_THE FIRST CROIX DE GUERRE_
A sentinel barred our way. "Can't take the 'bus' in for half an hour
yet." Barnes turned to me, and said, "Shall we walk or wait?" We left
the car for the driver to bring up when the failing light would make
his journey safer, and hiked up the road.
We had been stopped at the edge of the woods between the third and
second lines, half a mile from a little village that marked the point
within the second line which was our immediate destination. Machines
were not allowed beyond the cover of the trees before dark. A few yards
above the sentinel who had challenged us the road came under the eye of
German observers.
Ten minutes of brisk walking brought us to the second line. There had
been a great air fight, with eighteen planes in action, only a few
hours before; and three Germans had been dropped. An anti-aircraft
gun manned by the French was so carefully camouflaged that even when
standing within ten feet of the spot where it raised itself unhurriedly
out of the earth to go into action, one was quite unaware of its
presence.
Barnes, an old-time Endeavorer from Ohio, whose business in Cleveland
was big, and who brings to the generalship of a front-line Y. M. C.
A. division a genius for leadership and a personality that make him a
marked man, was in a hurry to be off. A mile and a half of open country
lay between us and the most advanced "75's." In front of these was the
military road along which were scattered the several ruined villages we
must visit before returning to headquarters.
The "front line," by the way, is not a string without thickness; from
batteries to the most advanced trench it is a mile deep at least. The
great battle highway, in front of the hidden guns that are the most
exact engines of death the war has developed, is screened carefully
from the enemy to cover the passing of trains and men. From it deep
communicating trenches run down to battalion and company headquarters,
the dugouts, the reserve trenches, the machine-gun nests, and the
"laterals" that stretch away for miles facing Germany.
The gray of a February evening, whose heavy sky completely hid the
sunset, was our protection as we left the second line behind us and
swung with long strides across the open. Then, too, we were nearly
three miles from enemy trenches, and by the time we had come to closer
quarters it would be pitch-dark.
Not a fence or a hedge broke the monotony of that vast open space.
Abandoned trenches, that in a need could be quickly made war-fit,
scarred it in all directions, and shell-holes pocked it thickly. Almost
I thought myself again in the dead season of late fall upon the high
plateaus of Montana or Wyoming. These craters, the old ones, were not
unlike the ancient buffalo-wallows of the West; and the tangled, heavy
grass, undisturbed for three plantings, reminded me of the dried virgin
turf of my own country.
But I got no farther with my comparisons; the sounds in the air and the
huge noises in the not-too-remote distance, where the earth rose in
volcanic eruptions to meet the sky, were unlike any range voices I had
ever heard. Across this plateau of France Death has herded his flocks,
and here have been gathered some of his bloodiest harvests.
We steered our course by the "farm" described to us by the men on the
second line. It was a jumbled ruin overhung with vines, kindly vines
that tried to hide great wounds. A bicycle courier, speeding back with
messages, set us right again when we lost our way in the deepening
darkness; but it was black night when we entered our first objective on
the great road.
A private directed us to the officers' mess. Winding in and out among
the shattered buildings, we threaded our way to an old bomb-proof. As
I came out of the night, even the flicker of the candles in the dark,
cellar-like room blinded me. When my vision cleared, I saw approaching
me a young officer who had risen from the head of the table; he was the
"town major," the officer in charge of the village. With his hands he
made a vise and gripped my shoulders, as he said, like one in a dream,
"Poling, what are you doing here?" and, reaching back a half-dozen
years, I cried, "_Pat!_" It was Lieutenant Robert C. Patterson, of
Huntington, Ind.,--but it was not as "Lieutenant Patterson" that I
addressed him.
We met first at a young people's conference at Winona Lake. He
was president of the Christian Endeavor society and teacher of
a Sunday-school class in the Presbyterian church at home, an
exceptionally alert and vigorous young man. Out under the trees early
one morning we talked about the gravest problem a man ever faces,
"Where shall I put my life?" Since those days at Winona Lake I had not
seen him. He had experienced many changes, enlisting at twenty-one,
three years before our meeting in France; and, when the challenge of a
vast military need had become unmistakable to him, he had seen service
first at Panama. Later he had been assigned to duty at home; and in
July, 1917, his eager eyes were among the first in our expeditionary
army to see the shores of bleeding, glorious France. His advancement
had been rapid, from private to sergeant, and from sergeant to a
commission. He was wearing the silver bar of a first lieutenant
when we gripped each other "over there," but before I saw again the
lights off Sandy Hook--and my return was not long delayed after our
meeting--he was made a captain.
We did not eat. In his billet we sat on his bunk and talked. We
travelled fast and far in a few minutes. Things and times had changed
since we last talked together by the quiet lake in Indiana, but some
things never change; we talked about those things that are the same
yesterday, to-day, and forever.
But Barnes was becoming impatient; there were long miles to go yet, and
much work was to be done. The machine had arrived and was waiting, and
machines look better under way than parked on the line.
"Pat" said a few things quietly, and then opened his tunic and took out
of a deep pocket a well-worn leather case. In it was the first Croix
de Guerre given by the French government to an American officer after
the entry of the United States into the war. With it was the official
citation telling of the high courage and determination which won the
coveted cross of honor. "Take it back; deliver it in person," he said.
You have not forgotten the story of the first little affair suffered by
Americans in the trenches, the story of the barrage, the trench raid,
the taking of three prisoners, and the offering of America's first
strong lives upon the altar of freedom. You will never forget the young
officer who in that "violent bombardment," when communications were
cut and re-enforcements held back, conquered the shell-fire to make
his report, and then "carried on" until the black morning was over.
America's first Croix de Guerre never left its place by the side of my
passport and movement orders, pressed close against my body, until the
last inch of treacherous Atlantic was behind me.
But to me it speaks of the _other soldier_, not the one I left out
there by the battle road under the shell-illumined sky of St. Mihiel,
not the one in muddy uniform with the old-young face of a veteran and
the insignia of the army of the republic; but that other soldier who
gave his heart's full allegiance to the Captain of the great salvation,
and who now, in the far, stern place his quest of richer, fuller life
has called him to, keeps the faith. As these lines are being written,
there lies before me a letter from the mother of Captain Patterson;
and in it I read, "It was through his interest in our local Christian
Endeavor society that he became a member of the church when he was
thirteen years old."
Out from the International Headquarters of the Christian Endeavor
movement floats a service flag with 140 stars upon it, and every star
represents 1,000 men--140,000 young Endeavorers now with the colors in
France or in training-camps preparing to go--140,000 young men from
the churches of the United States who have not "failed to hear the call
of highest patriotism." Long ere these words will find themselves upon
the printed page the 140,000 will have become 150,000, and, if the end
of this red pilgrimage be not soon reached, the three hundred thousand
Endeavorers of military age, and their as yet uncounted brothers, will
have found their places in the trenches or behind them, and on the
ships of the sea.
How quickly they came! From my own local union six officers enlisted
within a few weeks; before I left for France twenty-three State
presidents, active or past, were in training; and a great city union,
that of Des Moines, found itself without a young man left on the
executive committee. Within the first year of the war Illinois and
Ohio recorded more than five Christian Endeavorers in service for
every society. A census of Camp Hancock taken in early December, 1917,
revealed the fact that ten per cent of the men in training there at
that time were Christian Endeavorers.
On no day in France did I look in vain for Christian Endeavorers, and
no group that I met there was so small that it did not contain them. My
visit with Patterson that night was only the beginning, or rather it
was a high point, in a day of continuous Christian Endeavor fellowship.
In every Y. M. C. A. hut I was greeted by Christian Endeavorers under
helmets and with gas-masks, at attention. What a fine little group that
was from Maine! And then there was the brother of a president of the
Oklahoma union.
In one "hut," after the gas-warning which came while I was speaking had
been recalled, a Christian Endeavorer took me to the rise from which an
exceptional view of the flares from the guns could be seen. The night
was crowded with great trucks bearing supplies and ammunition along the
midnight roads. Without lights, and forbidden to use their horns, those
unsung, unseen heroes crept along, passing files of soldiers, soldiers
marching in and soldiers marching out, facing the risk of the shells
that death drops suddenly from the sky to open chasms in the way or to
strew horses and men in wide windrows under the ghostly trees. And on
many a high seat and behind many a truck-wheel I found my brethren that
night.
In another hut I was greeted by William E. Sweet, former president of
the Colorado union. He sat on a cracker-box, and told me that Christian
Endeavor made him, that he is president of the Young Men's Christian
Association in Denver, that he is in France, that he is all that he is
trying to be as a Christian, under God, because of Christian Endeavor.
At ten o'clock that night we turned off the main road, and in a dense
growth came upon the last hut within the zone of constant shell-fire.
It was strangely quiet. After heavy knocking the door was cautiously
opened, and a familiar face peered out at us above a flickering candle.
[Illustration: AMERICAN INFANTRY RESTING, APPROACHING THE FRONT IN
FRANCE
From a photograph copyrighted by the Committee on Public Information.
From Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.]
"Early to bed and early to rise?" questioned Barnes.
"No," a big voice replied. "Nothing doing here to-night. The boys are
all up on the line. Looks like a 'party.' They were ordered away early
and in a hurry."
While he spoke, the chap with the candle had been inspecting me, and
introductions were hardly begun before we knew each other; it was Rev.
Mr. Sykes, formerly president of the Minnesota Christian Endeavor
union, and as vigorous a Christian as ever demonstrated the manhood of
the Master. There in the woods I left him under a sky whose paths are
crowded with iron messengers of death, making a little bit of heaven
for hundreds of men who tread daily the places of a man-made hell.
Our pace was more rapid now; we ran with lights from the last hut. In
twenty minutes we were in brigade headquarters, where in the morning
we had registered and secured our passes. I thought again of the major
who in arranging our papers had shown attention to certain details
that concerned the safety and comfort of the private soldier. His
consideration had particularly impressed me. Democracy differs from
Autocracy in more ways than one when she goes to war.
Brigade headquarters was just out of the zone of shell-fire--not
that guns of large caliber could not have reached it, but the German
front opposite it had thus far been satisfied with visiting aërial
bombardments upon it. Half a dozen open mines behind the village
testified to the poor aim but clear intention of an aviator who the day
before had sought to destroy its warehouses.
As we drew away from the slumbering but well-guarded town, off at the
right, dimly outlined against the swelling bosom of the hill, I saw
white crosses. With arms outreaching they stood above our new-made
graves. In the distance could still be heard the voices of the guns,
and the leaden sky grew rosy where the great shells broke.
We were only a few minutes late for our midnight supper. I pulled
off my mud-laden boots in a daze. I had lived, it seemed, a thousand
years in fifteen hours. What a Christian Endeavor tour it had been!
Into a dozen States it had carried me, and back to a hundred choice
and stirring memories. I crept into my blankets with a mixture of
emotions no mortal can analyze, but in it was unspeakable gratitude to
the blessed boys who are the supermen of our American citizenship, the
torch-bearers of civilization, the road-makers of Christian peace.