The A.E.F.: With General Pershing and the American Forces Part 12

Presently we were in Arras and our officer led us into the cathedral.

"We won't stay in here long," said the officer. "The Germans drop a sh.e.l.l in here every now and then and the next one may bring the rest of the walls down. People keep away from here." This indeed seemed a very citadel of destruction and loneliness, but as we turned to go we heard a mournful noise from an inner room. We investigated and found a Tommy practicing on the cornet. He was playing a piece ent.i.tled, "Progressive Exercises for the Cornet--Number One." He stood up and saluted.

"Have the Germans bombarded the town at all today?" the captain asked.

"Yes, sir," said the Tommy. "They bombarded the square out in front here this morning."

"Did they get anybody?"

"No, sir, only a Frenchman, sir," replied the Tommy with stiff formality.

"Was there any other activity?"

"Yes, sir, there were some aeroplanes over about an hour ago and they dropped some bombs in there," said the Tommy indicating a street just back of the cathedral.

"And what were we doing?" persisted the captain.

"We were trying out some new anti-aircraft ammunition," explained the Tommy patiently, "but I don't think it was any good, sir, because most of it came down and buried itself over there," and he indicated a spot some fifteen or twenty feet from his music room.

The captain could think of no more inquiries just then and the soldier quickly folded up his cornet and his music and after saluting with decent haste left the cathedral. For the sake of his music he was willing to endure sh.e.l.ls and bombs and shrapnel fragments but questions put him off his stride entirely. He fled, perhaps, to some sh.e.l.l hole for solitude.

From the cathedral we went to the town hall. Here again one could not but be impressed with the futility of destruction. The Germans have torn the building cruelly with their sh.e.l.ls and their dynamite, but beauty is tough. Dynamite a bakeshop and you have only a mess. Sh.e.l.l a tailor's and rubbish is left. But it is different when you begin to turn your guns against cathedrals and town halls. If a structure is built beautifully it will break beautifully. The dynamite has cut fine lines in the jagged ruins of the Town Hall. The Germans have smashed everything but the soul of the building. They didn't get that. It was not for want of trying, but dynamite has its limitations.

We got up to the lines the next day and had a fine view of the opposing trench systems for ten or twelve miles. Our box seat was on top of a hill just back of Messines ridge. We saw a duel between two aeroplanes, the explosion of a munitions dump, and no end of big gun firing but the officer who conducted us said that it was a dull morning. Our day on the hill was a clear one after three days of low clouds, and all the fliers were out in force. Almost two dozen British 'planes were to be seen from the hilltop, as well as several captive balloons. Although the English 'planes flew well over the German lines, they drew no fire, but presently the sky began to grow woolly. Little round white patches appeared, one against the other, cutting the sky into great flannel figures. Then we saw above it all a 'plane so high as to be hardly visible. Indeed, we should not have seen it but for the telltale shrapnel. These were our guns, and this was no friend. Now it was almost over our heads. It seemed intent upon attacking one of the British captive balloons, which could only stand and wait. The guns were snarling now. We were close enough to hear the anger in every shot. The shrapnel broke behind, below, above and in front of the aeroplane, but on it sailed, untouched, like a gla.s.s ball in a Buffalo Bill shooting trick.

Yet here was no poor marksmanship, for at ten thousand feet the air pilot has forty seconds to dodge each sh.e.l.l. He merely has to watch the flash of the gun and then dive or rise or slide to right or left.

Sometimes, indeed, the shrapnel lays a finger on him, but he whirls away out of its grip like a quarterback in a broken field. The guns stopped firing, although the German was still above the British lines. Somebody was up to tackle him at closer range. Where our 'plane came from we did not know. The sky was filled all morning with English fliers, but each appeared to have definite work in hand, and not one paid the slightest attention to the German intruder. This was a special a.s.signment. When we caught sight of the English flier he had maneuvered into a position behind his German adversary. We caught the flashes from the machine guns, but we could hear no sound of the fight above us. The 'planes darted forward and back. They were clever little bantams, these, and neither was able to put in a finishing blow. Our stolid guiding officer was up on his toes now and rooting as if it were some sporting event in progress. Looking upward at his comrade, ten thousand feet aloft, he cried: "Let him have it!"

The hostile att.i.tude of the spectators or something else discouraged the German and he turned and made for his own lines. The Englishman pursued him for a time and then gave up the chase. The consensus of opinion was that the Briton had won the decision on points.

"They've been making a dead set for our balloons all week," said an English soldier after the German 'plane had been driven away.

"If they get the balloon does that mean that they get the observer?" I asked in my ignorance.

"Lord bless you no," said the soldier. "No danger for 'im, sir. He just jumps out with a parachute."

Next we turned our attention to the big gun firing. We could see the flash of the guns of both sides and hear the whistle of the sh.e.l.ls.

After the flash one might mark the result if he had a sharp eye. There was no trouble in following the progress of one particular British sh.e.l.l for an instant after the flash a high column of smoke arose above a town which the Germans held. A minute or so later we had our own column for a German sh.e.l.l hit one of the many munition dumps scattered about behind the British front. Our own hill was pocked with sh.e.l.l holes and the tower near which we stood was nibbled nigh to bits and we had a wakeful, stimulating feeling that almost any minute something might drop on or near us. The Tommy with whom we shared the view undeceived us.

"This hill!" he said. "Why there was a time when it was as much as your life was worth to stand up here and now the place's nothing but a bloomin' Cook's tour resort."

Our last day with the army was spent at the University of Death and Destruction where the men from England take their final courses in warfare. We began with a cla.s.s which was having a lesson in defense against bombs. A tin can exploded at the feet of a Scotchman and peppered his bare legs. Five hundred soldiers roared with laughter, for the man in the kilt had flunked his recitation in "Trench Raiding."

Officially the Scot was dead, for the tin can represented a German bomb.

They were cramming for war in the big training camp and they played roughly. The imitation bombs carried a charge of powder generous enough to insure wholesome respect. The Scot, indeed, had to retire to have a dressing made.

The trench in which the cla.s.s was hard at work was perfect in almost every detail, save that it lacked a back wall. This was removed for the sake of the audience. An instructor stood outside and every now and again he would toss a bomb at his pupils. He played no favorites. The good and the bad scholar each had his chance. In order to pa.s.s the course the soldier had to show that he knew what to do to meet the bomb attack. He might take shelter in the traverse; he might kick the bomb far away; or, with a master's degree in view, he might pick up the imitation bomb and hurl it far away before it could explode. Speed and steady nerves were required for this trick. An explosion might easily blow off a finger or two. Yet, after all, it was practice. Later there might be other bombs designed for bigger game than fingers.

We followed the students from bombs to bayonets. The men with the cold steel were charging into dummies marked with circles to represent spots where hits were likely to be vital. It looked for all the world like football practice and the men went after the dummies as the tacklers used to do at Soldiers' Field of an afternoon when the coach had pinned blue sweaters and white "Y's" on the straw men. There was the same severely serious spirit. In a larger field a big cla.s.s was having instruction in attack. Before them were three lines of trenches protected by barbed wire ankle high. At a signal they left their trench and darted forward to the next one. Here they paused for a moment and then set sail for the second trench. At another signal they were out of that and into a third trench. From here they blazed away at some targets on the hill representing Germans and consolidated their positions.

Instructors followed the charge along the road which bordered the instruction field. They mingled praise and blame, but ever they shouted for speed. "Make this go now," would be the cry, and to a luckless wight who had been upset by barbed wire and sent sprawling: "What do you mean by lying there, anyhow?"

It was a New Zealand company which I saw, and in the cla.s.s were a number of Maoris. These were fine, husky men of the type seen in the Hawaiian Islands. All played the game hard, but none seemed so imaginatively stirred by it as the Maoris. They were fairly carried away by the enthusiasm of a charge, and left their trenches each time shouting at top voice. The capture of the third trench by no means satisfied them.

They wanted to go on and on. If the officer had not called a halt there's no telling but that they might have invaded the next field and bayoneted the bombardiers. Over the hill there was a rattle of machine guns and beyond that a more scattering volume of musketry. We stopped and watched the men at their rifle practice.

"You wouldn't believe it," said the instructor, "but we've got to keep hammering it home to men that rifles are meant to shoot with. For a time you heard nothing but bayonets. A gun might have been nothing more than a pike. Later everything was bombs, and sometimes soldiers just stood and waited till the Boches got close, so that they could peg something at 'em. But when these men go away they're going to know that the bombs and the bayonet are the frill. It's the shooting that counts."

We saw a good deal of the British army during our trip but the thing which gave me the clearest insight into the fundamental fighting, sporting spirit of the army was a story which an officer told me of an incident which occurred in the sector where he was stationed. An enlisted man and an officer were trapped during a daylight patrol when a mist lifted and they had to take shelter in a sh.e.l.l hole. They lay there for some hours, and then the soldier endeavored to make a break back for his own trenches. No sooner had his head and shoulders appeared above the sh.e.l.l hole than a German machine gun pattered away at him. He was. .h.i.t and the officer started to climb up to his a.s.sistance.

"No, don't come," said the soldier. "They got me, sir." He put his hand up and indicated a wound on the left hand side of his chest. "It was a d.a.m.n good shot," he said.

CHAPTER XVII

BACK FROM PRISON

France has a better right to fight than any nation in the world because she can wage war, even a slow and bitter war, with a gesture. Misery does not blind the French to the dramatic. Even the tears and the heartache are made to count for France. We saw wounded men come back from German prison camps and Lyons made the coming of these wrecked and shattered soldiers a pageant. Gray men, grim men, silent men stood up and shouted like boys in the bleachers because there was someone there to greet them with the right word. There is always somebody in France who has that word.

This time it was a lieutenant colonel of artillery. He was a man big as Jess Willard and his voice boomed through the station like one of his own huge howitzers as he swung his arm above his head and said to the men from Germany: "I want you all to join with me in a great cry. Open your throats as well as your hearts. The cry we want to hear from you is one that you want to give because for so long a time you have been forbidden to cry 'Vive la France.'" The big man shouted as he said it, but this time the howitzer voice was not heard above the roar of other voices.

The French soldiers who came back from Germany had been for some little time in a recuperation camp in Switzerland. A few were lame, many were thin and peaked and almost all were gray, but the Lyonnaise said that this was not nearly so bad as the last train load of men from German prisons. There were no madmen this time.

The windows of the cars were crowded with faces as the train came slowly into the station. There was no shouting until the big man made his speech. Some of the returned prisoners waved their hands, but most of them greeted the soldiers and the crowds which waited for them with formal salutes. A file of soldiers was drawn up along the platform and outside the station was a squad of cavalry trying to stand just as motionless as the infantry. There were horns and trumpets inside the station and out and they blew a nipping, rollicking tune as the train rolled in. The wounded men, all but a few on stretchers, descended from the cars in military order. Lame men with canes hopped and skipped in order to keep step with their more nimble comrades.

There was an old woman in black who darted out from the crowd and wanted to throw her arms around the neck of a young soldier, but he waved to her not to come. You see she still thought of him as a boy, but that had been three years ago. He was a marching man now and it would never do to break the formation. Group by group they came from the train with a new blare of the trumpets for each unit. There were 416 French soldiers, thirty-seven French officers and seventeen Belgians. They marched past the receiving group of officers and saluted punctiliously, though it was a little bit hard because their arms were full of flowers. When they had all been gathered in the waiting room of the station the big colonel made his speech. He did not speak very long because the returned soldiers could see out of the corner of their eyes that just across the room were big tables with scores of expectant and antic.i.p.atory bottles of champagne. But there was fizz, too, to the talk of the big colonel. I had the speech translated for me afterwards but I guessed that some of it was about the Germans, for I caught the phrase "inhuman cruelty."

"You have a right to feel now that you are back on the soil of France after all these years of inhuman cruelty that your work is done," said the colonel, "but there is still something that you must do. There is something that you ought to do. You will tell everybody of the wrongs the Germans have inflicted upon you. You will tell exactly what they have done and you will thus serve France by increasing the hatred between our people and their people."

The soldiers and the crowd cheered then almost as loudly as they did later in the great shout of "Vive la France." The gray men, the grim men and the silent men were stirred by what the colonel said because they did and will forever have a quarrel with the German people.

"We are doubly glad to welcome you back to France because our hearts have been so cheered by the coming of America," continued the colonel.

"Victory seems nearer and nearer and vengeance for all the things you have endured." It was then that he s.n.a.t.c.hed the great shout of "Vive la France" from the crowd.

As the din died down the corks began to pop and men who a little time before had not even been sure of a proper ration of water began to gulp champagne out of tin cups. The sting of the wine, the excitement and the din were too much for one returned prisoner. He had scarcely lifted his gla.s.s to his lips than he fell over in a heap and there was one more weary wanderer to make his return sickabed in a stretcher. But the rest marched better as they came out of the station with band tunes blaring in their ears and G.o.d knows what tunes singing in their hearts as they clanked along the cobbles. For they had been dead men and they were back in France and there was sun in the sky. When they crossed the bridge they broke ranks. The old woman in black was there and for just a minute the marching man became a boy again.

CHAPTER XVIII

FINISHING TOUCHES

The American army had begun to find itself when October came round.

Perhaps it had not yet gained a complete army consciousness, but there could be no doubt about company spirit. Chaps who had been civilians only a few months before now spoke of "my company" as if they had grown up with the outfit. They were also ready to declare loudly and profanely in public places that H or L or K or I, as the case might be, was the best company in the army. Some were willing to let the remark stand for the world.

Too much credit cannot be given to the captains of the first American Expeditionary Force. A captain commands more men now than ever before in the American army and he has more power. This was particularly true in France where many companies had a little village to themselves. The captain, therefore, was not only a military leader, a father confessor, and a gents' furnisher, but also an amba.s.sador to the people of a small section of France. The colonels and majors and the rest are the fellows who think up things to be done, but it is the captains who do them.