that I feel much better. I needed that outburst badly. Moreover, I don’t
say that I have any particular _personal_ objection to a spell of Peace.
I guess we can all do with a vacation. How will you celebrate your first
day, Major?”
“I don’t know,” replied Floyd thoughtfully. “The idea of Peace does not
particularly appeal to me in my present frame of mind. More than three
quarters of a million of my fellow-countrymen have been killed during the
past four years—most of them in their early twenties—and at my time of
life I feel almost ashamed to be alive. And the idea of ‘settling down’
does not altogether attract me, either. As you very rightly observe,
Colonel, the community may benefit by a good searching war, but, by God!
individuals suffer. Especially if they happen to be of that misguided
type which hastens to get into the scrap first, while wiser persons are
deciding whether to volunteer or be fetched. That was when I lost my
friends—in nineteen-fourteen and fifteen. That stratum of our community
has almost ceased to exist. My own Battalion has been replaced—which
means wiped out—thirteen times in four years, and I, even I, only am
left. So I view the prospect of settling down with mixed feelings.
Tell us how _you_ propose to spend the first day of the Armistice,
Colonel—when it comes!”
“I?” said the Colonel. “I shall start by sending a cable to the best
little woman in America, in a little town in Tennessee that you never
heard of, Major; telling her that I have come through, and that she and
the bunch of marauders that belong to both of us—we have two boys and two
girls—can quit worrying. Then I shall sit down and amplify my sentiments
in a letter. But I am old and sentimental. What will you do, Jim Nichols?”
“I guess I’ll muster the Battalion,” replied the newly promoted and
zealous second in command, “and have them clean up their rifles and
equipment. They’re in a terrible mess, after the time we’ve been having.”
“Well, well! We’ll try some one less wedded to his duty!” laughed the
Colonel. “What will you do, boy?” He turned to the youthful aviator.
Master Harvey Blane meditated. He had twice been wounded, once brought
down in flames, and several times driven down out of control.
“I guess,” he said at last, “I shall go along down to the airdrome, and
order out my machine, and have the boys tune her up very carefully. Then
I shall have her wheeled out, and I shall climb on board and test all the
contacts. Then I shall run the engine for a spell, and maybe take a turn
around the airdrome, along the ground. Then I shall load up with bombs.
Then I shall look up in the sky, and say: ‘Boys, I don’t think after all
I feel like going out to-day. Run her back and put her to bed!’”
There was appreciative laughter at this, and Floyd said:
“That reminds me of an English subaltern of my acquaintance who came
home for a week’s leave after four continuous months in the Salient, in
nineteen-fifteen—and after that experience one required a little leave!
He took a room at the Savoy and left certain explicit instructions with
the night clerk about the time he was to be called. In due course, at
three o’clock in the morning, the telephone beside his bed rang, and our
friend sat up and answered it. The voice of the clerk said: ‘Colonel’s
compliments, sir, and he wants you in the firing-trench immediately.’ And
the child replied: ‘Give _my_ compliments to the Colonel, and request him
to go to Hell!’ Then he rolled over and slept till the afternoon. His
real leave had begun! He was an artist like yourself, Blane!”
As Floyd concluded this highly probable anecdote, in his usual sepulchral
tone, a signal orderly came down the steps that led to the regions above,
and handed a despatch to the Adjutant.
Colonel Graham glanced affectionately around the table.
“I hope you boys will all be in a position soon to send me such a
message!” he said. “But only for a week or two, mind! Leave, not
Demobilization. We haven’t finished the War yet.”
The Adjutant handed him the despatch. Colonel Graham adjusted his
glasses, read it, and looked up.
“Yes, we have,” he said. “The rumours were true. German delegates are
to meet Allied delegates at five o’clock this morning, when the Allied
terms will be dictated. _Dictated_, not discussed!” He glanced at his
wrist-watch. “They are being dictated at this moment. Boys, we are
through! For better or worse, we are through with this War! Countermand
the attack.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
GALLIA VICTRIX
Lastly, two friends of ours in Paris.
This is an unsatisfactory world, and our destinies are not always
controlled as we could wish. But occasionally—just once or twice, maybe,
in a lifetime—something happens (or is arranged for us) which so utterly
transcends our own dreams and deserts as to restore our faith in an
All-Wise and All-Benevolent Providence once and for all.
Frances Lane had been transferred to a military hospital in Paris. Here
she discharged, cheerfully and efficiently, those minor and unheroic
duties which the professional healer is accustomed to depute to the
amateur.
One morning, during the last week in October, she was called upon in the
ordinary course of business to sit by the bedside of a young officer
who had just been wheeled from the operating-room, until such time as
he should “come out of the ether.” And the young officer was Boone
Cruttenden. Hence the foregoing appreciative reference to the workings of
Providence.
Boone duly emerged from one form of oblivion to enter upon another,
hardly less complete. In the first, he had been oblivious to everything.
In the second, he was oblivious to everything and everybody save Frances.
The malady proved catching, and both patients imagined, as usual, that
their symptoms were undetected by the outside world. So the War had to
take care of itself for a while.
* * * * *
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of
the year nineteen-eighteen these twain found themselves wandering
side by side—with Frances on the right, ferociously interposing her
slim person between Boone’s strapped and bandaged arm and the rest of
humanity—through the congested Boulevards; waiting, waiting, like every
one else, for Something Official to be announced.
During the previous day _tout Paris_, in Sabbath attire, had roamed
restlessly, silently, expectantly, about the streets. Night had fallen,
and the throng had not abated. The great city was as murky as ever. Peace
might be hovering in the air, but War precautions still prevailed on
earth. Small, ghostly, electric lights, encased in dark-blue glass, still
indicated rather than illuminated the wayfarer’s path. At intervals a
discreet, faintly luminous sign, bearing the legend _Abri_, proffered a
refuge from the terror that flies by night. Through this gross darkness,
silently, furtively, the great concourse drifted and groped. Only over La
Place de la Concorde, like the promise of victorious Dawn, the sky was
bright with the lights newly unveiled to illuminate the great array of
trophies—German guns, German aeroplanes, festoons of German helmets—set
up for the advancement of the latest War Loan—“The Loan of the Last
Quarter of an Hour,” as the posters happily described it.
On Monday morning the crowd was still there. It had contrived to slip
home and put on its working-clothes, but that was all. The shops were
open, but no one appeared to be buying anything. There was little sound.
Occasionally the most unlikely-looking persons were accosted and asked,
“_On a signé?_” But it did not matter, as no one ever stayed for an
answer. Paris was waiting.
Then in a moment, about the stroke of eleven, the electric discharge
came. Cries arose from various parts of the city. The newspaper offices
and information bureaux broke into simultaneous, preconcerted animation.
In the Boulevard des Italiens, Boone and Frances, standing amid a vast
throng facing the office of _Le Matin_, suddenly became aware, between
two intervals of whispered confidences, that the huge map of the Western
Front which covered the outer wall of the building, upon whose surface,
through months of alternate agony and triumph, the ebb and flow of
battle had been recorded by an undulating array of tiny flags, was being
obliterated by a series of great printed slips, set one above another.
The first of these had already been put in position. It said:
L’ARMISTICE EST SIGNÉE!
There came a buzz of excitement from the crowd, but little noise. The
second slip was going up:—
“_A-a-a-ah!_” Here was a new thought. “We have won—_won!_ We have beaten
him—beaten the Boche! _Enfin!_” Men and women began to grip one another’s
hands. The confused, uncertain buzzing rose higher, and the third slip
went up:—
VIVE LA FRANCE!
That settled it. Next moment every hat was in the air. _This_ was what
everybody had been waiting for. Every French man, woman, and child
was shouting, or crying, or embracing his neighbour. France! France!
France—safe, free, victorious! France!
The last strip was unrolled:—
VIVENT LES ALLIÉS!
This time it was a different demonstration. Mingled with it were the
enthusiastic cheers of the Parisian—the glowing, grateful tribute of
the principal sufferer to the friends from all over the globe who had
stood by her so stoutly. But in the main it was a deep, full-throated,
Anglo-Saxon roar. In that crowd stood scores of British and hundreds of
American soldiers. Higher and higher rose the cheering. They were not
blind cheers. They were cheers of realization. A job of work well and
truly completed! No more trenches! No more mud! No more Hell! No more
death! Victory! Peace! Home! Sweethearts and Wives!
It was at this point, for the first time, that Boone Cruttenden kissed
Frances Lane.
Thereafter, a brief period of uncertainty; then Paris settled down to
rejoice in earnest.
It is not easy to rejoice suddenly—after four and a half years of stoical
endurance. Still, by noon, Paris had settled down into her stride. The
_midinettes_ and _ouvrières_ had come out for their dinner-hour, and none
manifested any intention of returning to their labours. In the balconies
outside the great millinery shops of the Rue de la Paix lovely creatures
in kimonos, of the _mannequin_ tribe, forgetful of the whole duty of a
_mannequin_, which is to languish and glide, were hanging far out over
the seething street, waving, weeping, and screaming like common persons.
The city had broken out into flags. Every window sported one. Every
person carried one. None of your miniature, buttonhole affairs; but a
good, flapping tricolour, or Union Jack, or Stars and Stripes, three feet
square, carried over the shoulder on a pole six feet long.
Every one felt it incumbent upon him to show some slight civility to his
neighbour. Soldiers saluted civilians; civilians embraced soldiers. Young
military gentlemen kissed young ladies of the dressmaking persuasion.
Exuberant daughters of Gaul joined hands and danced in a ring round
embarrassed Anglo-Saxon officers, or tweaked the tails of the Glengarry
bonnets of passing “Jocks.” At each _porte-cochère_ snuffy concierges
were phlegmatically tearing down the printed signs tacked upon the outer
doors—_Abri, 25 places_—with an almost genial, “_Et voilà!_” A spirit
of brotherly love prevailed: Boone and Frances saw a Paris taxi-driver
distinctly slow down to avoid running over two young ladies whose
cavaliers were playfully endeavouring to push them under his front wheels.
Presently an aged man in a blue blouse and a species of yachting-cap
accosted them.
“_Américain?_” he demanded.
“_Oui_,” admitted Boone cautiously. He had already stalled off more than
one would-be kisser.
“_Blessé!_” added Frances proudly.
The old gentleman shook hands with both of them, several times. Tears
were running down his cheeks.
“_Et maintenant_,” he told them, “_mon fils reviendra!_”
And he hobbled off, to spread the great news elsewhere.
* * * * *
By the afternoon Paris had resolved itself into processions, mainly of
soldiers and girls intertwined. Nearly everybody was singing. The French
sang the _Marseillaise_, or _Madelon_. The English-speaking races devoted
their energy, which was considerable, to a ditty with the mysterious
refrain—
_Would you rather be a Colonel, with an eagle on your shoulder,_
_Or a private, with a chicken on your knee?_
Ordinary vehicular traffic had almost entirely removed itself from the
streets—probably from the instinct of self-preservation; for the few
taxis which still survived carried never less than fifteen passengers,
mostly on the roof. But huge military motor-trucks were ubiquitous.
They were mainly British and American, but they bore a cargo completely
representative of the Franco-Italo-Anglo-American _entente_, from the
impromptu jazz-band of some thirty artistes perched upon the canvas roof,
to the quartette of Australian soldiers and their lady friends sitting
astride the radiator, bob-sleigh fashion, and wearing one another’s hats.
It is needless to add that small French boys adhered like flies to all
the less accessible parts of the vehicle.
As evening approached, and the electric arc-lamps awoke sizzling and
sputtering from their enforced sleep of many gloomy months, one question
began to exercise the collective faculties of the celebrants:—
“Where shall we go to-night?”
In most cases the answer was simple enough. At moments of intense mental
exaltation the Anglo-Saxon in Paris turns to the Folies Bergères as
simply and spontaneously as your true Moslem turns towards Mecca at the
call of the muezzin. But Boone and Frances cared for none of these things.
“Listen, dear,” said Boone. “Let’s go to some place that’s _quiet_, where
we can get by ourselves!”
“That will be too lovely,” agreed the other optimist, as she struggled
panting through the press. “But _where_, darling?”
“Well, anyway, some place where we won’t meet any one we know,” said
Boone, with the first instinct of the newly affianced; and Frances
concurred.
After dinner, at a restaurant whose proprietor had exuberantly decided
to celebrate the cessation of hostilities by trebling prices all round—a
dinner at which purely private and domestic plans were raptly discussed
amid an atmosphere of riotous publicity—they went to a _revue_.
It was not the usual French war-time _revue_ for Anglo-Saxon
consumption—with syncopated melodies and Cockney chorus-girls,
imperfectly disguised as Parisiennes. It was a _revue intime_, intended
for Paris alone, and was full of delicate fancies, and esoteric jokes,
and mysterious topical allusions. Boone and Frances understood possibly
one third of the dialogue and one in a hundred of the allusions. But they
enjoyed the _revue_ exceedingly. In their present frame of mind they
would have enjoyed a Greenwich Village mystery-play, or _Hamlet_ without
cuts.
The audience was almost exclusively Parisian—officers in uniform; fair
women wearing their jewels for the first time in months; stout, bald,
bearded citizens of the bourgeoisie; here and there a British uniform.
But so far as our own particular pair of truants could see, they were the
only Americans present.
From the boulevard outside came the muffled tramp of feet; shouts of
triumph; coy feminine shrieks; the honking of motor-horns; the clink of
cow-bells—all suggestive of New Year’s Eve on Broadway. But inside the
theatre the _revue_ flowed smoothly on. No one on the stage made any
allusion to the matter which was bursting all hearts. Not that there
was no tension, both on the stage and in the auditorium. In theatre-land
it is an understood thing that upon occasions of public rejoicing the
actors and the play take second place, while the audience, for one night
only, steps into the spot-light and plays “lead.” For instance, at this
moment, not many blocks away, upon the stage of the Folies Bergères a
self-appointed band of khaki-clad enthusiasts were assisting a hysterical
_corps de ballet_ in the execution of its duty.
But the _revue intime_ pursued its intimate course. The piece was too
delicately planned and executed to admit of unauthorized “gags” or
inartistic interpolations. The audience, being Parisian, realized this,
and waited. A time would come. Meanwhile, they leaned back in their
seats, fanned themselves, and laughed at the jokes. But the fans moved
very rapidly, and the laughs sounded rather breathless—rather like sobs.
Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, at the end of the second act, came the
cracking-point.
The scene was laid in a restaurant. (Not that that mattered; a
sewing-circle would have served equally well.) The glittering little
company were already gathered upon the stage for the _finale_. They were
headed by the leading lady—young, blonde, lovely; a shimmering vision in
silver—prepared to burst into song. The orchestra gave her a preliminary
chord; she opened her carmine lips. And then, to her entered from the
wings, apparently without cue or authorization, the principal comedian,
in the rôle of the head waiter of the restaurant—preposterous weeping
whiskers and all.
He walked to the footlights, turned to the audience, and announced, quite
simply:—
“_L’Armistice est signée!_”
The thing came with such consummate unexpectedness—the thing they had
been expecting all evening—that for a moment no one stirred. Then, with
a rush, the audience were on their feet; so were the orchestra. One
long-drawn, triumphant electrifying chord sprang—apparently of its own
volition—from their instruments, and a tremor ran through the theatre.
The girl in silver stepped forward, and broke into the _Marseillaise_,
with tears raining down her face.…
“Name of a name of a name!” An old French colonel, standing beside Boone,
was muttering brokenly to himself. Boone could see his fingernails whiten
as he grasped the back of the seat in front of him. Boone contented
himself with Frances’s hand, and together they gazed up at the singer.
There she stood—slender, radiant, beautiful, with not too much on,
shedding abundant, genuine tears over an artificial complexion. She _was_
Paris—Paris personified—Paris unclothed and in her right mind—Paris come
to her own again.
The curtain fell—rose—fell—rose—while the storm of cheers raged. About
the tenth time it rose again, to stay. The girl had both her hands
pressed to her face, and her body was shaking. But another chord from
the orchestra—the same chord—steadied her. She dropped her hands by her
sides, uplifted her limpid voice, and sang the _Marseillaise_ once more.
But this time her _entourage_ had increased. Upon the outskirts of the
stage—sidling in from the wings, peeping round the proscenium, mingling
bodily with the glittering, shimmering company—there appeared another
throng. Scene-shifters; dressers; lusty firemen; brown-faced _poilus_;
gendarmes; mysterious individuals in decayed dress-suits; little boys and
girls, indicative of the fact that even _revue_ artists contract domestic
ties—they all edged on, and sang the _Marseillaise_ too. If the girl in
the centre was Paris, this shining, grimy, patient, cheerful, wistful,
triumphant throng around her was France. France—with the black shadow of
forty years rolled away from her horizon! France—the much-enduring, the
all-surviving, the indomitable; with her beloved capital inviolate still,
and her lost provinces coming back to her! _Gallia Victrix._ No wonder
they sang. _La Guerre est gagnée_—at last!
There let us leave them all—on the crest of the wave. _La Guerre est
gagnée._ God send that we tackle _La Paix_ as successfully!
THE END
The Riverside Press
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