"I NIBBLE THEM"
I went into the trenches. The captain was very proud of them.
"They represent the latest fashion in trenches!" he explained, smiling
faintly.
It seemed to me that I could easily have improved on that latest
fashion. The bottom was full of mud and water. Standing in the trench,
I could see over the side by making an effort. The walls were
wattled--that is, covered with an interlacing of fagots which made the
sides dry.
But it was not for that reason only that these trenches were called
the latest fashion. They were divided, every fifteen feet or so, by a
bulwark of earth about two feet thick, round which extended a
communication trench.
"The object of dividing these trenches in this manner is to limit the
havoc of shells that drop into them," the captain explained. "Without
the earth bulwark a shell can kill every man in the trench. In this
way it can kill only eight. Now stand at this end of the trench. What
do you see?"
What I saw was a barbed-wire entanglement, leading into a cul-de-sac.
"A rabbit trap!" he said. "They will come over the field there, and
because they cannot cross the entanglement they will follow it. It is
built like a great letter V, and this is the point."
The sun had gone down to a fiery death in the west. The guns were
firing intermittently. Now and then from the poplar trees came the
sharp ping of a rifle. The evening breeze had sprung up, ruffling the
surface of the water, and bringing afresh that ever-present and
hideous odour of the battlefield. Behind us the trenches showed signs
of activity as the darkness fell.
Suddenly the rabbit trap and the trench grew unspeakably loathsome and
hideous to me. What a mockery, this business of killing men! No matter
that beyond the canal there lurked the menace of a foe that had
himself shown unspeakable barbarity and resource in plotting death. No
matter if the very odour that stank in my nostrils called loud for
vengeance. I thought of German prisoners I had seen, German wounded
responding so readily to kindness and a smile. I saw them driven
across that open space, at the behest of frantic officers who were
obeying a guiding ambition from behind. I saw them herded like cattle,
young men and boys and the fathers of families, in that cruel rabbit
trap and shot by men who, in their turn, were protecting their country
and their homes.
I have in my employ a German gardener. He has been a member of the
household for years. He has raised, or helped to raise, the children,
has planted the trees, and helped them, like the children, through
their early weakness. All day long he works in the garden among his
flowers. He coaxes and pets them, feeds them, moves them about in the
sun. When guests arrive, it is Wilhelm's genial smile that greets
them. When the small calamities of a household occur, it is Wilhelm's
philosophy that shows us how to meet them.
Wilhelm was a sergeant in the German Army for five years. Now he is an
American citizen, owning his own home, rearing his children to a
liberty his own childhood never knew.
But, save for the accident of emigration, Wilhelm would to-day be in
the German Army. He is not young, but he is not old. His arms and
shoulders are mighty. But for the accident of emigration, then,
Wilhelm, working to-day in the sun among his Delphiniums and his iris,
his climbing roses and flowering shrubs, would be wearing the helmet
of the invader; for his vine-covered house he would have substituted a
trench; for his garden pick a German rifle.
For Wilhelm was a faithful subject of Germany while he remained there.
He is a Socialist. He does not believe in war. Live and help others to
live is his motto. But at the behest of the Kaiser, Wilhelm too would
have gone to his appointed place.
It was of Wilhelm then, and others of his kind, that I thought as I
stood in the end of the new-fashion trench, looking at the rabbit
trap. There must be many Wilhelms in the German Army, fathers, good
citizens, kindly men who had no thought of a place in the sun except
for the planting of a garden. Men who have followed the false gods of
their country with the ardent blue eyes of supreme faith.
I asked to be taken home.
On the way to the machine we passed a _mitrailleuse_ buried by the
roadside. Its location brought an argument among the officers.
Strategically it would be valuable for a time, but there was some
question as to its position in view of a retirement by the French.
I could not follow the argument. I did not try to. I was cold and
tired, and the red sunset had turned to deep purple and gold. The guns
had ceased. Over all the countryside brooded the dreadful peace of
sheer exhaustion and weariness. And in the air, high overhead, a
German plane sailed slowly home.
* * * * *
Sentries halted us on the way back holding high lanterns that set the
bayonets of their guns to gleaming. Faces pressed to the glass, they
surveyed us stolidly, making sure that we were as our passes described
us. Long lines of marching men turned out to let us pass. As darkness
settled down, the location of the German line, as it encircled Ypres,
was plainly shown by floating _fusées_. In every hamlet reserves were
lining up for the trenches, dark masses of men, with here and there a
face thrown into relief as a match was held to light a cigarette. Open
doors showed warm, lamp-lit interiors and the glow of fires.
I sat back in the car and listened while the officers talked together.
They were speaking of General Joffre, of his great ability, of his
confidence in the outcome of the war, and of his method, during those
winter months when, with such steady fighting, there had been so
little apparent movement. One of the officers told me that General
Joffre had put his winter tactics in three words:
"I nibble them."