"I came within fifty yards of the _tir de barrage_ and stopped to watch
it and try to mark out a path. But no path was possible. No sooner was
one chosen than it was wiped out, all the little landmarks gone, the
whole face of the ground changed by a new rain of shells. My heart
sank. My stomach went suddenly empty. I knew that I had reached the
limit beyond which I could not go. I had found the point where my fear
was greater than my duty. I lay flat down on the earth. I do not know
how long I lay. I thought of nothing. There was only a horrible blank
fear.
"And then I found that unconsciously, not knowing it, I was digging
my fingers into the ground, clutching the roots of grass and dragging
myself into the _tir de barrage_. I might as well have been dragging
myself the other way, but I had lain down with my face toward my duty.
"When I made that discovery I got to my feet and stood upright for a
second, not more, only time to say, 'I must not give myself time to
think,' and dashed forward into the exploding shells. Such a race as
that is like the last steps of a dying horse, one that has broken a
blood vessel, straining for the wire, and plunges on his face in the
midst of his stride. I floundered blindly into the raw earth and fell
again on my face. But this time my mind was working. There was only
one thing for me to do, and I knew it. That was to go on. I crawled
forward on my hands and knees. I could not stand. It would be certain
death. Twenty times I was knocked flat, my wind gone, by the explosion
of a shell almost beside me. But I crawled on. I did not know if I had
been hit. I thought I had. Two hundred yards I crawled through the _tir
de barrage_ and then I got to our lines. They gave me the _Medaille
Militaire_ for that.
"You asked me why I smiled when you came up to us in the trench. I was
wondering what you had to take you through the shells. I thought of
my own struggles. I wondered if you had any of the thoughts that have
crowded in on me under fire. And I smiled."
The next time I saw him was in a hospital back of the Somme, one of
the hospitals where wounded soldiers stay only a few hours, unless
they are too badly hurt to be moved on. He was one of those who could
not be moved. He lay with closed eyes, asleep or exhausted--more
likely exhausted--propped up a little with pillows behind his head and
shoulders. His tunic hung beside his cot, and on it there was a new
ribbon, the _Legion d'Honneur_. I stopped before him.
"There is little chance for him," the doctor said.
"What did he do?" I asked.
"Led his company into the Park of Deniécourt, when all the officers
were gone," replied the doctor. "They got a footing in the park and
stuck there for two days, because he would not give up, until we made
a new attack and got the park, the château and the village. He had
been wounded the first day, but he would not give up. He has received
the _Legion d'Honneur_ and been made a sous-lieutenant, but he will
probably never know it."
I saw him once more. This time was on the boulevards of Paris. His
left sleeve was pinned across his breast and above it were his three
medals, from left to right the _Croix de Guerre_, now with three palms;
the _Medaille Militaire_ and the _Legion d'Honneur_. He was having a
look at Paris, he told me, while he waited for the train to take him
home to the centre of France, to his wife and boy.
"I can tell them now that I was afraid," he said. (Told in the _New
York Tribune_.)