For British soldiers it had been a long trying day on Messines Ridge.
For many nights the boys had been coming up towards the front trenches.
The next morning at 3:50 they were to go "over the top"; a feat which
they accomplished, driving in a mile and a half deep, on a long, long
line, only to be stopped by four days and nights of rain that drowned
the trenches and drove them back out of the flooded valley to the
hillside. Because the Germans knew what must come the next day, the
German cannon were trying to bomb out the British guns.
That night--tired out--we drove back eighteen miles behind the line for
one good night's sleep. After dinner an English lieutenant told me this
tragic tale:
"It was an April night last spring. All day the wind and fog and rain
had been coming in from the North Sea. The chill and damp went into the
very marrow of the bones. When night fell a few of us officers crept
down the long stair into a shell-proof room. There we had our pipes and
gossiped about the events of the day and talked with the French captain,
our guest, who was spending a week studying our sector. Finally the time
came when we must go back into the trench to take our turn in the rain.
"We were putting on our raincoats, when in my happiness I said, 'Well,
men, you should congratulate me. One week from to-night I shall not be
here in this rain and mud. I shall be home in England and have my little
wife and my baby girl. Just one week! It seems like seven eternities
instead of seven days and nights!'
"I little dreamed the little tragedy that I had precipitated. My colonel
was very kind. He told me that he would have his permission in three
more months. The rest of the boys also said nice things. Suddenly we
realized that the French captain was acting very strangely and saying
excited things with his back towards us. We did not know how we had
insulted him, nor could we understand what had happened. Finally my
colonel said to him:
"'Captain, I hope you will have your vacation soon and have a chance to
go home and see your family.'
"He turned on us like a crazy man. He put his fists in the air, he half
shouted and half sobbed at us.
"'How do you men dare talk to me about going home? Your land has never
been invaded, nor your families ruined. Home! How can I go home? The
Germans have had my town for a year. In their retreat they carried away
my little girl and my young wife, and now the priest has gotten word to
me that in six weeks my little girl and my young wife will both have
babes by the German beast who carried them off.'
"And then the Frenchman cursed God and cursed the devil! Cursed the
Kaiser and cursed the Fatherland. Oh, it was so terrible. Doctor, I
often wonder how Americans could have left the women and girls of
Belgium and France in hell for two and a half years, while you men
stood in safety and in peace."
The historian will find it hard to answer that question. History will
have it to say that England was the good Samaritan who helped the
Belgians who had fallen among thieves, while Americans were among those
who passed by on the other side.