our sleeping places had been small, and it looked as though we would
return with about two dollars between us, until we met the chauffeur,
and asked him for his expense account. Having paid it--it was one
dollar more than my bill at the hotel, we possessed about three
shillings, or seventy-five cents. This obviously left us but little
money for food at Philadelphia upon our return, but we went into a
mysterious automat eating house and managed to subtract a little
nourishment from its shelves. We returned to Bethlehem owing the
chauffeur about three dollars. I must say that I enjoyed the whole
thing, but I have no intention and no desire to return.
It was the touch of nature that made the day enjoyable for me--the
people, black and white, and the sea. But I objected to the
hardly-veiled begging displayed by the numerous lackeys. I suppose they
have got to live, "_mais je n'en vois pas la necessite_," as some
philosopher remarked.
When passing through the hotel on the Saturday evening I saw a lady
quietly but beautifully dressed. She looked about twenty. I was certain
that I knew her well, had met her in Washington or somewhere. I went
over and said: "How d'ye do." We chatted for a time, but in spite of all
my efforts I could not place her. Having rejoined Dicky, I remembered.
She was the prim demure little lady from whom I have bought my "movie"
tickets for the last six months. American girls are truly wonderful. We
arrived at Bethlehem at about midnight.
XI
AN OFFENSIVE BOMBARDMENT
There is one phrase over here that one is constantly hearing--"Rule for
the people by the people." Of course, Abraham Lincoln, our great
American, now beloved by all, used it on the occasion of his famous
speech at Gettysburg. As far as I can see, Lincoln gave that thing
called democracy a great big lift. He evidently fought a big spiritual
battle for the United States, and won.
Of course, I did not come to the United States to learn about Abraham
Lincoln. In my childhood's memory, he, George Washington, King Arthur,
King Alfred, and the great figure called Gladstone are all safely
enshrined. These were all mixed with Moses and the prophets, but
Lincoln's log cabin seemed a reality. Away out in New Zealand I learnt
about Abraham Lincoln from an old, old soldier who had fought the
Maoris, and had seen the first two sparrows arrive in a cage from
England. I wish they hadn't.
Since my arrival in America I have heard a great deal about Lincoln. He
and his words are held up as a shield against all potential enemies
outside the United States. Always are the words "Rule for the people by
the people" hurled from the lips of that type of orator who talks about
"red blooded Americans," and who contrasts the red blooded with him of
yellow blood. But only are these wonderful words hurled against enemies
without. No one ever applies them to the more deadly type that lurks
within the national household. And so Lincoln's great words sometimes
seem to be wasted upon all our cousins who are not newspaper editors.
Let me explain: The American people don't rule the country as far as I
can see. Things go along smoothly and the mob spirit is kept at bay
because, owing to the greatness of the country, its happy climate, its
wonderful natural resources, the opportunities for expansion supplied to
all the people, no one gets sufficiently worked up to accomplish any
foolishness. The country seems to be ruled by a certain set of men who
make politics their business.
I have never yet met a young man under twenty-five who was in the
faintest degree interested in the rule of his country. He has so many
other things to think about. Although I don't think he works harder,
really, than his cousin in England, his hours spent at business are very
long and there don't seem to be more than about two holidays in the
year. His life is tense. He starts school with games that bring out all
his enthusiasm. He dislikes cricket. Baseball suits his temperament.
Even football has developed into a form of trench warfare, sometimes
not without frightfulness. Then he enters business with one object--to
get on, to push ahead. So his life is spent thinking out business
schemes. In the evenings he is called upon by all kinds of seedy looking
gentlemen who put up to him schemes of insurance and what not. He must
have a car of some sort, though a Henry Ford suits him well. He never
seems able to rest, at work or at play, and so he carries on, brimming
over with enthusiasm. One is always seeing it.
Here in Bethlehem we wanted money for a bridge. It was essential that
the people should subscribe, so a week was spent in what amounted to a
"drive." There were processions, alarums, and excursions. Men rushed
about in dirty looking automobiles and made quite willing people
subscribe. Luncheons were held each day. The collectors were divided
into small companies, each with a captain and a separate table. The
tables vied with one another in their efforts to collect the most money.
It was a wonderful scheme and it worked well. I rather loved it. One
heard young men, old men, fat men, thin men all worked up bursting into
song. Even the church helped. Of course, we got the money all right. If
a man wants to accomplish anything he must arouse enthusiasm.
So the life of a decent American boy is often one long exciting tense
existence. Now I think in some ways that this is admirable, but this
enthusiastic existence has formed a national trait. A man must get
there. He doesn't always, but he must think he is getting there. He does
not care if the day coach he is riding in on a train is ugly and often
dirty; it is nothing to him if the locomotive is not spotlessly clean as
long as it draws him along. He is not concerned for more than five
minutes if the railroad company dashes locomotives through his city
killing a few people _en route_ because they have not time or
inclination to raise their road or sink it in order to avoid deadly
level crossings. It has not occurred to him to realize that a dirty
locomotive uncleaned by careful hands will not get him there really.
Seldom is an American train on time. Some are, of course, but I have
often waited from an hour to several hours for a train.
So the men who make politics their business take advantage of this--not
wickedly, I think, but nevertheless they appeal to this national
enthusiasm, and they get away with it. No man is perfect, and
politicians always seem to me the least perfect of men. The results are
obvious. The political machine works in jumps and often breaks down at a
critical moment. It is not the machine's fault really. It is the fault
of the people who refuse to supervise its work. The people have
responded to the political enthusiasm around election time and then they
are finished. Of course, I think it is all wrong.
One looks for the guiding hand of the people and one cannot find it. It
ought to be displayed in the press, but of all powerless institutions
the American press is the most powerless. It can rage against a
politician until it is hoarse, but it accomplishes little. And yet the
American press is truly very fine. I read every word of the _New York
Times_, the _New York Sun_, and the _Public Ledger_ every day and they
are entirely admirable. I meet the editors, sometimes, of leading papers
and they are delightful people. They combine often the delightful
American boyishness with the sober mien of men of learning. Still they
know the national characteristic of enthusiasm, and if they are to sell
their papers they must appeal to it; so even the papers I have mentioned
often display flamboyant headings about nothing in particular.
At election time, of course, the papers have a wide influence, but
during the time when the laws of the country are being made they always
seem to me to be entirely ineffective. They ought to be the leaders of
the people. A cabinet with the disapproval of the press ought not to
last a week. They try, of course, valiantly, but if they display
disapproval, backed up with proofs, no one believes them. It is merely
described as "newspaper talk."
And then the police! You know as well as I do that if a mere suspicion
is breathed against an English policeman by a good newspaper, the thing
is thoroughly investigated and if the charge is well founded the
policeman disappears. The police in England are our friends and we look
after them, but they must do their duty well. I don't quite understand
the system here, but, as far as I can gather, the police official of
rank is appointed by the mayor. The mayor is elected, not soberly and
carefully, but in the most hectic manner imaginable. He has a regular
campaign for his position. Of course, there is no objection in the world
to this, but the decisions of the people are given in moments of
enthusiasm. They are worked up to a high pitch by the satellites of the
prospective mayor. The newspapers help him or they don't; but whatever
they do, they do it in a flamboyant manner. Charges are sometimes
brought against a prospective mayor that would cause an English
newspaper to be suppressed for libel. As far as I can see, the head
police officials are dependent for their positions upon the retention of
the mayor in office. A mayor may be a clever, good, conscientious man,
but you know as well as I do, that the tribe spirit is merely dormant in
us mortals, and the very best of us like to help our friends. And then
the police officials are always being criticised by the newspapers.
Sometimes they are praised in a most extravagant manner, and, a few
weeks after, they get slanged to bits. Criticise your members of
parliament, tear to pieces the character of the prime minister, but
surely it is foolish to criticise the cop.
I am not going to talk about graft amongst the police because I don't
know anything about it. But one hears very strange stories.
If the people ruled this country, instead of allowing their national
trait of enthusiasm to rule them, I suppose it would be all right. As a
matter of fact, things go along quite smoothly. The American folk are
awfully good natured and never worry about anything in particular. Hence
they don't mind if Broadway continues to suggest a particularly
unpleasant line of trenches in Flanders. They don't mind if the
telephone lines in a small town all collapse during a storm, not because
of the fury of the elements, but because the telephone company has laid
its wires carelessly and untidily.
An American young man sometimes does not even know the name of his
congressman--he never reads what the said gentleman says before the
House. He just doesn't care. He fails sometimes to realize his duty as a
citizen of a very great nation whose men have died for the privilege of
ruling their own country. When anyone expresses annoyance with a
particularly bad road, he remarks: "These damn politicians!"
It is a pity in some ways. He builds his bridge. It will carry him and
his family well. The next man finds it wanting, so he patches it. A
concourse of persons passing over soon afterward all fall into the
elements below. Someone else then arrives and builds another one just as
flimsy, just as weak and just as beautiful to look upon as the first
fellow's effort. And an American thinks he is "getting there."
These remarks, perhaps a little unfair, do not apply to the West or the
Middle West.
And, of course, he does get there, but it all is owing to the great big
background to his character which he inherits from his ancestors, and
his natural efficiency allied to good health.
Of course, some will urge that this country is still a melting pot. That
may be true, but as far as I can see the immigrant of the first
generation has little influence. Great big things are ahead for this
country, but the people will have to suffer a great deal first. I can
see millions of young men returning from the war in Europe with an
inquiring mind. These men will have realized the value, the
effectiveness of discipline, and they will apply it to their servants,
the gentlemen in Washington. The press will be the mouthpiece. The
police will also be their servants, not their masters, and a cop will
not have to worry about elections and rude remarks in the papers unless
he deserves them.
The open air life, the freedom of the battlefield, the time supplied for
reflection will mould the national character. Things will then change
for hotel clerks, head waiters, and all the million other satellites,
that prey upon the wonderful good nature and kindliness of our cousins.
Americans will also become a little more lazy and will realise that it
profits a man nothing in this wonderful world if he gains five million
dollars and gets a nervous breakdown. An American man never seems able
to be elegantly lazy. I suppose it is the climate. Slow country life
bores him to desperation; he cannot enjoy the supervision of a large
estate until he has reached a great age.
Criticism is so easy. If my friends read this they would say: "_Et tu
Brute_; are you so perfect?" I could only reply: "We are a good deal
worse, but our confounded papers guard us a little and we do stand by
our cops. Go thou and do likewise."
XII
SIX DAYS' LEAVE
BETHLEHEM, U. S. A., September 30, 1917.
I am now awaiting my orders to return to my regiment. Towards the
beginning of the month I felt that it would be a good idea to try and
see some fellows I knew. Things were getting impossible here, and I was
feeling a little lonely, so I asked my chief in New York if he would
allow me to visit some friends for a few days. He agreed and so I
decided to visit the commodore and his wife on the "Reina Mercedes" at
Annapolis. The "Reina Mercedes" was captured by the American Navy at
Santiago. Her own crew sank her hoping to block the channel at the
entrance to the bay. She was easily raised and now all snowy white,
possessing an absurd little funnel, and a couple of thin masts, she acts
as a receiving ship at the Academy. She suggests a beautiful houseboat,
and the captain possesses very comfortable quarters for his wife and
family.
I left Bethlehem at 3 P.M., arrived at Philadelphia somewhere
around five o'clock and decided to get into uniform sometime during the
evening before catching the midnight train for Washington.
While the kit of a mounted officer in the British army has certain
attractions for the wearer in England and France, its leather field
boots, Bedford cord breeches, and whip cord tunic make one feel very hot
and uncomfortable on a warm midsummer's night in Philadelphia. At eleven
o'clock, with still an hour to wait for my train, an iced drink became a
necessity, so I descended to the cafe and suggested to the waiter that
he should supply me with an iced drink as large as possible. I thought
that orangeade might meet the case, but the waiter mentioned a mint
julep. The drink was unfamiliar, but it sounded good, and American
people make the most wonderful soft drinks in the world. The very word
"mint" suggested coolness, and the fragrant smell of the upper river at
Cambridge on a summer's day came back to my mind as I sat behind a large
column in the cafe. Hence I said: "Right O! Bring me a mint julep." He
did, curse him! With a large chicken sandwich it arrived. The glass was
all frosted, filled with mushy ice, while a dainty little bunch of green
mint with its stems piercing the ice floated on the top. I was more
thirsty than hungry, and I was very hungry.
I drank the mint julep at once. It was delicious, a trifle dry perhaps,
but delicious. For a soft drink the effect was decidedly interesting. My
first sensation was a nice singing, advancing sound in my head. I felt
myself to be drifting along a smooth stream with overhanging willows and
masses of mint growing on the banks. I felt that delightful sensation
that one feels when a tooth has been removed with the aid of gas and one
is just returning to consciousness. It is a jar to one's nerves when the
dentist's voice is first heard and the attending lady in the uniform of
a nurse hands one a glass of water, and the world, with all its troubles
and dentists returns to one's consciousness.
This pleasing feeling continued for a little while, and then I could see
the panelled walls of the room, and I heard what seemed a still small
voice talking in extremely bad French to the waiter who answered in what
must have been good French. The voice using the bad French was very
familiar and then I realized that it was my own. I promptly switched to
English, but the voice was still far distant. Finally full consciousness
returned, also a realization of the situation. Then the voice in the
distance said: "Waiter, your d---- mint julep has gone to my head and I
must catch a train in exactly half an hour." The waiter's voice
expressed sorrow and suggested much water and more sandwiches. I drank
water and I ate sandwiches, and the vision of Mr. Pickwick in the
wheelbarrow came upon me with full force. I was thankful that, in spite
of all, I could see my watch; but if the waiter had not been firm I
should have missed my train. The water and sandwiches were successful. A
faint knowledge of Christian Science picked up from my chief in New
York helped and in a perfectly stately manner I walked out of the hotel
and along the road and caught my train.
I would advise all foreigners arriving in America to avoid mint juleps.
I am not going to say that the experience was not pleasurable. It was
extremely pleasant, almost delightful, but a mint julep taken several
hours after a meal when one drinks but little at any time is extremely
potent. I have been told since that just after a meal a mint julep is
comparatively harmless and that it is _not_ a soft drink. Frankly I will
never touch one again as long as I live. There were too many
possibilities lurking in its icy depths.
I arrived in Washington safely and found that my uniform acted as a
wonderful talisman. Every officer of the U. S. A. that I met desired to
show kindness in some way. It was impossible to pay for a meal.
I put up at a hotel and, with the aid of the telephone, commenced to
accumulate friends from certain officers' training stations around. Most
of them had not had time to buy uniforms of their own, but were dressed
in the sort supplied by the quartermaster's store--good material, but
badly fitting. However this fact could not in the slightest alter the
effect produced by the glowing health that seemed to characterize all of
them.
Their eyes were clear and bright like the eyes of a thoroughbred in
perfect condition. One or two had lost a little weight, with some
advantage perhaps. In a word, good looking, handsome fellows though they
had been before the war, military training, plain good food, and an
entire absence of mint juleps had worked magic.
We had all lived together in Bethlehem and coming so recently from that
town that both they and I had grown to love, we commenced that form of
conversation which consists of many questions and no answers. You know
the sort--everybody pleased with everybody else and everybody talking at
once. I forgot most of it, but as far as I remember it consisted of,
"Gee! Mac, but you do look fine in the English uniform. Have you been
over to see Lucy lately? How's Lock? Are 'yer' getting your guns a bit
quicker? How's 'Sally?' Does Curly still serve funny drinks? We're all
on the wagon now even when we get the chance. It makes you feel fitter.
We hope to get over soon. Don't forget to let us have those addresses
soon. Gee! but we'll all have _some_ parties in London some day. We've
got to work awful hard, but its fine, and we've never felt better in our
lives."
Finally we all rushed out to buy equipment and uniforms. Young officers
always get smitten with a very pleasing disease which makes them rush
about any city buying every conceivable form of equipment and uniform.
They'll buy anything. They'll extract from a pleased though overworked
tailor promises that he can seldom keep. If he does keep them he ought
to spend many hours in bitter remorse for supplying clothing and uniform
that would have been spurned by a well turned out Sammee or Tommy in the
days of the great peace.
It is part of the fun of the thing, this disease. We all had it in
England in the latter days of 1914 and the early days of 1915. We also
caused expressions of horror and dismay to creep over the well-bred
faces of the regular officers we found at our barracks.
However we all rushed about Washington enjoying the process of being
saluted and saluting. We assaulted a department store and descended to
the basement, where a worn-out clerk and his employer, especially the
latter, did what he could for us. He was interested in what he called
the "goods" which formed my tunic. He regretted that Uncle Sam had not
adopted our uniform with its large pockets and comfortable collar. I've
often wondered about this myself, but I suppose that stiff collar looks
smarter, although I am sure that it must choke a fellow.
These fellows are going to make wonderful officers, I am sure. The whole
thing brought back to me the wonderful early days of the war when we
were all longing to get over to have a whack at the Boche. We still
enjoy fighting him since he is such a blighter, but nowadays it is
slightly different. It has become a business minus mad enthusiasm, for
we know what we are up against.
Of course when you first get over there the chances of getting knocked
out seem one in fifty, but after six months it becomes "fifty-fifty."
After nine months or a year the chances of getting scuppered seem to
grow greater, and the deadly monotony becomes unbearable. It is then
time to get a "Blighty" and a rest in hospital.
A visit to Washington on a Saturday afternoon is well worth while,
merely to see the young officers going about. They are very careful
about saluting. I suppose war is a bad thing from every aspect, but it
seems bearable in the capital city, when one sees the effect of military
life on the many men walking about the streets.
One thing seemed unusual to me, and that was the number of junior
officers who were over thirty. It would seem that this in America were a
good thing. I wonder. The respect and affection shown to the young
junior officer by his men is a very fine thing. We find in our army that
the subaltern of immature age gets this much more easily than anyone
else. Affection is more powerful than respect, and when it comes to the
actual difficult, dangerous work, the leading of a charge, for
instance, the youngster can sometimes carry it off with less effort than
the older man. Of course, he has not the same sanity of judgment
possessed by the older chap. Possibly he will attempt the most
impossible kind of stunts. However, time will tell and it is useless to
compare British experience in this respect with American.
In our army it is only the subaltern and the field marshal who can
afford to be undignified. A little lack of dignity on the part of both
is often effective. A man just over thirty is apt to overdo dignity. He
is like a second year man at a university--just a little difficult to
manage. In our army, the men seem to take a fatherly interest in their
platoon commander and will follow him to hell, if necessary. Of course,
when you become a captain or a major or something equally great, then it
is a different matter, but the subaltern has so much personal
intercourse with his men, that if you can introduce a personal feeling
of love and affection to this relation it is a great help on a nasty,
rainy, miserable night in the trenches. The subaltern forms a connecting
link between the men and the more superior officers, and that link
becomes very strong when the junior officer is an enthusiastic youth who
makes a few unimportant mistakes sometimes, but with all is a very
proper little gentleman, who understands when a fellow makes a break
occasionally. There's nothing greater in this world than love, and in
my experience there's nothing finer over there in France than the
affection, and protective interest shown by the dear old British Tommy
for the youth, not long out of school, who is his "orficer" and a
"proper torf" into the bargain, or what the Sammee would call a "reg'lar
feller."
After dining at the hotel I had to leave my friends, and catching a
slightly unclean trolley car found myself dashing along to Annapolis.