It was late in the day following his departure from New York that Pen reached his destination in Canada. In a certain suburban town not far from Toronto he found a great training camp. It was here that selected units of the new Dominion armies received their military instruction prior to being sent abroad. It was here also that many of the young men from the States, desirous of fighting under the Union Jack, came to enlist with the Canadian troops and to receive their first lessons in the science of warfare. Canada was stirred as she had never been stirred before in all her history. Her troops already at the front had received their first great baptism of fire at Langemarck. They had fought desperately, they had won splendidly, but their losses had been appalling. So the young men of Canada, eager to avenge the slaughter of their countrymen, were hastening to fill the depleted ranks, and the youngmen from the States were proud to bear them company.
But life in the training camps was no holiday. It was hard, steady, strenuous business, carried on under the most rigid form of discipline. Yet the men were well clothed, well fed, had comfortable quarters, enjoyed regular periods of recreation, and were content with their lot, save that their eagerness to complete their training and get to the firing line inevitably manifested itself in expressions of impatience.
To get up at 5:30 in the morning and drill for an hour before breakfast was no great task, nor two successive hours of fighting with tipped bayonets, nor throwing of real bombs and hand-grenades, nor was the back-breaking digging of trenches, nor the exhaustion from long marches, if only by such experiences they could fit themselves eventually to fight their enemy not only with courage but also with that skill and efficiency which counts for so much in modern warfare.
It was ten days after Pen's enlistment that, being off duty, he crossed the parade groundone evening and went into the large reading and recreation room of the Young Men's Christian Association, established and maintained there for the benefit of the troops in training. He had no errand except that he wished to write a letter to his mother, and the conveniences offered made it a favorite place for letter writing.
There were few people in the room, for it was still early, and the writing tables were comparatively unoccupied. But at one of them, with his back to the entrance, sat a young man in uniform busy with his correspondence. Pen glanced at him casually as he sat down to write; his quarter face only was visible. But the glance had left an impression on his mind that the face and figure were those of some one he had at some time known. He selected his writing paper and took up a pen, but the feeling within him that he must look again and see if he could possibly recognize his comrade in arms was too strong to be resisted. Apparently the feeling was mutual, for when Pen did turn his eyes in the direction of the other visitor, he found that the young man hadceased writing, and was sitting erect in his chair and looking squarely at him. It needed no second glance to convince him that his companion was none other than Aleck Sands. For a moment there was an awkward pause. It was apparent that the recognition was mutual, but it was apparent also that in the shock of surprise neither boy knew quite what to do. It was Aleck who made the first move. He rose, crossed the room to where Pen was sitting, and held out his hand.
"Pen," he said, "are you willing to shake hands with me now? You know I was dog enough once to refuse a like offer from you."
"I'm not only willing but glad to, if you want to let bygones be bygones."
"I'll agree to that if you will agree to forgive me for what I've done against you and against the flag."
"What you've done against the flag?"
Pen was staring at him in surprise. When had the burden of that guilt been shifted?
"Yes, I," answered Aleck. "I did far more against the flag that day at Chestnut Hill thanyou ever thought of doing. I haven't realized it until lately, but now that I do know it, I'm trying in every way I possibly can to make it right."
"Why, you didn't trample on it, nor speak of it disrespectfully, nor refuse to apologize to it; it was I who did all that."
"I know, but I dogged you into it. If I myself had paid proper respect to the flag you would never have got into that trouble. Pen, I never did a more unpatriotic, contemptible thing in my life than I did when I wrapped that flag around me and dared you to molest me. It was a cowardly use to make of the Stars and Stripes. Moreover, I did it deliberately, and you—you acted on the impulse of the moment. It was I who committed the real fault, and it has been you who have suffered for it."
"Well, I gave you a pretty good punching, didn't I?"
"Yes, but the punching you gave me was not a thousandth part of what I deserved; and, if you think it would even matters up any, I'd be perfectly willing to stand up to-night andlet you knock me down a dozen times. Since this war came on I've despised myself more than I can tell you for my treatment of the flag that day, and for my treatment of you ever since."
That he was in dead earnest there could be no doubt. Phlegmatic and conservative by nature, when he was once roused he was not easily suppressed. Pen began to feel sorry for him.
"You're too hard on yourself," he said. "I think you did make a mistake that day, so did I. But we were both kids, and in a way we were irresponsible."
"Yes, I know. There's something in that, to be sure. But that doesn't excuse me for letting the thing go as I got older and knew better, and letting you bear all the blame and all the punishment, and never lifting a finger to try to help you out. That was mean and contemptible."
"Well, it's all over now, so forget it."
"But I haven't been able to forget it. I've thought of it night and day for a year. A dozen times I've started to hunt you up andtell you what I'm telling you to-night, and every time I've backed out. I couldn't bear to face the music. And when I heard that they turned you down when you tried to enlist in the Guard at Lowbridge, on account of the old trouble, that capped the climax. I couldn't stand it any longer; I felt that I had to shoulder my part of that burden somehow, and that the very best way for me to do it was to go and fight; and if I couldn't fight under my own flag, then to go and fight under the next best flag, the Union Jack. I felt that after I'd had my baptism of fire I'd have the face and courage to go to you and tell you what I've been telling you now. But I'm glad it's over. My soul! I'm glad it's over!"
He dropped into a chair by the table and rested his head on his open hand as though the recital of his story had exhausted him. Pen stood over him and laid a comforting arm about his shoulder.
"It's all right, old man!" he said. "You've done the fair thing, and a great lot more. Now let's call quits and talk about something else. When did you come up here?"
"Five days ago. I'm just getting into the swing."
"Well, you're exactly the right sort. I'm mighty glad you're here. We'll fix it so we can be in the same company, and bunk together. What do you say?"
"Splendid! if you're willing. Can it be done? I'm in company M of the —th Battalion."
"I know of the same thing having been done since I've been here. We'll try it on, anyway."
They did try it on, and three days later the transfer was made. After that they were comrades indeed, occupying the same quarters, marching shoulder to shoulder with each other in the ranks, sharing with each other all the comforts and privations of life in the barracks, moved by a common impulse of patriotism and chivalry, longing for the day to come when they could prove their mettle under fire.
But it was not until February 1916 that they went abroad. After three months of intensive training they were hardened, supple, and skillful. But their military education wasnot yet complete. Commanders of armies know that raw or semi-raw troops are worse than useless in modern warfare. Soldiers in these days must know their business thoroughly if they are to meet an enemy on equal terms. They must be artisans as well as soldiers, laborers as well as riflemen, human machines compounded of blood and courage.
So, in a great camp not far from London, there were three months more of drill and discipline and drastic preparation for the firing line.
But at last, in late May, when the young grass was green on England's lawns, and the wings of birds were flashing everywhere in the sunshine, and nature was rioting in leaf and flower, a troop-ship, laden to the gunwales with the finest and the best of Canada's young patriots and many of the most stalwart youth of the States, landed on the welcoming shore of France. In England evidences of the great war had been marked, abundant and harrowing. But here, in the country whose soil had been invaded, the grim and stirring actualities of the mighty conflict were brought home tothe onlooker with startling distinctness. At the railroad station, where the troops entrained for the front, every sight and sound was eloquent with the tenseness of preparation and the tragedy of the long fight. Soldiers were everywhere. Coats of blue, trousers of red, jackets of green, gave color and variety to the prevailing mass of sober khaki. Here too, dotting the hurrying throng, were the pathetic figures of the stricken and wounded, haggard, bandaged, limping, maimed, on canes and crutches, back from the front, released from the hospitals, seeking the rest and quiet that their sacrifices and heroism had so well earned. And here too, ministering to the needs of the suffering and the helpless, were many of the white-robed nurses of the Red Cross.
It was evening when the train bearing the first section of the —th Battalion of Canadian Light Infantry to which Pen and Aleck belonged steamed slowly out of the station. All night, in the darkness, across the fields and through the fine old forests of northern France the slow rumble of the coaches, interrupted by many stops, kept up. But in the gray ofthe early morning, a short distance beyond Amiens, in the midst of a mist covered meadow, the train pulled up for the last time. This had been fighting ground. Here the invading hosts of Germany had been met and driven back. Ruined farm houses, shattered trees, lines of old trenches scarring the surface of the meadow, all told their eloquent tale of ruthless and devastating war. And yonder, in the valley, the slow-moving Somme wound its shadowy way between green banks and overhanging foliage as peacefully and beautifully as though its silent waters had never been flecked with the blood of dying men. Even now, as the troops detrained and marched to the sections of the field assigned them, the dull and continuous roar of cannon in the distance came to their ears with menacing distinctness.
"It's the thunder of the guns!" exclaimed Pen. "I hope to-morrow finds us where they're firing them."
"I'm with you," responded Aleck. "I shall be frightened to death when they first put me under fire, but the sooner I'm hardened to it the better."
"Tut! You'll be as brave as a lion. It's your kind that wins battles."
Pen turned his face toward a horizon lost in a haze of smoke, and the look in his eyes showed that he at least, would be no coward when the supreme moment came. Lieutenant Davis of their company strolled by; impatiently waiting for further orders. He was a strict disciplinarian indeed, but he was very human and his men all loved him. Pen pointed in the direction from which came the muffled sounds of warfare.
"When shall we be there, Lieutenant?" he asked.
"I don't know, Butler," was the response. "It may be to-morrow; it may be next month. Only those in high command know and they're not telling. We may camp right here for weeks."
But they did not camp there. In the early evening there came marching orders, and, under cover of darkness, the entire battalion swung into a muddy and congested road and tramped along it for many hours. But they got no nearer to the fighting line. Weary,hungry and thirsty, they stopped at last on the face of a gently sloping hill protected from the north by a forest which had not yet suffered destruction either at the hands of sappers or from the violence of shells. It was apparent that this had been a camp for a large body of troops before the advancement of the lines. It was deserted now, but there were many caves in the hillside, and hundreds of little huts made of earth and wood under the sheltering trunks and branches of the trees. It was in one of these huts that Pen and Aleck, together with four of their comrades, were billeted. It was not long after their arrival before hastily built fires were burning, and coffee, hot and fragrant, was brewing, to refresh the tired bodies of the men, until the arrival of the provision trains should supply them with a more substantial breakfast. There was plenty of straw, however, and on that the weary troops threw themselves down and slept.
At this camp the battalion remained until the middle of June. There were drills, marching and battalion maneuvers by day, suchrecreation in the evenings as camp life could afford, sound sleeping on beds of straw at night, and always, from the distance, sometimes loud and continuous, sometimes faint and occasional, the thunder of the guns. And always, too, along the muddy high-road at the foot of the slope, a never-ending procession of provision and munition trains laboring toward the front, and the human wreckage of the firing line, and troops released from the trenches, passing painfully to the rear. No wonder the men grew impatient and longed for the activities of the front even though their ears were ever filled with tales of horror from the lips of those who had survived the ordeal of battle.
But, soon after the middle of June, their desires were realized. Orders came to break camp and prepare to march, to what point no one seemed to know, but every one hoped and expected it would be to the trenches. There was a day of bustle and hurry. The men stocked up their haversacks, filled their canteens and cartridge-boxes, put their guns in complete readiness, and at five o'clock in the afternoon were assembled and began theirmarch. The road was ankle-deep with mud, for there had been much rain, and it was congested with endless convoys. There were many delays. A heavy mist fell and added to the uncertainty, the weariness and discomfort. But no complaint escaped from any man's lips, for they all felt that at last they were going into action. Four hours of marching brought them into the neighborhood of the British heavy artillery concealed under branches broken from trees or in mud huts, directing their fire on the enemy's lines by the aid of signals from lookouts far in advance or in the air. The noise of these big guns was terrific, but inspiring. At nine o'clock there was a halt of sufficient length to serve the men with coffee and bread, and then the march was resumed. By and by shells from the guns of the Allies began to shriek high over the heads of the marching men, and were replied to by the enemy shells humming and whining by, seeking out and endeavoring to silence the Allied artillery. Now and then one of these missiles would burst in the rear of the column, sending up a glare of flame and a cloud of dustand debris, but at what cost in life no one in the line knew.
As the men advanced the mud grew deeper, the way narrower, the congestion greater. The passing of enemy shells was less frequent, but precautions for safety were increased. Advantage was taken of ravines, of fences, of fourth and fifth line trenches. The troops ere not beyond range of the German sharpshooters, and the swish of bullets was heard occasionally in the air above the heads of the marchers.
It was toward morning that the destination of the column was reached, and, in single file, the men of Pen's section passed down an incline into their first communicating trench, and then past a maze of lateral trenches to the opening into the salients they were to supply. It was here that the soldiers whom they were to relieve filed out by them. Going forward, they took the places of the retiring section. At last they were in the first line trench, with the enemy trenches scarcely a hundred meters in front of them. Sentries were placed at the loop-holes made in the earth embankment, andthe remainder of the section retired to their dug-outs. These under-ground rooms, built down and out from the trench, and bomb-proof, were capable of holding from eight to a dozen men. They were carpeted with straw, some of them had shelves, and in many of them discarded bayonets were driven into the walls to form hooks. It was in these places that the men who were off duty rested and ate and slept.
In the gray light of the early June morning, Pen, who had been posted at one of the loop-holes as a listening sentry, looked out to see what lay in front of him. But the most that could be seen were the long and winding earth embankments that marked the lines of the German entrenchments, and between, on "no man's land," a maze of barbed wire entanglements. No living human being was in sight, but, at one place, crumpled up, partly sustained by meshes of wire, there was a ragged heap, the sight of which sent a chill to the boy's heart. It required no second glance to discover that this was the unrescued body of a soldier who had been too daring. Pen had seen his firstwar-slain corpse. Indeed, war was becoming to him now a reality. For, suddenly, a little of the soft earth at his side spattered into his face. An enemy bullet had struck there. In his eagerness to see he had exposed too much of his head and shoulders and had become the target for Boche sharpshooters. Other bullets pattered down around his loop-hole, and only by seeking the quick shelter of the trench did he escape injury or death. It was his first lesson in self-protection on the firing-line, but he profited by it. Two hours later he and Aleck, who had also been doing duty on a lookout platform, were relieved by their comrades, and threw themselves down on the straw of their dug-out and, wearied to the point of exhaustion, slept soundly. With the dawning of day the noise of cannonading increased, the whining of deadly missiles grew more incessant, the crash of exploding shells more frequent, but, until they were roused by their sergeant and bidden to eat their breakfast which had been brought by a ration-party, both boys slept. So soon had the menacing sounds of war become familiar to their ears. Afterbreakfast those who were not on sentry duty were put to work repairing trenches, filling sand-bags, enlarging dug-outs, pumping water from low places, cleaning rifles, performing a hundred tasks which were necessary to make trench life endurable and reasonably safe. The food was good and was still abundant. There were fresh meat, bacon, canned soups and vegetables, bread, butter, jam and coffee. The two hours on sentry duty were by far the most strenuous in the daily routine. To remain in one position, with eyes glued to the narrow slit in the embankment, gas mask at hand, hand-grenades in readiness, rifle in position ready to be discharged on the second, the fate of the whole army perhaps resting on one man's vigilance, this was no easy task.
But there were no complaints. The men were on the firing line, ready to obey orders, whatever they might be; they asked only one thing more, and that was to fight. But, in these days, there was a lull in the actual fighting. The "big drive" had not yet been launched. Aside from a skirmish now and then, a fierce bombardment for a few hours,an attempt, on one side or the other, to rush a trench, there was little aggressive warfare in this neighborhood, and few casualties; nor was there any material variance in the front lines of trenches on either side. There were six days of this kind of duty and then the men of Pen's company were relieved and sent to the rear for a week's rest, to act as reserves, and to be called during that time only in case of an emergency. But the following week saw them again at the front; not in the same trench where they had first served, but in an advanced position farther to the south. The trenches here were not so roomy nor so dry as had been those of the first assignment. There was much mud, slippery and deep, to be contended with, and the walls at the sides were continually caving in. The duties of the men, however, were not materially different from those with which they were already familiar. Clashes had been more frequent here, and the dead bodies of soldiers, crumpled up in the trench or lying, unrescued, on the scarred and fire-swept surface of "no man's land" were not an unusual sight. But the "rookies" were becominghardened now to many of the horrors of war.
It was while they were in this trench that Pen had his "baptism of fire." Late one afternoon the German artillery began shelling fiercely the first line of Allied trenches. Aleck and Pen were both on sentry duty. Just beyond them Lieutenant Davis stood at an advanced lookout post intent on studying the outside situation by means of his periscope. At irregular intervals machine guns, deftly hidden from the sight of the enemy, poked their menacing mouths toward the Boche lines. Now and then, finding its mark at some point in the course of the winding trench, an enemy shell would explode throwing clouds of dust and debris into the air, wrecking the earthworks where it fell, taking its toll of human lives and limbs. Twice Pen was thrown off his feet by the shock of near-by explosions, but he escaped injury, as did also Aleck. It was apparent that the Germans were either making a feint for the purpose of attacking at some unexpected point, or else that they were preparing for a charge on the trenches which they were bombarding. It developed that the lattertheory was the correct one, for, after a while, they directed their fire to the rear of the first line trenches, and set up a still more furious bombardment. This, as every one knew, was for the purpose of preventing the British from bringing up reinforcements, and to give their own troops the opportunity to charge into the Allied front. The charge was not long delayed. A gray wave poured over the parapet of the German first line trench, rolled through the prepared openings in their own barbed-wire entanglements, and advanced, alternately running and creeping, toward the Allied line. But when the Germans were once in the open a terrible thing happened to them. The machine guns from all along the British trenches met them with a rain of bullets that mowed them down as grain falls to the blades of the farmer's reaper. The rifles of the men in khaki, resting on the benches of the parapet, spit constant and deadly fire at them. The artillery to the rear, in constant telephone touch with the first line, quickly found the range and dropped shells into the charging mass with terrible effect. A second body of gray-clad soldiers with fixed bayonets swarmed out of the German trenches and came to the help of their hard-beset comrades, and met a similar fate. Then a third platoon came on, and a fourth. The resources of the enemy in men seemed endless, their persistence remarkable, their recklessness in the face of sure death almost unbelievable. The noise was terrific; the constant rattle of the machine guns, the spitting of rifles, the booming of the artillery, the whining and crashing of shells, the yells of the charging troops, the shrieks of the wounded. In the British trenches the men were assembled, ready to pour out at the whistle and repel the assault on open ground; but it was not necessary for them to do so. The German ranks, unable to withstand the fire that devoured them as they met it, a fire that it was humanly impossible for any troops to withstand, turned back and sought the shelter of their trenches, leaving their dead and wounded piled and sprawled by the hundreds on the ground they had failed to cross.
The casualties among the Canadian troops were not large, and they had occurred mostlybefore the charge had been launched, but it was in deep sorrow that the men from across the ocean gathered up from the shattered trenches the pierced and broken bodies of their comrades, and sent them to the rear, the living to be cared for in the hospitals, the dead to be buried on the soil of France where they had bravely fought and nobly died.
The great Somme drive began on July 1, 1916, after a week's devastating bombardment of the German lines. The enemy trenches had been torn and shattered, and when the Allied armies, in great numbers and with abundant ammunition, swept out and down upon them, the impetus and force of the advance were irresistible. Trenches were blotted out. Towns were taken. The German lines melted away over wide areas. Victory, decisive and permanent, rested on the Allied banners. On the third of the month the British took La Boiselle and four thousand three hundred prisoners. But on the fourth the enemy troops turned and fought like wild animals at bay. This was the day on which Aleck received his wounds. In the morning, as they lay sprawled in a ravine which had been captured the night before, waiting for orders to push still farther on, Aleck had said to Pen:
"You know what day this is, comrade?"
"Indeed I do!" was the reply, "it's Independence Day."
"Right you are. I wish I could get sight of an American flag. It will be the first time in my life that I haven't seen 'Old Glory' somewhere on the Fourth of July."
"True. Back yonder in the States they'll be having parades and speeches, and the flag will be flying from every masthead. If only they could be made to realize that it's really that flag that we're fighting for, you and I, and drop this cloak of neutrality, and come over here as a nation and help us, wouldn't that be glorious?"
Pen's face was grimy, his uniform was torn and stained, his hair was tousled; somewhere he had lost his cap and the times were too strenuous to get another; but out from his eyes there shone a tenderness, a longing, a determination that marked him as a true soldier of the American Legion.
The cannonading had again begun. Shells were whining and whistling above their heads and exploding in the enemy lines not far beyond. Off to the right, a village in flames sent up great clouds of smoke, and the roar of the conflagration was joined to the noise of artillery. Back of the lines the ground was strewn with wreckage, pitted with shell-holes, ghastly with its harvest of bodies of the slain. With rifles gripped, bayonets ready, hand grenades near by, the boys lay waiting for the word of command.
"Aleck?"
"Yes, comrade."
"Over yonder at Chestnut Hill, on the school-grounds, the flag will be floating from the top of the staff to-day."
"Yes, I know. It will be a pretty sight. I used to be ashamed to look at it. You know why. To-day I could stare at it and glory in it for hours."
"That flag at the school-house is the most beautiful American flag in the world. I never saw it but once, but it thrilled me then unspeakably. I have loved it ever since. I can think of but one other sight that would be more beautiful and thrilling."
"And what is that?"
"To see 'Old Glory' waving from the top of a flag-staff here on the soil of France, signifying that our country has taken up the cause of the Allies and thrown herself, with all her heart and might into this war."
"Wait; you will see it, comrade, you will see it. It can't be delayed for long now."
Then the order came to advance. In a storm of shrapnel, bullets and flame, the British host swept down again upon the foe. The Germans gave desperate and deadly resistance. They fought hand to hand, with bayonets and clubbed muskets and grenades. It was a death grapple, with decisive victory on neither side. In the wild onrush and terrific clash, Pen lost touch with his comrade. Only once he saw him after the charge was launched. Aleck waved to him and smiled and plunged into the thick of the carnage. Two hours later, staggering with shock and heat and superficial wounds, and choking with thirst and the smoke and dust of conflict, Pen made his way with the survivors of his section back over the ground that had been traversed, to find rest and refreshment at the rear. They had been relievedby fresh troops sent in to hold the narrow strip of territory that had been gained. Stumbling along over the torn soil, through wreckage indescribable, among dead bodies lying singly and in heaps, stopping now and then to aid a dying man, or give such comfort as he could to a wounded and helpless comrade, Pen struggled slowly and painfully toward a resting spot.
At one place, through eyes half blinded by sweat and smoke and trickling blood, he saw a man partially reclining against a post to which a tangled and broken mass of barbed wire was still clinging. The man was evidently making weak and ineffectual attempts to care for his own wounds. Pen stopped to assist him if he could. Looking down into his face he saw that it was Aleck. He was not shocked, nor did he manifest any surprise. He had seen too much of the actuality of war to be startled now by any sight or sound however terrible. He simply said:
"Well, old man, I see they got you. Here, let me help."
He knelt down by the side of his woundedcomrade, and, with shaking hands, endeavored to staunch the flow of blood and to bind up two dreadful wounds, a gaping, jagged hole in the breast beneath the shoulder, made by the thrust and twist of a Boche bayonet, and a torn and shattered knee.
Aleck did not at first recognize him, but a moment later, seeing who it was that had stopped to help him, he reached up a trembling hand and laid it on his friend's face. Something in his mouth or throat had gone wrong and he could not speak.
After exhausting his comrade's emergency kit and his own in first aid treatment of the wounds, Pen called for assistance to a soldier who was staggering by, and between them, across the torn field with its crimson and ghastly fruitage, with fragments of shrapnel hurtling above them, and with bodies of soldiers, dead and living, tossed into the murky air by constantly exploding shells, they half carried, half dragged the wounded man across the ravine and up the hill to a captured German trench, and turned him over to the stretcher-bearers to be taken to the ambulances.
It was after this day's fighting that Pen, "for conspicuous bravery in action," was promoted to the rank of sergeant. He wore his honor modestly. It gave him, perhaps, a better opportunity to do good work for Britain and for France, and to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of his own countrymen; otherwise it did not matter.
So the fighting on the Somme went on day after day, week after week, persistent, desperate, bloody. It was early in August, after the terrific battle by which the whole of Delville Wood passed into British control, that Pen's battalion was relieved and sent far to the rear for a long rest. Even unwounded men cannot stand the strain of continuous battle for many weeks at a stretch. The nervous system, delicate and complicated, must have relief, or the physical organization will collapse, or the mind give way, or both.
At the end of the first night's march from the front the battalion camped in the streets of a little, half-wrecked village on the banks of the Avre. Up on the hillside was a long, rambling building which had once been a convent but was now a hospital. Pen knew that somewhere in a hospital back of the Somme Aleck was still lying, too ill to be moved farther to the rear. It occurred to him that he might find him here. So, in the hazy moonlight of the August evening, having obtained the necessary leave, he set out to make inquiry. He passed up the winding walk, under a canopy of fine old trees, and reached the entrance to the building. From the porch, looking to the north, toward the valley of the Somme, he could see on the horizon the dull gleam of red that marked the battle line, and he could hear the faint reverberations of the big guns that told of the fighting still in progress. But here it was very quiet, very peaceful, very beautiful. For the first time since his entrance into the great struggle he longed for an end of the strife, and a return to the calm, sweet, lovely things of life. But he did not permit this mood to remain long with him. He knew that the war must go on until the spirit that launched it was subdued and crushed, and that he must go with it to whatever end God might will.
He found Aleck there. He had felt that he would, and while he was delighted he was not greatly surprised. There was little emotion manifested at the meeting of the two boys. The horrors of war were too close and too vivid yet for that. But the fact that they were glad to look again into one another's eyes admitted of no doubt. Aleck had recovered the use of his voice, but he was still too weak to talk at any length. The bayonet wound in his shoulder had healed nicely, but his shattered knee had come terribly near to costing him his life. There had been infection. Amputation of the leg had been imminent. The surgeons and the nurses had struggled with the case for weeks and had finally conquered.
"I shall still have two legs," said Aleck jocosely, "and I'll be glad of that; but I'm afraid this one will be a weak brother for a long time. I won't be kicking football this fall, anyway."
"It's the fortune of war," replied Pen.
"I know. I'm not complaining, and I'm not sorry. I've had my chance. I've seen war. I've fought for France. I'm satisfied."
He lay back on the pillow, pale-faced, emaciated, weak; but in his eyes was a glow of patriotic pride in his own suffering, and pride in the knowledge that he had entered the fight and had fought bravely and well.
"America ought to be proud of you," said Pen, "and of all the other boys from the States who have fought and suffered, and of those who have died in this war. I told you you'd be no coward when the time came to fight, and, my faith! you were not. I can see you now, with a smile and a wave of the hand plunging into that bloody chaos."
"Thank you, comrade! I may never fight again, but I can go back home now and face the flag and not be ashamed."
"Indeed, you can! And when will you go?"
"I don't know. They'll take me across the channel as soon as I'm able to leave here, and then, when I can travel comfortably I suppose I'll be invalided home."
"Well, old man, when you get there, you say to my mother and my aunt Milly, and my dear old grandfather Butler, that when you saw melast I was well, and contented, and glad to be doing my bit."
"I will, Pen."
"And, Aleck?"
"Yes, comrade."
"If you should chance to go by the school-house, and see the old flag waving there, give it one loving glance for me, will you?"
"With all my heart!"
"So, then, good-by!"
"Good-by!"
It was in the spacious grounds of an old French château not far from Beauvais on the river Andelle that Pen's battalion camped for their period of rest and recuperation. There were long, sunshiny days, nights of undisturbed and refreshing sleep, recreation and entertainment sufficient to divert tired brains, and a freedom from undue restraint that was most welcome. Moreover there were letters and parcels from home, with plenty of time to read them and to re-read them, to dwell upon them and to enjoy them. If the loved ones back in the quiet cities and villages and countryside could only realize how much letters and parcelsfrom home mean to the tired bodies and strained nerves of the war-worn boys at the front, there would never be a lack of these comforts and enjoyments that go farther than anything else to brighten the lives and hearten the spirits of the soldier-heroes in the trenches and the camps.
Pen had his full share of these pleasures. His mother, his Aunt Millicent, Colonel Butler, and even Grandpa Walker from Cobb's Corners, kept him supplied with news, admonition, encouragement and affection. And these little waves of love and commendation, rolling up to him at irregular intervals, were like sweet and fragrant draughts of life-giving air to one who for months had breathed only the smoke of battle and the foulness of the trenches.
At the end of August, orders came for the battalion to return to the front. There were two days of bustling preparation, and then the troops entrained and were carried back to where the noise of the seventy-fives on the one side and the seventy-sevens on the other, came rumbling and thundering again to their ears,and the pall of smoke along the horizon marked the location of the firing line.
But their destination this time was farther to the south, on the British right wing, where French and English soldiers touched elbows with each other, and Canadian and Australian fraternized in a common enterprise. Here again the old trench life was resumed; sentinel duty, daring adventures, wild charges, the shock and din of constant battle, brief periods of rest and recuperation. But the process of attrition was going on, the enemy was being pushed back, inch by inch it seemed, but always, eventually, back. As for Pen, he led a charmed life. Men fell to right of him and to left of him, and were torn into shreds at his back; but, save for superficial wounds, for temporary strangulation from gas, for momentary insensibility from shock, he was unharmed.
It was in October, after Lieutenant Davis had been promoted to the captaincy, that Pen was made second lieutenant of his company. He well deserved the honor. There was a little celebration of the event among his men, for his comrades all loved him and honored him.They said it would not be long before he would be wearing the Victoria Cross on his breast. Yet few of them had been with him from the beginning. Of those who had landed with him upon French soil the preceding May only a pitifully small percentage remained. Killed, wounded, missing, one by one and in groups, they had dropped out, and the depleted ranks had been filled with new blood.
In November they were sent up into the Arras sector, but in December they were back again in their old quarters on the Somme. And yet it was not their old quarters, for the British front had been advanced over a wide area, for many miles in length, and imperturbable Tommies were now smoking their pipes in many a reversed trench that had theretofore been occupied by gray-clad Boches. But they were not pleasant trenches to occupy. They were very narrow and very muddy, and parts of the bodies of dead men protruded here and there from their walls and parapets. Moreover, in December it is very cold in northern France, and, muffle as they would, even the boys from Canada suffered from the severity ofthe weather. They asked only to be permitted to keep their blood warm by aggressive action against their enemy. And, just before the Christmas holidays, the aggressive action they had longed for came.
It was no great battle, no important historic event, just an incident in the policy of attrition which was constantly wearing away the German lines. An attempt was to be made to drive a wedge into the enemy's front at a certain vital point, and, in order to cover the real thrust, several feints were to be made at other places not far away. One of these latter expeditions had been intrusted to a part of Pen's battalion. At six o'clock in the afternoon the British artillery was to bombard the first line of enemy trenches for an hour and a half. Then the artillery fire was to lift to the second line, and the Canadian troops were to rush the first line with the bayonet, carry it, and when the artillery fire lifted to the third line they were to pass on to the second hostile trench and take and hold that for a sufficient length of time to divert the enemy from the point of real attack, and then they were to withdraw to theirown lines. Permanent occupation of the captured trenches at the point seemed inadvisable at this time, if not wholly impossible.
It was not a welcome task that had been assigned to these troops. Soldiers like to hold the ground they have won in any fight; and to retire after partial victory was not to their liking. But it was part of the game and they were content. So far as his section was concerned Pen assembled his men, explained the situation to them, and told them frankly what they were expected to do.
"It's going to be a very pretty fight," he added, "probably the hardest tussle we've had yet. The Boches are well dug in over there, and they're well backed with artillery, and they're not going to give up those trenches without a protest. Some of us will not come back; and some of us who do come back will never fight again. You know that. But, whatever happens, Canada and the States will have no reason to blush for us. We're fighting in a splendid cause, and we'll do our part like the soldiers we are."
"Aye! that we will!" "Right you are!""Give us the chance!" "Wherever you lead, we follow!"
It seemed as though every man in the section gave voice to his willingness and enthusiasm.
"Good!" exclaimed Pen. "I knew you'd feel that way about it. I've never asked a man of you to go where I wouldn't go myself, and I never shall. I simply wanted to warn you that it's going to be a hot place over there to-night, and you must be prepared for it."
"We're ready! All you've got to do is to say the word."
No undue familiarity was intended; respect for their commander was in no degree lessened, but they loved him and would have followed him anywhere, and they wanted him to know it.
The unusual activity in the Allied trenches, observed by enemy aircraft, combined with the terrific cannonading of their lines, had evidently convinced the enemy that some aggressive movement against them was in contemplation, for their artillery fire now, at seven o'clock, was directed squarely upon the outerlines of British trenches, bringing havoc and horror in the wake of the exploding shells.
It was under this galling bombardment that the men of the second section adjusted their packs, buckled the last strap of their equipment, took firm bold of their rifles, and crouched against the front wall of their trench, ready for the final spring.