by a common impulse, to gaze upwards, and, gazing in silent wonder,
they saw such a sight as London has never seen before. On the
highest pinnacle of the Victoria tower where the flag of another
nation has never before shared its proud eminence there floated
together from one flagstaff Old Glory and the Union Jack.
That was America's supreme consecration.
[signed] Annie E. Lane (Mrs. John Lane)
Pour La Patrie
They were brothers, Louis and François, standing in the presence of
the Prussian commander, looking hopelessly into his cold, unsmiling
eyes. For the third time in as many days he was bargaining with
them for that which God had given them and they in turn had promised
to France: their lives.
"Do not make the mistake of thinking that we exalt you for what
you may call courage, or that your country will sing your praises,"
said the general harshly. "Your country will never know how or when
you die. You have nothing to gain by dying, not even the credit
of dying."
François allowed his hot, dry eyes to sweep slowly around the group.
He was pale, his forehead wet.
"You are soldiers," said he, his voice low and steady. "Is there
one among you who would do the thing we are asked to do? If there is
one man here who will stand forth in the presence of his comrades
and say that he would betray Germany as you are asking us to
betray France,--if there is such a man among you, let him speak,
and the,--then I will do what you ask of me."
A dozen pairs of hard implacable eyes returned his challenge. No
man spoke. No man smiled.
"You do not even pretend," cried the little poilu. "well, I too
am a soldier. I am a soldier of France. It is nothing to me that
I day to-day or to-morrow, or that my country knows when or how.
Take me out and shoot me," he shouted, facing the commander. "I
am but one poor soldier. I am one of millions. What is my little
life worth to you?"
"Nothing," said the commander. "Ten such as you would not represent
the worth of one German soldier."
"We say not so over there," said François boldly, jerking his thumb
in the direction of Pont-a-mousson.
And now for the first time the Prussians about him smiled.
"What is it, pray, that you do say over there?" inquired the general
mockingly.
"That the worst of the Frenchmen is worth five of your best," said
François, unafraid. Why should he be afraid to speak the truth?
He was going to die.
"And one of your frog-eating generals is the equal of five of me,
I suppose?" The commander's grim face relaxed into a smile. "That
is good! Ha-ha! That is good!"
"So we say, excellency," said François simply. "Our Papa Joffre--ah,
he is greater than all of you put in one."
The Prussian flushed. His piggish eyes glittered.
"Your Papa Joffre!" he scoffed.
"He is greater than the Kaiser,--though I die for saying it," cried
the little poilu recklessly.
The commander turned his eyes from the white, impassioned face
of François and looked upon the quivering, ghastly visage of the
brother who stood beside him. The fire that glowed in the eyes of
François was missing in those of Louis.
The grizzled Prussian smiled, but imperceptibly. What he saw
pleased him. Louis, the big one, the older of the two, trembled.
It was only by the supremest effort that he maintained a pitiable
show of defiance. His face was haggard and blanched with fear;
there was a hunted, shifty look in his narrowed eyes. The general's
smile developed. It proffered comfort, consolation, encouragement.
"And you," he said, almost gently, "have not you profited by the
reflections of your three days of grace? Are you as stubborn as
this mule of a brother, this foolish lad who spouts even poorer
French than I address to you?"
François shot a quick, appealing glance at his big brother's face.
There were tiny rivulets of slaver at the corners of Louis's mouth.
"Louis!" he cried out sharply.
Louis lifted his sagging shoulders. "I have nothing to say," he
said thickly, and with the set of his jaws François breathed deeply
of relief.
"So!" said the general, shrugging his shoulders. "I am sorry. You
are young to die, you two. To die on the field of battle,--ah,
that is noble! To die with one's back to a wall, blindfolded, and
to be covered with earth so loosely that starving dogs may scratch
away to feast--But, no more. You have decided. You have had many
hours in which to consider the alternative. You will be shot at
daybreak."
The slight figure of François straightened, his chin went up. His
thin, dirt-covered hands were tightly clenched.
"For France!" he murmured, lifting his eyes above the head of the
Prussian.
A vast shudder swept over the figure of Louis, a hoarse gasp broke
through his lips. The commander leaned forward, fixing him with
compelling eyes.
"For France!" cried François again, and once more Louis lifted his
head to quaver:
"For France!"
"Take them away," said the commander. "But stay! How old are
you?" He addressed François.
"I am nineteen."
"And you?"
Louis's lips moved but no sound issued.
"My brother is twenty-one," said François, staring hard at Louis.
"He has a sweetheart who will grieve bitterly if he does not
return for her caresses, eh? I thought so. Oh, you French! But
she will soon recover. She will find another,--like that! So!"
He snapped his fingers. "She will not wait long, my good Louis.
Take them away!"
Louis's face was livid. His chin trembled, his lips fell apart
slackly; he lowered his eyes after an instant's contact with the
staunch gaze of his brother.
"You have until sunrise to change your minds," said the Prussian,
turning on his heel.
"Sunrise," muttered Louis, his head twitching.
They were led from the walled-in garden and across the cobblestones
of the little street that terminated in a cul de sac just above.
Over the way stood the shattered remnants of a building that once
had been pointed to with pride by the simple villagers as the finest
shop in town. The day was hot. Worn-out German troopers sprawled
in the shade of the walls, sound asleep, their mouths ajar,--beardless
boys, most of them.
"Poor devils," said François, as he passed among them. He too was
very young.
They were shoved through the wrecked doorway into the mortar-strewn
ruin, and, stumbling over masses of débris, came to the stone steps
that led to the cellar below. Louis drew back with a groan. He
had spent centuries in that foul pit.
"Not there--again!" he moaned. He was whimpering feebly as he
picked himself up at the bottom of the steps a moment later.
"Dogs!" cried François, glaring upward and shaking his fist at the
heads projecting into the turquoise aperture above. Far on high,
where the roof had been, gleamed the brilliant sky. "Our general
will make you pay one of these days,--our GREAT general!"
Then he threw his arms about his brother's shoulders and--cried a
little too,--no in fear but in sympathy.
The trap door dropped into place, a heavy object fell upon it with
a thud, and they were in inky darkness. There was no sound save
the sobs of the two boys, and later the steady tread of a man who
paced the floor overhead,--a man who carried a gun.
They had not seen, but they knew that a dead man lay over in the
corner near a window chocked by a hundred tons of brick and mortar.
He had died some time during the second century of their joint
occupance of the black and must hole. On the 28th he had come in
with them, wounded. It was now the 31st, and he was dead, having
lived to the age of nine score years and ten! When they spoke to
their guards at the beginning of the third century, saying that
their companion was dead and should be carried away, the Germans
replied:
"There is time enough for that," and laughed,--for the Germans
could count the time by hours out there in the sunshine. But that
is not why they laughed.
A hidden French battery in the wooded, rocky hills off to the
west had for days kept up a deadly, unerring fire upon the German
positions. Shift as he would, the commander could not escape the
shells from those unseen, undiscovered guns. They followed him
with uncanny precision. His own batteries had searched in vain,
with thousands of shrieking shells, for the gadfly gunners. They
could find him, but he could not find them. For every shell he
wasted, they returned one that counted.
Three French scouts fell into his hands on the night of the 28th.
Two of them were still alive. He had them up before him at once.
"On one condition will I spare your lives," said he. And that
condition had been pounded into their ears with unceasing violence,
day and night, by officers high and low, since the hour of their
capture. It was a very simple condition, declared the Germans.
Only a stubborn fool would fail to take advantage of the opportunity
offered. The exact position of that mysterious battery,--that
was all the general demanded in return for his goodness in sparing
their lives. He asked no more of them than a few, truthful words.
They had steadfastly refused to betray their countrymen.
François could not see his brother, but now and then he put out a
timid hand to touch the shaking figure. He could not understand.
Why was it not the other way about? Who was he to offer consolation
to the big and strong?
"Courage," he would say, and then stare hard ahead into the blackness.
"You are great and strong," he would add. "It is I who am weak
and little, Louis. I am the little brother."
"You have not so much to live for as I," Louis would mutter, over
and over again.
Their hour drew near. "Eat this," persuaded François, pressing
upon Louis the hunk of bread their captors had tossed down to them.
"Eat? God! How can I eat?"
"Then drink. It is not cold, but--"
"Let me alone! Keep away from me! God in heaven, why do they
leave that Jean Picard down here with us--"
"You have seen hundreds of dead men, Louis. All of them were
heroes. All of them were brave. It was glorious to die as they
died. Why should we be afraid of death?"
"But they died like men, not like rats. They died smiling. They
had no time to think."
And then he fell to moaning. His teeth rattled. He turned upon
his face and for many minutes beat upon the stone steps with his
clenched hands, choking out appeals to his Maker.
François stood. His hot, unblinking eyes tried to pierce the darkness.
Tears of shame and pity for this big brother burnt their way out
and ran down his cheeks. He was wondering. He was striving to
put away the horrid doubt that was searing his soul: the doubt of
Louis!
The dreary age wore on. Louis slept! The little brother sat with
his chin in his hands, his heart cold, his eyes closed. He prayed.
Then came the sound of the heavy object being dragged away from
the door at the top of the steps. They both sprang to their feet.
An oblong patch of drab, gray light appeared overhead. Sunrise!
"Come! It is time," called down a hoarse voice. Three guns hung
over the edge of the opening. They were taking no chances.
"Louis!" cried François sharply.
Louis straightened his gaunt figure. The light from above fell
upon his face. It was white,--deathly white,--but transfigured.
A great light flamed in his eyes.
"Have no fear, little brother," he said gently, caressingly. He
clasped his brother's hand. "We die together. I have dreamed.
A vision came to me,--came down from heaven. My dream was of our
mother. She came to me and spoke. So! I shall die without fear.
Come! Courage, little François. We are her soldier boys. She
gave us to France. She spoke to me. I am not afraid."
Glorified, rejoicing, almost unbelieving, François followed his
brother up the steps, there was comfort in the grip of Louis's
hand.
"This general of yours," began Louis, facing the guard, a sneer on
his colorless lips, his teeth showing, "he is a dog! I shall say
as much to him when the guns are pointed at my breast."
The Germans stared.
"What has come over this one?" growled one of them. "Last night
he was breaking."
"There is still a way to break him," said another, grinning. "Hell
will be a relief to him after this hour."
"Canailès!" snarled Louis, and François laughed aloud in sheer joy!
"My good,--my strong brother!" he cried out.
"This Papa Joffre of yours," said the burliest German,--"he is
worse than a dog. He is a toad." He shoved the captives through
the opening in the wall. "Get on!"
"The smallest sergeant in Germany is greater than your Papa Joffre,"
said another. "What is it you have said, baby Frenchman? One
frog-eater is worth five Germans? Ho-ho! You shall see."
"I--I myself," cried François hotly,--"I am nobler, braver, greater
than this beast you call master."
"Hold your tongue," said a third German, in a kindlier tone than
the others had employed. "It can do you no good to talk like this.
Give in, my brave lads. Tell everything. I know what is before
you if you refuse to-day,--and I tremble. He will surely break
you to-day."
They were crossing the narrow road.
"He is your master,--not ours," said François calmly.
Louis walked ahead, erect, his jaw set. The blood leaped in
François' veins. Ah, what a brave, strong fellow his brother was!
"He is the greatest commander in all the German armies," boasted
the burly sergeant. "And, young frog-eater, he commands the finest
troops in the world. Do you know that there are ten thousand iron
crosses in this God-appointed corps! Have a care how you speak
of our general. He is the Emperor's right hand. He is the chosen
man of the Emperor."
"And of God," added another.
"Bah!" cried François, snapping his fingers scornfully. "His is
worth no more than that to me!"
François was going to his death. His chest swelled.
"You fool. He is to the Emperor worth more than an entire army
corps,--yes, two of them. The Emperor would sooner lose a hundred
thousand men than this single general."
"A hundred thousand men?" cried François, incredulously. "That is
a great many men,--even Germans."
"Pigs," said Louis, between his teeth.
They now entered the little garden. The Prussian commander was
eating his breakfast in the shelter of a tent. The day was young,
yet the sun was hot. Papers and maps were strewn over the top of
the long table at which he sat, gorging himself. The guard and
the two prisoners halted a few paces away. The general's breakfast
was not to be interrupted by anything so trivial as the affairs of
Louis and François.
"And that ugly glutton is worth more than a hundred thousand men,"
mused François, eyeing him in wonder. "God, how cheap these boches
must be."
Staff officers stood outside the tent, awaiting and receiving
gruff orders from their superior. Between gulps he gave out almost
unintelligible sounds, and one by one these officers, interpreting
them as commands, saluted and withdrew.
François gazed as one fascinated. He WAS a great general, after
all. Only a very great and powerful general could enjoy such
respect, such servile obedience as he was receiving from these
hulking brutes of men.
Directions were punctuated,--or rather indicated,--by the huge
carving-knife with which the general slashed his meat. He pointed
suddenly with the knife, and, as he did so, the officer at whom
it was leveled, sprang into action, to do as he was bidden, as if
the shining blade had touched his quivering flesh.
Suddenly the great general pushed his bench back from the table,
slammed the knife and fork down among the platters, and barked:
"Well!"
His eyes were fastened upon the prisoners. The guards shoved them
forward.
"Have you decided? What is it to be,--life or death?"
He was in an evil humor. That battery in the hills had found its
mark again when the sun was on the rise.
"Vive la France!" shouted Louis, raising his eye to heaven.
"vive la France!" almost screamed François.
"So be it!" roared the commander. His gaze was fixed on Louis.
There was the one who would weaken. Not that little devil of a
boy beside him. He uttered a short, sharp command to an aide.
The torturing of Louis began....
"End it!" commanded the Prussian general after a while. "The fool
will not speak!"
And the little of life that was left to the shuddering, sightless
Louis went out with a sigh--slipped out with the bayonet as it was
withdrawn from his loyal breast.
Turning to François, who had been forced to witness the mutilation
of his brother,--whose arms had been held and whose eyelids were
drawn up by the cruel fingers of a soldier who stood behind him,--he
said:
"Now YOU! You have seen what happened to him! It is your turn
now. I was mistaken. I thought that he was the coward. Are you
prepared to go through even more than--Ah! Good! I thought so!
The little fire-eater weakens!"
François, shaken and near to dying of the horror he had witnessed,
sagged to his knees. They dragged him forward,--and one of them
kicked him.
"I will tell! I will tell!" he screamed. "Let me alone! Keep
your hands off of me! I will tell, God help me, general!"
He staggered, white-faced and pitiful, to the edge of the table,
which he grasped with trembling, straining hands.
"Be quick about it," snarled the general, leaning forward eagerly.
Like a cat, François sprang. He had gauged the distance well. He
had figured it all out as he stood by and watched his brother die.
His fingers clutched the knife.
"I will!" he cried out in an ecstasy of joy.
To the hasp sank the long blade into the heart of the Prussian
commander.
Whirling, the French boy threw his arms on high and screamed into
the faces of the stupefied soldiers:
"Vive la France! One hundred thousand men! There they lie! Ha-ha!
I--I, François Dupré,--I have sent them all to hell! Wait for me,
Louis! I am coming!"
The first words of the "Marseillaise" were bursting from his lips
when his uplifted face was blasted--
He crumpled up and fell.
[signed] George Barr McCutcheon
Sonnet
Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,--no,
Nor honeysuckle,--thou art not more fair
Than small white single poppies,--I can bear
Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though
From left to right, not knowing where to go,
I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there
Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear
So has it been with mist,--with moonlight so.
Like him who day by day unto his draught
Of delicate poison adds him one drop more
Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten,
Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed
Each hour more deeply than the hour before,
I drink,--and live--what has destroyed some men.
[signed] Edna St. Vincent Millay
The Idiot
I
The change was not affected without whispering. The spirit both
of the troops who were going back of the lines to rest and of those
who had zigzagged up through two miles of communication trenches
to take their places was excellent.
"What is the name of this country?" asked one of the new comers.
"If it had a name, that is all that remains. We are somewhere in
Picardy. The English are off there not very far. Their cannon
have different voices from ours. Good Luck!"
His gray, faded uniform seemed to melt into the night. The New
Comer stepped on to the firing platform and poked his head over
the parapet. A comrade pulled at his trousers leg.
"Come down, Idiot," he said, "Fritz is only twelve yards away."
The Idiot came down, sniffing the night air luxuriously.
"We are somewhere in Picardy," he said. "I know without being
told. It is like going home."
A sergeant approached, his body twisted sideways because the trench
was too narrow for his shoulders.
"Have you a watch?"
The Idiot had.
Under his coat, so that the enemy should not perceive the glow,
the sergeant flashed his electric torch and compared the watches.
"Yours leads by a minute," he said. "The advance will be at four
o'clock. there will be hot coffee at three. Good luck."
He passed on, and the comrades drew a little closer together. The
sergeant's words had made the Idiot very happy.
"In less than two hours!" he said.
"I thought there was something in the wind," said Paul Guitry.
"If we advanced only three kilometers," said the Idiot, "the village
in which I was born would be French again. But there will be great
changes."
"You were born at Champ-de-Fer?"
"It is directly opposite us."
"You cannot know that."
"I feel it," said the Idiot. "Wherever I have been stationed I have
felt it. Sometimes I have asked an officer to look for Champ-de-Fer
on his field map, and when he has done so, I have pointed, and said
'Is it in that direction?' and always I have been right."
"Did your family remain in the village?"
"I don't know. But I think so, for from the hour of the mobilization
until now, I have not heard from them."
"Since the hour of the mobilization," said Paul Guitry, "much water
has flowed under the bridges. I had just been married. My wife
is in Paris. I have a little son now. I saw them when I had my
eight days' leave. And it seems that again I am to be a father.
It is very wonderful."
"I was going to be married," said the Idiot simply.
There was a short silence.
"If I had known," said Paul Guitry, "I would not have boasted of
my own happiness."
"I am not the only French soldier who has not heard from his
sweetheart since the mobilization," said the Idiot. "It has been
hard," he said, "but by thinking of all the others, I have been
able to endure."
"She remained there at Champ-de-Fer?"
"She must have, or else she would have written to me."
Paul Guitry could not find anything to say.
"Soon," said the Idiot, "we shall be in Champ-de-Fer, and they will
tell me what has become of her."
"She will tell you herself," said Paul Guitry with a heartiness
which he did not feel. The Idiot shrugged his shoulders.
"We have loved each other," he said, "even since we were little
children. Do you know why I am called the Idiot? It is because
I do not go with women, when I have the chance. But I don't mind.
They cannot say that I am not a real man, for I have the military
medal and I have been mentioned twice in the orders of the day."
To Paul Guitry, a confirmed sinner as opportunity offered, the
Idiot's statement contained much psychic meat.
"It must be," he said, "that purity tempts some men, just as impurity
tempts others."
"It is even simpler," said the Idiot; but he did not explain. And
there was a long silence.
Now and then Paul Guitry glanced at his companion's profile, for
the night was no longer inky black. It was a simple direct young
face, not handsome, but full of dignity and kindness; the line of
the jaw had a certain sternness, and the wide and delicately molded
nostril indicated courage and daring.
Paul Guitry thought of his wife and of his little son, of his eight
days' leave, and of its consequences. He tried to imagine how he
would feel, if for two years his wife had been in the hands of the
Germans. Without meaning to, he spoke his thought aloud:
"Long since," he said, "I should have gone mad."
The Idiot nodded.
"They say," he said, "that in fifty years all this will be forgotten;
and that we French will feel friendly toward the Germans."
He laughed softly, a laugh so cold, that Paul Guitry felt as if
ice water had suddenly been spilled on his spine.
"Hell," he went on, "has no tortures which French men, and women,
and little children have not suffered. You say that if you had
been in my boots you must long since have gone mad? well, it is
because I have been able to think of all the others who are in my
boots that I have kept my sanity. It has not been easy. It is
not as if my imagination alone had been tortured. Just as I have
the sense that my village is there--" he pointed with his sensitive
hand, "so I have the sense of what has happened there. I KNOW that
she is alive," he concluded, "and that she would rather be dead."
There was another silence. The Idiot's nostrils dilated and he
sniffed once or twice.
"The coffee is coming," he said. "Listen. If I am killed in the
advance, find her, will you--Jeanne Bergère? And say what you can
to comfort her. It doesn't matter what has happened, her love for
me is like the North Star--fixed. When she knows that I am dead
she will wish to kill herself. You must prevent that. You must
show her how she can help France. Aha!--The cannon!"
From several miles in the rear there rose suddenly a thudding percussive
cataract of sound. The earth trembled like some frightened animal
that has been driven into a corner.
The Idiot leaped to his feet, his eyes joyously alight.
"It is the voice of God," he cried.
If indeed it was the voice of God, that other great voice which is
of Hell, made no answer. The German guns were unaccountably silent.