On the Fringe of the Great Fight Part 18

The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Bittleson, the Colonel's batman. Bittleson had been deposed from his position as cook two days before for being dirty and careless. He now came forward with his cap on his head and saluted as only Bittleson could salute.

"Beg pardon, Sir," he hesitated with a deprecatory smile, pointing with his thumb to the kitchen door, "but Rawson aint really up to cooking stuff like this here sparrow gra.s.s--not yet. P'raps I had better take a holt."

"All right," agreed the Colonel, "are you sure you know how to cook it yourself?"

"Sure," answered Bittleson with an inflexion that spoke volumes as to his knowledge. "Why when we was at Salisbury--"

"Shut up," commanded the Colonel and Bittleson respectfully saluted and retired.

When the dinner was served we waded through our pa.s.sable soup, tough roast beef with "frits" and waited with pleasant antic.i.p.ation for the chef'd'oeuvre of the evening. The asparagus duly arrived and was placed on the table by Bittleson himself with something of a flourish.

"What the sam hill do you know about that!" said the disappointed Captain as all gazed at the plate full of white asparagus b.u.t.ts,--as hard as tent pegs. The tender edible portions had been thrown away.

The Colonel turned to Bittleson but the latter was too quick for him and had already made a strategic retreat.

"What a mess-president?" said the Captain, "Eh, what, Doc.?"

"Go to blazes," growled the Colonel, "You can't get results without tools; pa.s.s the coffee pot." And they relapsed into silence for a few moments as they severally speculated on the number of Bittlesons they knew of in the army--in all ranks.

"Well, I wonder how long this blinking war is going to last," queried the Colonel. "No signs of light on the horizon yet; Fritzy is some sticker."

"I am fed up with the whole thing," returned the Captain snapping his cigarette b.u.t.t viciously into a corner. "What are we out here for anyway; what are we fighting for; what is the whole bally business about; that is what I would like to know?"

"What did you come out for?" asked the Colonel. "You had a good position and a good future in your profession over in the States; something made you come; what was it?"

"I don't know what it was; chiefly a desire to be in the game and not be a quitter I guess; I hate the idea of my kids, if I ever have any, asking me what I had done in the great war. I went up to Forbes Bay to play golf and forget the war and suddenly found myself buying a ticket for Valcartier Camp and here I am." There was silence for a minute.

"What did you come out for Colonel?" asked the Captain.

"For adventure," replied the Colonel. "So did everybody else; anybody who says he didn't come out here for some such reason as that is a d.a.m.ned liar; don't you think so Doc.?"

"I don't think I did for one," responded the Doc., "but I wouldn't be sure; I had every inducement to stay home if any man had, congenial work, interesting hobbies, the finest woman in the world, and I hate the military game; I guess there were lots of others like myself."

"Well, what in thunder did you come for; what was the big idea?"

demanded the Colonel.

"The big idea in my case was that I thought I might be of some use in keeping our men efficient, in other words 'service,'" said the Doc.

"What is more, that is what you and the Cap. both came for if you would only admit it."

"Piffle," snapped the Colonel.

"It isn't piffle, it's the truth," a.s.serted the Doc. "Why do you feel sore now because other fellows you know haven't come out? If love of adventure brought you, there is no reason for feeling crusty because your friends haven't the same love of adventure that you have. Let them stay at home and mind their own business if they want to and can't see things as we do."

"Yes, but it's different now to what it was at first. Everybody knows we are in this fight to the death,--that if we are licked it is 'good-night'!" said the Colonel.

"You can't convince them of that in England--not all at once," argued the Cap. "The newspapers still construe every local success into a great victory, the great ma.s.s of the people think the war will be over in the autumn, and the strikers still strike!"

"Well, if they don't see the desperate nature of the affair in England how can you expect them to realize it in Canada?" questioned the Doc.

"England has air raids, bombardment of her coast towns by German raiders, ships sunk by submarines and all the evidences of a nearby war. Of course she thinks she has the money and that money will win. I guess Germany hasn't much real money but she carries on pretty well without it."

"She is like America in that respect in regard to money--thinks that the last dollar will win," answered the Cap. "It won't, its the last big army in the field that can strike at a vital point that will win this war."

"That takes money," said the Colonel.

"Yes, but hang it!" countered the Cap., "Germany can print money and keep on paying; as long as the war lasts paper money will be honored; it has to be if the Government says so. Only when the end comes and there is no gold to honor the paper will the crash come: Germany hopes to be in the position to obtain compensation when the war ends. I believe that Germany is deliberately trying to ruin the Allies and particularly England by causing them to make tremendous expenditures in gold, which is the only thing neutrals will honour; then when we are weakened in both men and money she hopes to get in her knock-out!"

"As a secondary consideration she may be trying to ruin England because she has failed to get in the knock-out blow; that is more likely," reasoned the Colonel. "She has tried hard enough to give the knock-out both in the first rush to Paris, at Ypres, at Verdun, at the battle of Jutland, and by her Zep and submarine campaigns. Hitherto she has failed. Now I believe she is carrying on in the hope that we will become exhausted and quit; they don't know the English."

"Neither does anybody else," said the Cap. angrily, "they don't know themselves. They laughed at Lord Roberts and nearly crucified him: they laughed at the German navy, at Zeppelins, at subs and at poison gas, and they paid no attention to Sir William Ramsay for kicking against American cotton going into Germany to make explosives to be used against us. Now they are having a great laugh at Pemberton Billings because he says the air service is rotten and advocates the building of thousands of aeroplanes wherewith to swamp the Germans with bombs. When he talks in Parliament, they get up and walk out of the house. That is typical of the English people as a race; they are so intolerant and so d---- conservative that even in questions of life and death they won't learn. The aeroplane is a new brand of the service and therefore they won't take it seriously and they say Billings is just a blatherskite. But you know and I know that when sixty planes went over the German lines the other night they played havoc with certain cantonments. If so why will not ten or twenty times as many planes accomplish ten or twenty times as much? It is simply a problem in mathematics. But will Englishmen see that? Not much.

'Muddle through' is their national motto and they are proud of it.

Thank G.o.d the Germans are just as stupid. If it was the United States they wouldn't play the fool in regard to new ideas, believe me."

"Rubbish," retorted the Colonel, firing up at the mention of the United States, "There is a nation with no sand; she hasn't even got gumption enough to know that other people are fighting her battles for her. She has a three-for-a-cent war on with Mexico and she can't raise 50,000 voluntary troops, while Villa sticks his fingers to his nose at them. Their only aeroplane was brought down by a Mexican revolver bullet; their fleet is a joke; they are the greatest bunch of bunco steerers in the world to-day!"

"Don't you believe it," replied the Cap. with deliberation, "I have lived in the U.S. for several years and I think I know the people.

They have the makings of a wonderful nation. They are keen as mustard and without silly antique prejudices inherited from the middle ages.

It is true, as a nation, they have something of a swelled head. But give them a chance; they will come up to the scratch some day; mark my words."

"Dollars! Dollars! Dollars! that is the American G.o.d," continued the Colonel, "like the children of Israel they worship the golden calf; they have no other ideal than to become rich, buy automobiles and 'put it over' the other fellows. The Germans spit in their faces every day and they say 'business is business' and take it. The Germans sink the Lusitania and the President sends a note advising them to be more careful in future and so it goes. Why, any decent man will strike back when he is struck by a filthy swine; even a worm will turn."

"He couldn't," objected the Cap.

"Why couldn't he," returned the Colonel. "What's the matter with him?

Is he a jelly fish?"

"Because he is the chief engineer of the nation," explained the Cap.

"He is head of a nation that is a conglomerate; it isn't yet fused; it contains fifteen to twenty millions of people of German origin. It is like running an express train. As long as the track is straight and the levers are left alone the engine will keep the tracks if he can keep his hand on the throttle and observe the signals. There are some bad signals up in the States. It is overrun with spies who know everything; the navy is in bad shape; the Mexican affair is on; they are nervous about j.a.pan and they have no army. With a publicity bureau such as the Germans have, controlling many newspapers and magazines, the enemy can do a tremendous lot to alienate public sympathy from the allied cause, and until America is touched in the quick there will be no demand for a change of conditions."

"Then the President should lead public opinion," announced the Colonel.

"Yes, and bring down the wrath of the enemy upon him; just give him time; he hasn't got that jaw for nothing; he knows history; his opportunity will come and he will rise to it. Don't you think so Doc.?"

"I don't know," said the Doc. "I used to think he had tremendous reserve power; now I'm not so sure. The President, in my opinion, made his great mistake when he failed to make a dignified protest on behalf of the violation of Belgium's neutrality. The U.S. stood for great things in the world; she was the ideal of the smaller nations to whom she was the personification of Liberty. She fell down and to-day even France shakes her head or smiles behind her hand when the name of the United States is mentioned. Yet, I feel that we cannot judge because we don't know all the facts. The best men in the United States are with us heart and soul; they feel disgraced and degraded individually and as a nation because they are forced to eat dirt; they want to go to war for they realize the European situation. Yet, we can't tell what is going on behind the scenes in the United States; we don't know all facts; the cards are not all on the table. If we knew what President Wilson knows, we might judge, but we don't. For all we know Great Britain and the other Allies may want America to keep out. The j.a.panese question may be a very ticklish one. We don't know and therefore we can't judge; that is my opinion."

"What is the feeling over there anyway?" asked the Captain.

"It was hard to determine," said the Doc. "Apparently everything was going on as usual in New York. The editorials of papers like the New York _Tribune_ and _Times_ were absolutely the finest I have ever seen showing why the United States should be in this war. On the other hand the Hearst papers and many others were antagonistic; the middle West at least is pro-German, and the South is an unknown quant.i.ty. I met many thinking men who used to be very favorable to the President but who now curse him and his typewriter. Many business men had signs hung over their desks 'Nix on the war.' They are different from English people who through their press are leading the politicians and forcing the authorities to more strenuous action. The United States on the contrary seemed to be willing to place all responsibility on the shoulders of the President and follow him. Meanwhile, he senses public opinion and plays golf. He has more power than any man in the world to-day, far more."

"And you really think they will finally come in?" asked the Colonel.

"I think they will have to; there will be no choice," answered the Doc. "If they would only realize that the British fleet is the only thing standing between them and Germany they would become panicked.

But they don't and while the British fleet protects them from the Prussian--who is out for world domination--they soak the British hundreds of per cent. profit on supplies. It is really very funny if you can see it from the humorous standpoint."

"It seems pretty rotten to me," said the Colonel, "for a nation to take everything and give nothing, while others fight for it."

"They don't know anything about Europe; they don't, as a nation, know what the war is about. As far as that goes we have nothing to sw.a.n.k about in Canada!" said the Doc.

"Canada has realized her responsibilities, anyway," put in the Colonel.

"Just exactly what she has not," contradicted the Doc, in turn waxing wroth. "What have we done anyway? Put four divisions in the field, of which two-thirds were born in Great Britain. We have somewhere about nine million people in Canada; we should get 12 per cent. of that number under a system of national service, that is nearly 1,100,000 men. They say we have recruited about 300,000 for service abroad. It isn't as if the rest were mobilized for war purposes--they are not.