The weeks rolled by. The drilling went on. At last word came that the
company was to move up farther toward the front. They prepared for a long
hike almost eagerly, not knowing yet what was before them. Anything was
better than this intolerable waiting.
Solemnly under a leaden sky they gathered; sullenly went through their
inspection; stolidly, dully, they marched away through the rain and mud
and desolation. The nights were cold and their clothes seemed thin and
inadequate. They had not been paid since they came over, so there was no
chance to buy any little comfort, even if it had been for sale. A longing
for sweets and home puddings and pies haunted their waking hours as they
trudged wearily hour after hour, kilometer after kilometer, coming ever
nearer, nearer.
For two days they hiked, and then entrained for a long uncomfortable
night, and all the time Cameron's soul was crying out within him for the
living God. In these days he read much in the little Testament whenever
there was a rest by the wayside, and he could draw apart from the others.
Ever his soul grew hungrier as he neared the front, and knew his time now
was short. There were days when he had the feeling that he must stop
tramping and do something about this great matter that hung over him, and
then Wainwright would pass by and cast a sharp direction at him with a
sneer in the curl of his moustache, and all the fury of his being would
rise up, until he would clench his fists in helpless wrath, as Wainwright
swaggered on. To think how easily he could drag him in the dust if it
only came to a fair fight between them! But Wainwright had all the
advantage now, with such a captain on his side!
That night ride was a terrible experience. Cameron, with his thoughts
surging and pounding through his brain, was in no condition to come out
of hardships fresh and fit. He was overcome with weariness when he
climbed into the box car with thirty-nine other fellows just as weary,
just as discouraged, just as homesick.
There was only room for about twenty to travel comfortably in that car,
but they cheerfully huddled together and took their turns sitting down,
and somewhere along in the night it came Cameron's turn to slide down on
the floor and stretch out for a while; or perhaps his utter weariness
made him drop there involuntarily, because he could no longer keep awake.
For a few minutes the delicious ache of lying flat enveloped him and
carried him away into unconsciousness with a lulling ecstasy. Then
suddenly Wainwright seemed to loom over him and demand that he rise and
let him lie down in his place. It seemed to Cameron that the lethargy
that had stolen over him as he fell asleep was like heavy bags of sand
tied to his hands and feet. He could not rise if he would. He thought he
tried to tell Wainwright that he was unfair. He was an officer and had
better accommodations. What need had he to come back here and steal a
weary private's sleep. But his lips refused to open and his throat gave
out no sound. Wainwright seemed gradually stooping nearer, nearer, with a
large soft hand about his throat, and his little pig eyes gleaming like
two points of green light, his selfish mouth all pursed up as it used to
be when the fellows stole his all-day sucker, and held it tantalizingly
above his reach. One of his large cushiony knees was upon Cameron's chest
now, and the breath was going from him. He gasped, and tried to shout to
the other fellows that this was the time to do away with this tyrant,
this captain's pet, but still only a croak would come from his lips. With
one mighty effort he wrenched his hands and feet into action, and lunged
up at the mighty bully above him, struggling, clutching wildly for his
throat, with but one thought in his dreaming brain, to kill--to kill!
Sound came to his throat at last, action to his sleeping body, and
struggling himself loose from the two comrades who had fallen asleep upon
him and almost succeeded in smothering him, he gave a hoarse yell and got
to his feet.
They cursed and laughed at him, and snuggled down good naturedly to their
broken slumbers again, but Cameron stood in his corner, glaring out the
tiny crack into the dark starless night that was whirling by, startled
into thoughtfulness. The dream had been so vivid that he could not easily
get rid of it. His heart was boiling hot with rage at his old enemy, yet
something stronger was there, too, a great horror at himself. He had been
about to kill a fellow creature! To what pass had he come!
And somewhere out in that black wet night, a sweet white face gleamed,
with brown hair blown about it, and the mist of the storm in its locks.
It was as if her spirit had followed him and been present in that dream
to shame him. Supposing the dream had been true, and he had actually
killed Wainwright! For he knew by the wild beating of his heart, by the
hotness of his wrath as he came awake, that nothing would have stayed his
hand if he had been placed in such a situation.
It was _like_ a dream to hover over a poor worn tempest-tossed soul in
that way and make itself verity; demand that he should live it out again
and again and face the future that would have followed such a set of
circumstances. He had to see Ruth's sad, stern face, the sorrowful eyes
full of tears, the reproach, the disappointment, the alien lifting of her
chin. He knew her so well; could so easily conjecture what her whole
attitude would be, he thought. And then he must needs go on to think out
once more just what relation there might be between his enemy and the
girl he loved--think it out more carefully than he had ever let himself
do before. All he knew about the two, how their home grounds adjoined,
how their social set and standing and wealth was the same, how they had
often been seen together; how Wainwright had boasted!
All night he stood and thought it out, glowering between the cracks of
the car at the passing whirl, differentiating through the blackness now
and then a group of trees or buildings or a quick flash of furtive light,
but mainly darkness and monotony. It was as if he were tied to the tail
of a comet that dashed hellwards for a billion years, so long the night
extended till the dull gray dawn. There was no God anywhere in that dark
night. He had forgotten about Him entirely. He was perhaps strongly
conscious of the devil at his right hand.
They detrained and hiked across a bit of wet country that was all
alike--all mud, in the dull light that grew only to accentuate the
ugliness and dreariness of everything. Sunny France! And this was sunny
France!
At last they halted along a muddy roadside and lined up for what seemed
an interminable age, waiting for something, no one knew what, nor cared.
They were beyond caring, most of them, poor boys! If their mothers had
appeared with a bowl of bread and milk and called them to bed they would
have wept in her arms with joy. They stood apathetically and waited,
knowing that sometime after another interminable age had passed, the red
tape necessary to move a large body like themselves would be unwound, and
everything go on again to another dreary halt somewhere. Would it ever be
over? The long, long trail?
Cameron stood with the rest in a daze of discouragement, not taking the
trouble to think any more. His head was hot and his chest felt heavy,
reminding him of Wainwright's fat knee; and he had an ugly cough.
Suddenly someone--a comrade--touched him on the shoulder.
"Come on in here, Cammie, you're all in. This is the Salvation Army Hut!"
Cameron turned. Salvation Army! It sounded like the bells of heaven. Ah!
It was something he could think back to, that little Salvation Army Hut
at camp! It brought the tears into his throat in a great lump. He lurched
after his friend, and dropped into the chair where he was pushed, sliding
his arms out on the table before him and dropping his head quickly to
hide his emotion. He couldn't think what was the matter with him. He
seemed to be all giving way.
"He's all in!" he heard the voice of his friend, "I thought maybe you
could do something for him. He's a good old sport!"
Then a gentle hand touched his shoulder, lightly, like his mother's hand.
It thrilled him and he lifted his bleared eyes and looked into the face
of a kindly gray-haired woman.
She was not a handsome woman, though none of the boys would ever let her
be called homely, for they claimed her smile was so glorious that it gave
her precedence in beauty to the greatest belle on earth. There was a real
mother lovelight in her eyes now when she looked at Cameron, and she held
a cup of steaming hot coffee in her hand, real coffee with sugar and
cream and a rich aroma that gave life to his sinking soul.
"Here, son, drink this!" she said, holding the cup to his lips.
He opened his lips eagerly and then remembered and drew back:
"No," he said, drawing away, "I forgot, I haven't any money. We're all
dead broke!" He tried to pull himself together and look like a man.
But the coffee cup came close to his lips again and the rough motherly
hand stole about his shoulders to support him:
"That's all right!" she said in a low, matter-of-fact tone. "You don't
need money here, son, you've got home, and I'm your mother to-night. Just
drink this and then come in there behind those boxes and lie down on my
bed and get a wink of sleep. You'll be yourself again in a little while.
That's it, son! You've hiked a long way. Now forget it and take comfort."
So she soothed him till he surely must be dreaming again, and wondered
which was real, or if perhaps he had a fever and hallucinations. He
reached a furtive hand and felt of the pine table, and the chair on which
he sat to make sure that he was awake, and then he looked into her kind
gray eyes and smiled.
She led him into the little improvised room behind the counter and tucked
him up on her cot with a big warm blanket.
"That's all right now, son," she whispered, "don't you stir till you feel
like it. I'll look after you and your friend will let you know if there
is any call for you. Just you rest."
He thanked her with his eyes, too weary to speak a word, and so he
dropped into a blessed sleep.
When he awakened slowly to consciousness again there was a smell in the
air of more coffee, delicious coffee. He wondered if it was the same cup,
and this only another brief phase of his own peculiar state. Perhaps he
had not been asleep at all, but had only closed his eyes and opened them
again. But no, it was night, and there were candles lit beyond the
barricade of boxes. He could see their flicker through the cracks, and
shadows were falling here and there grotesquely on the bit of canvas that
formed another wall. There was some other odor on the air, too. He
sniffed delightedly like a little child, something sweet and alluring,
reminding one of the days when mother took the gingerbread and pies out
of the oven. No--doughnuts, that was it! Doughnuts! Not doughnuts just
behind the trenches! How could that be?
He stirred and raised up on one elbow to look about him.
There were two other cots in the room, arranged neatly with folded
blankets. A box in between held a few simple toilet articles, a tin basin
and a bucket of water. He eyed them greedily. When had he had a good
wash. What luxury!
He dropped back on the cot and all at once became aware that there were
strange sounds in the air above the building in which he lay, strange and
deep, yet regular and with a certain booming monotony as if they had been
going on a long time, and he had been too preoccupied to take notice of
them. A queer frenzy seized his heart. This, then, was the sound of
battle in the distance! He was here at the front at last! And that was
the sound of enemy shells! How strange it seemed! How it gripped the soul
with the audacity of it all! How terrible, and yet how exciting to be
here at last! And yet he had an unready feeling. Something was still
undone to prepare him for this ordeal. It was his subconscious self that
was crying out for God. His material self had sensed the doughnuts that
were frying so near to him, and he looked up eagerly to welcome whoever
was coming tiptoing in to see if he was awake, with a nice hot plate of
them for him to eat!
He swung to a sitting posture, and received them and the cup of hot
chocolate that accompanied them with eagerness, like a little child whose
mother had promised them if he would be good. Strange how easy and
natural it was to fall into the ways of this gracious household. Would
one call it that? It seemed so like a home!
While he was eating, his buddy slipped in smiling excitedly:
"Great news, Cammie! We've got a new captain! And, oh boy! He's a peach!
He sat on our louie first off! You oughtta have seen poor old
Wainwright's face when he shut him up at the headquarters. Boy, you'd a
croaked! It was rich!"
Cameron finished the last precious bite of his third hot doughnut with a
gulp of joy:
"What's become of Wurtz?" he asked anxiously.
"Canned, I guess," hazarded the private. "I did hear they took him to a
sanitarium, nervous breakdown, they said. I'll tell the world he'd have
had one for fair if he'd stayed with this outfit much longer. I only wish
they'd have taken his little pet along with him. This is no place for
little Harold and he'll find it out now he's got a real captain.
Good-night! How d'you 'spose he ever got his commission, anyway? Well,
how are you, old top? Feelin' better? I knew they'd fix you up here.
They're reg'ler guys! Well, I guess we better hit the hay. Come on, I'll
show you where your billet is. I looked out for a place with a good
water-tight roof. What d'ye think of the orchestra Jerry is playing out
there on the front? Some noise, eh, what? Say, this little old hut is
some good place to tie up to, eh, pard! I've seen 'em before, that's how
I knew."
During the days that followed Cameron spent most of his leisure time in
the Salvation Army Hut.
He did not hover around the victrola as he would probably have done
several months before, nor yet often join his voice in the ragtime song
that was almost continuous at the piano, regardless of nearby shells, and
usually accompanied by another tune on the victrola. He did not hover
around the cooks and seek to make himself needful to them there, placing
himself at the seat of supplies and handy when he was hungry--as did
many. He sat at one of the far tables, often writing letters or reading
his little book, or more often looking off into space, seeing those last
days at camp, and the faces of his mother and Ruth.
There was more than one reason why he spent much of his time here. The
hut was not frequented much by officers, although they did come
sometimes, and were always welcomed, but never deferred to. Wainwright
would not be likely to be about and it was always a relief to feel free
from the presence of his enemy. But gradually a third reason came to play
a prominent part in bringing him here, and that was the atmosphere. He
somehow felt as if he were among real people who were living life
earnestly, as if the present were not all there was.
There came a day when they were to move on up to the actual front.
Cameron wrote letters, such as he had not dared to write before, for he
had found out that these women could get them to his people in case
anything should happen to him, and so he left a little letter for Ruth
and one for his mother, and asked the woman with the gray eyes to get
them back home somehow.
There was not much of moment in the letters. Even thus he dared not speak
his heart for the iron of Wainwright's poison had entered into his soul.
He had begun to think that perhaps, in spite of all her friendliness,
Ruth really belonged to another world, not his world. Yet just her
friendliness meant much to him in his great straight of loneliness. He
would take that much of her, at least, even if it could never be more. He
would leave a last word for her. If behind his written words there was
breaking heart and tender love, she would never dream it. If his soul was
really taking another farewell of her, what harm, since he said no sad
word. Yet it did him good to write these letters and feel a reasonable
assurance that they would sometime reach their destination.
There was a meeting held that night in the hut. He had never happened to
attend one before, although he had heard the boys say they enjoyed them.
One of his comrades asked him to stay, and a quick glance told him the
fellow needed him, had chosen him for moral support.
So Cameron sat in a shadowy corner of the crowded room, and listened to
the singing, wild and strong, and with no hint of coming battle in its
full rolling lilt. He noted with satisfaction how the "Long, Long Trail,"
and "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag" gradually gave place to
"Tell Mother I'll Be There," and "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder,"
growing strong and full and solemn in the grand old melody of "Abide With
Me." There were fellows there who but a few hours before had been
shooting crap, whose lips had been loud with cheerful curses. Now they
sat and sang with all their hearts, the heartiest of the lot. It was a
curious psychological study to watch them. Some of them were just as keen
now on the religious side of their natures as they had been with their
sport or their curses. Theirs were primitive natures, easily wrought upon
by the atmosphere of the moment, easily impressed by the solemnity of the
hour, nearer, perhaps, to stopping to think about God and eternity than
ever before in their lives. But there were also others here, thoughtful
fellows who were strong and brave, who had done their duty and borne
their hardships with the best, yet whose faces now were solemn with
earnestness, to whom this meeting meant a last sacrament before they
passed to meet their test. Cameron felt his heart in perfect sympathy
with the gathering, and when the singing stopped for a few minutes and
the clear voice of a young girl began to pray, he bowed his head with a
smart of tears in his eyes. She was a girl who had just arrived that day,
and she reminded him of Ruth. She had pansy-blue eyes and long gold
ripples in her abundant hair. It soothed him like a gentle hand on his
heart to hear her speak those words of prayer to God, praying for them
all as if they were her own brothers, praying as if she understood just
how they felt this night before they went on their way. She was so young
and gently cared for, this girl with her plain soldier's uniform, and her
fearlessness, praying as composedly out there under fire as if she
trusted perfectly that her heavenly Father had control of everything and
would do the best for them all. What a wonderful girl! Or, no--was it
perhaps a wonderful trust? Stay, was it not perhaps a wonderful heavenly
Father? And she had found Him? Perhaps she could tell him the way and how
he had missed it in his search!
With this thought in his mind he lingered as the most of the rest passed
out, and turning he noticed that the man who had come with him lingered
also, and edged up to the front where the lassie stood talking with a
group of men.
Then one of the group spoke up boldly:
"Say, Cap," he addressed her almost reverently, as if he had called her
some queenly name instead of captain, "say, Cap, I want to ask you a
question. Some of those fellows that preached to us have been telling us
that if we go over there, and don't come back it'll be all right with us,
just because we died fighting for liberty. But we don't believe that
dope. Why--d'ye mean to tell me, Cap, that if a fellow has been rotten
all his life he gets saved just because he happened to get shot in a
battle? Why some of us didn't even come over here to fight because we
wanted to; we had to, we were drafted. Do you mean to tell me that makes
it all right over here? I can't see that at all. And we want to know the
truth. You dope it out for us, Cap."
The young captain lassie slowly shook her head:
"No, just dying doesn't save you, son." There was a note of tenderness in
that "son" as those Salvation Army lassies spoke it, that put them
infinitely above the common young girl, as if some angelic touch had set
them apart for their holy ministry. It was as if God were using their
lips and eyes and spirits to speak to these, his children, in their
trying hour.
"You see, it's this way. Everybody has sinned, and the penalty of sin is
death. You all know that?"
Her eyes searched their faces, and appealed to the truth hidden in the
depths of their souls. They nodded, those boys who were going out soon to
face death. They were willing to tell her that they acknowledged their
sins. They did not mind if they said it before each other. They meant it
now. Yes, they were sinners and it was because they knew they were that
they wanted to know what chances they stood in the other world.
"But God loved us all so much that He wanted to make a way for us to
escape the punishment," went on the sweet steady voice, seeming to bring
the very love of the Father down into their midst with its forceful,
convincing tone. "And so He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to take our place
and die on the Cross in our stead. Whoever is willing to accept His
atonement may be saved. And it's all up to us whether we will take it or
not. It isn't anything we can do or be. It is just taking Jesus as our
Saviour, believing in Him, and taking Him at His word."
Cameron lingered and knelt with the rest when she prayed again for them,
and in his own heart he echoed the prayer of acceptance that others were
putting up. As he went out into the black night, and later, on the silent
march through the dark, he was turning it over in his mind. It seemed to
him the simplest, the most sensible explanation of the plan of Salvation
he had ever heard. He wondered if the minister at home knew all this and
had meant it when he tried to explain. But no, that minister had not
tried to explain, he had told him he would grow into it, and here he was
perhaps almost at the end and he had not grown into it yet. That young
girl to-night had said it took only an instant to settle the whole thing,
and she looked as if her soul was resting on it. Why could he not get
peace? Why could he not find God?
Then out of the dark and into his thoughts came a curse and a sneer and a
curt rebuke from Wainwright, and all his holy and beautiful thoughts
fled! He longed to lunge out of the dark and spring upon that fat, flabby
lieutenant, and throttle him. So, in bitterness of spirit he marched out
to face the foe.