IV

The sun shone blindly over the broad dusty drill-field. The men marched

and wheeled, about-faced and counter-marched in their new olive-drab

uniforms and thought of home--those that had any homes to think about.

Some who did not thought of a home that might have been if this war had

not happened.

There were times when their souls could rise to the great occasion and

their enthusiasm against the foe could carry them to all lengths of

joyful sacrifice, but this was not one of the times. It was a breathless

Indian summer morning, and the dust was inches thick. It rose like a soft

yellow mist over the mushroom city of forty thousand men, brought into

being at the command of a Nation's leader. Dust lay like a fine yellow

powder over everything. An approaching company looked like a cloud as it

drew near. One could scarcely see the men near by for the cloud of yellow

dust everywhere.

The water was bad this morning when every man was thirsty. It had been

boiled for safety and was served warm and tasted of disinfectants. The

breakfast had been oatmeal and salty bacon swimming in congealed grease.

The "boy" in the soldier's body was very low indeed that morning. The

"man" with his disillusioned eyes had come to the front. Of course this

was nothing like the hardships they would have to endure later, but it

was enough for the present to their unaccustomed minds, and harder

because they were doing nothing that seemed worth while--just marching

about and doing sordid duties when they were all eager for the fray and

to have it over with. They had begun to see that they were going to have

to learn to wait and be patient, to obey blindly; they--who never had

brooked commands from any one, most of them, not even from their own

parents. They had been free as air, and they had never been tied down to

certain company. Here they were all mixed up, college men and foreign

laborers, rich and poor, cultured and coarse, clean and defiled, and it

went pretty hard with them all. They had come, a bundle of prejudices and

wills, and they had first to learn that every prejudice they had been

born with or cultivated, must be given up or laid aside. They were not

their own. They belonged to a great machine. The great perfect conception

of the army as a whole had not yet dawned upon them. They were occupied

with unpleasant details in the first experimental stages. At first the

discomforts seemed to rise and obliterate even the great object for which

they had come, and discontent sat upon their faces.

Off beyond the drill-field whichever way they looked, there were barracks

the color of the dust, and long stark roads, new and rough, the color of

the barracks, with jitneys and trucks and men like ants crawling

furiously back and forth upon them all animated by the same great

necessity that had brought the men here. Even the sky seemed yellow like

the dust. The trees were gone except at the edges of the camp, cut down

to make way for more barracks, in even ranks like men.

Out beyond the barracks mimic trenches were being dug, and puppets hung

in long lines for mock enemies. There were skeleton bridges to cross,

walls to scale, embankments to jump over, and all, everything, was that

awful olive-drab color till the souls of the new-made soldiers cried out

within them for a touch of scarlet or green or blue to relieve the dreary

monotony. Sweat and dust and grime, weariness, homesickness, humbled

pride, these were the tales of the first days of those men gathered from

all quarters who were pioneers in the first camps.

Corporal Cameron marched his awkward squad back and forth, through all

the various manoeuvres, again and again, giving his orders in short,

sharp tones, his face set, his heart tortured with the thought of the

long months and years of this that might be before him. The world seemed

most unfriendly to him these days. Not that it had ever been over kind,

yet always before his native wit and happy temperament had been able to

buoy him up and carry him through hopefully. Now, however, hope seemed

gone. This war might last till he was too old to carry out any of his

dreams and pull himself out of the place where fortune had dropped him.

Gradually one thought had been shaping itself clearly out of the days he

had spent in camp. This life on earth was not all of existence. There

must be something bigger beyond. It wasn't sane and sensible to think

that any God would allow such waste of humanity as to let some suffer all

the way through with nothing beyond to compensate. There was a meaning to

the suffering. There must be. It must be a preparation for something

beyond, infinitely better and more worth while. What was it and how

should he learn the meaning of his own particular bit?

John Cameron had never thought about religion before in his life. He had

believed in a general way in a God, or thought he believed, and that a

book called the Bible told about Him and was the authentic place to learn

how to be good. The doubts of the age had not touched him because he had

never had any interest in them. In the ordinary course of events he might

never have thought about them in relation to himself until he came to

die--perhaps not then. In college he had been too much engrossed with

other things to listen to the arguments, or to be influenced by the

general atmosphere of unbelief. He had been a boy whose inner thoughts

were kept under lock and key, and who had lived his heart life absolutely

alone, although his rich wit and bubbling merriment had made him a

general favorite where pure fun among the fellows was going. He loved to

"rough house" as he called it, and his boyish pranks had always been the

talk of the town, the envied of the little boys; but no one knew his

real, serious thoughts. Not even his mother, strong and self-repressed

like himself, had known how to get down beneath the surface and commune

with him. Perhaps she was afraid or shy.

Now that he was really alone among all this mob of men of all sorts and

conditions, he had retired more and more into the inner sanctuary of self

and tried to think out the meaning of life. From the chaos that reigned

in his mind he presently selected a few things that he called "facts"

from which to work. These were "God, Hereafter, Death." These things he

must reckon with. He had been working on a wrong hypothesis all his life.

He had been trying to live for this world as if it were the end and aim

of existence, and now this war had come and this world had suddenly

melted into chaos. It appeared that he and thousands of others must

probably give up their part in this world before they had hardly tried

it, if they would set things right again for those that should come

after. But, even if he had lived out his ordinary years in peace and

success, and had all that life could give him, it would not have lasted

long, seventy years or so, and what were they after they were past? No,

there was something beyond or it all wouldn't have been made--this

universe with the carefully thought out details working harmoniously one

with another. It wouldn't have been worth while otherwise. There would

have been no reason for a heart life.

There were boys and men in the army who thought otherwise. Who had

accepted this life as being all. Among these were the ones who when they

found they were taken in the draft and must go to camp, had spent their

last three weeks of freedom drunk because they wanted to get all the

"fun" they could out of life that was left to them. They were the men who

were plunging into all the sin they could find before they went away to

fight because they felt they had but a little time to live and what did

it matter? But John Cameron was not one of these. His soul would not let

him alone until he had thought it all out, and he had come thus far with

these three facts, "God, Death, A Life Hereafter." He turned these over

in his mind for days and then he changed their order, "_Death, A Life

Hereafter, God_."

Death was the grim person he was going forth to meet one of these days or

months on the field of France or Italy, or somewhere "over there." He was

not to wait for Death to come and get him as had been the old order. This

was WAR and he was going out to challenge Death. He was convinced that

whether Death was a servant of God or the Devil, in some way it would

make a difference with his own personal life hereafter, how he met Death.

He was not satisfied with just meeting Death bravely, with the ardor of

patriotism in his breast, as he heard so many about him talk in these

days. That was well so far as it went, but it did not solve the mystery

of the future life nor make him sure how he would stand in that other

world to which Death stood ready to escort him presently. Death might be

victor over his body, but he wanted to be sure that Death should not also

kill that something within him which he felt must live forever. He turned

it over for days and came to the conclusion that the only one who could

help him was God. God was the beginning of it all. If there was a God He

must be available to help a soul in a time like this. There must be a way

to find God and get the secret of life, and so be ready to meet Death

that Death should not conquer anything but the body. How could one find

God? Had anybody ever found Him? Did anyone really _think_ they had found

Him? These were questions that beat in upon his soul day after day as he

drilled his men and went through the long hard hours of discipline, or

lay upon his straw tick at night while a hundred and fifty other men

about him slept.

His mother's secret attempts at religion had been too feeble and too

hidden in her own breast to have made much of an impression upon him. She

had only _hoped_ her faith was founded upon a rock. She had not _known_.

And so her buffeted soul had never given evidence to her son of hidden

holy refuge where he might flee with her in time of need.

Now and then the vision of a girl blurred across his thoughts

uncertainly, like a bright moth hovering in the distance whose shadow

fell across his dusty path. But it was far away and vague, and only a

glance in her eyes belonged to him. She was not of his world.

He looked up to the yellow sky through the yellow dust, and his soul

cried out to find the way to God before he had to meet Death, but the

heavens seemed like molten brass. Not that he was afraid of death with a

physical fear, but that his soul recoiled from being conquered by it and

he felt convinced that there was a way to meet it with a smile of

assurance if only he could find it out. He had read that people had met

it that way. Was it all their imagination? The mere illusion of a

fanatical brain? Well, he would try to find out God. He would put himself

in the places where God ought to be, and when he saw any indication that

God was there he would cry out until he made God hear him!

The day he came to that conclusion was Sunday and he went over to the

Y.M.C.A. Auditorium. They were having a Mary Pickford moving picture show

there. If he had happened to go at any time during the morning he might

have heard some fine sermons and perhaps have found the right man to help

him, but this was evening and the men were being amused.

He stood for a few moments and watched the pretty show. The sunlight on

Mary's beautiful hair, as it fell glimmering through the trees in the

picture reminded him of the red-gold lights on Ruth Macdonald's hair the

morning he left home, and with a sigh he turned away and walked to the

edge of camp where the woods were still standing.

Alone he looked up to the starry sky. Amusement was not what he wanted

now. He was in search of something vague and great that would satisfy,

and give him a reason for being and suffering and dying perhaps. He

called it God because he had no other name for it. Red-gold hair might be

for others but not for him. He might not take it where he would and he

would not take it where it lay easy to get. If he had been in the same

class with some other fellows he knew he would have wasted no time on

follies. He would have gone for the very highest, finest woman. But

there! What was the use! Besides, even if he had been--and he had

had--every joy of life here was but a passing show and must sometime come

to an end. And at the end would be this old problem. Sometime he would

have had to realize it, even if war had not come and brought the

revelation prematurely. What was it that he wanted? How could he find out

how to die? Where was God?

But the stars were high and cold and gave no answer, and the whispering

leaves, although they soothed him, sighed and gave no help.

The feeling was still with him next morning when the mail was

distributed. There would be nothing for him. His mother had written her

weekly letter and it had reached him the day before. He could expect

nothing for several days now. Other men were getting sheaves of letters.

How friendless he seemed among them all. One had a great chocolate cake

that a girl had sent him and the others were crowding around to get a

bit. It was doubtful if the laughing owner got more than a bite himself.

He might have been one of the group if he had chosen. They all liked him

well enough, although they knew him very little as yet, for he had kept

much to himself. But he turned sharply away from them and went out.

Somehow he was not in the mood for fun. He felt he must be growing morbid

but he could not throw it off that morning. It all seemed so hopeless,

the things he had tried to do in life and the slow progress he had made

upward; and now to have it all blocked by war!

None of the other fellows ever dreamed that he was lonely, big, husky,

handsome fellow that he was, with a continuous joke on his lips for those

he had chosen as associates, with an arm of iron and a jaw that set like

steel, grim and unmistakably brave. The awkward squad as they wrathfully

obeyed his stern orders would have told you he had no heart, the way he

worked them, and would not have believed that he was just plain homesick

and lonesome for some one to care for him.

He was not hungry that day when the dinner call came, and flung himself

down under a scrub oak outside the barracks while the others rushed in

with their mess kits ready for beans or whatever was provided for them.

He was glad that they were gone, glad that he might have the luxury of

being miserable all alone for a few minutes. He felt strangely as if he

were going to cry, and yet he didn't know what about. Perhaps he was

going to be sick. That would be horrible down in that half finished

hospital with hardly any equipment yet! He must brace up and put an end

to such softness. It was all in the idea anyway.

Then a great hand came down upon his shoulder with a mighty slap and he

flung himself bolt upright with a frown to find his comrade whose bunk

was next to his in the barracks. He towered over Cameron polishing his

tin plate with a vigor.

"What's the matter with you, you boob? There's roast beef and its good.

Cooky saved a piece for you. I told him you'd come. Go in and get it

quick! There's a letter for you, too, in the office. I'd have brought it

only I was afraid I would miss you. Here, take my mess kit and hurry!

There's some cracker-jack pickles, too, little sweet ones! Step lively,

or some one will swipe them all!"

Cameron arose, accepted his friend's dishes and sauntered into the mess

hall. The letter couldn't be very important. His mother had no time to

write again soon, and there was no one else. It was likely an

advertisement or a formal greeting from some of the organizations at

home. They did that about fortnightly, the Red Cross, the Woman's Club,

The Emergency Aid, The Fire Company. It was kind in them but he wasn't

keen about it just then. It could wait until he got his dinner. They

didn't have roast beef every day, and now that he thought about it he was

hungry.

He almost forgot the letter after dinner until a comrade reminded him,

handing over a thick delicately scented envelope with a silver crest on

the back. The boys got off their kidding about "the girl he'd left behind

him" and he answered with his old good-natured grin that made them love

him, letting them think he had all kinds of girls, for the dinner had

somewhat restored his spirits, but he crumpled the letter into his pocket

and got away into the woods to read it.

Deliberately he walked down the yellow road, up over the hill by the

signal corps tents, across Wig-Wag Park to the woods beyond, and sat down

on a log with his letter. He told himself that it was likely one of those

fool letters the fellows were getting all the time from silly girls who

were uniform-crazy. He wouldn't answer it, of course, and he felt a kind

of contempt with himself for being weak enough to read it even to satisfy

his curiosity.

Then he tore open the envelope half angrily and a faint whiff of violets

floated out to him. Over his head a meadow lark trilled a long sweet

measure, and glad surprise suddenly entered into his soul.

V

The letter was written in a fine beautiful hand and even before he saw

the silver monogram at the top, he knew who was the writer, though he did

not even remember to have seen the writing before: