WHENthe unique voluntary peace delegation finally reached the headquarters of the imperial army, the commander was conducting a prayer meeting. They must wait.
They waited with joy.
Pike’s little wizened face beamed with good will to men. From the moment he heard that the army was at prayers he had no doubt of the final outcome of their mission.
He turned once more to the soldier who had arrested and brought them in.
“Your General always leads the service?” he asked genially.
“Always—before a battle—”
“Of—yes, yes, I see—I see—“ Pike fluttered.
“If it’s going to be a real battle,” the man continued, “he prays all night in his tent sometimes. For this little skirmish we’re going into, I don’t think the service will last more than ten minutes.”
Pike didn’t like this soldier’s conversation. He had a rude way of smiling while he talked. The Presidentof the Peace Union decided to withhold further conversation with him.
To the amazement of Barker and Pike the divine services suddenly ended in a shout. The sinister brownish-gray hosts that knelt in prayer leaped to their feet with a fierce cry that rent the heavens:
“For God and Emperor!”
The Peace delegates were slightly distressed by this strange ending of a prayer meeting. It had an uncanny sound. There was something about the leap and shout too that suggested the rush of hosts into battle.
However, they were nothing daunted. God was with them. At least Pike knew that the Almighty was with him. Since Barker’s fall and oath and blows on that horse’s head he had moments of doubts about the orator’s perfect purity of faith. Still for one righteous man the Lord would spare a city!
Pike brushed the dust from his black broadcloth suit, adjusted his limp, dirt-smeared white bow tie and made ready to meet the foe with a plea that could not be shaken.
Barker was so absorbed in thought preparing his noble address that he remained oblivious to his dishevelled condition. His silk hat had been crushed in the second fall, and refused to be straightened. Itwas this fact that had caused him to lose his temper and smite the horse.
His broken tile drooped on one side in a painfully funny way that worried Pike. He gently removed the great man’s hat and tried to straighten it.
“Permit me, Brother Barker,” he said nervously. “Your hat’s a little out of plumb.”
Barker’s moon-like face was beaming now with inspiration. He made no objection. He was used to being fussed over by women and preachers. Barker turned his horse over to an obliging army hostler and took Pike’s arm from his habit of being escorted through crowds to the platform.
The soldier led them without further ceremony to the tent of the commander of the advancing army.
From the pomp and ceremony, salutes and clicking heels, the peace pioneers knew that they were being ushered into the presence of the Commander-in-chief.
General Villard, who had dashed from Waldron’s side to assume first command, came out laughing to meet them—a tall, stately figure, booted and spurred—his entire staff following. He carried a silver-mounted riding-whip in his hand and looked as if he had been born in the saddle.
“You bear a message under a flag of truce from the enemy?” he asked sharply.
Barker bowed graciously, removing his lame tile, and stood holding it on a level with his shoulder after the fashion of committees at the laying of cornerstones. His bald head and smiling open face beamed. He plunged at once into his eloquent address.
“We have come, General,” he began suavely, “in the name of a hundred million happy, peaceful citizens of this great Republic to bid you welcome to our shores. Our vast and glorious domain, washed by two oceans, stretching from the frozen peaks of Alaska to the eternal sunshine and flowers of the tropics, is large enough for all who bless us with their coming.
“We welcome you as brothers! We want you to stay with us. We offer you the blessings of peace and freedom. We do not meet you with guns. We come with smiles and flowers, extend our hands and say: ‘God bless you!’ ”
The orator was swept away with the melodious sound of his own voice. He replaced his crushed hat and extended his hand in a smile of glowing enthusiasm.
With a sudden crash the silver-mounted riding-whip whistled through the air and tore through the orator’s tile. The battered hat fell into pieces and dropped to the ground revealing an ugly red lane across the great man’s shining bald pate.
Barker was too dumfounded to dodge or protest. The thing happened with such swiftness, it had stunned him into silence.
Pike danced nervously on first one foot and then the other, lifting his hands in little attempts at apologies.
“Hats off in the presence of your superiors!” the General thundered.
Pike’s hat was already off. He hadn’t ventured to put it on. Still he ducked his head instinctively and then rushed into the breach.
“My dear General,” he pleaded. “You do not understand, I am sure. No possible offense could have been intended by my distinguished colleague. It is the custom of our country often to speak with hats on in the open air. The Honorable Plato Barker is a veteran outdoor speaker, your Excellency. He is one of the most distinguished men in America—”
“That is nothing to me,” the General curtly interrupted. “He stands in the presence of an officer of his Imperial Majesty’s Army. Your greatest civilian is my inferior. Keep that in mind when in the presence of your superiors—proceed!”
Barker was too astonished and hurt to say more. For the first time in his illustrious career as a peddler of words, he had failed to move his audience to accepthis wares at any price. His world had collapsed. He could only rub the swelling red line on his head and glance uneasily about his unpromising surroundings.
The preacher’s hour had struck. He rose grandly to the occasion. His manner was the quintessence of courtly deference, nervously anxious deference.
“My name is Pike,” he began tremblingly—“the Reverend A. Cuthbert Pike, D.D., president of the American Peace Union—”
“Proceed, Cuthbert!” was the short answer.
“We have come, your Excellency—“ he paused and bowed low—“to initiate here today for all the world a constructive policy that will eliminate the necessity for war. Our plan is the appeal to reason.
“We marvel at the amazing delusion that has led Europe into this unprovoked and unnecessary assault. Nobody wants war—least of all I’m sure the great General who knows its full horrors.
“The only question, therefore, is how best to prevent it. This nation has always been too strong, too great in the consciousness of her strength, to desire war. We have sixteen million men ready to die at our call! Why should we sacrifice their precious lives? To what end if we can by any means save them?
“The prime cause, your Excellency—“ again he bowed low—“of war is excessive armament—”
The General laughed heartily, and adjusted his glasses for a better look at Pike. The little man was slightly flustered at this act of uncertain import, but went on bravely in spite of Barker’s look of dejection.
“We proclaim it to all nations that we are not ready to fight, and that we are glad of it because it is not possible in this condition for us to threaten or bully anyone! An unarmed man has ten chances to one over the armed man in keeping out of trouble!”
Again the General laughed and looked the preacher over from head to foot.
“Boundaries,” Pike proceeded, “when armed constantly provoke clashes of the forces on either side. Boundaries unarmed, as the long line between us and Canada, promote fellowship and good will.
“We say to your Excellency, come let us reason together. We are determined not to be dragged into war. We have negotiated thirty treaties with the nations of the world, some of whom your army represents, providing for a year’s delay before hostilities can begin.
“We claim our rights under these solemn treaties and ask of you an armistice for twelve months for the discussion of our differences.
“Name your demands and we will lay them before our Congress. Tell us your real mission and we willhelp you to accomplish it. Make us your friends and fellow workers. Why have you come?”
“I’ll tell you,” snapped the General. “For two hundred years you have been keeping a great pigsty on this continent, in which swine have rooted and fattened on the abundance of nature which you haven’t had the brains to conserve.
“Well—it’s time to clean up and make sausage! We have come for that work. We have come to teach a race of slatterns the first principles of law, order and human efficiency. We have come to clean this pigpen, put swine-herders into aprons and give them the honor of serving their superiors—and therefore for the first time in life doing something worth while.
“You are sick with overeating and much prosperity. Our Emperor sends you a tonic of blood and iron warranted to cure all ills. Our benign sovereign is the world’s physician. He takes his crown and divine commission from God alone. On him the Divine Spirit has descended. In his luminous mind is the wisdom of the ages. He who dares to oppose his royal will shall be ground to powder beneath the iron heel of his soldiers. You speak of a hundred million people as if their opinion was of the slightest value. Public opinion is the source of public ills. You speak of treaties.Treaties are the thin disguises by which divinely chosen leadersconcealtheir ultimate aims!
“Might is right and the right can only be decided by the sword. War in itself is the fiery furnace that tries man’s character. The dross perishes. The pure gold shines with greater splendor. Efforts to abolish war are foolish and immoral. Peace is not our aim or desire. The sight of suffering does one good. The infliction of suffering does one more good. This war will be conducted as ruthlessly as science and human genius can make possible—”
He paused and turned to an orderly.
“The bald-headed one to the bakery! He has forfeited his life by daring to purchase a horse that belongs to his Majesty. I graciously spare his life. Tell my head cook to make him a scullion. If he’s any good report to me at the end of the month and I’ll promote him to the honor of acting as my valet. He has a beautiful voice. He could be trained to yodel—”
Barker lifted his hand to protest and the orderly kicked him into a trot. When he turned to protest, the bayonet changed his mind.
Pike watched his chief disappear with a groan of amazement.
The General and his staff gathered around the Reverend President of the Peace Union with jovialfaces. They were inclined to like him. He had contributed something new to the hilarity of nations. They put on their glasses, adjusted and removed them, adjusted them again, looked him up and down, turned him around and wagged their heads gravely.
“Well, gentlemen,” the Commander laughed, “we’re all agreed that it’s a rare specimen—the real question is—what is it?”
Each answer brought a roar of laughter.
“It looks like a man—”
“Can’t be!”
“It might have been once!”
“But not now!”
“A new microbe?”
“Sure—that’s it—the microbe Pacificus americanus!”
The preacher fidgeted in a sorry effort to smile with his tormentors.
“I suppose, of course, gentlemen,” Pike fluttered, “as I’m a tenderfoot you will have your little jokes—it’s all in the day’s work—so to speak—as it were!”
The Commander turned to a sergeant.
“Put an apron on this little man and make him a dishwasher—tin dishes—he might ruin my silver—”
The officers roared.
“If he’s any good I’ll make a butler out of him. I like his whiskers. They’re distinctly English—”
With a loud guffaw the staff dispersed and the General turned to his tent.
Pike danced a little jig in his effort to recall the judge and correct the error of his sentence.
The sergeant gave him a resounding smack on the side of his head that spun him round like a top.
Pike was livid with rage. He bristled like a bantam rooster for a minute to the amazement of his guard.
“Don’t do that! Don’t do it—don’t do it again! Upon my soul, this surpasses human belief, sir! I shall denounce the whole proceeding in a series of resolutions that will resound over this nation—mark my word!”
The soldier waited until Pike’s breath ran short and then kicked him three feet, lifting him clear of the ground. When the preacher struck he fell flat on his face.
The blow took out of him what wind there was left.
He scrambled to his feet and edged out of reach.
“I—I—return—good for evil, sir—“ he stammered at last. “I bless them that despitefully use me—God bless you!”
The soldier snorted with rage and gave him another kick, crying: “The same to you! And many of ’em!”
When Pike scrambled to his feet again and wiped the dust out of his lips he shook his head in despair:
“God bless my soul! God bless my soul!”
The Sergeant grinned in his face.
“Cheer up, Cuthbert, you’ll soon be dead!”
Ten minutes later he thrust poor Pike into the kitchen inclosure and shouted to the cook:
“The sooner you kill him the better—go as far as you like!”
TOVassar sleep had been impossible for the past two nights. He dozed for an hour during the day from sheer exhaustion, but the nearer the hour came for the test of strength between the opposing armies on which hung the fate of a hundred million people, the deeper became his excitement.
All life seemed to mirror itself in a vast luminous crystal before his eyes—the past, the present, the future.
He nodded in the saddle as he watched the construction of the second line of entrenchments five miles in the rear of the first. He wondered at the long reach of that first possible retreat. It was an ominous sign. It revealed the fear in the heart of the American commander.
He fell into a fevered dream. Far up in the sky he saw the sneering face of the Devil bending low over our shores and from his right hand shaking dice. The dice were the skulls of men. They rattled over the wide plain of our coming battlefield. The hideous face twisted with demoniac laughter as he shook the skulls and threw again.
He watched the game with bated breath. The count was made at last and we had lost!
And yet somehow it was well with the dreamer’s soul. An angel took him by the hand and led him from the field on which the skulls lay.
He looked at the angel and it was the face of his beloved. With a cry of joy he woke to find a courier by his side with a message from General Hood.
He rubbed his eyes and smiled for the joy of the dream that still lingered in his heart and quickly read the order.
To Colonel Vassar:Please report immediately to the officer in command at Babylon and tell him to entrench his men at once. We shall make our third and last stand there.(Signed)Hood.
To Colonel Vassar:
Please report immediately to the officer in command at Babylon and tell him to entrench his men at once. We shall make our third and last stand there.
(Signed)Hood.
Vassar scribbled a reply and turned his horse’s head to the staff headquarters.
Babylon was home! He would see his little girls on the eve of battle—but more than all he hoped to see Virginia.
He was still hoping and fearing as he delivered his horse to the hostler and ordered an automobile.
He was just leaping into the machine when Billyappeared on his motor-cycle and handed him a crumpled sealed note.
The boy saluted, smiled and turned back.
It was too good to be true—and yet there it was in his hand—a letter from Virginia!
He waved to the chauffeur:
“To Babylon—headquarters—third reserves—”
The machine swept down the white smooth turnpike and he settled into his seat still holding the precious message unopened.
He broke the seal at last and read through dimmed eyes:
“Come to me at the earliest possible moment. I have much to tell you. I can’t write—”
There was no formal address. There was no name signed. He kissed the delicately lined words and placed the note in his inside pocket.
What did the foolish happiness in his soul mean? Could fate mock him with an hour’s joy and send him to his death tomorrow? He would ride where men were falling like leaves before the sun should set—there could be no doubt of that. He shut his eyes and could see only the face of the woman he loved. He wondered what she would say? He wondered if she would make him ask her forgiveness for the wrong she herself had done, woman-like?
He would be afraid to kiss her again—Nonsense! She couldn’t refuse her lips if she loved. He’d risk it again if he died for it.
He delivered his orders and turned without delay for the Holland homestead. The flowers were in glorious bloom again.
The sun was sinking behind the trees in scarlet and purple glory. His father strolled thoughtfully across the lawn with one arm around Zonia and Marya’s hand clasped in his.
As the car turned into the drive and swept toward the house, the girls saw him and rushed with cries of joy to smother him with kisses.
“Our men are ready?” his father asked gravely.
“To die—yes—they are as ready as they can be without drill or quipment—or artillery to defend them.”
The old man shook his head.
“And the enemy—they are many?”
“A hundred and sixty thousand hardened veterans and the most magnificent equipment of the modern world—”
Old Andrew Vassar lifted his hands in a gesture of pain.
“God help us!”
“Only He can now. We’ve done our best—that’s all—”
“ ‘It’s all love’s victory, dearest’ ”“ ‘It’s all love’s victory, dearest’ ”
He paused and turned to Zonia whispering softly:
“Where is she?”
The girl nodded toward the rose-embowered oak.
“Waiting for you. Billy telephoned us. She’s been there ever since.”
Vassar hurried across the lawn. The twilight was deepening and the new moon hung a half crescent in the evening sky.
She rose as he passed the trellis and stood smiling tenderly until he came close. Her hands were clasped tightly. Neither was extended to greet him.
She lifted her eyes to his in a long, tender gaze, deliberately slipped both arms around his neck and kissed his lips.
He held her close in a moment of strangling joy. She lifted her lips to his again, and spoke in tones so low that only the heart of love could hear:
“My darling—my own—my hero—my mate! I’ve loved you always from the first. I was too proud to surrender my will and mind, my body and soul to any man. I went away into the mountains to fight it out and love conquered, dear! I surrendered before I knew that your prophetic soul was right in sensing this black hour in life. I’m glad I gave up before I knew. It’s all love’s victory, dearest. I love you. I love you—I love you—and now Death is going to throw his shadow between us—”
A sob caught her voice.
“But I shall love you through all eternity and I thank God for this holy hour in which we meet and know, face to face—”
For two glorious hours they sat and held each other’s hands in the soft light of the half-fledged moon.
And then he rose, kissed her again and swiftly rode into the night toward the red dawn of Death.
THEgrim gray wave of destruction from the sand dunes had rolled into battleline and spread out over the green clothed hills and valleys of the Island—swiftly, remorselessly, with an uncanny precision that was marvelous.
The scouts were soaring in the clear blue skies with keen eyes searching for the position of our guns.
As they found them, a puff of black smoke streamed downward and the distant officer, perched high on his movable observation tower, took the range and called it mechanically to the gunners of his battery.
Our rifles cracked in vain. The birdmen laughed and paid no attention. We had no high-powered, high-angle guns that could touch them. Over every section of our lines the huge vultures hung in the air and circled.
The giant guns miles away beyond the distant hills toward Southampton began to roar. Their first shells fell short from five to six hundred yards.
Our boys gazed over their earthworks and watched the geysers of earth and stone and smoke leap into theheavens and sink back in dull crashes. The wind brought in the acid fumes of the poisonous gases.
They stood in silence, clutching their rifles and waiting for the word to fire.
The vultures circled again and dropped more smoke balls. The invisible gunners at their places caught the singsong call from the tower, touched a wheel and raised the noses of their gray monsters the slightest bit.
Again the earth trembled. The air vibrated with the rush of projectiles like the singing of telegraph wires far above the heads of the listening men.
They struck within a hundred yards of where Vassar sat with the field telephone at his ear awaiting General Hood’s orders—a giant shell landed squarely in our trenches, tore a cavern in the earth sixteen feet deep, hurling our mangled men in every direction. Within a radius of a hundred feet no living thing could be seen when the smoke and dust had cleared. Those who had not been killed by stone and flying fragments of iron had been smothered to death where they stood by the deadly fumes.
Our guns answered now in deep thunder peals that shook the trenches.
For two hours without a pause the artillery of both armies sent their mighty chorus crashing into theheavens, their missiles of death whistling through the skies.
The fire of the enemy was incredibly accurate. Their shells struck our trenches with unerring certainty—and where one struck there was nothing left but an ugly crater in the ground. They simply annihilated every object in their track and left a mass of blackened dust and pulp.
Gun after gun of our batteries were silenced.
The vultures were still soaring aloft calling the range of each concealed battery as the fight revealed its place.
The battle had opened at dawn. By ten o’clock fifty pieces of our artillery had been reduced to junk and one-third of our trenches pulverized into shapeless masses of dust, broken stone and gaping caverns.
Apparently our heavy gun fire had made no impression on the enemy. Their long range pieces were hurling death with a steady clock-like regularity that was appalling. Our army was being ground to dust without a chance to strike their hidden foe. We had never possessed an aviation corps of any serviceable strength. The year before the nucleus of one had been authorized by Congress. This little group of efficient men had followed the fleet into the Pacific and the remainingdozen had been left to die in our tragic meeting with the armada.
General Hood possessed but two aeroplanes. It was madness to send them up against two hundred of the enemy. By an accident to his machinery a taube had fallen within our lines. The men had been captured, their uniforms taken, and delivered to General Hood. The machinery of the hostile aeroplane was promptly repaired, our blond sky pilot forced himself into the greenish-gray suit and stood by waiting for the chance to rise in a cloud of smoke and take his chance among the enemy as a spy.
At noon a wave of fog slowly crept in from sea and the guns had died away. As the mist rolled over the battlefield Hood stood beside the courier of the skies.
“Up with you now, boy, in this fog bank. Mix with the enemy and take your chances. Stay until the firing is resumed and give me the position of their guns. I must know whether we have reached them with our shells.”
The birdman saluted and swung the taube into the clouds. He circled toward the sea and disappeared in the mists.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon before he landed far in the rear of our lines and made his way by automobile to headquarters.
Hood sprang from his desk and rushed to meet him.
“Well?”
“Got over their lines all right, sir,” the scout answered. “Watched our shells for an hour. Not one of them fell closer than half a mile short of their batteries.”
The General pressed his hand in silence.
“All right. It’s as I thought. You’re a brave boy, my son. You’re marked for promotion for this day’s work.”
There was nothing to be done but move his lines five miles back to the second trenches. They were being pounded into pulp without a chance to strike back.
We had exhausted half our stock of shells without scoring a hit. Our losses in men and guns had been frightful. The tragic feature of the day was the loss of trained artillerymen whose places could not be filled. It takes three years to train the man behind the gun.
By daylight the retreat of five miles had been effected. The ground in front was more favorable here for long range work. From captive balloons the position of the batteries could be located. We hoped that some of them could be reached and put out of action. If so, we would give them a taste of cold steel.
All night the great guns growled in the distancewhile our shattered lines retreated and reformed in the second intrenchments.
At dawn the vultures signalled the retreat and the green-gray wave of Death rolled forward with incredible swiftness.
By noon their greatest guns, each drawn by fifty magnificent horses, had been brought up and were sweeping into position along the low hills that would form their new battleline.
Our commander made up his mind to pot at least one of those guns. He planted a battery of heavy artillery to sweep the road that curved gracefully over these hills. A clump of trees concealed its presence from the circling scouts.
The moment the huge siege gun swept into view—its fifty horses plunging forward with steady leaps, their sides a lather of white foam—our battery roared a salvo and four shells sang in chorus. The gunners lifted their glasses and watched. Every shell struck within dead range of the long line of plunging horses. A cloud of smoke and dust rose high on the crest of the hill and when it lifted the tangled mass of torn and mangled horses and men blocked the way. A second salvo landed squarely in the wreck and blew the tangled mass into fragments—the glasses could no longer find a moving object.
The vultures circled above the hidden battery, their signals flashed and then from five different points behind the hills the shells began to shriek. In thirty minutes they were silenced and torn to bits. But two men were left alive to reach headquarters with the brave story.
The second battle began in earnest at three o’clock in the afternoon. The pitiful story was repeated. With remorseless accuracy their guns tore our men to pieces. They held their own just half a mile beyond the range of our artillery.
All night our men clung blindly to their position and at the dawn of the third day the enemy’s infantry in solid formation, their bayonets flashing, moved swiftly and silently into line for their first charge.
A hundred machine guns were concentrated to relieve them. They formed at their leisure in plain view of our ragged trenches. Our field artillery got their range and began to pour a storm of shrapnel on their ranks. They closed up the gaps with clock-like precision and moved forward at double quick. Round after round of our artillery failed to stop them. The ranks closed automatically. They were cheering now—the breeze wafted their cries across the little valley that separated them from our trenches:
“For God and Emperor!”
When the ranks in front fell, the mass behind rushed over their bodies and shouted again:
“For God and Emperor!”
Our machine guns were mowing them down as wheat falls beneath the teeth of a hundred singing harvest machines on the prairies of Minnesota.
When the first division had been wiped out the second came rushing over their bodies as if they had been denied their just honors in losing the privilege of dying. The second wave of green reached the earth of our trenches before the last man fell and still a third wave was moving across the valley. Their shouts rang a mighty chorus now in the ears of our crouching men:
“For God and Emperor!”
Our fire was held until the third wave was within a hundred yards. The low words of quick command from charging officers could be distinctly heard as their waving swords flashed in the sunlight.
Vassar watched the thrilling scene with a smile of admiration. He saw their flag now for the first time—a huge scarlet field of silk, in its center an imperial crown wrought in threads of gold.
The Federated Monarchs of Europe had taken the red emblem of the Socialists to proclaim the common cause of royal blood against the mob, and on it set the seal of imperial power.
The cheering, rushing wave rolled within fifty yards and then from every trench poured a sheet of blinding flame. So terrific was the shock, the whole division seemed to drop to their knees at the same moment. Those who had not fallen staggered as if drunk and turned in blind circles as if groping their way in the darkness. In five minutes the last man of the third host had fallen and the slopes of the hill below were piled with the dead, the wounded and dying.
The charges ceased.
The big guns in the distance beyond the hills broke forth again in a savage chorus, continuous and infernal in its incredible power.
Vassar listened with new interest. There was a deep bass voice now in this artillery oratorio that had not been heard before. The monster guns were booming for the first time. The effects of their explosions were appalling. They spoke between the roar of the smaller guns as if the basso were answering the cry of a chorus of superhuman singers. A single shot from one of these guns rang with the volume of a salvo of ordinary artillery. Their shells weighed two thousand pounds—two thousand pounds of dynamite.
Vassar heard one of them coming toward the crest of the hill that was red with heroic blood. It came through the air with the uncanny roar of an express train. Thesound rose until the heavens quivered with the howl of a cyclone.
And then came the crash squarely in the center of our trenches! An explosion followed that rocked the earth and sent a great billowing cloud of smoke and dust high over the treetops into the skies. Fragments of the débris were hurled half a mile in every direction. No living thing was left to tell the story within a hundred yards of the spot. A breach had been made in the trenches through which a regiment might have charged as over an open field. For eighteen hours this terrific hail of huge projectiles continued without pause. The dull thunder was incessant and its vibration shook the world in tremors as from an earthquake.
With grim persistence our men still clung to what was left of their trenches until the night of the second day.
Hood sullenly ordered the retreat to his last line of entrenchments resting on Babylon. The discovery of the movement lead to a fierce rear guard action with the pursuing cavalry of the enemy. Their great field searchlights now swept the heavens and flooded every open space with deadly glare.
The attacking cavalry fell into ambush carefully prepared and were annihilated. They didn’t repeat the attack. But our guns had no sooner limbered up andwithdrawn from their position when a squadron of the new steel cavalry, guided by the searchlights, charged at full speed seventy miles an hour down the turnpike straight into our retreating infantry. An armored automobile, spitting a storm of lead from its machine guns, plunged headlong into a regiment of volunteers, worn and half-starved and ready to fall for the lack of sleep. The huge wheels rolled over prostrate men like a great juggernaut, hurling others into the fields and dashing them among the limbs of trees.
The monster stopped at last choked by the mangled bodies caught in its machinery. A hundred desperate men swarmed over its sides and in a fierce hand to hand fight captured the car and killed its crew.
Again and again through the night of this terrible retreat these tactics were repeated. Not one of the six machines that charged our lines ever returned to tell the story. Not one that charged failed to pile the dead in heaps along the white shining turnpike.
The Holland house was inside the third line. Vassar hurried forward to beg Virginia to return with the girls and the older people to New York.
They refused to stir.
“What’s the use, sir?” Holland snapped. “We’re as safe here as anywhere. If Hood can’t hold this railroad junction—it’s all over. The wildest reports comein hourly from New York. The looting and outrages surpass belief—”
“Your house has been raided?” Vassar asked.
“I’ve just heard that every house on both Stuyvesant Square and Gramercy Park has been smashed and wrecked. The soldiers have been looting private dwellings at their leisure—while mobs of thieves and cutthroats join in the sport.”
There was no help for it then.
He whispered a hurried good-bye to Virginia, kissed Zonia and Marya and rushed for his horse.
The first gray streaks of dawn were already tinging the eastern sky. The invading army had followed with amazing rapidity. Whole regiments armed with machine guns had been hurled forward by automobile transports. Hood had destroyed the railroad as he retreated. The advancing hosts didn’t need it. The hardened veterans who marched, with quick swinging gait, smoking their pipes and singing, could make thirty miles a day and be ready for a fight at the end of their march. They meant to rush our trenches today and make quick work of it. They were not going to waste any more big shells which might be needed elsewhere.
The wind was blowing directly in the faces of our men for the first time since the landing had been made.They wondered if the wild stories we had heard of the use of poisonous gases and liquid fire in the great war were true. We had begun to scout these tales as press work of the various governments. The day was destined to bring a rude awakening.
THEfirst day’s battle brought to many a raw recruit the sharp need of military training. Many a man who had never consciously known the meaning of fear waked to find his knees trembling and hung his head in shame at the revelation.
Tommaso had led his squad into the trenches before his bitter hour of self-revelation came. He had caught a glimpse of his wife and boy in a group of panic-stricken refugees and the sight had taken the last ounce of courage out of him. He was going to be killed. He knew it now with awful certainty. What would become of his loved ones? All night in the trenches he brooded over it. When the sun rose he was only waiting for a chance to run in the excitement of battle. He swore he would not leave his wife and child to starve!
Angela carrying the poor little fear-stricken monkey, with the boy tightly gripping his dog Sausage, trying to save his kitten and his mother lugging a huge bundle had penetrated the American lines and found Vassar the day of the opening fight.
The leader had hustled them from the field and they had taken refuge in a cabin behind the trenches. With the first gray dawn, the aeroplanes began to drop shells from the sky. An aerial bomb exploded within twenty feet of the cabin.
Angela leaped to the door, gathered her boy and pets and shouted to her terror-stricken neighbor.
“Come—quick! we will be torn to pieces—we must run—”
In dumb panic, Mrs. Schultz gathered her own boy convulsively in her arms and refused to stir.
Angela sprang through the door and hurried across the hills. The others crouched in the corner of the cabin and waited.
A black ball again shot downward, crashed through the roof of the cabin, exploded and sent the frail structure leaping into the heavens.
The airmen far up in the sky saw the column of flame and smoke and débris:
“Good—we got ’em that crack!” the driver shouted above the whirr of his motor.
By one of the strange miracles of war Sausage crawled over the dead body of his mother still clinging to the kitten and found his way into the woods without a scratch.
Angela was just staggering to the crest of the ridgewhen the shell exploded and hurled the cabin into space. A sickening wave of horror swept her soul and she suddenly sank in a heap. In vain poor Sam the monk tried to rouse her. His deep curious monkey eyes swept the smoke-wreathed heavens in terror as again and again he stroked the white still face of his fallen mistress.
For the first time since they had left home on the wild journey the childish smile left the boy’s face. His war picnic had ended in grim tragedy after all. He couldn’t believe it at first and the tears came in spite of his struggle to hold them back. In vain he shook his mother. She lay flat on her back now, her chalk-white face upturned in the sun.
The boy was still crying when he felt the nudge of another arm against his. He lifted his tear-stained face and saw Sausage’s smoke-begrimmed cheeks and the look of dumb anguish in his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” the boy sobbed.
“My mamma’s killed”—was the low answer.
The swarthy face of the little Italian pressed close to the fair German, and their arms stole round each other’s neck.
Angela waking from her faint found them thus and gathered them into her arms.
She was still soothing their fears when Tommaso
“Tommaso staggered to the breastworks and stood one man against an army”“Tommaso staggered to the breastworks and stood one man against an army”
crawling on hands and knees in mortal terror from the battlefield, suddenly came upon them.
In her surprise and joy over his protection Angela failed to note at first the meaning of his sudden appearance.
“O my Tommaso!” she cried, throwing herself into his arms.
He held her close for a moment and whispered excitedly:
“I come to take you home, my Angela. You will be killed—you must not be here—”
It was not until he had spoken that the wife caught the note of cowardly terror in his voice. Her arms slipped slowly from his neck.
He hurried to repeat his warning:
“You must go quick, my Angela!”
The wife searched his soul and he turned away. She put her hand on his shoulder and her own eyes filled with tears.
“Come—we must hurry”—Tommaso urged, seizing his gun and starting to rise.
Angela held his hand firmly and pointed to the smoke-covered field below.
“No—no—my man. Your place is there to fight for our bambino and his country—you just forgot for a little while. I know—I understand. I felt my heartmelt and my poor knees go down—you go now and fight for us!”
The man trembled and could not meet her eye.
A shell exploded near, hurling the dust and gravel in advance clear above them. A piece of iron buried itself in the earth but three feet away.
Angela cried in terror. The man suddenly stiffened, looked into the face of his boy, rose, seized his rifle, kissed his wife and rushed down the red lane of death to the front.
Angela watched him with pride and terror. He was still in plain view in the little valley below when he met the ragged lines of our retreating men. The color-bearer fell. Tommaso seized the flag and called the men to rally.
Through a hell of bursting shrapnel and machine-gun fire he turned the tide of retreat into a charge—a charge that never faltered until the last man fell on the slippery slopes of blood below the trenches of the enemy.
Tommaso staggered to the breastworks and stood one man against an army cheering and calling his charge to the field of the dead.
The enemy rose in the trenches and cheered the lone figure silhouetted against the darkened heavens until he sank at last exhausted from the loss of blood.
OURobservers in a captive balloon had made out before sunrise the massing of machine guns in front. They were still coming on in endless procession of swirling auto-transports that lifted clouds of white dust that swept toward our lines in billows so dense at times the field was obscured.
Hood decided to close in on those guns before they could be assembled and mounted.
With a savage yell a brigade of regulars led the charge, followed by ten thousand picked men. Pressing forward before a dust cloud the regulars penetrated within a hundred yards of the enemy’s lines before they were discovered. The rush with which they crossed the space was resistless. The splutter of pompoms filled the air and half the line went down. The remaining half reached the first crews. Hand to hand now and man to man they fought like demons—bayonets, revolvers, clubs, fists and stones! Friend and foe mingled in a mad holocaust of death. While still they fought, the second line of our charging men reached the spot and joined the fray. Twenty machine guns had been capturedand turned on their foes. An ominous quiet behind the scene of this bloody combat followed the first roar of the clash.
The commander of the invaders, seeing that he had lost some guns, instantly drew back his lines and reformed them fan-shaped with each gun bearing on the breach.
A tornado of whistling lead suddenly burst on the mass of our victorious troops. Five hundred machine guns had been concentrated with a speed that was stunning.
Our men dropped in platoons. They swayed and rallied and once more faced the foe for a second charge. Machine guns seemed to rise from the earth. They were fighting five regiments of men all armed with them.
The commander of our charging division tried in vain to rally. In thirty minutes there was nothing to rally. They lay in ghastly moaning heaps while whistling bullets sang their requiem in an endless crackle that came like the popping of straw before the roar of flames in a burning meadow. Whole regiments were literally wiped out with every officer and every man left torn and mangled on the field.
The reserves in the trenches saw the hideous butchery in helpless fury. No moving thing could live within the radius of those guns.
When the last man had fallen, the spluttering pompoms died away and a green billow of smoke began to roll toward our lines. It swept on in a steady, even wave three miles long. The wind was carrying the cloud straight across the trenches in which our men crouched to receive the charge they expected to follow our failure.
The dust clouds had been pouring in their faces all morning. They paid no attention to the changing greenish tints of the new dust bank. The deadly fumes poured over our trenches in silence. The men breathed once and dropped in strangling horror, clutching and tearing at their throats. The guns fell by their sides as their bodies writhed and twisted in mortal agony. The pestilence swept the field scorching and curling every living thing.
Behind it in the shadows stalked a new figure in the history of war—ghouls in shining divers’ helmets with knife and revolver to complete the assassin’s work.
A thousand fiends of hell charging in serried ranks with faces silhouetted by the red glare of the pit could not have made a picture more hideous than these crouching diving machines as they scrambled over the shambles of the trenches and ruthlessly shot the few surviving figures, blindly fighting for air.
Behind those monsters who were proof against the poison fumes advanced the dense masses of infantry.
The way was clear, the backbone of the defense had been broken. Three miles of undefended trenches lay in front. It was the simplest work of routine to give the order to charge and watch them pour through the far-flung hopeless breach, swing to the right and left and roll the broken ranks up in two mighty scrolls of blood and death.
It was done with remorseless, savage brutality. Our men asked no quarter. They got none.
The leader of the charging hosts had orders to exterminate the contemptible little army of civilians that had dared oppose the imperial hosts.
They were setting an example of frightfulness that would make the task of complete conquest easy.
“Kill! Kill! Kill!” shouted the stout bow-legged General in command of the cavalry. “It’s mercy in the long run! Let them know that we mean what we say!”
When our men saw their methods and knew that the end was sure, they sold each life for all it would bring in the shambles. Many a stalwart foe bit the dust and lay cold and still or writhing in mortal agony among the heaps of our dead and wounded before the awful day had ended.
The cries of the wounded were heartrending. A weird, unearthly sound came from the vast field ofgroaning, wailing, dying, gibbering men. The most hideous scenes of all were enacted by maniacs who laughed the red laugh of death in each other’s faces.
The horizon toward Southampton was black now with the smoke of burning villages. They had set them on fire with deliberate wanton purpose of destructive terror.
Would they burn Babylon in the same way? Would these maddened brutes break into our homes and make the night still more hideous with crimes against women and children?
A wave of horror swept Vassar’s soul as he thought of his nieces and the woman he loved. He crept through the shadows of the woods and hurried toward the Holland home.
THEtwilight was deepening on scenes of stark horror in the streets of Babylon when Vassar slipped through the field and along the hedgerows toward the center of the town.
Flames were leaping from a dozen homes along the turnpike. He saw the brutal soldiery enter a pretty lawn, call out the occupants and as they emerged fire in volleys on old men, women and children. They fell across the doorsteps and lay where they fell. A dark figure approached the open door, hurled a quart of gasoline inside, lighted his fire ball, and walked away, his black form outlined in the night against the red glare of hell.
A crowd of panic-stricken women and children with a dozen boys of fourteen rushed down the streets toward the squad of incendiaries. Without a word they raised their rifles and fired until the last figure fell.
A child toddled from the burning home carrying her kitten in one hand and a toy lamb in another. She was sobbing bitterly in one breath, and trying to reassure her kitten in the next.
Vassar heard her as she hurried past on the other side of the hedge.
“Don’t you cry, kitty darling, I won’t let them hurt you.”
Her people were dead. She was hurrying into the night alone. From every street came the shrieks of women dragged to their doom by beasts in uniform.
Vassar set his jaw and crept along the last hedgerow to the gate of the Holland home.
The lights were burning brightly. A sentinel stood at the steps of the porch, his burly figure distinctly outlined against the cluster of electric lights in the low ceiling.
A sentry was on guard at the gate not ten feet away. A battery of artillery rolled past, its steel frames rattling and lumbering.
Vassar saw his chance.
As the last caisson wheeled away beyond the flickering street lamps the guard turned into the hedge out of the wind to light his pipe.
With a tiger spring Vassar leaped on him, gripped his throat, pressed an automatic to his breast and fired.
He took the chance that the passing battery would drown the muffled shot. The sentry crumpled in his arms and he held his breath watching his companion atthe house. The steady step showed that he had not heard.
He drew the dying soldier into the shadows inside the lawn and exchanged clothes. He threw the body close under the hedge, seized the rifle and took his place at the gate.
He would side-step the officers, guard the house and make the men who dared attempt to violate it pay for their crime. It was evident that a commander had selected the house for his headquarters for the night. He watched the drunken revelers who passed and wondered what was happening inside.
So long as the officer of high rank remained and was sober the women were safe. He would stand guard until daylight and make his escape.
He watched the figures pass the lighted windows with increasing anxiety. A disturbance had occurred. The sentinel stopped, glanced toward the house, lowered his gun, watched a moment and resumed his beat.
Vassar crawled on his hands and knees halfway across the lawn, gripped his rifle, and waited.
THEorderly who searched the house found two shotguns. The Colonel who had quartered his staff for the night pointed to the two old men.
“Arrest them—you understand.”
Andrew Vassar knew what the brief clause with which the order ended meant. He crossed himself and breathed a prayer for the safety of his loved ones.
Zonia and Marya burst into tears. Virginia and her mother drew themselves erect and waited white and silent.
Holland faced the commander, erect, defiant.
“I am a soldier, sir,” he began with dignity. “I fought for my country through four bloody years in a hundred skirmishes and twenty-six great battles. I have the right to bear arms. I have won that right with my blood. I claim it before any court on earth over which a soldier presides.”
The commander fixed him with a stern look.
“You have disobeyed the proclamation of the Governor-General, the servant of my Imperial Master. You have therefore forfeited all rights.”
“I demand a trial by drum-head court martial!” Holland answered.
“You shall have it—you and your companion. Take them away.”
Between two soldiers they were marched across the fields.
The children burst into incontrollable weeping.
The Colonel spoke in sharp tones:
“Come, come, my children. It is nothing. I must respect the forms. Their lives are forfeited, but I spare them for your sakes. They will return, both, tomorrow—have no fear!”
Zonia seized the officer’s hand still sobbing:
“Thank you! Thank you!”
Marya in her joy kissed him.
The crisis passed, the Colonel turned to the ladies with a courtly bow.
“I am sorry to have to be so rude in your presence, madam,” he said, addressing Virginia’s mother. “We are soldiers. I must obey the orders of my superiors. I have no choice. We are sorry to put you to the trouble—but we are tired and hungry and we must dine. I will appreciate a good dinner and I shall see to it that your home is safe from intrusion on this unhappy evening.”
His heels clicked again and he resumed his seat.
“We will serve you dinner at once,” Virginia quickly replied before her mother could answer. “We are sorry that it will be so poor. We have had no market for the past two days—”
“Some good wine will go far to make up for what else you may lack,” a Lieutenant interrupted.
“By all means, some wine—“ the Colonel added.
The three men were bidden to enter the dining-room with a bow from Peter, the black butler.
“We dine alone?” the Colonel asked in surprise.
“De ladies is feelin’ very po’ly, sah—Dey axe to be ‘cused—”
“Say to the ladies,” was the stern answer, “that we cannot sit down without their presence. We await them. Ask them to come at once.”
The request was a command.
The women held a council of war.
“I’ll die first,” Mrs. Holland calmly answered.
“You will not,” Virginia firmly declared.
“We’ve something big to live for now. Our country needs us. We too are soldiers from tonight. We play the war game with our enemy—come all of you—”
Without delay she forced them to enter the dining-room. Virginia, Zonia and Marya took seats opposite the intruders, the mother, her accustomed place at the head of the table.
The dinner moved with quiet and orderly dignity until the officers’ faces began to flush with wine. The Lieutenant’s leering eye continually sought Zonia’s.
She avoided his gaze at every turn.
“Come, now, you little puss!” he cried at last. “Don’t freeze me with dark looks and averted gaze. I like you!”
Zonia blushed and dropped her head lower.
“I suggest, Lieutenant,” Mrs. Holland began, “that your remark is a little rude. I trust we are in the presence of gentlemen of culture and refinement.”
Virginia held her breath in painful suspense. She saw the Colonel give a wink aside to his subordinate.
The Lieutenant tossed off his glass of wine, rose, clicked his heels and bowed.
“I assure you, madam,” he said with a laugh, “you do me great injustice. I have been honestly smitten with admiration for the charming and beautiful young lady. We are enemies, but she has conquered. I acknowledge defeat. To show you my sincerity, I will apologize—”
With a quick swing, his sword clanking, he walked around the table and leaned close over Zonia’s shoulders, his reddened eyes searching her frightened face.
“You will forgive me, my dear!” he drawled.
His head touched the girl’s dark hair and she shrank with a little cry of horror.
“Please!”
“So! I’m not to be forgiven!” he growled.
“Please leave me!” Zonia breathed timidly.
“Come now—don’t be silly—“ he protested. “Am I a leper?”
The girl lifted her eyes to his flushed, lecherous face, sprang to her feet, rushed into the hall and up the stairs. The Lieutenant followed with a loud laugh and oath.
Virginia and her mother leaped from their chairs to follow. The Colonel stood in front barring the way.
“Enough of these high and mighty airs, if you please!” he commanded sternly. “We are the masters of this house. It is a woman’s place to obey. Sit down!”
“Colonel, I beg of you—“ Virginia pleaded. “I must protect this girl. She is under my care—”
“I will protect her! My officer means no harm. Your suspicions are an insult. He is only having his little fun with a foolish girl. It is the privilege of the conqueror—”
He seized Virginia’s arm and forced her into her seat. Marya was sobbing bitterly. Mrs. Holland sank helplessly into a chair where she stood.
The Colonel opened the front door and beckoned the guard.
The sentinel entered.
“Attend us. The ladies will not leave this room until our dinner has been properly served.”
The man saluted and took his place beside the door.
The noise of a struggle in the room above brought a moment of dead silence. The Colonel smiled. Marya screamed and Mrs. Holland fainted.
“Stop! Stop, I say!” Virginia heard the Lieutenant shout.
A vulgar oath rang through the house and Zonia’s swift feet were climbing the second flight of stairs, a man stumbling after her.
Virginia rushed instinctively to the rescue. The guard seized her arms and forced her into a chair.
“My dear young lady,” the Sublieutenant cried, approaching her with a leer. “It’s only a little fun! Not a hair of her precious head will be harmed. He only fired to frighten and bring her to terms.”
The Colonel continued to eat.
Virginia rushed to her mother’s aid with a glass of water as her limp form slipped to the floor.
The Colonel bent low over his cups and laughed at a joke the Sublieutenant whispered.
A shot rang out from the wall of the house.
A piercing scream echoed from the tower against the roof.
Something crashed through the vines and struck the stone walk with a dull thud.
“O my God!” Virginia moaned, covering her ears.
Virginia leaped from the floor and heard the quick familiar step of Billy passing the back door.
He was hiding on the lawn, heard Zonia’s first scream, and had killed the officer. Virginia saw it in a flash.
Their vengeance would be complete when they knew the truth. She must escape. There was work to be done for her country and she meant to do it. Life was too precious to be thrown away tonight.
She glided silently toward the door, reached the hall, seized Zonia’s hand, passed the guard and reached the lawn.
“Follow her!” the Colonel shouted. “Bring her back dead or alive—I’ll not be flouted by women!”
The man plunged after Virginia, and called once:
“Halt!”
He raised his rifle to fire as she rushed squarely into the arms of the sentry who held the gate.
She struggled fiercely to free herself from the hated uniform and felt his arms tighten with savage power.
Vassar spoke in low, tense whispers:
“Be still, my own!”
She lifted her eyes in joyous terror and saw the face of her lover tense with rage.
“God in heaven!” she cried.
“Sh, still now—on your knees,” he breathed.
“Oh, Uncy darling!” Zonia moaned.
Virginia’s body slowly dropped as if in prayer that her life be spared.
The sentinel from the house leisurely approached.
“Good work, old pal!” he called.
The Colonel and Sublieutenant rushed from the house, followed by Marya and Mrs. Holland who had revived. The commander blew his whistle and the entire guard who patrolled the grounds hurried to the spot.
Billy stepped from the shadows, and spoke in low tones to Vassar.
“It’s all up with me now. I shot the devil who was after Zonia.”
“Billy darling!” Virginia moaned.
“Keep still, sis—it’s all right!” he whispered.
The Colonel approached the group at his leisure, smoking a cigarette.
He merely glanced at Vassar and began in quick business-like tones:
“Who shot that man?”
Billy stepped forward.
“I did, sir—”
“So?”
“Virginia Holland’s my sister—”
The Colonel touched his mustache and looked the youngster over with admiration.
“A boy alone defies a victorious army. I like you. I want you in our ranks—”
He paused thoughtfully as Mrs. Holland and Marya crept close, clinging to each other in dumb misery. Zonia slipped close to Billy—
“My darling boy!” his mother moaned.
“It’s all right, mother,” he called cheerfully—“What’s the odds? They shot John Vassar’s father and mine an hour ago—”
A low moan came from Virginia’s lips.
The mother was silent. Her eyes were fixed on the rigid figure of her boy with hungry, desperate yearning.
The Colonel caught the look of anguish and felt for a moment the pull of its tragedy. He too had a mother.
He turned to her and spoke in friendly tones:
“Madam, your son is of the stuff that makes heroes. I’m going to spare his life—”
“Thank God—“ she sobbed.
“On one condition—I want him in the service ofthe Emperor. Frederick the Great called thousands of conquered foes to the colors—they made good. If he will take off his cap and give three cheers for the Emperor—I will place him on my staff and he shall live to find new paths of glory.”
Billy smiled.
His mother, Virginia, Marya and Zonia pressed close and pleaded that he yield.
His mother held him in her arms in a long, desperate embrace.
“O my baby, heart of my heart, you must—I command it. Your father is gone. You must live and care for your poor mother—”
“Do it, boy,” Virginia whispered, “and give them the slip—fight the devil with fire—you must.”
“Please, Billy!” Marya pleaded.
Zonia slipped her arms around his neck.
The boy looked into the wistful face of the girl—bent and kissed her.
“All right, Zonia,” he cried steadily.
“I’ll do it for your sake and mother’s—”
“Sensible boy!” the Colonel cried. “Now attention!”
He clicked his heels as the guard fell in line behind him. With quick wit John Vassar took his place with the others.
“The ladies by my side, please, in honor of the ceremony,” the Colonel called.
Virginia, Marya and the mother huddled in a group beside the commander.
“Now, sir,” he cried, “we’ll have three cheers for his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor!”
The boy’s face went white and his voice failed.
“Billy—“ his mother pleaded.
“Billy!” Virginia sternly commanded.
“Billy!” Zonia pleaded.
The youngster’s body suddenly stiffened and a smile overspread his face. The tense scene was unearthly in the pale moonlight. His voice was quick and rang in deep, manly tones.
“Hurrah for the President of the United States!—to hell with all emperors!”
The Colonel drew his pistol and shot him down before their agonized gaze.
The mother swooned, Marya fled in terror to the woods.
Zonia caught the crumpled figure in her arms.
Vassar with a single leap was by Virginia’s side, seized her and rushed toward the shadows of the hedge.
He shouted to the commander:
“She’s mine, Colonel—by right of conquest!”
To Virginia he whispered hoarsely:
“Shout, fight, scratch, scream to him for help—”
Quick to catch his ruse, she struck wildly with her hands, and called for help.
The Colonel laughed.