far up the height, before any one else can answer the question. There
is a roar of laughter at this egotism, and another voice from the wharf
enquires:
“What camp?”
“Camp Dodge! Labour Battalion!” roars an answering chorus.
“Step right down, boys! We got lots of labour for you heah!” yells the
humorist on the wharf.
The white contingent on the other ship proves to be from Camp Sherman.
What is of far more importance, however, is the fact that both ships
possess clean bills of health, only nine cases of sickness being reported
altogether. This is good news, for influenza and pneumonia have been
rampant. Troops on the great transports have been saddened of late by
the continuous spectacle of eager young hearts committed to the deep
without ever having beheld their Promised Land. There have been rumours,
too, of hundreds of stretcher-cases landed in Liverpool from a single
convoy. But apparently the plague is stayed. We shall have a chance now
to be killed—which is a very different matter from dying like a common
civilian.
In due course the gentleman from Fourteenth Street, Lebanon, Illinois,
set foot upon the soil of France—to his own profound relief. His name
was Joseph Williams. His calling, up to date, had been that of elevator
attendant in the leading—in fact, the only—hotel in his native town.
He had never been from home in his life, and when the long arm of the
Selective Draft reached out from Washington, D.C., and pounced upon
Joseph in Lebanon and dropped him into the maelstrom of Camp Dodge, it
launched him upon a series of experiences so novel and so surprising that
his eyes had never quite regained their sockets, nor had his mouth been
completely closed, since. American negroes vary a good deal in tint,
but there were no half-measures about Joseph. He was coal-black; and
as his teeth and the whites of his eyes were china-white, he furnished
a most effective colour-scheme. He was, moreover, a youth of cheerful
countenance, and performed the most ordinary military duties with an air
of rapturous enjoyment.
But the voyage across had been a severe trial. Joseph had never seen
the ocean before, and his introduction to that element had not been
auspicious. For fifteen long days the convoy had tumbled and lurched
through the Atlantic wastes. The weather had been contrary; fogs
numerous. The lame ducks of the party had been more than usually
dilatory. Joseph and his brethren—possibly with some long-dormant
ancestral chord of recollection astir within them—had been first scared,
then demoralized, and finally had given up hope. After the first week
they abandoned all expectation of ever seeing land again. Late one night
the officer on duty, going his rounds amid the Chinese opium-den of
close-packed bunks in the ship’s hold, overheard Joseph’s voice, uplifted
above the creaking of timbers and the snores of his associates, imploring
Providence for the sight of “jus’ one li’l’ lone pine-tree—no mo’ dan
dat!”—as a divine guarantee that the deep waters of the Atlantic had not
entirely submerged the habitable globe.
But now, Joseph had arrived. He was “right there.” The sun shone warmly
upon him, and the good brown earth lay firm beneath his large feet—the
soil of France, which he had come to save. His smile expanded: his
soul burgeoned. He would explore this town, and fraternize with the
inhabitants.
Leave obtained, he set forth. He observed with approval, as a member of a
family which had derived its income for generations from the taking-in of
other people’s washing, the elaborately starched and frilled caps of the
Normandy fisherwomen. He returned with interest the shy smiles of little
French girls in wooden sabots. When a bullet-headed little French boy in
a long black pinafore stood to attention upon his approach and exclaimed,
“_Américain, Salu-u-u-ut!_” Joseph Williams beamed from ear to ear.
Presently, emerging from the town, he made for the open country—a
country of undulating sand-dunes, with here and there a windmill atop,
feverishly churning. To these succeeded green fields, dotted with
humble farms and homesteads. Joseph observed that all these buildings
were of stone or brick, wood being doubtless unobtainable in this
sterile country. The inhabitants were not numerous—able-bodied men were
conspicuously absent—and every one within sight appeared to be working.
In the nearest field a small boy was directing the movements of two
placid horses by means of that peculiar agonized howl with which a
Frenchman always conducts business of an urgent nature, whether he be
reviling a political opponent or selling evening papers. Farther away an
oldish man in French Territorial uniform was cutting hay, assisted by two
strapping young women.
Even the very old and the very young were employed. And in this
connection Joseph stumbled upon the ideal occupation for persons who
possess those twin adjuncts of the philosopher—a contemplative mind and a
dislike for work.
Hitherto the summit of his ambition had been to stand one day in glorious
apparel upon the tessellated flooring of a great New York hotel, opposite
the elevators, and nod his head in Jove-like fashion whenever he thought
it desirable that another elevator should go up. But now another and more
restful career presented itself to him.
Every French peasant possesses a cow or two—peradventure half a dozen.
To feed these, pastureland is required. But no thrifty Frenchman would
set aside valuable arable land for this purpose, when the roadside is
free to all. A properly educated French cow can always be relied upon
to extract a meal from the strip of dusty herbage that runs between
the roadway and the ditch in every country lane in France. The trouble
is that such a pasture is considerably longer than it is broad—three
feet by Infinity is the dimension—and a cow of epicurean temperament
may be inclined to wander too far, or even lose herself. Therefore,
an escort must be provided—usually for each individual cow, for the
collective convoy system is of little practical use here. So the
Landsturm is called out. At early dawn Grandpère totters off up the road
escorting, let us say, Rosalie; while Toinette, aged six, departs in the
opposite direction, with the inevitable huge umbrella under one arm and
Victorine’s leading-string under the other. Thus the day is spent. It is
a day without haste, without heat; for the pace is that of a browsing
cow. Moreover, it is a day without supervision—grateful and comforting
to an enlisted man of six months’ standing—and its responsibilities
are limited to steering the cow out of the way of approaching traffic,
either by personal appeal from the shade of a neighbouring tree, or in
extreme cases with the umbrella. It is not necessary to observe a course
or take bearings: you may simply drift, because the cow always knows the
way home. Decidedly, said Joseph Williams to himself, this was the life.
Elevator-starting was a sociable and decorative calling, but made too
severe a demand upon the faculties. After the war he would settle right
here in France and chaperon a cow.
It was at this point that Joseph went finally to sleep, in the shadow
of the cow which had started his train of thought. He awoke greatly
refreshed—he had arrears of sleep to make up after the discomforts of the
voyage—and set out for the town, with his mind a luxurious blank, except
for two small matters. First, the entire absence of any suggestion of
war. Joseph had half expected to find his landing disputed by the full
strength of the German Army. Conversation on board had tended that way,
and he had promised himself a happy hour writing home to describe how he,
followed by his devoted adherents, had triumphantly overcome the foe’s
resistance. In fact, he had written the letter already. Second, every one
in this country appeared to be white—French soldiers, French sailors,
French civilians. He longed for the sight of one ebony face. Even a
mahogany one would do.
And on the outskirts of the town the latter wish was gratified. A sudden
turn in the road brought him face to face with his own double—or very
nearly. The double was attired in what Joseph took to be a French uniform
of some kind, the most conspicuous and enviable items of which were
immensely baggy trousers and a red fez.
The double, after one glance at Joseph’s modest khaki uniform and homely
features, broke into a dazzling smile. The pair advanced rapidly upon one
another and shook hands with enormous enthusiasm. Both broke into speech
simultaneously.
Then befell the tragedy. Each spoke a tongue entirely incomprehensible to
the other!
Each paused, incredulous; then, convinced there must be some mistake,
began again. Then came another pause. A look of almost pathetic
bewilderment appeared upon each honest countenance—countenances almost
identical in shade and feature. Then Joseph exclaimed:
“Why, nigger, what so’t of fancy nigger does yo’ think yo’ is?”
The gentleman in the fez retaliated with a query which, to judge by sound
and intonation, was very similar to Joseph’s.
The look of bewilderment on Joseph’s face gave place to a severe frown,
which was immediately reflected in that of his double. Each of these
children of Ham now darkly suspected the other of imposture.
“Don’ yo’ go an’ get fresh with _me_, nigger!” said Joseph, in a warning
voice.
“_Yakki-wakki-hikki-doolah!_” growled the other—or words to that effect.
Joseph lost all patience. His voice suddenly shot up an octave higher,
and he screamed:
“You ain’t no nigger at all! You’re only a Af’ican!”
* * * * *
Possibly it was in self-compensation for this disillusioning encounter
that Joseph promptly mailed to his affianced in distant Lebanon,
Illinois, the letter which has been mentioned above. It began:
_Well, honey, we has arrived in France, and this war sure is
fierce. Every time I steps outside my dugout I wades up to my
knees in blood.…_
CHAPTER NINE
THE EXILES
So tremendous was America’s response when in the spring of this year the
call came to her from the Western Front to hurry, so overwhelming the
host which she sent over, that our chief difficulty to-day is not to
withstand the Hun, but to find a vacant spot on his carcass to hit.
We have been in France for over a month now, but so far our services as
a unit have not been required in the Line. But we are acclimatized by
this time. The days of our green youth in the big camps back home have
faded away as though they never had been. In this Old-World, constricted
country it requires quite an effort of memory to recall those spacious
days upon our own open, rolling plains and hillsides. Gone are the great
streets of wooden two-storey huts, with their electric light, steam heat,
and hot showers; the various social centres; the roaring Liberty Theatre
and the Hostess House; the candy-stores and the shoe-shine parlours. They
are but a memory, blurred by four months of incredibly novel experience.
To-day we sleep in French barracks—bleak, cheerless buildings, redolent
of floor-soap and whitewash; or in billets up and down a little village;
or in some great barn, on straw, or under the summer stars in our
dog-tents. We perform our ablutions in the open air, mainly at a farm
pump or street hydrant, to the diversion of the female population. For
recreation we still play baseball; for creature comforts we can turn
to the Red Cross, or the Y.M.C.A., or the Knights of Columbus, or the
Salvation Army, or the Jewish Welfare Board. There is also a French
institution, known as _Le Foyer du Soldat_, where we consort with
grave-faced, courteous _poilus_. We have encountered no British troops
so far. They are farther north: several of our units have gone up to be
brigaded with them.
So here we are—right here in France—absorbing new atmosphere through our
pores. We are on a strict war footing, too. Everything, as the Colonel
has explained to us, must be “just so.” If you are ordered to be at a
certain cross-road ten miles away, with your company, at 9 A.M. to-morrow
morning, with picks and shovels and two days’ rations, you have to be
there—just there—not at 9.05, with picks but no shovels, or with one
day’s rations instead of two, but at 9 precisely, with the exact outfit
prescribed. The accomplishment of this feat is not so easy as it sounds:
it involves much study, and occasional weariness of the flesh. You
must be able not only to read a map correctly, but to visualize from a
scrutiny of the same the exact nature of the country through which you
are going to lead your company—whether it is hilly or no; whether the
hill runs up or down; whether there are grade crossings or narrow bridges
or one-way roads to be considered; whether a ford marked “Passable for
troops” is also passable for the wheeled transport which carries your
picks and shovels. All these possibilities make for delay—sometimes most
excusable delay. But excuses are not accepted in war-time. Either you
succeed or you fail: there is no intermediate stage. Boone Cruttenden’s
plan—and a very good one too—is to try experiments, not upon his men,
but upon himself. In his spare moments he is accustomed to figure out,
with the aid of the map and a mekometer, how long it would take a body of
armed men to cover some given distance on the map, having regard to the
possibility of—
(1) Unexpectedly heavy going.
(2) Roads blocked by other troops.
(3) Having to scatter or take cover, owing to enemy aeroplanes.
(4) The cussedness of transport mules.
(5) Other visitations of Providence.
He then enlists the services of a friend—usually Jim Nichols—and the pair
proceed to test their own theories by performing the journey in person,
at the pace of a marching company, correcting their calculations as they
proceed. It is upon such painful foundations that your true soldier is
built up.
And discipline is rigid. If the top sergeant instructs Mr. Joe McCarthy
to empty certain buckets of kitchen garbage, and that right speedily, Joe
no longer explains that he is here not to empty garbage, but to make the
world safe for Democracy. He simply departs with the buckets, somewhat
dazed at his own alacrity. War has her victories, no less than Peace.
Saluting is universal now. We take a pride in it. Formerly we did not.
Our independent natures rebelled against its suggestion of servility. But
we have recently realized that a slave is a man who bends his knee and
bows his head. A soldier does neither. He holds himself erect, looks his
brother in arms straight in the face, and exchanges with him the proudest
of all masonic signs.
We are much interested in the saluting methods of our Allies. The
Frenchman salutes with the open hand, palm forward and fingers pointing
upward. The Britisher brings his elbow into play, and salutes with
horizontal forearm. Both French and British officers salute in different
fashion from their men.
The British practise strange refinements of their own. Bond, the stout
medical Major whom last we met travelling in a railway compartment from
Liverpool,—yes, we may as well divulge it; it was Liverpool,—was one
of the first Americans to make a serious attempt to grapple with the
fundamental laws of the subject. Almost immediately on arrival he was
sent to Belgium, with other members of the craft, to render invaluable
assistance at a British Casualty Clearing-Station not far from Ypres—that
graveyard of British soldiers and German hopes. He observed with approval
the punctilious, if complicated, fashion in which all ranks greeted one
another in public places, and set himself to take notes and master the
combination. Two months later, a prey to overstrain, he took a week’s
leave in Paris, where he encountered that eccentric but companionable
Anglo-American, Major Floyd.
They exchanged greetings and news. Floyd, it seemed, was now attached
to the American Army, having been appointed a liaison officer. Then
Bond said: “Floyd, I am glad I met you. You are one of the most lucid
exponents of British institutions in captivity, and I want you to explain
to me just half a dozen or so of the most common variations of the
British military salute.”
Floyd nodded sympathetically.
“I know,” he said. “It seems complicated, but all you have to do is to
get hold of the fundamental idea. Here it is. The one thing a British
soldier must never do is to remove his cap.”
“Why?”
“If he takes it off, he is ‘improperly dressed’; and that practically
disqualifies him from ‘getting on with the war’ for the time being.
So he remains covered, indoors and out, except in church and during
certain portions of the burial service. In fact, at moments of ceremonial
intensity, such as the playing of the National Anthem, when civilians are
reverently baring their heads, the soldier has to grab his cap and put it
on quickly.”
“Otherwise he cannot come to the salute?”
“Cannot? Must not! It is a military crime to salute bareheaded. It says
so in the book.”
“I see,” said Bond musingly. “That accounts for the fact that if I
happened to meet a hospital orderly around the Casualty Clearing-Station
without his cap, he never saluted me?”
“Precisely.”
“Then why—” Bond hesitated.
“I know your trouble,” said Floyd, fixing his melancholy gaze upon the
Major’s puzzled face. “Instead of saluting you, he gave you a glare of
withering contempt?”
“He certainly did. But how did you know?”
“Because that was what it looked like—to you. In reality the poor fellow
was only doing what the Book says. He was turning his head ‘smartly
towards the officer, while passing.’”
“That explains quite a lot. I was afraid it was I who was in wrong in
some way, and he wanted to tell me so, but was prevented by the bonds of
discipline from doing more than give me a good fierce look.”
“His proceeding was perfectly regular,” said Floyd gravely. “But that
is not all. A British soldier is debarred from saluting not only when
bareheaded, but whenever he is occupied in such a manner as to prevent
him doing the thing in proper style. For instance, if you meet Tommy
carrying a bucket or riding a bicycle, he merely gives his celebrated
head-jerk, without employing his hand at all.”
“That is a good notion,” said Bond. “I shall adopt it. Last week I was
riding a bicycle myself, and I nearly broke my collar-bone through
letting go with one hand in order to salute a Brigadier-General in a
muddy lane. Luckily I fell soft!”
“It’s a carefully thought-out system,” agreed Floyd, “and perfectly
sound. Nearly everything in the British Drill Book is—so far as it goes.
In nineteen fourteen that Drill Book put into the field the finest army
that has ever fought under the British flag. Unfortunately very few of
the nation had read it. When the War broke out there were still some
forty millions of us who regarded it as a purely humorous publication.
If they had listened to Lord Roberts and absorbed its gritty contents,
instead of lapping up predigested pap from the politicians, perhaps
there would have been no War. Anyway, some of my best friends would have
been alive to-day. Those were the fellows, Bond! In the First Battle of
Ypres three divisions of them, dead beat after eight weeks’ continuous
fighting, stopped four fresh German Army Corps. The Drill Book taught
them how to do that. They have mostly gone West now; but I for one will
salute their memory so long as I live, cap or no cap!”
* * * * *
We are marching up the Loire now, getting nearer the front of things
every day. Nantes is behind us—an ancient city astride the river, its
historic quays crowded with American shipping and its wharves piled
high with the products of those two mighty Allied bases, Chicago and
Minneapolis.
The Loire is a pleasant stream. It is neither so broad as the Mississippi
nor so deep as the Hudson, but it will serve. Shoals and sand-bars are
frequent upon its surface, but on the opposite side the bank rises up to
a quite respectable height, pleasantly reminiscent, at one or two points,
of the Palisades.
And the towns we pass through are fascinating. For one thing, they
come upon you suddenly. American towns absorb you gradually. First an
outlying suburb, with maybe the terminus of the street-car system.
Then an untidy No Man’s Land, neither cultivated nor inhabited—mainly
vacant building lots—decorated along the route with huge advertisements,
chiefly of automobile accessories. Here and there you pass a gasoline
station or roadhouse. After that, by degrees, trim white wooden houses,
with shady piazzas; increasing traffic; and finally, fifteen-storey
office-buildings, shops, hotels, and the roar of the town.
But in Central France these premonitory symptoms are lacking. Your
company tramps along the winding road beside the river, through country
cultivated to its last yard—a country of hedges and ditches and enclosed
fields. A bend in the stream, and lo! before you rises a venerable city,
piled up on the ground rising from the river, with ancient bridges
spanning the stream and a grey cathedral crowning the whole. There are no
suburbs, no advertising boards, no gasoline stations. The sea of green
turf continues to the edge of the city, and very often laps against
ramparts a thousand years old. You march in under the resounding arch of
an ancient gateway.
The streets are narrow; the gradient is frequently such as to discommode
any one save a native of Lynchburg, Virginia. The shops are small, and
the proprietors thereof appear to transact most of their business upon
the doorstep. The inhabitants are friendly, especially the children. But
most welcome sight of all, wherever we march, and through whatever town
or village we pass, there are familiar greetings awaiting us, in the form
of signs over doorways or at street-corners, thus—_A.E.F. Commanding
General’s Headquarters_; or, _To A.P.M.’s Office_; or, _American Red
Cross Headquarters_. And at each street-crossing, upright, sunburned,
and immensely alert, stands an American Military Policeman, directing
the tide of country carts, errant cows, antediluvian street-cars,
despatch-riders, motor-cycles, and marching troops, with all the solemn
austerity of a New York Traffic Cop.
If the American soldier has one characteristic which singles him out
from the rest of the Allies, it is that Home is seldom absent from his
thoughts—possibly because he is farther away from home than any one else.
It is true that more water rolls between, say, France and Australia, than
between France and America. But then to the Australian England itself
is Home. In his own land he still refers to her as such. The true exile
in this war is the American-born Doughboy. In most cases he has never
been outside his own great and beautiful land before, for the simple
reason that he has always found abundant elbow-room therein; and if the
desire to roam has ever possessed him, he has been able to gratify it
without stepping off the soil of his country or even beyond the border
of his own State. Therein he is in different case from the inhabitants
of those congested islets, Great Britain and Ireland, many of whose
younger sons are thrust out in early life by the concomitant forces of
natural increase and external pressure from the land of their birth to
seek a living in distant portions of the globe—and in so doing have quite
inadvertently created that unmethodical, loosely connected organization
known as the British Empire, which is either a federation of free
communities, providing decent government where otherwise there would be
no government at all, or else a voracious octopus, according to the way
you look at it.