It is not a relieving thought to such of us as still can play, that spirit, whether in the bosom of the boulevardier or his country cousin playing bowls in the cool of the evening, is the same that projects itself brilliantly across the battlefield; that the flash of a woman's eye as she invites a conquest is the flame upon the alter when sacrifice is needed; that the very gaiety which makes one laugh is a force to endure the deepest pits that have been dug for mankind. Even as I continually struggle with a lump in my throat which I often think should remain with me forever, I dare claim that of all the necessitous qualities in life the spirit of play must be the last to leave a race. Its translation to the gravities of living needs no bellows for the coaxing of the fire. It is ever burning upon the hearth of the happy heart.
The gilded statuary of the bridge of Alexander III, like flaming beacons in the sun's rays, waved us out and on to the Invalides to see the weekly awarding of medals. It is presumably the gay event of the week as the band plays, and there is some color in the throngs who surge along the colonnades to look into the court of honor. A portion of the great space is now accommodating huge shattered cannon and air craft of the enemy, their massiveness suggesting, as the little glittering medals are pinned upon the soldiers' breasts, that it is not so easy to be a hero and go a-capturing.
By the judicious wavings of famous autographs we were permitted the upper balcony to sketch the heroic ones within the hollow square formed by soldiers and marines. Directly beneath us stood the band with the brassard of the red cross on their arms, for they are still the stretcher bearers at the front. In the center of the square was a little group of men, seventy perhaps but the space was vast. Some were standing, some seated with stiff stumps of legs sticking out queerly. Here and there a nurse stood by a blind man, and there were white oblong gaps in the line which designated the beds of the paralyzed.
I had set my teeth and said that I must stand it when across the courtyard like a liquid stream of some spilled black portion came the mothers and the wives, who were to wear the ribbon their soldiers had earned in exchange for their lives. Or should there be little sons or daughters they received this wondrous emblem of their fathers' sacrifice. We could see the concerted white lift of handkerchiefs to the eyes of the black line of women as the general bestowed the honors. But the little children were tranquil.
With the beginning of the distribution the band, for which I had longed that it might give a glow to the war, swung into a blare of triumph. It was the first note of music we had heard in France. And as we all expressed our emotion with abandonment throughout the enlivening strains of "The Washington Post," I appreciated the infinite wisdom of marching drumless through the streets—of the divine lack of the bugles' song. For music, no matter its theme, makes happy only those who are already happy. To those who suffer it urges an unloosening of their grief—and grief must not go abroad in France.
There was an end to the drama. The guard of honor marched through the porte, banners flying. It was a happy ending, I suppose, though one might not think so by the triumphal chariots that entered the court to bear away the heroes—chariots with that red emblem emblazoned upon a white disc which would have mystified an early Caesar. But my thoughts were not entirely with the chief actors in the play, rather with the squad of soldiers who had surrounded them, the supers who would have enjoyed medals, too, and upon whom opportunity had not smiled; whose epic of brave deeds may never be read, and who, by chance, may go legless yet ribbonless up the Champs Élysées.
"They" were hopping up the Avenue when we crossed it again, yet we all went on about our daily tasks as one passes the blind man on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Thirty-third Street. He may receive a penny, a twang of the heart strings, but he must be passed to go into the shop. My list was in my purse bearing but a faint resemblance to the demands of other years. I thought as I took it out what confusion of mind would have been my portion had I found it in my purse three summers ago, in what state of madness could any one prepare for a day in Paris such a program as: "Gloves, Hospital 232, furs, workshop for blind, shell combs, see my baby at Orphelinat, hair nets, cigarettes to my soldier, try on gowns, funeral of Am. airman," and on and on through each day's great accomplishment to the long quiet night.
Yet to buy freely and even frivolously in France need harass nothing more soulful than a letter of credit, and it was with less of guilt than of fear that I entered the courtyard of my furrier. I turned the button ever so gently with the same dread in my heart that I had suffered in going back to all of my shop keepers of previous summers. Would he still be there? Two years is a long time, and he was a young man. But he was there, wounded in the chest but at work in the expectation of being recalled. He did not want to go back, but of course if he was needed—
And I must lay stress on the magnificence of this hope that he might not have to return to the trenches. I have found many who do not want to go back. Fierce partisans of French courage deny this, reading in my contention a lack of bravery, but to me it is valor of a glorious color. For they do return without resentment, and, what is more difficult in this day of monumental deeds and minute bickerings, without criticism.
Like most of the men who came out of the trenches he had very little to say about them. It amused him to hear that my new fur coat purchased in America is of so fleeting a dye that I must dart into the subway whenever the sun shines. He was laughing quietly as he wished me a cloudy winter upon my descending the broad stone steps into the empty, echoing courtyard. The unexpected appreciation of my doubtful humor set me musing over the possibility of a duty new to Americans. It is the French who have stood for gaiety. We have warmed ourselves in their quick wit. Perhaps it is time for us to do our little clownish best to set them laughing.
Having made the resolve I failed meanly to put it into execution. I knew I was going to fail as the motor stopped before the great house in the rue Daru—the lordly house of exquisitely tinted walls although the colors are not seen by those who dwell within. There is a paved COUR beyond the high wall with great steps leading up to the hotel. At the right are the stables, where delicate fabrics are woven—the workmen with heads erect; where are special looms for those who, by the sad demands of this war, are denied hands as well as their two eyes. At the left is another building and here the men play in a gymnasium, even fence with confidence. In an anteroom is a curious lay figure that the most sensitive of the students may learn massage—it is the blind in Japan who give their understanding fingers to this work—and in the rooms above is a printing press, silent for lack of funds, but ready to give a paper of his own to the sightless. Only, at "The Light House" they will not accept that a single one of their guests is without vision. "Ah GUARDIENNE," cried one of the students to the American woman who has established our Light House methods over there, "you do not see the unevenness of this fabric for your eyes are in your way."
I was standing in the room where the plan of the house is set upon a table. It is the soldier's first lesson that he may know the turns and steps, and run about without the pitiful outstretching of arms. There were other callers upon the GUARDIENNE. A blind graduate who had learned to live (which means to work) had returned with his little old father, and both were telling her that he had enough orders for his sweaters from the "Trois Quartiers" to keep him occupied for two years. The family felt that he was established—so there was nothing more to fear. And then because we were all happy over it the old man and the woman and myself began to cry noiselessly. Only the blind boy remained smiling through the choking silence.
I went to the window and glared down into the gardens where other soldiers were studying at little tables with a professor for each, and I asked myself why, in this great exigency, I was not being funny and paying my debt to France. But there was nothing to be funny about. The thing that dried my tears was the recollection of the blind asylum of my youth, where the "inmates" never learned to walk without groping, where we were shown hideous bead furniture, too small for dolls, which was the result of their eager but misspent lives.
There was a gown to be ordered before noon and as I drove back through the Faubourg St. Honoré I found myself looking fondly, thirstily into the shop windows, lifting my free eyes to the charming vagaries of old buildings, and again I made a vow although it had nothing to do with humor. On my dressing table rests a cushion of brocade and I shall carry it about as one who may yield to temptation carries a pledge, for the card which is attached chants out to me whenever my eyes rest upon it: "Soldat Pierre. Aveugle de la guerre. Blessé à Verdun." And as long as Soldier Pierre. Blind from the war. Wounded at Verdun can go on weaving his fabrics I pray that I may carry whatever burden may be mine with the unrebellious spirit.
Ah well! The robe took its place in the curriculum of my new Parisian day. It was to be a replica in color of that worn by the head of the house—her one of mourning was so bravely smart—for the business must go on and only the black badge of glory in fashionable form show itself in the gay salon. "Yes, we must go on," she said, "though every wife may give her mate. It is of an enormity to realize before one dies that he can be done without—that there are enough little ones to keep France alive and we women in the meantime can care for the country. Our men may die glad in that thought, but I think there must be a little of grief, too. It is sad not to be needed. Yes, Madame, blue for you where mine is black, and in place of the crêpe something very brilliant. It is only Americans that we can make gay now, and it keeps the women in the sewing room of good cheer to work in colors. Too dear you think? Ah, no, Madame, observe the model!"
Conscious that she had taken the basest advantage of my sympathy, and glad that she had done so I went to déjeuner with a feeling that I had deserved it which I might not otherwise have enjoyed. We were lunching at the restaurant on the Seine which felt for a short time the upheaval of war. Among the first called to the front had been the proprietor, and the august deputies whose custom it was to take their midday meal at this famous eating place had suffered from an unevenness of the cuisine. He is back at his establishment now, an ammunition maker on the night shift and the excellent and watchful patron at noon.
Our guests came promptly, for France still eats, although, if I can say anything so anomalous, does not stop to do so. The war talk continues albeit one carries it more lightly through a meal. A French officer arrived in the only automobile of his garage which the government had not commandeered. We looked down upon it stealthily that we might not give offense to his chauffeur, for the car is a Panhard in the last of its teens—which holds no terrors to a woman but is a gloomy age for a motor. An American architect from our Clearing House bowed over my hand a little more Gallic in these days than the Gaul himself. He has a right to the manners of the country. He had come over at the beginning of the war for a month and is determined to stick it out if he never builds another railway station. "To see the troops march through the Arc de Triomphe!" is the cry of the Americans, but the French do not express themselves so dramatically.
There is drama enough, though, even in the filing of papers at every American relief society. That and the new sensation of work serves to hold the dilettante of our country to his long task. "This is the president's office," you will be told in a hushed voice outside some stately door. Then one discovers in Mr. President a playmate of Mayfair or Monte Carlo or Taormina who may never previously have used a desk except as a support for the signing of checks.
Our friend had been engaged that morning upon the re-ticketing of the Lafayette Kits which had come back from the front because there was no longer a Gaspard to receive them. I put this down that any young girl of our country who does not hear from "her soldier" may understand the silence. And sometimes the poilu is a little confused, writing a charming letter of thanks to "Monsieur Lafayette" himself.
A man takes coffee at déjeuner but finishes his cigar en route to work. We were at the edge of Paris before the Illustrator had thrown his away. We were not in the car of ancient lineage but in that relic of other days a real automobile without the great white letters of the army upon its sides and bonnet. Yet we were going into the heart of the Army. We would not be among the derelicts of battle that afternoon but with men sound of mind and body, and the thought was grateful that there would be nothing to anguish over. We were to visit two cantonments, rough barracks, in one of which the men gathered after their "permission" for a re-equipment; while at the second one were those soldiers who had become separated from their regiments, and who were sent there until the companies—if they existed—could be found, and the "isolated" again dispatched to the front.
I had anticipated a very relieving afternoon. The sun shone, the long road led to open country, and many circling aeroplanes over an aviation field nearby gave the air of a fête. Only the uniforms of the English and American women who are attached to each of these many cantonments suggested any necessitous combating of the grim reaper.
Yet they are not nurses of the body but of the spirit. From modest little vine covered sheds erected in each ugly open space they disperse good cheer augmented by coffee and cigarettes (and such small comforts as we Americans send them) after the regulation army rations are served by the commissary. They hear the men's stores, comfort the unhappy ones, chaff the gloomy ones, and when they have a moment's breathing space write letters to such of those as have asked for a correspondent.
One of these women—an American—was intent upon this occupation at the first canteen we visited. She admitted that she was tired but she must answer her letters. She was rather grave about it, "I write to sixty-eight," she said, "and I'll tell you why. At least I will tell you a little of it and you can read the rest. I was on night duty. There is always one of us here. The men have just come from visiting their homes and some of them are blue and cannot sleep. Rude to us? Oh, never! I had written letters almost all night and it was time to make the morning coffee, yet there was still one to do. I was tempted to put it aside. I didn't remember the man, but he had sent me a word of thanks. Well, somehow I did answer it between the moment of filling the cauldron and getting ready for the day. Here is his reply—it came this morning—"
Translating crudely from the letter I read aloud to our little circle: "Dear Madame, you have saved my life. I have no friends and no people left for I am from the invaded districts, so on one writes me. To-day I was on duty as the officer came into our trench with the mail. He called my name. He gave me permission to leave the listening post to receive your valued letter. While at his side a shell tore up entirely my post. I think you, Madame, that I am spared to fight for France—"
I regarded her with longing. She had been the controller of a destiny. I suppose we are all that when we bend our best efforts, but seldom are we so definitely apprised of the reward of untiring duty.
A petty officer passed by the shack with a paper in his hands. There were no sounding trumpets, but the men recognized the paper and rose from the ground where they had been lounging to hear him read the list of those who were to return immediately to the front. As the names were called each one summoned turned without comment or exclamation or expletive, picked up his kit dumped in a corner, slung on the heavy equipment, saw that the huge loaf of bread was secure—the extra shoes—refilled his canteen and moved over to the barred gate. Occasionally one shook hands with a comrade and all saluted the women of the little flower-bedecked hut. An order was given and the gate was opened. They filed out into the dusty road on their march to the railway station. The gate was closed. A little hill rose higher than the ground of the barracks and we could see them once again—stout little men in patched uniforms—bending unresistingly under their burdens, the heavy steel helmets gleaming but faintly in the sun. Another detachment entered the barracks.
It was coffee time now. The soldiers were lingering politely about with their tin cups in hand—not too expectantly, so as to assure the ladies that if by any chance there was no coffee they would not be disappointed. The gentlewoman in attendance had recently come from a canteen near the front where soup is made and often eight thousand bowls of it served in a day. The skin of her arms and hands is, I fear, permanently unlovely from the steam of the great kettles—or perhaps I should say permanently lovely now that one knows the cause of the branding. I offered to pour in her place and she assented.
The men came up to the little bar. I began to pour. I had thought I was about to do them a service. I knew with the first cup that it was they who were doing me one. All the unrest and misery of my idle if observing days in France was leaving me. I was pushing back the recollection with the sweetness of physical effort. I was at work. There is no living in France—or anywhere now—unless one is at work. I served and served and urged fresh cups upon them. They thought I was generous—I could not tell them that I had not known a happy instant till this coffee pouring time. I had not recognized that it was toiling with the hands that would bring a surcease to the beating of queries at my bewildered brain. There are no answers to this war. One can only labor for it and so, strangely, forget it.
Late that afternoon I had a cup of tea in a ground floor room of a big Parisian hotel which has been freely assigned to an American woman for the least known of all our relief work. I had come that I might argue with her into giving up her long task for a brief rest. My contention was to have been that she could stop at any time as her work is never recognized. I found her doing up a parcel of excellent garments for a man and three women. They were to be assigned to the family of a respected painter of the Latin Quarter. They will never know who is the middleman, and it has chanced that she has dined in company with her day's donation.
As I observed her tired tranquility I felt my argument growing pointless. Whether it was coffee or the unacknowledged dispenser of clothing to the uncrying needy it was service, and though my arm muscles ached I could understand that it is the idle boy in Paris which does not rest at night.
And so I come tot he last sheet of the romance which is serving so humbly my war-time needs. There is space for the dinner and the closing in of the gentle night thanks to the repeated, fervid declarations of the lovers on the other side of the paper. We had been with the men that afternoon. We were among the officers that evening. We dined at one of the great restaurants which has timorously reopened its doors to find eager families ready to feast honored sons. At one table sat three generations, the father of the boy concealing his pride with a Gallic interest in the menu, but the grandfather futilely stabbed the snails as his gleaming old eyes kept at attention upon the be-medalled lad. Pretty women, too, were there, subdued in costuming but with that amiable acceptance of their position which is not to be found among the more eager "lost ones" of other countries. And I enjoyed some relief in their evidence once more, and some inward and scarcely to-be-expressed solace in the thought that those soldiers who henceforth must go disfigured through a fastidious world can every buy companionship.
There was a theater attached to the restaurant. Through the glass doors we could see an iridescence of scant costumes, but the audience was light, and we ourselves preferred, as a more satisfactory ending to our day, to walk quietly toward the Arc de Triomphe which is waiting, waiting for fresh glories. On the other side of this last sheet of paper my lovers had so walked together. But upon looking over their passionate adventures I have discovered, at last, why the romance has never found a market. On one side and then on the other I have read and reread the two experiences. Yes, I find the LOVE-story curiously lacking in love.
[signed] Louise Closser Hale
Children of War
Not for a transient victory, or someStubborn belief that we alone are right;Not for a code or conquest do we fight,But for the crowded millions still to come.
This, unborn generations, is your war,Although it is our blood that pays the price.Be worthy, children, of our sacrifice,And dare to make your lives worth fighting for.
We give up all we love that you may loatheIntrigue and darkness, that you may disperseThe ranks of ugly tyrannies and, worse,The sodden languor and complacent sloth.
Do not betray us, then, but come to beCreation's crowning splendor, not its slave;Knowing our lives were spent to keep you brave,And that our deaths were meant to make you free.
[signed] Louis Untermeyer
Courtesy "Collier's Weekly."
Khaki-Boy
Where the torrent of Broadway leaps highest in folly and the nights are riddled with incandescent tire and chewing gum signs; jazz bands and musical comedies to the ticket speculators' tune of five dollars a seat, My Khaki-Boy, covered with the golden hoar of three hundred Metropolitan nights rose to the slightly off key grand finale of its eighty-first matinée, curtain slithering down to the rub-a-dud-dub of a score of pink satin drummer boys with slim ankles and curls; a Military Sextette of the most blooded of Broadway ponies; a back ground of purple eye-lidded privates enlisted from the ranks of Forty-Second Street; a three hundred and fifty dollar a week sartorial sergeant in khaki and spotlight, embracing a ninety pound ingénue in rhinestone shoulder-straps. The tired business man and his lady friend, the Bronx and his wife, Adelia Ohio, Dead heads, Bald heads, Sore heads, Suburbanites, Sybarites; the poor dear public making exit sadder than wiser.
On the unpainted side of the down slithering curtain, a canvas mountain-side was already rumbling rearward on castors. An overhead of foliage jerked suddenly higher, revealed a vista of brick wall. A soldiers' encampment, tents and all, rolled up like a window shade. The ninety pound ingénue, withholding her silver-lace flouncings from the raw edges of moving landscape, high-stepped to a rearward dressing room; the khaki clad hero brushing past her and the pink satin drummer boys for first place down a spiral staircase.
Miss Blossom De Voe, pinkest of satin drummer boys, withdrew an affronted elbow, the corners of her mouth quivering slightly, possibly of their own richness. They were dewy, fruit-like lips, as if Nature were smiling with them at her own handiwork.
"Say, somebody around here better look where he's going or mama's khaki-boy will be calling for an arnica high-ball. What does he think I yam, the six o'clock subway rush?"
Miss Elaine Vavasour wound down the spiral ahead of Miss De Voe, the pink satin blouse already in the removing.
"Go suck a quince Blos. It's good for crazy bone and fallen arch."
"If you was any funnier, Elaine, you'd float," said Miss De Voe withdrawing a hair pin as she wound downward, an immediate avalanche of springy curls released.
Beneath the stage of the Gotham Theater a corridor of dressing rooms ran the musty subterranean length of the sub cellar. A gaseous gloomy dampness here; this cave of the purple lidded, so far below the level of reality.
At the door of Miss De Voe's eight by ten, shared by four, dressing room, one of the back drop of privates, erect, squarebacked, head thrown up by the deep-dipping cap vizor, emerged at sight of her, lifted hat revealing a great permanent wave of hair that could only be born not bought.
"H'lo, Hal."
"Hello, Blossum."
"Whose hot water bottle did you come to borrow?"
"Hot water bottle?"
"Yeh, you look like you got the double pneumonia and each one of the pneumonia's got the tooth ache. Who stole your kite, ikkie boy?"
Mr. Hal Sanderson flung up a fine impatient head, the permanent hair-wave lifting,
"We'll can the comedy, Blossum," he said.
She lowered to a mock curtsey, mouth skewed to control laughter, arms akimbo.
"We will now sing psalm twenty-three."
"Come to supper with me, Blos? You been dodging me pretty steady here lately."
She clapped her hand to her brow, plastering a curl there.
"Migaw, I am now in the act of dropping thirty cents and ten cents tip into my Pig Bank. Will I go to supper with him? Say, darling, will the Hudson flow by Grant's monument to-night at twelve? On a Saturday matinée he asks me to supper with a question mark."
"Honest, Bloss, you'd hand a fellow a ha ha if he invited you to his funeral."
She sobered at that, leaning against the cold plastered wall, winding one of the shining curls about her fore finger.
"What's the matter—Hal?"
He handed her a torn newspaper sheet, blue penciled.
She took it but did not glance down.
"Drafted?"
"Yes," he said.
The voice of a soubrette trilling snatches of her topical song as she creamed off her make-up, came to them through the sulky gloom of the corridor. Behind the closed door of Miss De Voe's dressing room, the gabble of the pink satin ponies was like hash in the chopping. Overhead, moving scenery created a remote sort of thunder. She stood looking up at him, her young mouth parted.
"I—oh, Hal—well—well, whatta you know about that—HalSanderson—drafted."
He stepped closer, the pallor coming out stronger in his face, enclosed her wrist, pressing it.
"Grover's drafted too."
"Grover—too?"
"He's three thousand and one. Ten numbers before me."
Her irises were growing, blackening.
"Well, whatta you know about that? Grover White, the world's dancing tenor, and Hal Sanderson the world dancing tenor's understudy, drafted! The little tin soldiers are covered with rust and Uncle Sam is going to—"
"Hurry, Bloss, get into your duds. I want to talk. Hurry. We'll eat over at Ramy's."
She turned but flung out an arm, grasping now his wrist.
"I—oh, Hal—I—I just never was so—so sad and so—so glad!"
The door opened to a slit enclosing her. In his imitation uniform, hand on empty carriage belt, Mr. Hal Sanderson stood there a moment, his face whitening, tightening.
In Ramy's glorified basement, situated in one of the Forties which flow like tributaries into the heady waters of Broadway, one may dine from soup to nuts, raisins and regrest for one hour and sixty cents. In Ramy's, courses may come and courses may go, but the initiated one holds on to his fork forever. Here red wine flows like water, being ninety-nine per cent., just that.
Across a water tumbler of ruby contents, Miss Blossom De Voe, the turbulent curls all piled up beneath a slightly dusty but highly effective amethyst velvet hat, regarded Mr. Sanderson, her perfect lips trembling as it were, against an actual nausea of the spirit which seemed to pull at them.
"Whadda you putting things up to me for, Hal? You're old enough to know your own business."
Blue shaved, too correct in one of Broadway's black and white checked Campus Suits, his face as cleanly chiseled and thrust forward as a Discobolus, Mr. Sanderson patted an open letter spread out on the table cloth between them, his voice rising carefully above the din of diners.
"There's fellows claiming exemption every hour of the day that ain't got this much to show, Bloss. I was just wise enough to see these things and get ready for 'em."
"You ain't your mother's sole support. What about them snapshots of the two farms of hers out in Ohio you gave me?"
"But I got to be in this country to take charge of her affairs for her—my mother's old, honey—ain't I the one to manager for her? Only child and all that. Honest, Bloss, you need a brick house."
"Well, that old lawyer that wrote that letter has been doing it all the time, why all of a sudden should you—"
He cast his eyes ceilingward, flopping his hands down loosely to the table in an attitude of mock exhaustion.
"Oh, Lord, Bloss, lemme whistle it, maybe you can catch on the. Brains, honey, little Hal's brains is what got that letter there written. I seen this coming from the minute conscription was in the air. Little Hal seen it coming, and got out his little hatchet. Try to prove that I ain't the sole one to take charge of my mother's affairs. Try to prove it. That's what I been fixing for myself these two months, try to—"
"Sh-h-h-h, Charley—"
"Brains is what done it,—every little thing of my mother's is in my care. I fixed it. Now little Blossy-blossum will you be good?"
He regarded her with cocked head and face receptive for her approval."Now will you be good!"
She sat loosely, meeting his gaze, but her face as relaxed as her attitude. A wintry stare had set in.
"Oh," she said, "I see." And turned away her head.
He reached closer across the table, regardless of the conglomerate diners about, felt for her hand which lay limp and cold beside her plate, and which she withdrew.
"Darling," he said, straining for her gaze.
"Don't, Hal."
"Darling, don't you see? It's fate knocking at our door. There's not a chance rover can get exemption. He ain't eve got a fifth cousin or a flat-foot!"
"Maybe he could claim exemption on dandruff."
"I'm serious, honey. It's going to be one of those cases where an understudy wakes up to find himself famous. I can't fail if I get this chance, Bloss. It's the moment I have been drudging for, for five solid years. I never was in such voice as now, I never was so fit. Not an ounce of fat. Not a song in the part I don't know backwards. I tell you it's the hand of fate, Bloss, giving us a hand-out. I can afford now, darling, to make good with you. On three fifty a week I can ask a little queen like you to double up with me. From thirty-five to three fifty! I tell you honey, we're made. I'm going to dress my little dolly in cloth of gold and silver fox. I'm going to perch her in the suite de luxe of the swellest hotel in town. I'm—"
She pushed back from the table, turning more broadly from him.
"Don't," she said pressing her kerchief against her lips.
"Why—why what's the matter, Bloss? Why—why, what's the matter?"
"Don't talk to me for a minute," she said, still in profile; "I'll be all right, only don't talk."
"Why, Bloss, you—sick?"
She shook her head. "No. No."
"You ain't getting cold feet now that we got the thing before us—in our hand?"
"I dunno. I dunno. I—don't want nothing. That's all, nothing but to be left alone."
He sucked his lips inward, biting at them.
"Don't—don't think I ain't noticed, Bloss, that you—you ain't been the same—that you been different—for weeks. Sometimes I think maybe you're going cold on—on this long engagement stuff. That's why this thing is breaking just right for us, honey. I felt you slippin' a little. I'm ready now, Peaches, we can't go taxi-cabbing down for that license none too soon to suit me."
She shook her head, beating softly with one small fist into her other palm.
"No, Hal," she said, her mouth tightening and drawing down.
"Why—why, Bloss!"
Suddenly she faced him, her hands both fists now, and coming down with a force that shivered the china.
"You—you ain't a man, you ain't. You ain't a man, you—you're a slacker! You're a slacker, that's what you are, and Gawd, how I—how I hate a slacker!"
"Bloss—why, girl—you—you're cra—-"
"Oh, I've known it. Deep down inside of me I've known it since the day we found ourselves in the mess of this war. I knew it, and all those months kept kidding myself that maybe—you—wasn't."
"You—"
"Thought maybe when you'd read the newspapers enough and heard the khaki-boys on the street corners enough, and listened to—to your country pleading enough that—that you'd rise up to show you was a man. I knew all these months down inside of me that you was a slacker, but I kept hopin'. Gawd how I kept hopin'."
"You—you can't talk to me that way! You're—-"
"Can't I! Ha! Anybody can talk any old way to a slacker he wants to and then not say enough. You ain't got no guts you—you're yellow, that's what you are, you—"
"Blossum!"
"You, sneaking up to me with trumped up exemption stuff when your country's talking her great heart out for men to stand by 'er! Gawd! If I was a man—If was a man she wouldn't have to ask me twice, but before I went marching off I'd take time off to help the street cleaning department wipe up a few streets with the slackers I found loafing around under a government they were afraid to fight for. I'd show 'em. I'd show 'em if a government is good enough to live under it's good enough to fight under. I'd show 'em."
"If you was a man, Blossum, you'd eat those words. By God, you'd eat 'em. I'm no coward—I—"
"I know you're not, Hal—that's why I—I—"
"I got the right to decide for myself if I want to fight when I don't know what I'm fighting for. This ain't my war, this ain't America's war. Before I fight in it I want a darn sight to know what I'm fighting for, and not all the street corner rah rah stuff has told me yet. I ain't a bull to go crazy with a lot of red waved in my face. I've got no blood to spill in the other fellow's battle. I'm—-"
"No, but you—"
"I'm at a point in my life that I've worked like a dog to reach. Let the fellows that love the hero stuff give up their arms and their legs and the breath that's in them for something they don't know the meaning of. Because some big-gun of a Emperor out in Austria was assassinated, I ain't going to bleed to death for it. It's us poor devils that get the least out of the government that right away are called on to give the most, it's us—-"
"Hal, ain't—ain't you ashamed!"
"No. I ain't ashamed and I ain't afraid. You know it ain't because I'm afraid. I've licked more fellows in my time than most fellows can boast. I—I got the Fifty-fifth Street fire rescue medal to my credit if anybody should ask you. I—I—ask anybody from my town if any kid in it ever licked me. But I ain't going to fight when I ain't got a grudge against no man. Call that being a coward if you like, but then you and me don't speak the same language."
Her silence seemed to give off an icy vapor.
"That's what they all say," she said. "It's like hiding behind a petticoat, hiding behind a defense like that. Sure you ain't got a grudge. Maybe you don't know what it's all about—God knows who does. Nobody can deny that. There ain't nothing reasonable about war, if there was there wouldn't be none. That talk don't get you nowheres. The proposition is that we're at war, whatever you or anybody else may think of it."
"That's just it—we didn't have no say-so."
"Just the same, Hal Sanderson, this great big grand country of ours is at war, and needs you. It ain't what you think any more that counts. Before we was in war you could talk all you wanted, but now that we're IN, there's only one thing to do, only one, and not all your fine talk about peace can change it. One thing to do. Fight!"
"No government can make me—"
"If you want peace now it's up to you to help make it, a new peace and a grander peace, not go baying at the moon after a peace that ain't no more."
"You better get a soap box. If this is the way you got of trying to get out of something you're sorry for, I'll let you off easier—you don't need to try to—-"
She regarded him with her lips quivering, a quick layer of tears forming, trembling and venturing to the edge of her lashes.
"Hal—Hal—a—a fellow that I've banked on like I have you! It ain't that—you know it ain't. I could have waited for ten times this long. It's only I—I'm ashamed, Hal. Ashamed. there ain't been a single gap in the chorus from one of the men enlisting that my heart ain't just dropped in my shoes like dough. I never envied a girl on my life the way I did Elaine Vavasour when she stood on the curb at the Battery the other day crying and watching Charlie Kirkpatrick go marching off. Charlie was a pacifist, too, as long as the country was out of war, and there was something to argue about. The minute the question was settled, he shut up, buckled on his belt and went! That's the kind of a pacifist to be. The kind of fellow that when he sees peace slipping, buckles on and starts out for a new peace; a realer peace. That's the kind of a fellow I thought you—you—-"
Her voice broke then abruptly, in a rain of tears, and she raised the crook of her arm to her face with the gesture of a child. "That—that's the kind of a fellow I—I—-"
His cigarette discarded and curling up in a little column of smoke between them, he sat regarding her, a heave surge of red rising above the impeccable white of his collar into the roots of his hair. It was as if her denouncement had come down in a welt across his face.
"Nobody ever—nobody ever dared to talk like this to me before. Nobody ever dared to call me a coward. Nobody. Because it ain't so!"
"I know it ain't, Hal. If it was could I have been so strong for you all these months? I knew the way you showed yourself in the Fifty-fifth Street fire. I read about it in the papers before I ever knew you. I—I know the way you mauled Ed Stein, twice your size, the night he tried to—to get fresh with me. I know you ain't a slacker in your heart, Hal, but I—I couldn't marry a man that got fake exemption. Couldn't, no matter how it broke my heart to see him go marching off! Couldn't! Couldn't!"
"That's what it means, Blossum—marching off!"
"I know it, but how—how could I marry a man that wasn't fit to war his country's uniform even in a show. I—I couldn't marry a man like that if it meant the solid gold suite in the solid goldest hotel in this town. I couldn't marry a—a fake khaki-boy!"
"Ain't there no limit, Bloss, to the way you can make a fellow feel like dirt under your feet? My God! ain't there no limit?"
"There—there's nothing on earth can make a man of you, Hal, nothing on God's earth but War! Every once in a while there's some little reason seems to spring up for there bein' a war. You're one of them reasons, Hal. Down in my heart I know it that you'll come back, and when I get a hunch it's a hunch! Down in my heart I know it, dear, that you'll come back to me. But you'll come back a man, you'll come back with the yellow streak pure gold, you'll-you'll come back to me pure gold, dear. I know it. I know it."
His head was back as if his throat were open to the stroke of her words, but there was that growing in his face which was enormous, translucent, even apogean.
He tore up the paper between them, slowly, and in criss crosses.
"And you, Blossom?" he said, not taking his eyes, with their growing lights, off her.
"Why, I'll be waiting, Hal," she said, the pink coming out to flood her face, "I'll be waiting—Sweetheart."
[signed] Fannie Hurst
The Married Slacker
[This is a comic strip in three panels. I'll do my best to describe each panel and then put the text which comes beneath the panel.]
[Panel 1: A man and woman sit at a meal with pictures of Washington and Lincoln glowering from the wall in the man's full view behind the woman. The woman is reading a paper. The man is listening, but not looking at the woman, rather at his meal in front of him. A maid brings coffee cups on a platter.]
SHE (reading)—"At 5:15, the barrage was raised, and the Americans advanced to attack. The long line moved forward like the steady on-sweep of the tide—unwavering, irresistible, implacable." Oh, isn't it perfectly wonderful! I knew our men would fight gloriously! And just listen to this:
[Panel 2: The images of Washington and Lincoln have doubled in size and the eyes clearly glare at the man. The man now shows beads of sweat around his head and wears an expression of distress. The woman continues to read the paper. The maid departs the scene having delivered the coffee cups.]
SHE (reading)—"The Germans fought desperately but the American lines never wavered in their onward course. Sometimes the broad stretch of the battlefield was enveloped in great volumes of smoke, but a moment later, as the air cleared, the same lines were to be seen moving onward. At 6:45, the sound of cheering was heard amidst the din of the battle and a few moments later, the message was sent back that the American troops had captured the great German position."
[Panel 3: The images of Washington and Lincoln are now almost fully the size of the wall and marks of consternation and anger are clear on their brows as they glare at the man. The woman continues to read the paper without looking up. The man is fleeing the room in great haste with his arms in the air. He has knocked over his chair in his haste and has bumped into the maid who was returning with a coffee pot and biscuits. The man's face is obscured by raised hands and his overcoat, but he is clearly fleeing.]
SHE (reading)—"The American victory of yesterday may well mark the beginning of the end of the war. London and Paris are ringing with the praises of the American soldiers. President Wilson has proclaimed a national holiday in celebration of the triumph, and the American soldier has won imperishable glory as a fighting man."
[The last panel is signed] McCutcheon
Hymn for America
Air: "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled"
Where's the man, in all the earth—Man of want or man of worth—Who shall now to rank or birthKnee of homage bend?Though he war with chance or fate,If his heart be free of hate,If his soul with love be great,He shall be our friend.
Where's the man, of wealth or wage,Dare be traitor to his age,To the people's heritageWon by war and woe,—Counting but as private goodAll the gain of brotherhoodBy the base so long withstood?He shall be our foe.
Where's the man that does not feelFreedom as the common weal,Duty's sword the only steelCan the battle end?Comrades, chant in unisonCreed the noblest 'neath the sun:"One for all and all for one,"Till each foe be friend.
[signed] Robert Underwood Johnson
The Breaking Out of the Flags
It is April,And the snow lingers on the dark sides of evergreens;The grass is brown and soggyWith only a faint, occasional overwash of green.But under the leafless branchesThe white bells of snowdrops are nodding and shakingAbove their green sheaths.Snow, fir-trees, snowdrops—stem and flower—Nature offers us only white and greenAt this so early springtime.But man gives more.
Man has unfurled a Nation's flagsAbove the city streets;He has flung a striped and starry symbol of bright colorsDown every curving way.Blossoms of War,Blossoms of Suffering,Strange beautiful flowers of the New Year:Flags!
Over door lintels and cornices,Above peaked gables and flat mansard-roofsFlutter the flags.The avenues are arcaded with them,The narrow alleys are bleached with stripes and stars.For War is declared,And the people gird themselvesSilently—sternly—Only the flags make arabesques in the sunshine,Twining the red of blood and the silver of achievementInto a gay, waving patternOver the awful, unflinching DestinyOf War.
The flags ripple and jarTo the tramp of marching men,to the rumble of caissons over cobblestones.From seaboard to seaboardAnd beyond, across the green waves of the sea,They flap and fly.Men plant potatoes and click typewritersIn the shadow of them,And khaki-clad soldiersLift their eyes to the garish red and blueAnd turn back to their khaki tasksRefreshed.
America,The clock strikes.The spring is upon us,The seed of our forefathersQuickens again in the soil,And these flags are the small, early flowersOf the solstice of our Hope!
Thru suffering to Peace!Thru sacrifice to Security!Red stripes,Turn us not from our purpose,Lead us up as by a ladderTo the deep blue quietWherein are shiningThe silver stars.
Soldiers, sailors, clerks, and office boys,Men, and Women—but not children,No! Not children!Let these marchWith their paper caps and toy riflesAnd feel only the panoply of War—But the others,Welded and forged,Seared, melted, broken,Molded without flaw,Slowly, faithfully pursuing a Purpose,A Purpose of Peace,
Even into the very flame of Death.Over the city,Over all the cities,Flutter flags.Flags of spring,Flags of burgeoning,Flags of fulfillment.
[signed] Amy Lowell
Our Day
London, April 20, 1917
It was the evening of our Day; that young April day when in the solemn vastness of St. Paul's were held the services to mark America's historic entrance into the Great World War. Across the mighty arch of the Chancel on either side hung the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack.
From the organ pealed those American songs to which half a century ago, in another war for Freedom, men marched to battle, and, even if by ways of defeat and death, to ultimate Victory. How many there were that April day for whom the sight of the Stars and Stripes was blurred with tears. How the familiar airs and simple words pained us with the memory of our distant homes. Perhaps for the first time we understood the solemn significance of this dedication to war of what we hardly knew was so unspeakably dear.
In the Crypt of St. Paul's, Mausoleum of England's greatest soldier and sailor heroes, their ashes rest who once fought and conquered. If it is given to those who have gone before to hear our human appeal, perhaps the immortal spirits of Nelson, of Wellington, of Kitchener, whose tragic fate is its unfulfilled destiny, may have rested like an inspiration on that kindred nation offering the sacrifice of all it holds most sacred to the cause of Divine Justice.
After the solemn benediction thousands streamed slowly out to mingle with the multitudes gathered before the great Entrance where Queen Anne in crown and scepter keeps majestic guard, and where in peaceful days doves flit and flutter down to peck at the grain strewn about her royal feet.
Stern and momentous times have passed over that old, gray Cathedral; times of a Nation's grief and a Nation's rejoicing. But of all such days, in its centuries of existence, none has been so momentous for the destiny of the Empire as that sunny April day. And yet—and yet—perhaps more touching, more solemn, even than the High Service at St. Paul's, that which stirred Americans even more who love England with only a lesser love, and made us realize as never before what America stands for, joint defender now of the new Civilization, was the silent symbol of her dedication to the Cause of Human Freedom, for all London to see and on which, seeing, to reflect. It was the symbol of that for which Statesmen who were also prophets, have lived and toiled.
It rose against the glowing West, never to be forgotten by those who saw it at the close of Our Day, for it marked the new Epoch.
Now at last "Let the dead Past bury its Dead."
Along Whitehall, down Parliament Street, and where towards the leftWestminster Bridge spans its immortal river, stand the Houses ofParliament, their delicate tracery of stonework etched against thesunset sky.
Hurrying crowds, released from the day's toil, stopped here, as if by a common impulse, to gaze upwards, and, gazing in silent wonder, they saw such a sight as London has never seen before. On the highest pinnacle of the Victoria tower where the flag of another nation has never before shared its proud eminence there floated together from one flagstaff Old Glory and the Union Jack.
That was America's supreme consecration.
[signed] Annie E. Lane (Mrs. John Lane)
Pour La Patrie
They were brothers, Louis and François, standing in the presence of the Prussian commander, looking hopelessly into his cold, unsmiling eyes. For the third time in as many days he was bargaining with them for that which God had given them and they in turn had promised to France: their lives.
"Do not make the mistake of thinking that we exalt you for what you may call courage, or that your country will sing your praises," said the general harshly. "Your country will never know how or when you die. You have nothing to gain by dying, not even the credit of dying."
François allowed his hot, dry eyes to sweep slowly around the group.He was pale, his forehead wet.
"You are soldiers," said he, his voice low and steady. "Is there one among you who would do the thing we are asked to do? If there is one man here who will stand forth in the presence of his comrades and say that he would betray Germany as you are asking us to betray France,—if there is such a man among you, let him speak, and the,—then I will do what you ask of me."
A dozen pairs of hard implacable eyes returned his challenge. No man spoke. No man smiled.
"You do not even pretend," cried the little poilu. "well, I too am a soldier. I am a soldier of France. It is nothing to me that I day to-day or to-morrow, or that my country knows when or how. Take me out and shoot me," he shouted, facing the commander. "I am but one poor soldier. I am one of millions. What is my little life worth to you?"
"Nothing," said the commander. "Ten such as you would not represent the worth of one German soldier."
"We say not so over there," said François boldly, jerking his thumb in the direction of Pont-a-mousson.
And now for the first time the Prussians about him smiled.
"What is it, pray, that you do say over there?" inquired the general mockingly.
"That the worst of the Frenchmen is worth five of your best," saidFrançois, unafraid. Why should he be afraid to speak the truth?He was going to die.
"And one of your frog-eating generals is the equal of five of me, I suppose?" The commander's grim face relaxed into a smile. "That is good! Ha-ha! That is good!"
"So we say, excellency," said François simply. "Our Papa Joffre—ah, he is greater than all of you put in one."
The Prussian flushed. His piggish eyes glittered.
"Your Papa Joffre!" he scoffed.
"He is greater than the Kaiser,—though I die for saying it," cried the little poilu recklessly.
The commander turned his eyes from the white, impassioned face of François and looked upon the quivering, ghastly visage of the brother who stood beside him. The fire that glowed in the eyes of François was missing in those of Louis.
The grizzled Prussian smiled, but imperceptibly. What he saw pleased him. Louis, the big one, the older of the two, trembled. It was only by the supremest effort that he maintained a pitiable show of defiance. His face was haggard and blanched with fear; there was a hunted, shifty look in his narrowed eyes. The general's smile developed. It proffered comfort, consolation, encouragement.
"And you," he said, almost gently, "have not you profited by the reflections of your three days of grace? Are you as stubborn as this mule of a brother, this foolish lad who spouts even poorer French than I address to you?"
François shot a quick, appealing glance at his big brother's face.There were tiny rivulets of slaver at the corners of Louis's mouth.
"Louis!" he cried out sharply.
Louis lifted his sagging shoulders. "I have nothing to say," he said thickly, and with the set of his jaws François breathed deeply of relief.
"So!" said the general, shrugging his shoulders. "I am sorry. You are young to die, you two. To die on the field of battle,—ah, that is noble! To die with one's back to a wall, blindfolded, and to be covered with earth so loosely that starving dogs may scratch away to feast—But, no more. You have decided. You have had many hours in which to consider the alternative. You will be shot at daybreak."
The slight figure of François straightened, his chin went up. His thin, dirt-covered hands were tightly clenched.
"For France!" he murmured, lifting his eyes above the head of thePrussian.
A vast shudder swept over the figure of Louis, a hoarse gasp broke through his lips. The commander leaned forward, fixing him with compelling eyes.
"For France!" cried François again, and once more Louis lifted his head to quaver:
"For France!"
"Take them away," said the commander. "But stay! How old are you?" He addressed François.
"I am nineteen."
"And you?"
Louis's lips moved but no sound issued.
"My brother is twenty-one," said François, staring hard at Louis.
"He has a sweetheart who will grieve bitterly if he does not return for her caresses, eh? I thought so. Oh, you French! But she will soon recover. She will find another,—like that! So!" He snapped his fingers. "She will not wait long, my good Louis. Take them away!"
Louis's face was livid. His chin trembled, his lips fell apart slackly; he lowered his eyes after an instant's contact with the staunch gaze of his brother.
"You have until sunrise to change your minds," said the Prussian, turning on his heel.
"Sunrise," muttered Louis, his head twitching.
They were led from the walled-in garden and across the cobblestones of the little street that terminated in a cul de sac just above. Over the way stood the shattered remnants of a building that once had been pointed to with pride by the simple villagers as the finest shop in town. The day was hot. Worn-out German troopers sprawled in the shade of the walls, sound asleep, their mouths ajar,—beardless boys, most of them.
"Poor devils," said François, as he passed among them. He too was very young.
They were shoved through the wrecked doorway into the mortar-strewn ruin, and, stumbling over masses of débris, came to the stone steps that led to the cellar below. Louis drew back with a groan. He had spent centuries in that foul pit.
"Not there—again!" he moaned. He was whimpering feebly as he picked himself up at the bottom of the steps a moment later.
"Dogs!" cried François, glaring upward and shaking his fist at the heads projecting into the turquoise aperture above. Far on high, where the roof had been, gleamed the brilliant sky. "Our general will make you pay one of these days,—our GREAT general!"
Then he threw his arms about his brother's shoulders and—cried a little too,—no in fear but in sympathy.
The trap door dropped into place, a heavy object fell upon it with a thud, and they were in inky darkness. There was no sound save the sobs of the two boys, and later the steady tread of a man who paced the floor overhead,—a man who carried a gun.
They had not seen, but they knew that a dead man lay over in the corner near a window chocked by a hundred tons of brick and mortar. He had died some time during the second century of their joint occupance of the black and must hole. On the 28th he had come in with them, wounded. It was now the 31st, and he was dead, having lived to the age of nine score years and ten! When they spoke to their guards at the beginning of the third century, saying that their companion was dead and should be carried away, the Germans replied:
"There is time enough for that," and laughed,—for the Germans could count the time by hours out there in the sunshine. But that is not why they laughed.
A hidden French battery in the wooded, rocky hills off to the west had for days kept up a deadly, unerring fire upon the German positions. Shift as he would, the commander could not escape the shells from those unseen, undiscovered guns. They followed him with uncanny precision. His own batteries had searched in vain, with thousands of shrieking shells, for the gadfly gunners. They could find him, but he could not find them. For every shell he wasted, they returned one that counted.
Three French scouts fell into his hands on the night of the 28th.Two of them were still alive. He had them up before him at once.
"On one condition will I spare your lives," said he. And that condition had been pounded into their ears with unceasing violence, day and night, by officers high and low, since the hour of their capture. It was a very simple condition, declared the Germans. Only a stubborn fool would fail to take advantage of the opportunity offered. The exact position of that mysterious battery,—that was all the general demanded in return for his goodness in sparing their lives. He asked no more of them than a few, truthful words.
They had steadfastly refused to betray their countrymen.
François could not see his brother, but now and then he put out a timid hand to touch the shaking figure. He could not understand. Why was it not the other way about? Who was he to offer consolation to the big and strong?
"Courage," he would say, and then stare hard ahead into the blackness. "You are great and strong," he would add. "It is I who am weak and little, Louis. I am the little brother."
"You have not so much to live for as I," Louis would mutter, over and over again.
Their hour drew near. "Eat this," persuaded François, pressing upon Louis the hunk of bread their captors had tossed down to them.
"Eat? God! How can I eat?"
"Then drink. It is not cold, but—"
"Let me alone! Keep away from me! God in heaven, why do they leave that Jean Picard down here with us—"
"You have seen hundreds of dead men, Louis. All of them were heroes. All of them were brave. It was glorious to die as they died. Why should we be afraid of death?"
"But they died like men, not like rats. They died smiling. They had no time to think."
And then he fell to moaning. His teeth rattled. He turned upon his face and for many minutes beat upon the stone steps with his clenched hands, choking out appeals to his Maker.
François stood. His hot, unblinking eyes tried to pierce the darkness. Tears of shame and pity for this big brother burnt their way out and ran down his cheeks. He was wondering. He was striving to put away the horrid doubt that was searing his soul: the doubt of Louis!
The dreary age wore on. Louis slept! The little brother sat with his chin in his hands, his heart cold, his eyes closed. He prayed.
Then came the sound of the heavy object being dragged away from the door at the top of the steps. They both sprang to their feet. An oblong patch of drab, gray light appeared overhead. Sunrise!
"Come! It is time," called down a hoarse voice. Three guns hung over the edge of the opening. They were taking no chances.
"Louis!" cried François sharply.
Louis straightened his gaunt figure. The light from above fell upon his face. It was white,—deathly white,—but transfigured. A great light flamed in his eyes.
"Have no fear, little brother," he said gently, caressingly. He clasped his brother's hand. "We die together. I have dreamed. A vision came to me,—came down from heaven. My dream was of our mother. She came to me and spoke. So! I shall die without fear. Come! Courage, little François. We are her soldier boys. She gave us to France. She spoke to me. I am not afraid."
Glorified, rejoicing, almost unbelieving, François followed his brother up the steps, there was comfort in the grip of Louis's hand.
"This general of yours," began Louis, facing the guard, a sneer on his colorless lips, his teeth showing, "he is a dog! I shall say as much to him when the guns are pointed at my breast."
The Germans stared.
"What has come over this one?" growled one of them. "Last night he was breaking."
"There is still a way to break him," said another, grinning. "Hell will be a relief to him after this hour."
"Canailès!" snarled Louis, and François laughed aloud in sheer joy!
"My good,—my strong brother!" he cried out.
"This Papa Joffre of yours," said the burliest German,—"he is worse than a dog. He is a toad." He shoved the captives through the opening in the wall. "Get on!"
"The smallest sergeant in Germany is greater than your Papa Joffre," said another. "What is it you have said, baby Frenchman? One frog-eater is worth five Germans? Ho-ho! You shall see."
"I—I myself," cried François hotly,—"I am nobler, braver, greater than this beast you call master."
"Hold your tongue," said a third German, in a kindlier tone than the others had employed. "It can do you no good to talk like this. Give in, my brave lads. Tell everything. I know what is before you if you refuse to-day,—and I tremble. He will surely break you to-day."
They were crossing the narrow road.
"He is your master,—not ours," said François calmly.
Louis walked ahead, erect, his jaw set. The blood leaped inFrançois' veins. Ah, what a brave, strong fellow his brother was!
"He is the greatest commander in all the German armies," boasted the burly sergeant. "And, young frog-eater, he commands the finest troops in the world. Do you know that there are ten thousand iron crosses in this God-appointed corps! Have a care how you speak of our general. He is the Emperor's right hand. He is the chosen man of the Emperor."
"And of God," added another.
"Bah!" cried François, snapping his fingers scornfully. "His is worth no more than that to me!"
François was going to his death. His chest swelled.
"You fool. He is to the Emperor worth more than an entire army corps,—yes, two of them. The Emperor would sooner lose a hundred thousand men than this single general."
"A hundred thousand men?" cried François, incredulously. "That is a great many men,—even Germans."
"Pigs," said Louis, between his teeth.
They now entered the little garden. The Prussian commander was eating his breakfast in the shelter of a tent. The day was young, yet the sun was hot. Papers and maps were strewn over the top of the long table at which he sat, gorging himself. The guard and the two prisoners halted a few paces away. The general's breakfast was not to be interrupted by anything so trivial as the affairs of Louis and François.
"And that ugly glutton is worth more than a hundred thousand men," mused François, eyeing him in wonder. "God, how cheap these boches must be."
Staff officers stood outside the tent, awaiting and receiving gruff orders from their superior. Between gulps he gave out almost unintelligible sounds, and one by one these officers, interpreting them as commands, saluted and withdrew.
François gazed as one fascinated. He WAS a great general, after all. Only a very great and powerful general could enjoy such respect, such servile obedience as he was receiving from these hulking brutes of men.
Directions were punctuated,—or rather indicated,—by the huge carving-knife with which the general slashed his meat. He pointed suddenly with the knife, and, as he did so, the officer at whom it was leveled, sprang into action, to do as he was bidden, as if the shining blade had touched his quivering flesh.
Suddenly the great general pushed his bench back from the table, slammed the knife and fork down among the platters, and barked: