of a night, strictly charged to behave in a manner _comme il faut_, for
he was of a rashness, and we did not wish to lose him. He was valuable
to us, and beyond that the regiment had an affection for him. For such
reasons his captain tried--but, yes--to keep him within bounds. As I
say, on this night he had received particular orders to be _sage_. So
that the first thing the fellow does is to lose his comrades, for which
he had a _penchant_, one knows. After that he crawls over that accursed
country, in and out of shellholes, rifle in his teeth likely--the good
God knows where else, for one need be all hands and feet for such
crawling. He crawled in that fashion till at last he lost himself. And
then he was concerned to find out where might be our lines till in time
he heard a sound of snoring and was well content. Home at last. He
tumbled into a dark trench, remarking only that it was filled with men
since he left, and so tired he was with his adventure that he pushed
away the man next, who was at the end, to gain space, and he rolled over
to sleep. But that troublesome man next took too much room. Our
Hirondelle planted him a kick in the middle of the back. At which the
man half waked and swore at him--in German. And dropped off to sleep
again with his leg of a pig slung across Hirondelle's chest. At that
second a star-shell lighted up the affair, and Hirondelle, staring with
much interest, believe me, saw a trench filled with sleeping Boches. To
get out of that as quietly as might be was the game--_n'est-ce-pas, mes
amis_? But not for Hirondelle.
"'My colonel has a liking for prisoners,' he reported later. 'My
captain's orders were to conduct oneself _très comme il faut_. It is
always _comme il faut_ to please the colonel. Therefore it seemed _en
regle_ to take a prisoner. I took him. _Le v'la_.'
"What the fellow did was to wait till the Boche next door was well
asleep, then slowly remove his rifle, then fasten on his throat with a
grip which Hirondelle understood, and finally to overpower the Boche
till he was ready enough to crawl out at the muzzle of Hirondelle's
rifle."
There was a stir in the little group of guides, and from the shadows
Rafael's voice spoke.
"Mon colonel--pardon!"
The colonel turned sharply. "Who is that?"
"There were two Germans," spoke the voice out of the shadows.
The colonel, too astonished to answer, stared. The voice, trembling,
old, went on. "The second man waked and one was obliged to strangle him
also. One brought the brace to the captain at the end of the
carabine--rifle."
"In heaven's name who are you?" demanded the colonel.
From where old Rafael had been, bowed and limp in his humble, worn
clothes, stepped at a stride a soldier, head up, shoulders squared,
glittering eyes forward, and stood at attention. It was like magic. One
hand snapped up in a smart salute.
"Who are you?" whispered the colonel.
"If the colonel pleases--l'Hirondelle."
I heard the colonel's breath come and go as he peered, leaning forward
to the soldierly figure. "_Nom de Ciel_," he murmured, "I believe it
is." Then in sharp sentences: "You were reported killed. Are you a
deserter?"
The steady image of a soldier dropped back a step.
"My colonel--no."
"Explain this."
Rafael--l'Hirondelle--explained. He had not been killed, but captured
and sent to a German prison-camp.
"You escaped?" the colonel threw in.
"But yes, my colonel."
The colonel laughed. "One would know it. The clumsy Boches could not
hold the Swallow."
"But no, my colonel."
"Go on."
"One went to work before light, my colonel, in that accursed
prison-camp. One was out of sight from the guard for a moment, turning a
corner, so that on a morning I slipped into some bushes and hid in a
dugout--for it was an old camp--all day. That night I walked. I walked
for seven nights and lay hid for seven days, eating, my colonel, very
little. Then, _v'la_, I was in front of the French lines."
"You ran across to our lines?"
"But not exactly. One sees that I was yet in dirty German prison
clothes, and looked like an infantryman of the Boches, so that a poilu
rushed at me with a bayonet. I believed, then, that I had come upon a
German patrol. Each thought the other a Hun. I managed to wrest from the
poilu his rifle with the bayonet, but as we fought another shot me--in
the side."
"You were wounded?"
"Yes, my colonel."
"In hospital?"
"Yes, my colonel."
"How long?"
"Three months, my colonel."
"Why are you not again in the army?"
The face of the erect soldier, Hirondelle, the dare-devil, was suddenly
the face of a man grown old, ill, and broken-hearted. He stared at the
stalwart French officer, gathering himself with an effort. "I--was
discharged, my colonel, as--unfit." His head in its old felt hat dropped
into his hands suddenly, and he broke beyond control into sobs that
shook not only him but every man there.
The colonel stepped forward and put an arm around the bent shoulders.
"_Mon héros!_" said the colonel.
With that Rafael found words, never a hard task for him. Yet they came
with gasps between. "To be cast out as an old horse--at the moment of
glory! I had dreamed all my life--of fighting. And I had it--oh, my
colonel--I had it! The glory came when I was old and knew how to be
happy in it. Not as a boy who laughs and takes all as his right. I was
old, yes, but I was good to kill the vermin. I avenged the children and
the women whom those savages--My people, the savages of the wood, knew
no better, yet they have not done things as bad as these vile ones who
were educated, who knew. Therefore I killed them. I was old, but I was
strong, my colonel knows. Not for nothing have I lived a hard life. _On
a vu de la misère_. I have hunted moose and bear and kept my muscles of
steel and my eyes of a hawk. It is in my blood to be a fighting man. I
fought with pleasure, and I was troubled with no fear. I was old, but I
could have killed many devils more. And so I was shot down by my own
friend after seven days of hard life. And the young soldier doctor
discharged me as unfit to fight. And so I am come home very fast to hide
myself, for I am ashamed. I am finished. The fighting and the glory are
for me no more."
The colonel stepped back a bit and his face flamed. "Glory!" he
whispered. "Glory no more for the Hirondelle? What of the Croix de
Guerre?"
Rafael shook his head. "I haf heard my colonel who said they would have
given me--me, the Hirondelle--the war cross. That now is lost too."
"Lost!" The colonel's deep tone was full of the vibration which only a
French voice carries. With a quick movement he unfastened the catch that
held the green ribbon, red-striped, of his own cross of war. He turned
and pinned the thing which men die for on the shabby coat of the guide.
Then he kissed him on either cheek. "My comrade," he said, "your glory
will never be old."
There was deep silence in the camp kitchen. The crackling of wood that
fell apart, the splashing of the waves of the lake on the pebbles by the
shore were the only sounds on earth. For a long minute the men stood as
if rooted; the colonel, poised and dramatic, and, I stirred to the
depths of my soul by this great ceremony which had come out of the skies
to its humble setting in the forest--the men and the colonel and I, we
all watched Rafael.
And Rafael slowly, yet with the iron tenacity of his race, got back his
control. "My colonel," he began, and then failed. The Swallow did not
dare trust his broken wings. It could not be done--to speak his thanks.
He looked up with black eyes shining through tears which spoke
everything.
"Tomorrow," he stated brokenly, "if we haf a luck, my colonel and I go
kill a moose."
They had a luck.
ONLY ONE OF THEM
It was noon on a Saturday. Out of the many buildings of the great
electrical manufacturing plant at Schenectady poured employees by
hundreds. Thirty trolley-cars were run on special tracks to the place
and stood ready to receive the sea streaming towards them. Massed
motor-cars waited beyond the trolleys for their owners, officials of the
works. The girl in blue serge, standing at a special door of a special
building counted, keeping watch meantime of the crowd, the cars. A
hundred and twenty-five she made it; it came to her mind that State
Street in Albany on a day of some giant parade was not unlike this, not
less a throng. The girl, who was secretary to an assistant manager, was
used to the sight, but it was an impressive sight and she was
impressionable and found each Saturday's pageant a wonder. The pageant
was more interesting it may be because it focussed always on one
figure--and here he was.
"Did you wait, long?" he asked as he came up, broad-shouldered and
athletic of build, boyish and honest of face, as good looking a young
American as one may see in any crowd.
"I was early." She smiled up at him as they swung off towards the
trolleys; her eyes flashed a glance which said frankly that she found
him satisfactory to look upon.
They sped past others, many others, and made a trolley car and a seat
together, which was the goal. They always made it, every Saturday, yet
it was always a game. Exhilarated by the winning of the game they
settled into the scat for the three-quarters of an hour run; it was
quite a worth-while world, the smiling glances said one to the other.
The girl gazed, not seeing them particularly, at the slower people
filling the seats and the passage of the car. Then: "Oh," she spoke,
"what was it you were going to tell me?"
The man's face grew sober, a bit troubled. "Well," he said, "I've
decided. I'm going to enlist."
She was still for a second. Then: "I think that's splendid," she brought
out. "Splendid. Of course, I knew you'd do it. It's the only thing that
could be. I'm glad."
"Yes," the man spoke slowly. "It's the only thing that could be. There's
nothing to keep me. My mother's dead. My father's husky and not old and
my sisters are with him. There's nobody to suffer by my going."
"N-no," the girl agreed. "But--it's the fine thing to do just the same.
You're thirty-two you see, and couldn't be drafted. That makes it rather
great of you to go."
"Well," the man answered, "not so very great, I suppose, as it's what
all young Americans are doing. I rather think it's one of those things,
like spelling, which are no particular credit if you do them, but a
disgrace if you don't."
"What a gray way of looking at it!" the girl objected. "As if all the
country wasn't glorying in the boys who go! As if we didn't all stand
back of you and crowd the side lines to watch you, bursting with pride.
You know we all love you."
"Do you love me, Mary? Enough to marry me before I go?" His voice was
low, but the girl missed no syllable. She had heard those words or some
like them in his voice before.
"Oh, Jim," she begged, "don't ask me now. I'm not certain--yet. I--I
couldn't get along very well without you. I care a lot. But--I'm not
just sure it's--the way I ought to care to marry you."
As alone in the packed car as in a wood, the little drama went on and no
one noticed. "I'm sorry, Mary." The tone was dispirited. "I could go
with a lot lighter heart if we belonged to each other."
"Don't say that, Jim," she pleaded. "You make me out--a slacker. You
don't want me to marry you as a duty?"
"Good Lord, no!"
"I know that. And I--do care. There's nobody like you. I admire you so
for going--but you're not afraid of anything. It's easy for you, that
part. I suppose a good many are really--afraid. Of the guns and the
horror--all that. You're lucky, Jim. You don't give that a thought."
The man flashed an odd look, and then regarded his hands joined on his
knee.
"I do appreciate your courage. I admire that a lot. But somehow Jim
there's a doubt that holds me back. I can't be sure I--love you enough;
that it's the right way--for that."
The man sighed. "Yes," he said. "I see. Maybe some time. Heavens knows I
wouldn't want you unless it was whole-hearted. I wouldn't risk your
regretting it, not if I wanted you ten times more. Which is impossible."
He put out his big hand with a swift touch on hers. "Maybe some time.
Don't worry," he said. "I'm yours." And went on in a commonplace tone,
"I think I'll show up at the recruiting office this afternoon, and I'll
come to your house in the evening as usual. Is that all right?"
The car sped into Albany and the man went to her door with the girl and
left her with few words more and those about commonplace subjects. As
he swung down the street he went over the episode in his mind, and
dissected it and dwelt on words and phrases and glances, and drew
conclusions as lovers have done before, each detail, each conclusion
mightily important, outweighing weeks of conversation of the rest of the
world together. At last he shook his head and set his lips.
"It's not honest." He formed the words with his lips now, a summing up
of many thoughts in his brain. The brain went on elaborating the text.
"She thinks I'm brave; she thinks it's easy for me to face enlisting,
and the rest. She thinks I'm the makeup which can meet horror and
suffering light-heartedly. And I'm not. She admires me for that--she
said so. I'm not it. I'm fooling her; it's not honest. Yet"--he groaned
aloud. "Yet I may lose her if I tell her the truth. I'm afraid. I am. I
hate it. I can't bear--I can't bear to leave my job and my future, just
when it's opening out. But I could do that. Only I'm--Oh, damnation--I'm
afraid. Horror and danger, agony of men and horses, myself wounded
maybe, out on No Man's Land--left there--hours. To die like a dog. Oh,
my God--must I? If I tell it will break the little hold I have on her.
Must I go to this devil's dance that I hate--and give up her love
besides? But yet--it isn't honest to fool her. Oh, God, what will I do?"
People walking up State Street, meeting a sober-faced young man, glanced
at him with no particular interest. A woman waiting on a doorstep
regarded him idly.
"Why isn't he in uniform?" she wondered as one does wonder in these days
at a strong chap in mufti. Then she rebuked her thought. "Undoubtedly
there's a good reason; American boys are not slackers."
His slow steps carried him beyond her vision and casual thought. The
people in the street and the woman on the doorstep did not think or care
that what they saw was a man fighting his way through the crisis of his
life, fighting alone "per aspera ad astra--" through thorns to the
stars.
He lunched with a man at a club and after that took his way to the
building on Broadway where were the recruiting headquarters. He had told
her that he was going to enlist. As he walked he stared at the people in
the streets as a man might stare going to his execution. These people
went about their affairs, he considered, as if he--who was about to
die--did not, in passing their friendly commonplace, salute them. He did
salute them. Out of his troubled soul he sent a silent greeting to each
ordinary American hurrying along, each standing to him for pleasant and
peaceful America, America of all his days up to now. Was he to toss away
this comfortable comradeship, his life to be, everything he cared for on
earth, to go into hell, and likely never come back? Why? Why must he?
There seemed to be plenty who wanted to fight--why not let them? It was
the old slacker's argument; the man was ashamed as he caught himself
using it; he had the grace to see its selfishness and cowardice. Yet his
soul was in revolt as he drove his body to the recruiting office, and
the thoughts that filled him were not of the joy of giving but of the
pain of giving up. With that he stood on the steps of the building and
here was Charlie Thurston hurrying by on the sidewalk.
"Hello, Jim! Going in to enlist? So long till you come back with one leg
and an eye out."
It was Thurston's idea of a joke. He would have been startled if he had
known into what a trembling balance his sledge-hummer wit cast its
unlucky weight. The balance quivered at the blow, shook back and forth
an instant and fell heavily. Jim Barlow wheeled, sprang down the stone
steps and bolted up the street, panting as one who has escaped a wild
beast. Thurston had said it. That was what was due to happen. It was now
three o'clock; Barlow fled up State Street to the big hotel and took a
room and locked his door and threw himself on the bed. What was he to
do? After weeks of hesitation he had come to the decision that he would
offer himself to his country. He saw--none plainer--the reasons why it
was fit and right so to do. Other men were giving up homes and careers
and the whole bright and easy side of life--why not he? It was the
greatest cause to fight for in the world's history--should he not fight
for it? How, after the war, might he meet friends, his own people, his
children to come, if he alone of his sort had no honorable record to
show? Such arguments, known to all, he repeated, even aloud he repeated
them, tossing miserably about the bed in his hotel room. And his mind at
once accepted them, but that was all. His spirit failed to spring to his
mind's support with the throb of emotion which is the spark that makes
the engine go. The wheels went around over and over but the connection
was not made. The human mind is useful machinery, but it is only the
machine's master, the soul, which can use it. Over and over he got to
his feet and spoke aloud: "Now I will go." Over and over a repulsion
seized him so strongly that his knees gave way and he fell back on the
bed. If he had a mother, he thought, she might have helped, but there
was no one. Mary--but he could not risk Mary's belief in his courage.
Only a mother would have understood entirely.
With that, sick at heart, the hideous sea of counter arguments,
arguments of a slacker, surged upon him. What would it all matter a
hundred years from now? Wasn't he more useful in his place keeping up
the industries of the nation? Wasn't he a bigger asset to America as an
alive engineer, an expert in his work, than as mere cannon fodder, one
of thousands to be shot into junk in a morning's "activity"--just one of
them? Because the Germans were devils why should he let them reach over
here, away over here, and drag him out of a decent and happy life and
throw him like dirt into the horrible mess they had made, and leave him
dead or worse--mangled and useless. Then, again--there were plenty of
men mad to fight; why not let them? Through a long afternoon he fought
with the beasts, and dinner-time came and he did not notice, and at last
he rose and, telephoning first to Mary a terse message that he would not
be able to come this evening, he went out, hardly knowing what he did,
and wandered up town.
There was a humble church in a quiet street where a service flag hung,
thick with dark stars, and the congregation were passing out from a
special service for its boys who were going off to camp. The boys were
there on the steps, surrounded by people eager to touch their hands, a
little group of eight or ten with serious bright faces, and a look in
their eyes which stabbed into Barlow. One may see that look any day in
any town, meeting the erect stalwart lads in khaki who are about our
streets. It is the look of those who have made a vital sacrifice and
know the price, and whose minds are at peace. Barlow, lingering on the
corner across the way, stared hungrily. How had they got that look, that
peace? If only he might talk to one of them! Yet he knew how dumb an
animal is a boy, and how helpless these would be to give him the master
word.
The master-word, he needed that; he needed it desperately. He must go;
he must. Life would be unendurable without self-respect; no amount of
explaining could cover the stain on his soul if he failed in the answer
to the call of honor. That was it, it was in a nut-shell, the call. Yet
he could not hear it as his call. He wandered unhappily away and left
the church and its dissolving congregation, and the boys, the pride of
the church, the boys who were now, they also, separating and going back
each to his home for the last evening perhaps, to be loved and made much
of. Barlow vaguely pictured the scenes in those little homes--eyes
bright with unshed tears, love and laughter and courage, patriotism as
fine as in any great house in America, determination that in giving to
America what was dearest it should be given with high spirit--that the
boys should have smiling faces to remember, over there. And then
again--love and tender words. He was missing all that. He, too, might go
back to his father's house an enlisted man, and meet his father's eyes
of pride and see his sisters gaze at him with a new respect, feel their
new honor of him in the touch of arms about his neck. All these things
were for him too, if he would but take them. With that there was the
sound of singing, shrill, fresh voices singing down the street. He
wheeled about. A company of little girls were marching towards him and
he smiled, looking at them, thinking the sight as pretty as a garden of
flowers. They were from eight to ten or eleven years old and in the
bravery of fresh white dresses; each had a big butterfly of pink or blue
or yellow or white ribbon perched on each little fair or dark head, and
each carried over her shoulder a flag. Quite evidently they were coming
from the celebration at the church, where in some capacity they had
figured. Not millionaires children these; the little sisters likely of
the boys who were going to be soldiers; just dear things that bloom all
over America, the flowering of the land, common to rich and poor. As
they sprang along two by two, in unmartial ranks, they sang with all
their might "The Long, Long Trail."
"There's a long, long trail that's leading
To No Man's Land in France
Where the shrapnel shells are bursting
And we must advance."
* * * * *
And then:
We're going to show old Kaiser Bill
What our Yankee boys can do.
Jim Barlow, his hands in his pockets, backed up against a house and
listened to the clear, high, little voices. "No Man's Land in France--We
must advance--What our Yankee boys can do."
As if his throat were gripped by a quick hand, a storm of emotion swept
him. The little girls--little girls who were the joy, each one, of some
home! Such little things as the Germans--in Belgium--"Oh, my God!" The
words burst aloud from his lips. These were trusting--innocent,
ignorant--to "What our Yankee boys can do." Without that, without the
Yankee boys, such as these would be in the power of wild beasts. It was
his affair. Suddenly he felt that stab through him.
"God," he prayed, whispering it as the little girls passed on singing,
"help me to protect them; help me to forget myself." And the miracle
that sends an answer sometimes, even in this twentieth century, to true
prayer happened to Jim Barlow. Behold he had forgotten himself. With his
head up and peace in his breast, and the look in his face already,
though he did not know it, that our soldier boys wear, he turned and
started at a great pace down the street to the recruiting office.
"Why, you did come."
It was nine o'clock and he stood with lighted face in the middle of the
little library. And she came in; it was an event to which he never got
used, Mary's coming into a room. The room changed always into such an
astonishing place.
"Mary, I've done it. I'm--" his voice choked a bit--"I'm a soldier." He
laughed at that. "Well not so you'd notice it, yet. But I've taken the
first step."
"I knew, Jim. You said you were going to enlist. Why did you telephone
you couldn't come?"
He stared down at her, holding her hands yet. He felt, unphrased,
strong, the overwhelming conviction that she was the most desirable
thing on earth. And directly on top of that conviction another, that he
would be doing her desirableness, her loveliness less than the highest
honor if he posed before her in false colors. At whatever cost to
himself he must be honest with her. Also--he was something more now
than his own man; he was a soldier of America, and inside and out he
would be, for America's sake, the best that was in him to be.
"Mary, I've got a thing to tell you."
"Yes?" The sure way in which she smiled up at him made the effort
harder.
"I fooled you. You think I'm a hero. And I'm not. I'm a--" for the life
of him he could not get out the word "coward." He went on: "I'm a blamed
baby." And he told her in a few words, yet plainly enough what he had
gone through in the long afternoon. "It was the kiddies who clinched it,
with their flags and their hair ribbons--and their Yankee boys. I
couldn't stand for--not playing square with them."
Suddenly he gripped her hands so that it hurt. "Mary, God help me, I'll
try to fight the devils over there so that kiddies like that, and--you,
and all the blessed people, the whole dear shooting-match will be safe
over here. I'm glad--I'm so glad I'm going to have a hand in it. Mary,
it's queer, but I'm happier than I've been in months. Only"--his brows
drew anxiously. "Only I'm scared stiff for fear you think me--a coward."
He had the word out now. Thee taste wasn't so bad after all; it seemed
oddly to have nothing to do with himself. "Mary, dear, couldn't
you--forget that in time? When I've been over there and behaved
decently--and I think I will. Somehow I'm not afraid of being afraid
now. It feels like a thing that couldn't be done--by a soldier of Uncle
Sam's. I'll just look at the other chaps--all heroes, you know--and be
so proud I'm with them and so keen to finish our job that I
know--somehow I _know_ I'll never think about my blooming self at all.
It's queer to say it, Mary, but the way it looks now I'm in it, it's not
just country even. It's religion. See, Mary?"
There was no sound, no glance from Mary. But he went on, unaware, so
rapt was he in his new illumination.