Golden Lads Part 14

Nous sommes tous la, le dos courbee Crack! Encore un obus.

Les shrapnels pour nous divetir, Au travail, nous font deguerpir.

Mais, et qui nous ennuie le plus, Crack! se sont les obus.

II

L'abri termine, 'l Faut aller l'occuper, Sans facons.

Allez-donc.

Pas moyen d' se bouger Donc, on doit y rester Accroupi, Jour et nuit, Pendant la chaleur, Pour pa.s.ser vingt-quatr' heures.

On nous donn' une d'mi gourde de cafe.

La soif nous tourmente, Et la poudre asphyxiante, Nous etouffe au dessus du marche.

III

Malgre nos souffrances, Nous gardons l'esperance D' voir le jour, De notr' retour De r'trouver nos parents, Nos femmes et nos enfants.

Plein de joie, Oui ma foi, Mais pour arriver, A ce jour tant reve, Nous devons tous y mettre du coeur, C'est avec patience, Et plein de confiance, Que nous repouss'rons les oppresseurs.

Refrain

Pour cha.s.ser ces maudits All'mands Crack! Il faut des obus.

En plein dedans mon commandant, Crack! Encore des obus.

Et la baionnett' dans les reins, Nous les cha.s.s'rons au dela du Rhin.

La victoire des Allies s'ra due A la valse des obus.

_There is little value in telling of suffering unless something can be done about it. So I close this book with an appeal for help in a worthy work._

REMAKING FRANCE

There was a young peasant farmer who went out with his fellows, and stopped the most powerful and perfectly equipped army of history. He saved France, and the cause of gentleness and liberty. He did it by the French blood in him--in gay courage and endurance. He was happy in doing it, or, if not happy, yet glorious. But he paid the price. The enemy artillery sent a splinter of sh.e.l.l that mangled his arm. He lay out through the long night on the rich infected soil. Then the stretcher bearers found him and lifted him to the car, and carried him to the field hospital. There they had to operate swiftly, for infection was spreading. So he was no longer a whole man, but he was still of good spirit, for he had done his bit for France. Then they bore him to a base hospital, where he had white sheets and a wholesome nurse. He lay there weak and content. Every one was good to him. But there came a day when they told him he must leave to make room for the fresher cases of need.

So he was turned loose into a world that had no further use for him. A cripple, he couldn't fight and he couldn't work, for his job needed two arms, and he had given one, up yonder on the Marne. He drifted from shop to shop in Paris. But he didn't know a trade. Life was through with him, so one day, he shot himself.

That, we learn from authoritative sources, is the story of more than one broken soldier of Joffre's army.

To be shot clean dead is an easier fate than to be turned loose into life, a cripple, who must beg his way about. Shall these men who have defended France be left to rot? All they ask is to be allowed to work.

It is gallant and stirring to fight, and when wounded the soldier is tenderly cared for. But when he comes out, broken, he faces the bitterest thing in war. After the hospital--what? Too bad, he's hurt--but there is no room in the trades for any but a trained man.

Why not train him? Why not teach him a trade? Build a bridge that will lead him from the hospital over into normal life. That is better than throwing him out among the derelicts. Pauperism is an ill reward for the service that shattered him, and it is poor business for a world that needs workers. If these crippled ones are not permitted to reconstruct their working life, the French nation will be dragged down by the mult.i.tude of maimed unemployable men, who are being turned loose from the hospitals--unfit to fight, untrained to work: a new and ever-increasing Army of The Miserable. The stout backbone and stanch spirit of even France will be snapped by this dead-weight of suffering.

In our field hospital at Fumes, we had one ward where a wave of gaiety swept the twenty beds each morning. It came when the leg of the bearded man was dressed by the nurse. He thrust it out from under the covering: a raw stump, off above the ankle. It was an old wound, gone sallow with the skin lapped over. The men in the cots close by shouted with laughter at the look of it, and the man himself laughed till he brought pain to the wound. Then he would lay hold of the sides of the bed to control his merriment. The dressing proceeded, with brisk comment from the wardful of men, and swift answers from the patient under treatment. The grim wound had so obviously made an end of the activity of that particular member and, as is war's way, had done it so evilly, with such absence of beauty, that only the human spirit could cover that hurt. So he and his comrades had made it the object of gaiety.

For legless men, there are a dozen trades open, if they are trained.

They can be made into tailors, typists, mechanicians. The soldiers'

schools, already established, report success in shoemaking, for instance. The director sends us this word:--

"From the first we had foreseen for this the greatest success--the results have surpa.s.sed our hopes. We are obliged to double the size of the building, and increase the number of professors.

"Why?

"Because, more than any other profession, that of shoemaking is the most feasible in the country, in the village, in the small hamlet. This is the one desire of most of these wounded soldiers: before everything, they wish to be able to return to their homes. And all the more if a wife and children wait them there, in a little house with a patch of garden. Out of our fifty men now learning shoemaking, twenty-nine were once st.u.r.dy farm laborers. The profession is not fatiguing and, in spite of our fears, not one of our leg-amputated men has given up his apprenticeship on account of fatigue or physical inability."

Very many of the soldiers are maimed in hand or arm. On the broad beach of La Panne, in front of the Ocean Hospital of Dr. Depage, a young soldier talked with my wife one afternoon. Early in the war his right arm had been shot through the bicep muscle. He had been sent to London, where a specialist with infinite care linked the nerves together. Daily the wounded boy willed strength into the broken member, till at last he found he could move the little finger. It was his hope to bring action back to the entire hand, finger by finger.

"You can't do anything--you can't even write," they said to him. So he met that, by schooling his left hand to write.

"Your fighting days are over," they said. He went to a shooting gallery, and with his left arm learned how to hold a rifle and aim it. Through the four months of his convalescence he practised to be worthy of the front line. The military authorities could not put up an objection that he did not meet. So he won his way back to the Yser trenches. And there he had received his second hurt and this time the enemy wounded him thoroughly. And now he was sitting on the sands wondering what the future held for him.

Spirit like that does not deserve to be broken by despair. Apparatus has been devised to supply the missing section of the arm, and such a trade as toy-making offers a livelihood. It is carried on with a sense of fun even in the absence of all previous education. One-armed men are largely employed in it. Let us enter the training shop at Lyon, and watch the work. The wood is being shot out from the sawing-machine in thin strips and planed on both sides. This is being done by a man, who used to earn his living as a packer, and suffered an amputation of his right leg. The boards are a.s.sembled in thicknesses of twenty, and cut out by a "ribbon saw." This is the occupation of a former tile layer, with his left leg gone. Others employed in the process are one-armed men.

Of carpentry the report from the men is this: "This work seems to generate good humor and liveliness. For this profession two arms are almost necessary. It can be practised by a man whose leg has been amputated, preferably the right leg, for the resting point, in handling the plane, is on the left leg. However, we cannot forget that one-armed men have achieved wonderful results."

The profits of the work are divided in full among the pupils as soon as they have reached the period of production. Each section has its individual fund box. The older members divide among themselves two thirds of the gain. The more recently trained take the remainder. The new apprentices have nothing, because they make no finished product as yet. That was the rule of the shop. But certain sections pet.i.tioned that the profits should be equally divided among all, without distinction.

They said that among the newcomers there were many as needy as the older apprentices.

The director says:

"This request came from too n.o.ble a sentiment not to be granted, especially as in this way we are certain that our pupils will see to the discipline of the workshops, being the first concerned that no one shall shirk."

He adds:

"I wish to cite an incident. One of the pupils of the group of shoemakers, having been obliged to remain over a month in the hospital, had his share fall to nothing. His comrades got together and raised among themselves a sum equal to their earnings, so that his enforced absence would not cause him to suffer any loss. These are features one is happy to note, because they reveal qualities of heart in our pupils, much to be appreciated in those who have suffered, and because they show that our efforts have contributed to keep around them an atmosphere where these qualities can develop."

The war has been ingenious in devising cruel hurts, robbing the painter of his hand, the musician of his arm, the horseman of his leg. It has taken the peasant from his farm, and the mason from his building. Their suffering has enriched them with the very quality that will make them useful citizens, if they can be set to work, if only some one will show them what to do. For each of these men there is an answer for his wrecked life, and the answer is found in these workshops where disabled soldiers can learn the new trade fitted to their crippled condition.

It costs only four to five francs a day to support the man during his period of education. The length of time of his tuition depends on the man and his trade--sometimes three months, sometimes six months. One hundred dollars will meet the average of all cases. The Americans in Paris raised $20,000 immediately on learning of this need. In our country we are starting the "American Committee for Training in Suitable Trades the Maimed Soldiers of France." Mrs. Edmund Lincoln Baylies is chairman for the United States. Her address is Room B, Plaza Hotel, New York.

We have been owing France through a hundred years for that little matter of first aid in our American Revolution. Here is an admirable chance to show we are still warmed by the love and succor she rendered us then.

At this moment 30,000 maimed soldiers are asking for work; 30,000 jobs are ready for them. The employers of France are holding the positions open, because they need these workers. Only the training is lacking.

This society to train maimed soldiers is not in compet.i.tion with any existing form of relief work: it supplements all the others--ambulances and hospitals and dressing stations. They are temporary, bridging the month of calamity. This gives back to the men the ten, twenty, thirty years of life still remaining. They must not remain the victims of their own heroism. They ask only to be permitted to go on with their work for France. They will serve in the shop and the factory as they have served at the Aisne and the Yser. This is a charity to do away with the need of charity. It is help that leads directly to self-help.

THE END

FOOTNOTES

[A] When I first published these statements the following letter appeared in the "New York Tribune":--

GERMANY'S SPY SYSTEM