SILHOUETTES OF SONG_Soldier silhouettes on our front

The great transport was cutting its sturdy way through three dangers:

the submarine zone, a terrific storm beating from the west against its

prow, and a night as dark as Erebus because of the storm, with no

lights showing.

I had the midnight-to-four-o'clock-in-the-morning "watch" and on this

night I was on the "aft fire-control." Below me on the aft gun-deck,

as the rain pounded, the wind howled, and the ship lurched to and fro,

I could see the bulky forms of the boy gunners. There were two to each

gun, two standing by, with telephone pieces to their ears, and six

sleeping on the deck, ready for any emergency. The greatcoats made

them look like gaunt men of the sea as they huddled against their guns,

watching, waiting. I wondered what they could see in that impenetrable

darkness, if a U-boat could even survive in that storm; but Uncle Sam

never sleeps in these days, and this transport was especially worth

watching, for it carried a precious cargo of wounded officers and men

back to the homeland, west bound.

For an hour I had heard no sound from the boys on the gun-deck below

me. When I was on watch in the daylight I knew them to be just a great

crowd of fine, buoyant, happy American lads, full of pranks and play

and laughter, but they were strangely silent to-night as the ship

ploughed through the storm. The storm seemed to have made men of them.

They were just boys, but American boys in these days become men

overnight, and acquit themselves like men.

I watched their silent forms below me with a great feeling of

wonderment and pride. The ship lurched as it swung in its zigzag

course. Then suddenly I heard a sweet sound coming from one of the

boys below me. I think that it was big, raw-boned "Montana" who

started it. It was low at first and, with the storm and the vibrations

of the ship, I could not catch the words. The music was strangely

familiar to me. Then the boy on the port gun beside "Montana" took the

old hymn up, and then the two reserve gunners who were standing by, and

then the gunners on the starboard side, and I caught the old words of:

"Jesus, Saviour, pilot me

Over life's tempestuous sea;

Unknown waves before me roll

Hiding rock and treacherous shoal;

Chart and compass came from Thee;

Jesus, Saviour, pilot me."

Above the creaking and the vibrations of the great ship, above the

beating of the storm, the gunners on the deck below, all unconsciously,

in that storm-tossed night were singing the old hymn of their memories,

and I think that I never heard that wonderful hymn when it sounded

sweeter to me than it did then, as the second verse came sweetly from

the lips and hearts of those gunners:

"As a mother stills her child

Thou canst hush the ocean wild;

Boistrous waves obey Thy will

When Thou sayst to them, 'Be still.'

Wondrous Sovereign of the sea,

Jesus, Saviour, pilot me."

We hear a good deal of how our boys sing "Hail! Hail! The Gang's All

Here" and "Where Do We Go From Here, Boys?" as a ship is sinking. I

know American soldiers pretty well. I do not know what they sang when

the _Tuscania_ went down, but I am glad to add my picture to the other

and to say that I for one heard a crowd of American gunners singing

"Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me Over Life's Tempestuous Sea." The mothers

and fathers of America must know that the average American boy will

have the lighter songs at the end of his lips, but buried down deep in

his heart there is a feeling of reverence for the old hymns, and

whether he sings them aloud or not they are there singing in his heart;

and sometimes, under circumstances such as I have described, he sings

them aloud in the darkness and the storm.

If you do not believe this because you have been told so often by

magazine correspondents, who see only the surface things, that all the

boys sing is ragtime, let Bishop McConnell, of the Methodist Episcopal

Church, tell you of that Sunday evening when, at the invitation of

General Byng, he addressed, under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A., a

great regiment of the Scottish Guards. That night, in a

shell-destroyed stone theatre, he spoke to them on "How Men Die." In a

week from that night more than two-thirds of them had been killed.

When Bishop McConnell asked them what they would like to sing, this

great crowd of sturdy, bare-kneed soldiers of democracy, who had borne

the brunt of battle for three years, asked for "O God, Our Help in Ages

Past."

Yes, I know that the boys sing the rag-time, but this must not be the

only side of the picture. They sing the old hymns, too, and memories

of nights "down the line," when I have heard them in small groups and

in great crowds singing the old, old hymns of the church, have burned

their silhouettes into my memory never to die.

One night I remember being stopped by a sentry at "Dead Man's Curve,"

because the Boche was shelling the curve that night, and we had to stop

until he "laid off," as the sentry told us. Between shells there was a

great stillness on the white road that lay like a silver thread under

the moonlight. The shattered stone buildings, with a great cathedral

tower standing like a gaunt ghost above the ruins, were tragically

beautiful under that mellow light. One almost forgot there was war

under the charm of that scene until "plunk! plunk! plunk!" the big

shells fell from time to time. But the thing that impressed me most

that waiting hour was not the beauty of the village under the

moonlight, but the fact that the lone sentry who had stopped us, and

who amid the shelling stood silently, was unconsciously singing an old

hymn of the church, "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me." I got down from my

truck and walked over to where he was standing.

"Great old hymn, isn't it, lad?"

"I'll say so," was his laconic reply.

"Belong to some church back home?" I asked him.

"Folks do; Presbyterians," he replied.

"Like the old hymns?" I asked.

"Yes, it seems like home to sing 'em."

I didn't get to talk with him for a few minutes, for he had to stop

another truck. Then he came back.

"Folks at home, Sis and Bill and the kid, mother and father, used to

gather around the piano every Sunday evening and sing 'em. Didn't

think much of them then, but liked to sing. But they mean a lot to me

over here, especially when I'm on guard at nights on this 'Dead Man's

Curve.' Seems like they make me stronger." As I walked away I still

heard him humming "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me."

One of the most vivid song silhouettes that I remember is that of a

great crowd of negroes singing in a Y. M. C. A. hut. There must have

been a thousand of them. I was to speak to them on "Lincoln Day." I

remember how their white teeth shone through the semidarkness of that

candle-lighted hut, and how their eyes gleamed, and how their bodies

swayed as they sang the old plantation melodies.

The first song startled me with the universality of its simple

expression. It was an adaptation of that old melody which the negroes

have sung for years, "It's the Old-Time Religion."

A boy down front led the singing. A curt "Sam, set up a tune," from

the Tuskegee colored secretary started it.

This boy sat with his back to the audience. He didn't even turn around

to face them. Low and sweetly he started singing. You could hardly

hear him at first. Then a few boys near him took up the music. Then a

few more. Then it gradually swept back over that crowd of men until

every single negro was swaying to that simple music, and then it was

that I caught the almost startlingly appropriate words:

"It is good for a world in trouble;

It is good for a world in trouble;

And it's good enough for me.

It's the old-time religion;

And it's good enough for me.

It was good for my old mother;

And it's good enough for me."

Then much to my astonishment they did something that I have since

learned is the very way that these songs grew from the beginning. They

extemporized a verse for the day, and they did it on the spot. I made

absolutely certain of that by careful investigation. They sang this

extra verse:

"It was good for ole Abe Lincoln;

It was good for ole Abe Lincoln;

And it's good enough for me."

"That first verse, 'It is good for a world in trouble,' is certainly a

most appropriate one for these times in France," I said aside to the

secretary.

"Yes," he replied; "if ever this pore ole worl' needed the sustainin'

power of the religion of the Christ, it does now; an' if ever this pore

ole worl' was in trouble, that time suttinly is right now," he added

with fervor.

And now I can never think of the world, nor of the folks back here at

home, nor of the millions of our boys over there that I do not hear the

sweet voices of that crowd of negroes singing reverently and fervently:

"It is good for a world in trouble;

It is good for a world in trouble;

And it's good enough for me."

Another Silhouette of Song that stands out against the background of

memory is that of a hymn that I heard in Doctor Charles Jefferson's

church just before I sailed for France. I was lonely. I walked into

that great city church a stranger, as thousands of boys who have sailed

from New York have done. I never remember to have been so unutterably

lonely and homesick. It was cold in the city, and I was alone. I

turned to a church. Thousands of boys have done the same, may the

mothers and fathers of America know, and they have found comfort. If

the parents of this great nation could know how well their boys are

guarded and cared for in New York City before they sail, they would

have a feeling of comfort.

I sat down in this great church. I was thinking more of other Sabbath

mornings at home, with my wife and baby, than anything else. A hymn

was announced. I stood up mechanically, but there was no song in my

throat. There was a great lump of loneliness only. But suddenly I

listened to the words they were singing. Had they selected that hymn

just for me? It seemed so. It so answered the loneliness in my heart

with comfort and quiet. That great congregation was singing:

"Peace, perfect peace;

With loved ones far away;

In Jesus' keeping, we are safe; and they."

A great sense of peace settled over my heart, and I have quoted that

old hymn all over France to the boys, and they have been comforted.

Many a boy has asked me to write him a copy of that verse to stick in

his note-book. It seemed to give a sense of comfort to the lads, for

their loved ones, too, were "far away," and since I have come home I

find that this, too, comes as a great comfort hymn to those who are

here lonely for their boys "over there."

And who shall forget the silhouette of approaching the shores of France

by night as they have sailed down along the coast, cautiously and

carefully, to find the opening of the submarine nets? Who shall forget

the sense of exhilaration that the news that land was near brought?

Who shall forget the crowding to the railings by all on board to scan

anxiously through the night for the first sight of land? Then who

shall forget seeing that first light from shore flash out through the

darkness of night? Who shall forget the red and green and white lights

that began to twinkle, and gleam, and flash, and signal, and call? How

beautiful those lights looked after the long, dangerous, eventful, and

dark voyage, without a single light showing on the ship! And who shall

forget the man along the railing who said, "I never knew before the

meaning of that old song, 'The Lights Along the Shore'"? And then, who

can forget the fact that suddenly somebody started to sing that old

hymn, "The Lights Along the Shore," and of how it swept along the lower

decks, and then to the upper decks, until a whole ship-load of people

was singing it? And then who shall forget how somebody else started

"Let the Lower Lights Be Burning"? Can such scenes ever be obliterated

from one's memory? No, not forever. That silhouette remains eternally!

Five great transports were in. They were lined up along the docks in

the locks. A Y. M. C. A. secretary was standing on the docks yelling

up a word of welcome to the crowded railings of the great transports.

The boats were not "cleared" as yet. It would take an hour, and the

secretary knew that something must be done, so he started to lead first

one ship and then another in singing.

"What shall we sing, boys?" he would shout up to them from the docks

below. Some fellow from the railing yelled, "Keep the Home Fires

Burning," and that fine song rang out from five thousand throats. I

have heard it sung in the camps at home, I have heard it sung in great

huts in France, but I never heard it when it sounded so significant and

so sweet in its mighty volume as it sounded coming from that great

khaki-lined transport, which had just landed an hour before in France.

I stood beside the song-leader there on the docks looking up at that

great mass of American humanity, a hundred feet above us, so far away

that we could not recognize individual faces, on the high decks of one

of the largest ships that sails the seas, and as that sweet song of war

swept out over the docks and across the white town, and back across the

Atlantic, I said to myself: "That volume sounds as if it could make

itself heard back home."

The man beside me said: "The folks back home hear it all right, for

they are eagerly listening for every sound that comes from that crowd

of boys. Yes, the folks back home hear it, and they'll 'keep the home

fires burning' all right. God bless them!"

The last Silhouette of Song stands out against a background of green

trees and spring, and the odor of a hospital, and Red Cross nurses

going and coming, and boys lying in white robes everywhere. My friend

the song-leader had gone with me to hold the vesper service in the

hospital. Then we visited in the wards in order to see those who were

so severely wounded that they could not get to the service.

There was a little group of men in one room. The first thing I knew my

friend had them singing. At first they took to it awkwardly. Then

more courageously. Then sweetly there rang through the hospital the

strains of "My Daddy Over There."

It melted my heart, for I have a baby girl at home who says to the

neighbors, "My daddy is the prettiest man in the world," and believes

it. I said to Cray: "Why did you sing that particular song?"

"Oh," he replied, "my baby's name is 'Betty,' and I found a guy whose

baby's name is 'Betty' too, and we had a sort of club formed; and

another guy had a baby boy, and then I just thought they'd like to sing

'My Daddy Over There.' But we ended up with 'Jesus, Lover of My Soul,'

so that ought to suit you."

"Suit me, man? Why I got a 'Betty' baby of my own, and that 'Daddy

Over There' song you sang is the sweetest thing I've heard in France,

and it will help those daddies more than a hymn would. I'm glad you

got them to singing."

And now I'm back home, and I thought the Silhouettes of Song were all

over, but I stepped into a church the other Sunday. Up high above the

sacred altars of that church fluttered a beautiful silk service flag.

It was starred in the shape of a letter "S." In the circle of each "S"

was a red cross. The church had two members in the Red Cross. Above

the "S" and below it were two red triangles. The church had men in the

service of the Y. M. C. A. Then grouped about the "S" were the stars

of boys in the service.

As I looked up at this cross a flood of memories swept over me. I

could not keep back the tears. All the love, all the loneliness, all

the heartache, all the pride, all the hope of the folks at home, their

reverence, their loyalty, was summed up in that flag. I stood to sing,

my eyes brimming with tears. The great congregation started that

beautifully sweet hymn that is being sung all over America in the

churches in loving memory of the boys over there:

"God save our splendid men,

Send them safe home again,

God save our men.

Make them victorious,

Patient and chivalrous,

They are so dear to us,

God save our men.

God keep our own dear men,

From every stain of sin,

God keep our men.

When Satan would allure,

When tempted, keep them pure,

Be their protection sure--

God keep our men.

God hold our precious men,

And love them to the end.

God hold our men.

Held in Thine arms so strong

To Thee they all belong.

This ever be our song:

God hold our men."

I stood the pressure until that great congregation came to that line

"They are so dear to us," and the voice of the mother beside me broke,

and she had to stop. Then I had to stop, too, and we looked at each

other through our tears and smiled and understood, so that when she

sweetly said, "I have a boy over there," her words were superfluous.

And so I have added another memory of song to the hours that will never

die.