ARE WE DOWNHEARTED? NO!
"Hush, boys,... we're in enemy country!" our second in command whispered
ominously. We shivered. The sound of the guns seemed to grow louder.
Captain Johnson repeated his warning:
"Not a word, men," he muttered, and we stumbled out of the station in
silence that could be cut with a knife. Sure enough the enemy was near. He
couldn't have been less than twenty-two miles away! We could hear him.
There was no disposition on our part to talk aloud. Captain Johnson said:
"Whisper," and whisper we did.
We trekked over mud-holes and ditches, across fields and down through
valleys. We had many impressions--and the main impression was mud. The main
impression of all active service is--mud. It was silent mud, too, but we
knew it was there. Once in a while during that dark treading through an
unfamiliar country one of the boys would stumble and fall face down. Then
the mud spoke ... and it did not whisper. There were grunts and murmurings,
there were gurgling expletives and splutterings which sent the army, and
all fools who joined it, to places of unmentionable climatic conditions. We
were in it up to our necks, more or less literally.
All the way along we could see the flashes of star shells. When one went up
we could fancy the battalion making a "duck" in perfect unison. The star
shells seemed very close. It was still for us to learn that they always
seem close.
After about seven miles of this trekking, we reached billets. This was our
first experience of French billets. The rest-house was a barn and we were
pretty lucky. We had straw to lie on.
Notwithstanding our distance from the enemy, as Captain Johnson had said,
we were in his country, and in consequence there had to be a guard. Four of
the boys were picked for the job. There was no change in my luck. I was one
of the chosen four.
The guardroom, whether for good or ill, was set in a chicken house. And
thereby hangs a tale--feather. Corporal of the guard was a sport. He was a
young chap from Red Deer, Alberta. Now, figure the situation for yourself.
For days past we had been feeding on bully beef--bully beef out of a tin.
Four men on guard, a dozen chickens perched not a dozen feet away. Would
abstemiousness be human? Ask yourselves, _mes amies_.
We drew lots. My luck had turned. But I ate of it. It was tender; it was
good; it was roasted to a turn.
They say dead men tell no tales. Of dead chicken there is no such proverb.
Wish there had been. We buried those feathers deep. Alas, that Monsieur, in
common with all the folk in Northern France, was so thorough in his
cataloguing of his properties. I don't blame him. He had dealt with Germans
when they overran the territory. He had met with Belgians when they
hastened forward. He had had experience of his own countrymen when they
endeavored to drive back the enemy. He had billeted the Imperial British
soldier. Now he was confronted with a soldier of whom he had no report,
save only the name--Canadian. Monsieur had counted his chickens before they
were perched.
We had not yet had read or explained to us the laws and penalties attaching
to such a crime while on active service. Of course, no one killed that
chicken. No one ate it. No one knew anything about it. We were perfectly
willing, if need be, to pay double price for the chicken rather than have
such a term as "chicken thief" leveled at us. We of the guard, however,
protested, but paid five francs each to smooth the matter over. This
totaled about four dollars.
The next morning the whole battalion was lined up before the colonel while
the adjutant read aloud the law which we boys term the "riot act." This
document informed us very clearly that if any soldier was found to have
taken anything from the peasantry for his own use; if any man was found
drunk on active service, or if he committed any other crime or offense
which might be counted as minor to these two, the punishment for a first
offense would be six months first field punishment. For any offense of a
similar nature thereafter the man would be liable to court martial and
death.
While this paper was being read, I shook in my boots, to think that I had
been--innocently or at least ignorantly--associated with what was probably
the first crime of our battalion.
[Illustration: On our way]
We went back to billets a very subdued lot of soldiers.
Later in the day I noticed a lot of boys talking to a young Belgian girl. I
had no opportunity to speak to her then, but after a time I found her
alone, and with the little English Mademoiselle Marie B---- had picked up
from British soldiers lately billeted there, and with the small amount of
French I had stored away, we held quite a long conversation.
[Illustration: ©_Famous Players--Lasky Corporation. Scene from the
Photo-Play_
THE VOICE OF THE TEMPTER.]
I should judge that she was about fifteen. She told me she was sixteen. She
was piquant and pretty in appearance, but her features were drawn and her
expression was sad. She had a questioning wistfulness in her eyes, but she
showed no fear of the many British soldiers round.
This young girl, little over a child, was all alone. She awaited in terror
the coming of her baby, and the fiends who had outraged her had brutally
cut off her right arm just a little above the elbow.
"How did this happen to you, Mademoiselle?" I asked in French.
"Ah, Monsieur," she replied, "_les Allemands_, they did--chop it off."
"Why, Mademoiselle, surely no German would do such a hideous thing as that
without some reason."
At that time I believed, as apparently do the majority of people in this
country to-day believe, that the Germans did not commit the atrocities that
were attributed to them. But it is all true.
"But, _oui_, Monsieur,... _les Allemands_, they have no reason. They kill
my two brothers ... my father I have not seen, my mother I have not seen
... no, not for five months. _Les Allemands_, they have taken them also ...
they are dead also, _peutetre_."
"And you?" I continued. "Where was your home?"
"Ah, but it is the long story. We live close by Liége. It is a small
village. The Uhlans come and we are sorely frightened. We hide in the
cellar, and do not go out at all. While there _les Allemands_ post a notice
in the village. It is that every person who has a gun, a pistol, a shell,
an explosive, must hand such over to the burgomaster. We do not know of
this, and do nothing. At last, Monsieur, the Uhlans come to our house to
search, and there they see a shotgun and some shot. It is such a gun as you
must know in the house of British, in the house of American. It is the
common gun. We did not know. But there is no pardon for ignorance in war.
My brothers were roughly pulled to the market place and shot dead." Little
Marie choked down a sob. "My mother and my father," she continued, "were
carried away. I refuse. I fight, I bite, I scratch, I scream with frenzy, I
tear. One of _les Allemands_ ... perhaps he was mad, Monsieur, he slash ...
so, and so ... he cut off my arm.
"I remember no more, Monsieur. After a day ... two days, I find that I can
walk. I walk and walk. It is now one hundred and fifty miles from my home
... it is that I stay here until...."
I grasped the girl's left hand and turned away. I was sick. What if she had
been my sister?
And then I thought of the laws read aloud to us that morning. We soldiers,
fighting under the flag of the British Empire, were we to violate one
little rule ... were we to take any property, no matter how small, without
just payment to its owner; were we to drink one glass of beer too much ...
were we to overstep by a hair's breadth the smallest rule of the code of a
"soldier and a gentleman," we were liable to be shot.
What of the German who had ruined this young girl and maimed her body?
Believe me, I realized then, if never before, what we were fighting for. I
was ready to give every drop of blood in my veins to avenge the great
crimes that this little girl, in her frail person, typified.
We passed another night in the same billets. Next morning at five-thirty we
were roused to make a forced march, across country, of some twenty-two
miles. This was the hardest march of the entire time I was at the front.
Those ammunition boots! Those gol-darned, double distilled, dash, dash,
dash, dashed boots!
It was winter. There was heavy traffic over the roads. There were no road
builders, and precious little organization for the traffic. Part of the way
the surface had been cobblestones; now it was broken flints.
We started out gallantly enough with full packs, very full packs. Then, a
few miles out, one would see out of the corner of his eye, a shirt sail
quietly across the hedge-row; an extra pair of boots in the other
direction; another shirt, a bundle of writing paper; more shirts, more
boots. Packs were lightening. Down to fifty pounds now; forty, thirty,
twenty, ten ... the road was getting worse.
No one would give up. Half a dozen men stooped and slashed at their boots
to get room for a pet corn or a burning bunion. But every man pegged ahead.
This was the first forced march. We were on our way to the trenches. No man
dare run the risk of being dubbed a piker. We agonized, but persevered.
Armentières was our objective. A fine city, this, and one which we might
have enjoyed under happier circumstances. It was under fire, but not badly
damaged, and consequently many thousands of the Imperial soldiers were
"resting" there while back from the trenches.
We were the First Canadians. We were expected, and the English Tommies
determined to give us right royal welcome and a hearty handshake. We had a
reputation to keep up, for in England the Cockney Tommy and his brother
"civvies" had named us the "Singing Can-ydians."
But on the road to Armentières ... oh, _ma foi_! There was no singing. Call
us rather the "Swearing Can-ydians," as we stumbled, bent double, lifting
swollen feet, like Agag, treading on eggs through the streets of the city.
Tommy Atkins to right of us; Tommy Atkins to left of us, cobblestones
beneath us, we staggered and swayed. The English boys cheered and yelled a
greeting. It was rousing, it was thrilling, it was a welcome that did our
hearts good; but we could not rise to the occasion.
Suddenly from out of the crowd of khaki figures there came a voice--that of
a true son of the East End--a suburb of Whitechapel was surely his cappy
home.
"S'y, 'ere comes the Singin' Can-ydians ... 'Ere they come ... 'Ear their
singin'."
Not a sound from our ranks. Silence. But it was too much. No one can offer
a gibe to a man of the West without his getting it back. Far from down our
column some one yelled:
"Are we downhearted?" "No!" We peeled back the answer raucously enough, and
then on with the song:
Are we downhearted? No, no, no.
Are we downhearted? No, no, no.
Troubles may come and troubles may go,
But we keep smiling where'er we go,
Are we downhearted? Are we downhearted?
No, no, _NO_!
"No, Gor'blimey, y'er not down'earted, but yer look bally well
broken-'earted," chanted our small Cockney comrade, with sarcasm ringing
strong in every clipped tone of his voice.