[Illustration: "I SWEAR TO AVENGE YOUR FATHER!"
This striking picture, which is very popular in Paris, was brought
to America by the author. It shows an American soldier standing with
French orphans by the grave of their father, slain in battle.]
HUTS IN HELL
BY
DANIEL A. POLING
[Illustration: Decoration on title page]
BOSTON
CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR WORLD
COPYRIGHTED, 1918, BY THE
GOLDEN RULE COMPANY
TO
THE MEN AND WOMEN
OF
THE RED TRIANGLE
_They also fight who help the fighters fight_
INTRODUCTION
This book is a record of my observations in France, where I made a
deliberate choice between seeing the American, French, and British
fronts casually, or studying the army of the United States carefully; I
decided to spend all of my time with the American soldier. I lived with
him from the port of entry to the front line, and saw him under every
condition of modern warfare.
Since I left him in the trenches of northern France every day has added
glorious testimony to the evidence that moved me to write in one of the
chapters of this book: "The American soldier is the worthy inheritor of
the finest traditions of American arms, a credit to those who bore him,
an honor to the nation he represents, and the last and best hope that
civilization will not fail in her struggle to establish the might of
right."
I have not aspired to write a complete chronicle of the American
overseas army, but have tried to record faithfully what I saw of the
men with the colors, and my impressions of the efficient agencies
contributing to their well-being and comfort. May the message of the
book be worthy of the supreme motives that have brought us as a people
into this struggle for international righteousness and permanent peace.
I went to Europe as the official representative of the United Society
of Christian Endeavor, as chairman of the United Committee on War
Temperance Activities in the Army and Navy, as commissioner of the
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, and representing
the National Temperance Council of America.
My observations in France were made unaccompanied by a military
officer, and the way was not prepared before me. I saw things at their
best and at their worst, just as they were. Before going to France I
spent six weeks in England and Scotland speaking under the auspices of
the Prohibition Educational Campaign.
DANIEL A. POLING.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE PIRATE OF THE DEEP 1
II. WAR CAPITALS OF THE ALLIES 12
III. DOWN IN FLAMES 23
IV. PERSHING 33
V. SEICHEPREY 43
VI. A DUGOUT DIARY 49
VII. "HE'S A HUN, BUT WE'RE AMERICANS" 65
VIII. "GAS! GAS! GAS!" 89
IX. "THEY SHALL NOT PASS" 103
X. THE GREATEST MOTHER IN THE WORLD 120
XI. THE FIRST CROIX DE GUERRE 133
XII. THE HYMN OF HATE 143
XIII. A MAID OF BRITTANY 151
XIV. THE FIGHTING PARSON 155
XV. THREE NEW GRAVES 166
XVI. A TALE OF TWO CHRISTIANS IN FRANCE 169
XVII. LLOYD GEORGE 174
XVIII. WORTHY OF A GREAT PAST 183
XIX. RUM RATION RUINOUS 189
XX. PHYSICALLY COMPETENT AND MORALLY FIT 199
XXI. VIVE LA FRANCE! 212
ILLUSTRATIONS
"I Swear to Avenge Your Father!" _frontispiece_
The German Crew and Submarine which Surrendered
to the U. S. S. "Fanning" _facing page_ 8
An American Airman Returning to his Post after a
Day's Work in the Skies 30
Y. M. C. A. Serving Soup and Hot Coffee to Wounded Men 62
A Gas Attack 100
American Infantry Resting, Approaching the Front in France 140
The First American Troops to Reach Europe Marching
through London Amid the Cheers of Thousands of
Our British Allies 158
Dr. Poling with Newton Wylie, of the Toronto "Globe" 190
HUTS IN HELL
CHAPTER I
_THE PIRATE OF THE DEEP_
The great liner had reached the danger zone. She drove ahead through
the night with ports closed and not a signal showing. Under the stars,
both fore and aft, marines watched in silence by the guns. Each man
wore or had by him a life-preserver, and there was silence on the deck.
Quietly I stood by the rail, and watched the waves break into spray
against the mighty vessel's bow. The phosphorescent glow bathed the sea
in wondrous light all about; only the stars and the weird illumination
of the waves battled with the darkness; there was no moon.
It was hard to realize that out there somewhere silent watchers
waited to do us hurt, hard to grasp the stern significance of those
men in uniform who crowded the staterooms, officers of the new army
of democracy bound for the bleeding fields of France. It was hard to
comprehend these facts of blood and iron.
"Well, old top, I'm more nervous to-night than I ever was in the air;
it's a jolly true fact, I am," said the British flier, who was standing
by my side.
"Up there you can see them coming, but out here you just stand with
your eyes closed, and wait." He was a captain and an "ace." After
convalescing from a wound sufficiently to be about, he had been sent to
America to serve as an instructor in one of the new aviation camps. He
was returning now to re-enter the service at the front.
And it was a nerve-racking experience to wait out the night with its
hidden but sure dangers. I turned in at eleven, fully dressed, and
in spite of the menace that charged the very air was soon asleep. It
seemed like ten minutes, or a flash,--it really was six hours,--when
"Boom!" and I was awake. I sat up in bed, and tried to get my bearings.
In a flash I remembered that I was at sea. Then I recalled the falling
of a great stack of chairs on the deck just above our stateroom a few
nights before, and was reassured. But "Boom! Boom! Boom!" three times
in quick succession our six-inch guns spoke, shaking the ship from bow
to stem. Before the third discharge had sounded I was in the middle of
the floor.
There I met my cabin partner, the premier aviator of the American
navy. We exchanged no lengthy felicitations, but jumped into our
life-preservers and hurried on deck. Eight times the guns were in
action in that first attack. What the results were we never learned;
ships' officers are reticent, and gun-crews are not allowed to speak.
On four different occasions, the last time within thirty miles of
the Mersey River, we were attacked by submarines. Later, in London,
I learned that ours had been one of the most eventful trips of the
war--that did not end disastrously. I know now exactly what a "finger
periscope" looks like at a distance of three hundred yards; one glimpse
is quite enough! And at least one submarine that interviewed us went
down after its interview deeper than it had ever gone before.
After the first attack, unless we happened to be on deck when an action
began, we were kept below until the disturbance was over. There was
little chance to observe the manoeuvres of the enemy, anyhow; he was
elusive and kept discreetly under cover. It was not until several hours
after the first attack that our convoy appeared; until within the
danger zone we had sped on our way alone, trusting to our own engines
and the skill of our captain.
Then the destroyers finally picked us up, three of them; we saw the
Stars and Stripes flying from their signal-masts. It was a feast to
our anxious eyes. Like frisky young horses these chargers of the sea
cavorted about us. The sight of them brought a comforting sense of
security.
The last attack came at dusk, and was beaten off with gun-fire and
depth-charges, the latter dropped in the wake of the conning-tower that
had scarcely got out of sight when the destroyers dashed over the spot,
one from the rear and another that swept across our bows, clearing us
by inches. Our own gun-crew did not relax its vigilance until the bar
was crossed and all danger was passed. The officer in charge of the
bluejackets was an Annapolis man and a friend of my cabin companion. He
had been compelled to resign his commission because of ill health; the
doctors assured him that he was incurably afflicted with tuberculosis.
But the war brought him quickly back. The need was so great that he
was not turned away. When I left him at Liverpool, he had been without
sleep for two days and two nights; but he was happy.
"I have my big chance," he said, "and I'm getting well!" Thus does the
spirit conquer the body when a crisis challenges the soul.
A few days after landing in Great Britain I saw the ruins of a
fishing-ship that had been attacked by a submarine. Without warning
the U-boat had appeared and begun to shell the little vessel. Though
outranged, the one gun of the smack replied right sturdily. But it was
an unequal and hopeless fight. Soon the fishermen were forced to take
to the open boats. This they did, dragging along their wounded. They
were shelled as they pulled away; and the mate, already hit, received a
mortal hurt, but did not flinch.
The submarine disappeared as suddenly as it came, perhaps warned by
wireless of the approach of British cruisers. Back to their little ship
came the dauntless seamen. Let one of those who heard the story tell it.
"The fire was burning fiercely forward; steam was pouring from her
wrecked engine-room; and the ammunition was exploding broadcast about
her decks.
"'A doot she's sinkin',' said Ewing stoutly. Noble said nothing; he
was not given overmuch to speech; but he made the painter fast, and
proceeded to climb aboard again. Ewing followed, and between them they
fought and overcame the fire.
"'Dinna leave me, Jamie!' cried the mate piteously. 'Dinna leave me in
the little boat!'
"'Na, na,' was the reply; 'we'll na leave ye'; and presently they
brought their wounded back on board, and took them below again. The
mate was laid on his bunk, and Ewing fetched his shirts from his bag,
and tore them up into bandages. 'An them's his dress shirts!' murmured
Noble. It was his first and last contribution to the conversation.
"They took turn and turn about to tend the wounded, plug the
shot-holes, and quench the smouldering embers of the fire, reverently
dragging the wreckage from off their dead, and comforting the dying
mate in the soft, almost tender accents of the Celt.
"''Tis nae guid,' said the mate at last. 'Dinna fash aboot me, lads.
A'll gang nae mair on patrol'; and so he died." But they saved their
little ship, and I saw her there in a corner of the basin, a mass of
twisted metal and charred woodwork, but a flawless monument to the
courage of the British fisherman in war.
We had one Sunday on the Atlantic. The evening before I sat with
Tennyson and read of King Arthur and his men, the Knights of the Table
Round. But even as I read, all about me was a braver picture than the
words of the great singer conjured up for me, five hundred men of the
new chivalry, in the uniform of my country, with faces set toward the
places where Democracy battles to rescue the Holy Grail of Freedom and
Justice and Peace.
On Sunday morning for an hour the ship became a house of worship. The
songs of our Christian faith and the words of our Christ came to us
with richer meaning. About the long tables in the main dining-room
during the services sat colonels and majors and captains, lieutenants
and privates, soldiers of the land and also soldiers of the sea. Never
have I seen anywhere a finer company--strong faces, clear eyes and
skins, sturdy bodies.
It was a group representative of every section of the United States and
of virtually every profession. Here was a major from Texas who had left
behind him a daily newspaper; another from Chicago, who is a famous
surgeon; another from Boston, dean of a great law school. I was seated
by a captain who was to solve the telephone problem for our fighting
front. He is one of America's leading telephone executives; and, when I
had last seen him, he was president of the Christian Endeavor union in
Grand Rapids, Mich.
At the piano was a lieutenant whose name was on every lip at a great
Eastern football game a year ago; and directly in front of him was a
choir singer from the largest Episcopal church in Washington, D.C.
There I found the professor of French in a State university. He was
going back to his old home, going back with two silver bars upon each
shoulder, going back beneath the Stars and Stripes.
There were West Pointers in the company, stalwart young officers only
a few months from the Orient, and graduates of Annapolis, one, now the
ranking aviator of the navy, a soft-voiced Southerner, who was the
champion light-weight boxer of the Naval Academy.
Down well in front--and while I was speaking his eye never left
mine--sat the English "flier." His cane was by his side, and on his
sleeve were the gold bars that tell of wounds.
There was no false sentiment in that company, but there was a profound
emotion. Practical men they were, and they were dreamers too. In their
dreams that day were the faces of fair women and of little children,
for "the bravest are the tenderest"; and in their dreams were the soft
caresses that thrust them forth to the battles' hardness, for love has
the keener goad where honor marks the path of duty.
We were on the backward track of Columbus, and those men sailing out of
the New World which the far-visioning mariner first saw four hundred
years ago were discoverers too. They have found themselves; they
and their brothers have found their country's soul, and they go now
on a spiritual adventure holier than that which brought Richard the
Lion-Hearted to the walls of Jerusalem.
The shipboard meeting was arranged by the secretaries of the Y. M. C.
A., and the English clergyman who conducted the formal portion of the
service selected as the Scripture lesson the story of the journey of
Mary with the Christ-child into Egypt and their return to Nazareth
when the danger of King Herod's wrath was passed. At first the lesson
seemed a trifle unusual, a little out of place for the occasion; but
now I am of the opinion that it was peculiarly fitting. Out of the
tale of the babe whose weakness was stronger than hate, and whose
helplessness was not despised, came to thoughtful men the memories of
the sacred associations of their "yesterdays," a satisfying calm, a
sober exaltation that was to their souls what food is to the body.
[Illustration: THE GERMAN CREW AND SUBMARINE WHICH SURRENDERED TO THE
U. S. S. "FANNING"
This is the first capture at sea of Germans by American forces, an
event which will go down into history.
Copyright by Committee on Public Information.]
These modern knights, bound on their Crusade farther than flew the
imperial eagles of Rome, gathered there beneath the starry banner
of their fathers and under the flag of the church with as true a
consecration and as fine a faith as ever thrilled the breasts of
mail-clad men when ancient knighthood was in flower. No cause since men
fought to free the sepulchre of Christ, no tourney of kings, no search
for a grail, has been so worthy as the cause in which these soldiers of
Democracy go forth by land and sea to dare their best and all.
And there were other soldiers on board, soldiers of the Red Triangle,
soldiers as brave and soldiers as vital to the cause of their country
as those who wear the insignia of the combatant. After the service that
morning one of these slipped his arm into mine as I steadied myself
against a particularly heavy sea, and said, "I've just had a great
time, old man."
I knew by the eager look in his eyes that he wanted to talk about it,
and so I led him over to a sheltered spot on the deck where we could be
alone. The secretary was a college professor with a wife and two babies
in the "States," and he had been a very nervous man all the way across
the ocean; but now he was quite himself and very happy.
"I've just had a good hour with a lieutenant from S----," he continued.
"He came to me in trouble. The story is the old one, one God knows
we'll hear many times in the next few months. The chap is paying the
price of his sin, rather the price of his ignorance, for he is just an
overgrown country boy. He never saw the ocean until this ship carried
him out upon it, and New York was too big and bad and attractive for
him. Well, things might be worse. I helped him, and started him in
the right direction; and then I said: 'Say, lad, you've got a stiff
battle before you in France, stiffer than any the Germans can give you,
stiffer than New York; and I know what you need. Do you want it?' and
the chap looked me in the eye, and said, 'I do.' Well," the secretary
continued, "we were on our knees presently, and God helped me first,
and then helped him, to pray. Now Jesus Christ has another follower on
this transport."
There was silence between us for a moment, and then the secretary
concluded: "Last night I slept with my clothes on; I suppose we all
did. I listened to the steady pound of the engines, and waited, tense
and anxious, for the crash of the torpedo I knew might come; and then
I got a grip on myself. I said: 'What are you here for? Who sent you?
Whose are you?' and I promised God to stop being a coward. I asked Him
to give me a chance to make amends for the time I had lost on this
voyage looking for a submarine that is not likely to come. I asked God
to give me a man out of these hundreds in uniform, to give me a man for
Christ.
"And how quickly God has answered my prayer! Now I know why I'm here,
and I have the first-fruit of my ministry."
A great thing it is to know why you are _here_! The man who has a
reason for his journey, and the evidence of his decision in his own
heart, has the peace that passeth understanding, and that not even
U-boats can take away.