GAS MASKS
Phil and Tim had made good use of their time while in training at Paris
Island, so that when they were ordered on board a transport to steam for
“somewhere in France,” they could boast of being “Jacks of all trades
and masters of all” in the hyperbolic parlance of Sea Soldier
excellence. They could do pretty nearly everything from the fitting of
gun gear to the operation of a wireless outfit or a portable
searchlight. Moreover, they were both well qualified to handle machine
guns, and Phil was drawing an extra $3 a month as a rifle sharpshooter.
The company to which Phil and Tim belonged was stationed just outside
the village. They reached this position at about 2 p. m. and had little
more than completed their digging-in operations, when the word was
passed along that they would “go over the top” at 4:30.
But this announcement was presently countered from headquarters, coupled
with a “man-to-man message” that scouting aeroplanes and observation
balloons had communicated to headquarters the information that the
boches were evidently planning to “come over” at the Yanks. A hurried
conference among the officers of the Marines decided then that it would
be better strategy to let the enemy come on and get their fill and then
counter their decimated forces with a good strong bayonet and
hand-grenade drive.
Phil and Tim were near enough to each other to carry on a conversation
in ordinary tones, and when the word reached them that they must wait
for the enemy to attack them they expressed their disappointment
vigorously.
“I hate this waiting business,” Phil declared. “We’ll never reach Berlin
at this rate.”
“So do I,” responded Tim. “I wonder what those minions of the kaiser
think they’re going to do. To my mind it’s a sign of weakness on their
part, making a drive this time o’ the day.”
“Why?” Phil inquired. “I don’t see why it should be a sign of weakness
on their part any more than our plan to go over the top at 4:30 is a
sign of weakness.”
“Maybe not from their point of view. But we know what we’ve got behind
us—millions of men and billions of money. We know, too, that we’ve got
vastly more of these than the boches have. So you see, I have something
more than suspicion to base my theory on that they like to make an
attack late in the day so that if they fail they will have the darkness
to cover their retreat. I bet that when our record is summed up you’ll
find that we made most of our dashes against the enemy’s lines at 4 or 5
o’clock in the morning.”
“I hope I’m spared to contemplate such a record,” said Phil soberly.
“You don’t doubt it, do you?” Tim asked, for he was surprised and
disappointed to hear his friend speak so diffidently.
“I was just wondering,” Phil replied meditatively.
“See here, Phil,” Tim said, shaking his hand toward his soldier comrade;
“you’re making a big mistake. You’re meditating. Do you realize that a
soldier should never meditate? He should never even think twice. He’s
got to do his best thinking the first time.”
“What’s that got to do with my wondering whether I’m going to come out
o’ this alive?” Phil inquired.
“It’s got this to do with it: It’s as bad as writing poetry in a trench.
I think you’ll agree with me that anybody that does that is a nut. Now,
I don’t believe I’m going to have my head blown off. Notice that I don’t
say, ‘I don’t let myself think I’m going to be killed.’ I’m _dead sure_
I’m not going to be killed. Get me?—_dead sure_; not sure dead.”
“Sure thing I get you,” Phil answered enthusiastically; “that’s a peach
of an idea. It’s too bad all the other soldiers of the Allies haven’t
got the same idea.”
“How do you know they haven’t?” Tim demanded quickly.
“I don’t know it,” Phil admitted with a smile, for he saw what was
coming next.
“A fellow must get this pretty much by himself to make the best kind of
soldier,” Tim said, speaking with the convincing manner of a veteran.
“I’ve heard young fellows talk about going into battle with the
expectation of being killed, but that’s before the bullets begin to fly
and the shells begin to burst. The real soldier is never desperate. The
minute you get desperate, that minute you are rattled. The soldier who
goes into battle expecting to be killed, goes into battle desperate and
is soon rattled. Don’t go into battle expecting to be killed; go into
battle expecting to kill, kill, kill, and keep on killing.”
“Hooray!” said Phil jocularly. “That’s what I call war philosophy. Get
me? War Phil-osophy for a fighting Phil of Philadelphia.”
“Philosophy nothing,” Tim snapped back. “You make me ashamed of your
name with your jesting pun. I thought you understood me better than
that, Phil. Wartime is no time for philosophy. That’s what got a lot of
pacifists into trouble and some of them in prison. They weren’t
philosophers enough to realize that you can’t stop to philosophize when
somebody is punching you in the nose.”
“Gas masks!” yelled Phil suddenly, and similar cries came from others
along the timber-sheltered line.
But the warning was not needed by Tim.
Even as he uttered the last word of his soldier’s common-sense lecture,
he caught a faint whiff of mustard. Instinctively he held his breath,
and eight seconds later he was inhaling the pure, safe lung-fuel,
“canned oxygen,” contained in the reservoir of his mask.