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25 chapters
1918
1918
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword, His Truth is marching on.” —Battle Hymn of the Republic T his book is made up of articles written abroad in the spring and summer of 1918 and cabled or mailed back for publication at home. For convenience in arrangement, a few of these papers have been broken up into sectional subdivisions with new chapte
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CHAPTER I. WHEN THE SEA-ASP STINGS
CHAPTER I. WHEN THE SEA-ASP STINGS
B ECAUSE she was camouflaged with streaky marks and mottlings into the likeness of a painted Jezebel of the seas, because she rode high out of the water, and wallowed as she rode, because during all those days of our crossing she hugged up close to our ship, splashing through the foam of our wake as though craving the comfort of our company, we called her things no self-respecting ship should have to bear. But when that night, we stood on the afterdeck of our ship, we running away as fast as our
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CHAPTER II. “ALL AMURIKIN—OUT TO THEM WIRES”
CHAPTER II. “ALL AMURIKIN—OUT TO THEM WIRES”
H E was curled up in a moist-mud cozy corner. His curved back fitted into a depression in the clay. His feet rested comfortably in an ankle-deep solution, very puttylike in its consistency, and compounded of the rains of heaven and the alluvials of France. His face was incredibly dirty, and the same might have been said for his hands. He had big buck teeth and sandy hair and a nice round inquisitive blue eye. His rifle, in good order, was balanced across his hunched knees. One end of a cigarette
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CHAPTER III. HELL'S FIRE FOR THE HUNS
CHAPTER III. HELL'S FIRE FOR THE HUNS
T HE surroundings were as French as French could be, but the supper tasted of home. We sat at table, two of us being correspondents and the rest of us staff officers of a regiment of the Rainbow Division; and the orderlies brought us Hamburger steak richly perfumed with onion, and good hot soda biscuit, and canned tomatoes cooked with cracker crumbs and New Orleans molasses, and coffee, and fried potatoes; and to end up with there were genuine old-fashioned doughnuts—“fried holes,” the Far Weste
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CHAPTER IV. ON THE THRESHOLD OF BATTLE
CHAPTER IV. ON THE THRESHOLD OF BATTLE
W E left Paris at an early hour of March 25, which was the morning of the fourth day of perhaps the greatest battle in the history of this or any other war, and of the third day of the bombardment of Paris by the long-range steel monster which already had become famous as the latest creation of the Essen workshops. There were three of us and no more—Raymond Carroll, Martin Green and I. To each of the three the present excursion was in the nature of a reunion. For more than six years we held down
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CHAPTER V. SETTING A TRAP FOR OPPORTUNITY
CHAPTER V. SETTING A TRAP FOR OPPORTUNITY
H AD we waited that night for Opportunity to knock at our door I am inclined to think we might be waiting yet. We went out and we set a trap for Opportunity, and we caught her. No matter how or whence, the chance we coveted for a lift to the battle came to us before the night was many hours old. But before the design assumed shape we were to meet as blithe a young Britisher as ever I have seen, in the person of one Captain Pepper, a red-cheeked Yorkshireman in his early twenties, a fit and prope
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CHAPTER VI. THROUGH THE BATTLE'S FRONT DOOR
CHAPTER VI. THROUGH THE BATTLE'S FRONT DOOR
I MMEDIATELY after breakfast, in accordance with a plan already formulated, we quietly took possession of one of those small American-made cars, the existence of which has been responsible for the addition of an eighth joke to the original seven jokes in the world. We didn't know it then, but for us the real adventure was just starting. There were four of us in the flivver—the driver, a young American in uniform, whose duties were of such a nature that he travelled on a roving commission and nee
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CHAPTER VII. AT THE FRONT OF THE FRONT
CHAPTER VII. AT THE FRONT OF THE FRONT
W HEN the last preceding chapter of mine ended I had reached a point in the narrative where our little party of four, travelling in our own little tin flivverette, were just leaving Blérincourt, being bound still farther west and aiming, if our abiding luck held out, to reach the front of the Front—which, I may add, we did. To be exact we were leaving not one Blérincourt but three. First, Blérincourt, the town, with its huddle of villagers' homes, housing at this moment only French troopers and
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CHAPTER VIII. A BRIDGE AND AN AUTOMOBILE TIRE
CHAPTER VIII. A BRIDGE AND AN AUTOMOBILE TIRE
C URIOUSLY enough there was at this moment and at this place no return fire from the enemy. From this we deduced that the infantry in their impetuous onrush had so far outtravelled the heavy and more cumbersome arms of their service that the artillery had not caught up yet. However, a little later projectiles from hostile field pieces began to drop on our side of the stream. Halfway of the length of the street our car halted. It did not seem the part of wisdom for the four of us to go ahead in a
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CHAPTER IX. ACES UP!
CHAPTER IX. ACES UP!
I NSIDE the German lines at the start of the war I met Ingold, then the first ace of the German aërial outfit; only the Germans did not call them aces in those days of the beginnings of things. The party to which I was attached spent the better part of a day as guests of Herr Hauptmann Ingold and his mates. Later we heard of his death in action aloft. Coming over for this present excursion I crossed on the same steamer with Bishop of Canada—a major of His Britannic Majesty's forces at twenty-two
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CHAPTER X. HAPPY LANDINGS
CHAPTER X. HAPPY LANDINGS
O UT of the luncheon sprang an invitation, and out of the invitation was born a trip. On a day when the atmosphere was better fitted for automobiling in closed cars than for bombings we headed away from our billets, travelling in what I shall call a general direction, there being four of us besides the sergeant who drove. Things were stirring along the Front. Miles away we could hear the battery heavies thundering and drumming, and once in a lull we detected the hammering staccato of a machine g
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CHAPTER XI. TRENCH ESSENCE
CHAPTER XI. TRENCH ESSENCE
W HEN our soldiers arrive on foreign soil, almost invariably, so it has seemed to me watching them, they come ashore with serious faces and for the most part in silence. Their eyes are busy, but their tongues are taking vacation. For the time being they have lost that tremendous high-powered exuberance which marks them at home, in the camps and the cantonments, and which we think is as much a part of the organism of the optimistic American youth as his hands and his legs are. I noticed this thin
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CHAPTER XII. BEING BOMBED AND RE-BOMBED
CHAPTER XII. BEING BOMBED AND RE-BOMBED
A S I GO to and fro in the land I some-times wonder why the Germans keep a-picking on me. As heaven is my judge I tried to tell the truth about them and their armies when I was with them; but then, maybe that's the reason. At any rate I am here to testify that whenever I stop at a place in England or France either a battery of long-range guns shells it or else a hostile aëroplane happens along and bombs the town. The thing is more than a coincidence. It is getting to be a habit, an unhealthy hab
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CHAPTER XIII. LONDON UNDER RAID-PUNISHMENT
CHAPTER XIII. LONDON UNDER RAID-PUNISHMENT
O F all city dwellers I am sure the Londoner is the most orderly and the most capable of self-government, as he likewise is the most phlegmatic. Because of these common traits among the masses of the populace an air raid over London, considering its potential possibilities for destruction, is comparatively an unexciting episode everywhere in the metropolis, save and except only in those districts of the East End where the bulk of the foreign-born live. There, on the first wail of the shrieking s
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CHAPTER XIV. THE DAY OF BIG BERTHA
CHAPTER XIV. THE DAY OF BIG BERTHA
T HERE was mingled comedy and woe in the scenes at Paris on the memorable day when the great long-distance gun—which the Parisians promptly christened “Big Bertha” in tribute to the titular mistress the Krupp works where it was produced—first opened upon the city from seventy-odd miles away and thereby established, among other records, a precedent for distance and scope in artillery bombardments. Paris was in a fit mood for emotion. The people were on edge; their nerves tensed, for there had bee
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CHAPTER XV. WANTED: A FOOL-PROOF WAR
CHAPTER XV. WANTED: A FOOL-PROOF WAR
T HERE was a transportload of newly made officers coming over for service here in France. There was on board one gentleman in uniform who bore himself, as the saying goes, with an air. By reason of that air and by reason of a certain intangible atmospheric something about him difficult to define in words he seemed intent upon establishing himself upon a plane far remote from and inaccessible to these fellow voyagers of his who were crossing the sea to serve in the line, or to act as interpreters
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CHAPTER XVI. CONDUCTING WAR BY DELEGATION
CHAPTER XVI. CONDUCTING WAR BY DELEGATION
P LEASE do not think that because I have mainly dwelt thus far upon the women offenders that there are no American men in France who do not belong here, because that would be a wrong assumption. I merely have mentioned the women first because by reason of their military garbing—or what some of them fondly mistake for military garbing—they offer rather more conspicuous showing to the casual eye than the male civilian dress. The men are abundantly on hand though; make no mistake about that! Some o
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CHAPTER XVII. YOUNG BLACK JOE
CHAPTER XVII. YOUNG BLACK JOE
Y OU rode along a highroad that was built wide and ran straight, miles on, and through a birch forest that was very dense and yet somehow very orderly, as is the way with French highroads, and with French forests, too, and after a while you came to where the woods frazzled away from close-ranked white trunks into a fringing of lacy undergrowth, all giddy and all gaudy with wild flowers of many a colour. Here, in a narrow clearing that traversed the thickets at right angles to the course you had
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CHAPTER XVIII. “LET'S GO!”
CHAPTER XVIII. “LET'S GO!”
T HE most illuminating insight of all, into the strengthened ambition which animated the rank and file of the Old Fifteenth was vouchsafed to us as we three, following along behind the tall shape of the Colonel, rounded a corner of a trench and became aware of a soldier who sat cross-legged upon his knees with his back turned to us and was so deeply intent upon the task in hand that he never heeded our approach at all. On a silent signal from our guide we tiptoed near so we could look downward o
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CHAPTER XIX. WAR AS IT ISN'T
CHAPTER XIX. WAR AS IT ISN'T
T HREE of us, correspondents, had gone up with a division of ours that was taking over one of the Picardy sectors. The French, moved out by degrees as we by degrees moved in. On the night when we actually came into the front lines two of us slept—or tried to—in a house of a village perhaps a mile and a half behind the forward trenches. The third man went on perhaps a half mile nearer the trouble zone with a battalion of an infantry regiment that on the morrow would relieve some sorely battered p
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CHAPTER XX. THE CALL OF THE CUCKOO
CHAPTER XX. THE CALL OF THE CUCKOO
S EEKING for the thrills that experience had taught me would nevertheless probably not be forthcoming anywhere in this so-called quiet sector, I went that same day with a young American officer to a forward post of command, which was another name for a screened pit dug in the scalp of a fair-sized hillock, immediately behind our foremost rifle pits. Sitting here upon the tops of our steel helmets, which the same make fairly good perches to sit on when the ground is muddied, we could look through
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CHAPTER XXI. PARADOXES BEHIND THE LINES
CHAPTER XXI. PARADOXES BEHIND THE LINES
W HILE I am on the subject of unusual phases of modern warfare I should like to include just one more thing in the list—and that thing is the suddenness with which in France, and likewise in Belgium, one in going forward passes out of an area of peacefulness into an area of devastation and destruction. Almost invariably the transition is accomplished with a startling abruptness. It is as though a mighty finger had scored a line across the face of the land and said; “On this side of the line life
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CHAPTER XXII. THE TAIL OF THE SNAKE
CHAPTER XXII. THE TAIL OF THE SNAKE
T HE deadlier end of a snake is the head end, where the snake carries its stingers. Since something happened in the Garden of Eden this fact has been a matter of common knowledge, giving to all mankind for all time respect for the snake and fear of him. But what not everybody knows is that before a constrictor can exert his squeezing powers to the uttermost degree he must have a dependable grip for his tail, else those mighty muscles of his are impotent; because a snake, being a physical thing,
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CHAPTER XXIII. BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW
CHAPTER XXIII. BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW
T AKE any separate project along our line of communication. Pick it out at random. It makes no difference which particular spot you choose; you nevertheless are morally sure to find stationed there a man or a group of men who have learned to laugh at the problem of making bricks without straw. If put to it they could make monuments out of mud pies. Brought face to face with conditions and environments that were entirely new to their own experience, and confronted as they were at the outset by th
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CHAPTER XXIV. FROM MY OVERSEAS NOTE-BOOK
CHAPTER XXIV. FROM MY OVERSEAS NOTE-BOOK
B LOWS with a hammer may numb one, but it is the bee-sting that quickens the sensibilities to a realisation of what is afoot. That is why, I suppose, the mighty thing called war is for me always summed up in small, incidental but outstanding phases of it. In its complete aspect it is too vast to be comprehended by any one mind or any thousand minds; but by piecing together the lesser things, one after a while begins in a dim groping fashion to get a concept of the entirety. When I went up to Ypr
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