“THE WHITE COMRADE”
Philip, who sat leaning against a tree, with his arm around Jean, softly
stroked the lad’s dark head. Somehow he had shown more than the usual
interest in the little refugee, undoubtedly drawn to him in recognition
of the fact that he was also a victim of German barbarity, and because
they both spoke the same language. Nathalie, with a thrill of joy, had
noticed his tender, protecting watchfulness over the boy, and how Jean’s
big eyes would gaze up at the young man with a gleam in their depths
like that of some adoring dog, who yearns for the hand of his master in
silent caress!
“There is not much to tell,” returned Philip after a pause, with the
hesitancy of one who dislikes to talk about himself, “for you must know
I am no hero.” He smiled at the girlish faces so eagerly watching him.
Suddenly he sat bolt upright, unconsciously pushing Jean from him. “I am
an American,” he exclaimed abruptly, “for my father came of good old New
England stock, although I was born in the South. But my heart has been
strangely stirred since I came over here, for the Americans are
asleep,—they do not sense what they are up against in this war of the
nations.” His dark gray eyes flashed into flame. “Sometimes I feel I
would like to be another Paul Revere, and ride like the wind, knocking
on doors and windows, shouting to the slumberers, ‘The Huns are coming!’
_They must_ be roused to the truth that this war is their war, and that
they have not buckled to their job.”
He paused a moment, the fire dying out of his eyes as he continued, “I
was feeling in unusually good spirits that summer of 1914, for I had
just formed a partnership with a well-known architect, and business gave
assurance of giving me a very comfortable income, and place me in a
position to repay my mother, who had denied herself in order to put me
through college.
“Into this mood of complacent satisfaction with myself and world in
general, came a jar one day in June when the newspapers announced, in
glaring headlines, the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand. And,
almost before we had digested its portent, came Austria’s ultimatum to
little Serbia. People began to grow restive, alarm-fired, keyed to a
tense state of expectancy that something was in the air, but—what? Then
tongues were loosened and eyes flashed fire as the Prime Minister’s
scathing denunciation of Germany’s ‘infamous proposal’ was bandied from
mouth to mouth, followed by Great Britain’s ultimatum that Belgium’s
neutrality must be respected.
“Then came hours of anxious suspense, a harrowing waiting-time, with
every one’s heart aquiver, while a little group of men in Downing Street
held their watches in their hands as they awaited Germany’s reply. It
came. The deep-toned clang of Big Ben told to English hearts that the
world’s decades of peace had been shattered, and that the Prussian
barbarians had struck their first blow at civilization.
“From every corner and window now glared forth, ‘Your King and your
Country need you.’ Those words seared my heart like fire, but no, I
argued, I must make good with mother. But no matter how I tried to
cajole myself, the words seemed to follow me around like an accusing
finger. No, he wasn’t my king. I was an American by right of birth, but
still they blazoned at me until I could see them with my eyes shut. They
starred the darkness of night; why, even in my sleep they clutched me in
a ghostly dream. The next day and for many days I saw them aflame on the
pavement, they were written on the sky in white letters, but still I
fought.
“When England’s young manhood sprang, as it were, from the earth, armed
to the teeth, and marched shoulder to shoulder in regular beat,—it
seemed like the pulsation of my own heart—as they swung along through
the streets of London, my head swam, my throat tightened, and—But when
I read of heroic little Belgium so nobly holding out against the
ruthless destroyer of justice and honor, I gave in and became one of
Kitchener’s mob.
“Those were not pleasant hours,” continued Philip, “waiting at the Horse
Guard Parade to read when I must report at the regimental depot at
Hounslow, for I felt I was a misfit, in with a lot of men that, to my
inexperienced eyes, seemed the scum of England, and I sickened of my
job.
“But when the news continued to pour in that Liège had fallen, that the
Germans had entered Brussels, that the British Expeditionary Forces were
retreating, heroically fighting, that Namur, Louvain, and other towns
were being ruthlessly seized and devastated by the enemy, and their
hellish atrocities began to be rumored about, the past, together with
all hopes and desires for the future, were wiped out as clean as a slate
in a spirit of forgetfulness. I lived in the moment, buoyed by the grim
determination to fight like hell to down the oppressor of men’s rights,
to lose my life if need be, in order to give freedom to those who were
to come after.
“My spirits took a leap when I registered at the Hounslow Barracks as a
Royal Fusileer, although I grinned humorously, for if I had felt like a
misfit in London I was a guy now, appareled like a bloomin’ lay-figure
in the cast-off rags of some old-clothes shop, and had sensed that I was
only a steel rivet in a big machine. I was no duck either, taking to the
drills like water, for I would stand hopelessly bewildered at the sharp
orders, ‘Form fours! One-one-two! Platoon! Form Fours!’ and similar
commands, that were like kicks on a befuddled brain. But I gritted my
teeth and stuck to my guns.
“As soon as my rawness wore off and I began to get the hang of it, the
martial spirit asserted itself. I began to be obsessed by the desire to
show that I was the right stuff, that the heroism of my American
ancestors, the spirit of ’76, was in me. Through all my intensive
training I was feverishly eager to know every detail of company and
battalion drill, musketry and target-practice, and all the daily grind
of the other sundry factors in military discipline.
“When I began to ‘matey’ my comrades, I soon understood why a Tommy
Atkins is not like an American, who is born with a fine sense of
personal independence, and who feels that he is as good as any Lord or
Duke; or like a volatile Frenchman, with his easy grace of manner and
buoyant spirit. I realized that although there may be a ‘Sentimental
Tommy’ here and there, the average Tommy Atkins is a stolid chap,
humdrum and prosaic, but with as kind a heart as any rookie in the
world.
“As spring came along, after months of soldiering in many different
quarters, which meant roughing it in leaky tents where cold, rain, and
mud played a large part, and poor equipment a larger, we were no longer
raw rookies, parading or drilling before an unadmiring public,—a target
for pretty girls’ laughter, or the ire of a berating sergeant,—for our
battalion had acquired a high degree of efficiency.
“Our arms were one with us, we had done with squad, platoon formation,
and company drills, had shown our metal at the rifle-range at Aldershot,
taken part in field maneuvers, bayonet charges, and mimic battles. We
had become experts at trench-digging, bomb-throwing, and sniping, while
the machine-gunners were quite up to the mark in that important weapon;
in fact, we had become familiar with all branches of the army service.
“Then when every man was ‘in the pink’ the marching orders came, and we
assembled on the barrack-square at Aldershot. Not only were we
physically fit, fine specimens of the trained soldier, but we were
completely equipped, even to the identification tag, which registered
your name, regimental number, regiment, and religion; besides, we
carried the first-aid field dressing,—an antiseptic gauze pad and
bandage, and a small bottle of iodine. Also, each soldier carried a copy
of Lord Kitchener’s letter, as to what was expected of every British
soldier. The words ‘Do your duty bravely. Fear God. Honor your King,’
meant much to me, although I was an American.
“And then we were off, merry and blithe, no matter what our hearts
registered, cheering like fiends when some of the boys in khaki chalked
the gun-carriages ‘at Berlin,’ a new challenge to each Tommy to do his
stunt in making the Huns pay. Then came a drifting period when we were
herded like cattle from one train to another, or made long, weary
marches in the blind,—for nobody seemed to know our destination. But at
last we were in the shadow of the great battle, down in the earth, in
one sector of a long line of a serpentine trench, zigzagging from the
sea to the Alps.
“This burrowing underground like a mole, digging trenches, or holes, in
No Man’s Land, to string up barbed wire entanglements, or to pile
sand-bags on the parapet, or to clean out the wreckage of a trench that
had been battered by German gunners, or a trench-mortar—sometimes to
gather up the pieces of some ‘matey’ whom you had chummed with,—all
meant new activities. They were experiences and sounds—the sounds of
hell—and sights that cut deep, with an impelling remembrance haunting
you like grewsome shadows.
“Yes, it was a strange new life,” the young soldier paused musingly,
“for this kind of fighting is no battlefield with glittering helmets and
bayonets, the furling of colors, the prancing of horses, the roll of
gun-carriages, but stinging eyelids and a choking in thick gray smoke,
with the roar of cannonading, the sharp screech of shrapnel, the
bursting of star-shells, or the whir of strange, queer monsters above
your head.
“There was the turning of night into day,”—Philip’s face had a weary
expression,—“the daily mental strain, the danger constantly facing you,
the learning to know the sounds of the different shells and in what
direction they were going to fall. Involuntarily, with stilled breath,
you waited, and then came the sinking of your heart when you sensed that
it was _your turn now_, and then to find yourself still there, but to
realize that some of your mates had ‘gone West.’
“And the gas. Oh, the horror of the great, greenish balls that came
rolling towards you, close to the earth, the celerity of getting into
your gas-masks, and the _horrible thing_ that a comrade became if he
failed to accomplish this job on time, and lay writhing in an ugly,
venomous atmosphere of green.
“Then there were the cooties, the parasites that feed _on you_, and with
whom you maintain a constant warfare,” Philip smiled as he saw the girls
squirm; “and the rats, as big as cats, with sharp, ferret-like eyes,
darting from some dark crevice, or playing leap-frog over your legs at
night, or mistaking your head for their nest. Ugh! But the dead-and-gone
feeling—exhausted nature asserting her rights—which assailed you at
some critical moment, perhaps when you were trying to be a man at your
job, just got you through and through.
“Ah, there was the first ‘over-the-top’ experience, when you stood on
the fire-step with gun in hand, palefaced, but with clenched teeth, in
an oppressive silence, waiting to hear the command come down the
line,—whispered from mouth to mouth. Then you leaped wildly over into
long-anticipated perils, to become entangled in barbed wire, or perhaps
to get your first shock, as the man next you dropped like lead at the
first ‘ptt’ of a German sharpshooter’s bullet.
“But on you rush in a mad frenzy with red-misted eyes, in the face of a
heavy artillery fire and a pitiless gale of shrapnel, through a dense
smoke-screen, split with lurid flashes of flame, over a ground pitted
with shell-holes—to stumble over some dead Tommy, whose glazed eyes
stare up at you as if in mockery of your determination to play the man
in this crusade for humanity.
“Then _my adventure_ came,—a raid on a German trench, an undertaking
attended with great peril. With blackened faces, each man, with his bag
of bombs and automatic, at the flicker of a white light crawled
stealthily into the sable blackness of ‘dead man’s yard,’ and, in a
downpour of drenching rain, crept on hands and knees, sometimes wiggling
on his stomach,—quickly rolling into a shell-hole if a sound was
heard,—until the German trench loomed menacingly only a few feet
beyond.
“Everything was deadly still. Then the signal came, and with a rush we
clambered stealthily up and peeped over, to see a yellow-haired Heinie
asleep in the little alcove back of his gun-emplacement, the head of the
sentry-on-post tipsily nodding on his chest, and two big fellows snoring
like porpoises on the floor near. In just one minute we had slid into
that trench and had our men with hands up. Sure it was a surprise-party
for Fritz, for the Germans came running out of their dug-outs, wrapped
in blankets, noisily demanding to know what was up. They soon knew, and
then came a riot of a time as we let our hand-grenades fly, and our
bayonets too, aided by a lively fire from our machine-guns. And then we
were out, making a quick run for our own trenches with our trophies, and
several of the surprised ones, with the German guns thundering in our
rear.
“Yes, I had captured my first Hun, and mighty proud I was of my
achievement, and pictured my delight-to-be when retailing my adventure
to my comrades, when Zipp! and I was downed by the pieces of a bursting
shell that got me in the hand and foot. And the prisoner? Oh, the dirty
Boche saw his chance. I saw his hand go up,—he must have had a stiletto
hidden somewhere,—but I was too quick for him for I let fly a
hand-grenade, and—well, he bothered me no more.
“For hours I crawled, or wiggled, along, dropping into a chalk-pit or a
shell-hole every few moments, for it was like hell under that liquid
fire, Fritzie’s aërial bombs and the machine-gun fire; in fact, it
seemed as if every kind of projectile had been let loose, for now the
Germans were mad clean through. Finally, being too exhausted to make any
further headway, I crept into a shell-hole, where I lay for a day and a
night, lying on my face most of the time, playing dead, for the German
fiends would sneak out into No Man’s Land at night after a bombardment,
and kill every wounded enemy soldier they could find.
“What did I think about, you ask, Miss Nathalie, while lying in that
shell-hole?” Philip smiled a little sadly. “Well, at first I was crazed
with thirst and hunger, and the cold—oh, it was something fierce. And
then the doubts and misgivings that had assailed me at times, as to
whether there was a God in heaven, returned with renewed force. I dumbly
felt that my faith was leaving me, for why this useless slaughter of
men’s bodies, this agonizing devil’s gas, this torturing of the aged and
weak, this violating of womanhood, this maiming of little, innocent
children? Ah, the agony of body was nothing compared to the agony of my
soul, as I lay in that hole.
“Then that night—there was no moon, and everything was a dead calm, for
a lull had come in fighting—I turned over, face upward, to ease the
aching that racked my body. As I lie gazing up at the stars,—they
seemed unusually bright,—something white suddenly flashed before me,
and then I saw a face bend down and gaze at me. It was a marvelously
beautiful face, with such calm serenity of expression as the eyes smiled
into mine, that a strange peace came into my soul, my pains were eased,
I was filled with a wonderful joy, and—then I knew;—it was the face of
the Great White Comrade,—the face of Christ!
“It may have been a delusion from overwrought nerves,—I may have been
dreaming,—I don’t know, for there had been great talk among the
soldiers of seeing the white apparition of Christ on the battlefield. He
was said to have appeared to the soldiers, showed them His bleeding side
and hands, and then the suffering ones had felt a wonderful peace come
into their souls, and their very agonies had made them triumphant in the
thought that as He had died to make men holy, so He had given them the
great privilege of suffering and dying to make men free. No, I didn’t
see any bleeding side, or the nail-prints on the hands, but I saw
Christ’s face, and, oh, it was Heaven!
“Then my brain cleared. I realized that I had been groping in a great
darkness, but that a wonderful light had come, and I knew God was in His
Heaven. That smile had brought revelation. It had told me that we were
no better than Christ, and He had suffered,—He, an innocent soul. And
as He had agonized on the cross, and God had suffered with Him, so every
moan, sob, and cry had reached His ears in this great wail from
humanity. It told me that this bruising of bodies, this rending of
women’s hearts, this wringing of men’s souls, had wrung _His_ heart with
a suffering greater than men could know.
“It told me that it was all the working-out of God’s great plan for the
good of mankind. It told me that the men, women, and children, who had
passed through these seas of blood were to come forth with white
garments, to be a great host led by the Angel of His Presence, and that
their deeds were to live after them, to bring light into the dark places
in men’s souls. It told me that these blood-soaked battlefields were to
become gardens, where flowers would spring, the glorious flowers of
freedom, and that every tear shed was to become great waters, to flow
like a river of peace to all nations.”
As Philip ceased speaking, the faces of his young listeners became very
grave, and for a moment there was an impressive stillness, as if each
one had been hushed to a reverent silence. “Well, after that, I was
strangely happy,” continued the young man slowly. “I think I must have
fallen asleep, for I was suddenly aroused by the cold snout of a dog
nosing into my face. He was a little beast, not much bigger than Tige
here,” softly stroking the refugee’s yellow dog as he spoke, at which
Jean’s eyes grew soft and bright, for with the lad it was “Love me, love
my dog.”
“Yes, it was a Red Cross dog, whose beautiful eyes seemed almost human
as they told me that help was near, and—” Philip stopped abruptly. He
had had a weary, tired look for some time, but now a sudden pallor
overspread his face, and Janet, who had been watching him nervously,
stepped quickly to his side, crying, “And now you _must_ stop talking,
Mr. de Brie, for you are overdoing.”
Philip smiled into her blue eyes, but waved her aside as he cried,
sitting up with sudden resolution, “But no, you must let me finish my
story.”
“Oh, yes, do let him finish his story!” came a chorus of eager voices.
But at this moment Nathalie, whose face had suddenly brightened, cried,
“Oh, no; let’s wait, for a big idea has suddenly come to me, and,” the
girl’s eyes sparkled, “if it turns out all right it will add to our
enjoyment if we wait to hear Mr. de Brie’s story some other time.”
“A big idea,” cried Nita, all aquiver with curiosity. “Oh, Nathalie, do
tell us what it is!”
“No, not now,” answered the girl. “It will keep; but in the meantime let
us have a story from Mr. Darrell. You know he promised to tell us about
Lovewell, the Ranger, and now is his chance, and we are not going to let
him off.”