It was late in the day following his departure from New York that Pen
reached his destination in Canada. In a certain suburban town not far
from Toronto he found a great training camp. It was here that selected
units of the new Dominion armies received their military instruction
prior to being sent abroad. It was here also that many of the young
men from the States, desirous of fighting under the Union Jack, came
to enlist with the Canadian troops and to receive their first lessons
in the science of warfare. Canada was stirred as she had never been
stirred before in all her history. Her troops already at the front had
received their first great baptism of fire at Langemarck. They had
fought desperately, they had won splendidly, but their losses had been
appalling. So the young men of Canada, eager to avenge the slaughter
of their countrymen, were hastening to fill the depleted ranks, and
the young men from the States were proud to bear them company.
But life in the training camps was no holiday. It was hard, steady,
strenuous business, carried on under the most rigid form of
discipline. Yet the men were well clothed, well fed, had comfortable
quarters, enjoyed regular periods of recreation, and were content with
their lot, save that their eagerness to complete their training and
get to the firing line inevitably manifested itself in expressions of
impatience.
To get up at 5:30 in the morning and drill for an hour before
breakfast was no great task, nor two successive hours of fighting with
tipped bayonets, nor throwing of real bombs and hand-grenades, nor was
the back-breaking digging of trenches, nor the exhaustion from long
marches, if only by such experiences they could fit themselves
eventually to fight their enemy not only with courage but also with
that skill and efficiency which counts for so much in modern warfare.
It was ten days after Pen's enlistment that, being off duty, he
crossed the parade ground one evening and went into the large reading
and recreation room of the Young Men's Christian Association,
established and maintained there for the benefit of the troops in
training. He had no errand except that he wished to write a letter to
his mother, and the conveniences offered made it a favorite place for
letter writing.
There were few people in the room, for it was still early, and the
writing tables were comparatively unoccupied. But at one of them, with
his back to the entrance, sat a young man in uniform busy with his
correspondence. Pen glanced at him casually as he sat down to write;
his quarter face only was visible. But the glance had left an
impression on his mind that the face and figure were those of some one
he had at some time known. He selected his writing paper and took up a
pen, but the feeling within him that he must look again and see if he
could possibly recognize his comrade in arms was too strong to be
resisted. Apparently the feeling was mutual, for when Pen did turn his
eyes in the direction of the other visitor, he found that the young
man had ceased writing, and was sitting erect in his chair and
looking squarely at him. It needed no second glance to convince him
that his companion was none other than Aleck Sands. For a moment there
was an awkward pause. It was apparent that the recognition was mutual,
but it was apparent also that in the shock of surprise neither boy
knew quite what to do. It was Aleck who made the first move. He rose,
crossed the room to where Pen was sitting, and held out his hand.
"Pen," he said, "are you willing to shake hands with me now? You know
I was dog enough once to refuse a like offer from you."
"I'm not only willing but glad to, if you want to let bygones be
bygones."
"I'll agree to that if you will agree to forgive me for what I've done
against you and against the flag."
"What you've done against the flag?"
Pen was staring at him in surprise. When had the burden of that guilt
been shifted?
"Yes, I," answered Aleck. "I did far more against the flag that day at
Chestnut Hill than you ever thought of doing. I haven't realized it
until lately, but now that I do know it, I'm trying in every way I
possibly can to make it right."
"Why, you didn't trample on it, nor speak of it disrespectfully, nor
refuse to apologize to it; it was I who did all that."
"I know, but I dogged you into it. If I myself had paid proper respect
to the flag you would never have got into that trouble. Pen, I never
did a more unpatriotic, contemptible thing in my life than I did when
I wrapped that flag around me and dared you to molest me. It was a
cowardly use to make of the Stars and Stripes. Moreover, I did it
deliberately, and you--you acted on the impulse of the moment. It was
I who committed the real fault, and it has been you who have suffered
for it."
"Well, I gave you a pretty good punching, didn't I?"
"Yes, but the punching you gave me was not a thousandth part of what I
deserved; and, if you think it would even matters up any, I'd be
perfectly willing to stand up to-night and let you knock me down a
dozen times. Since this war came on I've despised myself more than I
can tell you for my treatment of the flag that day, and for my
treatment of you ever since."
That he was in dead earnest there could be no doubt. Phlegmatic and
conservative by nature, when he was once roused he was not easily
suppressed. Pen began to feel sorry for him.
"You're too hard on yourself," he said. "I think you did make a
mistake that day, so did I. But we were both kids, and in a way we
were irresponsible."
"Yes, I know. There's something in that, to be sure. But that doesn't
excuse me for letting the thing go as I got older and knew better, and
letting you bear all the blame and all the punishment, and never
lifting a finger to try to help you out. That was mean and
contemptible."
"Well, it's all over now, so forget it."
"But I haven't been able to forget it. I've thought of it night and
day for a year. A dozen times I've started to hunt you up and tell
you what I'm telling you to-night, and every time I've backed out. I
couldn't bear to face the music. And when I heard that they turned you
down when you tried to enlist in the Guard at Lowbridge, on account of
the old trouble, that capped the climax. I couldn't stand it any
longer; I felt that I had to shoulder my part of that burden somehow,
and that the very best way for me to do it was to go and fight; and if
I couldn't fight under my own flag, then to go and fight under the
next best flag, the Union Jack. I felt that after I'd had my baptism
of fire I'd have the face and courage to go to you and tell you what
I've been telling you now. But I'm glad it's over. My soul! I'm glad
it's over!"
He dropped into a chair by the table and rested his head on his open
hand as though the recital of his story had exhausted him. Pen stood
over him and laid a comforting arm about his shoulder.
"It's all right, old man!" he said. "You've done the fair thing, and a
great lot more. Now let's call quits and talk about something else.
When did you come up here?"
"Five days ago. I'm just getting into the swing."
"Well, you're exactly the right sort. I'm mighty glad you're here.
We'll fix it so we can be in the same company, and bunk together. What
do you say?"
"Splendid! if you're willing. Can it be done? I'm in company M of the
--th Battalion."
"I know of the same thing having been done since I've been here. We'll
try it on, anyway."
They did try it on, and three days later the transfer was made. After
that they were comrades indeed, occupying the same quarters, marching
shoulder to shoulder with each other in the ranks, sharing with each
other all the comforts and privations of life in the barracks, moved
by a common impulse of patriotism and chivalry, longing for the day to
come when they could prove their mettle under fire.
But it was not until February 1916 that they went abroad. After three
months of intensive training they were hardened, supple, and skillful.
But their military education was not yet complete. Commanders of
armies know that raw or semi-raw troops are worse than useless in
modern warfare. Soldiers in these days must know their business
thoroughly if they are to meet an enemy on equal terms. They must be
artisans as well as soldiers, laborers as well as riflemen, human
machines compounded of blood and courage.
So, in a great camp not far from London, there were three months more
of drill and discipline and drastic preparation for the firing line.
But at last, in late May, when the young grass was green on England's
lawns, and the wings of birds were flashing everywhere in the
sunshine, and nature was rioting in leaf and flower, a troop-ship,
laden to the gunwales with the finest and the best of Canada's young
patriots and many of the most stalwart youth of the States, landed on
the welcoming shore of France. In England evidences of the great war
had been marked, abundant and harrowing. But here, in the country
whose soil had been invaded, the grim and stirring actualities of the
mighty conflict were brought home to the onlooker with startling
distinctness. At the railroad station, where the troops entrained for
the front, every sight and sound was eloquent with the tenseness of
preparation and the tragedy of the long fight. Soldiers were
everywhere. Coats of blue, trousers of red, jackets of green, gave
color and variety to the prevailing mass of sober khaki. Here too,
dotting the hurrying throng, were the pathetic figures of the stricken
and wounded, haggard, bandaged, limping, maimed, on canes and
crutches, back from the front, released from the hospitals, seeking
the rest and quiet that their sacrifices and heroism had so well
earned. And here too, ministering to the needs of the suffering and
the helpless, were many of the white-robed nurses of the Red Cross.
It was evening when the train bearing the first section of the --th
Battalion of Canadian Light Infantry to which Pen and Aleck belonged
steamed slowly out of the station. All night, in the darkness, across
the fields and through the fine old forests of northern France the
slow rumble of the coaches, interrupted by many stops, kept up. But in
the gray of the early morning, a short distance beyond Amiens, in the
midst of a mist covered meadow, the train pulled up for the last time.
This had been fighting ground. Here the invading hosts of Germany had
been met and driven back. Ruined farm houses, shattered trees, lines
of old trenches scarring the surface of the meadow, all told their
eloquent tale of ruthless and devastating war. And yonder, in the
valley, the slow-moving Somme wound its shadowy way between green
banks and overhanging foliage as peacefully and beautifully as though
its silent waters had never been flecked with the blood of dying men.
Even now, as the troops detrained and marched to the sections of the
field assigned them, the dull and continuous roar of cannon in the
distance came to their ears with menacing distinctness.
"It's the thunder of the guns!" exclaimed Pen. "I hope to-morrow finds
us where they're firing them."
"I'm with you," responded Aleck. "I shall be frightened to death when
they first put me under fire, but the sooner I'm hardened to it the
better."
"Tut! You'll be as brave as a lion. It's your kind that wins battles."
Pen turned his face toward a horizon lost in a haze of smoke, and the
look in his eyes showed that he at least, would be no coward when the
supreme moment came. Lieutenant Davis of their company strolled by;
impatiently waiting for further orders. He was a strict disciplinarian
indeed, but he was very human and his men all loved him. Pen pointed
in the direction from which came the muffled sounds of warfare.
"When shall we be there, Lieutenant?" he asked.
"I don't know, Butler," was the response. "It may be to-morrow; it may
be next month. Only those in high command know and they're not
telling. We may camp right here for weeks."
But they did not camp there. In the early evening there came marching
orders, and, under cover of darkness, the entire battalion swung into
a muddy and congested road and tramped along it for many hours. But
they got no nearer to the fighting line. Weary, hungry and thirsty,
they stopped at last on the face of a gently sloping hill protected
from the north by a forest which had not yet suffered destruction
either at the hands of sappers or from the violence of shells. It was
apparent that this had been a camp for a large body of troops before
the advancement of the lines. It was deserted now, but there were many
caves in the hillside, and hundreds of little huts made of earth and
wood under the sheltering trunks and branches of the trees. It was in
one of these huts that Pen and Aleck, together with four of their
comrades, were billeted. It was not long after their arrival before
hastily built fires were burning, and coffee, hot and fragrant, was
brewing, to refresh the tired bodies of the men, until the arrival of
the provision trains should supply them with a more substantial
breakfast. There was plenty of straw, however, and on that the weary
troops threw themselves down and slept.
At this camp the battalion remained until the middle of June. There
were drills, marching and battalion maneuvers by day, such recreation
in the evenings as camp life could afford, sound sleeping on beds of
straw at night, and always, from the distance, sometimes loud and
continuous, sometimes faint and occasional, the thunder of the guns.
And always, too, along the muddy high-road at the foot of the slope, a
never-ending procession of provision and munition trains laboring
toward the front, and the human wreckage of the firing line, and
troops released from the trenches, passing painfully to the rear. No
wonder the men grew impatient and longed for the activities of the
front even though their ears were ever filled with tales of horror
from the lips of those who had survived the ordeal of battle.
But, soon after the middle of June, their desires were realized.
Orders came to break camp and prepare to march, to what point no one
seemed to know, but every one hoped and expected it would be to the
trenches. There was a day of bustle and hurry. The men stocked up
their haversacks, filled their canteens and cartridge-boxes, put their
guns in complete readiness, and at five o'clock in the afternoon were
assembled and began their march. The road was ankle-deep with mud,
for there had been much rain, and it was congested with endless
convoys. There were many delays. A heavy mist fell and added to the
uncertainty, the weariness and discomfort. But no complaint escaped
from any man's lips, for they all felt that at last they were going
into action. Four hours of marching brought them into the neighborhood
of the British heavy artillery concealed under branches broken from
trees or in mud huts, directing their fire on the enemy's lines by the
aid of signals from lookouts far in advance or in the air. The noise
of these big guns was terrific, but inspiring. At nine o'clock there
was a halt of sufficient length to serve the men with coffee and
bread, and then the march was resumed. By and by shells from the guns
of the Allies began to shriek high over the heads of the marching men,
and were replied to by the enemy shells humming and whining by,
seeking out and endeavoring to silence the Allied artillery. Now and
then one of these missiles would burst in the rear of the column,
sending up a glare of flame and a cloud of dust and debris, but at
what cost in life no one in the line knew.
As the men advanced the mud grew deeper, the way narrower, the
congestion greater. The passing of enemy shells was less frequent, but
precautions for safety were increased. Advantage was taken of ravines,
of fences, of fourth and fifth line trenches. The troops ere not
beyond range of the German sharpshooters, and the swish of bullets was
heard occasionally in the air above the heads of the marchers.
It was toward morning that the destination of the column was reached,
and, in single file, the men of Pen's section passed down an incline
into their first communicating trench, and then past a maze of lateral
trenches to the opening into the salients they were to supply. It was
here that the soldiers whom they were to relieve filed out by them.
Going forward, they took the places of the retiring section. At last
they were in the first line trench, with the enemy trenches scarcely a
hundred meters in front of them. Sentries were placed at the
loop-holes made in the earth embankment, and the remainder of the
section retired to their dug-outs. These under-ground rooms, built
down and out from the trench, and bomb-proof, were capable of holding
from eight to a dozen men. They were carpeted with straw, some of them
had shelves, and in many of them discarded bayonets were driven into
the walls to form hooks. It was in these places that the men who were
off duty rested and ate and slept.
In the gray light of the early June morning, Pen, who had been posted
at one of the loop-holes as a listening sentry, looked out to see what
lay in front of him. But the most that could be seen were the long and
winding earth embankments that marked the lines of the German
entrenchments, and between, on "no man's land," a maze of barbed wire
entanglements. No living human being was in sight, but, at one place,
crumpled up, partly sustained by meshes of wire, there was a ragged
heap, the sight of which sent a chill to the boy's heart. It required
no second glance to discover that this was the unrescued body of a
soldier who had been too daring. Pen had seen his first war-slain
corpse. Indeed, war was becoming to him now a reality. For, suddenly,
a little of the soft earth at his side spattered into his face. An
enemy bullet had struck there. In his eagerness to see he had exposed
too much of his head and shoulders and had become the target for Boche
sharpshooters. Other bullets pattered down around his loop-hole, and
only by seeking the quick shelter of the trench did he escape injury
or death. It was his first lesson in self-protection on the
firing-line, but he profited by it. Two hours later he and Aleck, who
had also been doing duty on a lookout platform, were relieved by their
comrades, and threw themselves down on the straw of their dug-out and,
wearied to the point of exhaustion, slept soundly. With the dawning of
day the noise of cannonading increased, the whining of deadly missiles
grew more incessant, the crash of exploding shells more frequent, but,
until they were roused by their sergeant and bidden to eat their
breakfast which had been brought by a ration-party, both boys slept.
So soon had the menacing sounds of war become familiar to their ears.
After breakfast those who were not on sentry duty were put to work
repairing trenches, filling sand-bags, enlarging dug-outs, pumping
water from low places, cleaning rifles, performing a hundred tasks
which were necessary to make trench life endurable and reasonably
safe. The food was good and was still abundant. There were fresh meat,
bacon, canned soups and vegetables, bread, butter, jam and coffee. The
two hours on sentry duty were by far the most strenuous in the daily
routine. To remain in one position, with eyes glued to the narrow slit
in the embankment, gas mask at hand, hand-grenades in readiness, rifle
in position ready to be discharged on the second, the fate of the
whole army perhaps resting on one man's vigilance, this was no easy
task.
But there were no complaints. The men were on the firing line, ready
to obey orders, whatever they might be; they asked only one thing
more, and that was to fight. But, in these days, there was a lull in
the actual fighting. The "big drive" had not yet been launched. Aside
from a skirmish now and then, a fierce bombardment for a few hours,
an attempt, on one side or the other, to rush a trench, there was
little aggressive warfare in this neighborhood, and few casualties;
nor was there any material variance in the front lines of trenches on
either side. There were six days of this kind of duty and then the men
of Pen's company were relieved and sent to the rear for a week's rest,
to act as reserves, and to be called during that time only in case of
an emergency. But the following week saw them again at the front; not
in the same trench where they had first served, but in an advanced
position farther to the south. The trenches here were not so roomy nor
so dry as had been those of the first assignment. There was much mud,
slippery and deep, to be contended with, and the walls at the sides
were continually caving in. The duties of the men, however, were not
materially different from those with which they were already familiar.
Clashes had been more frequent here, and the dead bodies of soldiers,
crumpled up in the trench or lying, unrescued, on the scarred and
fire-swept surface of "no man's land" were not an unusual sight. But
the "rookies" were becoming hardened now to many of the horrors of
war.
It was while they were in this trench that Pen had his "baptism of
fire." Late one afternoon the German artillery began shelling fiercely
the first line of Allied trenches. Aleck and Pen were both on sentry
duty. Just beyond them Lieutenant Davis stood at an advanced lookout
post intent on studying the outside situation by means of his
periscope. At irregular intervals machine guns, deftly hidden from the
sight of the enemy, poked their menacing mouths toward the Boche
lines. Now and then, finding its mark at some point in the course of
the winding trench, an enemy shell would explode throwing clouds of
dust and debris into the air, wrecking the earthworks where it fell,
taking its toll of human lives and limbs. Twice Pen was thrown off his
feet by the shock of near-by explosions, but he escaped injury, as did
also Aleck. It was apparent that the Germans were either making a
feint for the purpose of attacking at some unexpected point, or else
that they were preparing for a charge on the trenches which they were
bombarding. It developed that the latter theory was the correct one,
for, after a while, they directed their fire to the rear of the first
line trenches, and set up a still more furious bombardment. This, as
every one knew, was for the purpose of preventing the British from
bringing up reinforcements, and to give their own troops the
opportunity to charge into the Allied front. The charge was not long
delayed. A gray wave poured over the parapet of the German first line
trench, rolled through the prepared openings in their own barbed-wire
entanglements, and advanced, alternately running and creeping, toward
the Allied line. But when the Germans were once in the open a terrible
thing happened to them. The machine guns from all along the British
trenches met them with a rain of bullets that mowed them down as grain
falls to the blades of the farmer's reaper. The rifles of the men in
khaki, resting on the benches of the parapet, spit constant and deadly
fire at them. The artillery to the rear, in constant telephone touch
with the first line, quickly found the range and dropped shells into
the charging mass with terrible effect. A second body of gray-clad
soldiers with fixed bayonets swarmed out of the German trenches and
came to the help of their hard-beset comrades, and met a similar fate.
Then a third platoon came on, and a fourth. The resources of the enemy
in men seemed endless, their persistence remarkable, their
recklessness in the face of sure death almost unbelievable. The noise
was terrific; the constant rattle of the machine guns, the spitting of
rifles, the booming of the artillery, the whining and crashing of
shells, the yells of the charging troops, the shrieks of the wounded.
In the British trenches the men were assembled, ready to pour out at
the whistle and repel the assault on open ground; but it was not
necessary for them to do so. The German ranks, unable to withstand the
fire that devoured them as they met it, a fire that it was humanly
impossible for any troops to withstand, turned back and sought the
shelter of their trenches, leaving their dead and wounded piled and
sprawled by the hundreds on the ground they had failed to cross.
The casualties among the Canadian troops were not large, and they had
occurred mostly before the charge had been launched, but it was in
deep sorrow that the men from across the ocean gathered up from the
shattered trenches the pierced and broken bodies of their comrades,
and sent them to the rear, the living to be cared for in the
hospitals, the dead to be buried on the soil of France where they had
bravely fought and nobly died.