_A DUGOUT DIARY_
On Monday morning, February 25, I opened my eyes in the great
bedchamber of the Archbishop's house in Toul, hard by the cathedral.
Rather, it had been the Archbishop's house, and even now the
underground entrance leading to the cathedral was in use. It was no
longer an entrance, however, but an "abri" or anti-aircraft shelter
for the secretaries and guests of the Y. M. C. A. officers' hotel
which, following the removal of a French general, occupied the fine old
building.
I opened my eyes slowly, reluctantly, and tried to close them
again without disturbing the knocking at the door! It was no use;
the secretary was determined, and I surrendered. Out through the
writing-room, where above the mantelpiece were embossed the seals of
the cities of the old diocese,--among them those of Nancy and Toul,--in
less than ten minutes I walked, ready for breakfast and a trip to the
line.
I was to spend three days in a wine-cellar Y. M. C. A. canteen, "close
up," as a relief for "Heints," a strong-bodied, big-hearted young
Methodist preacher, a "Northwestern" man of football fame, who for
several weeks had been on the toughest job of the division without a
rest or a chance to clean up. His was a "one man's stand"; there was no
room to "sleep" an assistant.
West drove me in. After making several calls to drop men at the huts
_en route_ we reached Mandras, where we left the car. Machines were
not allowed to go farther than this point until night. We were now
only a mile from the military road that marked the back of the first
line. It was a beautiful morning and comparatively quiet. Shells came
over regularly, and our guns were not idle; but nothing broke within
half a mile of us. As we hiked up the road and swung around "Dead
Man's Curve," we discussed the evangelization of the world! We reached
Boumont, just a mile from Mandras, and hurried through its tumbled
buildings to Rambecourt. An hour served to cover the two miles to our
destination. The going was muddy, but the footing beneath the surface
slime was firm.
Heints protested at first; but "orders is orders," and he threw his
things hurriedly together and accompanied West back to the car. I was
soon to feel the wrath of his friends. Officers and privates all swore
by him. Only my assurance that he was gone temporarily and to get a
bath and fresh _insect-powder_ saved the situation. I immediately got
into action behind the counter. A lieutenant just in from the trenches
intrusted to me a German stick grenade--a grenade attached to a wooden
handle about twenty inches long, that he had promised my friend. He
said:
"It's safe now. I fixed it; only don't get it near the fire." I put the
fire out.
For several hours during the middle of the day I had the assistance of
a secretary from an adjoining hut. His presence gave the man in charge
a chance to stretch his limbs in the open and go to the company kitchen
for "chow." While the dimensions of the canteen were not more than
twenty feet by fifteen, it was a busy and crowded place. From early
morning until late at night men filled it; indeed, they stood generally
in a long queue reaching up the entrance stairway and out into the
old open court. My sales in three days and two nights totalled nearly
4,000 francs, or $800. The men bought everything we had, and all that
we had--oranges, jam, candy, cigarettes and tobacco, bar chocolate,
etc., and a score of things that a man needs to keep himself fit, from
tooth-paste to shaving-brushes.
The canteen service of the Red Triangle at the front is an absolute
necessity. There is no other place "alive" within miles; the villages
are utterly empty, for in the years that have passed since the war
began even the broken furniture has completely disappeared. Not a
villager remains. The Y. M. C. A. sells nothing from the standpoint
of traffic for gain; it hopes to keep its losses as low as possible,
but it constantly "short-changes" itself. Tons of supplies are given
away outright in the "trench trips," and daily the canteens serve hot
drinks free. Now and then criticisms are heard because the extreme
difficulty of transportation and the high cost of every commodity, a
cost that constantly fluctuates, cannot be generally understood; but
the commissary department of the Red Triangle is giving vastly more
than one hundred cents for the dollar; giving it with efficiency and
despatch.
My first afternoon in the cellar was uneventful but strenuous. I
found myself compelled to learn the ropes under pressure. Men wanted
everything that was hard to find; and it seemed, too, that every
man was either just out of the trenches--which began right there
and extended in communicating trenches, the reserve and the most
advanced trenches, nearly a mile on in front of us--or just going in,
and therefore in a great rush. I was slow on the prices, too; but,
when I was in doubt, I simply put it up to the men; only once was I
deceived, and then the Y. M. C. A. got too much money! I saw but one
man in France who had a dishonest streak in him, and I speak with
deep sympathy of that man; he was born with a twist, and was killed
by a shell only a few hours after a Y. M. C. A. secretary caught him
in the act of stealing from a comrade. The fellows over there are a
"plumb-line" crowd.
I made chocolate in the big iron bucket, and gave it away; that is, I
tried to. But why dwell on that tragedy? It was better the next time.
One of the men from the first-aid room gave me a few lessons while he
swept out for me.
At about six o'clock a chap who had been eying me for some few minutes
said, "Say, _I know you; who are you_?"
He was right. He had been president of a Christian Endeavor society
in Newport, Va. With fine frankness he told me of uniting with the
First Church of Christ there; we had met at a State Christian Endeavor
convention. Another lad who had listened to the conversation remained
long enough to tell me that he lived in Macon, Ga., and that he saw me
first in Griffin, the same State. He was the "birdman," in charge of
the carrier-pigeons, and had been in that first affair back in 1917
when Germany captured her first American prisoners. By the way, a
strangely impressive sight it is to see a white dove circling above the
battery to get its bearings and then flying swift and straight toward
the red flag in the trenches to which its training calls it.
A considerable crowd was lingering about while I lunched out of a can
of peaches and on crackers. Breakfast was brought in to me by one of
the men, who carried it back from the company kitchen in my mess kit,
and I took it with one hand while I "shoved the stuff" with the other.
Dinner I went out for, as already related; but "lunch" was a less
formal affair. While I munched away, I watched the fellows, those who
were ready to go in. They were fully equipped, had their gas-masks at
attention, as we all did, and were in helmets. There was very little
profanity, no vileness; and some of them did not smoke. I was often
surprised by the number of men who spent no money on cigarettes. As for
the swearing, the Y. M. C. A. hut has an atmosphere that, while it does
not stifle cursing, does make the men themselves prefer to be without
it. They welcome a place that is different! The secretaries remember
first that they are there to minister, and to minister to all; they do
not preach at the fellows, but some of them are real geniuses. One put
up a "menu" that said among other perfectly rich things, "Please don't
swear; the secretary is trying to break himself of the habit."
And let us be perfectly frank about the cigarette problem that troubles
so many of us. That it is a problem I am fully persuaded. Leading
medical authorities in all armies recognize the fact that the nicotine
bondage now fastening upon the men _and women_ of the war-ridden
nations will be a slavery of heavy chains for the next generation.
Giving evidence before the city exemption appeal courts in Montreal in
January, 1918, Dr. G. E. Dube said that he was appalled at the amount
of illness prevailing among men of military age, and that he attributed
the trouble chiefly to cigarettes.
Personally I hate the cigarette. I have seen its fine fiendishness.
But to-day society has time for only absolutely "first things." Some
seem to think that because the world is on fire the time is ripe for
an anti-smoking crusade. I do not. Just as the next generation must
carry largely the financial burden of the war, so it must solve the
many physical and moral problems that this generation let fall from its
hands when it gripped the sword. Personally, I have put the cigarette,
for the man in the service who uses it, in the same class with the
strychnine the doctor prescribes. There are hundreds of thousands of
men in the trenches who would go mad, or at least become so nervously
inefficient as to be useless, if tobacco were denied them. Without it
they would surely turn to worse things. Many a sorely wounded lad has
died with a cigarette in his mouth, whose dying was less bitter because
of the "poison pill." The argument that tobacco may shorten the life
five or ten years, and that it dulls the brain in the meantime, seems
a little out of place in a trench where men stand in frozen blood and
water and wait for death.
This statement is not a defence of the cigarette; it is an honest
effort to make clear the position of the Y. M. C. A., facing an
immediate crisis in a diseased world, and required to function or fail.
I found splendid opportunities to help the non-smoker without appearing
to "preach." When he didn't "use them," I said, "Shake, neither do I.
How do we live?" When a man in trying to make even change suggested
"another pack," I said, "Better try something else; you've driven
enough coffin-nails to-day." In many huts Dr. George Fisher's book on
tobacco is placed on the counter by the side of the cigarettes. The men
have here available the positive instruction that at least does them no
harm. In the educational campaign which will follow the war those who
were able to adjust themselves to the peculiar needs of this abnormal
time will have the greater ministry.
At nine o'clock I took down the stovepipe that ran up through the
little window in the far corner of the selling-section of the
canteen, and dropped the heavy gas-curtain; a little later the double
gas-curtains at the door were also dropped. A good hour was spent in
"cleaning up." Boxes were re-arranged with the assistance of the man
who lingered; I laid the fire for the morning, and studied the stock
so as to be quicker on my feet the next day. I left a few candle
stubs on the table for the "gas-post," the man standing on guard to
protect the soldiers in the billets, signal-corps room, and first-aid
dressing-station from being surprised by a possible gas attack. All of
these men were in this same dugout or series of dugouts. For another
hour I wrote a few brief letters and filled out my order-blank for the
next day. Our stock was very low.
It was now nearly midnight. There were no stragglers left in the
canteen, and all about me I could hear the regular breathing of the
tired sleepers. Putting on my helmet and pushing aside the curtains,
I climbed the steep stairs, and walked for a few minutes in the
chill February night beneath a cloudless sky. The guns were going
ceaselessly; back and forth the huge shells moaned like tired and
unwilling men; they were not tired when they landed! Down on the line
the rat-rat-rat-rat-rat-rat of the machine guns, with the explosions so
close together as to give almost the sound of ripping canvas, rang out
at irregular intervals. They were spraying No Man's Land, searching for
enemy patrols. The huge trucks and great wagons that had been pounding
the road since early dark bringing up supplies and ammunition were
still busy; it was a good night for the "mule-skinners" (mule-drivers)
and for men at the wheels; they could move faster, and the moon reduced
to a minimum the danger of accidents.
I stood for a minute or two by a dirty pool in the centre of what had
been a formal garden, and wondered where the grace and beauty of the
ancient house had gone. Only the pool, the crushed marble walls of the
chateau, and the splintered trees remained of that which had been the
glory of an ancient name.
I slept profoundly that night; general shelling does not disturb one's
rest unless it stops. I say that I slept profoundly; I did until two in
the morning when the gas experience, related elsewhere, crept into my
diary.
The second day was quite as busy as the first, and there were at
least a score of feature stories. The life of a hut-manager is not
monotonous; his contribution to the cause of his country is second to
the contribution of no other. My little glimpse of his parish was quite
convincing.
All the morning the talking-machine was busy. The selections varied
with the mood of the man playing it. I wanted to choke the chap who
started Homer Rodeheaver's "Tell Mother I'll Be There." No violence was
used, but several besides myself choked before the record was finished.
Mother is everything plus, over there. To the fellow who has seen her
blessed face in dreams beneath a battle's flaming sky she will never
be taken for granted again. A thousand little things bring him close
to her--the socks that he tries to darn, the button that he sews on,
the food that reminds him. A letter from a mother makes a lot of heaven
over there--if it is the right kind, _if it is the kind that makes
a son proud of his mother_. A message of courage, of cheer, of news;
details of the commonplace,--the coming of the spring birds back to the
house he built, the addition to the neighbor's home, the new paper on
the wall, the bright gossip of the street or town, the tragedy of the
bread that burned while you wrote him, such a message builds morale
faster than flags, or music, or the speeches of captains.
Just before dinner a stretcher-party brought in a man who had been
painfully, though not seriously, injured by the explosion of a "75."
His helmet had deflected the fragment. He was standing in the door of
the bomb-shelter when he fired the gun, but one ear had been nearly
severed and his neck had been deeply cut. After he had been fixed up I
put him on a box by the little stove, and gave him some hot tea.
He was shaken and nervous. In just such a situation the secretary has
his "big chance." The boy said: "This will sure kill my mother. She's a
frail little thing, never could stand trouble; when she hears I'm hurt,
she'll just lie down and die."
I came back with "Don't you believe it. That isn't the way it works
at all. When your mother hears of this, she'll say: 'Thank God, he's
_only_ wounded. Now I know he's safe for a little while.'" And I went
on: "You have _yours_; comparatively few men ever get two wounds, and
after nearly four years of war still there aren't enough wounds to go
around."
But it didn't do the business.
Then I asked him where he lived, and he said, "The Bronx."
"I'll tell you what I'll do, old man," I said; "I'll call her up as
soon as I reach New York, and later I'll go and see her."
Bang! he blew up! Down into his hands went his sore head, and then he
was better. He was just a boy after all and through it all. But what a
boy!
When I went up to "mess" that day, an orderly pointed out to me through
a crack in the camouflage a ruined plane a kilometer away in the open
and under constant observation from both lines. In it was the body of
a famous German flier. Things had been too hot for our men to go out
and bring in the remains. Mt. Sec towered above us, nine hundred feet
high. We knew that it was a vast nest of German guns. Like Gibraltar it
stands in front of Metz. But it is not impregnable. Twice the French
have demonstrated that; and, when the hour strikes, Mt. Sec will not
turn these allied armies back.
I felt something cold touch my hand, and, looking down, saw a
kindly-eyed, well-fed dog inspecting me. These dogs are the only
"original settlers" left on the line. They were lost in the first
rush, I suppose; and now, cared for by the fighting men, they watch the
walls that daily dwindle, and wait with dumb loyalty for the return of
their masters.
One of the men brought me a "beautiful" fragment of a mustard-gas
shell. His little gift helped a lot, for it told me that I was
beginning to "arrive." Later I received the nose of a shrapnel "made
in Germany"; the shrapnel broke above the dugout, and the nose dropped
"dead" in the entrance. Another fellow, a youngster who must have
fibbed a lot to get into the army, pulled a Testament out of his _upper
left-hand pocket_ to replace it with something else, and then said,
as he thought out loud, "Nope," and back went the book. There is an
unadmitted tradition that the "book" keeps German steel away from the
heart, and it does in more ways than one.
That evening I had plenty of assistance, and things moved like
clockwork. There was nearly a catastrophe, though. Two of the men were
trying to fix a carbon lamp that had been useless for several days,
and it caught fire. The way that dugout emptied itself was a sight to
behold.
After eight o'clock we had a "home-talent" frolic, and it was some
show. There was no room for acrobatics, but practically everything else
that a well-ordered minstrel show should have we had.
"At midnight in his guarded tent"--that doesn't really fit here, but
at midnight the Pierce-Arrow arrived with _oranges_, blood-oranges
from Italy. We were out of everything but tobacco, and I was desperate
before the oranges came. What fellows they are who keep the supply
lines open for the Y. M. C. A.! Day and night they work, with a smile.
Every risk the ammunition drivers run, they accept, and without
complaint. They left me fifteen boxes of oranges, and a good word that
sang me to sleep. This night I slept better, and there was no gas alarm.
The third day it _rained_--shells! At ten the entrance suddenly
darkened as if the gas-curtain had been dropped. It looked as if
every man of General Pershing's army was trying to come to see me in
a great hurry, and ahead of every other man who was bound in the same
direction. For several minutes I had noticed the quickened firing and
that the explosions were unusually close; but, feeling safe myself and
being busy, I had paid little attention to the noise. The Germans were
trying to muss up the batteries just behind us, and a torrent of shells
was now falling. The big outdoors had suddenly become too small, and
the men were taking cover.
One chap, longer and louder than the rest, came in waving one boot
above his head, and in his sock feet. When I inquired solicitously
after the other shoe, he sang out, "Left it; didn't need it, anyhow."
[Illustration: Y. M. C. A. SERVING SOUP AND HOT COFFEE TO WOUNDED MEN
One hundred yards from the front line.]
He was cleaning his equipment in front of his billet when an "H. E."
(High Explosive) dropped just across the street from him and close
against an old wall. He cut the "Kaiser's party" in a hurry. A shell
dropped in the old pool, two just to the right of the entrance, and
several others did spring ploughing in the abandoned garden hard by.
But not a man was scratched, and not a missile reached its objective.
The "doves of peace" from Germany presently stopped coming over, and we
breathed more freely.
While we were giving our friend of the lonely shoe some unsolicited
advice, a sergeant came in and told a thrilling tale of an alarm that
had been distributed along the road by a wild-eyed "runner" holding his
nose and yelling, "Gas!" at the top of his voice.
At six o'clock Heints came back. He was as fresh as a daisy and as
happy as a lad just arrived "out to old Aunt Mary's." It was with a
pang of regret that I surrendered the place to him. It was not easy
to go away. Always I shall remember that dark place and treasure my
recollections of it. May all the men I knew there come safely home!
It was a long jaunt back. In one village we passed through, the clock
in the church tower had stopped at 4.30 P.M., when the first shell hit
it; in another at 2.25 P.M. Both had been silenced in the early days of
stern fighting before Toul. When will they start again? Ah, no! that
is not the question. "How soon shall the power that turned back the
clock of civilization be stopped?"--that is the question. That question
America is answering with her treasure and with the best of her breed.
By a long line of trucks and wagons we ran,--two hundred of
them,--ready to go on in under cover of darkness. In another place
fifty-seven ambulances were ready for quick action, and by them a
hundred fresh artillery horses were watering.
That night I slept again in the house by the cathedral. I dreamed of
muddy men and bursting shells, of scampering rats and a phonograph, and
I awoke--disappointed.