It was the night for relief. Fourteen men, with the remainder of their equipment about them, huddled around in a group waiting for the new troops to appear and take over their sector. They were tired, hungry, and nerve-racked; the word “morale” could not conceivably be associated with them. Their three weeks’ experience in the woods had so bludgeoned their senses that they had been unresponsive when told that they were to be relieved. But after a while they partly recovered under the stimulation of the picture of warm food and a shelter of comparative safety. From a thick apathy they became clamorous, ill at ease, waiting for the new men to come. As the darkness grew their nerves twitched, and they peered often and again down the gulley from which the relief was to come into sight. At last a muffled clatter reached their ears. It swelled and was accompanied by voices in a polyglot of tongues. Cigarette lights and the flare of matches were seen along the line of the incoming horde.
Lieutenant Bedford had risen at their approach. Now he nervously shifted his weightfrom one leg to the other. “The drafted idiots,” he muttered, “do they want to kill all of us with these lights? Hey, you guys,” he called, “put out those damned matches.” A swell of jeers greeted him.
“All right, Third Platoon, let’s go. If these damned fools want every German gun to start pounding at them, let them. Come on.”
The platoon rose wearily and dragged through the woods in the direction of the village. Their spirits were so depressed, their bodies so fatigued, that, though the village was but two miles distant, an hour had elapsed before they marched through the cluttered streets between the rows of battered houses. But they did not stop. The outline of the village faded and on they tramped. Behind them shells rumbled over from the German lines, and, in answer, the crack and the sudden flare of a large gun being fired sounded to the right and left of them. At the noise the men’s muscles tightened, their nostrils narrowed and were bloodless. At the appearance of danger unheralded they were thorough automata; the explosions urged on their tired legs, whose muscles seemed tied in inextricable knots. Thick forests rose on each side of the tortuous white road, their dark-blue topsbewitchingly patterned against the sky. Where the woods were divided by a narrow path the platoon turned off, marching between the trees.
Farther in the woods, where the path widened slightly, the men halted. In ten minutes they were curled up in their blankets, asleep.
The platoon awoke in the heat of the day. In the woods the leaves of the trees were unruffled by a breeze. Glaring down from directly above, the sun was a monstrous incinerator. But for it all nature would have been inanimate. The men stretched experimentally. Their empty intestines made them aware of themselves. From among the trees floated a rich odor of frying food. “Steak,” some one guessed. The smell intensified their hunger, weakened them. King Cole, shading the sun from his owl-like eyes, sat up and sniffed.
“Who said ‘steak’?” he observed. “Smells like good old Kentucky fried chicken to me.”
“Chicken, hell,” said Hartman, the professional pessimist. “It’s probably fried Canned Bill.”
“Oh, you make me sick,” Cole answered. “Can’t you let a man dream?”
But it was steak. And dipped in flour before it was fried. It was not choice steak, but it wasedible, very edible. And the quantity had been prepared for sixty men, while there were only fourteen men to dine.
“Go easy,” cautioned Lieutenant Bedford, gnawing a huge steak which he held in his hand. “There’s plenty of chow, so you don’t need to be in a hurry to eat it all. You’ll do better if you eat slowly. Stomach’s not used to this sort of food.”
“Je’s, this is jist like bein’ home,” King Cole informed the assembly.
“Home? You never had a home. What are you talkin’ about?” jeered McCann, the New York roughneck who had been confined in the hospital twice with delirium tremens. “Ho there, you yellow greaseball, what do you want?” He hailed one of the mess helpers who was approaching.
“I heard that R. E. McCann got scairt and shot himself when he got up to the front, and I come down to see if it was true.”
The greaseball, whose name describes him well, looked inquiringly around. McCann failed to answer the badinage. The greaseball sat down among the men, who now had become filled and grew confidential. “You fellahs had a pretty tough time up there, didn’t you?”
“I’ll say we did.”
“You’d a thought so if you’d a been there, you lowlife.”
“Yeh, pretty soft for you birds in the galley.”
“But not as soft as it’s goin’ to be for you guys,” the greaseball was ingratiating.
“Whaddya mean?” the platoon scoffed.
“Ain’t you heard?” The greaseball looked surprised.
“Heard nothin’,” Cole answered grumpily. “Where’ve we been to hear anything?”
“Well,” hesitatingly, “maybe I hadn’t ought to tell.”
“Go on and tell, greaseball.”
“Yeh, what the hell else are you good for?”
“Well ... you guys ain’t goin’ back to the front no more.”
“Hooray!” they sceptically shouted. “You damned liar.”
“Fact. The brigade commander was down here yesterday, and I heard him tell Major Adams that the First Battalion was goin’ on board ship.”
“Oh-o. That ain’t so good. I was sick all the way over on that damn transport,” Pugh remembered aloud.
“Sure, you always do,” said Rousey, the old-timer.“But after the first cruise you’re all right. God, man, you don’t know how soft it is on board ship. A clean bunk and good chow. Shore leave whenever you go into port. Why, I remember——”
“Maybe you’re right, but I’ll take my chances with my feet on the ground. There ain’t no damn whale gonna eat me, not if I know it.”
“Well, it’s a blame sight better than lettin’ them Squareheads use you for a target. I’m glad we’re goin’.”
While they talked the rumor that they had so sceptically regarded had become a fact. No one doubted that they were soon to be loaded into box cars and sent off to some seaport, where trim, clean ships would be waiting to take them aboard.
Snorting gray camions drew up along the road by the path where the men were lying. At the driving-wheels the small Japanese, with their long, tired mustaches covered with fine dust, looked like pieces of graveyard sculpture. The dust was over their faces, over their light-blue uniforms. They sat immovable. The men took their seats upon the narrow benches and the camions chugged away.
A river crawled along, its straight banks parallel with the road over which the camions were moving. In the crepuscular light it was a dark, straggly, insignificant stream, which, compared by the platoon with rivers that they had known, was only a creek. It was quite dark when the camions stopped at a town along the river, built in the valley between large hills. The men debarked and were assigned to their billets wherever empty rooms could be found in the houses.
In Nanteuil, the name of the village where they had stopped, the ranks of the platoon were filled by men from one of the replacement battalions that recently had arrived in France fromthe United States. A daily routine was quickly established, and with but one day’s rest the platoon was kept at work from early morning until late afternoon. They drilled four hours a day, were inspected daily by the acting company commander, tried to rid themselves of lice by swimming in the Marne, made secret expeditions to neighboring villages, where they got drunk and made amorous eyes at sloppy French grandmothers, threw hand-grenades in the river and watched the dead fish rise to the surface, swore at the gendarmes when those persons remonstrated with them, shrank into basements whenever the long-distance German shells were aimed at the bridge that crossed the river at Nantueil, cursed their officers, and tried to scare the new men by exaggerating the frightfulness of the front, gorged themselves on the plentiful rations, and played black jack, poker, or rolled dice out of sight of their officers. The officers smiled and told each other that they were not only recovering their morale, but were imbuing the new men with that spirit peculiar to the Marine Corps.
The platoon had been in Nanteuil one week when Hicks returned, dusty, tired, and hungry. The older men crowded around him eagerly,while the more recent members stood off wonderingly.
“Well, Hicksy, old boy, did you have a good rest?” Pugh asked.
“Rest? Rest hell. The only way you can get a rest is to get killed. But don’t go to the hospital thinking you’ll get it.” Hicks paused, sat down and lighted a cigarette. “Remember that night they put over the gas attack?” He was assured by each of the old-timers that he did.
“Well, the next afternoon I woke up in an evacuation hospital. They carried me in on a stretcher, and when I opened my eyes there was a lousy doctor standing over me. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. Well, I could hardly talk, but I managed to whisper that I was gassed. He looked down at my card that the first-aid officer had pinned on me. ‘God damn it, get up, you coward,’ he said to me. ‘What the hell do you mean by taking a wounded man’s place?’ Of course, I was sore as hell, but what could I do? So I stuck around a while until an ambulance started for our battalion, and then I hid in it and came along.”
The men cursed the medical officer effusively.
“Saw Harriman back there,” Hicks continued.“He was lyin’ in bed with his foot in a sling. Said he got lost and some Squarehead shot him.” Hicks threw the butt of his cigarette. “But if you think the medical officers are bad, you ought to see the enlisted men. Don’t take any souvenirs back with you if you go. The damn orderlies’ll steal ’em. One guy had a Luger pistol and about four hundred francs when he got in the hospital, and they give him a bath, and when he come out he hadn’t a thing in his clothes. But I got a good hot bath, I’ll say that much. And I got some clean clothes. The damned clothes I had stunk so of gas that they had to bury them.”
“How was the chow?”
“Rotten. And you have to line up in the mud in your pajamas to get it if you’re a walking patient. They say the base hospitals are worse.”
“Yeh, but you don’t have no shavetail raggin’ you around all the time, do you?”
“The hell you don’t. Them damned orderlies who are supposed to do the work hand you a broom and tell you to clean up the deck, or wash up the toilets, or make up somebody’s bed.” Hicks got up and limped away. “Got to report to the company commander.”
“How come you’re limpin’, Hicksy?”
“Still got sores on my legs where that confounded gas burned.”
The new men vowed that they never would get shot.
After an hour’s close order drill the next day Hicks was noticed to be unable to keep in step. Three times Lieutenant Bedford bit his lip and refrained only by great repression from reprimanding him. When the platoon came to a halt, Lieutenant Bedford moved over to Hicks and quietly and venomously asked: “Hicks, what the hell’s the matter with you? Why the hell do you walk along like you had a brick in your pants?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help it, Lieutenant Bedford. I still have sores on my legs.”
“Well, what are you doing back here then? Fall out and report to the sick-bay at once.” Lieutenant Bedford was exasperated.
Hicks limped out of sight. But after that he did not drill with the platoon. Each day when they set out he watched them from the window of the bare room where his squad was billeted. And each day the sergeant of the Medical Corps secretly treated him for his burns. At the close of a week Hicks was well, and when orders werereceived for the platoon to move he was quite ready.
Then began a dismal time; when, almost invariably, the platoon had been marched into some woods at night and had made their beds on the ground, they would be ordered to make up their equipment and be ready to march in an hour or less. Thus they lived in the woods in the daytime and at night marched from one forest to another.
Not even the officers could give a reason for the senseless manœuvring. It was during this time that the rumor became common that they were to board battleships and effect a landing party on the Mole; they also were to be sent to southern France to a rest camp as soon as their barracks near Marseilles had been completed; they also were to be returned to the United States and be split up to serve as recruiting officers and instructors to the drafted men. These rumors, and the occasional rations of cigarettes they were given, helped them to endure their nightly pilgrimages and their cramped daily lives in the woods.
And then one day, when they had despaired ever of doing anything but moving through the night from one clump of woods to another, anorder was received for the platoon to be ready to entrain on camions at three that afternoon. They did not know whether to rejoice or not.
The march was more weary than even they had expected. They had left the camions early that morning, and had begun a climb up a long, punishing hill whose summit seemed in the clouds. On this road the marching was even, steady. There was no body of troops in front of the platoon to cause it to halt, stand with heavy packs cutting through the shoulder muscles, and then march on again. A forest on one side, the scene stretched out on the other a long, flat prairie of glistening wheat. On and on they marched, reaching the summit of the hill and escaping the sun where large, tall trees bowed in a canopy over the road. Noon came and day disappeared; the shadows threw themselves fantastically upon the road, and still the platoon continued its steady tramp. The air grew cool. It found an easy entrance through the slight clothing of the men and covered their bodies with a dampness. Darkness found them heavily pounding out the miles along the road. Men began grumbling, threatening to fall out along the roadside. They were indignant at not having rested, at not being fed. One man,desiring to drink, reached for his canteen and found it empty. His voice rose plaintively in the stillness. Other men felt thirst. They made known their desires in language reproachful and uncomplimentary to their officers.
At midnight the platoon stopped. It turned into the woods and lay down. Orders were passed among the men to dig holes in the ground for protection. “We’ll be here all night,” the officers said, “and there may be an attack before we shove off.”
The men greeted the order by failing to move. Several of them muttered that they didn’t give a damn whether the enemy attacked or not. Suddenly, out of the thick blackness of the woods and the night a six-inch gun barked and recoiled, barked again and recoiled. The shells sped through the night, striking, æons afterward, with the noise of a pricked balloon. Another salvo shot over into the darkness, the ignition of the charge lighting up a small distance of woods and throwing the trees into crazy relief. Three shells, large ones, raced each other over the enemy lines. They struck with a clatter, as if they had felled half of the forest. All along the line long-range rifles fired their huge bolts of explosives toward the enemy. Small seventy-fivesbarked like little dogs running after an automobile. In retaliation the shrill shriek of the German shells answered. On both sides the batteries continued pounding away. An orderly, parting the brush and making a noise like a stampede of wild horses, appeared and asked to be directed to the company commander. Five minutes afterward the platoon was given orders to move forward. To the tune of heavy artillery battering away like enormous drums the platoon, joined at each end by other units of the division, felt its way blindly through the forest. When the sun rose they were still working their way through the trees. Unexpectedly the guns in the rear of the moving lines stopped. The battle of Soissons had begun.
The platoon was first apprised of the nearness of the enemy when King Cole raised his rifle and fired quickly. He had seen a soiled gray uniform skirting among the trees a few yards ahead. A quick electric shock ran from shoulder to shoulder along the advancing line. The platoon stopped for a moment as if stunned. Then they advanced without increasing their pace. In their faces a machine-gun spat angrily, the bullets flying past like peevish wasps. Automatic rifles were manipulated in the middlesof the automatic rifle squad, and the loaders took their places at the sides of the men who were firing, jamming in one clip of cartridges after another. Rifle bullets fled past the advancing men with an infuriating zing. The Maxim machine-guns kept up a rolling rat-t-t-tat, coldly objective.
The platoon had reached the first machine-gun nest, almost without knowing it. There were three Germans, their heavy helmets sunk over their heads, each performing a definite part in the firing. They, too, were surprised. Pugh, a little in the lead, drew a hand-grenade from his pocket, pulled out the pin, and threw it in their faces. It burst loudly and distinctly. One German fell flat, another grasped at his arm, his face taking on a blank expression as he did so, while the last man threw his hands above his head. Inattentive to his gesture of surrender, the line pushed on.
The fighting grew more furious. Germans, surprised, were hiding behind trees and firing their slow-working rifles. When the advancing line would reach them they would receive a charge of shot in their bodies, sometimes before they had fired at the swiftly moving line. Some member of the platoon offered his versionof an Indian war whoop. It was successful in hastening the attack. Exhilarated, but sheerly impotent, one man ran forward blubbering, “You God-damn Germans,” and pointing an empty rifle at the trees. Other men calmly and methodically worked the bolts of their rifles back and forth, refilling the chambers as they were emptied of each clip of five shots. From time to time a man dropped, thinning the ranks and spreading them out to such an extent that contact on the right side of the moving line was lost.
Farther on in the woods a small trench had been dug, but through the fierceness and unexpectedness of the attack most of the enemy had been driven from it. The platoon, moving on feet that felt like wings, dashed toward the trench, some of the men sprawling into it. Before them, a few yards distant, a machine-gun poked its nose from between the crevice of two large rocks. The sight of it infuriated Lieutenant Bedford, who was leading the platoon by a few paces. Then, yards away, he began throwing bombs at it. His last bomb exhausted, he aimed his pistol and chucked the remaining shots at it. Now, almost able to look over the top of the rock and see the gunner, he threw theuseless pistol at the heavy steel helmet. The gunner dropped his head, covering it with his hands. When he looked up, the platoon had passed. Farther, the resistance grew less. The bombardment of the night before had taken its toll of Germans. Bodies lay gawkily about on the grass. One body, headless, clutched a clay pipe between its fingers. Another lay flat on its back, a hole in its stomach as big as a hat. A heavy leather pack, which a shell had struck, was the centre of a ring of packages of Piedmont cigarettes which its owner had salvaged from some dead American.
The trees became sparse. Ahead, over an interminably long wheat-field, the platoon could see the horizon. There were no Germans in sight. The platoon, ordered to do so, faced in the direction from which they had come and combed the woods for machine-gun nests which they might have passed unnoticed during the attack.
In their poignant hunger the men forgot even to look for pieces of German equipment which they might sell to Y. M. C. A. men and others of the personnel behind the lines. But each leather German pack was searched for food, and canteens were picked up, shaken, and eitherthrown down with disgust or hastily put to the men’s lips and greedily drained of whatever might be in them. There were loaves of black bread which, in spite of the mouldy look that was common to them all, were devoured; an occasional comb of honey was found. Pugh, exploring one of the packs, drew forth a pair of baby stockings and a small knitted hood. Beside the pack lay a peaceful-looking, home-loving German who had passed his middle years.
“Here’s an orphan, all right!” Pugh announced, and went to the next pack.
They were nearing a clump of bushes when a young German stepped out. His face was the color of putty and his eyes brought to Hicks the picture of an escaped convict hunted by bloodhounds in a Southern swamp. His hands were high above his head, as high as their frightened nerves would permit them to be. At the sight of him an uncouth, illiterate tatterdemalion from the south of Illinois snarled half animal-like, raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired directly at the prisoner. A look of surprise, utter unbelief, came over the man’s face as he dropped heavily to the ground. “Damn ye, that’ll larn ye ta stay hum.” The fellow, his thin evil face grimaced withhatred, walked over and spat expertly a stream of tobacco juice at the already dead body. The rest of the platoon looked on nonplussed, not knowing whether their comrade had done the ethical thing or not.
Hot and tired, knowing nearly every need of the body, the platoon was formed near the place where they had entered the woods late the night before, as the sun was sinking out of sight.
They arrived at a crossroads and turned to the right. Thick woods, green at the fringe and black within, walled the smooth white ribbon of road on either side. Through soft, fluffy clouds that floated over an inanely blue sky the sun volleyed rays of brilliant light. Small, shiny pebbles, reflecting the glint, were transformed into pretty baubles of crystal and amber.
On the right of the road, moving forward in an unbroken stream, plodded a single file of drab-colored men. From a distance the line looked like a swaying, muddy snake. In the middle of the road, also moving forward, black, roan, and sorrel horses pulled caissons, field kitchens, and supply wagons. Men, returning from the direction in which the main traffic wasmoving, were on the left. They passed by, dejected, vapid-minded, a look of dull pain in the eyes of each. They were the wounded from the attack. Most spectacular among them were the French Colonials, with their red kepis, their broad chests showing strength and endurance beneath their blue or tan tunics. Occasionally a mass of white, blood-stained gauze would be wrapped around a black, shiny head, and strong white teeth would be doggedly bared with pain. The small carbines and long knives that they carried set them off as a special sort of troops. And then the French, with their horizon-blue uniforms and drooping, inevitable mustaches. Shoulders sagging, they slouched along with bandaged heads and bandaged arms. And the gray of the German uniform and the thump, thump of the leather boots that they wore. Small, hideous caps, round and gray, with a thin red piping circling the top, set awkwardly on their heads, which rose from thick fat necks. Behind them walked surly, wary Frenchmen. A number of English troops were scattered through the unending line. Beside the Americans whom they passed their khaki uniforms looked smart and tailored. In this multicolored canyon no words were exchanged. TheColonials looked sullen, the French beaten and spiritless, the Americans dogged and conscientious, the English expressionless; the Germans seemed the most human of them all. For them the fighting was finished.
Miles from the place where the platoon had alighted from the camions another road split the deep wall of green forest, and at the crossing a large farmhouse stood in the middle of a large field. Whitewashed, all but the roof, it looked like a cheap but commodious burial vault, with the yard in the rear filled high with dead and wounded. The first place of shelter from the actual front, it was being used as a dressing station for the maimed. Many of the men brought back wounded had died there; in a pile made like carelessly thrown sticks of wood their bodies now lay. There those whom an imaginary line had named Friend and Enemy shared a common lot. German bodies and Austrian mingling and touching French, Belgian; their positions a gruesome offering to the God of War. All day long the heavy hobnailed boots of hurriedly advancing men had beaten out a requiem.
The platoon filed along to the left upon the cross-road, marching as swiftly as their tiredlegs would permit. The stream of wounded had stopped. The field kitchens and supply wagons had turned off in the woods in rear. For miles sounded the baffled roar of firing artillery. Now and then a man fell out alongside the road, unable to march any longer, the cool green of the grass in the late afternoon offering a tantalizing bed. From behind them commenced a great clatter of caissons drawn jerkily along the shell-torn road by galloping, lathered horses. Artillerymen, one on the back of the leading horse, two on the caisson seat, urged the horses forward with picturesque curse words, only stopping long enough to shout at the platoon:
“Better hurry up, you guys, or we’ll git to Germany before you will.” They rumbled away.
In a twilight of mauve the platoon came to a halt on the crest of a broad hill. Silently they deployed, mud-caked ghosts, dragging wearily and uncertainly out in a long line that offered its front to the challenging boom of the enemy’s long-range guns. Water was found in a spring near by, and the men lay down in the shallow holes that they had dug, their blankets and ponchos thrown over them. A solitary sentry watched the stars, watched the red, the green,the blue-and-white signal lights flare for a moment along the line, then die away.
The gray spirit of dawn rose and hovered over the ground. In the faint light a unit of cavalry filed past. The riders, on delicate, supple mounts, carried long lances, with their points skyward. On their blue helmets bright, feathery plumes fell back gracefully. Their spotless uniforms, gray in the morning light, set off their youthful figures like those of pages attending a mediæval court. The horses, their fine legs delicately contoured, minced daintily down the hill and out of sight.
Ahead, through a scattered line of trees, stretched a spacious prairie, covered thick with wheat,—a slightly rolling sea, majestically and omnipotently engulfing the universe.
The platoon rose stiffly, bewildered, rubbing the stiffness from their faces. Over the calm of the air a danger was borne. Men smelled it in the acrid odor of powder which covered the grass. The trees, a thin line before them, swayed poignantly. Lorelei, singing seductively, sat in their branches. In attack formation the platoon moved toward the trees, to the front toward which they were moving.
Beyond the trees a narrow path ran parallel. Reaching it, the platoon turned to the left, tramping heavily toward the main road from which they had come the night before.
Scuffing the dust with lagging feet, the platoon crawled along the dusty road, lined on each side by contorted faces of men who had come to support the line of attack. Farther down the road a small town lay half hidden in the valley. Long, slender smoke-stacks rose amid a cluttering of small deserted houses, where, twenty-four hours earlier, German soldiers had been quartered. Through one of the chimneys of the factory a three-inch shell had ploughed its way, stopping with the nose protruding from one side, the butt from the other. There it was suspended, implicit in its obedience. Interminably long words were printed on signs over the doors of the houses. At a street crossing the old names of the thoroughfares had been blotted out, and such names as Kaiserstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse were roughly lettered over them. There was a touch of impiety, of great barbarousness, in the changing of names which for so long had been honored. Also a very strong suggestion of a sound, thorough business administration having been instituted in placeof the lax, pleasant manner of the village before the war. A peculiar, disagreeable odor hinted at great and ruthless thrift. The Germans had been careful of their dead. None remained lying on the street.
The platoon wound through the town and out upon the wheat-field which that morning they had viewed through the scraggly trees. Dazzling sunlight beat upon the full-topped yellow heads of wheat that weighted down the cool green stalks; on the flat, absurdly shaped helmets of the soldiers; on the sharp white bayonets raised above the wheat with which the field was filled. Deploying, the men halted, joined on either side by other men with silly-looking helmets, rifles, and bayonets.
From the road a small tank labored up the hill, puffing and creaking in every joint. Another tank, a miniature of the tanks pictured in the recruiting posters, wheezed along on its caterpillar tread. More tanks came. They were all small, ineffectual-looking little monsters, wearing a look of stubborn, gigantic babies. The arrival of the tanks was greeted by the firing of a salvo of shells from the German lines.
The platoon lay down in the wheat, trying to shield their bodies from the sight of the enemy.But the tanks, wheeling and rearing and grinding like devils gnashing their teeth, made perfect targets for the long-range shells. With their small, ridiculous gun-barrels pointing in three directions through holes in their steel armor, they were delightfully impervious to the havoc they were causing the infantry. And their silly camouflage, into the making of which some painter had put his soul—reds and greens, the colors of autumn leaves, black and modest browns—in all their disguise they were as apparent at a distance of one thousand yards as large white canvases with black bull’s-eyes and rings scored on them. For an everlasting half-hour they ploughed and squirmed through the field, struggling to get into position in order that the attack might commence. Meanwhile shells, timed like the ticking of a clock, fell with horrible and spirit-shaking accuracy. At last the tanks had manœuvred themselves into the proper distance ahead of the front line. Whistles were blown piercingly. The advance, the men aligned in four waves, had commenced.
Hicks, lying in the wheat, divided his attention between the manœuvring of the tanks and the frantic scampering of the insects on theground and in the wheat, whose manner of existence he had disturbed by his sitting down. Black little creatures, they waddled over the ground with as great a seriousness and importance as if they supported the burden of the world. Disorganized, they ran in all directions, even toward Hicks’s hobnailed boots and upon his awkwardly rolled puttees. It was the first time since he had enlisted that he had thought much about bugs, save for the kind that infest the body. Now he wondered whether their lives were not as important as the lives of men; whether they were not conscious of a feeling that, were they no longer to exist, the end of the world would come. He compared them with the hustling, inane little tanks, and almost concluded that one was as important as the other. He stood by carefully so as not to step on any of the insects.
So far the German shells had burst either far behind the platoon or far in front of it. But now the whine, ever increasing, of a shell informed him that in a moment he would be listening to the ripping sound of flying pieces of shell casing. He waited, breathless. Fifteen yards behind him the shell exploded terrifically. He looked back. “Oh, Larson,” he called.Larson was nowhere to be seen. “Damn these tanks,” he fretted. “They’ll have us all killed, first thing we know.”
The dread of the attack was forgotten in the more immediate danger of the enemy artillery finding the exact range of the platoon by means of the sputtering tanks. A flock of shells left the long, black mouths of the German guns and began their journey toward Hicks. He winced, tied his muscles into knots, and threw himself flat on the ground, quite forgetful of the insects. The shells all struck within a radius of twenty yards, throwing up dirt, grain, a black cloud of smoke. The whistle blew and Hicks rose again.
As he started forward, abreast of the first wave, he had never before felt so great a stiffness in his legs, nor so great a weight in his shoes. It was as if they were tied to the earth. For a moment the jargon and melody of a once-popular song flooded his brain. Then he thought of the platoon joke about the man from the wilds who had come barefoot to a recruiting officer to enlist, and who, upon putting on a pair of shoes, had stood still for hours, believing that he was tied. “Ha,” thought Hicks, “that’s a funny one. They had to put sand inhis shoes before he would move.” War was a business of tightening things, he observed, as he fastened the chin strap of his helmet more tightly. Corroborating the evidence, he tightened his belt over his empty stomach. The men were marching along, an interval of three yards between each. A shell struck directly upon the moving front wave a few yards to the left of Hicks. An arm and a haversack foolishly rose in the air above the cloud of smoke of the exploding shell. Slightly farther on machine-guns began an annoying rat-tat-tat, the bullets snipping off the heads of grain. More men fell. The front rank went on with huge gaps in it. On they stolidly marched. Hicks, glancing back, saw that the four waves had been consolidated into but two. But the bayonets glistened as brightly as before.
“Close in there, Hicks,” somebody yelled, and Hicks asked whether the men were not being killed swiftly enough, without grouping them together more closely. They advanced to a point where they were enfiladed by the enemy’s machine-guns. As the four lines had become two, so now the two lines became one. But on they marched, preserving a line that could have passed the reviewing stand on dress parade.
Beyond a cluster of trees was a village which had been named as the objective of the attack for that day. The road, canopied by green tree boughs, led to it from the town which that morning the platoon had left. The road was level, more level even than the field. It made a path as directing as a bowling-alley for the machine-gunners and riflemen in the village. Thus, the road was almost a certain death-trap for any one who tried to cross it. The right section of the platoon had begun the attack on one side of the road, the left on the other. As the ranks thinned and a greater distance between each man was required to preserve contact with the advancing line, the men on the right, where the heavier firing occurred, spread out, drawing away from the road.
The shells continued to fall, using as their target the slowly moving tanks which regulated the advance of the infantry. Suddenly a large six-inch shell struck the turret of the tank nearest the platoon. The tank recoiled and stood stock-still. A moment later two men, like frightened rabbits, scurried out of the tank and ran back toward the rear.
Three airplanes, white stars in a field of red on their wings, flew gaily over the field and toward the German lines. They floated gracefullyand haughtily out of sight. Not much later on they precipitately returned with three Fokkers after them like angry hornets. Shriven of their grandeur, they flocked in disorder back to their hangars, the machine-guns of the German planes spitting bullets after them. The aerial entertainment was changed: Four large German bombing planes, pursuing a businesslike course, arrived above the advancing men and began to drop bombs and fire machine-gun bullets at them. The bombs reported as noisily as the seventy-seven-millimetre guns, but they made only a shallow hole in the ground. More devastating were the machine-gun bullets which zinged off the steel helmets of the men or bored their way through to the skull. Under the combination of direct artillery fire, enfilade machine-gun, rifle sniping, bombs dropped from airplanes, the ranks of the advancing men had become so sparse that the attack was brought to a temporary halt.
It was now afternoon and the heat of the sun was unendurable. It burned upon the helmets and through the clothing and caused sweat to trickle down the skin, irritating the scratches, bruises, and burns with which the bodies of the men were covered. The four bombing planescontinued lazily to circle overhead, “kicking out their tail-gates,” as the men graphically phrased it. Hicks and Pugh, with four of the new men, were at the farthest point of advance. Lying flat, they tried with their bayonets, their mess knives, to throw up a protection of ground in front of them. Thoroughly tired, they worked slowly, in spite of the danger. They were half-way finished when a bullet zipped through the wheat and penetrated the bone of the crooked elbow with which the man next Hicks was supporting himself.
“Here it is,” said Hicks, picking up a small steel-jacketed bullet.
“By God, that hurts. Help me get my shirt off.”
“Je’s, you’re lucky,” Hicks murmured enviously. “You’ll never come back to the front any more. And what a fancy place to get hit!” The shirt off, the bullet was seen to have gone through the forearm just above the elbow, coming out on the other side.
“Don’t you think so?” eagerly. “It don’t hurt so much.”
“No, but you better hurry up and git outa here or you’ll have somep’n more than a busted arm,” one of the new men advised.
The arrival of a salvo of shells decided the new man upon an immediate departure. Throwing away all of his equipment, he hurried away, his elbow pressed closely to his side.
Behind Hicks, a few yards, some one began to whimper.
“What’s the trouble, buddy?”
“I d-d-on’t kn-now,” the voice stuttered, half sobbing, half crying.
“Well, why don’t you beat it back?”
“I’m af-f-fraid.”
“Damn it, get the hell out of here. Do you want us to go nutty with your bawlin’!” This from one of the new men.
“You’ve got a good excuse to go back, you know,” Hicks assured. “Go back with Hensel. A wounded man’s supposed to have somebody go back with him.”
“I c-c-can’t-t. I went b-back once s-s-shell-shocked, and the d-doctors raised hell with me. I’m af-f-frai-d-d to go back again.” The man started to laugh unpleasantly. His laughter changed to violent sobbing. The men grew doubly frightened. “I can’t stay here and hear that,” one of them said. “It takes all the starch out of me.” But he didn’t move.
Near the road King Cole lay upon the ground,his lips pressed against the dirt. By his head his hands were clinched, the knuckles flat. His helmet had fallen forward so that it covered his brow, but not the back of his head. His legs were as rigid as death. On his right leg the puttee had become unwound, the spiral-shaped cloth stringing out behind. The leather, worn through by much marching, a glimpse of his bare foot appeared where the sole of his shoe had worn through. His shirt was tattered, and in the middle of his back a large hole had been blown. Surprisingly, there was very little blood on his shirt or upon any other part of his body, save where the gaping hole showed the raw flesh. Hours earlier King Cole had been struck by the explosion of a shell. Since then he had lain—alive.
A molten mass of flaming gold all day, the sun, from sheer exhaustion of vengeful burning, dropped weakly out of sight. Declining, it filled the sky with mauve and purple, gold and crimson designs. Swaying mournfully in the wisps of evening wind, the full heads of grain were like slender lances raised by an army of a million men. The village ahead, toward which the platoon had advanced within a distance of fivehundred yards, was a vague blur against the soft gray sky.
It was an hour before nightfall, and firing along the front had partly ceased. The men in the advance line were lying prone, thankful for the surcease offered by the approaching night. Heard behind them was a swishing sound. Hicks turned, forgot even for the moment the piteous moans of the shell-shocked man when he saw troops swiftly walking.
“We’re going to be relieved. We’re going to be relieved.” The thought pounded through his brain. The oncoming troops were now near and distinct. Hicks could see the red, brimless stovepipe hats, the black, shiny faces, the picturesque and decorated tunics of the Foreign Legion. They carried small rifles and long knives and looked frightfully dangerous. Hicks reflected that these were the fellows who were supposed to treasure the ears of the enemy as keepsakes. Swiftly, their huge leg muscles bulging under their puttees, they walked through the wheat and passed. Hicks felt dismal.
“Relief, hell. They’re going to attack.”
And they were. As silent as ghosts they fled straight for the village. The enemy, seeingthem, opened up with their rifles and machine-guns with extraordinary furiousness. The black soldiers advanced unhesitatingly. Some of them dropped flat, never to rise again of their own volition; others clasped a hand to the part of the body where a bullet had entered and turned back, walking quickly and nervously, but failing to speak. Hicks had never seen so many men wounded without their exclaiming. Usually, when some American was struck he would cry some such absurdly obvious statement as “Oh, my God, I’m hit.” A German would shriek his inevitable “Kamerad.” A Frenchman would jabber. But these fellows—Hicks marvelled. But the remaining five hundred yards were too difficult to cross. Where five of the fleet blacks set valiantly forth, but one of them returned.
Darkness fell, closing the world in on four sides. Off to the left, on the farther side of the road, a tank suddenly and unexpectedly burst forth with an internal explosion. Its grim little body showed solidly in the glorious blazing red. The report that followed sounded as if the armor of the tank would have been burst into a million pieces. Up shot another flare ofredness, brightening the sky. As if there were some understanding among them, two other tanks began, at regular intervals, to belch their fireworks into the air. It was a wondrous sight. Far enough away not to be harmful, it had also the advantage of being a spectacle uninspired by malice or hatred. It was a thing in itself, a war of its own, in which nobody shared, totally objective, non-utilitarian and spontaneous. Hicks gleefully considered the sight. But after a while the side-show stopped and the dampness stole through the clothing of the men. A lone star twinkled forth, trembled violently for a moment and then disappeared. In the heat of the day many of the platoon had thrown away their blankets. Now they lay shivering with cold and fear and hopelessness.
Over the wheat-field the night mist hung like a thick, wet, flapping blanket. Elephantine, it touched against the faces of the men, sending shivers along their spines. Machine-gun bullets spattered perfunctorily. The shell-shocked man moaned like a banshee. Disgusted, feeling as if his stomach were about to crawl away from his body, Hicks rose, deciding to cross the road and find out whether there was any possibility of relief before dawn.
On the other side of the road the ground was softer and the men had dug deeper holes. The little mounds of freshly thrown dirt were hardly perceptible.
“Where’s Lieutenant Bedford?” Hicks asked in a low voice.
“Dead as hell,” he was answered.
“Then who’s in charge?”
“I am.”
“Who’s that, Thomas?”
“Yeh.”
“When are we going to be relieved?”
“We’re standing by now. They ought to be here any minute.”
“Well, if that’s so, I’m gonna take my squad back. We’re pretty bad off, way up there, and one of the new fellows is making such a hell of a lot of noise that I’m afraid the Squareheads will begin firing again.”
“’Smatter with him?”
“Shell-shocked, I guess.”
“Well, maybe you’d better shove off.”
Hicks felt his way back through the darkness, through the curtain of mist.
Supporting the weaker man between them, the small party moved off, with Hicks in the lead. He was travelling lightly, with littleequipment. At the first of the advance he had thrown away his pack, containing an empty condiment can and three boxes of hard bread. Finally he had disposed of all but his pistol, belt, canteen, helmet, and respirator. Leaving, he threw away his automatic rifle and the musette bag in which ammunition was supposed to be carried. He walked along, his chin high, stepping briskly through the hip-high wheat. Somewhere beyond was rest and security, warm food, and plenty of blankets.
It irked him that the rest of the squad did not walk as swiftly as he walked. His ears seemed to flatten against his head at being held back. The distance was so alluring. It promised so many things of which his body was in want. There was the hot coffee. Hicks fancied that he could smell the soul-satisfying aroma of it. He remembered that the American army little knew the value of coffee to the man who is cold and tired and awake in the early dawn. But there would be, no doubt, French galleys, with black kettles in which they brewed strong black chicory. Hot coffee! He thought of it and felt ready to faint. At any moment a shell might drive into the ground near him and blow him high in the air. Reins seemed fastened tohis shoulders, holding them back, delaying his progress. He wanted to cry out against the inhumanity of being forced to walk so slowly in so dangerous a place after the work in hand was done. He thought of forging ahead, of leaving the blubbering man to himself. He measured the distance back to the woods and guessed the length of time it would take to arrive. An hour at the most. But if he ran he could make it in half an hour. The responsibility of the safety of the squad held him back. Revolted at his cowardly thoughts, he offered to help carry the burden. The men objected. “You lead the way.” But he was insistent. With one arm of the blubbering, nerveless mass around his neck, he forged ahead, feeling powerful and exultant under the added weight.
Whining lazily over their heads, gas shells soared and struck softly in the town in front of them. They reached the valley and passed down into the town. Over the ground and on the weeds a coating of yellow had formed. The air was heavy with an asphyxiating smell. The yellow from the ground bit through the puttees and penetrated the clothing; the odor was inhaled in deep gulps that caused the men to choke.
There was a moment of indecision in which the men hesitated between putting on their respirators, thereby retarding their steps, and hurrying through the town, their lungs exposed to the poisonous gas. With the shells continuing to come over in droves, it was not difficult to decide. The men breathed in the gas.
Had they not, they would not have seen the aperture in the side of the gulley, where a gas blanket covered a dugout filled with wounded. There they stopped, while Hicks informed the receiving officer that their burden had been badly gassed. He said nothing about his being shell-shocked.
Relieved of the great impedimenta, their progress quickened, and they were through the town almost as soon as they could have wished.
Before daybreak they arrived at the woods where the battalion had been ordered to assemble. On entering the woods, Hicks was halted by one of the company lieutenants who had offered to remain out of the attack in order that, should the company be annihilated, he would be able to form the nucleus of another company with the orderlies of the officers, the soiled assistants of the kitchen, and the like. Hicks, having thrown away most of his equipment, had annexed on the road to the woods parts of uniforms of all descriptions. On his head was a bright red kepi which formerly had belonged to a French Colonial. A pair of soft leather boots that reached above the calves of his legs had been salvaged from some officer’s bedding roll. His blouse had been discarded and his shirt was unbuttoned at the throat. Hanging in cowboy fashion, a forty-five calibre Colt flapped against his right hip. From his left side was a Luger pistol that he had taken from a dead German officer.
Thus, he was a sight that no strictly militaryofficer who had received at least ninety days’ training in learning the commands of squads right, slope and shoulder arms, at some officers’ training school could bear.
“Private!” the officer shouted indignantly. “What are you doing out of uniform?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Truthfully, Hicks did not know. He only knew that he had thrown away much of his own equipment and that he was highly pleased with the equipment he had substituted for it.
“Don’t know?” The officer was scandalized. “Private, how long have you been in the service?”
“Since war was declared,” Hicks answered promptly.
“And you don’t yet know how to dress? Nor how to address an officer? Private, you have not saluted me!” The officer was horror-stricken; his tone suggested an utter unbelief in Hicks’s existence.
“You don’t salute officers at the front, sir.”
The officer turned green. “Private, consider yourself under arrest.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Hicks started to walk away.
“And private,” the officer called. “If youaren’t back in uniform by the next time I see you, a charge of disobedience will be added to your offense.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Hicks muttered, walking away.
He sought out the coolest-looking spot in the woods and there lay down. In a moment he was asleep. In another moment he was awakened by a terrific noise. Unwittingly, he had selected for his bed a space not ten yards from where a battery of long-range guns were concealed. When they were fired the earth shook. He rose and fled farther into the woods.
Ahead of him, at the side of a green knoll, several old Frenchmen were pottering around a field kitchen. The coals of the wood fire under a huge black kettle glowed in a warming, friendly fashion. The aroma of black, satisfying coffee steamed from the wide mouth of the caldron. Hicks was enchanted, powerless to move, afraid to approach the benignant genii. He felt like a vagrant, nose pressed against the window of a fashionable restaurant. But no, not like a vagrant. Vagrants were only in cities, in blessed civilizations. He was still undecided, when one of the squat little figures, that somehow reminded him of the charactersin “Rip Van Winkle,” looked up. To Hicks he spoke unintelligibly, but his voice was not forbidding. Hicks came nearer. He sniffed. “Café?” he questioned.
“Oui, café,” the man grunted, going on about his business.
“Café bon,” offered Hicks.
“Oui. Café bon, très bon,” the man conceded.
“J’ai faim.”
“O pardon. Vous avez faim. Voulez-vous café?” He scooped a ladleful of hot coffee from the caldron and offered it to Hicks. How simple it was, Hicks thought, as he drained the dipper.
The men gathered around Hicks. “Américain, oui?” They apparently had decided before offering the question. “Pas Anglais? Anglais mauvais.”
They learned that he had been in the attack. “Boche pas bon aussi, non?”
From their bags cakes of chocolate and slices of bread were brought and offered. Hicks ate shyly but greedily.
They were the first Frenchmen whom he had tried to talk with since the day of the first attack of his platoon. Then they were disheartened,not caring whether the Germans drank beer from the Arc de Triomphe or not. Now they had regained heart and were willing to continue the struggle of the advance toward Germany. Hicks learned that he had engaged in the initial attack of a vast offensive, that the goal had been reached, that Soissons had fallen under the storm of the First and Second Regular Divisions, that Château-Thierry had at last been cleared of the enemy by the Third and Twenty-sixth Divisions, that in between the Fourth Regular Division had been successful in its attack. “Fini la guerre?” asked Hicks, and he was frowned upon by the genii. No, they informed him, the war had begun anew and would continue long. The genii spoke of the black forest, of the Kriemhilde Stellung, which had never been passed save by Allied prisoners, of the narrowing front the German retreat would make. No, the war would last one year, two years, three years.
Hicks tramped through the forest, stumbling over large holes that had been torn in the ground by the explosions of German long-range shells. Now all was quiet. The green leaves of the trees fluttered unperturbed, birds trilledfrom joy or shrieked messages to one another. The boughs of the trees were kind, shielding the men from the rays of the hot summer sun. Soldiers were bustling about, tugging ant-like at heavy caissons which seemed unwilling to budge.
Thoroughly tired out, men were stretched upon the cool grass asleep, forgetful of the void in their stomachs. Suddenly, in the distance, a very erect form stalked through the trees. As it approached, a thin, haughty face, above which a steel helmet jauntily set, was to be seen. At the sight of him all of the sleeping men arose as if by a signal earlier agreed upon. The tired, worn-out, hungry soldiers; the dirty, blood-smeared, lousy soldiers; the red-eyed, gas-eaten, mud-caked soldiers; the stupid, yellow, cowardly soldiers; the pompous, authoritative corporals; the dreamy, valiant, faithful soldiers rose to their feet and stood at attention. As the tall, spare figure advanced nearer, tired hands were smartly raised to their helmets and dropped quickly against the thigh.
Was it General Ulysses S. Pershing who had come? It was not. It was Major Adams, Major John R. Adams, the battalion commander.
“What outfit is this?” The major’s tone was crisp.
“First battalion of the Sixth, sir.”
“Where are the rest of the men?”
“All the men are here, sir.”
“What! This is not a battalion, it’s a platoon. That was a hell of a way to let a bunch of Germans treat you.”
He walked past. The men sank back on the ground, fully one-fifth of the number that had attacked.
That afternoon beer was rationed by the mess sergeant, who had deprived his safe dugout, far in the rear, of his pleasant company for a few hours. The mess sergeant admitted that the beer had been provided by Major Adams.
On this particular afternoon the woods of Villers Cotterets was as quiet and peaceful as a statue of stone. Placid, motionless, the leaves of the trees looked as if they were made of wax. Their branches curved solemnly and prayerfully toward each other, meeting and forming successions of arches. Planted in perpendicular rows, they aspired straight and immutable, while overhead, fat plucked cotton tops, greatly expanded, lay like dead below an impenetrable expanseof blue sky. Upon the fragile blades of grass men were held in the vice of a sleep of exhaustion. Five miles from the woods the guns along the front line, where men waited, anxiously watching the movements of each other, were silent.
Somewhere among the solemn and still branches a huge limb cracked. It fell rapidly and with a horrific sound through the foliage. Down, down it came, rending the small sprigs of green as it fell. Below the limb a soldier slept. When it reached the earth its heavier end struck the soldier on the head, crushing his skull. Instantly the scene was changed to one of frenzied activity. Men leaped to their feet and ran out of the woods.
The treachery, the unexpectedness of the calamity remained unshakable in the mind of Hicks. To him it seemed the height of cruelty, and in some way he interpreted it as an intentional act of the enemy. He knew better. He knew that a shell, probably the day before, during the heavy bombardment, had struck the limb and partly severed it, and afterward its great weight had brought itself down. It preyed upon him dreadfully. That any one could have gone through the punishment of theattack unharmed and then have returned to a place of safety only to be killed was more than he could stand. It was an act of vengeance, and he believed it to be the vengeance of an angry God.
Men returned to the woods from the field under orders of the officers, who feared that their presence in the field might attract the attention of the enemy. Nearly all of them returned and resumed their sleep. But not Hicks. He was firmly decided against the woods. He would be at hand for as many attacks as general headquarters could devise; he would do his part in advancing the Allied cause; he would help save the world for democracy; he would make war to end war; he would tolerate Y. M. C. A. secretaries; he would go without food, clothing, and sleep—so he told the officers—but he would not return to the woods. He lay down outside in the wheat, every muscle twitching. For him, he felt, life had ended, the world had come to a full stop.
Even the manœuvring of a small German plane around the big French observation balloon failed to draw his attention from himself. The little plane would draw away like some game-cock, and then dash for the balloon, spurtinga stream of incendiary bullets as it flew, then draw away again and repeat the operation. At last the basket of the balloon was located and the observer was struck by a piece of hot lead. High above the trees, he leaned from the basket and dropped, clinging to his parachute. The parachute caught in the top of one of the trees. From nowhere a low-hung French automobile, with three men in the seats, dashed forward toward the scene. The men got out, and, after a while, returned with the wounded observer, the white bandage on his arm showing distinctly for a distance. But the sight offered no titillations for Hicks.
Before dusk the battalion was formed and orders were given to march back to the line of reserve. The news that the destination of the battalion was farther from the front was sceptically received. The men adopted the pose of feeling insulted at having been offered so poor a ruse. “Reserve, my eye. Why don’t they say we’re goin’ to one of them rest camps you always hear so much about?”
“Or else tell us that we’re goin’ to get thirty days’ leave each.”
“Yeh, where’s them boats we was goin’ to see?”
“I’d like to know.”
“We may go in reserve, but it’ll be in reserve of the Germans.”
Thus they offered their various comments upon the foolishness of believing that they were to leave the front.
But the talk was borne on weak wings. For the moment the men had little interest in their destination, save that they wanted it to be near. Their legs felt as if they were to be separated from their bodies at the groin. Their feet felt as if their shoes were full of small, sharp pebbles. Major Adams, leading his horse and walking beside the men, encouraged them, saying that they would halt in a short time.
If the battalion as a body troubled little about where they were going, Hicks cared not at all. The incident of the falling tree had broken him. He felt in danger of his life. Where he went mattered not. There was no safety anywhere. He tramped along the road, an atom in the long, lean line, his face showing white as paper through the dirt.
As night came on and a lopsided moon appeared, the battalion turned off in a woods, was halted, and lay down.
In the dark Hicks and Pugh found a placewhere the grass was thickest. They spread out their blankets and lay down. Pugh was restless, though his body was scourged with fatigue. His was the foraging spirit. There were no supply wagons in sight from which to pilfer, there were no field kitchens, with the cooks stewing a barely edible mess of tomatoes, beef-bones, potatoes, and onions. He got up and silently stole away. Less than an hour afterward he returned, his arms laden with bottles and condiments. He uncorked a bottle, placed the open end under Hicks’s nose, and gently shook him.
“Oh, Hicks, Hicksy, look what daddy’s got.”
Hicks awakened with a start, almost knocking the bottle from Pugh’s hand.
“Cognac?” Hicks greedily asked.
“Naw,” deprecatingly, “but it’s pretty good champagne.”
Hicks drank, passed the bottle to Pugh. The bottle played shuttlecock between them.
Suddenly Hicks felt impelled to talk.
“Jack, I’m all in. I feel sort of sick. I don’t believe I can go up to the front any more.”
“What’s the matter?” sympathetically. “These Big Berthas got you fooled?”
“No,” thoughtfully. “That isn’t it. I canstand that all right. I can even stand to see Kahl and the rest of those fellows get knocked off. I suppose I could even stand it to get killed myself. You don’t make such a hell of a fuss when you get killed. But it seems so damned ridiculous. Take our going over the other day. A full battalion starting off and not even a fifth of them coming back. And what did they do? What did we do? We never even saw a German. They just laid up there and picked us off—direct hits with their artillery every time! That’s hell, ... you know. Think of being sent out to get killed, and the person who sends you not knowing where you’re going! It looks crazy. Like goin’ up to the Kaiser and saying: ‘Here, chop my head off.’ And I was talking to a Frog to-day, a Frog that gave me some coffee, and he said that this damned thing might keep up for years. Now, it’d be all right if we could go up and clean things up with one big smash, but it’s pretty mean when you go up and come back, go up and come back, until you get knocked off. Gimme another drink.
“And Jack, you know that Frog I was tellin’ you about? When he gave me the coffee he asked me if I was an American. I guess hethought at first that I was an Englishman, and when I told him I wasn’t he looked sort of glad. Then he looked as if he expected me to agree with him and said that the Englishmen were no good.”
“Well, you did, didn’t you? I’d like to take a crack at them lime-juicers.”
“What difference does that make? The point is, the French hate the English and the English hate the Americans and the Americans hate the Germans, and where the hell is it all goin’ to end? Gimme another drink.
“I guess that fellow being killed this afternoon got on my nerves,” he finished.
Hicks drank until he was drunk, not sickeningly drunk, but until his brain was numbed.
Pugh sat awake, watching the stars through the trees and listening to one of the new men singing low some Italian love-songs that he had learned in Rome.
The battalion slept until noon. When they awoke, the field kitchens, drawn up not far from them, were concocting the rations into that particular delicacy known to army folk as slum. The men fell in line before the large metal containers, where soiled-looking ragamuffinsslopped a pale, watery substance into the dirty mess-kits that were held out by the men as they passed. The bread was white, there was much coffee that was hot. Further than that the desires of the men did not wing.
Late afternoon found the battalion on the road again, bound farther from the front. They knew that they were leaving the front by the receding boom of the artillery.
They were billeted in a small town from which all of the able-bodied inhabitants had flown. Vacant houses were searched out, armsful of straw were taken from the barns and arranged in neat piles on the stone floors of the houses. By sleeping in pairs, they were able to use one blanket to put over the straw, the other blanket to cover their bodies.
There began the regular soldier’s formula of reveille and morning exercises; a scrawny breakfast and a morning of drill; a heavy, lumpy dinner and an afternoon of skirmishing, alternating with lectures on the manœuvres of war; a thin, skimpy supper, leaving the men free in the evening to bribe the townspeople to sell them eggs, salads, rabbit, cognac, and wine.
Of an evening they would gather in cafés, small, snug ones, with rough boards for tables and several broken chairs and talk over the grievances that the day had brought; of the rottenness of the Y. M. C. A., upon which all but two were agreed; of what they did before they enlisted in “this man’s army”; of the slackness of the mail delivery; of their hatred and contempt for the military police, and especially those military police in Paris of whom horrifying tales of cruelty were told; of what they were going to do when they were released from the army; of the vengeance they were planning against at least three officers; of how they were going to circumvent being captured for the next war. One, now and again, would shyly bring a pocket-worn photograph forth and show it to those whom drink had made his closest friends. In all, a fairly pleasant existence.
But Hicks was one of the more silent among them. After the first few nights in the town he began making long, lonely pilgrimages to near-by towns and returning later after taps, at which time he was supposed to be in bed. He also began drinking more heavily, and one morning, when the whistle was blown for drill,Hicks was still drunk from the effects of the liquor of the night before. But being one of the handful of the original members of the platoon, little by way of reprimand was said.