the city gates. War was going to let +loose that terrible thing which we believed to be subliminal in the +French nature.</p> + +<p>Women had to be off the streets before nine o'clock. By day we went up +the block to the Boulevard, and there were the troops—a band, the +tricolor, the officers, the men in sky blue. Their sweethearts, their +wives and children went marching hand in hand with them, all singing the +"Marseillaise." In a time like that, where there is song, there is +weeping. The marching, singing women were sometimes sobbing without +knowing it, and we that were watching them in the street crowd were +moved like them.</p> + +<p>When I crossed to England, I found that I wanted to go back and have +more of the wonder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> of war, which I had tasted in Paris. The wonder was +the sparkle of equipment. It was plain curiosity to see troops line up, +to watch the military pageant. There I had been seeing great handsome +horses, men in shining helmets with the horsehair tail of the casque +flowing from crest to shoulder, the scarlet breeches, the glistening +boots with spurs. It was pictures of childhood coming true. I had hardly +ever seen a man in military uniform, and nothing so startling as those +French cuirassiers. And I knew that gay vivid thing was not a passing +street parade, but an array that was going into action. What would the +action be? It is what makes me fond of moving pictures—variety, color, +motion, and mystery. The story was just beginning. How would the plot +come out?</p> + +<p>Those pictures of troops and guns, grouping and dissolving, during all +the twelve months in Flanders, never failed to grip. But rarely again +did I see that display of fine feathers. For the fighting men with whom +I lived became mud-covered. Theirs was a dug-in and blown-out existence, +with the spatterings of storm and black nights on them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> Their clothing +took on the soberer colors and weather-worn aspect of the life itself +which was no sunny boulevard affair, but an enduring of wet trenches and +slimy roads. Those people in Paris needed that high key to send them +out, and the early brilliance lifted them to a level which was able to +endure the monotony.</p> + +<p>I went to the war because those whom I loved were in the war. I wished +to go where they were.</p> + +<p>Finally, there was real appeal in that a little unprotected lot of +people were being trampled.</p> + +<p>I crossed in late September to Ostend as a member of the Hector Munro +Ambulance Corps. With us were two women, Elsie Knocker, an English +trained nurse, and Mairi Chisholm Gooden-Chisholm, a Scotch girl. There +were a round dozen of us, doctors, chauffeurs, stretcher bearers. Our +idea of what was to be required of women at the front was vague. We +thought that we ought to know how to ride horseback, so that we could +catch the first loose horse that galloped by and climb on him. What we +were to do with the wounded wasn't clear, even in our own minds. We +bought funny little tents and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> had tent practice in a vacant yard. The +motor drive from Ostend to Ghent was through autumn sunshine and beauty +of field flowers. It was like a dream, and the dream continued in Ghent, +where we were tumbled into the Flandria Palace Hotel with a suite of +rooms and bath, and two convalescing soldiers to care for us. We looked +at ourselves and smiled and wondered if this was war. My first work was +the commissariat for our corps.</p> + +<p>Then came the English Naval Reserves and Marines <i>en route</i> to Antwerp. +They had been herded into the cars for twelve hours. They were happy to +have great hunks of hot meat, bread, and cigarettes. Just across the +platform, a Belgian Red Cross train pulled in—nine hundred wounded men, +bandaged heads with only the eyes showing, stumps of arms flapping a +welcome. The Belgians had been shot to pieces, holding the line. And, +now, here were the English come to save them.</p> + +<p>This looked more like war to us. From the Palace windows we hung out +over the balcony to see the Taubes. I knew that at last we were on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> the +fringes of war. Later, we were to be at the heart of it. It was at Melle +that I learned I was on the front lines.</p> + +<p>We went up the road from Ghent to Melle in blithe ignorance, we three +women. The day before, the enemy had held the corner with a machine gun.</p> + +<p>"Let's go on foot, and see where the Germans were," suggested "Scotch." +We came to burned peasants' houses. Inside the wreckage, soldiers +crouched with rifles ready at the peek-holes. A Reckitt's bluing factory +was burning, and across the field were the Germans. The cottages without +doors and windows were like toothless old women. Piles of used +cartridges were strewed around. There stood a gray motor-car, a wounded +German in the back seat, his hands riddled, the car shot through, with +blood in the bottom from two dead Germans. I realized the power of the +bullet, which had penetrated the driver, the padded seat, the sheet +metal and splintered the wood of the tonneau. We saw a puff of white +smoke over the field from a shrapnel. That was the first shell I had +seen close. It meant nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> to me. In those early days, the hum of a +shell seemed no more than the chattering of sparrows. That was the way +with all my impressions of war—first a flash, a spectacle; later a +realization, and experience.</p> + +<p>I went into Alost during a mild bombardment. The crashing of timbers was +fascinating. It is in human nature to enjoy destruction. I used to love +to jump on strawberry boxes in the woodshed and hear them crackle. And +with the plunge of the shells, something echoed back to the delight of +my childhood. I enjoyed the crash, for something barbaric stirred. There +was no connection in my mind between the rumble and wounded men. The +curiosity of ignorance wanted to see a large crash. Shell-fire to me was +a noise.</p> + +<p>I still had no idea of war. Of course I knew that there would be hideous +things which I didn't have in home life. I knew I could stand up to +dirty monotonous work, but I was afraid I should faint if I saw blood. +When very young, I had seen a dog run over, and I had seen a boy +playmate mutilate a turtle. I was sickened. Years later, I came on a +little child crying, holding up its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> hand. The wrist was bent back +double, and the blood spurting till the little one was drenched. Those +shocks had left a horror in me of seeing blood. But this thing that I +feared most turned out not to have much importance. I found that the man +who bled most heavily lay quiet. It was not the bloodshed that unnerved +me. It was the writhing and moaning of men that communicated their pain +to me. I seemed to see those whom I loved lying there. I transferred the +wound to the ones I love. Sometimes soldiers gave me the address of wife +and mother, to have me write that they were well. Then when the wounded +came in, I thought of these wives and mothers. I knew how they felt, +because I felt so. I knew, as the Belgian and French women know, that +the war must be waged without wavering, and yet I always see war as +hideous. There was no glory in those stricken men. I had no fear of +dying, but I had a fear of being mangled.</p> + +<p>One evening I walked into the Convent Hospital where the wounded lay so +thickly that I had to step over the stretcher loads. The beds were full, +the floor blocked, only one door open. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> was a smell of foul blood, +medicines, the stench of trench clothes. It came on an empty stomach, at +the end of a tired day.</p> + +<p>"Sister, will you hold this lamp?" a nurse said to me.</p> + +<p>I held it over a man with a yawning hole in his abdomen. He lay +unmurmuring. When the doctor pressed, the muscles twitched. I asked some +one to hold the lamp. I went into the courtyard, and fainted. Hard work +would have saved me.</p> + +<p>One other time, there had been a persistent fire all day. A boy of +nineteen was brought in screaming. He wanted water and he wanted his +mother. In our dressing station room were crowded two doctors, three +women, two stretcher bearers, a chauffeur, and ten soldiers. They cut +away his uniform and boots. His legs were jelly, with red mouths of +wounds. His leg gave at the knee, like a piece of limp twine. I went +into the next room, and recovered myself. Then I returned, and stayed +with the wounded. The greatest comfort was a doctor, who said it was a +matter of stomach, not of nerve. A sound woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> doesn't faint at the +sight of blood any quicker than a man does. Those two experiences were +the only times when the horror was too much for me. I saw terrible +things and was able to see them. With the dead it seems different. They +are at peace. It is motion in the wounded that transfers suffering to +oneself. A red quiver is worse than a red calm.</p> + +<p>Antwerp fell. The retreating Belgian army swarmed around us, passed us. +In the excitement every one lost her kit and before two days of actual +warfare were over we had completely forgotten those little tents that we +had practised pitching so carefully, and that we had meant to sleep in +at night. Little, dirty, unkempt, broken-hearted men came shuffling in +the dust of the road by day, shambling along the road at night. +Thousands of them passed. No sound, save the fall of footsteps. No +contrast, save where a huddle of refugees passed, their children beside +them, their household goods, or their old people, on their backs. We +picked up the wounded. There was no time for the dead. In and out and +among that army of ants, retreating to the edge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> of Belgium and the sea, +we went. There seemed nothing but to return to England.</p> + +<p>The war minister of Belgium saw us. He placed his son, Lieutenant Robert +de Broqueville, in military command of us. We had access to every line, +all the way to the trench and battlefield. We became a part of the +Belgian army. We made our headquarters at Furnes. Luckily, a physician's +house had been deserted, with china and silver on the table, apples, +jellies and wines in the cellar. We commandeered it.</p> + +<p>Winter came. The soldiers needed a dressing station somewhere along the +front from Nieuport to Dixmude. Mrs. Knocker established one thirty +yards behind the front line of trenches at Pervyse. Miss Chisholm and I +joined her. In its cellar we found a rough bedstead of two pieces of +unplaned lumber, with clean straw for a mattress, awaiting us. Any +Englishwoman is respected in the Belgian lines. The two soldiers who had +been living in our room had given it up cheerily. They had searched the +village for a clean sheet, and showed it to us with pride. They lumped +the straw for our pillows, and stood out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>side through the night, +guarding our home with fixed bayonets. It was the most moving courtesy +we had in the twelve months of war. The air in the little room was both +foul and chilly. We took off our boots, and that was the extent of our +undressing.</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="SLEEPING_QUARTERS" id="SLEEPING_QUARTERS"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img225.jpg" alt="SLEEPING QUARTERS" title="SLEEPING QUARTERS" /></div> + + +<h4>SLEEPING QUARTERS FOR BELGIAN SOLDIERS.</h4> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>Disguised as a haystack, this shelter stands out in a field within easy +shell fire of the enemy. A concealed battery, in which these boys are +gunners, is near by. In their spare time they smoke, read, swim, carve +rings out of shrapnel, play cards and forget the strain of war.</p></blockquote> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>The dreariness of war never came on us till we went out there to live +behind the trenches. To me it was getting up before dawn, and washing in +ice-cold water, no time to comb the hair, always carrying a feeling of +personal mussiness, with an adjustment to dirt. It is hard to sleep in +one's clothes, week after week, to look at hands that have become +permanently filthy. One morning our chauffeur woke up, feeling grumpy. +He had slept with a visiting doctor. He said the doctor's revolver had +poked him all night long in the back. The doctor had worn his entire +equipment for warmth, like the rest of us. I suffered from cold wet +feet. I hated it that there was never a moment I could be alone. The +toothbrush was the one article of decency clung to. I seemed never to go +into the back garden to clean my teeth without bringing on shell-fire. I +got a sense of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> there being a connection between brushing the teeth and +the enemy's guns. You find in roughing it that a coating of dirt seems +to keep out chill. We women suffered, but we knew that the boys in +tennis shoes suffered more in that wet season, and the soldiers without +socks, just the bare feet in boots.</p> + +<p>In the late fall, we rooted around in the deserted barns for potatoes. +Once, creeping into a farm, which was islanded by water, "Jane Pervyse," +our homeless dog, led us up to the wrecked bedroom. A bonnet and best +dress were in the cupboard. A soldier put on the bonnet and grimaced. +Always after that, in passing the house, "Jane Pervyse" trembled and +whined as if it had been her home till the destruction came.</p> + +<p>In our house, we cleaned vegetables. There was nothing romantic about +our work in these first days. It was mostly cooking, peeling hundreds of +potatoes, slicing bushels of onions, cutting up chunks of meat, until +our arms were aching. These bits were boiled together in great black +pots. Our job, when it wasn't to cook the stew, was to take buckets of +it to the trenches.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> Here we ladled it out to each soldier. Always we +went early, while mist still hung over the ground, for we could see the +Germans on clear days. It was an adventure, tramping in the freezing +cold of night to the outposts and in early morning to the trenches, back +to the house to refill the buckets, back to the trenches. The mornings +were bitterly cold. Very early in my career as a nurse, I rid myself of +skirts. Boots, covered with rubber boots to the knees in wet weather, or +bound with puttees in warm; breeches; a leather coat and as many jerseys +as I could walk in—these were my clothes. But, as I slept in them, they +didn't keep me very warm in the early morning.</p> + +<p>We had one real luxury in the dressing station—a piano. While we cooked +and scrubbed and pared potatoes, men from the lines played for us.</p> + +<p>There were other things, necessities, that we lacked. Water, except for +the stagnant green liquid that lay in the ditches where dead men and +dead horses rotted, we went without—once for as long as three days. +During that time we boiled the ditch water and made tea of it. Even +then, it was a deep purplish black and tasted bitter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p>All we could do to help the wounded was to wash off mud and apply the +simplest of first-aids, iodine and bandages. We burned bloody clothing +and scoured mackintoshes and scrubbed floors. The odors were bad, a +mixture of decaying matter and raw flesh and cooking food and +disinfectant.</p> + +<p>Pervyse was one more dear little Flemish village, with yawning holes in +the houses, and through the holes you saw into the home, the precious +intimate things which revealed how the household lived—the pump, +muffled for winter, the furniture placed for occupancy, a home lately +inhabited. In the burgomaster's house, there were two old mahogany +frames with rare prints, his store of medicines, the excellent piano +which cheered us, in his attic a skeleton. So you saw him in his home +life as a quiet, scholarly man of taste and education. You entered +another gaping house, with two or three bits of inherited +mahogany—clearly, the heirlooms of an old family. Another house +revealed bran new commonplace trinkets. Always the status of the family +was plain to see—their mental life, their tastes, and ambitions. You +would peek in through a broken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> front and see a cupboard with crotched +mahogany trimmings, one door splintered, the other perfect. You would +catch a glimpse of a round center table with shapely legs, a sofa drawn +up in front of a fireplace. When we went, Pervyse was still partly +upstanding, but the steady shelling of the winter months slowly +flattened it into a wreck. It is the sense of sight through which war +makes its strongest impression on me.</p> + +<p>The year falls into a series of pictures, evenings of song when a boy +soldier would improvise verses to our head nurse; a fight between a +Belgian corporal and an English nurse with seltzer bottles; the night +when our soldiers were short of ammunition and we sat up till dawn +awaiting the attack that might send us running for our lives; the black +nights when some spy back of our lines flashed electric messages to the +enemy and directed their fire on our ammunition wagons.</p> + +<p>And deeper than those pictures is the consciousness of how adaptable is +the human spirit. Human nature insists on creating something. Under +hunger and danger, it develops a wealth of resource—in art and music, +and carving, mak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>ing finger-rings of shrapnel, playing songs of the +Yser. Something artistic and playful comes to the rescue. Instead of war +getting us as Andreieff's "Red Laugh" says it does, making regiments of +men mad, we "got" war, and remained sane. If we hadn't conquered it by +spells of laughing relief, we shouldn't have had nerve when the time +came. Too much strain would break down the bravest Belgian and the +gayest Fusilier Marin.</p> + +<p>I came to feel I would rather get "pinked" in Pervyse than retire to +Furnes, seven miles back of the trenches. Pervyse seemed home, because +we belonged there with necessary work to do. Then, too, there was a +certain regularity in the German gun-fire. If they started shelling from +the Château de Vicoigne, they were likely to continue shelling from that +point. So we lived that day in the front bedroom. If they shelled from +Ramscappelle, the back kitchen became the better room, for we had a +house in between. We were so near their guns, that we could plot the arc +of flight. Pervyse seemed to visitors full of death, simply because it +received a daily dose of shell-fire, like a little child sitting up and +gulping its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> medicine. With what unconcern in those days we went out by +ambulance to some tight angle, and waited for something to happen.</p> + +<p>"We're right by a battery." But the battery was interesting.</p> + +<p>"If this is danger, all right. It's great to be in danger." I have sat +all day writing letters by our artillery. Every time a gun went off my +pencil slid. The shock was so sudden, my nerves never took it on. Yet I +was able to sleep a few yards in front of a battery. It would pound +through the night, and I never heard it. The nervous equipment of an +American would ravel out, if it were not for sound sleep. If shells came +no nearer than four hundred yards, we considered it a quiet day.</p> + +<p>One day I learned the full meaning of fear. We had had several quiet +safe hours. Night was coming on, and we were putting up the shutters, +when a shell fell close by in the trench. Next, our floor was covered +with dripping men, five of them unbandaged. Shells and wounds were +connected in my mind by that close succession.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> + +<p>No one was secure in that wrecked village of Pervyse. Along the streets, +homeless dogs prowled, pigeons circled, hungry cats howled. Behind the +trenches, the men had buried their dead and had left great mounds where +they had tried to bury the horses. Shells dropped every day, some days +all day. I have seen men running along the streets, flattening +themselves against a house whenever they heard the whirr of a shell.</p> + +<p>It is not easy to eat, and sleep, and live together in close quarters, +sometimes with rush work, sometimes through severer hours of aimless +waiting. Again and again, we became weary of one another, impatient over +trifles.</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="SOLDIERS_TELEPHONING" id="SOLDIERS_TELEPHONING"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img234.jpg" alt="SOLDIERS TELEPHONING" title="SOLDIERS TELEPHONING" /></div> + + +<h4>BELGIAN SOLDIERS TELEPHONING TO AN ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUN THE +APPROACH OF A GERMAN TAUBE.</h4> + +<blockquote><p class='center'>These lookout posts for observing and directing gun fire carry a +portable telephone, adapted to sudden changes of position.</p></blockquote> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>What war does is to reveal human nature. It does not alter it. It +heightens the brutality and the heroism. Selfishness shines out nakedly +and kindliness is seen clearer than in routine peace days. War brings +out what is inside the person. Sentimental pacifists sit around three +thousand miles away and say, "War brutalizes men," and when I hear them +I think of the English Tommies giving me their little stock of +cigarettes for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>Belgian soldiers. Then I read the militarists and +they say, "Be hard. Live dangerously. War is beneficent," and I see the +wrecked villages of Belgium, with the homeless peasants and the orphaned +babies. War ennobles some men by sacrifice, by heroism. It debases other +men by handing over the weak to them for torture and murder. What is in +the man comes out under the supreme test, where there are no courts of +appeal, no public opinion, no social restraint; only the soldier alone +with helpless victims.</p> + +<p>You can't share the chances of life and death with people, without +feeling a something in common with them, that you do not have even with +life-long friends. The high officer and the cockney Tommy have that +linking up. There was one person whom I couldn't grow to like. But with +him I have shared a ticklish time, and there is that cord of connection. +Then, too, one is glad of a record of oneself. There is some one to +verify what you say. You have passed through an unbelievable thing +together, and you have a witness.</p> + +<p>Henri, our Belgian orderly, has that feeling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> for us, and we for him. It +isn't respect, nor fondness, alone. Companionship meant for him new +shirts, dry boots, more chocolate, a daily supply of cigarettes. It +meant our seeing the picture of wife and child in Liège, hearing about +his home. It was the sharing of danger, the facing together of the +horror that underlies life, and which we try to forget in soft peace +days. The friendships of war are based on a more fundamental thing than +the friendships of safe living. In the supreme experience of motherhood, +the woman goes down alone into the place of suffering, leaving the man, +however dear, far away. But in this supreme experience of facing death +to save life, you go together. The little Belgian soldier is at your +side. Together you sit tight under fire, put the bandages on the +wounded, and speed back to a safer place.</p> + +<p>Once I went to the farthest outpost. A Belgian soldier stepped out of +the darkness.</p> + +<p>"Come along, miss, I've a good gun. I'll take you."</p> + +<p>Walking up the road, not in the middle where machine guns could rake us, +but huddled up by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> the trees at the siding, we went. It will be a +different thing to meet him one day in Antwerp, than it will be to greet +again the desk-clerk of the La Salle Hotel in Chicago. It lies deeper +than doing you favors, and assigning a sunny room.</p> + +<p>The men are not impersonal units in an army machine. They become +individuals to us, with sharply marked traits. It is impossible to see +them as cases. Out of the individuals, we built our types—we +constructed our Belgian soldier, out of the hundreds who had told us of +their work and home.</p> + +<p>"You must have met so many you never came to know their stories."</p> + +<p>It was the opposite. Paul Collaer, who played beautifully; Gilson, the +mystic; Henri of Liège; the son of Ysaye, they were all clear to us. +There was a splendid fat doctor who felt physical fear, but never +shirked his job. He used to go and hide behind the barn, with his pipe, +till there was work for him. His wasn't the fear that spreads disaster +through a crowd. He was fat and funny. A fat man is comfortable to have +around, at any time, even when he is unhappy. No one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> lost respect for +this man. Every one enjoyed him thoroughly.</p> + +<p>Commandant Gilson of the Belgian army was one of our firm friends. My +introduction to him was when I heard a bit of a Liszt rhapsody floating +into the kitchen from our piano, the fingers rapid and fluent, and long +nails audible on the keys. I remember the first meal with him, a +luncheon of fried sardines, fruit cake, bread and cheese. The doctor +across the way had sent a bottle of champagne. After luncheon he +received word of an attack. He kissed the hand of each of us, said +good-by, and went out to clean his gun. We did not think we should see +him again. He retook the outpost and had many more meals with us. He +would rise from broken English into swift French—stories of the Congo, +one night till 2 a.m. Always smoking a cigarette—his mustache sometimes +singed from the fire of the diminishing butt. For orderly, he had a +black fat Congo boy, in dark blue Belgian uniform, flat-nosed, with +wrinkles down the forehead. He was Gilson's man, never looking at him in +speaking, and using an open vowel dialect. Before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> one of the attacks, a +soldier came to Gilson with his wife's picture, watch, ring, and money, +and his home address.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to come out," said the soldier.</p> + +<p>It happened so.</p> + +<p>The Commandant's pockets were heavy with these mementoes of the +predestined—the letters of boys to their mothers. He had that +tenderness and agreeable sentiment which seem to go with bravery. He +filled his uniform with souvenirs of pleasant times, a china +slipper—our dinner favor to him—a roadside weed, a paper napkin from a +happy luncheon—a score or more little pieces of sentimental value. When +he went into dangerous action, he never ordered any one to follow him. +He called for volunteers, and was grieved that it was the lads of +sixteen and seventeen years that were always the first to offer.</p> + +<p>We had grown to care for these men. From the first, soldiers of France +and Belgium had given us courtesy. In Paris, it was a soldier who stood +in line for me, and got the paper. It was a soldier who shared his food +and wine on the fourteen-hour trip from Paris to Dieppe—four<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> hours in +peace days, fourteen hours in mobilization. It was a soldier who left +the car and found out the change of train and the hour—always a soldier +who did the helpful thing. It did not require war to create their +quality of friendliness and unselfish courtesy.</p> + +<p>How could Red Cross work be impersonal? No one would go over to be shot +at on an impersonal errand of mercy. You risk yourself for individual +men, for men in whose cause you believe. Surely, the loyal brave German +women feel as we felt. Red Cross work is not only a service to suffering +flesh. It is work to remake a soldier, who will make right prevail. The +Red Cross worker is aiming her rifle at the enemy by every bandage she +ties on wounded Belgians. She is rebuilding the army. She is as +efficient and as deadly as the workman that makes the powder, the +chauffeur that drives it to the trench in transports, and the gunner +that shoots it into the hostile line. The mother does not extend her +motherliness to the destroyer of her family. There is no hater like the +mother when she faces that which violates her brood. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> same mother +instinct makes you take care of your own, and fight for your own. We all +of us would go for a Belgian first, and tend to a Belgian first. We +would take one of our own by the roadside in preference, if there was +room only for one. But if you brought in a German, wounded, he became an +individual in need of help. There was a high pride in doing well by him. +We would show them of what stuff the Allies were made. Clear of hate and +bitterness, we had nothing but good will for the gallant little German +boys, who smiled at us from their cots in Furnes hospital. And who could +be anything but kindly for the patient German fathers of middle age, who +lay in pain and showed pictures of "Frau" and the home country, where +some of them would never return. Two or three times, the Queen of the +Belgians stopped at our base hospital. She talked with the wounded +Germans exactly as she talked to her own Belgians—the same modest +courtesy and gift of personal caring.</p> + +<p>I think the key to our experience was the mother instinct in the three +women. What we tried to do was to make a home out of an emergency +sta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>tion at the heart of war. We took hold of a room knee-high with +battered furniture and wet plaster, cleaned it, spread army blankets on +springs, found a bowl and jug, and made a den for the chauffeur. In our +own room, we arranged an old lamp, then a shade to soften the light. On +a mantel, were puttees, cold cream and a couple of books; in the wall, +nails for coats and scarfs. The soldiers, entering, said it was +homelike. It was a rest after the dreariness of the trench. We brought +glass from Furnes, and patched the windows. We dined, slept, lived, and +tended wounded men in the one room. In another room, a shell had sprayed +the ceiling, so we had to pull the plaster down to the bare lathing. We +commandeered a stove from a ruined house. Night after night, we carried +a sick man there and had a fire for him. We treated him for a bad +throat, and put him to bed. A man dripping from the inundations, we +dried out. For a soldier with bruised feet, we prepared a pail of hot +water, and gave a thorough soaking.</p> + +<p>In the early morning we took down the shutters, carried our own coal, +built our own fires,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> brought water from a ditch, scrubbed table tops +and swept the floor, prepared tincture of iodine, the bandages, and +cotton wool. We went up the road around 8.30, for the Germans had a +habit of shelling at 9 o'clock. Sometimes they broke their rule, and +began lopping them in at half-past eight. Then we had to wait till ten. +We kept water hot for sterilizing instruments. We sat around, reading, +thinking, chatting, letter-writing, waiting for something to happen. +There would be long days of waiting. There were days when there was no +shelling. Besides the wounded, we had visits from important +personages—the Mayor of Paris, the Queen of the Belgians, officers from +headquarters, Maxine Elliott. For a very special supper, we would jug a +Belgian hare or cook curry and rice, and add beer, jam, and black army +bread. An officer gave us an order for one hundred kilos of meat, and we +could send daily for it. On Christmas Day, 1914, for eight of us, we had +plum puddings, a bottle of port, a bottle of champagne, a tiny pheasant +and a small chicken, and a box of candies. We had a steady stream of +shells, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> a few wounded. It was a day of sunshine on a light fall of +snow.</p> + +<p>I learned in the Pervyse work that an up-to-date skirt is no good for a +man's work. With rain five days out of seven, rubber boots, breeches, +raincoat, two pairs of stockings, and three jerseys are the correct +costume. We were criticized for going to Dunkirk in breeches. So I put +on a skirt one time when I went there for supplies. I fell in alighting +from the motor-car, collecting a bigger crowd by sprawling than any of +us had collected by our uniform. Later, again in a skirt, I jumped on a +military motor-car, and couldn't climb the side. I had to pull my skirt +up, and climb over as a man climbs. If women are doing the work of a +man, they must have the dress of a man.</p> + +<p>That way of dressing and of living released me from the sense of +possession, once and for all. When I first went to Belgium with a pair +of fleece-lined gloves, I was sure, if I ever lost that pair, that they +were irreplaceable. I lost them. I lost article after article, and was +freed from the clinging. I lost a pin for the bodice. I left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> my laundry +with a washerwoman. Her village was bombarded, and we had to move on. I +lost my kit. A woman has a tie-in with those material things, and the +new life brought freedom from that.</p> + +<p>I put on a skirt to return to London for a rest. I found there people +dressed modishly, and it looked uncomfortable. Styles had been changing: +women were in funny shoes and hats. I went wondering that they could +dress like that.</p> + +<p>And then an overpowering desire for pretty things came on me—for a +piece of old lace, a pink ribbon. After sleeping by night in the clothes +worn through the day, wearing the same two shirts for four months, no +pajamas, no sheets, with spots of grease and blood on all the costume, I +had a longing for frivolous things, such as a pink tea gown. Old +slippers and a bath and shampoo seemed good. I had a wholesome delight +in a modest clean blouse and in buying a new frock.</p> + +<p>I returned to Pervyse. The Germans changed their range: an evening, a +morning and an afternoon—three separate bombardments with heavy +shells. The wounded were brought in. Nearly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> every one died. We piled +them together, anywhere that they wouldn't be tripped over. To the back +kitchen we carried the bodies of two boys. One of the orderlies knew +them. He went in with us to remove the trinkets from their necks. Every +now and then, he went back again, to look at them. They were very +beautiful, young, healthy, lying there together in the back kitchen. It +was a quiet half hour for us, after luncheon. The doctors and nurses +were reading or smoking. I was writing a letter.</p> + +<p>A shell drove itself through the back kitchen wall and exploded over the +dead boys, bringing rafters and splintered glass and bricks down on +them. My pencil slid diagonally across the sheet, and I got up. Our two +orderlies and three soldiers rushed in, holding their eyes from the blue +fumes of the explosion. When one shell comes, the chances are that it +will be followed by three more, aimed at the same place. It had always +been my philosophy that it is better to be "pinked" in the house than on +the road, but not on this particular day. An army ambulance was standing +opposite our door, with its nose turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>toward the trenches. The +Belgian driver rushed for the door, slammed it shut because of the +shells, opened it again. He ran to the car, cranked it, turned it +around. We stood in the doorway and waited, watching the shells dropping +with a wail, tearing up the road here, then there. After that we moved +back to La Panne.</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><a name="POSTCARDS" id="POSTCARDS"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img248a.jpg" alt="POSTCARDS" title="POSTCARDS" /></div> +<p><br /></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img248b.jpg" alt="POSTCARDS" title="POSTCARDS" /></div> + +<h4>POSTCARDS SKETCHED AND BLOCKED BY A BELGIAN WORKMAN, A. +VAN DOORNE.</h4> + +<p class='center'>Belgium suffering, but united, is the idea he brings out in his work.</p> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p>There I stayed on with Miss Georgie Fyfe, who is doing such excellent +work among the Belgian refugees. She is chief of the evacuation of +civilians who still remain in the bombarded villages and farms. She +brings the old and the sick and the children out of shell fire and finds +them safe homes. To the Refugee House she takes the little ones to be +cared for till there are fifty. Then she sends them to Switzerland, +where brothers and sisters are kept unseparated in family groups until +the war is over. The Queen busies herself with these children. For the +newest generation of Belgians Miss Fyfe has established a Maternity +Hospital. Nearly one hundred babies have come to live there.</p> + +<p>It was my work to keep track of clothes and supplies. On a flying trip +to Paris, I told the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> American Relief Committee the story of this work, +and Geoffrey Dodge sent thirty complete layettes, bran-new, four big +cases, four gunny-sack bags, full of clothing for men, women, and +children, special brands of milk for young mothers in our maternity +hospital. Later, he sent four more sacks and four great wooden cases.</p> + +<p>We used to tramp through many fields, over a single plank bridging the +ditches, to reach the lonely shelled farm, and persuade the stubborn, +unimaginative Flemish parents to give up their children for a safe home. +One mother had a yoke around her neck, and two heavy pails.</p> + +<p>"When can I send my child?" she asked.</p> + +<p>She had already sent two and had received happy letters from them. Other +mothers are suspicious of us, and flatly refuse, keeping their children +in the danger zone till death comes. During a shelling, the curé would +telephone for our ambulance. He would collect the little ones and sick +old people. Miss Fyfe could persuade them to come more easily when the +shells were falling. At the moment of parting, everybody cries. The +children are dressed. The one best thing they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> own is put on—a pair of +shoes from the attic, stiff new shoes, worked on the little feet unused +to shoes. Out of a family of ten children we would win perhaps three. +Back across the fields they trooped to our car, clean faces, matted +dirty hair, their wee bundle tied up in a colored handkerchief, no hats, +under the loose dark shirt a tiny Catholic charm. We lifted the little +people into the big yellow ambulance—big brother and sister, sitting at +the end to pin them in. We carried crackers and chocolate. They are soon +happy with the sweets, chattering, enjoying their first motor-car ride, +and eager for the new life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LES TRAVAILLEURS DE LA GUERRE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The boy soldier is willing to make any day his last if it is a good +day. It is not so with the middle-aged man. He is puzzled by the +war. What he has to struggle with more than bodily weakness is the +malady of thought. Is the bloody business worth while?</p></div> + + +<p>I SAW him first, my middle-aged man, one afternoon on the boards of an +improvised stage in the sand-dunes of Belgium. On that last thin strip +of the shattered kingdom English and French and Belgians were grimly +massed. He was a Frenchman, and he was cheering up his comrades. With +shining black hair and volatile face, he played many parts that day. He +recited sprightly verses of Parisian life. He carried on amazing +twenty-minute dialogues with himself, mimicking the voice of girl and +woman, bully and dandy. His audience had come in stale from the +everlasting spading and marching. They brightened visibly under his +gaiety. If he cared to make that effort in the saddened place, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +were ready to respond. When he dismissed them, the last flash of him was +of a smiling, rollicking improvisator, bowing himself over to the +applause till his black hair was level with our eyes.</p> + +<p>And then next day as I sat in my ambulance, waiting orders, he trudged +by in his blue, "the color of heaven" once, but musty now from nights +under the rain. His head of hair, which the glossy black wig had +covered, was gray-white. The sparkling, pantomimic face had dropped into +wrinkles. He was patient and old and tired. Perhaps he, too, would have +been glad of some one to cheer him up. He was just one more +territorial—trench-digger and sentry and filler-in. He became for me +the type of all those faithful, plodding soldiers whose first strength +is spent. In him was gathered up all that fatigue and sadness of men for +whom no glamour remains.</p> + +<p>They went past me every day, hundreds of them, padding down the Nieuport +road, their feet tired from service and their boots road-worn—crowds of +men beyond numbering, as far as one could see into the dry, volleying +dust and beyond the dust; men coming toward me, a nation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> them. They +came at a long, uneven jog, a cluttered walk. Every figure was sprinkled +and encircled by dust—dust on their gray temples, and on their wet, +streaming faces, dust coming up in puffs from their shuffling feet, too +tired to lift clear of the heavy roadbed. There was a hot, pitiless sun, +and every man of them was shrouded in the long, heavy winter coat, as +soggy as a horse blanket, and with thick leather gaiters, loose, +flapping, swathing their legs as if with bandages. On the man's back was +a pack, with the huge swell of the blanket rising up beyond the neck and +generating heat-waves; a loaf of tough black bread fastened upon the +knapsack or tied inside a faded red handkerchief; and a dingy, scarred +tin Billy-can. At his shapeless, rolling waist his belt hung heavy with +a bayonet in its casing. On the shoulder rested a dirt-caked spade, with +a clanking of metal where the bayonet and the Billy-can struck the +handle of the spade. Under a peaked cap showed the bearded face and the +white of strained eyes gleaming through dust and sweat. The man was too +tired to smile and talk. The weight of the pack, the weight of the +clothes, the dust, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> smiting sun—all weighted down the man, leaving +every line in his body sagging and drooping with weariness.</p> + +<p>These are the men that spade the trenches, drive the food-transports and +ammunition-wagons, and carry through the detail duties of small honor +that the army may prosper. When has it happened before that the older +generation holds up the hands of the young? At the western front they +stand fast that the youth may go forward. They fill in the shell-holes +to make a straight path for less-tired feet. They drive up food to give +good heart to boys.</p> + +<p>War is easy for the young. The boy soldier is willing to make any day +his last if it is a good day. It is not so with the middle-aged man. He +is puzzled by the war. What he has to struggle with more than bodily +weakness is the malady of thought. Is the bloody business worth while? +Is there any far-off divine event which his death will hasten? The wines +of France are good wines, and his home in fertile Normandy was pleasant.</p> + +<p>As we stood in the street in the sun one hot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> afternoon, four men came +carrying a wounded man. The stretcher was growing red under its burden. +The man's face was greenish white, with a stubble of beard. The flesh of +his body was as white as snow from loss of blood. It was torn at the +chest and sides. They carried him to the dressing-station, and half an +hour later lifted him into our car. We carried him in for two miles. +Four flies fed on the red rim of his closed left eye. He lay silent, +motionless. Only a slight flutter of the coverlet, made by his +breathing, gave a sign of life. At the Red Cross post we stopped. The +coverlet still slightly rose and fell. The doctor, brown-bearded, in +white linen, stepped into the car, tapped the man's wrist, tested his +pulse, put a hand over his heart. Then the doctor muttered, drew the +coverlet over the greenish-white face, and ordered the marines to remove +him. In the moment of arrival the wounded man had died.</p> + +<p>In the courtyard next our post two men were carrying in long strips of +wood. This wood was for coffins, and one of them would be his.</p> + +<p>A funeral passes our car, one every day, some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>times two: a wooden cross +in front, carried by a soldier; the white-robed chaplain chanting; the +box of light wood, on a frame of black; the coffin draped in the +tricolor, a squad of twenty soldiers following the dead. That is the +funeral of the middle-aged man. There is no time wasted on him in the +brisk business of war; but his comrades bury him. One in particular +faithful at funerals I had learned to know—M. Le Doze. War itself is so +little the respecter of persons that this man had found himself of value +in paying the last small honor to the obscure dead as they were carried +from his Red Cross post to the burial-ground. One hopes that he will +receive no hasty trench burial when his own time comes.</p> + +<p>I cannot write of the middle-aged man of the Belgians because he has +been killed. That first mixed army, which in thin line opposed its body +to an immense machine, was crushed by weight and momentum. Little is +left but a memory. But I shall not forget the veteran officer of the +first army, near Lokeren, who kept his men under cover while he ran out +into the middle of the road to see if the Uhlans were coming. The only +Bel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>gian army today is an army of boys. Recently we had a letter from +André Simont, of the "Obusiers Lourdes, Beiges," and he wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>If you promise me you will come back for next summer, I won't get +pinked. If I ever do, it doesn't matter. I have had twenty years of +very happy life.</p></div> + +<p>If he were forty-five, he would say, as a French officer at Coxyde said +to me:</p> + +<p>"Four months, and I haven't heard from my wife and children. We had a +pleasant home. I was well to do. I miss the good wines of my cellar. +This beer is sour. We have done our best, we French, our utmost, and it +isn't quite enough. We have made a supreme effort, but it hasn't cleared +the enemy from our country. <i>La guerre—c'est triste.</i>"</p> + +<p>He, too, fights on, but that overflow of vitality does not visit him, as +it comes to the youngsters of the first line. It is easy for the boys of +Brittany to die, those sailors with a rifle, the stanch Fusiliers +Marins, who, outnumbered, held fast at Melle and Dixmude, and for twelve +months made Nieuport, the extreme end of the western battle-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>line, a +great rock. It is easy, because there is a glory in the eyes of boys. +But the older man lives with second thoughts, with a subdued philosophy, +a love of security. He is married, with a child or two; his garden is +warm in the afternoon sun. He turns wistfully to the young, who are so +sure, to cheer him. With him it is bloodshed, the moaning of shell-fire, +and harsh command.</p> + +<p>One afternoon at Coxyde, in the camp of the middle-aged—the +territorials—an open-air entertainment was given. Massed up the side of +a sand-dune, row on row, were the bearded men, two thousand of them. +There were flashes of youth, of course—marines in dark blue, with +jaunty round hat with fluffy red centerpiece; Zouaves with dusky +Algerian skin, yellow-sorrel jacket, and baggy harem trousers; Belgians +in fresh khaki uniform; and Red Cross British Quakers. But the mass of +the men were middle-aged—territorials, with the light-blue long-coat, +good for all weathers and the sharp night, and the peaked cap. Over the +top of the dune where the soldiers sat an observation balloon was +suspended in a cloudless blue sky, like a huge yellow caterpillar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> +Beyond the pasteboard stage, high on a western dune, two sentries stood +with their bayonets touched by sunlight. To the south rose a monument to +the territorial dead. To the north an aëroplane flashed along the line, +full speed, while gun after gun threw shrapnel at it.</p> + +<p>As I looked on the people, suddenly I thought of the Sermon on the +Mount, with the multitude spread about, tier on tier, hungry for more +than bread. It was a scene of summer beauty, with the glory of the sky +thrown in, and every now and then the music of the heart. Half the songs +of the afternoon were gay, and half were sad with long enduring, and the +memory of the dear ones distant and of the many dead. Not in lightness +or ignorance were these men making war. When I saw the multitude and how +they hungered, I wished that Bernhardt could come to them in the dunes +and express in power what is only hinted at by humble voices. I thought +how everywhere we wait for some supreme one to gather up the hope of the +nations and the anguish of the individual, and make a music that will +send us forward to the Rhine.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + +<p>But a better thing than that took place. One of their own came and +shaped their suffering into song. And together, he and they, they made a +song that is close to the great experience of war. A Belgian, one of the +boy soldiers, came forward to sing to the bearded men. And the song that +he sang was "<i>La valse des obus</i>"—"The Dance of the Shells."</p> + +<p>"Dear friends, I'm going to sing you some rhymes on the war at the +Yser."</p> + +<p>The men to whom he was singing had been holding the Yser for ten months.</p> + +<p>"I want you to know that life in the trenches, night by night, isn't +gay."</p> + +<p>Two thousand men, unshaved and tousled, with pain in their joints from +those trench nights, were listening.</p> + +<p>"As soon as you get there, you must set to work. It doesn't matter +whether it's a black night or a full moon; without making a sound, close +to the enemy, you must fill the sand-bags for the fortifications."</p> + +<p>Every man on the hill had been doing just that thing for a year.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then came his chorus:</p> + +<p>"Every time we are in the trenches, <i>Crack!</i> There breaks the shell."</p> + +<p>But his French has a verve that no literal translation will give. Let us +take it as he sang it:</p> + +<p>"<i>Crack!</i> Il tombe des obus," sang the slight young Belgian, leaning out +toward the two thousand men of many colors, many nations; and soon the +sky in the north was spotted with white clouds of shrapnel-smoke.</p> + +<p>"There we are, all of us, crouching with bent back—<i>Crack!</i> Once more +an obus. The shrapnel, which try to stop us at our job, drive us out; +but the things that bore us still more—<i>Crack!</i>—are just those obus."</p> + +<p>With each "<i>Crack!</i> Il tombe des obus," the big bass-drum boomed like +the shell he sang of. His voice was as tense and metallic as a taut +string, and he snapped out the lilting line in swift staccato as if he +were flaying his audience with a whip. Man after man on the hillside +took up the irresistible rhythm in an undertone, and "Cracked" with the +singer. In front of me was being created a folk-song. The bitterness +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> glory of their life were being told to them, and they were hearing +the singer gladly. Their leader was lifting the dreary trench night and +death itself into a surmounting and joyous thing.</p> + +<p>"When you've made your entrenchment, then you must go and guard it +without preliminaries. All right; go ahead. But just as you're moving, +you have to squat down for a day and a night—yes, for a full +twenty-four hours—because things are hot. Somebody gives you half a +drop of coffee. Thirst torments you. The powder-fumes choke you."</p> + +<p>Here and there in the crowd, listening intently, men were stirring. The +lad was speaking to the exact intimate detail of their experience. This +was the life they knew. What would he make of it?</p> + +<p>"Despite our sufferings, we cherish the hope some day of returning and +finding our parents, our wives, and our little ones. Yes, that is my +hope, my joyous hope. But to come to that day, so like a dream, we must +be of good cheer. It is only by enduring patience, full of confidence, +that we shall force back our oppressors. To chase<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> away those cursed +Prussians—<i>Crack</i>! We need the obus. My captain calling, '<i>Crack</i>! +More, still more of those obus!' Giving them the bayonet in the bowels, +we shall chase them clean beyond the Rhine. And our victory will be won +to the waltz of the obus."</p> + +<p>It was a song out of the heart of an unconquerable boy. It climbed the +hillock to the top. The response was the answer of men moved. His song +told them why they fought on. There is a Belgium, not under an alien +rule, which the shells have not shattered, and that dear kingdom is +still uninvaded. The mother would rather lose her husband and her son +than lose the France that made them. Their earthly presence is less +precious than the spirit that passed into them out of France. That is +why these weary men continue their fight. The issue will rest in +something more than a matter of mathematics. It is the last stand of the +human spirit.</p> + +<p>What is this idea of country, so passionately held, that the women walk +to the city gates with son and husband and send them out to die? It is +the aspect of nature shared in by folk of one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> blood, an arrangement of +hill and pasture which grew dear from early years, sounds and echoes of +sound that come from remembered places. It is the look of a land that is +your land, the light that flickers in an English lane, the bells that +used to ring in Bruges.</p> + +<h3>LA VALSE DES OBUS</h3> + + +<p class='center'> + <b>I</b><br /><br /> + + Chers amis, je vais<br /> + Vous chanter des couplets,<br /> + Sur la guerre,<br /> + A l'Yser.<br /> + Pour vous faire savoir,<br /> + Que la vie, tous les soirs,<br /> + Aux tranchées,<br /> + N'est pas gaie.<br /> + A peine arrivé,<br /> + 'l Faut aller travailler.<br /> + Qu'il fasse noir' ou qu'il y ait clair de lune,<br /> + Et sans fair' du bruit,<br /> + Nous allons près de l'ennemi,<br /> + Remplir des sacs pour fair' des abris.<br /><br /> +<b>I<sup>r</sup> et II<sup>e</sup> <span class="smcap">Refrain</span></b><br /> +<br /> +Chaqu' fois que nous sommes aux tranchées,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>Crack! Il tombe des obus.<br /> +<br /> +Nous sommes tous là, le dos courbée<br /> +Crack! Encore un obus.<br /> +Les shrapnels pour nous divetir,<br /> +Au travail, nous font déguerpir.<br /> +Mais, et qui nous ennuie le plus,<br /> +Crack! se sont les obus.<br /> +<br /> +<b>II</b><br /> +<br /> +L'abri terminé,<br /> +'l Faut aller l'occuper,<br /> +Sans façons.<br /> +Allez-donc.<br /> +Pas moyen d' se bouger<br /> +Donc, on doit y rester<br /> +Accroupi,<br /> +Jour et nuit,<br /> +Pendant la chaleur,<br /> +Pour passer vingt-quatr' heures.<br /> +On nous donn' une d'mi gourde de café.<br /> +La soif nous tourmente,<br /> +Et la poudre asphyxiante,<br /> +Nous étouffe au dessus du marché.<br /> +<br /> +<b>III</b><br /> +<br /> +Malgré nos souffrances,<br /> +Nous gardons l'espérance<br /> +D' voir le jour,<br /> +De notr' retour<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>De r'trouver nos parents,<br /> +Nos femmes et nos enfants.<br /> +Plein de joie,<br /> +Oui ma foi,<br /> +Mais pour arriver,<br /> +A ce jour tant rêvé,<br /> +Nous devons tous y mettre du cœur,<br /> +C'est avec patience,<br /> +Et plein de confiance,<br /> +Que nous repouss'rons les oppresseurs.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap"><b>Refrain</b></span><br /> +<br /> +Pour chasser ces maudits All'mands<br /> +Crack! Il faut des obus.<br /> +En plein dedans mon commandant,<br /> +Crack! Encore des obus.<br /> +Et la baionnett' dans les reins,<br /> +Nous les chass'rons au delà du Rhin.<br /> +La victoire des Alliés s'ra dûe<br /> +A la valse des obus.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<blockquote><h4><i>There is little value in telling of suffering unless something can be +done about it. So I close this book with an appeal for help in a worthy +work.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></h4> +</blockquote> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>REMAKING FRANCE</h2> + + +<p>There was a young peasant farmer who went out with his fellows, and +stopped the most powerful and perfectly equipped army of history. He +saved France, and the cause of gentleness and liberty. He did it by the +French blood in him—in gay courage and endurance. He was happy in doing +it, or, if not happy, yet glorious. But he paid the price. The enemy +artillery sent a splinter of shell that mangled his arm. He lay out +through the long night on the rich infected soil. Then the stretcher +bearers found him and lifted him to the car, and carried him to the +field hospital. There they had to operate swiftly, for infection was +spreading. So he was no longer a whole man, but he was still of good +spirit, for he had done his bit for France. Then they bore him to a base +hospital, where he had white sheets and a wholesome nurse. He lay there +weak and content. Every one was good to him. But there came a day when +they told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> him he must leave to make room for the fresher cases of need. +So he was turned loose into a world that had no further use for him. A +cripple, he couldn't fight and he couldn't work, for his job needed two +arms, and he had given one, up yonder on the Marne. He drifted from shop +to shop in Paris. But he didn't know a trade. Life was through with him, +so one day, he shot himself.</p> + +<p>That, we learn from authoritative sources, is the story of more than one +broken soldier of Joffre's army.</p> + +<p>To be shot clean dead is an easier fate than to be turned loose into +life, a cripple, who must beg his way about. Shall these men who have +defended France be left to rot? All they ask is to be allowed to work. +It is gallant and stirring to fight, and when wounded the soldier is +tenderly cared for. But when he comes out, broken, he faces the +bitterest thing in war. After the hospital—what? Too bad, he's +hurt—but there is no room in the trades for any but a trained man.</p> + +<p>Why not train him? Why not teach him a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> trade? Build a bridge that will +lead him from the hospital over into normal life. That is better than +throwing him out among the derelicts. Pauperism is an ill reward for the +service that shattered him, and it is poor business for a world that +needs workers. If these crippled ones are not permitted to reconstruct +their working life, the French nation will be dragged down by the +multitude of maimed unemployable men, who are being turned loose from +the hospitals—unfit to fight, untrained to work: a new and +ever-increasing Army of The Miserable. The stout backbone and stanch +spirit of even France will be snapped by this dead-weight of suffering.</p> + +<p>In our field hospital at Fumes, we had one ward where a wave of gaiety +swept the twenty beds each morning. It came when the leg of the bearded +man was dressed by the nurse. He thrust it out from under the covering: +a raw stump, off above the ankle. It was an old wound, gone sallow with +the skin lapped over. The men in the cots close by shouted with laughter +at the look of it, and the man himself laughed till he brought pain to +the wound. Then he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> would lay hold of the sides of the bed to control +his merriment. The dressing proceeded, with brisk comment from the +wardful of men, and swift answers from the patient under treatment. The +grim wound had so obviously made an end of the activity of that +particular member and, as is war's way, had done it so evilly, with such +absence of beauty, that only the human spirit could cover that hurt. So +he and his comrades had made it the object of gaiety.</p> + +<p>For legless men, there are a dozen trades open, if they are trained. +They can be made into tailors, typists, mechanicians. The soldiers' +schools, already established, report success in shoemaking, for +instance. The director sends us this word:—</p> + +<p>"From the first we had foreseen for this the greatest success—the +results have surpassed our hopes. We are obliged to double the size of +the building, and increase the number of professors.</p> + +<p>"Why?</p> + +<p>"Because, more than any other profession, that of shoemaking is the most +feasible in the country, in the village, in the small hamlet. This is +the one desire of most of these wounded soldiers:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> before everything, +they wish to be able to return to their homes. And all the more if a +wife and children wait them there, in a little house with a patch of +garden. Out of our fifty men now learning shoemaking, twenty-nine were +once sturdy farm laborers. The profession is not fatiguing and, in spite +of our fears, not one of our leg-amputated men has given up his +apprenticeship on account of fatigue or physical inability."</p> + +<p>Very many of the soldiers are maimed in hand or arm. On the broad beach +of La Panne, in front of the Ocean Hospital of Dr. Depage, a young +soldier talked with my wife one afternoon. Early in the war his right +arm had been shot through the bicep muscle. He had been sent to London, +where a specialist with infinite care linked the nerves together. Daily +the wounded boy willed strength into the broken member, till at last he +found he could move the little finger. It was his hope to bring action +back to the entire hand, finger by finger.</p> + +<p>"You can't do anything—you can't even write," they said to him. So he +met that, by schooling his left hand to write.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Your fighting days are over," they said. He went to a shooting gallery, +and with his left arm learned how to hold a rifle and aim it. Through +the four months of his convalescence he practised to be worthy of the +front line. The military authorities could not put up an objection that +he did not meet. So he won his way back to the Yser trenches. And there +he had received his second hurt and this time the enemy wounded him +thoroughly. And now he was sitting on the sands wondering what the +future held for him.</p> + +<p>Spirit like that does not deserve to be broken by despair. Apparatus has +been devised to supply the missing section of the arm, and such a trade +as toy-making offers a livelihood. It is carried on with a sense of fun +even in the absence of all previous education. One-armed men are largely +employed in it. Let us enter the training shop at Lyon, and watch the +work. The wood is being shot out from the sawing-machine in thin strips +and planed on both sides. This is being done by a man, who used to earn +his living as a packer, and suffered an amputation of his right leg. The +boards are assembled in thick<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>nesses of twenty, and cut out by a "ribbon +saw." This is the occupation of a former tile layer, with his left leg +gone. Others employed in the process are one-armed men.</p> + +<p>Of carpentry the report from the men is this: "This work seems to +generate good humor and liveliness. For this profession two arms are +almost necessary. It can be practised by a man whose leg has been +amputated, preferably the right leg, for the resting point, in handling +the plane, is on the left leg. However, we cannot forget that one-armed +men have achieved wonderful results."</p> + +<p>The profits of the work are divided in full among the pupils as soon as +they have reached the period of production. Each section has its +individual fund box. The older members divide among themselves two +thirds of the gain. The more recently trained take the remainder. The +new apprentices have nothing, because they make no finished product as +yet. That was the rule of the shop. But certain sections petitioned that +the profits should be equally divided among all, without distinction. +They said that among the new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>comers there were many as needy as the +older apprentices.</p> + +<p>The director says:</p> + +<p>"This request came from too noble a sentiment not to be granted, +especially as in this way we are certain that our pupils will see to the +discipline of the workshops, being the first concerned that no one shall +shirk."</p> + +<p>He adds:</p> + +<p>"I wish to cite an incident. One of the pupils of the group of +shoemakers, having been obliged to remain over a month in the hospital, +had his share fall to nothing. His comrades got together and raised +among themselves a sum equal to their earnings, so that his enforced +absence would not cause him to suffer any loss. These are features one +is happy to note, because they reveal qualities of heart in our pupils, +much to be appreciated in those who have suffered, and because they show +that our efforts have contributed to keep around them an atmosphere +where these qualities can develop."</p> + +<p>The war has been ingenious in devising cruel hurts, robbing the painter +of his hand, the musician of his arm, the horseman of his leg. It has +taken the peasant from his farm, and the mason from his building. Their +suffering has enriched them with the very quality that will make them +useful citizens, if they can be set to work, if only some one will show +them what to do. For each of these men there is an answer for his +wrecked life, and the answer is found in these workshops where disabled +soldiers can learn the new trade fitted to their crippled condition.</p> + +<p>It costs only four to five francs a day to support the man during his +period of education. The length of time of his tuition depends on the +man and his trade—sometimes three months, sometimes six months. One +hundred dollars will meet the average of all cases. The Americans in +Paris raised $20,000 immediately on learning of this need. In our +country we are starting the "American Committee for Training in Suitable +Trades the Maimed Soldiers of France." Mrs. Edmund Lincoln Baylies is +chairman for the United States. Her address is Room B, Plaza Hotel, New +York.</p> + +<p>We have been owing France through a hun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>dred years for that little +matter of first aid in our American Revolution. Here is an admirable +chance to show we are still warmed by the love and succor she rendered +us then.</p> + +<p>At this moment 30,000 maimed soldiers are asking for work; 30,000 jobs +are ready for them. The employers of France are holding the positions +open, because they need these workers. Only the training is lacking. +This society to train maimed soldiers is not in competition with any +existing form of relief work: it supplements all the others—ambulances +and hospitals and dressing stations. They are temporary, bridging the +month of calamity. This gives back to the men the ten, twenty, thirty +years of life still remaining. They must not remain the victims of their +own heroism. They ask only to be permitted to go on with their work for +France. They will serve in the shop and the factory as they have served +at the Aisne and the Yser. This is a charity to do away with the need of +charity. It is help that leads directly to self-help.</p> + + +<h4>THE END</h4> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> When I first published these statements the following +letter appeared in the "New York Tribune":— +</p><blockquote><p> +GERMANY'S SPY SYSTEM +</p><p> +To the Editor of "The Tribune." +</p><p> +Sir: I was particularly interested in the article by Mr. Gleason in this +morning's "Tribune" because, having spent several months in this region +in ambulance work, I am able to support several of his statements from +personal observation. +</p><p> +The house he mentions on the beach near Coxyde Bains was beyond doubt +intended for the purpose he describes. I visited it several times before +it was completely destroyed, and have now in my possession photographs +which show the nature of the building, besides a tile from the flooring. +</p><p> +Two instances in which spies were detected came to my knowledge; in one +case the person in question was the mayor of the town, in the other a +peasant woman. One other time I know of information was given undetected +which resulted in the shelling of a road at a time when a convoy of +motors was about to pass. +</p><p> +The high esteem in which the Red Cross flag is held by German gunners +(as a target) is only too forcibly impressed upon one in that service. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Malcolm T. Robertson.</span> +</p></blockquote><p> +Mr. Robertson is a member of the Junior Class in Princeton University.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> When this record was first made public the "New York +Tribune" stated editorially:— +</p><blockquote><p> +"The writer of the foregoing communication was for several years a +member of 'The Tribune' staff. For the utter trustworthiness of any +statement made by Mr. Gleason, this newspaper is willing to vouch. Mr. +Gleason was at the front caring for the Belgian wounded. He speaks with +full knowledge and complete authority and 'The Tribune' is glad to be +able to submit to its readers a first-hand, eye-witness account of +atrocities written by an American. It calls attention again to the fact, +cited by Mr. Gleason, that his testimony is included in the Bryce +Report, which should give Americans new insight into the value of this +document." +</p></blockquote><p> +When Theodore Roosevelt read this record of German atrocity, he made the +following public statement: +</p><blockquote><p> +"Remember, there is not the slightest room for honest question either as +to the dreadful, the unspeakably hideous, outrages committed on the +Belgians, or as to the fact that these outrages were methodically +committed by the express command of the German Government in order to +terrorize both the Belgians and among neutrals those men who are as cold +and timid and selfish as our governmental leaders have shown themselves +to be. Let any man who doubts read the statement of an American +eye-witness of these fearful atrocities, Mr. Arthur H. Gleason, in the +'New York Tribune' of November 25, 1915." +</p></blockquote> +<p>From the Bryce Report, English edition, Page 167. +</p><blockquote><p> +<i>British subject</i>:— +</p><p> +"The girl was at the point of death. Mr. G—— was with me and can +corroborate me as to this and also as to the other facts mentioned +below. On the same day at the same place I saw one L. de M——. I took +this statement from him.... He signed his statement in my pocket book, +and I hold my pocket book at the disposal of the Belgian and English +authorities. +</p><p> +"I also saw at the hospital an old woman of eighty who was run clean +through by a bayonet thrust. +</p><p> +"I next went up to another wounded Belgian in the same ward. His name +was F. M——. I wrote his statement in my pocket book and he signed it +after having read it." +</p></blockquote><p> +The full statement in the Bryce Report of the atrocities which I +witnessed covers a page. The above sentences are extracts. Mr. Niemira +had neglected to make a note of the exact date in his pocket book, and +calls it "about the 15th of September." It was September 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> If any one wants a history of them, and the world ought to +want it, the book of their acts, is it not written in singing prose in +Le Goffic's "Dixmude, un Chapitre de l'histoire des Fusiliers Marins"? +Le Goffic is a Breton and his own son is with the fighting sailors. He +deals with their autumn exploits in Dixmude on the Yser, that butt-end +of wreck. Legends will spring out of them and the soil they have +reddened. We have heard little of the French in this war—and almost +nothing at all from them. And yet it is the French that have held the +decisive battle line. Unprepared and peace-loving, they have stood the +shock of a perfectly equipped and war-loving army. +</p><p> +Monsieur Le Goffic is the official historian of the Fusiliers Marins. +His book has gone through forty-nine editions. He is a poet, novelist +and critic. That American sympathy is appreciated is proved by this +sentence from a letter of Le Goffic to an American who had expressed +admiration for the Breton sailors:—"Merci, Monsieur, au nom de mon +pays, merci pour nos marins, et merci pour moi meme."</p></div></div> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Golden Lads, by +Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDEN LADS *** + +***** This file should be named 19131-h.htm or 19131-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/1/3/19131/ + +Produced by Sigal Alon, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +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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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: Golden Lads + +Author: Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason + +Release Date: August 28, 2006 [EBook #19131] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDEN LADS *** + + + + +Produced by Sigal Alon, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + +[Illustration: _Photo. Excelsior._ + +THE PLAY-BOYS OF THE WESTERN FRONT. + +The famous French Fusiliers Marins. These sailors from Brittany are +called "Les demoiselles au pompon rouge," because of their youth and the +gay red tassel on their cap.] + + + + + GOLDEN LADS + + BY + + ARTHUR GLEASON + + AND + + HELEN HAYES GLEASON + + WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + THEODORE ROOSEVELT + + + _"Golden Lads and Girls all must, + As chimney sweepers, come to dust."_ + + + [Illustration] + + + TORONTO + McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART, LIMITED + 1916 + + Copyright, 1916, by + THE CENTURY CO. + + Copyright, 1915, by the + CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY. + + Copyright, 1916, by the + BUTTERICK PUBLISHING COMPANY. + + Copyright, 1915 and 1916, by the + TRIBUNE ASSOCIATION. + + _Published, April, 1916_ + + (_Printed in the U. S. A._) + + + + + TO THE + SAILORS OF BRITTANY + THE BOY SOLDIERS OF THE FRENCH FUSILIERS MARINS + WHOSE WOUNDED IT WAS OUR PRIVILEGE TO CARRY IN FROM THE + FIELD OF HONOR AT MELLE, DIXMUDE, + AND NIEUPORT + +Profits from the sale of this book will go to "The American Committee +for Training in Suitable Trades the Maimed Soldiers of France." + + + + +CONCERNING THIS BOOK + +It would be futile to publish one more war-book, unless the writer had +been an eye-witness of unusual things. I am an American who saw +atrocities which are recorded in the Bryce Report. This book grows out +of months of day-by-day living in the war zone. I have been a member of +the Hector Munro Ambulance Corps, which was permitted to work at the +front because the Prime Minister of Belgium placed his son in military +command of us. That young man, being brave and adventurous, led us along +the first line of trenches, and into villages under shell fire, so that +we saw the armies in action. + +We started at Ghent in September, 1914, came to Furnes, worked in +Dixmude, Pervyse, Nieuport and Ypres, during moments of pressure on +those strategic points. In the summer of 1915, we were attached to the +French Fusiliers Marins. My wife's experience covers a period of twelve +months in Belgium. My own time at the front was five months. + +Observers at long-distance that are neutral sometimes fail to see +fundamentals in the present conflict, and talk of "negotiations" between +right and wrong. It is easy for people who have not suffered to be +tolerant toward wrongdoing. This war is a long war because of German +methods of frightfulness. These practices have bred an enduring will to +conquer in Frenchman and Briton and Belgian which will not pause till +victory is thorough. Because the German military power has sinned +against women and children, it will be fought with till it is +overthrown. I wish to make clear this determination of the Allies. They +hate the army of Aerschot and Lorraine as a mother hates the defiler of +her child. + +There are two wars on the Western Front. One is the war of aggression. +It was led up to by years of treachery. It was consummated in +frightfulness. It is warfare by machine. Of that war, as carried on by +the "Conquerors," the first half of this book tells. On points that +have been in dispute since the outbreak, I am able to say "I saw." When +the Army of Invasion fell on the little people, I witnessed the signs of +its passage as it wrote them by flame and bayonet on peasant homes and +peasant bodies. + +In the second half of the book, I have tried to tell of a people's +uprising--the fight of the living spirit against the war-machine. A +righteous defensive war, such as Belgium and France are waging, does not +brutalize the nation. It reveals a beauty of sacrifice which makes +common men into "golden lads." + +Was this struggle forced on an unwilling Germany, or was she the +aggressor? + +I believe we have the answer of history in such evidences as I have seen +of her patient ancient spy system that honeycombed Belgium. + +Is she waging a "holy war," ringed around by jealous foes? + +I believe we have the final answer in such atrocities as I witnessed. A +hideous officially ordered method is proof of unrighteousness in the +cause itself. + +Are you indicting a nation? + +No, only a military system that ordered the slow sapping of friendly +neighboring powers. + +Only the host of "tourists," clerks, waiters, gentlemanly officers, that +betrayed the hospitality of people of good will. + +Only an army that practised mutilation and murder on children, and +mothers, and old people,--and that carried it through coldly, +systematically, with admirable discipline. + +I believe there are multitudes of common soldiers who are sorry that +they have outraged the helpless. + +An army of half a million men will return to the home-land with very +bitter memories. Many a simple German of this generation will be unable +to look into the face of his own child without remembering some tiny +peasant face of pain--the child whom he bayoneted, or whom he saw his +comrade bayonet, having failed to put his body between the little one +and death. + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + +THE CONQUERORS + + PAGE + THE SPY 3 + THE ATROCITY 26 + BALLAD OF THE GERMANS 45 + THE STEAM ROLLER 48 + MY EXPERIENCE WITH BAEDEKER 66 + + +GOLDEN LADS + + + THE PLAY-BOYS OF BRITTANY 79 + "ENCHANTED CIGARETTES" 95 + WAS IT REAL? 113 + "CHANTONS, BELGES! CHANTONS!" 127 + FLIES: A FANTASY 152 + WOMEN UNDER FIRE 168 + HOW WAR SEEMS TO A WOMAN 192 + LES TRAVAILLEURS DE LA GUERRE 234 + REMAKING FRANCE 253 + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + PAGE + + The Play-boys of the Western Front _Frontispiece_ + + Peasants' cottages burned by Germans 8 + + The home of a German spy near Coxyde Bains, Belgium 13 + + The green pass, used only by soldiers and officers of the + Belgian Army 33 + + Church in Termonde which the writer saw 42 + + One of the dangerous Belgian franc-tireurs 51 + + Fifteenth century Gothic church in Nieuport 69 + + Sailors lifting a wounded comrade into the motor-ambulance 87 + + Door chalked by the Germans 105 + + Street fighting in Alost 123 + + Belgian officer on the last strip of his country 134 + + A Belgian boy soldier in the uniform of the first army + which served at Liege and Namur 139 + + Belgians in their new Khaki uniform, in praise of which + they wrote a song 145 + + Breton sailors ready for their noon meal in a village under + daily shell fire 187 + + Sleeping quarters for Belgian soldiers 206 + + Belgian soldiers telephoning to an anti-aircraft gun the + approach of a German taube 215 + + Postcards sketched and blocked by a Belgian workman, + A. Van Doorne 229 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +By Theodore Roosevelt + + +On August 4, 1914, the issue of this war for the conscience of the world +was Belgium. Now, in the spring of 1916, the issue remains Belgium. For +eighteen months, our people were bidden by their representative at +Washington to feel no resentment against a hideous wrong. They were +taught to tame their human feelings by polished phrases of neutrality. +Because they lacked the proper outlet of expression, they grew +indifferent to a supreme injustice. They temporarily lost the capacity +to react powerfully against wrongdoing. + +But today they are at last becoming alive to the iniquity of the +crushing of Belgium. Belgium is the battleground of the war on the +western front. But Belgium is also the battleground of the struggle in +our country between the forces of good and of evil. In the ranks of evil +are ranged all the pacifist sentimentalists, the cowards who possess the +gift of clothing their cowardice in soothing and attractive words, the +materialists whose souls have been rotted by exclusive devotion to the +things of the body, the sincere persons who are cursed with a deficient +sense of reality, and all who lack foresight or who are uninformed. +Against them stand the great mass of loyal Americans, who, when they see +the right, and receive moral leadership, show that they have in their +souls as much of the valor of righteousness as the men of 1860 and of +1776. The literary bureau at Washington has acted as a soporific on the +mind and conscience of the American people. Fine words, designed to work +confusion between right and wrong, have put them to sleep. But they now +stir in their sleep. + +The proceeds from the sale of this book are to be used for a charity in +which every intelligent American feels a personal interest. The training +of maimed soldiers in suitable trades is making possible the +reconstruction of an entire nation. It is work carried on by citizens of +the neutral nations. The cause itself is so admirable that it deserves +wide support. It gives an outlet for the ethical feelings of our people, +feelings that have been unnaturally dammed for nearly two years by the +cold and timid policy of our Government. + +The testimony of the book is the first-hand witness of an American +citizen who was present when the Army of Invasion blotted out a little +nation. This is an eye-witness report on the disputed points of this +war. The author saw the wrongs perpetrated on helpless non-combatants by +direct military orders. He shows that the frightfulness practiced on +peasant women and children was the carrying out of a Government policy, +planned in advance, ordered from above. It was not the product of +irresponsible individual drunken soldiers. His testimony is clear on +this point. He goes still further, and shows that individual soldiers +resented their orders, and most unwillingly carried through the cruelty +that was forced on them from Berlin. In his testimony he is kindlier to +the German race, to the hosts of peasants, clerks and simple soldiers, +than the defenders of Belgium's obliteration have been. They seek to +excuse acts of infamy. But the author shows that the average German is +sorry for those acts. + +It is fair to remember in reading Mr. Gleason's testimony concerning +these deeds of the German Army that he has never received a dollar of +money for anything he has spoken or written on the subject. He gave +without payment the articles on the Spy, the Atrocity, and the Steam +Roller to the New York _Tribune_. The profits from the lectures he has +delivered on the same subject have been used for well-known public +charities. The book itself is a gift to a war fund. + +Of Mr. Gleason's testimony on atrocities I have already written (see +page 38). + +What he saw was reported to the Bryce Committee by the young British +subject who accompanied him, and these atrocities, which Mr. Gleason +witnessed, appear in the Bryce Report under the heading of Alost. It is +of value to know that an American witnessed atrocities recorded in the +Bryce Report, as it disposes of the German rejoinders that the Report is +ex-parte and of second-hand rumor. + +His chapter on the Spy System answers the charge that it was Belgium who +violated her own neutrality, and forced an unwilling Germany, threatened +by a ring of foes, to defend herself. + +The chapter on the Steam Roller shows that the same policy of injustice +that was responsible for the original atrocities is today operating to +flatten out what is left of a free nation. + +The entire book is a protest against the craven attitude of our +Government. + + THEODORE ROOSEVELT. + _March 28, 1916._ + + + + +THE CONQUERORS + + + + +THE SPY + + +Germany uses three methods in turning a free nation into a vassal state. +By a spy system, operated through years, she saps the national strength. +By sudden invasion, accompanied by atrocity, she conquers the territory, +already prepared. By continuing occupation, she flattens out what is +left of a once independent people. In England and North America, she has +used her first method. France has experienced both the spy and the +atrocity. It has been reserved for Belgium to be submitted to the +threefold process. I shall tell what I have seen of the spy system, the +use of frightfulness, and the enforced occupation. + +It is a mistake for us to think that the worst thing Germany has done is +to torture and kill many thousands of women and children. She +undermines a country with her secret agents before she lays it waste. In +time of peace, with her spy system, she works like a mole through a wide +area till the ground is ready to cave in. She plays on the good will and +trustfulness of other peoples till she has tapped the available +information. That betrayal of hospitality, that taking advantage of +human feeling, is a baser thing than her unique savagery in war time. + +During my months in Belgium I have been surrounded by evidences of this +spy system, the long, slow preparedness which Germany makes in another +country ahead of her deadly pounce. It is a silent, peaceful invasion, +as destructive as the house-to-house burning and the killing of babies +and mothers to which it later leads. + +The German military power, which is the modern Germany, is able to +obtain agents to carry out this policy, and make its will prevail, by +disseminating a new ethic, a philosophy of life, which came to +expression with Bismarck and has gone on extending its influence since +the victories of 1870-'71. The German people believe they serve a higher +God than the rest of us. We serve (very imperfectly and only part of +the time) such ideals as mercy, pity, and loyalty to the giver of the +bread we eat. The Germans serve (efficiently and all the time) the +State, a supreme deity, who sends them to spy out a land in peace time, +to build gun foundations in innocent-looking houses, buy up +poverty-stricken peasants, measure distances, win friendship, and worm +out secrets. With that information digested and those preparations +completed, the State (an entity beyond good and evil) calls on its +citizens to make war, and, in making it, to practise frightfulness. It +orders its servants to lay aside pity and burn peasants in their homes, +to bayonet women and children, to shoot old men. Of course, there are +exceptions to this. There are Germans of the vintage of '48, and later, +many of them honest and peaceable dwellers in the country which shelters +them. But the imperial system has little use for them. They do not serve +its purpose. + +The issue of the war, as Belgium and France see it, is this: Are they to +live or die? Are they to be charted out once again through years till +their hidden weakness is accurately located, and then is an army to be +let loose on them that will visit a universal outrage on their children +and wives? Peace will be intolerable till this menace is removed. The +restoration of territory in Belgium and Northern France and the return +to the _status quo_ before the war, are not sufficient guarantees for +the future. The _status quo_ before the war means another insidious +invasion, carried on unremittingly month by month by business agents, +commercial travelers, genial tourists, and studious gentlemen in villas. +A crippled, broken Teutonic military power is the only guarantee that a +new army of spies will not take the road to Brussels and Paris on the +day that peace is signed. No simple solution like, "Call it all off, +we'll start in fresh; bygones are bygones," meets the real situation. +The Allied nations have been infested with a cloud of witnesses for many +years. Are they to submit once again to that secret process of the +Germans? + +[Illustration: PEASANTS' COTTAGES BURNED BY GERMANS. + +The separate flame in each cottage is clearly visible, proving that each +house was separately set on fire. Radclyffe Dugmore took this photograph +at Melle, where he and the writer were made prisoners.] + +The French, for instance, want to clear their country of a cloud which +has been thick and black for forty-three years. They always said the +Germans would come again with the looting and the torture and the +foulness. This time they will their fight to a finish. They are sick of +hate, so they are fighting to end war. But it is not an empty peace that +they want--peace, with a new drive when the Krupp howitzers are big +enough, and the spies in Paris thick enough, to make the death of France +a six weeks' picnic. They want a lasting peace, that will take fear from +the wife's heart, and make it a happiness to have a child, not a horror. +They want to blow the ashes off of Lorraine. Peace, as preached by our +Woman's Peace Party and by our pacifist clergy and by the signers of the +plea for an embargo on the ammunitions that are freeing France from her +invaders, is a German peace. If successfully consummated, it will grant +Germany just time enough to rest and breed and lay the traps, and then +release another universal massacre. How can the Allies state their terms +of peace in other than a militant way? There is nothing here to be +arbitrated. Pleasant sentiments of brotherhood evade the point at issue. +The way of just peace is by "converting" Germany. There is only one cure +for long-continued treachery, and that is to demonstrate its failure. +To pause short of a thorough victory over the deep, inset habits and +methods of Germany is to destroy the spirit of France. It will not be +well for a premier race of the world to go down in defeat. We need her +thrifty Lorraine peasants and Brittany sailors, her unfailing gift to +the light of the world, more than we need a thorough German spy system +and a soldiery obedient to commands of vileness. + +Very much more slowly England, too, is learning what the fight is about. + +It is German violation of the fundamental decencies that makes it +difficult to find common ground to build on for the future. It is at +this point that the spy system of slow-seeping treachery and the +atrocity program of dramatic frightfulness overlap. It is in part out of +the habit of betraying hospitality that the atrocities have emerged. It +isn't as if they were extemporized--a sudden flare, with no background. +They are the logical result of doing secretly for years that which +humanity has agreed not to do. + +Some of the members of our Red Cross unit--the Hector Munro Ambulance +Corps--worked for a full year with the French Fusiliers Marins, perhaps +the most famous 6000 fighting men in the western line. They were sailor +boys. They covered the retreat of the Belgian army. They consolidated +the Yser position by holding Dixmude for three weeks against a German +force that outnumbered them. Then for a year, up to a few months ago, +they helped to hold the Nieuport section, the last northern point of the +Allied line. When they entered the fight at Melle in October, 1914, our +corps worked with one of their doctors, and came to know him. Later he +took charge of a dressing station near St. George. Here one day the +Germans made a sudden sortie, drove back the Fusiliers for a few +minutes, and killed the Red Cross roomful, bayoneting the wounded men. +The Fusiliers shortly won back their position, found their favorite +doctor dead, and in a fury wiped out the Germans who had murdered him +and his patients, saving one man alive. They sent him back to the +enemy's lines to say: + +"Tell your men how we fight when you bayonet our wounded." + +That sudden act of German falseness was the product of slow, careful +undermining of moral values. + +One of the best known women in Belgium, whose name I dare not give, told +me of her friends, the G----'s, at L---- (she gave me name and +address). When the first German rush came down on Belgium the household +was asked to shelter German officers, one of whom the lady had known +socially in peace days. The next morning soldiers went through the +house, destroying paintings with the bayonet and wrecking furniture. The +lady appealed to the officer. + +"I know you," she said. "We have met as equals and friends. How can you +let this be done?" + +"This is war," he replied. + +No call of chivalry, of the loyalties of guest and host, is to be +listened to. And for the perpetrating of this cold program years of +silent spy treachery were a perfect preparation. It was no sudden +unrelated horror to which Germans had to force themselves. It was an +astonishing thing to simple Belgian gentlemen and gentlewomen to see the +old friendly German faces of tourists and social guests show up, on +horseback, riding into the cities as conquerors where they had so often +been entertained as friends. Let me give you the testimony of a Belgian +lady whom we know. She is now inside the German lines, so I cannot give +her name. + +[Illustration: THE HOME OF A GERMAN SPY NEAR COXYDE BAINS, BELGIUM. + +He had a deep gun foundation, concealed by tiling, motors, hydraulic +apparatus--a complete fortification inside his villa. + +[This photograph would have been better if it had not been developed in +the ambulance of one of the American Field Service, but it shows the +solid construction of the hidden flooring, the supporting pillars, one +of the motors and one of the gas pipes.]] + +"When the German troops entered Brussels," she states, "we suddenly +discovered that our good friends had been secret agents and were now +officers in charge of the invasion. As the army came in, with their +trumpets and flags and goose-stepping, we picked out our friends +entertained by us in our salons--dinner guests for years. They had +originally come with every recommendation possible--letters from +friends, themselves men of good birth. They had worked their way into +the social-political life of Brussels. They had won their place in our +friendly feeling. And here they had returned to us at the head of troops +to conquer us, after having served as secret agents through the years of +friendly social intercourse." + +After becoming proficient in that kind of betrayal the officers found it +only a slight wrench to pass on to the wholesale murder of the people +whose bread they had eaten and whom they had tricked. The treachery +explains the atrocity. It is worth while to repeat and emphasize this +point. Many persons have asked me, "How do you account for these +terrible acts of mutilation?" The answer is, what the Germans did +suddenly by flame and bayonet is only a continuation of what they have +done for years by poison. + +Here follows the testimony of a man whom I know, Doctor George Sarton, +of the University of Ghent: + +"Each year more Germans came to Belgian summer resorts; Blankenberghe, +for instance, was full of them. They were all very well received and had +plenty of friends in Belgian families, from the court down. When the war +broke out, it immediately became evident that many of these welcomed +guests had been spying, measuring distances, preparing foundations for +heavy guns in their villas located at strategical points, and so on. It +is noteworthy that this spying was not simply done by poor devils who +had not been able to make money in a cleaner way--but by very successful +German business men, sometimes men of great wealth and whose wealth had +been almost entirely built up in Belgium. These men were extremely +courteous and serviceable, they spent much money upon social functions +and in the promotion of charities, German schools, churches and the +like; they had numerous friends, in some cases they had married Belgian +girls and their boys were members of the special corps of our 'National +Guard.' ... Yet at the same time, they were prying into everything, +spying everywhere. + +"When the Germans entered into Belgium, they were guided wherever they +went by some one of their officers or men who knew all about each place. +Directors of factories were startled to recognize some of their work +people transformed into Uhlans. A man who had been a professor at the +University of Brussels had the impudence to call upon his former +'friends' in the uniform of a German officer. + +"When the war is over, when Belgium is free again, it will not be many +years before the Germans come back, at least their peaceful and +'friendly' vanguard. How will they be received this time? It is certain +that it will be extremely difficult for them to make friends again. As +to myself, when I meet them again in my country--I shall ask myself: 'Is +he a friend, or is he a spy?' And the business men will think: 'Are they +coming as faithful partners, or simply to steal and rob?' That will be +their well deserved reward." + +One mile from where we were billeted on the Belgian coast stood a villa +owned by a German. It lay between St. Idesbald and Coxyde Bains, on a +sand dune, commanding the Channel. After the war broke out the Belgians +examined it and found it was a fortification. Its walls were of six-foot +thickness, of heavy blocks of stone and concrete. Its massive flooring +was cleverly disguised by a layer of fancy tiling. Its interior was +fitted with little compartments for hydraulic apparatus for raising +weights, and there was a tangle of wires and pipes. Dynamite cleared +away the upper stories. Workmen hacked away the lower story, piece by +piece, during several weeks of our stay. Two members of our corps +inspected the interior. It lay just off the excellent road that runs +from St. Idesbald to Coxyde Bains, up which ammunition could be fed to +it for its coast defense work. The Germans expected an easy march down +the coast, with these safety stations ready for them at points of +need.[A] + +A Belgian soldier rode into a Belgian village one evening at twilight +during the early days of the war. An old peasant woman, deceived +because of the darkness, and thinking him to be a German Uhlan, rushed +up to him and said, "Look out--the Belgians are here." It was the work +of these spies to give information to the marauding Uhlans as to whether +any hostile garrison was stationed in the town. If no troops were there +to resist, a band of a dozen Uhlans could easily take an entire village. +But if the village had a protecting garrison the Germans must be +forewarned. + +Three days after arriving in Belgium, in the early fall of 1914, a +friend and I met a German outpost, one of the Hussars. We fell into +conversation with him and became quite friendly. He had no cigarettes +and we shared ours with him. He could speak good English, and he let us +walk beside him as he rode slowly along on his way to the main body of +his troops. The Germans had won the day and there seemed to be nothing +at stake, or perhaps he did not expect our little group would be +long-lived, nor should we have been if the German plans had gone +through. It was their custom to use civilian prisoners as a protective +screen for their advancing troops. Whatever his motive, after we had +walked along beside his horse for a little distance, he pointed out to +us the house of the spy whom the Germans had in that village of Melle. +This man was a "half-breed" Englishman, who came out of his house and +walked over to the Hussar and said: + +"You want to keep up your English, for you'll soon be in London." + +In a loud voice, for the benefit of his Belgian neighbors, he shouted +out: + +"Look out! Those fellows shoot! The Germans are devils!" + +He brought out wine for the troops. We followed him into his house, +where he, supposing us to be friends of the Germans, asked us to partake +of his hospitality. That man was a resident of the village, a friend of +the people, but "fixed" for just this job of supplying information to +the invaders when the time came. + +During my five weeks in Ghent I used to eat frequently at the Cafe +Gambrinus, where the proprietor assured us that he was a Swiss and in +deep sympathy with Belgians and Allies. He had a large custom. When the +Germans captured Ghent he altered into a simon pure German and friend +of the invaders. His place now is the nightly resort of German officers. + +In the hotel where I stayed in Ghent the proprietor, after a couple of +days, believing me to be one more neutral American, told me he was a +German. He went on to say what a mistake the Belgians made to oppose the +Germans, who were irresistible. That was his return to the city and +country that had given him his livelihood. A few hours later a gendarme +friend of mine told me to move out quickly, as we were in the house of a +spy. + +Three members of our corps in Pervyse had evidence many nights of a spy +within our lines. It was part of the routine for a convoy of motor +trucks to bring ammunition forward to the trenches. The enemy during the +day would get the range of the road over which this train had to pass. +Of course, each night the time of ammunition moving was changed in an +attempt to foil the German fire. But this was of no avail, for when the +train of trucks moved along the road to the trenches a bright flash of +light would go up somewhere within our lines, telling the enemy that it +was time to fire upon the convoy. + +Such evidences kept reaching us of German gold at work on the very +country we were occupying. Sometimes the money itself. + +My wife, when stationed by the Belgian trenches at Pervyse, asked the +orderly to purchase potatoes, giving him a five-franc piece. He brought +back the potatoes and a handful of change that included a French franc, +a French copper, a Dutch small coin, a Belgian ten-centime bit, and a +German two-mark piece with its imperial eagle. This meant that some one +in the ranks or among the refugees was peddling information to the +enemy. + +In early October my wife and I were captured by the Uhlans at Zele. Our +Flemish driver, a Ghent man, began expressing his friendliness for them +in fluent German. After weeks of that sort of thing we became suspicious +of almost every one, so thorough and widespread had been the bribery of +certain of the poorer element. The Germans had sowed their seed for +years against the day when they would release their troops and have +need of traitors scattered through the invaded country. + +The thoroughness of this bribery differed at different villages. In one +burned town of 1500 houses we found approximately 100 houses standing +intact, with German script in chalk on their doors; the order of the +officer not to burn. This meant the dwellers had been friendly to the +enemy in certain instances, and in other instances that they were spies +for the Germans. We have the photographs of those chalked houses in +safe-keeping, against such time as there is a direct challenge on the +facts of German methods. But there has come no challenge of facts--we +that have seen have given names, dates and places--only a blanket denial +and counter charges of _franc-tireur_ warfare, as carried on by babies +in arms, white-haired grandmothers and sick women. + +In October, 1914, two miles outside Ostend, I was arrested as a spy by +the Belgians and marched through the streets in front of a gun in the +hands of a very young and very nervous soldier. The Etat Major told me +that German officers had been using American passports to enter the +Allied lines and learn the numbers and disposition of troops. They had +to arrest Americans on sight and find out if they were masqueraders. A +little later one of our American ambassadors verified this by saying to +me that American passports had been flagrantly abused for German +purposes. + +All this devious inside work, misusing the hospitality of friendly, +trustful nations, this buying up of weak individuals, this laying the +traps on neutral ground--all this treachery in peace times--deserves a +second Bryce report. The atrocities are the product of the treachery. +This patient, insidious spy system, eating away at the vitality of the +Allied powers, results in such horrors as I have witnessed. + + + + +THE ATROCITY + + +When the very terrible accounts of frightfulness visited on peasants by +the invading German army crossed the Channel to London, I believed that +we had one more "formula" story. I was fortified against unproved +allegations by thirteen years of newspaper and magazine investigation +and by professional experience in social work. A few months previously I +had investigated the "poison needle" stories of how a girl, rendered +insensible by a drug, was borne away in a taxicab to a house of ill +fame. The cases proved to be victims of hysteria. At another time, I had +looked up certain incidents of "white slavery," where young and innocent +victims were suddenly and dramatically ruined. I had found the cases to +be more complex than the picturesque statements of fiction writers +implied. Again, by the courtesy of the United States Government, +Department of Justice, I had studied investigations into the relation +of a low wage to the life of immorality. These had shown me that many +factors in the home, in the training, in the mental condition, often +contributed to the result. I had grown sceptical of the "plain" +statement of a complex matter, and peculiarly hesitant in accepting +accounts of outrage and cruelty. It was in this spirit that I crossed to +Belgium. To this extent, I had a pro-German leaning. + +On September 7, 1914, with two companions, I was present at the skirmish +between Germans and Belgians at Melle, a couple of miles east of Ghent. +We walked to the German line, where a blue-eyed young Hussar officer, +Rhinebeck, of Stramm, Holstein, led us into a trap by permitting us to +walk along after him and his men as they rode back to camp beyond Melle. +We walked for a quarter mile. At our right a barn was burning brightly. +On our left the homes of the peasants of Melle were burning, twenty-six +little yellow brick houses, each with a separate fire. It was not a +conflagration, by one house burning and gradually lighting the next. The +fires were well started and at equal intensity in each house. The walls +between the houses were still intact. The twenty-six fires burned slowly +and thoroughly through the night. + +These three thousand German soldiers and their officers were neither +drunk nor riotous. The discipline was excellent. The burning was a +clean-cut, cold-blooded piece of work. It was a piece of punishment. +Belgian soldiers had resisted the German army. If Belgian soldiers +resist, peasant non-combatants must be killed. That inspires terror. +That teaches the lesson: "Do not oppose Germany. It is death to oppose +her--death to your wife and child." + +We were surrounded by soldiers and four sentries put over us. Peasants +who walked too close to the camp were brought in and added to our group +of prisoners, till, all told, we numbered thirty. A peasant lying next +to me watched his own house burn to pieces. + +Another of the peasants was an old man, of weak mind. He kept babbling +to himself. It would have been obvious to a child that he was foolish. +The German sentry ordered silence. The old fellow muttered on in +unconsciousness of his surroundings. The sentry drew back his bayonet +to run him through. A couple of the peasants pulled the old man flat to +the ground and stifled his talking. + +At five o'clock in the morning German stretcher bearers marched behind +the burned houses. Out of the house of the peasant lying next to me +three bodies were carried. He broke into a long, slow sobbing. + +At six o'clock a monoplane sailed overhead, bringing orders to our +detachment. The troops intended for Ghent were turned toward Brussels. +The field artillery, which had been rolled toward the west, was swung +about to the east. An officer headed us toward Ghent and let us go. If +the Germans had marched into Ghent we would have been of value as a +cover for the troops. But for the return to Brussels we were only a +nuisance. We hurried away toward Ghent. As we walked through a farmyard +we saw a farmer lying at full length dead in his dooryard. We passed the +convent school of Melle, where Catholic sisters live. The front yard was +strewed with furniture, with bedding, with the contents of the rooms. +The yard was about four hundred feet long and two hundred feet deep. It +was dotted with this intimate household stuff for the full area. I made +inquiry and found that no sister had been violated or bayoneted. The +soldiers had merely ransacked the place. + +One of my companions in this Melle experience was A. Radclyffe Dugmore, +formerly of the Players Club, New York, a well-known naturalist, author +of books on big game in Africa, the beaver, and the caribou. For many +years he was connected with Doubleday, Page & Co. His present address is +Crete Hill, South Nutfield, Surrey. + +At other times and places, German troops have not rested content with +the mere terrorization and humiliation of religious sisters. On February +12, 1916, the German Wireless from Berlin states that Cardinal Mercier +was urged to investigate the allegation of German soldiers attacking +Belgian nuns, and that he declined. As long as the German Government has +seen fit to revive the record of their own brutality, I present what +follows. + +A New York physician whom I know sends me this statement: + +"I was dining in London in the middle of last April with a friend, a +medical man, and I expressed doubt as to the truth of the stories of +atrocity. I said I had combatted such stories often in America. In +reply, he asked me to visit a house which had been made over into an +obstetrical hospital for Belgian nuns. I went with him to the hospital. +Here over a hundred nuns had been and were being cared for." + +On a later Sunday in September I visited the Municipal Hospital of +Ghent. In Salle (Hall) 17, I met and talked with Martha Tas, a peasant +girl of St. Gilles (near Termonde). As she was escaping by train from +the district, and when she was between Alost and Audeghem, she told me +that German soldiers aimed rifle fire at the train of peasants. She was +wounded by a bullet in the thigh. My companion on this visit was William +R. Renton, at one time a resident of Andover, Massachusetts. His present +address is the Coventry Ordnance Works, Coventry. + +A friend of mine has been lieutenant in a battery of 75's stationed near +Pervyse. His summer home is a little distance out from Liege. His wife, +sister-in-law, and his three children were in the house when the Germans +came. Peasants, driven from their village, hid in the cellar. His sister +took one child and hid in a closet. His wife took the two-year-old baby +and the older child and hid in another closet. The troops entered the +house, looted it and set it on fire. As they left they fired into the +cellar. The mother rushed from her hiding place, went to her desk and +found that her money and the family jewels, one a gift from the +husband's family and handed down generation by generation, had been +stolen. With the sister, the baby in arms, the two other children and +the peasants, she ran out of the garden. They were fired on. They hid in +a wood. Then, for two days, they walked. The raw potatoes which they +gathered by the way were unfit for the little one. Without money, and +ill and weakened, they reached Holland. This lady is in a safe place +now, and her testimony in person is available. + +[Illustration: THE GREEN PASS, USED ONLY BY SOLDIERS AND OFFICERS OF THE +BELGIAN ARMY. + +It gives passage to the trenches at any hour. The writer, by holding +this, and working under the Prime Minister's son, became +stretcher-bearer in the Belgian Army.] + +The apologists of the widespread reign of frightfulness say that war is +always "like that," that individual drunken soldiers have always broken +loose and committed terrible acts. This defense does not meet the +facts. It meets neither the official orders, nor the cold method, nor +the immense number of proved murders. The German policy was ordered from +the top. It was carried out by officers and men systematically, under +discipline. The German War Book, issued by the General Staff, and used +by officers, cleverly justifies these acts. They are recorded by the +German soldiers themselves in their diaries, of which photographic +reproductions are obtainable in any large library. The diaries were +found on the persons of dead and wounded Germans. The name of the man +and his company are given. + +On Sunday, September 27, I was present at the battle of Alost, where +peasants came running into our lines from the German side of the canal. +In spite of shell, shrapnel, rifle, and machine fire, these peasants +crossed to us. The reason they had for running into fire was that the +Germans were torturing their neighbors with the bayonet. One peasant, on +the other side of the canal, hurried toward us under the fire, with a +little girl on his right shoulder. + +On Tuesday, September 29, I visited Wetteren Hospital. I went in +company with the Prince L. de Croy, the Due D'Ursel, a senator; the +Count de Briey, Intendant de la Liste Civile du Roy, and the Count Retz +la Barre (all of the Garde du General de Wette, Divisions de Cavalerie). +One at least of these gentlemen is as well and as favorably known in +this country as in his own. I took a young linguist, who was kind enough +to act as secretary for me. In the hospital I found eleven peasants with +bayonet wounds upon them--men, women and a child--who had been marched +in front of the Germans at Alost as a cover for the troops, and cut with +bayonets when they tried to dodge the firing. A priest was ministering +to them, bed by bed. Sisters were in attendance. The priest led us to +the cot of one of the men. On Sunday morning, September 27, the peasant, +Leopold de Man, of No. 90, Hovenier-Straat, Alost, was hiding in the +house with his sister, in the cellar. The Germans made a fire of the +table and chairs in the upper room. Then, catching sight of Leopold, +they struck him with the butts of their guns and forced him to pass +through the fire. Then, taking him outside, they struck him to the +ground and gave him a blow over the head with a gunstock and a cut of +the bayonet, which pierced his thigh all the way through. + +"In spite of my wound," said he, "they made me pass between their lines, +giving me still more blows of the gun-butt in the back in order to make +me march. There were seventeen or eighteen persons with me. They placed +us in front of their lines and menaced us with their revolvers, crying +out that they will make us pay for the losses they have suffered at +Alost. So we march in front of the troops. + +"When the battle began we threw ourselves on our faces to the ground, +but they forced us to rise again. At a certain moment, when the Germans +were obliged to retire, we succeeded in escaping down side streets." + +The priest led the way to the cot of a peasant whose cheeks had the spot +of fever. He was Frans Meulebroeck, of No. 62, Drie Sleutelstraat, +Alost. Sometimes in loud bursts of terror, and then falling back into a +monotone, he talked with us. + +"They broke open the door of my home," he said, "they seized me and +knocked me down. In front of my door the corpse of a German lay +stretched out. The Germans said to me: 'You are going to pay for that to +us.' A few moments later they gave me a bayonet cut in my leg. They +sprinkled naphtha in my house and set it afire. My son was struck down +in the street and I was marched in front of the German troops. I do not +know even yet the fate of my son." + +Gradually as the peasant talked the time of his suffering came on him. +His eyes began to see it again in front of him. They became fixed and +wild, the white of them visible. His voice was shrill and broken with +sobs. + +"My boy," he said, "I haven't seen him." His body shook with sobbing. + +At my request the young man with me took down the statements of these +two peasants, turning them into French from the Flemish, with the aid of +the priest. In the presence of the priest and one of the sisters the two +peasants signed, each man, his statement, making his mark. + +Our group passed into the next room, where the wounded women were +gathered. A sister led us to the bedside of a very old woman, perhaps +eighty years old. She had thin white hair, that straggled across the +pillow. There was no motion to the body, except for faint breathing. She +was cut through the thigh with a bayonet. + +I went across the room and found a little girl, twelve years old. She +was propped up in bed and half bent over, as if she had been broken at +the breast bone. Her body whistled with each breath. One of our +ambulance corps went out next day to the hospital--Dr. Donald Renton. He +writes me: + +"I went out with Davidson, the American sculptor, and Yates, the cinema +man, and there had been brought into the hospital the previous day the +little girl you speak of. She had a gaping wound on, I think, the right +side of her back, and died the next day." + +Dr. Renton's address is 110 Hill Street, Garnet Hill, Glasgow. + +The young man who took down the record is named E. de Niemira, a British +subject. He made the report of what we had seen to the Bryce Committee. +These cases which I witnessed appear in the Bryce Report under the +heading of "Alost."[B] Of such is the Bryce Report made: first-hand +witness by men like myself, who know what they know, who are ready for +any test to be applied, who made careful notes, who had witnesses. + +"Why do the Germans do these things? It is not war. It is cruel and +wrong," that is a remark I heard from noblemen and common soldiers +alike. Such acts are beyond the understanding of the Belgian people. +Their soldiers are kindly, good-humored, fearless. Alien women and +children would be safe in their hands. They do not see why the Germans +bring suffering to the innocent. + +A few understand. They know it is a scientific panic which the German +army was seeking to cultivate. They see that these acts are not done in +the wilful abandon of a few drunken soldiers, beyond discipline, but +that they belong to a cool, careful method by means of which the German +staff hoped to reduce a population to servitude. The Germans regard +these mutilations as pieces of necessary surgery. The young blond +barmaid of the Quatrecht Inn told us on October 4 that a German captain +came and cried like a baby in the taproom on the evening of September 7, +after he had laid waste Quatrecht and Melle. To her fanciful, untrained +mind he was thinking of his own wife and children. So, at least, she +thought as she watched him, after serving him in his thirst. + +One of the sentries patted the shoulder of the peasant at Melle when he +learned that the man had had the three members of his family done to +death. Personally, he was sorry for the man, but orders were orders. + +[Illustration: CHURCH IN TERMONDE WHICH THE WRITER SAW. + +The Germans burned this church and four others, a hospital, an +orphanage, and 1,100 homes, house by house. Priests, nuns and churches +irritated the German Army. This photograph was taken by Radclyffe +Dugmore, who accompanied the writer, to witness the methodical +destruction.] + +I spent September 13 and September 23 in Termonde. Ten days before my +first visit Termonde was a pretty town of 11,000 inhabitants. On their +first visit the Germans burned eleven hundred of the fifteen hundred +houses. They burned the Church of St. Benedict, the Church of St. +Rocus, three other churches, a hospital, and an orphanage. They burned +that town not by accident of shell fire and general conflagration, but +methodically, house by house. In the midst of charred ruins I came on +single houses standing, many of them, and on their doors was German +writing in chalk--"Nicht Verbrennen. Gute Leute wohnen hier." Sometimes +it would be simply "Nicht Verbrennen," sometimes only "Gute Leute," but +always that piece of German script was enough to save that house, though +to the right and left of it were ruins. On several of the saved houses +the name of the German officer was scribbled who gave the order to +spare. About one hundred houses were chalked in the way I have +described. All these were unscathed by the fire, though they stood in +streets otherwise devastated. The remaining three hundred houses had the +good luck to stand at the outskirts and on streets unvisited by the +house-to-house incendiaries. + +Four days after my first visit the Germans burned again the already +wrecked town, turning their attention to the neglected three hundred +houses. I went in as soon as I could safely enter the town, and that was +on the Wednesday after. + +As companions in Termonde I had Tennyson Jesse, Radclyffe Dugmore, and +William R. Renton. Mr. Dugmore took photographs of the chalked houses. + +"Build a fence around Termonde," suggested a Ghent manufacturer, "leave +the ruins untouched. Let the place stand there, with its burned houses, +churches, orphanage, hospital, factories, to show the world what German +culture is. It will be a monument to their methods of conducting war. +There will be no need of saying anything. That is all the proof we need. +Then throw open the place to visitors from all the world, as soon as +this war is over. Let them draw their own conclusions." + + + + +BALLAD OF THE GERMANS + + +In Wetteren Hospital, Flanders, the writer saw a little peasant girl +dying from the bayonet wounds in her back which the German soldiers had +given her. + + Cain slew only a brother, + A lad who was fair and strong, + His murder was careless and honest, + A heated and sudden wrong. + + And Judas was kindly and pleasant, + For he snared an invincible man. + But you--you have spitted the children, + As they toddled and stumbled and ran. + + She heard you sing on the high-road, + She thought you were gallant and gay; + Such men as the peasants of Flanders: + The friends of a child at play. + + She saw the sun on your helmets, + The sparkle of glancing light. + She saw your bayonets flashing, + And she laughed at your Prussian might. + + Then you gave her death for her laughter, + As you looked on her mischievous face. + You hated the tiny peasant, + With the hate of your famous race. + + You were not frenzied and angry; + You were cold and efficient and keen. + Your thrust was as thorough and deadly + As the stroke of a faithful machine. + + You stabbed her deep with your rifle: + You had good reason to sing, + As you footed it on through Flanders + Past the broken and quivering thing. + + Something impedes your advancing, + A dragging has come on your hosts. + And Paris grows dim now, and dimmer, + Through the blur of your raucous boasts. + + Your singing is sometimes broken + By guttural German groans. + Your ankles are wet with _her_ bleeding, + Your pike is blunt from _her_ bones. + + The little peasant has tripped you. + She hangs to your bloody stride. + And the dimpled hands are fastened + Where they fumbled before she died. + + + + +THE STEAM ROLLER + + +The Steam Roller, the final method, now operating in Belgium to flatten +her for all time, is the most deadly and universal of the three. It is a +calculated process to break the human spirit. People speak as if the +injury done Belgium was a thing of the past. It is at its height now. +The spy system with its clerks, waiters, tourists, business managers, +reached directly only some thousands of persons. The atrocities wounded +and killed many thousands of old men, women, and children. But the +German occupation and sovereignty at the present moment are +denationalizing more than six million people. The German conquerors +operate their Steam Roller by clever lies, thus separating Belgium from +her real friends; by taxation, thus breaking Belgium economically; by +enforced work on food supplies, railways, and ammunition, thus forcing +Belgian peasants to feed their enemy's army and destroy their own army, +and so making unwilling traitors out of patriots; by fines and +imprisonment that harass the individual Belgian who retains any sense of +nationality; by official slander from Berlin that the Belgians are the +guilty causes of their own destruction; and finally by the fact of +sovereignty itself, that at one stroke breaks the inmost spirit of a +free nation. + +I was still in Ghent when the Germans moved up to the suburbs. + +"I can put my artillery on Ghent," said the German officer to the +American vice-consul. + +That talk is typical of the tone of voice used to Belgians: threat +backed by murder. + +The whole policy of the Germans of late is to treat the Belgian matter +as a thing accomplished. + +"It is over. Let bygones be bygones." + +It is a process like the trapping of an innocent woman, and when she is +trapped, saying, + +"Now you are compromised, anyway, so you had better submit." + +A friend of mine who remained in Ghent after the German occupation, had +German officers billetted in his home. Daily, industriously, they said +to him that the English had been poor friends of his country, that they +had been late in coming to the rescue. Germany was the friend, not +England. In the homes throughout Belgium, these unbidden guests are +claiming slavery is a beneficent institution, that it is better to be +ruled by the German military, and made efficient for German ends, than +to continue a free people. + +For a year, our Red Cross Corps worked under the direction and authority +of the Belgian prime minister, Baron de Broqueville. The prime minister +in the name of his government has sent to this country an official +protest against the new tax levied by the Germans on his people. The +total tax for the German occupation amounts to $192,000,000. He writes: + +"The German military occupation during the last fifteen months has +entirely prevented all foreign trade, has paralyzed industrial activity, +and has reduced the majority of the laboring classes to enforced +idleness. Upon the impoverished Belgian population whom Germany has +unjustly attacked, upon whom she has brought want and distress, who have +been barely saved from starvation by the importation of food which +Germany should have provided--upon this population, Germany now imposes +a new tax, equal in amount to the enormous tax she has already imposed +and is regularly collecting." + +[Illustration: One of the dangerous Belgian franc-tireurs, who made it +necessary for the German Army to burn and bayonet babies and old women. +His name is Gaspar. He is three years old.] + +The Belgian Legation has protested unavailingly to our Government that +Germany, in violation of The Hague Conventions, has forced Belgian +workmen to perform labor for the German army. Belgian Railway employees +at Malines, Luttre and elsewhere refused to perform work which would +have released from the transportation service and made available for the +trenches an entire German Army Corps. These Belgian workmen were +subjected to coersive measures, which included starvation and cruel +punishments. Because of these penalties on Belgians refusing to be +traitors, many went to hospitals in Germany, and others returned broken +in health to Belgium. + +After reading the chapter on the German spy system, a Belgian wrote me: + +"That spying business is not yet the worst. Since then, the Germans have +succeeded in outdoing all that. The basest and the worst that one can +dream of is it not that campaign of slander and blackmail which they +originated after their violation of Belgium's neutrality? Of course they +did it--as a murderer who slanders his victim--in the hope to justify +their crime." + +It is evil to murder non-combatants. It is more evil to "rationalize" +the act--to invent a moral reason for doing an infamous thing. First, +Belgium suffered a vivisection, a veritable martyrdom. Now, she is +officially informed by her executioners that she was the guilty party. +She is not allowed to protest. She must sit quietly under the charge +that her sacrifice was not a sacrifice at all, but the penalty paid for +her own misbehavior. This is a more cruel thing than the spying that +sapped her and the atrocities practised upon her, because it is more +cruel to take a man's honor than his property and his life. + +"If the peasants had stayed in their houses, they would have been safe." + +When they stayed in their houses they were burned along with the houses. +I saw this done on September 7, 1914, at Melle. + +"The peasants shot from their houses at the advancing German army." + +I saw German atrocities. The peasants did not shoot. It is the old +familiar formula of the _franc-tireur_. That means that the peasant, not +a soldier, dressed in the clothing of a civilian, takes advantage of his +immunity as a noncombatant, to secrete a rifle, and from some shelter +shoot at the enemy army. The Bishop of Namur writes: + +"It is evident that the German army trod the Belgian soil and carried +out the invasion with the preconceived idea that it would meet with +bands of this sort, a reminiscence of the war of 1870. But German +imagination will not suffice to create that which does not exist. + +"There never existed a single body of _francs-tireurs_ in Belgium. + +"No 'isolated instance' even is known of civilians having fired upon the +troops, although there would have been no occasion for surprise if any +individual person had committed an excess. In several of our villages +the population was exterminated because, as the military authorities +alleged, a major had been killed or a young girl had attempted to kill +an officer, and so forth.... In no case has an alleged culprit been +discovered and designated by name." + +This lie--that the peasants brought their own death on themselves--was +rehearsed before the war, as a carefully learned lesson. The army came +prepared to find the excuse for the methodical outrages which they +practised. In the fight in the Dixmude district, a German officer of the +202e Infantry had a letter with this sentence on his body: + +"There are a lot of _francs-tireurs_ with the enemy." + +There were none. He had found what he had been drilled to find, in the +years of preparedness. The front lines of the Yser were raked clear by +shell, rifle, and machine-gun fire. The district was in ruins. I know, +because I worked there with our Red Cross Corps through those three +weeks. The humorous explanation of this is given by one of the Fusilier +Marin Lieutenants--that the blue cap and the red pompon of the famous +fighting sailors of France looked strangely to the Germans, who took the +wearers for _francs-tireurs_, terror suggesting the idea. But this is +the kindly humor of Brittany. The saucy sailor caps could not have +looked strangely to German eyes, because a few weeks earlier those +"Girls with the red pompon" had held the German army corps at Melle, and +not even terror could have made them look other than terribly familiar. +No. The officers had been faithfully trained to find militant peasants +under arms, and to send back letters and reports of their discovery, +which could later be used in official excuses for frightfulness. This +letter is one that did not get back to Berlin, later to appear in a +White Paper, as justification for official murder of non-combatants. + +The picture projected by the Great German Literary Staff is too +imaginative. Think of that Army of the Invasion with its army corps +riding down through village streets--the Uhlan cavalry, the innumerable +artillery, the dense endless infantry, the deadly power and swing of it +all--and then see the girl-child of Alost, and the white-haired woman, +eighty years old--aiming their rifles at that cavalcade. It is a +literary creation, not a statement of fact. I have been in villages +when German troops were entering, had entered, and were about to enter. +I saw helpless, terror-stricken women huddled against the wall, children +hiding in their skirts, old men dazed and vague. + +Then, as the blue-gray uniforms appeared at the head of the street, with +sunlight on the pikes and helmets, came the cry--half a sob, "Les +Allemands." + +The German fabrications are unworthy. Let the little slain children, and +the violated women, sleep in honor. Your race was stern enough in doing +them to death. Let them alone, now that you have cleared them from your +path to Paris. + +Doctor George Sarton, of the University of Ghent writes me: + +"During the last months, the Germans have launched new slanders against +Belgium. Their present tactics are more discreet and seem to be +successful. Many 'neutral' travelers--especially Americans and +Swiss--have been to Belgium to see the battlefields or, perhaps, to get +an idea of what such an occupation by foreign soldiers exactly amounts +to. Of course, these men can see nothing without the assistance of the +German authorities, and they can but see what is shown to them. The +greater their curiosity, the more courtesy extended to them, the more +also they feel indebted to their German hosts. These are well aware of +it: the sightseers are taken in their net, and with a very few +exceptions, their critical sense is quickly obliterated. We have +recently been shown one of the finest specimens of these American +tourists: Mr. George B. McCellan, professor of History at Princeton, who +made himself ridiculous by writing a most superficial and inaccurate +article for the "Sunday Times Magazine". + +"When the good folks of Belgium recollect the spying business that was +carried on at their expense by their German 'friends,' they are not +likely to trust much their German enemies. They know that the Germans +are quite incapable of keeping to themselves any fact that they may +learn--in whatever confidential and intimate circumstances--if this fact +is of the smallest use to their own country. As it is perfectly +impossible to trust them, the best is to avoid them, and that is what +most Belgians are doing. + +"American tourists seeing Belgium through German courtesy are considered +by the Belgians just as untrustworthy as the Germans themselves. This is +the right attitude, as there is no possibility left to the Belgians (in +Belgium) of testing the morality and the neutrality of their visitors. +The result of which is that these visitors are entirely given up to +their German advisers; _all their knowledge is of German origin_. Of +course, the Germans take advantage of this situation and make a show of +German efficiency and organization.--'Don't you know: the Germans have +done so much for Belgium! Why, everybody knows that this country was +very inefficient, very badly managed ... a poor little country without +influence.... See what the Germans have made of it.... There was no +compulsory education, and the number of illiterates was scandalously +high,' (I am sorry to say that this at least is true.) 'They are +introducing compulsory and free education. In the big towns, sexual +morality was rather loose, but the Germans are now regulating all that.' +(You should hear German officers speak of prostitution in Antwerp and +Brussels.) 'The evil was great, but fortunately the Germans came and are +cleaning up the country.'--That is their way of doing and talking. It +does not take them long to convince ingenuous and uncritical Americans +that everything is splendidly regulated by German efficiency, and that +if only the Belgians were complying, everything would be all right in +Belgium. Are not the Belgians very ungrateful? + +"The Belgians do appreciate American generosity; they realize that +almost the only rays of happiness that reach their country come from +America. They will never forget it; that disinterested help coming from +over the seas has a touch of romance; it is great and comforting; it is +the bright and hopeful side of the war. The Belgians know how to value +this. But, as to what the Germans are doing, good or not, they will +never appreciate that--what does it matter? The Belgians do not care one +bit for German reforms; they do not even deign to consider them; they +simply ignore them. There is _one_--only one--reform that they will +appreciate; the German evacuation. All the rest does not count. When +the Germans speak of cleaning the country, the Belgians do not +understand. From their point of view, there is only one way to clean +it--and that is for the Germans to clear out. + +"The Germans are very disappointed that a certain number of Belgians +have been able to escape, either to enlist in the Belgian army or to +live abroad. Of course, the more Belgians are in their hands, the more +pressure they can exert. They are now slandering the Belgians who have +left their country--all the 'rich' people who are 'feasting' abroad +while their countrymen are starving. + +"The fewer Belgians there are in German hands, the better it is. The +Belgians whose ability is the most useful, are considered useful by the +Germans for the latter's sake. Must it not be a terrible source of +anxiety for these Belgians to think that all the work they manage to do +is directly or indirectly done for Germany? It is not astonishing that +she wants to restore 'business, as usual' in Belgium, and that in many +cases she has tried to force the Belgian workers to earn for her. Let +me simply refer to the protest recently published by the Belgian +Legation. But for the American Commission for Relief, the Belgians would +have had to choose between starvation and work--work for +Germany--starvation or treason. Nothing shows better the greatness and +moment of the American work. Without the material and moral presence of +the United States, Belgium would have simply been turned into a nation +of slaves--starvation or treason. + +"If I were in Belgium, I could say nothing; I would have to choose +between silence and prison, or silence and death. Remember Edith Cavell. +An enthusiastic, courageous man is running as many risks in Belgium now, +as he would have in the sixteenth century under the Spanish domination. +The hundred eyes of the Spanish Inquisition were then continually prying +into everything--bodies and souls; one felt them even while one was +sleeping. The German Secret Service is not less pitiless and it is more +efficient. + +"The process of slander and lie carried on by the Germans to 'flatten' +Belgium is, to my judgment, the worst of their war practices. It is +very efficient indeed. But, however efficient it may be, it will be +unsuccessful as to its main purpose. The Germans will not be able to bow +Belgian heads. As long as the Belgians do not admit that they have been +conquered, they are not conquered, and in the meanwhile the Germans are +merely aggravating their infamy. It was an easy thing to over-run the +unprepared Belgian soil--but the Belgian spirit is unconquerable. + +"Belgium may slumber, but die--never." + +When men act as part of an implacable machine, they act apart from their +humanity. They commit unbelievable horrors, because the thing that moves +them is raw force, untouched by fine purpose and the elements of mercy. +When I think of Germans, man by man, as they lay wounded, waiting for us +to bring them in and care for them as faithfully as for our own, I know +that they have become human in their defeat. We are their friends as we +break them. In spite of their treachery and cruelty and cold hatred, we +shall save them yet. Cleared of their evil dream and restored to our +common humanity, they will have a more profound sorrow growing out of +this war than any other people, for Belgium and France only suffered +these things, but the great German race committed them. + + + + +MY EXPERIENCE WITH BAEDEKER + + +When I went to Belgium, friends said to me, "You must take 'Baedeker's +Belgium' with you; it is the best thing on the country." So I did. I +used it as I went around. The author doesn't give much about himself, +and that is a good feature in any book, but I gathered he was a German, +a widely traveled man, and he seems to have spent much time in Belgium, +for I found intimate records of the smallest things. I used his guide +for five months over there. I must say right here I was disappointed in +it. And that isn't just the word, either. I was annoyed by it. It gave +all the effect of accuracy, and then when I got there it wasn't so. He +kept speaking of buildings as "beautiful," "one of the loveliest +unspoiled pieces of thirteenth century architecture in Europe," and when +I took a lot of trouble and visited the building, I found it half down, +or a butt-end, or sometimes ashes. I couldn't make his book tally up. +It doesn't agree with the landscape and the look of things. He will take +a perfectly good detail and stick it in where it doesn't belong, and +leave it there. And he does it all in a painstaking way and with evident +sincerity. + +His volume had been so popular back in his own country that it had +brought a lot of Germans into Belgium. I saw them everywhere. They were +doing the same thing I was doing, checking up what they saw with the map +and text and things. Some of them looked puzzled and angry, as they went +around. I feel sure they will go home and give Baedeker a warm time, +when they tell him they didn't find things as he had represented. + +For one thing, he makes out Belgium a lively country, full of busy, +contented people, innocent peasants, and sturdy workmen and that sort of +thing. Why, it's the saddest place in the world. The people are not +cheery at all. They are depressed. It's the last place I should think of +for a holiday, now that I have seen it. And that's the way it goes, all +through his work. Things are the opposite of what he says with so much +meticulous care. He would speak of "gay cafe life" in a place that +looked as if an earthquake had hit it, and where the only people were +some cripples and a few half-starved old folks. If he finds that sort of +thing gay as he travels around, he is an easy man to please. It was so +wherever I went. It isn't as if he were wrong at some one detail. He is +wrong all over the place, all over Belgium. It's all different from the +way he says it is. I know his fellow-countrymen who are there now will +bear me out in this. + +Let me show one place. I took his book with me and used it on Nieuport. +That's a perfectly fair test, because Nieuport is like a couple of +hundred other towns. + +"Nieuport," says Herr Baedeker, "a small and quiet place on the Yser." + +It is one of the noisiest places I have ever been in. There was a day +and a half in May when shells dropped into the streets and houses, every +minute. Every day at least a few screaming three-inch shells fall on the +village. Aeroplanes buzz overhead, shrapnel pings in the sky. Rifle +bullets sing like excited telegraph wires. If Baedeker found Nieuport +a quiet place, he was brought up in a boiler factory. + +[Illustration: Baedeker, the distinguished German writer, states that +this Fifteenth Century Gothic church in Nieuport has "a modern timber +roof." We looked for it.] + +His very next phrase puzzled me--"with 3500 inhabitants," he says. + +And I didn't see one. There were dead people in the ruins of the houses. +The soldiers used to unearth them from time to time. I remember that the +poet speaks of "the poor inhabitant below," when he is writing of a body +in a grave. It must be in that sense that Baedeker specifies those 3500 +inhabitants. But he shouldn't do that kind of imaginative touch. It +isn't in his line. And it might mislead people. + +Think of a stranger getting into Nieuport after dark on a wet night, +with his mind all set on the three hotels Baedeker gives him a choice +of. + +"All unpretending," he says. + +Just the wrong word. Why, those hotels are brick dust. They're flat on +the ground. There isn't a room left. He means "demolished." He doesn't +use our language easily. I can see that. It is true they are +unpretending, but that isn't the first word you would use about them, +not if you were fluent. + +Then he gives a detail that is unnecessary. He says you can sleep or eat +there for a "franc and a half." That exactitude is out of place. It is +labored. I ask you what a traveler would make of the "11/2 fr. _pour +diner_," when he came on that rubbish heap which is the Hotel of +Hope--"Hotel de l'Esperance." That is like Baedeker, all through his +volume. He will give a detail, like the precise cost of this dinner, +when there isn't any food in the neighborhood. It wouldn't be so bad if +he'd sketch things in general terms. That I could forgive. But it is too +much when he makes a word-picture of a Flemish table d'hote for a franc +and a half in a section of country where even the cats are starving. + +His next statement is plain twisted. "Nieuport is noted for its +obstinate resistance to the French." + +I saw French soldiers there every day. They were defending the place. +His way of putting it stands the facts on their head. + +"And (is noted) for the 'Battle of the Dunes' in 1600." + +That is where the printer falls down. I was there during the Battle of +the Dunes. The nine is upside down in the date as given. + +I wouldn't object so much if he were careless with facts that were +harmless, like his hotels and his dinner and his dates. But when he +gives bad advice that would lead people into trouble, I think he ought +to be jacked up. Listen to this: + +"We may turn to the left to inspect the locks on the canals to Ostend." + +Baedeker's proposal here means sure death to the reader who tries it. +That section is lined with machine guns. If a man began turning and +inspecting, he would be shot. Baedeker's statement is too casual. It +sounds like a suggestion for a leisurely walk. It isn't a sufficient +warning against doing something which shortens life. The word "inspect" +is unfortunate. It gives the reader the idea he is invited to nose +around those locks, when he had really better quiet down and keep away. +The sentries don't want him there. I should have written that sentence +differently. His kind of unconsidered advice leads to a lot of sadness. + +"The Rue Longue contains a few quaint old houses." + +It doesn't contain any houses at all. There are some heaps of scorched +rubble. "Quaint" is word painting. + +"On the south side of this square rises the dignified Cloth Hall." + +There is nothing dignified about a shattered, burned, tottering old +building. Why will he use these literary words? + +"With a lately restored belfry." + +It seems as if this writer couldn't help saying the wrong thing. A +Zouave gave us a piece of bronze from the big bell. It wasn't restored +at all. It was on the ground, broken. + +"The church has a modern timber roof." + +There he goes again--the exact opposite of what even a child could see +were the facts. And yet in his methodical, earnest way, he has tried to +get these things right. That church, for instance, has no roof at all. +It has a few pillars standing. It looks like a skeleton. I have a good +photograph of it, which the reader can see on page 69. If Baedeker would +stand under that "modern timber roof" in a rainstorm, he wouldn't think +so much of it. + +"The Hotel de Ville contains a small collection of paintings." + +I don't like to keep picking on what he says, but this sentence is +irritating. There aren't any paintings there, because things are +scattered. You can see torn bits strewed around on the floor of the +place, but nothing like a collection. + +I could go on like that, and take him up on a lot more details. But it +sounds as if I were criticising. And I don't mean it that way, because I +believe the man is doing his best. But I do think he ought to get out +another edition of his book, and set these points straight. + +He puts a little poem on his title page: + + Go, little book, God send thee good passage, + And specially let this be thy prayer + Unto them all that thee will read or hear, + Where thou art wrong, after their help to call, + Thee to correct in any part or all. + +That sounds fair enough. So I am going to send him these notes. But it +isn't in "parts" he is "wrong." There is a big mistake somewhere. + + + + +GOLDEN LADS + + "Golden lads and girls all must, + As chimney-sweepers, come to dust." + + + + +THE PLAY-BOYS OF BRITTANY + +LES FUSILIERS MARINS + + +At times in my five months at the front I have been puzzled by the +sacrifice of so much young life; and most I have wondered about the +Belgians. I had seen their first army wiped out; there came a time when +I no longer met the faces I had learned to know at Termonde and Antwerp +and Alost. A new army of boys has dug itself in at the Yser, and the +same wastage by gun-fire and disease is at work on them. One wonders +with the Belgians if the price they pay for honor is not too high. There +is a sadness in the eyes of Belgian boy soldiers that is not easy to +face. Are we quite worthy of their sacrifice? Why should the son of +Ysaye die for me? Are you, comfortable reader, altogether sure that +Pierre Depage and Andre Simont are called on to spill their blood for +your good name? + +Then one turns with relief to the Fusiliers Marins--the sailors with a +rifle. Here are young men at play. They know they are the incomparable +soldiers. The guns have been on them for fifteen months, but they remain +unbroken. Twice in the year, if they had yielded, this might have been a +short war. But that is only saying that if Brittany had a different +breed of men the world and its future would contain less hope. They +carry the fine liquor of France, and something of their own added for +bouquet. They are happy soldiers--happy in their brief life, with its +flash of daring, and happy in their death. It is still sweet to die for +one's country, and that at no far-flung outpost over the seas and sands, +but just at the home border. As we carried our wounded sailors down from +Nieuport to the great hospital of Zuydcoote on the Dunkirk highway, +there is a sign-board, a bridge, and a custom-house that mark the point +where we pass from Belgium into France. We drove our ambulance with the +rear curtain raised, so that the wounded men, lying on the stretchers, +could be cheered by the flow of scenery. Sometimes, as we crossed that +border-line, one of the men would pick it up with his eye, and would +say to his comrade: "France! Now we are in France, the beautiful +country." + +"What do you mean?" I asked one lad, who had brightened visibly. + +"The other countries," he said, "are flat and dirty. The people are of +mixed races. France is not so." + +It has been my fortune to watch the sailors at work from the start of +the war. I was in Ghent when they came there, late, to a hopeless +situation. Here were youngsters scooped up from the decks, untrained in +trenches, and rushed to the front; but the sea-daring was on them, and +they knew obedience and the hazards. They helped to cover the retreat of +the Belgians and save that army from annihilation by banging away at the +German mass at Melle. Man after man developed a fatalism of war, and +expressed it to us. + +"Nothing can hit you till your time," was often their way of saying it; +"it's no use dodging or being afraid. You won't be hit till your shell +comes." And another favorite belief of theirs that brought them cheer +was this: "The shell that will kill you you won't hear coming. So +you'll never know." + +These sailor lads thrive on lost causes, and it was at Ghent they won +from the Germans their nickname of "Les demoiselles au pompon rouge." +The saucy French of that has a touch beyond any English rendering of +"the girls with the red pompon." "Les demoiselles au pompon rouge" +paints their picture at one stroke, for they thrust out the face of a +youngster from under a rakish blue sailor hat, crowned with a fluffy red +button, like a blue flower with a red bloom at its heart. I rarely saw +an aging _marin_. There are no seasoned troops so boyish. They wear open +dickies, which expose the neck, full, hard, well-rounded. The older +troops, who go laggard to the spading, have beards that extend down the +collar; but a boy has a smooth, clean neck, and these sailors have the +throat of youth. We must once have had such a race in our cow-boys and +Texas rangers--level-eyed, careless men who know no masters, only +equals. The force of gravity is heavy on an old man. But _marins_ are +not weighted down by equipment nor muffled with clothing. They go +bobbing like corks, as though they would always stay on the crest of +things. And riding on top of their lightness is that absurd bright-red +button in their cap. The armies for five hundred miles are sober, +grown-up people, but here are the play-boys of the western front. + +From Ghent they trooped south to Dixmude, and were shot to pieces in +that "Thermopylae of the North." + +"Hold for four days," was their order. + +They held for three weeks, till the sea came down and took charge. +During those three weeks we motored in and out to get their wounded. +Nothing of orderly impression of those days remains to me. I have only +flashes of the sailor-soldiers curved over and snaking along the +battered streets behind slivers of wall, handfuls of them in the Hotel +de Ville standing around waiting in a roar of noise and a bright blaze +of burning houses--waiting till the shelling fades away.[C] + +Then for over twelve months they held wrecked Nieuport, and I have +watched them there week after week. There is no drearier post on earth. +One day in the pile of masonry thirty feet from our cellar refuge the +sailors began throwing out the bricks, and in a few minutes they +uncovered the body of a comrade. All the village has the smell of +desolation. That smell is compounded of green ditch-water, damp plaster, +wet clothing, blood, straw, and antiseptics. The nose took it as we +crossed the canal, and held it till we shook ourselves on the run home. +Thirty minutes a day in that soggy wreck pulled at my spirits for hours +afterward. But those chaps stood up to it for twenty-four hours a day, +lifting a cheery face from a stinking cellar, hopping about in the +tangle, sleeping quietly when their "night off" comes. As our chauffeur +drew his camera, one of them sprang into a bush entanglement, aimed his +rifle, and posed. + +I recollect an afternoon when we had word of an attack. We were grave, +because the Germans are strong and fearless. + +"Are they coming?" grinned a sailor. "Let them come. We are ready." + +We learned to know many of the Fusiliers Marins and to grow fond of +them. How else could it be when we went and got them, sick and wounded, +dying and dead, two, six, ten of them a day, for many weeks, and brought +them in to the Red Cross post for a dressing, and then on to the +hospital? I remember a young man in our ambulance. His right foot was +shot away, and the leg above was wounded. He lay unmurmuring for all the +tossing of the road over the long miles of the ride. We lifted him from +the stretcher, which he had wet with his blood, into the white cot in +"Hall 15" of Zuydcoote Hospital. The wound and the journey had gone +deeply into his vitality. As he touched the bed, his control ebbed, and +he became violently sick at the stomach. I stooped to carry back the +empty stretcher. He saw I was going away, and said, "Thank you." I knew +I should not see him again, not even if I came early next day. + +There is one unfading impression made on me by those wounded. If I call +it good nature, I have given only one element in it. It is more than +that: it is a dash of fun. They smile, they wink, they accept a light +for their cigarette. It is not stoicism at all. Stoicism is a grim +holding on, the jaws clenched, the spirit dark, but enduring. This is a +thing of wings. They will know I am not making light of their pain in +writing these words. I am only saying that they make light of it. The +judgment of men who are soon to die is like the judgment of little +children. It does not tolerate foolish words. Of all the ways of showing +you care that they suffer there is nothing half so good as the gift of +tobacco. As long as I had any money to spend, I spent it on packages of +cigarettes. + +[Illustration: SAILORS LIFTING A WOUNDED COMRADE INTO THE +MOTOR-AMBULANCE.] + +When the Marin officers found out we were the same people that had +worked with them at Melle five months before, they invited my wife and +three other nurses to luncheon in a Nieuport cellar. Their eye brightens +at sight of a woman, but she is as safe with them as with a cowboy or a +Quaker. The guests were led down into a basement, an eighteen foot room, +six feet high. The sailors had covered the floor and papered the walls +with red carpet. A tiny oil stove added to the warmth of that blazing +carpet. More than twenty officers and doctors crowded into the room, and +took seats at the table, lighted by two lamps. There were a dozen plates +of _patisserie_, a choice of tea, coffee, or chocolate, all hot, white +and red wine, and then champagne. An orderly lifted in a little wooden +yacht, bark-rigged, fourteen inches long, with white painted sails. A +nurse spilled champagne over the tiny ship, till it was drenched, and +christened. The chief doctor made a speech of thanks. Then the ship went +around the table, and each guest wrote her name on the sails. The party +climbed out into the garden, where the shells were going high overhead +like snowballs. In amongst the blackened flowers, a 16-inch shell had +left a hole of fifty feet diameter. One could have dropped two motor +cars into the cavity. + +Who but Marins would have devised a celebration for us on July 4? The +commandant, the captain, and a brace of lieutenants opened eleven +bottles of champagne in the Cafe du Sport at Coxyde in honor of our +violation of neutrality. It was little enough we were doing for those +men, but they were moved to graceful speech. We were hard put to it, +because one had to tell them that much of the giving for a hundred years +had been from France to us, and our showing in this war is hardly the +equal of the aid they sent us when we were invaded by Hessian troops and +a German king. + +Marins whom we know have the swift gratitude of simple natures, not too +highly civilized to show when they are pleased. After we had sent a +batch of their wounded by hospital train from Adinkerke, the two +sailors, who had helped us, invited my American friend and me into the +_estaminet_ across the road from the station, and bought us drinks for +an hour. We had been good to their mates, so they wanted to be good to +us. + +When we lived in barraquement, just back of the admiral's house, our +cook was a Marin with a knack at omelettes. If we had to work through +the night, going into black Nieuport, and down the ten-mile road to +Zuydcoote, returning weary at midnight, a brave supper was laid out for +us of canned meats, wines, and jellies--all set with the touch of one +who cared. It was no hasty, slapped-down affair. We were carrying his +comrades, and he was helping us to do it. + +It was an officer of a quite other regiment who, one time when we were +off duty, asked us to carry him to his post in the Dunes. We made the +run for him, and, as he jumped from the car, he offered us a franc. +Marins pay back in friendship. The Red Cross station to which we +reported, Poste de Secours des Marins, was conducted by Monsieur le +Docteur Rolland, and Monsieur Le Doze. Our workers were standing guests +at their officers' mess. The little sawed-off sailor in the Villa Marie +where I was billetted made coffee for two of us each morning. + +Our friends have the faults of young men, flushed with life. They are +scornful of feeble folk, of men who grow tired, who think twice before +dying. They laugh at middle age. The sentries amuse them, the elderly +chaps who duck into their caves when a few shells are sailing overhead. +They have no charity for frail nerves. They hate races who don't rally +to a man when the enemy is hitting the trail. They must wait for age to +gain pity, and the Bretons will never grow old. They are killed too +fast. And yet, as soon as I say that, I remember their rough pity for +their hurt comrades. They are as busy as a hospital nurse in laying a +blanket and swinging the stretcher for one of their own who has been +"pinked." They have a hovering concern. I have had twenty come to the +ambulance to help shove in a "blesse," and say good-by to him, and wave +to him as long as the road left him in their sight. The wounded man, +unless his back bound him down, would lift his head from the stretcher, +to give back their greetings. It was an eager exchange between the whole +men and the injured one. They don't believe they can be broken till the +thing comes, and there is curiosity to see just what has befallen one +like themselves. + +When it came my time to say good-by, my sailor friend, who had often +stopped by my car to tell me that all was going well, ran over to share +in the excitement. I told him I was leaving, and he gave me a smile of +deep-understanding amusement. Tired so soon? That smile carried a live +consciousness of untapped power, of the record he and his comrades had +made. It showed a disregard of my personal feelings, of all adult human +weakness. That was the picture I carried away from the Nieuport +line--the smiling boy with his wounded arm, alert after his year of war, +and more than a little scornful of one who had grown weary in conditions +so prosperous for young men. + +I rode away from him, past the Coxyde encampment of his comrades. There +they were as I had often seen them, with the peddlers cluttering their +camp--candy men, banana women; a fringe of basket merchants about their +grim barracks; a dozen peasants squatting with baskets of cigarettes, +fruit, vegetables, foolish, bright trinkets. And over them bent the +boys, dozens of them in blue blouses, stooping down to pick up trays, +fingering red apples and shining charms, chaffing, dickering, shoving +one another, the old loves of their childhood still tangled in their +being. + +So when I am talking about the sailors as if they were heroes, suddenly +something gay comes romping in. I see them again, as I have so often +seen them in the dunes of Flanders, and what I see is a race of +children. + +"Don't forget we are only little ones," they say. "We don't die; we are +just at play." + + + + +"ENCHANTED CIGARETTES" + + +Where does the comfort of the trenches lie? What solace do the soldiers +find for a weary life of unemployment and for sudden death? Of course, +they find it in the age-old things that have always sufficed, or, if +these things do not here altogether suffice, at least they help. For a +certain few out of every hundred men, religion avails. Some of our dying +men were glad of the last rites. Some wore their Catholic emblems. The +quiet devout men continued faithful as they had been at home. Art is +playing the true part it plays at all times of fundamental need. The men +busy themselves with music, with carving, and drawing. Security and +luxury destroy art, for it is no longer a necessity when a man is +stuffed with foods, and his fat body whirled in hot compartments from +point to point of a tame world. But when he tumbles in from a gusty +night out of a trenchful of mud, with the patter from slivers of shell, +then he turns to song and color, odd tricks with the knife, and the +tales of an ancient adventure. After our group had brought food and +clothing to a regiment, I remember the pride with which one of the +privates presented to our head nurse a sculptured group, done in mud of +the Yser. + +But the greatest thing in the world to soldiers is plain comradeship. +That is where they take their comfort. And the expression of that +comradeship is most often found in the social smoke. The meager +happiness of fighting-men is more closely interwoven with tobacco than +with any other single thing. To rob them of that would be to leave them +poor indeed. It would reduce their morale. It would depress their cheery +patience. The wonder of tobacco is that it fits itself to each one of +several needs. It is the medium by which the average man maintains +normality at an abnormal time. It is a device to soothe jumping nerves, +to deaden pain, to chase away brooding. Tobacco connects a man with the +human race, and his own past life. It gives him a little thing to do in +a big danger, in seeping loneliness, and the grip of sharp pain. It +brings back his cafe evenings, when black horror is reaching out for +him. + +If you have weathered around the world a bit, you know how everywhere +strange situations turn into places for plain men to feel at home. +Sailors on a Nova Scotia freight schooner, five days out, sit around in +the evening glow and take a pipe and a chat with the same homely +accustomedness, as if they were at a tavern. It is so in the jungle and +at a lumber camp. Now, that is what the millions of average men have +done to war. They have taken a raw, disordered, muddied, horrible thing, +and given it a monotony and regularity of its own. They have smoked away +its fighting tension, its hideous expectancy. They refuse to let +mangling and murder put crimps in their spirit. Apparently there is +nothing hellish enough to flatten the human spirit. Not all the +sprinkled shells and caravans of bleeding victims can cow the boys of +the front line. In this work of lifting clear of horror, tobacco has +been a friend to the soldiers of the Great War. + +"I wouldn't know a good cigarette if I saw it," said Geoffrey Gilling, +after a year of ambulance work at Fumes and Coxyde. He had given up all +that makes the life of an upper-class Englishman pleasant, and I think +that the deprivation of high-grade smoking material was a severe item in +his sacrifice. + +Four of us in Red Cross work spent weary hours each day in a filthy room +in a noisy wine-shop, waiting for fresh trouble to break loose. The +dreariness of it made B---- petulant and T---- mournfully silent, and +finally left me melancholy. But sturdy Andrew MacEwan, the Scotchman +with the forty-inch barrel chest, would reach out for his big can of +naval tobacco, slipped to him by the sailors at Dunkirk when the +commissariat officer wasn't looking, and would light his short stocky +pipe, shaped very much like himself, and then we were all off together +on a jaunt around the world. He had driven nearly all known "makes" of +motor-car over most of the map, apparently about one car to each +country. Twelve months of bad roads in a shelled district had left him +full of talk, as soon as he was well lit. + +Up at Nieuport, last northern stand of the Allied line, a walking +merchant would call each day, a basket around his throat, and in the +hamper chocolate, fruit, and tobacco. A muddy, unshaven Brittany +sailor, out of his few sous a week, bought us cigars. The less men have, +the more generous they are. That is an old saying, but it drove home to +me when I had poor men do me courtesy day by day for five months. As we +motored in and out of Nieuport in the dark of the night, we passed +hundreds of silent men trudging through the mud of the gutter. They were +troops that had been relieved who were marching back for a rest. As soon +as they came out of the zone where no sound can be made and no light +shown, we saw here and there down the invisible ranks the sudden flare +of a match, and then the glow in the cup of the hand, as the man +prepared to cheer himself. + +A more somber and lonely watch even than that of these French sailors +was the vigil kept by our good Belgian friend, Commandant Gilson, in the +shattered village of Pervyse. With his old Maltese cat, he prowled +through the wrecked place till two and three of the morning, waiting for +Germans to cross the flooded fields. For him cigarettes were an endless +chain that went through his life. From the expiring stub he lit his +fresh smoke, as if he were maintaining a vestal flame. He kept puffing +till the live butt singed his upturned mustache. He squinted his eyes to +escape the ascending smoke. + +Always the cigarette for him and for the other men. Our cellar of nurses +in Pervyse kept a stock of pipes and of cigarettes ready for tired +soldiers off duty. The pipes remained as intact as a collection in a +museum. The cigarettes never equaled the demand. We once took out a +carful of supplies to 300 Belgian soldiers. We gave them their choice of +cigarettes or smoking tobacco, and about 250 of them selected +cigarettes. That barrack vote gives the popularity of the cigarette +among men of French blood. Some cigars, some pipes, but everywhere the +shorter smoke. Tobacco and pipe exhaust precious pocket room. The +cigarette is portable. Cigars break and peel in the kneading motion of +walking and crouching. But the cigarette is protected in its little box. +And yet, rather than lose a smoke, a soldier will carry one lonesome +cigarette, rained on and limp and fraying at the end, drag it from the +depths of a kit, dry it out, and have a go. For, after all, it isn't +for theoretical advantages over larger, longer smokes he likes it, but +because it is fitted to his temperament. It is a French and Belgian +smoke, short-lived and of a light touch, as dear to memory and liking as +the wines of La Champagne. + +Twice, in dramatic setting, I have seen tobacco intervene to give men a +release from overstrained nerves. Once it was at a skirmish. Behind a +street defense, crouched thirty Belgian soldiers. Shrapnel began to +burst over us, and the bullets tumbled on the cobbles. With each puff of +the shrapnel, like a paper bag exploding, releasing a handful of white +smoke, the men flattened against the walls and dove into the open doors. +The sound of shrapnel is the same sound as hailstones, a crisp crackle +as they strike and bounce. We ran and picked them up. They were blunted +by smiting on the paving. Any one of them would have plowed into soft +flesh and found the bone and shattered it. They seem harmless because +they make so little noise. They don't scream and wail and thunder. Our +guns, back on the hillocks of the Ghent road, grew louder and more +frequent. Each minute now was cut into by a roar, or a fainter rumble. +The battle was on. Our barricaded street was a pocket in the storm, like +the center of a typhoon. + +Yonder we could see the canal, fifty feet away, at the foot of our +street. On the farther side behind the river front houses lay the +Germans, ready to sally out and charge. It would be all right if they +came quickly. But a few hours of waiting for them on an empty stomach, +and having them disappoint us, was wearing. We wished they would hurry +and have it over with, or else go away for good. Civilians stumbling and +bleeding went past us. + +And that was how the morning went by, heavy footed, unrelieved, with a +sense of waiting for a sudden crash and horror. It was peaceful, in a +way, but, at the heart of the calm, a menace. So we overlaid the tension +with casual petty acts. We made an informal pool of our resources in +tobacco, each man sharing with his neighbor, till nearly every one of us +was puffing away, and deciding there was nothing to this German attack, +after all. A smoke makes just the difference between sticking it out or +acting the coward's part. + +Each one of us in a lifetime has a day of days, when external event is +lively, and our inner mood dances to the tune. Some of us will perhaps +always feel that we spent our day on October 21, 1914. For we were +allowed to go into a town that fell in that one afternoon and to come +out again alive. It was the afternoon when Dixmude was leveled from a +fair upstanding city to a heap of scorched brick and crumbled plaster. +The enemy guns from over the Yser were accurate on its houses. + +We received our first taste of the dread to come, while we were yet a +little way out. In the road ahead of us, a shell had just splashed an +artillery convoy. Four horses, the driver, and the splintered wood of +the wagon were all worked together into one pulp, so that our car +skidded on it. We entered the falling town of Dixmude. It was a thick +mess into which we rode, with hot smoke and fine masonry dust blowing +into the eyes. Houses around us crumpled up at one blast, and then shot +a thick brown cloud of dust, and out of the cloud a high central flame +that leaped and spread. With the wailing of shells in the air, every +few seconds, the thud and thunder of their impact, the scattering of the +shattered metal, it was one of the hot, thorough bombardments of the +war. It cleared the town of troops, after tearing their ranks. But it +left wounded men in the cellar of the Hotel de Ville. The Grand Place +and the Hotel were the center of the fire. Here we had to wait fifteen +minutes, while the wounded were made ready for our two cars. It was then +we turned to tobacco as to a friend. I remember the easement that came +when I found I had cigars in my waistcoat pocket. The act of lighting a +cigar, and pulling at it briskly, was a relief. + +There was a second of time when we could hear a shell, about to burst +close, before it struck. It came, sharpening its nose on the air, making +a shrill whistle with a moan in it, that gathered volume as it neared. +There was a menace in the sound. It seemed to approach in a vast +enveloping mass that can't be escaped, filling all out-doors, and sure +to find you. It was as if the all-including sound were the missile +itself, with no hiding place offered. And yet the shell is generally a +little three-or-four inch thing, like a flower-pot, hurtling through +the scenery. But bruised nerves refuse to listen to reason, and again +and again I ducked as I heard that high wail, believing I was about to +be struck. + +[Illustration: DOOR CHALKED BY THE GERMANS. + +One of the 100 houses in Termonde with the direction "Do not Burn" +written in German. One thousand one hundred houses were burned, house by +house. Photograph by Radclyffe Dugmore.] + +In that second of tension, it was a pleasant thing to draw in on a +butt--to discharge the smoke, a second later, carelessly, as who should +say, "It is nothing." The little cylinder was a lightning conductor to +lead away the danger from a vital part. It let the nervousness leak off +into biting and puffing, and making a play of fingering the stub, +instead of striking into the stomach and the courage. It gave the +troubled face something to do, and let the writhing hand busy itself. It +saved me from knowing just how frightened I was. + +But what of the wounded themselves? They have to endure all that +dreariness of long waiting, and the pressure of danger, and then, for +good measure, a burden of pain. So I come to the men who are revealing +human nature at a higher pitch than any others in the war. The +trench-digging, elderly chaps are patient and long-enduring, and the +fighting men are as gallant as any the ballad-mongers used to rime +about. + +But it is of the wounded that one would like to speak in a way to win +respect for them rather than pity. I think some American observers have +missed the truth about the wounded. They have told of the groaning and +screaming, the heavy smells, the delays and neglect. It is a picture of +vivid horror. But the final impression left on me by caring for many +hundred wounded men is that of their patience and cheeriness. I think +they would resent having a sordid pen picture made of their suffering +and letting it go at that. After all, it is their wound: they suffered +it for a purpose, and they conquer their bodily pain by will power and +the Gallic touch of humor. Suffering borne nobly merits something more +than an emphasis on the blood and the moan. To speak of these wounded +men as of a heap of futile misery is like missing the worthiness of +motherhood in the details of obstetrics. + +It was thought we moderns had gone soft, but it seems we were storing up +reserves of stoic strength and courage. This war has drawn on them more +heavily than any former test, and they have met all its demands. +Sometimes, being tired, I would drop my corner of the stretcher, a few +inches suddenly. This would draw a quick intake of the breath from the +hurt man and an "aahh"--but not once a word of blame. I should want to +curse the careless hand that wrenched my wound, but these soldiers of +France and Belgium whom I carried had passed beyond littleness. + +Once we had a French Zouave officer on the stretcher. He was wounded in +the right arm and the stomach. Every careen of the ambulance over cobble +and into shell-hole was a thrust into his hurt. We had to carry him all +the way from the Nieuport cellar to Zuydcoote Hospital, ten miles. The +driver was one more of the American young men who have gone over into +France to pay back a little of what we owe her. I want to give his name, +Robert Cardell Toms, because it is good for us to know that we have +brave and tender gentlemen. On this long haul, as always, he drove with +extreme care, changing his speed without the staccato jerk, avoiding +bumps and holes of the trying road. When we reached the hospital, he +ran ahead into the ward to prepare the bed. The officer beckoned me to +him. He spoke with some difficulty, as the effort caught him in the +wound of his stomach. + +"Please be good enough," he said, "to give my thanks to the chauffeur. +He has driven me down with much consideration. He cares for wounded +men." + +Where other races are grateful and inarticulate, the French are able to +put into speech the last fine touch of feeling. + +My friend kept a supply of cigarettes for his ambulance cases, and as +soon as the hour-long drive began we dealt them out to the bandaged men. +How often we have started with a groaning man for the ride to Zuydcoote, +and how well the trip went, when we had lighted his cigarette for him. +It brought back a little of the conversation and the merriment which it +had called out in better days. It is such a relief to be wounded. You +have done your duty, and now you are to have a little rest. With a clear +conscience, you can sink back into laziness, far away from noise and +filth. Luck has come along and pulled the pack off your back, and the +responsibility from your sick mind. No weary city clerk ever went to his +seashore holiday with more blitheness than some of our wounded showed as +they came riding in from the Nieuport trenches at full length on the +stretcher, and singing all the way. What is a splintered forehead or a +damaged leg compared to the happiness of an honorable discharge? Nothing +to do for a month but lie quietly, and watch the wholesome, clean-clad +nurse. I am not forgetting the sadness of many men, nor the men hurt to +death, who lay motionless and did not sing, and some of whom died while +we were on the road to help. I am only trying to tell of the one man in +every four who was glad of his enforced rest, and who didn't let a +little thing like agony conquer his gaiety. Those men were the Joyous +Wounded. I have seldom seen men more light hearted. + +Word came to my wife one day that several hundred wounded were +side-tracked at Furnes railway station. With two nurses she hurried to +them, carrying hot soup. The women went through the train, feeding the +soldiers, giving them a drink of cold water, and bringing some of them +hot water for washing. Then, being fed, they were ready for a smoke, and +my wife began walking down the foul-smelling ambulance car with boxes of +supplies, letting each man take out a cigarette and a match. The car was +slung with double layers of stretcher bunks. Some men were freshly +wounded, others were convalescent. A few lay in a stupor. She provided +ten or a dozen soldiers with their pleasure, and they lighted up and +were well under way. She had so many patients that day that she was not +watching the individual man in her general distribution. She came half +way down the car, and held out her store to a soldier without looking at +him. He glanced up and grinned. The men in the bunks around him laughed +heartily. Then she looked down at him. He was flapping the two stumps of +his arms and was smiling. His hands had been blown off. She put the +cigarette in his mouth and lit it for him. Only his hands were gone. +Comradeship was left for him, and here was the lighted cigarette +expressing that comradeship. + + + + +WAS IT REAL? + + +The man was an old-time friend. In the days of our youth, we had often +worked together. He was small and nervous, with a quick eye. He always +wore me down after a few hours, because he was restless and untiring. He +was named Romeyn Rossiter--one of those well-born names. We had met in +times before the advent of the telescopic lens, and he used a box +camera, tuned to a fiftieth of a second. Together we snapped polo +ponies, coming at full tilt after the ball, riding each other off, while +he would stand between the goal-posts, as they zigzagged down on him. I +had to shove him out of the way, at the last tick, when the hoofs were +loud. I often wondered if those ponies didn't look suddenly large and +imminent on the little glass rectangle into which he was peering. That +was the kind of person he was. He was glued to his work. He was a +curious man, because that nerve of fear, which is well developed in most +of us, was left out of his make-up. No credit to him. It merely wasn't +there. He was color-blind to danger. He had spent his life everywhere by +bits, so he had the languages. I used to admire that in him, the way he +could career along with a Frenchman, and exchange talk with a German +waiter: high speed, and a kind of racy quality. + +I used to write the text around his pictures, captions underneath them, +and then words spilled out over the white paper between his six by tens. +We published in the country life magazines. They gave generous big +display pages. In those days people used to read what I wrote, because +they wanted to find out about the pictures, and the pictures were fine. +You must have seen Rossiter's work--caribou, beavers, Walter Travis +coming through with a stroke, and Holcombe Ward giving a twist delivery. +We had the field to ourselves for two or three years, before the other +fellows caught the idea, and broke our partnership. I turned to +literature, and he began drifting around the world for long shots. He'd +be gone six months, and then turn up with big game night pictures out of +Africa--a lion drinking under a tropical moon. Two more years, and I +had lost him entirely. But I knew we should meet. He was one of those +chaps that, once in your life, is like the _motif_ in an opera, or like +the high-class story, which starts with an insignificant loose brick on +a coping and ends with that brick smiting the hero's head. + +It was London where I ran into him at last. + +"Happy days?" I said, with a rising inflection. + +"So, so," he answered. + +He was doing the free-lance game. He had drifted over to England with +his $750 moving-picture machine to see what he could harvest with a +quiet eye, and they had rung in the war on him. He wasn't going to be +happy till he could get the boys in action. Would I go to Belgium with +him? I would. + +Next day, we took the Channel ferry from Dover to Ostend, went by train +to Ghent, and trudged out on foot to the battle of Alost. + +Those were the early days of the war when you could go anywhere, if you +did it nicely. The Belgians are a friendly people. They can't bear to +say No, and if they saw a hard-working man come along with his eye on +his job, they didn't like to turn him back, even if he was mussing up an +infantry formation or exposing a trench. They'd rather share the risk, +as long as it brought him in returns. + +When we footed it out that morning, we didn't know we were in for one of +the Famous Days of history. You never can tell in this war. Sometimes +you'll trot out to the front, all keyed up, and then sit around among +the "Set-Sanks" for a month playing pinochle, and watching the flies +chase each other across the marmalade. And then a sultry dull day will +suddenly show you things.... + +Out from the Grand Place of Alost radiate narrow little streets that run +down to the canal, like spokes of a wheel. Each little street had its +earthworks and group of defenders. Out over the canal stretched +footbridges, and these were thickly sown with barbed wire. + +"Great luck," said Rossiter. "They're making an old-time barricade. It's +as good as the days of the Commune. Do you remember your street-fighting +in Les Miserables?" + +"I surely do," I replied. "Breast high earthworks, and the 'citizens' +crouched behind under the rattle of bullets." + +"This is going to be good," he went on in high enthusiasm. The soldiers +were rolling heavy barrels to the gutter, and knocking off the heads. +The barrels were packed with fish, about six inches long, with scales +that went blue and white in the fresh morning light. The fish slithered +over the cobbles, and the soldiers stumbled on their slippery bodies. +They set the barrels on end, side by side, and heaped the cracks between +and the face with sods of earth, thick-packed clods, with grass growing. +The grass was bright green, unwilted. A couple of peasant hand-carts +were tilted on end, and the flooring sodded like the barrels. + +"Look who's coming," pointed Rossiter, swiveling his lens sharply +around. + +Steaming gently into our narrow street from the Grand Place came a great +Sava mitrailleuse--big steel turret, painted lead blue, three men +sitting behind the swinging turret. One of the men, taller by a head +than his fellows, had a white rag bound round his head, where a bullet +had clipped off a piece of his forehead the week before. His face was +set and pale. Sitting on high, in the grim machine, with his bandage +worn as a plume, he looked like the presiding spirit of the fracas. + +"It's worth the trip," muttered Romeyn, grinding away on his crank. + +There was something silent and efficient in the look of the big man and +the big car, with its slim-waisted, bright brass gun shoving through. + +"Here, have a cigarette," said Rossiter, as the powerful thing glided +by. + +He passed up a box to the three gunners. + +"_Bonne chance_," said the big man, as he puffed out rings and fondled +the trim bronze body of his Lady of Death. They let the car slide down +the street to the left end of the barricade, where it came to rest. + +Over the canal, out from the smoke-misted houses, came a peasant +running. In his arms he carried a little girl. Her hair was light as +flax, and crested with a knot of very bright red ribbon. Hair and gay +ribbon caught the eye, as soon as they were borne out of the doomed +houses. The father carried the little one to the bridge at the foot of +our street, and began crossing towards us. The barbed wire looked angry +in the morning sun. He had to weave his way patiently, with the child +held flat to his shoulder. Any hasty motion would have torn her face on +the barbs. Shrapnel was sailing high overhead between the two forces, +and there, thirty feet under the crossfire, this man and his child +squirmed their way through the barrier. They won through, and were +lifted over the barricade. As the father went stumbling past me, I +looked into the face of the girl. Her eyes were tightly closed. She +nestled contentedly. + +"Did you get it, man? Did you get it?" I asked Rossiter. + +"Too far," he replied, mournfully, "only a dot at that distance." + +Now, all the parts had fitted into the pattern, the gay green grass +growing out of the stacked barrels and carts, and the sullen, silent, +waiting mitrailleuse which can spit death in a wide swathe as it +revolves from side to side, like the full stroke of a scythe on nodding +daisies. The bark of it is as alarming as its bite--an incredibly rapid +rat-tat that makes men fall on their faces when they hear, like +worshipers at the bell of the Transubstantiation. + +"She talks three hundred words to the minute," said Romeyn to me. + +"How are you coming?" I asked. + +"Great," he answered, "great stuff. Now, if only something happens." + +He had planted his tripod fifty feet back of the barricade, plumb +against a red-brick, three-story house, so that the lens raked the +street and its defenses diagonally. Thirty minutes we waited, with shell +fire far to the right of us, falling into the center of the town with a +rumble, like a train of cars heard in the night, when one is half +asleep. That was the sense of things to me, as I stood in the street, +waiting for hell to blow off its lid. It was a dream world, and I was +the dreamer, in the center of the strange unfolding sight, seeing it all +out of a muffled consciousness. + +Another quarter hour, and Rossiter began to fidget. + +"Do you call this a battle?" he asked. + +"The liveliest thing in a month," replied the lieutenant. + +"We've got to brisk it up," Rossiter said. "Now, I tell you what we'll +do. Let's have a battle that looks something like. These real things +haven't got speed enough for a five-cent house." + +In a moment, all was action. Those amazing Belgians, as responsive as +children in a game, fell to furiously to create confusion and swift +event out of the trance of peace. The battered giant in the Sava +released a cloud of steam from his car. The men aimed their rifles in +swift staccato. The lieutenant dashed back and forth from curb to curb, +plunging to the barricade, and then to the half dozen boys who were +falling back, crouching on one knee, firing, and then retreating. He +cheered them with pats on the shoulder, pointed out new unsuspected +enemies. Then, man by man, the thirty perspiring fighters began to +tumble. They fell forward on their faces, lay stricken on their backs, +heaved against the walls of houses, wherever the deadly fire had caught +them. The street was littered with Belgian bodies. There stood Rossiter +grinding away on his handle, snickering green-clad Belgians lying strewn +on the cobbles, a half dozen of them tense and set behind the barricade, +leveling rifles at the piles of fish. Every one was laughing, and all of +them intent on working out a picture with thrills. + +The enemy guns had been growing menacing, but Rossiter and the Belgians +were very busy. + +"The shells are dropping just back of us," I called to him. + +"Good, good," he said, "but I haven't time for them just yet. They must +wait. You can't crowd a film." + +Ten minutes passed. + +"It is immense," began he, wiping his face and lighting a smoke, and +turning his handle. "Gentlemen, I thank you." + +"Gentlemen, we thank you," I said. + +"There's been nothing like it," he went on. "Those Liege pictures of +Wilson's at the Hippodrome were tame." + +He'd got it all in, and was wasting a few feet for good measure. +Sometimes you need a fringe in order to bring out the big minute in your +action. + +[Illustration: STREET FIGHTING IN ALOST. + +This is part of the motion-picture which we took while the Germans were +bombarding the town.] + +Suddenly, we heard the wailing overhead and louder than any of the other +shells. Louder meant closer. It lasted a second of time, and then +crashed into the second story of the red house, six feet over Rossiter's +head. A shower of brown brick dust, and a puff of gray-black smoke +settled down over the machine and man, and blotted him out of sight for +a couple of seconds. Then we all coughed and spat, and the air cleared. +The tripod had careened in the fierce rush of air, but Rossiter had +caught it and was righting it. He went on turning. His face was streaked +with black, and his clothes were brown with dust. + +"Trying to get the smoke," he called, "but I'm afraid it won't +register." + +Maybe you want to know how that film took. We hustled it back to London, +and it went with a whizz. One hundred and twenty-six picture houses +produced "STREET FIGHTING IN ALOST." The daily illustrated +papers ran it front page. The only criticism of it that I heard was +another movie man, who was sore--a chap named Wilson. + +"That picture is faked," he asserted. + +"I'll bet you," I retorted, "that picture was taken under shell fire +during the bombardment of Alost. That barricade is the straight goods. +The fellow that took it was shot full of gas while he was taking it. +What's your idea of the real thing?" + +"That's all right," he said; "the ruins are good, and the smoke is +there. But I've seen that reel three times, and every time the dead man +in the gutter laughed." + + + + +"CHANTONS, BELGES! CHANTONS!" + + +Here at home I am in a land where the wholesale martyrdom of Belgium is +regarded as of doubtful authenticity. We who have witnessed widespread +atrocities are subjected to a critical process as cold as if we were +advancing a new program of social reform. I begin to wonder if anything +took place in Flanders. Isn't the wreck of Termonde, where I thought I +spent two days, perhaps a figment of the fancy? Was the bayoneted girl +child of Alost a pleasant dream creation? My people are busy and +indifferent, generous and neutral, but yonder several races are living +at a deeper level. In a time when beliefs are held lightly, with tricky +words tearing at old values, they have recovered the ancient faiths of +the race. Their lot, with all its pain, is choicer than ours. They at +least have felt greatly and thrown themselves into action. It is a stern +fight that is on in Europe, and few of our countrymen realize it is our +fight that the Allies are making. + +Europe has made an old discovery. The Greek Anthology has it, and the +ballads, but our busy little merchants and our clever talkers have never +known it. The best discovery a man can make is that there is something +inside him bigger than his fear, a belief in something more lasting than +his individual life. When he discovers that, he knows he, too, is a man. +It is as real for him as the experience of motherhood for a woman. He +comes out of it with self-respect and gladness. + +The Belgians were a soft people, pleasure-loving little chaps, social +and cheery, fond of comfort and the cafe brightness. They lacked the +intensity of blood of unmixed single strains. They were cosmopolitan, +often with a command over three languages and snatches of several +dialects. They were easy in their likes. They "made friends" lightly. +They did not have the reserve of the English, the spiritual pride of the +Germans. Some of them have German blood, some French, some Dutch. Part +of the race is gay and volatile, many are heavy and inarticulate; it is +a mixed race of which any iron-clad generalization is false. But I have +seen many thousands of them under crisis, seen them hungry, dying, men +from every class and every region; and the mass impression is that they +are affectionate, easy to blend with, open-handed, trusting. + +This kindly, haphazard, unformed folk were suddenly lifted to a national +self-sacrifice. By one act of defiance Albert made Belgium a nation. It +had been a mixed race of many tongues, selling itself little by little, +all unconsciously, to the German bondage. I saw the marks of this +spiritual invasion on the inner life of the Belgians--marks of a +destruction more thorough than the shelling of a city. The ruins of +Termonde are only the outward and visible sign of what Germany has +attempted on Belgium for more than a generation. + +Perhaps it was better that people should perish by the villageful in +honest physical death through the agony of the bayonet and the flame +than that they should go on bartering away their nationality by +piece-meal. Who knows but Albert saw in his silent heart that the only +thing to weld his people together, honeycombed as they were, was the +shedding of blood? Perhaps nothing short of a supreme sacrifice, +amounting to a martyrdom, could restore a people so tangled in German +intrigue, so netted into an ever-encroaching system of commerce, +carrying with it a habit of thought and a mouthful of guttural phrases. +Let no one underestimate that power of language. If the idiom has passed +into one, it has brought with it molds of thought, leanings of sympathy. +Who that can even stumble through the "_Marchons! Marchons_!" of the +"Marseillaise" but is a sharer for a moment in the rush of glory that +every now and again has made France the light of the world? So, when the +German phrase rings out, "Was wir haben bleibt Deutsch"--"What we are +now holding by force of arms shall remain forever German"--there is an +answering thrill in the heart of every Antwerp clerk who for years has +been leaking Belgian government gossip into German ears in return for a +piece of money. Secret sin was eating away Belgium's vitality--the sin +of being bought by German money, bought in little ways, for small bits +of service, amiable passages destroying nationality. By one act of full +sacrifice Albert has cleared his people from a poison that might have +sapped them in a few more years without the firing of one gun. + +That sacrifice to which they are called is an utter one, of which they +have experienced only the prelude. I have seen this growing sadness of +Belgium almost from the beginning. I have seen thirty thousand refugees, +the inhabitants of Alost, come shuffling down the road past me. They +came by families, the father with a bag of clothes and bread, the mother +with a baby in arms, and one, two, or three children trotting along. +Aged women were walking, Sisters of Charity, religious brothers. A +cartful of stricken old women lay patiently at full length while the +wagon bumped on. They were so nearly drowned by suffering that one more +wave made little difference. All that was sad and helpless was dragged +that morning into the daylight. All that had been decently cared for in +quiet rooms was of a sudden tumbled out upon the pavement and jolted +along in farm-wagons past sixteen miles of curious eyes. But even with +the sick and the very old there was no lamentation. In this procession +of the dispossessed that passed us on the country road there was no one +crying, no one angry. + +I have seen 5000 of these refugees at night in the Halle des Fetes of +Ghent, huddled in the straw, their faces bleached white under the glare +of the huge municipal lights. On the wall, I read the names of the +children whose parents had been lost, and the names of the parents who +reported a lost baby, a boy, a girl, and sometimes all the children +lost. + +A little later came the time when the people learned their last +stronghold was tottering. I remember sitting at dinner in the home of +Monsieur Caron, a citizen of Ghent. I had spent that day in Antwerp, and +the soldiers had told me of the destruction of the outer rim of forts. +So I began to say to the dinner guests that the city was doomed. As I +spoke, I glanced at Madame Caron. Her eyes filled with tears. I turned +to another Belgian lady, and had to look away. Not a sound came from +them. + +[Illustration: BELGIAN OFFICER ON THE LAST STRIP OF HIS COUNTRY.] + +When the handful of British were sent to the rescue of Antwerp, we went +up the road with them. There was joy on the Antwerp road that day. +Little cottages fluttered flags at lintel and window. The sidewalks were +thronged with peasants, who believed they were now to be saved. We rode +in glory from Ghent to the outer works of Antwerp. Each village on all +the line turned out its full population to cheer us ecstatically. A +bitter month had passed, and now salvation had come. It is seldom in a +lifetime one is present at a perfect piece of irony like that of those +shouting Flemish peasants. + +As Antwerp was falling, a letter was given to me by a friend. It was +written by Aloysius Coen of the artillery, Fort St. Catherine Wavre, +Antwerp. He died in the bombardment, thirty-four years old. He wrote: + + Dear wife and children: + + At the moment that I am writing you this the enemy is before us, + and the moment has come for us to do our duty for our country. When + you will have received this I shall have changed the temporary life + for the eternal life. As I loved you all dearly, my last breath + will be directed toward you and my darling children, and with a + last smile as a farewell from my beloved family am I undertaking + the eternal journey. + + I hope, whatever may be your later call, you will take good care of + my dear children, and always keep them in mind of the straight + road, always ask them to pray for their father, who in sadness, + though doing his duty for his country, has had to leave them so + young. + + Say good-by for me to my dear brothers and sisters, from whom I + also carry with me a great love. + + Farewell, dear wife, children, and family. + + Your always remaining husband, father, and brother. + + ALOYS. + +Then Antwerp fell, and a people that had for the first time in memory +found itself an indivisible and self-conscious state broke into sullen +flight, and its merry, friendly army came heavy-footed down the road to +another country. Grieved and embittered, they served under new leaders +of another race. Those tired soldiers were like spirited children who +had been playing an exciting game which they thought would be applauded. +And suddenly the best turned out the worst. + + Sing, Belgians, sing, though our wounds are bleeding. + +writes the poet of Flanders; but the song is no earthly song. It is the +voice of a lost cause that cries out of the trampled dust as it +prepares to make its flight beyond the place of betrayal. + +For the Belgian soldiers no longer sang, or made merry in the evening. A +young Brussels corporal in our party suddenly broke into sobbing when he +heard the chorus of "Tipperary" float over the channel from a transport +of untried British lads. The Belgians are a race of children whose +feelings have been hurt. The pathos of the Belgian army is like the +pathos of an orphan-asylum: it is unconscious. + +They are very lonely, the loneliest men I have known. Back of the +fighting Frenchman, you sense the gardens and fields of France, the +strong, victorious national will. In a year, in two years, having made +his peace with honor, he will return to a happiness richer than any that +France has known in fifty years. And the Englishman carries with him to +the stresses of the first line an unbroken calm which he has inherited +from a thousand years of his island peace. His little moment of pain and +death cannot trouble that consciousness of the eternal process in which +his people have been permitted to play a continuing part. For him the +present turmoil is only a ripple on the vast sea of his racial history. +Behind the Tommy is his Devonshire village, still secure. His mother and +his wife are waiting for him, unmolested, as when he left them. But the +Belgian, schooled in horror, faces a fuller horror yet when the guns of +his friends are put on his bell-towers and birthplace, held by the +invaders. + +"My father and mother are inside the enemy lines," said a Belgian +officer to me as we were talking of the final victory. That is the +ever-present thought of an army of boys whose parents are living in +doomed houses back of German trenches. It is louder than the near guns, +the noise of the guns to come that will tear at Bruges and level the +Tower of St. Nicholas. That is what the future holds for the Belgian. He +is only at the beginning of his loss. The victory of his cause is the +death of his people. It is a sacrifice almost without a parallel. + +[Illustration: A BELGIAN BOY SOLDIER IN THE UNIFORM OF THE FIRST ARMY +WHICH SERVED AT LIEGE AND NAMUR. + +In the summer of 1915 this costume was exchanged for khaki (see page +148). The present Belgian Army is largely made up of boys like this.] + +And now a famous newspaper correspondent has returned to us from his +motor trips to the front and his conversations with officers to tell us +that he does not highly regard the fighting qualities of the +Belgians. I think that statement is not the full truth, and I do not +think it will be the estimate of history on the resistance of the +Belgians. If the resistance had been regarded by the Germans as +half-hearted, I do not believe their reprisals on villages and towns and +on the civilian population would have been so bitter. The burning and +the murder that I saw them commit throughout the month of September, +1914, was the answer to a resistance unexpectedly firm and telling. At a +skirmish in September, when fifteen hundred Belgians stood off three +thousand Germans for several hours, I counted more dead Germans than +dead Belgians. The German officer in whose hands we were as captives +asked us with great particularity as to how many Belgians he had killed +and wounded. While he was talking with us, his stretcher-bearers were +moving up and down the road for his own casualties. At Alost the street +fighting by Belgian troops behind fish-barrels, with sods of earth for +barricade, was so stubborn that the Germans felt it to be necessary to +mutilate civilian men, women, and children with the bayonet to express +in terms at all adequate their resentment. I am of course speaking of +what I know. Around Termonde, three times in September, the fighting of +Belgians was vigorous enough to induce the Germans on entering the town +to burn more than eleven hundred homes, house by house. If the Germans +throughout their army had not possessed a high opinion of Belgian +bravery and power of retardation, I doubt if they would have released so +widespread and unique a savagery. + +At Termonde, Alost, Baliere, and a dozen other points in the Ghent +sector, and, later, at Dixmude, Ramscappelle, Pervyse, Caeskerke, and +the rest of the line of the Yser, my sight of Belgians has been that of +troops as gallant as any. The cowards have been occasional, the brave +men many. I still have flashes of them as when I knew them. I saw a +Belgian officer ride across a field within rifle range of the enemy to +point out to us a market-cart in which lay three wounded. On his horse, +he was a high figure, well silhouetted. Another day, I met a Belgian +sergeant, with a tousled red head of hair, and with three medals for +valor on his left breast. He kept going out into the middle of the road +during the times when Germans were reported approaching, keeping his men +under cover. If there was risk to be taken, he wanted first chance. My +friend Dr. van der Ghinst, of Cabour Hospital, captain in the Belgian +army, remained three days in Dixmude under steady bombardment, caring +unaided for his wounded in the Hospital of St. Jean, just at the Yser, +and finally brought out thirty old men and women who had been frightened +into helplessness by the flames and noise. Because he was needed in that +direction, I saw him continue his walk past the point where fifty feet +ahead of him a shell had just exploded. I watched him walk erect where +even the renowned fighting men of an allied race were stooping and +hiding, because he held his life as nothing when there were wounded to +be rescued. I saw Lieutenant Robert de Broqueville, son of the prime +minister of Belgium, go into Dixmude on the afternoon when the town was +leveled by German guns. He remained there under one of the heaviest +bombardments of the war for three hours, picking up the wounded who lay +on curbs and in cellars and under debris. The troops had been ordered +to evacuate the town, and it was a lonely job that this youngster of +twenty-seven years carried on through that day. + +I have seen the Belgians every day for several months. I have seen +several skirmishes and battles and many days of shell-fire, and the +impression of watching many thousand Belgians in action is that of +excellent fighting qualities, starred with bits of sheer daring as +astonishing as that of the other races. With no country left to fight +for, homes either in ruin or soon to be shelled, relatives under an +alien rule, the home Government on a foreign soil, still this second +army, the first having been killed, fights on in good spirit. Every +morning of the summer I have passed boys between eighteen and +twenty-five, clad in fresh khaki, as they go riding down the poplar lane +from La Panne to the trenches, the first twenty with bright silver +bugles, their cheeks puffed and red with the blowing. Twelve months of +wounds and wastage, wet trenches and tinned food, and still they go out +with hope. + +[Illustration: BELGIANS IN THEIR NEW KHAKI UNIFORM. IN PRAISE OF WHICH +THEY WROTE A SONG. + +Albert's son, the Crown Prince Leopold, has been a common soldier in +this regiment.] + +And the helpers of the army have shown good heart. Breaking the silence +of Rome, the splendid priesthood of Belgium, from the cardinal to the +humblest cure, has played the man. On the front line near Pervyse, where +my wife lived for three months, a soldier-monk has remained through the +daily shell-fire to take artillery observations and to comfort the +fighting men. Just before leaving Flanders, I called on the sisters in +the convent school of Furnes. They were still cheery and busy in their +care of sick and wounded civilians. Every few days the Germans shell the +town from seven miles away, but the sisters will continue there through +the coming months as through the last year. The spirit of the best of +the race is spoken in what King Albert said recently in an unpublished +conversation to the gentlemen of the English mission: + +"The English will cease fighting before the Belgians. If there is talk +of yielding, it will come from the English, not from us." + +That was a playful way of saying that there will be no yielding by any +of the Western Allies. The truth is still as true as it was at Liege +that the Belgians held up the enemy till France was ready to receive +them. And the price Belgium paid for that resistance was the massacre +of women and children and the house-to-house burning of homes. + +Since rendering that service for all time to France and England, through +twenty months of such a life as exiles know, the Belgians have fought on +doggedly, recovering from the misery of the Antwerp retreat, and showing +a resilience of spirit equaled only by the Fusiliers Marins of France. +One afternoon in late June my friend Robert Toms was sitting on the +beach at La Panne, watching the soldiers swimming in the channel. +Suddenly he called to me, and aimed his camera. There on the sand in the +sunlight the Belgian army was changing its clothes. The faithful suits +of blue, rained on and trench-worn, were being tossed into great heaps +on the beach and brand-new yellow khaki, clothes and cap, was buckled +on. It was a transformation. We had learned to know that army, and their +uniform had grown familiar and pleasant to us. The dirt, ground in till +it became part of the texture; the worn cloth, shapeless, but yet molded +to the man by long association--all was an expression of the stocky +little soldier inside. The new khaki hung slack. Caps were overlarge for +Flemish heads. To us, watching the change, it was the loss of the last +possession that connected them with their past; with homes and country +gone, now the very clothing that had covered them through famous fights +was shuffled off. It was as if the Belgian army had been swallowed up in +the sea at our feet, like Pharaoh's phalanx, and up from the beach to +the barracks scuffled an imitation English corps. + +We went about miserable for a few days. But not they. They spattered +their limp, ill-fitting garments with jest, and soon they had produced a +poem in praise of the change. These are the verses which a Belgian +soldier, clad in his fresh yellow, sang to us as we grouped around him +on a sand dune: + + +EN KHAKI + + I + + Depuis onze mois que nous sommes partis en guerre, + A tous les militaires, + On a decide de plaire. + Aussi depuis ce temps la, a l'intendance c'est dit, + De nous mettr' tous en khaki. + Maint'nant voila l'beau temps qui vient d' paraitre + Aussi repetons tous le coeur en fete. + + REFRAIN + + Regardez nos p'tits soldats, + Ils ont l'air d'etre un peu la, + Habilles + D'la tete jusqu'aux pieds + En khaki, en khaki, + Ils sont contents de servir, + Mais non pas de mourir, + Et cela c'est parce qu' on leur a mis, + En quelque sorte, la t'nue khaki. + + II + + Maintenant sur toutes les grand's routes vous pouvez voir + Parcourant les trottoirs + Du matin jusqu'au soir + Les defenseurs Belges, portant tous la meme tenue + Depuis que l'ancienne a disparue, + Aussi quand on voit I'9e defiler + C' n'est plus regiment des panaches. + Meme Refrain. + + III + + Nous sommes tous heureux d'avoir le costume des Anglais + Seul'ment ce qu'il fallait, + Pour que ca soit complet. + Et je suis certain si l'armee veut nous mettre a l'aise + C'est d'nous donner la solde Anglaise. + Le jour qu'nous aurions ca, ah! quell' affaire + Nous n' serions plus jamais dans la misere. + + REFRAIN + + Vous les verriez nos p'tits soldats, + J'vous assure qu'ils seraient un peu la, + Habilles, + D'la tete jusqu'aux pieds, + En khaki, en khaki, + Ils seraient fiers de repartir, + Pour le front avec plaisir, + Si les quatre poches etaient bien games + De billets bleus couleur khaki. + + + + +FLIES: A FANTASY + + +Outside the window stretched the village street, flat, with bits of dust +and dung rising on the breaths of wind and volleying into rooms upon the +tablecloth and into pages of books. It was a street of small yellow +brick houses, a shapeless church, a convent school--freckled buildings, +dingy. Up and down the length of it, it was without one touch of beauty. +It gave back dust in the eyes. It sounded with thunder of transports, +rattle of wagons, soft whirr of officers' speed cars, yelp of motor +horns, and the tap-tap of wooden shoes on tiny peasants, boys and girls. +A little sick black dog slunk down the pavement, smelling and staring. A +cart bumped over the cobbles, the horse with a great tumor in its +stomach, the stomach as if blown out on the left side, and the tumor +with a rag upon it where it touched the harness. + +Inside the window, a square room with a litter of six-penny novels in a +corner, fifty or sixty books flung haphazard, some of them open with the +leaves crushed back by the books above. In another corner, a heap of +commissariat stuff, tins of bully beef, rabbit, sardines, herring, and +glasses of jam, and marmalade. On the center table, a large jug of +marmalade, ants busy in the yellow trickle at the rim. Filth had worked +its way into the red table-cover. Filth was on every object in the room, +like a soft mist, blurring the color and outlines of things. In the +corners, under books and tins, insects moved, long, thin, crawling. A +hot noon sun came dimly through the dirty glass of the closed window, +and slowly baked a sleeping man in the large plush armchair. Around the +chair, as if it were a promontory in a heaving sea, were billows of +stale crumpled newspapers, some wadded into a ball, others torn across +the page, all flung aside in _ennui_. + +The face of the man was weary and weak. It showed all of his forty-one +years, and revealed, too, a great emptiness. Flies kept rising and +settling again on the hands, the face, and the head of the man--moist +flies whose feet felt damp on the skin. They were slow and languid flies +which wanted to settle and stay. It was his breathing that made them +restless, but not enough to clear them away, only enough to make a low +buzzing in the sultry room. Across the top of his head a bald streak ran +from the forehead, and it was here they returned to alight, after each +twitching and heave of the sunken body. + +In the early months he had fought a losing fight with them. The walls +and ceiling and panes of glass were spotted with the marks of his long +battle. But his foes had advanced in ever-fresh force, clouds and swarms +of them beyond number. He had gone to meet them with a wire-killer, and +tightly rolled newspapers. He had imported fly paper from Dunkirk. But +they could afford to sacrifice the few hundreds, which his strokes could +reach, and still overwhelm him. Lately, he had given up the struggle, +and let them take possession of the room. They harassed him when he +read, so he gave up reading. They got into the food, so he ate less. +Between his two trips to the front daily at 8 A.M. and 2 +P.M., he slept. He found he could lose himself in sleep. Into +that kingdom of sleep, they could not enter. As the weeks rolled on, he +was able to let himself down more and more easily into silence. That +became his life. A slothfulness, a languor, even when awake, a +half-conscious forcing of himself through the routine work, a looking +forward to the droning room, and then the settling deep into the old +plush chair, and the blessed unconsciousness. + +He drove a Red Cross ambulance to the French lines at Nieuport, +collected the sick and wounded soldiers and brought them to the Poste de +Secours, two miles back of the trenches. He lived a hundred feet from +the Poste, always within call. But the emergency call rarely came. There +were only the set runs, for the war had settled to its own regularity. A +wonderful idleness hung over the lines, where millions of men were +unemployed, waiting with strange patience for some unseen event. Only +the year before, these men were chatting in cafes, and busy in a +thousand ways. Now, the long hours of the day were lived without +activity in thoughtless routine. Under the routine there was always the +sense of waiting for a sudden crash and horror. + +The man was an English gentleman. It was his own car he had brought, +paid for by him, and he had offered his car and services to the +Fusiliers Marins. They had been glad of his help, and for twelve months +he had performed his daily duty and returned to his loneliness. The men +under whom he worked were the French doctors of the Poste--the chief +doctor, Monsieur Claude-Marie Le Bot, with four stripes on his arm, and +the courteous, grave administrator, Eustache-Emmanuel Couillandre, a +three-stripes man, and a half dozen others, of three stripes and two. +They had welcomed him to their group when he came to them from London. +They had found him lively and likable, bringing gossip of the West End +with a dash of Leicester Square. Then slowly a change had come on him. +He went moody and silent. + +"What's the matter with you?" asked Doctor Le Bot one day. + +"Nothing's the matter with me," answered the man. "It's war that's the +matter." + +"What do you mean by that?" put in one of the younger doctors. + +"The trouble with war," began the man slowly, "isn't that there's danger +and death. They are easy. The trouble with war is this. It's dull, +damned deadly dull. It's the slowest thing in the world. It wears away +at your mind, like water dripping on a rock. The old Indian torture of +letting water fall on your skull, drop by drop, till you went raving +crazy, is nothing to what war does to the mind of millions of men. They +can't think of anything else but war, and they have no thoughts about +that. They can't talk of another blessed thing, and the result is they +have nothing to say at all." + +As he talked a flush came into his face. He gathered speed, while he +spoke, till his words came with a rush, as if he were relieving himself +of inner pain. + +"Have you ever heard the true inside account of an Arctic expedition?" +he went on. "There's a handful of men locked up inside a little ship for +thirteen or fourteen months. Nothing to look out on but snow and ice, +one color and a horizonful of it. Nothing to dream of but arriving at a +Pole--and that is a theoretical point in infinite space. There's no such +thing. The midnight sun and the frozen stuff get on their nerves--same +old sun in the same old place, same kind of weather. What happens? The +natural thing, of course. They get so they hate each other like poison. +They go around with a mad on. They carry hate against the commander and +the cook and the fellow whose berth creaks every time he shifts. Each +man thinks the shipload is the rottenest gang ever thrown together. He +wonders why they didn't bring somebody decent along. He gets to scoring +up grudges against the different people, and waits his chance to get +back." + +He stopped a minute, and looked around at the doctors, who were giving +him close attention. Then he went on with the same intensity. + +"Now that's war, only war is more so. Here you are in one place for +sixteen months. You shovel yourself into a stinking hole in the ground. +At seven in the morning, you boil yourself some muddy coffee that tastes +like the River Thames at Battersea Bridge. You take a knife that's had +knicks hacked out of it, and cut a hunk of dry bread that chews like +sand. You eat some 'bully beef out of a tin, same tinned stuff as you've +been eating ever since your stomach went on strike a year ago. Once a +week for a treat, you cut a steak off the flank of a dead horse. That +tastes better, because it's fresh meat. When you're sent back a few +miles, _en 'piquet_, you sleep in a village that looks like Sodom after +the sulphur struck it. Houses singed and tumbled, dead bodies in the +ruins, a broken-legged dog, trailing its hind foot, in front of the +house where you are. Tobacco--surely. You'd die if you didn't have a +smoke. But the rotten little cigarettes with no taste to them that smoke +like chopped hay. And the cigars made out of rags and shredded +toothpicks--" + +"Here, have a cigarette," suggested the youngest doctor. + +But the man was too busy in working out his own thoughts. + +"The whole thing," he continued, "is a mixture of a morgue and a +hospital--only those places have running water, and people in white +aprons to tidy things up. And a battle--Three days under bombardment, +living in the cellar. The guns going off five, six times to the minute, +and then waiting a couple of hours and dropping one in, next door. The +crumpling noise when a little brick house caves in, like a man when you +hit him in the stomach, just going all together in a heap. And the sick +smell that comes out of the mess from plaster and brick dust. + +"And getting wounded, that's jolly, isn't it? Rifle ball through your +left biceps. Dick walks you back to the dressing station. Doctor busy at +luncheon with a couple of visiting officers. Lie down in the straw. +Straw has a pleasant smell when it's smeared with iodine and blood. Wait +till the doctor has had his bottle of wine. + +"'Nothing very much,' he says, when he gets around to you. Drops some +juice in, ties the white rag around, and you go back to your straw. +Three, four hours, and along come the body snatchers--the chauffeur chap +doesn't know how to drive, bumps into every shell hole for seven miles. +Every half mile, drive down into the ditch mud, to get out of the way of +some ammunition wagons going to the front. The wheel gets stuck. Put on +power, in jumps, to bump the car out. Every jerk tears at your open +sore, as if the wheel had got stuck in your arm and was being pulled +out. Two hours to do the seven miles. Get to the field hospital. No time +for you. Lie on your stretcher in the court, where the flies swarm on +you. Always flies. Flies on the blood of the wounded, glued to the +bandage. Flies on the face of the dead." + +So he had once spoken and left them wondering. But that whirling burst +of words was long before, in those earlier days of his work. Nothing +like that had happened in weeks. No such vivid pictures lighted him now. +The man slept on. + +There was a scratching at the window, then a steady tapping, then a +resounding fist on the casement. Gradually, the sleeping man came up +through the deep waters of unconsciousness. His eyes were heavy. He sat +a moment, brooding, then turned toward the insistent noise. + +"Monsieur Watts!" said a voice. + +"Yes," answered the man. He stretched himself, and raised the sash. A +brisk little French Marin was at the window. + +"The doctors are at luncheon. They are waiting for you," the soldier +said in rapid Breton French; "today you are their guest." + +"Of course," replied the man, "I had forgotten. I will come at once." + +He stretched his arms over his head--a tall figure of a man, but bent at +the shoulders, as if all the dreariness of his surroundings had settled +there. He had the stoop of an old man, and the walk. He stepped out of +his room, into the street, and stood a moment in the midday sunshine, +blinking. Then he walked down the village street to the Poste, and +pushed through the dressing-rooms to the dining-room at the rear. The +doctors looked up as he entered. He nodded, but gave no speech back for +their courteous, their cordial greeting. In silence he ate the simple +relishes of sardines and olives. Then the treat of the luncheon was +brought in by the orderly. It was a duckling, taken from a refugee farm, +and done to a brown crisp. The head doctor carved and served it. + +"See here," said Watts loudly. He lifted his wing of the duckling where +a dead fly was cooked in with the gravy. He pushed his chair back. It +grated shrilly on the stone floor. He rose. + +"Flies," he said, and left the room. + + * * * * * + +Watts was the guest at the informal trench luncheon. The officers showed +him little favors from time to time, for he had served their wounded +faithfully for many months. It is the highest honor they can pay when +they admit a civilian to the first line of trenches. Shelling from +Westend was mild and inaccurate, going high overhead and falling with a +mutter into the seven-times wrecked and thoroughly deserted houses of +Nieuport village. But the sound of it gave a gentle tingle to the act of +eating. There was occasional rifle fire, the bullet singing close. + +"They're improving," said the Commandant, "a fellow reached over the +trench this morning for his Billy-can, and they got him in the hand." + +Two Marins cleared away the plank on which bread and coffee and tinned +meat had been served. + +The hot August sun cooked the loose earth, and heightened the smells of +food. A swarm of flies poured over the outer rim and dropped down on +squatting men and the scattered commissariat. Watts was sitting at a +little distance from the group. He closed his eyes, but soon began +striking methodically at the settling flies. He fought them with the +right arm and the left in long heavy strokes, patiently, without +enthusiasm. The soldiers brought out a pack of cards, and leaned forward +for the deal. Suddenly Watts rose, lifted his arms above the trench, and +deliberately stretched. Three faint cracks sounded from across the +hillock, and he tumbled out at full length, as if some one had flung him +away. The men hastened to him, coming crouched over but swiftly. + +"Got him in the right arm," said the Commandant. + +"Thank God," muttered Watts, sleepily. + + * * * * * + +It was the Convent Hospital of Furnes. There was quiet in the ward of +twenty-five beds, where side by side slept the wounded of France and +Germany and Belgium and England. Suddenly, a resounding whack rang +through the ward. A German boy jumped up sitting in his cot. The sound +had awakened memories. He looked over to the tall Englishman in the next +cot, who had struck out at one of the heavy innumerable flies, who hover +over wounded men, and pry down under bandages. + +"Let me tell you," said the youth eagerly, "I have a preparation--I'm a +chemist, you know--I've worked out a powder that kills flies." + +Watts looked up from his pillow. His face was weary. + +"It's sweet, you know, and attracts them," went on the boy, "then the +least sniff of it finishes them. They trail away, and die in a few +minutes. You can clear a room in half an hour. Then all you have to do +is to sweep up." + +"See here," he said, "I'll show you. Sister," he called. The nurse +hurried to his side. + +"Sister? You were kind enough to save my kit. May I have it a moment?" + +He took out a tin flask, and squeezed it--a brown powder puffed through +the pin-point holes at the mouth. It settled in a dust on the white +coverlet. + +"Please be very quiet," he said. He settled back, as if for sleep, but +his half-shut eyes were watchful. A couple of minutes passed, then a fly +circled his head, and made for the spot on the spread. It nosed its way +in, crawled heavily a few inches up the coverlet, and turned its legs +up. Two more came, alighted, sniffed and died. + +"You see," he said. + + * * * * * + +Next day, the head of the Coxyde Poste motored over to Furnes for a call +on his wounded helper. + +"Where does all that chatter come from?" he asked. + +Sister Teresa smiled. + +"It's your silent friend," she said. "He is the noisiest old thing in +the ward." + +"Talking to himself?" inquired the doctor. + +"Have a look for yourself," urged the nurse. They stepped into the ward, +and down the stone floor, till they came to the supply table. Here they +pretended to busy themselves with lint. + +"Most interesting," Watts was saying. "That is a new idea to me. Here +they've been telling me for a year that there's no way but the slow +push, trench after trench--" + +"Let me say to you," interrupted the Saxon lad. + +"You will pardon me, if I finish what I am saying," went on Watts in +full tidal flow. "What was it I was saying? Oh, yes, I remember--that +slow hard push is not the only way, after all. You tell me--" + +"That's the way it is all day long," explained the sister. "Chatter, +chatter, chatter. They are telling each other all they know. You would +think they would get fed up. But as fast as one of them says something, +that seems to be a new idea to the other. Mr. Watts acts like a man who +has been starved." + +Watts caught sight of his friend. + +"We've killed all the flies," he shouted. + + + + +WOMEN UNDER FIRE + + +This war has been a revelation of womanhood. To see one of these cool, +friendly creatures, American and English, shove her motor car into +shell-fire, make her rescue of helpless crippled men, and steam back to +safety, is to watch a resourceful and disciplined being. They may be, +they are, "ministering angels," but there is nothing meek in their +demeanor. They have stepped to a vantage from which nothing in man's +contemptuous philosophy will ever dislodge them. They have always +existed to astonish those who knew them best, and have turned life into +a surprise party from Eden to the era of forcible feeding. But assuredly +it would make the dogmatists on the essentially feminine nature, like +Kipling, rub their eyes, to watch modern women at work under fire. They +haven't the slightest fear of being killed. Give them a job under +bombardment, and they unfold the stretcher, place the pillow and tuck in +the blanket, without a quiver of apprehension. That, too, when some of +the men are scampering for cover, and ducking chance pellets from the +woolly white cloud that breaks overhead. The women will eat their +luncheon with relish within three hundred feet of a French battery in +full blaze. Is there a test left to the pride of man that the modern +woman does not take lightly and skilfully? Gone are the Victorian nerves +and the eighteenth-century fainting. All the old false delicacies have +been swamped. She has been held back like a hound from the hunting, till +we really believed we had a harmless household pet, who loved security. +We had forgotten the pioneer women who struck across frontiers with a +hardihood that matched that of their mates. And now the modern woman +emerges from her protected home, and pushes forward, careless and +curious. + +"What are women going to do about this war?" That question my wife and I +asked each other at the outbreak of the present conflict. There were +several attitudes that they might take. They could deplore war, because +it destroyed their own best products. They could form peace leagues and +pass resolutions against war. They could return to their ancient job of +humble service, and resume their familiar location in the background. +They did all these things and did them fervently; but they did something +else in this war--they stepped out into the foreground, where the air +was thick with danger, and demonstrated their courage. The mother no +longer says: "Return, my gallant one, with your shield or on it," and +goes back to her baking. She packs her kit and jumps into a motor +ambulance headed for the dressing station. + +We have had an excellent chance to watch women in this war. Our corps +have had access to every line from Nieuport on the sea, down for twenty +miles. We were able to run out to skirmishes, to reach the wounded where +they had fallen. We have gone where the fighting had been at such close +range that in one barnyard in Ramscappelle lay thirteen dead--Germans, +French and Belgians. We brought back three wounded Germans from the +stable. We were in Dixmude on the afternoon when the Germans destroyed +the town by artillery fire. We were in Ypres on November first, the day +after the most terrible battle in history, when fifty thousand English +out of a hundred and twenty thousand fell. For three months my wife +lived in Pervyse, with two British women. Not one house in the town +itself is left untouched by shell-fire. The women lived in a cellar for +the first weeks. Then they moved into a partially demolished house, and +a little later a shell exploded in the kitchen. The women were at work +in the next room. We have had opportunity for observing women in war, +for we have seen several hundred of them--nurses, helpers, chauffeurs, +writers--under varying degrees of strain and danger. + +The women whom I met in Belgium were all alike. They refused to take +"their place." They were not interested in their personal welfare. There +have been individual men, a few of them--English, French and Belgian, +soldiers, chauffeurs and civilians--who have turned tail when the danger +was acute. But the women we have watched are strangely lacking in fear. +I asked a famous war writer, whose breast was gay with the ribbons of +half a dozen campaigns, what was the matter with all these women, that +they did not tremble and go green under fire, as some of us did. He +said: + +"They don't belong out here. They have no business to be under fire. +They ought to be back at the hospitals down at Dunkirk. They don't +appreciate danger. That's the trouble with them; they have no +imagination." + +That's an easy way out. But the real reasons lie deeper than a mental +inferiority. These women certainly had quite as good an equipment in +mentality as the drivers and stretcher bearers. They could not bear to +let immense numbers of men lie in pain. They wished to bring their +instinct for help to the place where it was needed. + +The other reason is a product of their changed thinking under modern +conditions. "I want to see the shells," said a discontented lady at +Dunkirk. She was weary of the peace and safety of a town twenty miles +back from the front. Women suddenly saw their time had come to strip man +of one more of his monopolies. For some thousand years he had been +bragging of his carriage and bearing in battle. He had told the women +folks at home how admirable he had been under strain, and he went on to +claim special privileges as the reward for his gallant behavior. He +posed as their protector. He assumed the right to tax them because they +did not lend a hand when invasion came. Now women are campaigning in +France and Belgium to show that man's much-advertised quality of courage +is a race possession. + +They had already shown it while peace was still in the land, but their +demonstration met with disfavor. Just before the war broke out I saw a +woman suffragist thrown into a pond of water at Denmark Hill. I saw +another mauled and bruised by a crowd of men in Hyde Park. They were the +same sort of women as these hundreds at the front, who are affirming a +new value. The argument is hotly contended whether women belong in the +war zone. Conservative Englishmen deem them a nuisance, and wish them +back in London. Meanwhile, they come and stay. English officials tried +to send home the three of our women who had been nursing within thirty +yards of the trenches at Pervyse. But the King of the Belgians, and +Baron de Broqueville, Prime minister of Belgium, had been watching +their work, and refused to move them. + +One morning we came into the dining-room of our Convent Hospital at +Furnes, and there on a stretcher on the floor was a girl sleeping +profoundly. We thought at first we had one more of our innumerable +wounded who overflowed the beds and wards during those crowded days. She +rested through the morning and through the noon meal. The noise about +did not disturb her. She did not stir in her heavy sleep, lying under +the window, her face of olive skin, with a touch of red in the right +cheek, turned away from the light. She awoke after twenty hours. +Silently, she had come in the evening before, wearied to exhaustion +after a week of nursing in the Belgian trenches. + +That was the thing you were confronted with--woman after woman hurling +herself at the war till spent. They wished to share with men the +hardship and peril. If risks were right for the men, then they were +right for women. If the time had come for nations to risk death, these +women refused to claim the exemptions of sex difference. If war was +unavoidable, then it was equally proper for women to be present and +carry on the work of salvage. + +Of a desire to kill they have none. A certain type of man under +excitement likes to shoot and reach his mark. I have had soldiers tell +me with pride of the number of enemies they have potted. It sounds very +much like an Indian score-card of scalps or a grouse hunter's bag of +game. Our women did not talk in these terms, nor did they act so. They +gave the same care to German wounded as to Belgian, French and English +wounded, and that though they knew they would not receive mercy if the +enemy came across the fields and stormed the trenches. A couple of +machine guns placed on the trench at Pervyse could have raked the ruined +village and killed our three nurses. They shared the terms of peril with +the soldiers; but they had no desire for retaliation, no wish to wreak +their will on human life. Their instinct is to help. The danger does not +excite them to a nervous explosion where they grab for a gun and shoot +the other fellow. + +I was with an English physician one day before he was seasoned. We were +under the bank at Grembergen, just across the river from Termonde. The +enemy were putting over shells about one hundred yards from where we +were crawling toward a machine-shop sheltering wounded men. The _obus_ +were noisy and the dirt flew high. Scattered bits of metal struck the +bank. As we heard the shell moaning for that second of time when it +draws close, we would crawl into one of the trenches scooped out in the +green bank, an earthen cave with a roof of boughs. + +"Let's get out of this," said the doctor. "It's too hot for our kind of +work. If I had a rifle and could shoot back I shouldn't mind it. But +this waiting round and doing nothing in return till you are hit, I don't +like it." + +But that is the very power that women possess. They can wait round +without wishing to strike back. Saving life gives them sufficient +spiritual resource to stand up to artillery. They have no wish to +relieve their nervousness by sighting an alien head and cracking it. + +One of our corps was the daughter of an earl. She had all the +characteristics of what we like to think is the typical American girl. +She had a bonhomie that swept class distinctions aside. Her talk was +swift and direct. She was pretty and executive, swift to act and always +on the go. + +One day, as we were on the road to the dressing stations, the noise of +guns broke out. The young Belgian soldier who was driving her stopped +his motor and jumped out. + +"I do not care to go farther," he said. + +Lady ----, who is a skilful driver, climbed to the front seat, drove the +car to the dressing station and brought back the wounded. I have seen +her drive a touring car, carrying six wounded men, from Nieuport to +Furnes at eight o'clock on a pitch-dark night, no lights allowed, over a +narrow, muddy road on which the car skidded. She had to thread her way +through silent marching troops, turn out for artillery wagons, follow +after tired horses. + +She was not a trained nurse, but when Dr. Hector Munro was working over +a man with a broken leg she prepared a splint and held the leg while he +set it and bound it. She drove a motor into Nieuport when the troops +were marching out of it. Her guest for the afternoon was a war +correspondent. + +"This is a retreat," he said. "It is never safe to enter a place when +the troops are leaving it. I have had experience." + +"We are going in to get the wounded," she replied. They went in. + +At Ypres she dodged round the corner because she saw a captain who +doesn't believe in women at the front. A shell fell in the place where +she had been standing a moment before. It blew the arm from a soldier. +Her nerve was unbroken, and she continued her work through the morning. + +Her notion of courage is that people have a right to feel frightened, +but that they have no right to fail to do the job even if they are +frightened. They are entitled to their feelings, but they are not +entitled to shirk the necessary work of war. She believes that cowardice +is not like other failings of weakness, which are pretty much man's own +business. Cowardice is dangerous to the group. + +Lady ----'s attitude at a bombardment was that of a child seeing a +hailstorm--open-eyed wonder. She was the purest exhibit of careless +fearlessness, carrying a buoyancy in danger. Generations of riding to +hounds and of big game shooting had educated fear out of her stock. Her +ancestors had always faced uncertainty as one of the ingredients of +life: they accepted danger in accepting life. The savage accepted fear +because he had to. With the English upper class, danger is a fine art, a +cult. It is an element in the family honor. One cannot possibly shrink +from the test. The English have expressed themselves in sport. People +who are good sportsmen are, of course, honorable fighters. The Germans +have allowed their craving for adventure to seethe inside themselves, +and then have aimed it seriously at human life. But the English have +taken off their excess vitality by outdoor contests. + +What Lady ---- is the rest of the women are. Miss Smith, an English girl +nurse, jumped down from the ambulance that was retreating before the +Germans, and walked back into Ghent, held by the Germans, to nurse an +English officer till he died. A few days later she escaped, by going in +a peasant's cart full of market vegetables, and rejoined us at Furnes. + +Sally Macnaughtan is a gray-haired gentlewoman of independent means who +writes admirable fiction. She has laid aside her art and for months +conducted a soup kitchen in the railway station at Furnes. She has fed +thousands of weakened wounded men, working till midnight night after +night. She remained until the town was thoroughly shelled. + +The order is strict that no officer's wife must be near the front. The +idea is that she will divert her husband's mind from the work in hand. +He will worry about her safety. But Mrs. B----, a Belgian, joined our +women in Pervyse, and did useful work, while her husband, a doctor with +the rank of officer, continued his work along the front. She is a girl +of twenty-one years. + +Recently the Queen of the Belgians went into the trenches at a time when +there was danger of artillery and rifle fire breaking loose from the +enemy. She had to be besought to keep back where the air was quieter, as +her life was of more value to the Belgian troops and the nation than +even a gallant death. + +One afternoon most of the corps were out on the road searching for +wounded. Mairi Chisholm, a Scotch girl eighteen years old, and a young +American woman had been left behind in the Furnes Hospital. With them +was a stretcher bearer, a man of twenty-eight. A few shells fell into +Furnes. The civilian population began running in dismay. The girls +climbed up into the tower of the convent to watch the work of the +shells. The man ordered the women to leave the town with him and go to +Poperinghe. The two girls refused to go. + +For weeks Furnes was under artillery fire from beyond Nieuport. One of +our hospital nurses was killed as she was walking in the Grand Place. + +I saw an American girl covered by the pistol of an Uhlan officer. She +did not change color, but regarded the incident as a lark. I happened to +be watching her when she was sitting on the front seat of an ambulance +at Oudecappelle, eating luncheon. A shell fell thirty yards from her in +the road. The roar was loud. The dirt flew high. The metal fragments +tinkled on the house walls. The hole it dug was three feet deep. She +laughed and continued with her luncheon. + +I saw the same girl stand out in a field while this little drama took +place: The French artillery in the field were well covered by shrubbery. +They had been pounding away from their covert till the Germans grew +irritated. A German Taube flew into sight, hovered high overhead and +spied the hidden guns. It dropped three smoke bombs. These puffed out +their little clouds into the air, and gave the far-away marksmen the +location for firing. Their guns broke out and shrapnel shells came +overhead, burst into trailing smoke and scattered their hundreds of +bullets. The girl stood on the arena itself. Of concern for her personal +safety she had none. It was all like a play on the stage to her. You +watch the blow and flash but you are not a part of the action. + +Each night the Furnes Hospital was full with one hundred wounded. In the +morning we carried out one or two or one-half dozen dead. The wounds +were severe, the air of the whole countryside was septic from the sour +dead in the fields, who kept working to the surface from their shallow +burial. There was a morning when we had gone early to the front on a +hurry call. In our absence two girl nurses carried out ten dead from the +wards into the convent lot, to the edge of the hasty graves made ready +for their coming. + +There is one woman whom we have watched at work for twelve months. She +is a trained nurse, a certified midwife, a licensed motor-car driver, a +veterinarian and a woman of property. Her name is Mrs. Elsie Knocker, a +widow with one son. She helped to organize our corps. I was with her one +evening when a corporal ordered her to go up a difficult road. He was +the driver of a high-power touring car which could rise on occasion to +seventy miles an hour. He carried a rifle in his car, and told us he had +killed over fifty Germans since Liege. He dressed in bottle green, the +uniform of a cyclist, and he looked like a rollicking woodlander of the +Robin Hood band. It was seven o'clock of the evening. The night was +dark. He pitched a bag of bandages into the motor ambulance. + +"Take those to the dressing station that lies two miles to the west of +Caeskerke," he ordered Mrs. Knocker. I cranked up the machine; Mrs. +Knocker sat at the wheel. We were at Oudecappelle. The going was halfway +decent as far as the crossroads of Caeskerke. Here we turned west on a +road through the fields which had been intermittently shelled for +several days. The road had shell holes in it from one to three feet +deep. We could not see them because we carried no lights and the sky +overhead was black. A mile to our right a village was burning. There +were sheets of flame rising from the lowland, and the flame revealed the +smoke that was thick over the ruins. We bumped in and out of the holes. +All roads in Belgium were scummy with mud. It is like butter on bread. +The big brown-canopied ambulance skidded in this paste. + +We reached the dressing station and delivered one bag of bandages. In +return we received three severely wounded men, who lay at length on the +stretched canvas and swung on straps. Then we started back over the same +mean road. This was the journey that tested Mrs. Knocker's driving, +because now she had helpless men who must not be jerked by the swaying +car. Motion tore at their wounds. Above all, they must not be +overturned. An overturn would kill a man who was seriously wounded. +Driving meant drawing all her nervous forces into her directing brain +and her two hands. A village on fire at night is an eerie sight. A dark +road, pitted with shell holes and slimy with mud, is chancy. The car +with its human freight, swaying, bumping, sliding, is heavy on the +wrist. The whole focused drive of it falls on the muscles of the +forearm. And when on the skill of that driver depends the lives of three +men the situation is one that calls for nerve. It was only luck that the +artillery from beyond the Yser did not begin tuning up. The Germans had +shelled that road diligently for many days and some evenings. Back to +the crossroads Mrs. Knocker brought her cargo, and on to Oudecappelle, +and so to the hospital at Furnes, a full ten miles. Safely home in the +convent yard, the journey done, the wounded men lifted into the ward, +she broke down. She had put over her job, and her nerves were tired. +Womanlike she refused to give in till the work was successfully +finished. + +How would a man have handled such a strain? I will tell you how one man +acted. Our corporal drove his touring car toward Dixmude one morning. He +ordered Tom, the cockney driver, to follow with the motor ambulance. In +it were Mrs. Knocker and Miss Chisholm, sitting with Tom on the front of +the car. Things looked thick. The corporal slowed up, and so did Tom +just behind him. Now there is one sure rule for rescue work at the +front--when you hear the guns close, always turn your car toward home, +away from the direction of the enemy. Turn it before you get your +wounded, even though they are at the point of death, and leave your +power on, even when you are going to stay for a quarter of an hour. +Pointed toward safety, and under power, the car can carry you out of +range of a sudden shelling or a bayonet charge. The enemy's guns began +to place shrapnel over the road. The cloud puffs were hovering about a +hundred feet overhead a little farther down the way. The bullets +clicked on the roadbed. The corporal jumped out of his touring car. + +[Illustration: BRETON SAILORS READY FOR THEIR NOON MEAL IN A VILLAGE +UNDER DAILY SHELL FIRE. + +Throughout this Yser district British nurses drove their ambulances and +rescued the wounded.] + +"Turn my car," he shouted to Tom. Tom climbed from the ambulance, +boarded the touring car and turned it. The corporal peered out from his +shelter, behind the ambulance, saw the going was good and ran to his own +motor. He jumped in and sped out of range at full tilt. The two women +sat quietly in the ambulance, watching the shrapnel. Tom came to them, +turned the car and brought them beyond the range of fire. + +But the steadiest and most useful piece of work done by the women was +that at Pervyse. Mrs. Knocker and two women helpers, one Scotch and one +American, fitted up a miniature hospital in the cellar of a house in +ruined Pervyse. They were within three minutes of the trenches. Here, as +soon as the soldiers were wounded, they could be brought for immediate +treatment. A young private had received a severe lip wound. Unskilful +army medical handling had left it gangrened, and it had swollen. His +face was on the way to being marred for life. Mrs. Knocker treated him +every few hours for ten days--and brought him back to normal. A man +came in with his hand a pulp from splintered shell. The glove he had +been wearing was driven into the red flesh. Mrs. Knocker worked over his +hand for half an hour, picking out the shredded glove bit by bit. + +Except for a short walk in the early morning and another after dark, +these women lived immured in their dressing station, which they moved +from the cellar to a half-wrecked house. They lived in the smell of +straw, blood and antiseptic. The Germans have thrown shells into the +wrecked village almost every day. Some days shelling has been vigorous. +The churchyard is choked with dead. The fields are dotted with hummocks +where men and horses lie buried. Just as I was sailing for America in +March, 1915, the house where the women live and work was shelled. They +came to La Panne, but later Mrs. Knocker and Miss Chisholm returned to +Pervyse to go on with their work, which is famous throughout the Belgian +army. + +As regiment after regiment serves its turn in the trenches of Pervyse it +passes under the hands of these women. "The women of Pervyse" are known +alike to generals, colonels and privates who held steady at Liege and +who have struggled on ever since. For many months these nurses have +endured the noise of shell fire and the smells of the dead and the +stricken. The King of the Belgians has with his own hands pinned upon +them the Order of Leopold II. The King himself wears the Order of +Leopold I. They have eased and saved many hundreds of his men. + +"No place for a woman," remarked a distinguished Englishman after a +flying visit to their home. + +"By the law of probabilities, your corps will be wiped out sooner or +later," said a war correspondent. + +Meantime the women will go on with their cool, expert work. The only way +to stop them is to stop the war. + + + + +HOW WAR SEEMS TO A WOMAN + +(BY MRS. ARTHUR GLEASON) + + +Life at the front is not organized like a business office, with sharply +defined duties for each worker. War is raw and chaotic, and you take +hold wherever you can lock your grip. We women that joined the Belgian +army and spent a year at the front, did duty as ambulance riders, "dirty +nurses," in a Red Cross rescue station at the Yser trenches, in relief +work for refugees, and in the commissariat department. We tended wounded +soldiers, sick soldiers, sick peasants, wounded peasants, mothers, +babies, and colonies of refugees. + +This war gave women one more chance to prove themselves. For the first +time in history, a few of us were allowed through the lines to the front +trenches. We needed a man's costume, steady masculine nerves, physical +strength. But the work itself became the ancient work of woman--nursing +suffering, making a home for lonely, hungry, dirty men. This new thrust +of womanhood carried her to the heart of war. But, once arriving there, +she resumed her old job, and became the nurse and cook and mother to +men. Woman has been rebelling against being put into her place by man. +But the minute she wins her freedom in the new dramatic setting, she +finds expression in the old ways as caretaker and home-maker. Her +rebellion ceases as soon as she is allowed to share the danger. She is +willing to make the fires, carry the water, and do the washing, because +she believes the men are in the right, and her labor frees them for +putting through their work. + +It all began for me in Paris. I was studying music, and living in the +American Art Students' Club, in the summer of 1914. That war was +declared meant nothing to me. There was I in a comfortable room with a +delightful garden, the Luxembourg, just over the way. That was the first +flash of war. I went down to the Louvre to see the Venus, and found the +building "Ferme." I went over to the Luxembourg Galleries--"Ferme," +again--and the Catacombs. Then it came into my consciousness that all +Paris was closed to me. The treasures had been taken away from me. The +things planned couldn't be done. War had snatched something from me +personally. + +Next, I took solace in the streets. I had to walk. Paris went mad with +official speed--commandeered motors flashed officers down the boulevards +under martial law. They must get a nation ready, and Paris was the +capital. War made itself felt, still more, because we had to go through +endless lines,--_permis de sejours_ at little police stations--standing +on line all day, dismissed without your paper, returning next morning. +Friends began to leave Paris for New York. I was considered queer for +wishing to stay on. The chance to study in Paris was the dream of a +lifetime. But, now, the sound of the piano was forbidden in the city, +and that made the desolation complete. Work and recreation had been +taken away, and only war was left. And when Marie, our favorite maid in +the club, sent her husband, our doorkeeper, to the front, that brought +war inside our household. + +As the Germans drew near Paris, many of the club girls thought that they +would be endangered. Every one was talking about the French Revolution. +People expected the horrors of the Revolution to be repeated. Jaures had +just been shot, the syndicalists were wrecking German milk shops, and at +night the streets had noisy mobs. People were fearing revolution inside +Paris, more than the enemy outside the city gates. War was going to let +loose that terrible thing which we believed to be subliminal in the +French nature. + +Women had to be off the streets before nine o'clock. By day we went up +the block to the Boulevard, and there were the troops--a band, the +tricolor, the officers, the men in sky blue. Their sweethearts, their +wives and children went marching hand in hand with them, all singing the +"Marseillaise." In a time like that, where there is song, there is +weeping. The marching, singing women were sometimes sobbing without +knowing it, and we that were watching them in the street crowd were +moved like them. + +When I crossed to England, I found that I wanted to go back and have +more of the wonder of war, which I had tasted in Paris. The wonder was +the sparkle of equipment. It was plain curiosity to see troops line up, +to watch the military pageant. There I had been seeing great handsome +horses, men in shining helmets with the horsehair tail of the casque +flowing from crest to shoulder, the scarlet breeches, the glistening +boots with spurs. It was pictures of childhood coming true. I had hardly +ever seen a man in military uniform, and nothing so startling as those +French cuirassiers. And I knew that gay vivid thing was not a passing +street parade, but an array that was going into action. What would the +action be? It is what makes me fond of moving pictures--variety, color, +motion, and mystery. The story was just beginning. How would the plot +come out? + +Those pictures of troops and guns, grouping and dissolving, during all +the twelve months in Flanders, never failed to grip. But rarely again +did I see that display of fine feathers. For the fighting men with whom +I lived became mud-covered. Theirs was a dug-in and blown-out existence, +with the spatterings of storm and black nights on them. Their clothing +took on the soberer colors and weather-worn aspect of the life itself +which was no sunny boulevard affair, but an enduring of wet trenches and +slimy roads. Those people in Paris needed that high key to send them +out, and the early brilliance lifted them to a level which was able to +endure the monotony. + +I went to the war because those whom I loved were in the war. I wished +to go where they were. + +Finally, there was real appeal in that a little unprotected lot of +people were being trampled. + +I crossed in late September to Ostend as a member of the Hector Munro +Ambulance Corps. With us were two women, Elsie Knocker, an English +trained nurse, and Mairi Chisholm Gooden-Chisholm, a Scotch girl. There +were a round dozen of us, doctors, chauffeurs, stretcher bearers. Our +idea of what was to be required of women at the front was vague. We +thought that we ought to know how to ride horseback, so that we could +catch the first loose horse that galloped by and climb on him. What we +were to do with the wounded wasn't clear, even in our own minds. We +bought funny little tents and had tent practice in a vacant yard. The +motor drive from Ostend to Ghent was through autumn sunshine and beauty +of field flowers. It was like a dream, and the dream continued in Ghent, +where we were tumbled into the Flandria Palace Hotel with a suite of +rooms and bath, and two convalescing soldiers to care for us. We looked +at ourselves and smiled and wondered if this was war. My first work was +the commissariat for our corps. + +Then came the English Naval Reserves and Marines _en route_ to Antwerp. +They had been herded into the cars for twelve hours. They were happy to +have great hunks of hot meat, bread, and cigarettes. Just across the +platform, a Belgian Red Cross train pulled in--nine hundred wounded men, +bandaged heads with only the eyes showing, stumps of arms flapping a +welcome. The Belgians had been shot to pieces, holding the line. And, +now, here were the English come to save them. + +This looked more like war to us. From the Palace windows we hung out +over the balcony to see the Taubes. I knew that at last we were on the +fringes of war. Later, we were to be at the heart of it. It was at Melle +that I learned I was on the front lines. + +We went up the road from Ghent to Melle in blithe ignorance, we three +women. The day before, the enemy had held the corner with a machine gun. + +"Let's go on foot, and see where the Germans were," suggested "Scotch." +We came to burned peasants' houses. Inside the wreckage, soldiers +crouched with rifles ready at the peek-holes. A Reckitt's bluing factory +was burning, and across the field were the Germans. The cottages without +doors and windows were like toothless old women. Piles of used +cartridges were strewed around. There stood a gray motor-car, a wounded +German in the back seat, his hands riddled, the car shot through, with +blood in the bottom from two dead Germans. I realized the power of the +bullet, which had penetrated the driver, the padded seat, the sheet +metal and splintered the wood of the tonneau. We saw a puff of white +smoke over the field from a shrapnel. That was the first shell I had +seen close. It meant nothing to me. In those early days, the hum of a +shell seemed no more than the chattering of sparrows. That was the way +with all my impressions of war--first a flash, a spectacle; later a +realization, and experience. + +I went into Alost during a mild bombardment. The crashing of timbers was +fascinating. It is in human nature to enjoy destruction. I used to love +to jump on strawberry boxes in the woodshed and hear them crackle. And +with the plunge of the shells, something echoed back to the delight of +my childhood. I enjoyed the crash, for something barbaric stirred. There +was no connection in my mind between the rumble and wounded men. The +curiosity of ignorance wanted to see a large crash. Shell-fire to me was +a noise. + +I still had no idea of war. Of course I knew that there would be hideous +things which I didn't have in home life. I knew I could stand up to +dirty monotonous work, but I was afraid I should faint if I saw blood. +When very young, I had seen a dog run over, and I had seen a boy +playmate mutilate a turtle. I was sickened. Years later, I came on a +little child crying, holding up its hand. The wrist was bent back +double, and the blood spurting till the little one was drenched. Those +shocks had left a horror in me of seeing blood. But this thing that I +feared most turned out not to have much importance. I found that the man +who bled most heavily lay quiet. It was not the bloodshed that unnerved +me. It was the writhing and moaning of men that communicated their pain +to me. I seemed to see those whom I loved lying there. I transferred the +wound to the ones I love. Sometimes soldiers gave me the address of wife +and mother, to have me write that they were well. Then when the wounded +came in, I thought of these wives and mothers. I knew how they felt, +because I felt so. I knew, as the Belgian and French women know, that +the war must be waged without wavering, and yet I always see war as +hideous. There was no glory in those stricken men. I had no fear of +dying, but I had a fear of being mangled. + +One evening I walked into the Convent Hospital where the wounded lay so +thickly that I had to step over the stretcher loads. The beds were full, +the floor blocked, only one door open. There was a smell of foul blood, +medicines, the stench of trench clothes. It came on an empty stomach, at +the end of a tired day. + +"Sister, will you hold this lamp?" a nurse said to me. + +I held it over a man with a yawning hole in his abdomen. He lay +unmurmuring. When the doctor pressed, the muscles twitched. I asked some +one to hold the lamp. I went into the courtyard, and fainted. Hard work +would have saved me. + +One other time, there had been a persistent fire all day. A boy of +nineteen was brought in screaming. He wanted water and he wanted his +mother. In our dressing station room were crowded two doctors, three +women, two stretcher bearers, a chauffeur, and ten soldiers. They cut +away his uniform and boots. His legs were jelly, with red mouths of +wounds. His leg gave at the knee, like a piece of limp twine. I went +into the next room, and recovered myself. Then I returned, and stayed +with the wounded. The greatest comfort was a doctor, who said it was a +matter of stomach, not of nerve. A sound woman doesn't faint at the +sight of blood any quicker than a man does. Those two experiences were +the only times when the horror was too much for me. I saw terrible +things and was able to see them. With the dead it seems different. They +are at peace. It is motion in the wounded that transfers suffering to +oneself. A red quiver is worse than a red calm. + +Antwerp fell. The retreating Belgian army swarmed around us, passed us. +In the excitement every one lost her kit and before two days of actual +warfare were over we had completely forgotten those little tents that we +had practised pitching so carefully, and that we had meant to sleep in +at night. Little, dirty, unkempt, broken-hearted men came shuffling in +the dust of the road by day, shambling along the road at night. +Thousands of them passed. No sound, save the fall of footsteps. No +contrast, save where a huddle of refugees passed, their children beside +them, their household goods, or their old people, on their backs. We +picked up the wounded. There was no time for the dead. In and out and +among that army of ants, retreating to the edge of Belgium and the sea, +we went. There seemed nothing but to return to England. + +The war minister of Belgium saw us. He placed his son, Lieutenant Robert +de Broqueville, in military command of us. We had access to every line, +all the way to the trench and battlefield. We became a part of the +Belgian army. We made our headquarters at Furnes. Luckily, a physician's +house had been deserted, with china and silver on the table, apples, +jellies and wines in the cellar. We commandeered it. + +Winter came. The soldiers needed a dressing station somewhere along the +front from Nieuport to Dixmude. Mrs. Knocker established one thirty +yards behind the front line of trenches at Pervyse. Miss Chisholm and I +joined her. In its cellar we found a rough bedstead of two pieces of +unplaned lumber, with clean straw for a mattress, awaiting us. Any +Englishwoman is respected in the Belgian lines. The two soldiers who had +been living in our room had given it up cheerily. They had searched the +village for a clean sheet, and showed it to us with pride. They lumped +the straw for our pillows, and stood outside through the night, +guarding our home with fixed bayonets. It was the most moving courtesy +we had in the twelve months of war. The air in the little room was both +foul and chilly. We took off our boots, and that was the extent of our +undressing. + +[Illustration: SLEEPING QUARTERS FOR BELGIAN SOLDIERS. + +Disguised as a haystack, this shelter stands out in a field within easy +shell fire of the enemy. A concealed battery, in which these boys are +gunners, is near by. In their spare time they smoke, read, swim, carve +rings out of shrapnel, play cards and forget the strain of war.] + +The dreariness of war never came on us till we went out there to live +behind the trenches. To me it was getting up before dawn, and washing in +ice-cold water, no time to comb the hair, always carrying a feeling of +personal mussiness, with an adjustment to dirt. It is hard to sleep in +one's clothes, week after week, to look at hands that have become +permanently filthy. One morning our chauffeur woke up, feeling grumpy. +He had slept with a visiting doctor. He said the doctor's revolver had +poked him all night long in the back. The doctor had worn his entire +equipment for warmth, like the rest of us. I suffered from cold wet +feet. I hated it that there was never a moment I could be alone. The +toothbrush was the one article of decency clung to. I seemed never to go +into the back garden to clean my teeth without bringing on shell-fire. I +got a sense of there being a connection between brushing the teeth and +the enemy's guns. You find in roughing it that a coating of dirt seems +to keep out chill. We women suffered, but we knew that the boys in +tennis shoes suffered more in that wet season, and the soldiers without +socks, just the bare feet in boots. + +In the late fall, we rooted around in the deserted barns for potatoes. +Once, creeping into a farm, which was islanded by water, "Jane Pervyse," +our homeless dog, led us up to the wrecked bedroom. A bonnet and best +dress were in the cupboard. A soldier put on the bonnet and grimaced. +Always after that, in passing the house, "Jane Pervyse" trembled and +whined as if it had been her home till the destruction came. + +In our house, we cleaned vegetables. There was nothing romantic about +our work in these first days. It was mostly cooking, peeling hundreds of +potatoes, slicing bushels of onions, cutting up chunks of meat, until +our arms were aching. These bits were boiled together in great black +pots. Our job, when it wasn't to cook the stew, was to take buckets of +it to the trenches. Here we ladled it out to each soldier. Always we +went early, while mist still hung over the ground, for we could see the +Germans on clear days. It was an adventure, tramping in the freezing +cold of night to the outposts and in early morning to the trenches, back +to the house to refill the buckets, back to the trenches. The mornings +were bitterly cold. Very early in my career as a nurse, I rid myself of +skirts. Boots, covered with rubber boots to the knees in wet weather, or +bound with puttees in warm; breeches; a leather coat and as many jerseys +as I could walk in--these were my clothes. But, as I slept in them, they +didn't keep me very warm in the early morning. + +We had one real luxury in the dressing station--a piano. While we cooked +and scrubbed and pared potatoes, men from the lines played for us. + +There were other things, necessities, that we lacked. Water, except for +the stagnant green liquid that lay in the ditches where dead men and +dead horses rotted, we went without--once for as long as three days. +During that time we boiled the ditch water and made tea of it. Even +then, it was a deep purplish black and tasted bitter. + +All we could do to help the wounded was to wash off mud and apply the +simplest of first-aids, iodine and bandages. We burned bloody clothing +and scoured mackintoshes and scrubbed floors. The odors were bad, a +mixture of decaying matter and raw flesh and cooking food and +disinfectant. + +Pervyse was one more dear little Flemish village, with yawning holes in +the houses, and through the holes you saw into the home, the precious +intimate things which revealed how the household lived--the pump, +muffled for winter, the furniture placed for occupancy, a home lately +inhabited. In the burgomaster's house, there were two old mahogany +frames with rare prints, his store of medicines, the excellent piano +which cheered us, in his attic a skeleton. So you saw him in his home +life as a quiet, scholarly man of taste and education. You entered +another gaping house, with two or three bits of inherited +mahogany--clearly, the heirlooms of an old family. Another house +revealed bran new commonplace trinkets. Always the status of the family +was plain to see--their mental life, their tastes, and ambitions. You +would peek in through a broken front and see a cupboard with crotched +mahogany trimmings, one door splintered, the other perfect. You would +catch a glimpse of a round center table with shapely legs, a sofa drawn +up in front of a fireplace. When we went, Pervyse was still partly +upstanding, but the steady shelling of the winter months slowly +flattened it into a wreck. It is the sense of sight through which war +makes its strongest impression on me. + +The year falls into a series of pictures, evenings of song when a boy +soldier would improvise verses to our head nurse; a fight between a +Belgian corporal and an English nurse with seltzer bottles; the night +when our soldiers were short of ammunition and we sat up till dawn +awaiting the attack that might send us running for our lives; the black +nights when some spy back of our lines flashed electric messages to the +enemy and directed their fire on our ammunition wagons. + +And deeper than those pictures is the consciousness of how adaptable is +the human spirit. Human nature insists on creating something. Under +hunger and danger, it develops a wealth of resource--in art and music, +and carving, making finger-rings of shrapnel, playing songs of the +Yser. Something artistic and playful comes to the rescue. Instead of war +getting us as Andreieff's "Red Laugh" says it does, making regiments of +men mad, we "got" war, and remained sane. If we hadn't conquered it by +spells of laughing relief, we shouldn't have had nerve when the time +came. Too much strain would break down the bravest Belgian and the +gayest Fusilier Marin. + +I came to feel I would rather get "pinked" in Pervyse than retire to +Furnes, seven miles back of the trenches. Pervyse seemed home, because +we belonged there with necessary work to do. Then, too, there was a +certain regularity in the German gun-fire. If they started shelling from +the Chateau de Vicoigne, they were likely to continue shelling from that +point. So we lived that day in the front bedroom. If they shelled from +Ramscappelle, the back kitchen became the better room, for we had a +house in between. We were so near their guns, that we could plot the arc +of flight. Pervyse seemed to visitors full of death, simply because it +received a daily dose of shell-fire, like a little child sitting up and +gulping its medicine. With what unconcern in those days we went out by +ambulance to some tight angle, and waited for something to happen. + +"We're right by a battery." But the battery was interesting. + +"If this is danger, all right. It's great to be in danger." I have sat +all day writing letters by our artillery. Every time a gun went off my +pencil slid. The shock was so sudden, my nerves never took it on. Yet I +was able to sleep a few yards in front of a battery. It would pound +through the night, and I never heard it. The nervous equipment of an +American would ravel out, if it were not for sound sleep. If shells came +no nearer than four hundred yards, we considered it a quiet day. + +One day I learned the full meaning of fear. We had had several quiet +safe hours. Night was coming on, and we were putting up the shutters, +when a shell fell close by in the trench. Next, our floor was covered +with dripping men, five of them unbandaged. Shells and wounds were +connected in my mind by that close succession. + +No one was secure in that wrecked village of Pervyse. Along the streets, +homeless dogs prowled, pigeons circled, hungry cats howled. Behind the +trenches, the men had buried their dead and had left great mounds where +they had tried to bury the horses. Shells dropped every day, some days +all day. I have seen men running along the streets, flattening +themselves against a house whenever they heard the whirr of a shell. + +It is not easy to eat, and sleep, and live together in close quarters, +sometimes with rush work, sometimes through severer hours of aimless +waiting. Again and again, we became weary of one another, impatient over +trifles. + +[Illustration: BELGIAN SOLDIERS TELEPHONING TO AN ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUN THE +APPROACH OF A GERMAN TAUBE. + +These lookout posts for observing and directing gun fire carry a +portable telephone, adapted to sudden changes of position.] + +What war does is to reveal human nature. It does not alter it. It +heightens the brutality and the heroism. Selfishness shines out nakedly +and kindliness is seen clearer than in routine peace days. War brings +out what is inside the person. Sentimental pacifists sit around three +thousand miles away and say, "War brutalizes men," and when I hear them +I think of the English Tommies giving me their little stock of +cigarettes for the Belgian soldiers. Then I read the militarists and +they say, "Be hard. Live dangerously. War is beneficent," and I see the +wrecked villages of Belgium, with the homeless peasants and the orphaned +babies. War ennobles some men by sacrifice, by heroism. It debases other +men by handing over the weak to them for torture and murder. What is in +the man comes out under the supreme test, where there are no courts of +appeal, no public opinion, no social restraint; only the soldier alone +with helpless victims. + +You can't share the chances of life and death with people, without +feeling a something in common with them, that you do not have even with +life-long friends. The high officer and the cockney Tommy have that +linking up. There was one person whom I couldn't grow to like. But with +him I have shared a ticklish time, and there is that cord of connection. +Then, too, one is glad of a record of oneself. There is some one to +verify what you say. You have passed through an unbelievable thing +together, and you have a witness. + +Henri, our Belgian orderly, has that feeling for us, and we for him. It +isn't respect, nor fondness, alone. Companionship meant for him new +shirts, dry boots, more chocolate, a daily supply of cigarettes. It +meant our seeing the picture of wife and child in Liege, hearing about +his home. It was the sharing of danger, the facing together of the +horror that underlies life, and which we try to forget in soft peace +days. The friendships of war are based on a more fundamental thing than +the friendships of safe living. In the supreme experience of motherhood, +the woman goes down alone into the place of suffering, leaving the man, +however dear, far away. But in this supreme experience of facing death +to save life, you go together. The little Belgian soldier is at your +side. Together you sit tight under fire, put the bandages on the +wounded, and speed back to a safer place. + +Once I went to the farthest outpost. A Belgian soldier stepped out of +the darkness. + +"Come along, miss, I've a good gun. I'll take you." + +Walking up the road, not in the middle where machine guns could rake us, +but huddled up by the trees at the siding, we went. It will be a +different thing to meet him one day in Antwerp, than it will be to greet +again the desk-clerk of the La Salle Hotel in Chicago. It lies deeper +than doing you favors, and assigning a sunny room. + +The men are not impersonal units in an army machine. They become +individuals to us, with sharply marked traits. It is impossible to see +them as cases. Out of the individuals, we built our types--we +constructed our Belgian soldier, out of the hundreds who had told us of +their work and home. + +"You must have met so many you never came to know their stories." + +It was the opposite. Paul Collaer, who played beautifully; Gilson, the +mystic; Henri of Liege; the son of Ysaye, they were all clear to us. +There was a splendid fat doctor who felt physical fear, but never +shirked his job. He used to go and hide behind the barn, with his pipe, +till there was work for him. His wasn't the fear that spreads disaster +through a crowd. He was fat and funny. A fat man is comfortable to have +around, at any time, even when he is unhappy. No one lost respect for +this man. Every one enjoyed him thoroughly. + +Commandant Gilson of the Belgian army was one of our firm friends. My +introduction to him was when I heard a bit of a Liszt rhapsody floating +into the kitchen from our piano, the fingers rapid and fluent, and long +nails audible on the keys. I remember the first meal with him, a +luncheon of fried sardines, fruit cake, bread and cheese. The doctor +across the way had sent a bottle of champagne. After luncheon he +received word of an attack. He kissed the hand of each of us, said +good-by, and went out to clean his gun. We did not think we should see +him again. He retook the outpost and had many more meals with us. He +would rise from broken English into swift French--stories of the Congo, +one night till 2 a.m. Always smoking a cigarette--his mustache sometimes +singed from the fire of the diminishing butt. For orderly, he had a +black fat Congo boy, in dark blue Belgian uniform, flat-nosed, with +wrinkles down the forehead. He was Gilson's man, never looking at him in +speaking, and using an open vowel dialect. Before one of the attacks, a +soldier came to Gilson with his wife's picture, watch, ring, and money, +and his home address. + +"I'm not going to come out," said the soldier. + +It happened so. + +The Commandant's pockets were heavy with these mementoes of the +predestined--the letters of boys to their mothers. He had that +tenderness and agreeable sentiment which seem to go with bravery. He +filled his uniform with souvenirs of pleasant times, a china +slipper--our dinner favor to him--a roadside weed, a paper napkin from a +happy luncheon--a score or more little pieces of sentimental value. When +he went into dangerous action, he never ordered any one to follow him. +He called for volunteers, and was grieved that it was the lads of +sixteen and seventeen years that were always the first to offer. + +We had grown to care for these men. From the first, soldiers of France +and Belgium had given us courtesy. In Paris, it was a soldier who stood +in line for me, and got the paper. It was a soldier who shared his food +and wine on the fourteen-hour trip from Paris to Dieppe--four hours in +peace days, fourteen hours in mobilization. It was a soldier who left +the car and found out the change of train and the hour--always a soldier +who did the helpful thing. It did not require war to create their +quality of friendliness and unselfish courtesy. + +How could Red Cross work be impersonal? No one would go over to be shot +at on an impersonal errand of mercy. You risk yourself for individual +men, for men in whose cause you believe. Surely, the loyal brave German +women feel as we felt. Red Cross work is not only a service to suffering +flesh. It is work to remake a soldier, who will make right prevail. The +Red Cross worker is aiming her rifle at the enemy by every bandage she +ties on wounded Belgians. She is rebuilding the army. She is as +efficient and as deadly as the workman that makes the powder, the +chauffeur that drives it to the trench in transports, and the gunner +that shoots it into the hostile line. The mother does not extend her +motherliness to the destroyer of her family. There is no hater like the +mother when she faces that which violates her brood. The same mother +instinct makes you take care of your own, and fight for your own. We all +of us would go for a Belgian first, and tend to a Belgian first. We +would take one of our own by the roadside in preference, if there was +room only for one. But if you brought in a German, wounded, he became an +individual in need of help. There was a high pride in doing well by him. +We would show them of what stuff the Allies were made. Clear of hate and +bitterness, we had nothing but good will for the gallant little German +boys, who smiled at us from their cots in Furnes hospital. And who could +be anything but kindly for the patient German fathers of middle age, who +lay in pain and showed pictures of "Frau" and the home country, where +some of them would never return. Two or three times, the Queen of the +Belgians stopped at our base hospital. She talked with the wounded +Germans exactly as she talked to her own Belgians--the same modest +courtesy and gift of personal caring. + +I think the key to our experience was the mother instinct in the three +women. What we tried to do was to make a home out of an emergency +station at the heart of war. We took hold of a room knee-high with +battered furniture and wet plaster, cleaned it, spread army blankets on +springs, found a bowl and jug, and made a den for the chauffeur. In our +own room, we arranged an old lamp, then a shade to soften the light. On +a mantel, were puttees, cold cream and a couple of books; in the wall, +nails for coats and scarfs. The soldiers, entering, said it was +homelike. It was a rest after the dreariness of the trench. We brought +glass from Furnes, and patched the windows. We dined, slept, lived, and +tended wounded men in the one room. In another room, a shell had sprayed +the ceiling, so we had to pull the plaster down to the bare lathing. We +commandeered a stove from a ruined house. Night after night, we carried +a sick man there and had a fire for him. We treated him for a bad +throat, and put him to bed. A man dripping from the inundations, we +dried out. For a soldier with bruised feet, we prepared a pail of hot +water, and gave a thorough soaking. + +In the early morning we took down the shutters, carried our own coal, +built our own fires, brought water from a ditch, scrubbed table tops +and swept the floor, prepared tincture of iodine, the bandages, and +cotton wool. We went up the road around 8.30, for the Germans had a +habit of shelling at 9 o'clock. Sometimes they broke their rule, and +began lopping them in at half-past eight. Then we had to wait till ten. +We kept water hot for sterilizing instruments. We sat around, reading, +thinking, chatting, letter-writing, waiting for something to happen. +There would be long days of waiting. There were days when there was no +shelling. Besides the wounded, we had visits from important +personages--the Mayor of Paris, the Queen of the Belgians, officers from +headquarters, Maxine Elliott. For a very special supper, we would jug a +Belgian hare or cook curry and rice, and add beer, jam, and black army +bread. An officer gave us an order for one hundred kilos of meat, and we +could send daily for it. On Christmas Day, 1914, for eight of us, we had +plum puddings, a bottle of port, a bottle of champagne, a tiny pheasant +and a small chicken, and a box of candies. We had a steady stream of +shells, and a few wounded. It was a day of sunshine on a light fall of +snow. + +I learned in the Pervyse work that an up-to-date skirt is no good for a +man's work. With rain five days out of seven, rubber boots, breeches, +raincoat, two pairs of stockings, and three jerseys are the correct +costume. We were criticized for going to Dunkirk in breeches. So I put +on a skirt one time when I went there for supplies. I fell in alighting +from the motor-car, collecting a bigger crowd by sprawling than any of +us had collected by our uniform. Later, again in a skirt, I jumped on a +military motor-car, and couldn't climb the side. I had to pull my skirt +up, and climb over as a man climbs. If women are doing the work of a +man, they must have the dress of a man. + +That way of dressing and of living released me from the sense of +possession, once and for all. When I first went to Belgium with a pair +of fleece-lined gloves, I was sure, if I ever lost that pair, that they +were irreplaceable. I lost them. I lost article after article, and was +freed from the clinging. I lost a pin for the bodice. I left my laundry +with a washerwoman. Her village was bombarded, and we had to move on. I +lost my kit. A woman has a tie-in with those material things, and the +new life brought freedom from that. + +I put on a skirt to return to London for a rest. I found there people +dressed modishly, and it looked uncomfortable. Styles had been changing: +women were in funny shoes and hats. I went wondering that they could +dress like that. + +And then an overpowering desire for pretty things came on me--for a +piece of old lace, a pink ribbon. After sleeping by night in the clothes +worn through the day, wearing the same two shirts for four months, no +pajamas, no sheets, with spots of grease and blood on all the costume, I +had a longing for frivolous things, such as a pink tea gown. Old +slippers and a bath and shampoo seemed good. I had a wholesome delight +in a modest clean blouse and in buying a new frock. + +I returned to Pervyse. The Germans changed their range: an evening, a +morning and an afternoon--three separate bombardments with heavy +shells. The wounded were brought in. Nearly every one died. We piled +them together, anywhere that they wouldn't be tripped over. To the back +kitchen we carried the bodies of two boys. One of the orderlies knew +them. He went in with us to remove the trinkets from their necks. Every +now and then, he went back again, to look at them. They were very +beautiful, young, healthy, lying there together in the back kitchen. It +was a quiet half hour for us, after luncheon. The doctors and nurses +were reading or smoking. I was writing a letter. + +A shell drove itself through the back kitchen wall and exploded over the +dead boys, bringing rafters and splintered glass and bricks down on +them. My pencil slid diagonally across the sheet, and I got up. Our two +orderlies and three soldiers rushed in, holding their eyes from the blue +fumes of the explosion. When one shell comes, the chances are that it +will be followed by three more, aimed at the same place. It had always +been my philosophy that it is better to be "pinked" in the house than on +the road, but not on this particular day. An army ambulance was standing +opposite our door, with its nose turned toward the trenches. The +Belgian driver rushed for the door, slammed it shut because of the +shells, opened it again. He ran to the car, cranked it, turned it +around. We stood in the doorway and waited, watching the shells dropping +with a wail, tearing up the road here, then there. After that we moved +back to La Panne. + +[Illustration: POSTCARDS SKETCHED AND BLOCKED BY A BELGIAN WORKMAN, A. +VAN DOORNE. + +Belgium suffering, but united, is the idea he brings out in his work.] + +There I stayed on with Miss Georgie Fyfe, who is doing such excellent +work among the Belgian refugees. She is chief of the evacuation of +civilians who still remain in the bombarded villages and farms. She +brings the old and the sick and the children out of shell fire and finds +them safe homes. To the Refugee House she takes the little ones to be +cared for till there are fifty. Then she sends them to Switzerland, +where brothers and sisters are kept unseparated in family groups until +the war is over. The Queen busies herself with these children. For the +newest generation of Belgians Miss Fyfe has established a Maternity +Hospital. Nearly one hundred babies have come to live there. + +It was my work to keep track of clothes and supplies. On a flying trip +to Paris, I told the American Relief Committee the story of this work, +and Geoffrey Dodge sent thirty complete layettes, bran-new, four big +cases, four gunny-sack bags, full of clothing for men, women, and +children, special brands of milk for young mothers in our maternity +hospital. Later, he sent four more sacks and four great wooden cases. + +We used to tramp through many fields, over a single plank bridging the +ditches, to reach the lonely shelled farm, and persuade the stubborn, +unimaginative Flemish parents to give up their children for a safe home. +One mother had a yoke around her neck, and two heavy pails. + +"When can I send my child?" she asked. + +She had already sent two and had received happy letters from them. Other +mothers are suspicious of us, and flatly refuse, keeping their children +in the danger zone till death comes. During a shelling, the cure would +telephone for our ambulance. He would collect the little ones and sick +old people. Miss Fyfe could persuade them to come more easily when the +shells were falling. At the moment of parting, everybody cries. The +children are dressed. The one best thing they own is put on--a pair of +shoes from the attic, stiff new shoes, worked on the little feet unused +to shoes. Out of a family of ten children we would win perhaps three. +Back across the fields they trooped to our car, clean faces, matted +dirty hair, their wee bundle tied up in a colored handkerchief, no hats, +under the loose dark shirt a tiny Catholic charm. We lifted the little +people into the big yellow ambulance--big brother and sister, sitting at +the end to pin them in. We carried crackers and chocolate. They are soon +happy with the sweets, chattering, enjoying their first motor-car ride, +and eager for the new life. + + + + +LES TRAVAILLEURS DE LA GUERRE + + The boy soldier is willing to make any day his last if it is a good + day. It is not so with the middle-aged man. He is puzzled by the + war. What he has to struggle with more than bodily weakness is the + malady of thought. Is the bloody business worth while? + + +I SAW him first, my middle-aged man, one afternoon on the boards of an +improvised stage in the sand-dunes of Belgium. On that last thin strip +of the shattered kingdom English and French and Belgians were grimly +massed. He was a Frenchman, and he was cheering up his comrades. With +shining black hair and volatile face, he played many parts that day. He +recited sprightly verses of Parisian life. He carried on amazing +twenty-minute dialogues with himself, mimicking the voice of girl and +woman, bully and dandy. His audience had come in stale from the +everlasting spading and marching. They brightened visibly under his +gaiety. If he cared to make that effort in the saddened place, they +were ready to respond. When he dismissed them, the last flash of him was +of a smiling, rollicking improvisator, bowing himself over to the +applause till his black hair was level with our eyes. + +And then next day as I sat in my ambulance, waiting orders, he trudged +by in his blue, "the color of heaven" once, but musty now from nights +under the rain. His head of hair, which the glossy black wig had +covered, was gray-white. The sparkling, pantomimic face had dropped into +wrinkles. He was patient and old and tired. Perhaps he, too, would have +been glad of some one to cheer him up. He was just one more +territorial--trench-digger and sentry and filler-in. He became for me +the type of all those faithful, plodding soldiers whose first strength +is spent. In him was gathered up all that fatigue and sadness of men for +whom no glamour remains. + +They went past me every day, hundreds of them, padding down the Nieuport +road, their feet tired from service and their boots road-worn--crowds of +men beyond numbering, as far as one could see into the dry, volleying +dust and beyond the dust; men coming toward me, a nation of them. They +came at a long, uneven jog, a cluttered walk. Every figure was sprinkled +and encircled by dust--dust on their gray temples, and on their wet, +streaming faces, dust coming up in puffs from their shuffling feet, too +tired to lift clear of the heavy roadbed. There was a hot, pitiless sun, +and every man of them was shrouded in the long, heavy winter coat, as +soggy as a horse blanket, and with thick leather gaiters, loose, +flapping, swathing their legs as if with bandages. On the man's back was +a pack, with the huge swell of the blanket rising up beyond the neck and +generating heat-waves; a loaf of tough black bread fastened upon the +knapsack or tied inside a faded red handkerchief; and a dingy, scarred +tin Billy-can. At his shapeless, rolling waist his belt hung heavy with +a bayonet in its casing. On the shoulder rested a dirt-caked spade, with +a clanking of metal where the bayonet and the Billy-can struck the +handle of the spade. Under a peaked cap showed the bearded face and the +white of strained eyes gleaming through dust and sweat. The man was too +tired to smile and talk. The weight of the pack, the weight of the +clothes, the dust, the smiting sun--all weighted down the man, leaving +every line in his body sagging and drooping with weariness. + +These are the men that spade the trenches, drive the food-transports and +ammunition-wagons, and carry through the detail duties of small honor +that the army may prosper. When has it happened before that the older +generation holds up the hands of the young? At the western front they +stand fast that the youth may go forward. They fill in the shell-holes +to make a straight path for less-tired feet. They drive up food to give +good heart to boys. + +War is easy for the young. The boy soldier is willing to make any day +his last if it is a good day. It is not so with the middle-aged man. He +is puzzled by the war. What he has to struggle with more than bodily +weakness is the malady of thought. Is the bloody business worth while? +Is there any far-off divine event which his death will hasten? The wines +of France are good wines, and his home in fertile Normandy was pleasant. + +As we stood in the street in the sun one hot afternoon, four men came +carrying a wounded man. The stretcher was growing red under its burden. +The man's face was greenish white, with a stubble of beard. The flesh of +his body was as white as snow from loss of blood. It was torn at the +chest and sides. They carried him to the dressing-station, and half an +hour later lifted him into our car. We carried him in for two miles. +Four flies fed on the red rim of his closed left eye. He lay silent, +motionless. Only a slight flutter of the coverlet, made by his +breathing, gave a sign of life. At the Red Cross post we stopped. The +coverlet still slightly rose and fell. The doctor, brown-bearded, in +white linen, stepped into the car, tapped the man's wrist, tested his +pulse, put a hand over his heart. Then the doctor muttered, drew the +coverlet over the greenish-white face, and ordered the marines to remove +him. In the moment of arrival the wounded man had died. + +In the courtyard next our post two men were carrying in long strips of +wood. This wood was for coffins, and one of them would be his. + +A funeral passes our car, one every day, sometimes two: a wooden cross +in front, carried by a soldier; the white-robed chaplain chanting; the +box of light wood, on a frame of black; the coffin draped in the +tricolor, a squad of twenty soldiers following the dead. That is the +funeral of the middle-aged man. There is no time wasted on him in the +brisk business of war; but his comrades bury him. One in particular +faithful at funerals I had learned to know--M. Le Doze. War itself is so +little the respecter of persons that this man had found himself of value +in paying the last small honor to the obscure dead as they were carried +from his Red Cross post to the burial-ground. One hopes that he will +receive no hasty trench burial when his own time comes. + +I cannot write of the middle-aged man of the Belgians because he has +been killed. That first mixed army, which in thin line opposed its body +to an immense machine, was crushed by weight and momentum. Little is +left but a memory. But I shall not forget the veteran officer of the +first army, near Lokeren, who kept his men under cover while he ran out +into the middle of the road to see if the Uhlans were coming. The only +Belgian army today is an army of boys. Recently we had a letter from +Andre Simont, of the "Obusiers Lourdes, Beiges," and he wrote: + + If you promise me you will come back for next summer, I won't get + pinked. If I ever do, it doesn't matter. I have had twenty years of + very happy life. + +If he were forty-five, he would say, as a French officer at Coxyde said +to me: + +"Four months, and I haven't heard from my wife and children. We had a +pleasant home. I was well to do. I miss the good wines of my cellar. +This beer is sour. We have done our best, we French, our utmost, and it +isn't quite enough. We have made a supreme effort, but it hasn't cleared +the enemy from our country. _La guerre--c'est triste._" + +He, too, fights on, but that overflow of vitality does not visit him, as +it comes to the youngsters of the first line. It is easy for the boys of +Brittany to die, those sailors with a rifle, the stanch Fusiliers +Marins, who, outnumbered, held fast at Melle and Dixmude, and for twelve +months made Nieuport, the extreme end of the western battle-line, a +great rock. It is easy, because there is a glory in the eyes of boys. +But the older man lives with second thoughts, with a subdued philosophy, +a love of security. He is married, with a child or two; his garden is +warm in the afternoon sun. He turns wistfully to the young, who are so +sure, to cheer him. With him it is bloodshed, the moaning of shell-fire, +and harsh command. + +One afternoon at Coxyde, in the camp of the middle-aged--the +territorials--an open-air entertainment was given. Massed up the side of +a sand-dune, row on row, were the bearded men, two thousand of them. +There were flashes of youth, of course--marines in dark blue, with +jaunty round hat with fluffy red centerpiece; Zouaves with dusky +Algerian skin, yellow-sorrel jacket, and baggy harem trousers; Belgians +in fresh khaki uniform; and Red Cross British Quakers. But the mass of +the men were middle-aged--territorials, with the light-blue long-coat, +good for all weathers and the sharp night, and the peaked cap. Over the +top of the dune where the soldiers sat an observation balloon was +suspended in a cloudless blue sky, like a huge yellow caterpillar. +Beyond the pasteboard stage, high on a western dune, two sentries stood +with their bayonets touched by sunlight. To the south rose a monument to +the territorial dead. To the north an aeroplane flashed along the line, +full speed, while gun after gun threw shrapnel at it. + +As I looked on the people, suddenly I thought of the Sermon on the +Mount, with the multitude spread about, tier on tier, hungry for more +than bread. It was a scene of summer beauty, with the glory of the sky +thrown in, and every now and then the music of the heart. Half the songs +of the afternoon were gay, and half were sad with long enduring, and the +memory of the dear ones distant and of the many dead. Not in lightness +or ignorance were these men making war. When I saw the multitude and how +they hungered, I wished that Bernhardt could come to them in the dunes +and express in power what is only hinted at by humble voices. I thought +how everywhere we wait for some supreme one to gather up the hope of the +nations and the anguish of the individual, and make a music that will +send us forward to the Rhine. + +But a better thing than that took place. One of their own came and +shaped their suffering into song. And together, he and they, they made a +song that is close to the great experience of war. A Belgian, one of the +boy soldiers, came forward to sing to the bearded men. And the song that +he sang was "_La valse des obus_"--"The Dance of the Shells." + +"Dear friends, I'm going to sing you some rhymes on the war at the +Yser." + +The men to whom he was singing had been holding the Yser for ten months. + +"I want you to know that life in the trenches, night by night, isn't +gay." + +Two thousand men, unshaved and tousled, with pain in their joints from +those trench nights, were listening. + +"As soon as you get there, you must set to work. It doesn't matter +whether it's a black night or a full moon; without making a sound, close +to the enemy, you must fill the sand-bags for the fortifications." + +Every man on the hill had been doing just that thing for a year. + +Then came his chorus: + +"Every time we are in the trenches, _Crack!_ There breaks the shell." + +But his French has a verve that no literal translation will give. Let us +take it as he sang it: + +"_Crack!_ Il tombe des obus," sang the slight young Belgian, leaning out +toward the two thousand men of many colors, many nations; and soon the +sky in the north was spotted with white clouds of shrapnel-smoke. + +"There we are, all of us, crouching with bent back--_Crack!_ Once more +an obus. The shrapnel, which try to stop us at our job, drive us out; +but the things that bore us still more--_Crack!_--are just those obus." + +With each "_Crack!_ Il tombe des obus," the big bass-drum boomed like +the shell he sang of. His voice was as tense and metallic as a taut +string, and he snapped out the lilting line in swift staccato as if he +were flaying his audience with a whip. Man after man on the hillside +took up the irresistible rhythm in an undertone, and "Cracked" with the +singer. In front of me was being created a folk-song. The bitterness +and glory of their life were being told to them, and they were hearing +the singer gladly. Their leader was lifting the dreary trench night and +death itself into a surmounting and joyous thing. + +"When you've made your entrenchment, then you must go and guard it +without preliminaries. All right; go ahead. But just as you're moving, +you have to squat down for a day and a night--yes, for a full +twenty-four hours--because things are hot. Somebody gives you half a +drop of coffee. Thirst torments you. The powder-fumes choke you." + +Here and there in the crowd, listening intently, men were stirring. The +lad was speaking to the exact intimate detail of their experience. This +was the life they knew. What would he make of it? + +"Despite our sufferings, we cherish the hope some day of returning and +finding our parents, our wives, and our little ones. Yes, that is my +hope, my joyous hope. But to come to that day, so like a dream, we must +be of good cheer. It is only by enduring patience, full of confidence, +that we shall force back our oppressors. To chase away those cursed +Prussians--_Crack_! We need the obus. My captain calling, '_Crack_! +More, still more of those obus!' Giving them the bayonet in the bowels, +we shall chase them clean beyond the Rhine. And our victory will be won +to the waltz of the obus." + +It was a song out of the heart of an unconquerable boy. It climbed the +hillock to the top. The response was the answer of men moved. His song +told them why they fought on. There is a Belgium, not under an alien +rule, which the shells have not shattered, and that dear kingdom is +still uninvaded. The mother would rather lose her husband and her son +than lose the France that made them. Their earthly presence is less +precious than the spirit that passed into them out of France. That is +why these weary men continue their fight. The issue will rest in +something more than a matter of mathematics. It is the last stand of the +human spirit. + +What is this idea of country, so passionately held, that the women walk +to the city gates with son and husband and send them out to die? It is +the aspect of nature shared in by folk of one blood, an arrangement of +hill and pasture which grew dear from early years, sounds and echoes of +sound that come from remembered places. It is the look of a land that is +your land, the light that flickers in an English lane, the bells that +used to ring in Bruges. + + ++----------------------------------------------------------------+ +|Transcribers note: In the original and html version this poem is| +|centered, in this text is is rendered flat to the margin. | ++----------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + +LA VALSE DES OBUS + + I + + Chers amis, je vais + Vous chanter des couplets, + Sur la guerre, + A l'Yser. + Pour vous faire savoir, + Que la vie, tous les soirs, + Aux tranchees, + N'est pas gaie. + A peine arrive, + 'l Faut aller travailler. + Qu'il fasse noir' ou qu'il y ait clair de lune, + Et sans fair' du bruit, + Nous allons pres de l'ennemi, + Remplir des sacs pour fair' des abris. + + Ir et IIe Refrain + + Chaqu' fois que nous sommes aux tranchees, + Crack! Il tombe des obus. + + Nous sommes tous la, le dos courbee + Crack! Encore un obus. + Les shrapnels pour nous divetir, + Au travail, nous font deguerpir. + Mais, et qui nous ennuie le plus, + Crack! se sont les obus. + + II + + L'abri termine, + 'l Faut aller l'occuper, + Sans facons. + Allez-donc. + Pas moyen d' se bouger + Donc, on doit y rester + Accroupi, + Jour et nuit, + Pendant la chaleur, + Pour passer vingt-quatr' heures. + On nous donn' une d'mi gourde de cafe. + La soif nous tourmente, + Et la poudre asphyxiante, + Nous etouffe au dessus du marche. + + III + + Malgre nos souffrances, + Nous gardons l'esperance + D' voir le jour, + De notr' retour + De r'trouver nos parents, + Nos femmes et nos enfants. + Plein de joie, + Oui ma foi, + Mais pour arriver, + A ce jour tant reve, + Nous devons tous y mettre du coeur, + C'est avec patience, + Et plein de confiance, + Que nous repouss'rons les oppresseurs. + + Refrain + + Pour chasser ces maudits All'mands + Crack! Il faut des obus. + En plein dedans mon commandant, + Crack! Encore des obus. + Et la baionnett' dans les reins, + Nous les chass'rons au dela du Rhin. + La victoire des Allies s'ra due + A la valse des obus. + + + + + _There is little value in telling of suffering unless something can + be done about it. So I close this book with an appeal for help in a + worthy work._ + + + + +REMAKING FRANCE + + +There was a young peasant farmer who went out with his fellows, and +stopped the most powerful and perfectly equipped army of history. He +saved France, and the cause of gentleness and liberty. He did it by the +French blood in him--in gay courage and endurance. He was happy in doing +it, or, if not happy, yet glorious. But he paid the price. The enemy +artillery sent a splinter of shell that mangled his arm. He lay out +through the long night on the rich infected soil. Then the stretcher +bearers found him and lifted him to the car, and carried him to the +field hospital. There they had to operate swiftly, for infection was +spreading. So he was no longer a whole man, but he was still of good +spirit, for he had done his bit for France. Then they bore him to a base +hospital, where he had white sheets and a wholesome nurse. He lay there +weak and content. Every one was good to him. But there came a day when +they told him he must leave to make room for the fresher cases of need. +So he was turned loose into a world that had no further use for him. A +cripple, he couldn't fight and he couldn't work, for his job needed two +arms, and he had given one, up yonder on the Marne. He drifted from shop +to shop in Paris. But he didn't know a trade. Life was through with him, +so one day, he shot himself. + +That, we learn from authoritative sources, is the story of more than one +broken soldier of Joffre's army. + +To be shot clean dead is an easier fate than to be turned loose into +life, a cripple, who must beg his way about. Shall these men who have +defended France be left to rot? All they ask is to be allowed to work. +It is gallant and stirring to fight, and when wounded the soldier is +tenderly cared for. But when he comes out, broken, he faces the +bitterest thing in war. After the hospital--what? Too bad, he's +hurt--but there is no room in the trades for any but a trained man. + +Why not train him? Why not teach him a trade? Build a bridge that will +lead him from the hospital over into normal life. That is better than +throwing him out among the derelicts. Pauperism is an ill reward for the +service that shattered him, and it is poor business for a world that +needs workers. If these crippled ones are not permitted to reconstruct +their working life, the French nation will be dragged down by the +multitude of maimed unemployable men, who are being turned loose from +the hospitals--unfit to fight, untrained to work: a new and +ever-increasing Army of The Miserable. The stout backbone and stanch +spirit of even France will be snapped by this dead-weight of suffering. + +In our field hospital at Fumes, we had one ward where a wave of gaiety +swept the twenty beds each morning. It came when the leg of the bearded +man was dressed by the nurse. He thrust it out from under the covering: +a raw stump, off above the ankle. It was an old wound, gone sallow with +the skin lapped over. The men in the cots close by shouted with laughter +at the look of it, and the man himself laughed till he brought pain to +the wound. Then he would lay hold of the sides of the bed to control +his merriment. The dressing proceeded, with brisk comment from the +wardful of men, and swift answers from the patient under treatment. The +grim wound had so obviously made an end of the activity of that +particular member and, as is war's way, had done it so evilly, with such +absence of beauty, that only the human spirit could cover that hurt. So +he and his comrades had made it the object of gaiety. + +For legless men, there are a dozen trades open, if they are trained. +They can be made into tailors, typists, mechanicians. The soldiers' +schools, already established, report success in shoemaking, for +instance. The director sends us this word:-- + +"From the first we had foreseen for this the greatest success--the +results have surpassed our hopes. We are obliged to double the size of +the building, and increase the number of professors. + +"Why? + +"Because, more than any other profession, that of shoemaking is the most +feasible in the country, in the village, in the small hamlet. This is +the one desire of most of these wounded soldiers: before everything, +they wish to be able to return to their homes. And all the more if a +wife and children wait them there, in a little house with a patch of +garden. Out of our fifty men now learning shoemaking, twenty-nine were +once sturdy farm laborers. The profession is not fatiguing and, in spite +of our fears, not one of our leg-amputated men has given up his +apprenticeship on account of fatigue or physical inability." + +Very many of the soldiers are maimed in hand or arm. On the broad beach +of La Panne, in front of the Ocean Hospital of Dr. Depage, a young +soldier talked with my wife one afternoon. Early in the war his right +arm had been shot through the bicep muscle. He had been sent to London, +where a specialist with infinite care linked the nerves together. Daily +the wounded boy willed strength into the broken member, till at last he +found he could move the little finger. It was his hope to bring action +back to the entire hand, finger by finger. + +"You can't do anything--you can't even write," they said to him. So he +met that, by schooling his left hand to write. + +"Your fighting days are over," they said. He went to a shooting gallery, +and with his left arm learned how to hold a rifle and aim it. Through +the four months of his convalescence he practised to be worthy of the +front line. The military authorities could not put up an objection that +he did not meet. So he won his way back to the Yser trenches. And there +he had received his second hurt and this time the enemy wounded him +thoroughly. And now he was sitting on the sands wondering what the +future held for him. + +Spirit like that does not deserve to be broken by despair. Apparatus has +been devised to supply the missing section of the arm, and such a trade +as toy-making offers a livelihood. It is carried on with a sense of fun +even in the absence of all previous education. One-armed men are largely +employed in it. Let us enter the training shop at Lyon, and watch the +work. The wood is being shot out from the sawing-machine in thin strips +and planed on both sides. This is being done by a man, who used to earn +his living as a packer, and suffered an amputation of his right leg. The +boards are assembled in thicknesses of twenty, and cut out by a "ribbon +saw." This is the occupation of a former tile layer, with his left leg +gone. Others employed in the process are one-armed men. + +Of carpentry the report from the men is this: "This work seems to +generate good humor and liveliness. For this profession two arms are +almost necessary. It can be practised by a man whose leg has been +amputated, preferably the right leg, for the resting point, in handling +the plane, is on the left leg. However, we cannot forget that one-armed +men have achieved wonderful results." + +The profits of the work are divided in full among the pupils as soon as +they have reached the period of production. Each section has its +individual fund box. The older members divide among themselves two +thirds of the gain. The more recently trained take the remainder. The +new apprentices have nothing, because they make no finished product as +yet. That was the rule of the shop. But certain sections petitioned that +the profits should be equally divided among all, without distinction. +They said that among the newcomers there were many as needy as the +older apprentices. + +The director says: + +"This request came from too noble a sentiment not to be granted, +especially as in this way we are certain that our pupils will see to the +discipline of the workshops, being the first concerned that no one shall +shirk." + +He adds: + +"I wish to cite an incident. One of the pupils of the group of +shoemakers, having been obliged to remain over a month in the hospital, +had his share fall to nothing. His comrades got together and raised +among themselves a sum equal to their earnings, so that his enforced +absence would not cause him to suffer any loss. These are features one +is happy to note, because they reveal qualities of heart in our pupils, +much to be appreciated in those who have suffered, and because they show +that our efforts have contributed to keep around them an atmosphere +where these qualities can develop." + +The war has been ingenious in devising cruel hurts, robbing the painter +of his hand, the musician of his arm, the horseman of his leg. It has +taken the peasant from his farm, and the mason from his building. Their +suffering has enriched them with the very quality that will make them +useful citizens, if they can be set to work, if only some one will show +them what to do. For each of these men there is an answer for his +wrecked life, and the answer is found in these workshops where disabled +soldiers can learn the new trade fitted to their crippled condition. + +It costs only four to five francs a day to support the man during his +period of education. The length of time of his tuition depends on the +man and his trade--sometimes three months, sometimes six months. One +hundred dollars will meet the average of all cases. The Americans in +Paris raised $20,000 immediately on learning of this need. In our +country we are starting the "American Committee for Training in Suitable +Trades the Maimed Soldiers of France." Mrs. Edmund Lincoln Baylies is +chairman for the United States. Her address is Room B, Plaza Hotel, New +York. + +We have been owing France through a hundred years for that little +matter of first aid in our American Revolution. Here is an admirable +chance to show we are still warmed by the love and succor she rendered +us then. + +At this moment 30,000 maimed soldiers are asking for work; 30,000 jobs +are ready for them. The employers of France are holding the positions +open, because they need these workers. Only the training is lacking. +This society to train maimed soldiers is not in competition with any +existing form of relief work: it supplements all the others--ambulances +and hospitals and dressing stations. They are temporary, bridging the +month of calamity. This gives back to the men the ten, twenty, thirty +years of life still remaining. They must not remain the victims of their +own heroism. They ask only to be permitted to go on with their work for +France. They will serve in the shop and the factory as they have served +at the Aisne and the Yser. This is a charity to do away with the need of +charity. It is help that leads directly to self-help. + + +THE END + + + + +FOOTNOTES + +[A] When I first published these statements the following letter +appeared in the "New York Tribune":-- + + GERMANY'S SPY SYSTEM + + To the Editor of "The Tribune." + + Sir: I was particularly interested in the article by Mr. Gleason in + this morning's "Tribune" because, having spent several months in + this region in ambulance work, I am able to support several of his + statements from personal observation. + + The house he mentions on the beach near Coxyde Bains was beyond + doubt intended for the purpose he describes. I visited it several + times before it was completely destroyed, and have now in my + possession photographs which show the nature of the building, + besides a tile from the flooring. + + Two instances in which spies were detected came to my knowledge; in + one case the person in question was the mayor of the town, in the + other a peasant woman. One other time I know of information was + given undetected which resulted in the shelling of a road at a time + when a convoy of motors was about to pass. + + The high esteem in which the Red Cross flag is held by German + gunners (as a target) is only too forcibly impressed upon one in + that service. + + MALCOLM T. ROBERTSON. + +Mr. Robertson is a member of the Junior Class in Princeton University. + + +[B] When this record was first made public the "New York Tribune" stated +editorially:-- + +"The writer of the foregoing communication was for several years a +member of 'The Tribune' staff. For the utter trustworthiness of any +statement made by Mr. Gleason, this newspaper is willing to vouch. Mr. +Gleason was at the front caring for the Belgian wounded. He speaks with +full knowledge and complete authority and 'The Tribune' is glad to be +able to submit to its readers a first-hand, eye-witness account of +atrocities written by an American. It calls attention again to the fact, +cited by Mr. Gleason, that his testimony is included in the Bryce +Report, which should give Americans new insight into the value of this +document." + +When Theodore Roosevelt read this record of German atrocity, he made the +following public statement: + +"Remember, there is not the slightest room for honest question either as +to the dreadful, the unspeakably hideous, outrages committed on the +Belgians, or as to the fact that these outrages were methodically +committed by the express command of the German Government in order to +terrorize both the Belgians and among neutrals those men who are as cold +and timid and selfish as our governmental leaders have shown themselves +to be. Let any man who doubts read the statement of an American +eye-witness of these fearful atrocities, Mr. Arthur H. Gleason, in the +'New York Tribune' of November 25, 1915." + +From the Bryce Report, English edition, Page 167. + +_British subject_:-- + +"The girl was at the point of death. Mr. G---- was with me and can +corroborate me as to this and also as to the other facts mentioned +below. On the same day at the same place I saw one L. de M----. I took +this statement from him.... He signed his statement in my pocket book, +and I hold my pocket book at the disposal of the Belgian and English +authorities. + +"I also saw at the hospital an old woman of eighty who was run clean +through by a bayonet thrust. + +"I next went up to another wounded Belgian in the same ward. His name +was F. M----. I wrote his statement in my pocket book and he signed it +after having read it." + +The full statement in the Bryce Report of the atrocities which I +witnessed covers a page. The above sentences are extracts. Mr. Niemira +had neglected to make a note of the exact date in his pocket book, and +calls it "about the 15th of September." It was September 29. + + +[C] If any one wants a history of them, and the world ought to want it, +the book of their acts, is it not written in singing prose in Le +Goffic's "Dixmude, un Chapitre de l'histoire des Fusiliers Marins"? Le +Goffic is a Breton and his own son is with the fighting sailors. He +deals with their autumn exploits in Dixmude on the Yser, that butt-end +of wreck. Legends will spring out of them and the soil they have +reddened. We have heard little of the French in this war--and almost +nothing at all from them. And yet it is the French that have held the +decisive battle line. Unprepared and peace-loving, they have stood the +shock of a perfectly equipped and war-loving army. + +Monsieur Le Goffic is the official historian of the Fusiliers Marins. +His book has gone through forty-nine editions. He is a poet, novelist +and critic. That American sympathy is appreciated is proved by this +sentence from a letter of Le Goffic to an American who had expressed +admiration for the Breton sailors:--"Merci, Monsieur, au nom de mon +pays, merci pour nos marins, et merci pour moi meme." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Golden Lads, by +Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDEN LADS *** + +***** This file should be named 19131.txt or 19131.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/1/3/19131/ + +Produced by Sigal Alon, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +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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