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The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me

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The French also seem to have their easy-going ways. For current
smoking room fiction relates that last spring after a troop of
French soldiers had been hauled out to be shot for refusing to go
into battle under orders, a whole division revolted and demanded
new officers--and got new officers--before they would move forward.
And the same smoking room fiction says that in the revolt the men
were right and the officers wrong.

"Why," asked a new English officer of some Russian troops who had
made a splendid assault on a German position in the spring of 1917,
an assault that required high courage and great soldierly skill,
"why did you men all lift up your hands just before the charge was
made?" The noncom grinned and answered, "We were taking a vote upon
the matter of the charge, sir!"

In a theater on the boulevards in Paris recently a hit was made
by introducing a stage scene showing the princes and nobility in
poverty, looking down from a gallery at the top of the theater, on
the rich working people in the boxes below; the princes and nobility
were singing a doleful ditty and dancing a sad dance about the
changed circumstances that were glooming up the world.

Simultaneousiy across the channel in England, they were telling this
one. Lord Milner, who in Germany would be one of the All Highest
of the High Command, was calling at an English house where the
children were not used to nobility. They heard their father refer
to Lord Milner as "my lord." And one child edged up to him in
awe and asked, "O sir, were you indeed born in a manger?" The All
Highest smiled and quoth in reply, "No, my child, no, I was not born
in a manger, but if they keep on taxing me, I fear I shall die in
one!"

The Italians have high hopes of harnessing their nine millions of
horsepower in Alpine water-falls, running their state-owned railroads
and public utilities with it, and introducing electricity as
an industrial power into Italian homes, thus bringing back to the
homes of the people the home industries like weaving which steam
took away a century ago. But this is only a dream. Yet sometimes
dreams do come true. And dreams are wishes unexpressed; and in this
clay of democratic power, a wish with a ballot behind it becomes
a will, and soon hardens into a fact. The times are changing. But
of course human nature remains much the same. Men under a given
environment will do about the same kind of things under one set of
circumstances. But we should not forget in our computations that
laws, customs, traditions, the distribution of wealth, make an
entirely new environment, and that circumstances are not the same
when environment differs. That the surroundings of those people known
collectively as "the poor" have changed, and changed permanently
by the war, no one who sees them in Europe can doubt. They are
well-fed, well-housed, and are determined to be well-educated.
They know that they can use their ballots to get their share of
the wealth they produce. They are never going to be content again
with crusts. They are motived now by hope rather than by fear, and
they are going to react strangely during the next ten years on the
social structure of this old world. But even the new majority will
not change everything of course. Grass will grow, water will run
down hill, smart men will lead fools, wise men will have the places
of honour and power, in proportion to the practicality of their
wisdom. But for all that, we shall have in a rather large and
certainly in a keenly interesting degree a new heaven and a new
earth.

Now as these speculations upon the new order came to us as our journey
drew to its close in England, the war seemed slowly to change its
meaning. It became something more than a conflict; it seemed to be
a revolution--world-wide, and all encompassing. Then we thought of
"the front" in new terms.

We realized that behind the curtain in Germany, a despotic will,
scientifically guided, is controlling the food, the munitions,
the assembling of men and materials for this war. But on this side
of the German curtain at the "front" which we knew, a democratic
purpose is doing these things. The view of that democratic purpose
at work, to me at least, was my chief trophy of the war. The laws
which make food conservation possible, which direct shipping,
mobilize railroads, control industry, regulate wages, prescribe
many of the habits of life to fit the war, all rise out of the
experience of the people. There is a vast amount of the "consent
of the governed" in this whole war game, so far as the Allies are
concerned. And as it is in democratic finance, so also is it in
the taste and talent and capacity for war. That also is democratic.
What a wide range of human activity is massed in this business of
war!

For days and days after we left the continent, in our minds we could
see armies moving into the trenches somewhere along the "far flung
battle line," and other armies moving out. The picture haunted us.
It seemed to me a cinematograph of democracy. For the change of an
army division from the trenches, tired, worn and bedraggled, moving
wearily to its station of rest, with another army division, fresh
and eager, moving up from its station of rest to the front, is indeed
a social miracle. It is a fine bit of human machinery. So in terms
of our modern democracy it may be well to review the interminable
panorama of this democratic war. Fifty years ago it would have been
a memorable achievement. Waterloo itself was not such a miracle. Yet
somewhere in this war, this wonder is done every day and no record
is made of it. Imagine hundreds of miles of wide, white roads,
hard-surfaced and graded for the war, leading to a sector of
the line. To make and keep these roads, itself is a master's job.
Imagine the roads filled all day with two long lines of trucks,
passing and repassing; one line carrying its guns and camp outfit,
its whole paraphernalia of war, going to the battle front in the
hills; another never-ceasing procession with its martial impedimenta
coming out of the hills to rest. A few horses hauling big gun
carriages straggle through the dust. Here and there, but rarely,
is a group of marching men--generally men singing as they march.
Occasionally a troop of German prisoners marching with the goose
step, comes swinging along carrying their shovels at a martial
angle--road menders--which proves that we are more than thirty
kilos from the firing line; now and then a camp-kitchen rattles
past. But ever in one's ears is the rich rumble of trucks, recalling
the voluptuous sound of the circus wagon on the village street.
But always there are two great circus parades, one going up, one
coming down. Lumbering trucks larger than city house-moving vans
whirl by in dust clouds; long--interminably long--lines of these
trucks creak, groan and rumble by. Some of the trucks are mysteriously
non-committal as to their contents--again reproducing the impression
of the circus parade. Probably they hide nothing more terrible
than tents or portable ice plants. But most of the trucks that go
growling up and come snarling down the great white roads, bear men;
singing men, sleeping men, cheering men, unshaved men, natty men,
eating men, smoking men, old men and young men, but always cheerful
men--private soldiers hurrying about the business of war; to their
trenches or from their trenches, but always cheerful. Sometimes
a staff officer's car, properly caparisoned, shuttles through the
line like a flashing needle; sometimes a car full of young officers
of the line tries to nose ahead of the men of the regiment, but
rather meekly do these youngsters try to sneak their advantage,
as one swiping an apple; no great special privilege is theirs.
Interminable lines of truck-mounted guns rattle along, each great
gun festively named, as for instance, "The Siren," or "Baby" or
"The Peach" or "The Cooing Dove." Curious snaky looking objects
all covered with wiggly camouflage--some artist's pride--are these
guns, and back of them or in front of them and around them, clank
huge empty ammunition wagons going out, or heavy ones coming in. At
short intervals along the road are repair furnaces, and near them
a truck or a gun carriage, or an ambulance that has turned out for
slight repairs. In the village are great stores of gasoline and
rubber, huge quantities of it assembled by some magic for the hour's
urgent need.

What a marvel of organization it is; no confusion, no distraught
men, no human voice raised except in ribald song. From the ends of
the earth have come all these men, all these munitions, all this
food and tents and iron and steel and rubber and gas and oil. And
there it centers for the hour of its need on this one small sector
of the front; indeed on every small sector of the long, long trail,
these impedimenta of war come hurrying to their deadly work. And
it is not one man; not one nation even, not one race, nor even one
race kindred that is assembling this endless caravan of war. It
is a spirit that is calling from the vasty deep of this world's
treasure, unto material things to rise, take shape and gather at
this tryst with death. It is the spirit of democracy calling across
the world. The supreme councils of the Allies--what are they? They
change, form and reform. Generals, field marshals, staff officers
in gold lace, cabinets, presidents, puppet kings, and God knows
what of those who strut for a little time in their pomp of place and
power--what are they but points on the drill of the great machine
whose power is the people of the world, struggling in protest
against despotism, privilege, autocracy and the pretence of the few
to play greedily at the master game. The points break off, or are
worn off--what difference does it make? Joffre, French, Cardona,
Neville, Asquith, Painleve, Kitchener, Haig--the drill never
ceases; the power behind it never falters. For once in the world
the spirit of democracy is organized; organized across lines of
race, of language, of national boundary! A score of million men, in
arms, a score of billions of people--workers, captains of industry,
local leaders, little governors and commercial princelets, bosses,
farmers, bankers, skilled labourers, and men and women of fumbling
hands and slow brains, teachers, preachers, philosophers, poets,
thieves, harlots, saints and sinners--all the free people of the
world, giving what talents Heaven has bestowed upon them to make the
power of this great machine that moves so smoothly, so resistlessly,
so beautifully along the white ribbons of roads up to the battle.

When the battle ceases, of course, that organization will depart.
But always democracy will know that it can organize, that it can
rise to a divine dignity of courage and sacrifice. And that knowledge
is the great salvage of this war. More than written laws, more
than justice established, more than wrongs righted in any nation,
and in all the nations will be the knowledge of this latent power
of men!




CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH WE RETURN TO "THE LAND OF THE FREE"


We found when we were leaving England another of those curious
contrasts between the nations of the earth that one meets in a long
journey. Coming into Bordeaux we were convoyed for three hours by
a ratty little French destroyer and a big dirigible French balloon.
Leaving Liverpool, we lay two nights and a day sealed in the harbour,
and then sailed out with the Arabic, the Mongolian, the Victorian,
and two freighters, amid a whole flock of cruisers and destroyers.
The protecting fleet stayed with us two nights and three days.
On the French boat the barber practically had no news of sudden
deaths and hairbreadth escapes which had happened while we slept.
We sailed into the Gironde River peacefully, almost joyously. But
we left the Mersey with a story that a big fleet of destroyers
hovered at the river's mouth; that the Belgic had been beached
out there on a shoal by a "sub," and that we would be lucky if our
throats were not cut in the water as we tried to swim ashore after
we had been blown out of our boats.

The French certainly are more casual than the English. But then,
the Germans have sunk virtually no French liners, while the British
liner is the favourite food of von Tirpetz! They even showed us
his teeth marks on our American liner, the New York. On an earlier
trip during the summer of 1917 the boat had been torpedoed when
Admiral Sims was a passenger, going to England. The Admiral was
sitting at dinner when the explosion occurred and the force of it
threw him to the high ceiling of the dining saloon! At least that's
what they told us. Caution and conflicting doubts, "fears within
and foes without," were not so unreasonable as one might fancy,
coming out of any British port.

But to Henry and me the greatest contrast came, not in the conduct
of the ship's officers, as compared with the French seamen, but in
the ship's company, going to war and coming away from it. We went
with youth; the Espagne was crowded with young men going to war,
with young women going out to serve those who were salvaging the
waste of war. The boat carried a score of lovers--some married, some
impromptu, some incidental and fleeting, but all vastly interesting.
For when the new wine blooms the old ferments, and stumbling over
the dark decks at night on the Espagne, we were forever running
into youth paired off and gazing at the mystery of the ocean and
the stars. So the corks were always popping in our old hearts; and
we enjoyed it. But we paced the black night decks of the New York
as "one who treads alone a banquet hall deserted." We were among
the younger people on the ship. There was no youth to play with
under thirty! No one touched the piano. No one lifted his voice
in song. The most devilish thing going as we sailed was a game of
chess! There was a night game of whist or cribbage or some other
sedentary game, which closed at ten, and after that in the library
the talk sagged and died like a decomposed chord in a Tschaikovsky
symphony! It was sad! One had to go to the smoking room where there
was wassail on lemon squash and insipid English beer until after
midnight. But there the talk was good. Of course it sometimes
bore a strong smell of man about it, but it was virile and wise. A
rug dealer from Odessa, a dealer in mining machinery from Moscow,
a Chicago college professer returning from Petrograd, a cigarette
maker from Egypt, a brace of British naval officers going over to
return with Canadian transports, an American aerial engineer, back
from an inspection trip to France, a great English actor, who once
played Romeo with Mary Andersen--to give one an approximate of his
age--a Red Cross commission from Italy, and an Australian premier.
The whole ship's company was but thirty-four first class and of
these but six were women. It was no place for dashing young blades
in their late forties like Henry and me.

As the hour for leaving the ship approached, the press of the
splendid months behind us drew Henry and me together more and more.
We were hanging over the deck rail looking at a faint attempt at
a cloudy sunset at the end of our last day out. We fell to talking
of the love affairs on the Espagne, and perhaps from me came some
words about the Eager Soul, the Gilded Youth and the Young Doctor.
Henry looked up dazed and anxious. Clearly he did not know what it
was all about.

"Who was this Gilded Youth?" asked Henry.

"He was the dream we dreamed when we were boys, Henry. When fate set
you out as a book agent on the highway and me to kicking a Peerless
job press in a dingy printing office. The Gilded Youth was all we
would fain have been!"

"And the Eager Soul?" quoth he.

"She, dearly beloved, was the ideal of our boyish hearts. Did
you ever have a red-headed sweetheart in those olden golden days,
Henry?" He shook a sad head in retrospection. "Nor did one ever
come to me. But most boys want one sometime, so I took her off
the Red Cross Posters and breathed the breath of life into her. And
isn't she a peach; and doesn't she kind of warm your heart and make
up for the hardship of your youth?" He smiled assent and asked:
"But the young Doctor, Bill, surely he--"

"He is the American spirit in France, Henry--badly scared, very
shy at heart, full of hope and dying to serve!"

"And it never happened--any of it?" asked Henry.

"Yes, oh, yes, Henry. There was the tall boy who played Saint Saens
on the Espagne, and did the funny stunt at the auction; there was
the night we sat on the food box near the front at Douaumont and
heard the ambulance boy whistling the bit from "Thais," far up the
hill in the misty moonlight; there was the French soldier by the
splintered tree in the Forest of Hess; there was the head nurse
killed by the abri between Souilly and Verdun, who waited while
her girls went in; there was the poor dying boy in the hospital
for whom you bought the flowers and there was the handsome New
York woman coming over to start her hospital. There was the young
doctor whom the German officer prisoner tried to kill. And there
was the picture of the red-headed Red Cross nurse, and there were
our dreams."

"And the ending--will you have a happy ending?" demanded Henry.

"Aren't the visions of the young men, and the dreams of the old
always happy? It is in passing through life from one to the other
that our courage fails and our hearts sadden. And these phantoms
are of such stuff as dreams are made of and they may not falter
or grow weary, or grow old. Youth always has a happy ending--even
in death. It is when youth ends in life that we may question its
happiness."

And so we left our fancies and walked to the big guns far forward
and gazed into the sunset, where home lay, home, and the things
that were real, and dear, and worth while.

THE END




APPENDIX A

A Soldier's Song

[Musical notation]

Love, though these hands that rest in thine so
Love, though our dreams shall have no hope but

dear, Back in-to dust, may crum-ble
this, Love, though our faith must be our

with-the year; Love, though these lips, that
rar-est bliss; Love, though the years may



[Musical notation]

meet thy lips, so true, Soon may be
bring their death and chill; Love, though our

grass that stores the morn-ing dew
blood must lose its pass-ion, still,

O Love, Know well, that this fond heart of mine,
Still, Love, Know well, that this heart is di-vine,

It shall be al-ways, al-ways, al-ways thine!
It shall be al-ways, al-ways, al-ways thine!

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