Chapter III: Part 3

So he showed a disposition to chum with us. He gravitated more particularly to the First Orderly, who reported to the chauffeur of the second bus that Trevelyan had a most comprehensive understanding of the war; that he had also a keen knowledge of medicine and surgery, with which the First Orderly had himself tinkered.

They discussed the value of the war in several branches of surgery. The chauffeur of the second bus heard Trevelyan expounding to the First Orderly on the precious knowledge derived by the great hospital surgeons in Paris and London from the great numbers of thigh fractures coming in--how amputations were becoming always fewer--the men walked again, though one leg might be shorter.

Trevelyan, in his well-fitting khaki uniform, seemed from the same mold as hundreds of clean-built Englishmen; lean face, blond hair. His accent was faultlessly upper class. The letter "g" did not occur as a terminating consonant in his conversation. The adjectives "rippin'" or "rotten" conveyed his sentiments one way or the other. His hand clasp was firm, his eye direct and blue. He was a chap you liked.

At our midday meal, which was served apart for the American contingent, the First Orderly asked the corps what they thought of Trevelyan. "I've lived three years in England," said the chauffeur of the second bus, "and this fellow seems to have far less 'side' than most of his class."

The First Orderly explained that this was because Trevelyan had become cosmopolitan--traveled a lot, spoke French and Spanish and understood Italian, whereas most Englishmen scorned to learn any "foreign" tongue.

"Why isn't he in a regiment--he's so superior!" wondered the chauffeur of the second bus. The First Orderly maintained stoutly that there was some good reason, perhaps family trouble, why his new friend was just a common orderly--like himself.

The entire column was then ordered out. They hauled wounded from the field hospital to the evacuation camp until nightfall. After dusk they made several trips almost to the trenches. But there were fewer wounded than usual. The cold had lessened the infantry attacks, though the artillery constantly thundered, especially at nightfall.

New orders came in. They were:--Everything ready always for a possible quick advance into L----, which was then an advance post. An important redistribution of General French's "contemptible little army" was hoped for. At coffee next morning our squad commander, after his customary talk with the fat major, admonished us to have little to say concerning our affairs--that talk was a useless adjunct to war.

III--WHO IS THIS MYSTERIOUS GLOBE TROTTER

That day again the First Orderly's dinner conversation was of Trevelyan. Their conversation of that morning had gotten away from armies and surgeons and embraced art people, which were the First Orderly's forte. People were his hobby but he knew a lot about art. This knowledge had developed in the form of landscape gardening at the country places of his millionaire friends. It appeared that he and Trevelyan had known the same families in different parts of the world.

"He knows the G's," he proclaimed, naming a prominent New York family. "He's been to their villa at Lennox. He spoke of the way the grounds are laid out, before he knew I had been there. Talked about the box perspective for the Venus fountain, that I suggested myself."

The corps "joshed" the First Orderly on that: asked him whether Trevelyan had yet confided the reason for his position in the ranks. The First Orderly was indifferent. He waved a knife loaded with potatoes--a knife is the chief army eating utensil. "He may be anything from an Honorable to a Duke," he said, "but I don't like to ask, for you know how Englishmen are about those things. I have found, though, that he did the Vatican and Medici collections only a year ago with some friends of mine, and I'm going to sound them about him some time."

There were sharp engagements that afternoon and the corps was kept busy. At nightfall, the booming of the artillery was louder--nearer, especially on the left, where the French heavy artillery had come up the day before to support the British line. The ambulance corps was ordered to prepare for night work. They snatched plates of soup and beans, and sat on the busses, waiting.

At eight o'clock a shell screamed over the line of cars, then another, and two more. "They've got the range on us," the fat Major said. "We'll have to clear out." Eighteen shells passed overhead before the equipment and the few remaining wounded got away and struck the road to the main base at B----.

The American squad was billeted that night in the freight station--dropping asleep as they sank into the straw on the floor. At midnight an English colonel's orderly entered and called the squad commander. They went out together; then the squad commander returned for the Orderly of the first bus. The chauffeur of the second bus waked when they returned after several hours, and heard them through the gloom groping their way to nests in the straw. They said nothing.

It was explained in the morning at coffee. "Trevelyan" had been shot at sunrise. He was a German spy.

IV--STORIES OF THE RUE JEANNE D'ARC

We were sitting in a café at the _apéritif_ hour--an hour that survives the war. We were stationed in a city of good size in Northern France, a city famous for its cathedral and its cheese. Just now it was a haven of refugees, and an evacuation center for wounded. The Germans had been there, as the patronne of the Café Lion d'Or narrated at length to every one who would listen; but now the battle lines were some distance away. If the wind came from the right direction when the noise of the city was hushed by military order at nightfall, the haunting boom-boo-o-m of heavy artillery could be faintly heard. No one who has heard that sound ever forgets it. Dynamite blasting sounds just about the same, but in the sound of artillery, when one knows that it is artillery, there seems the knell of doom.

The café was crowded at the _apéritif_ hour. The fat face of the patronne was wreathed in smiles. Any one is mistaken who imagines that all Northern France is lost from human view in a dense rolling cloud of battle smoke. At any rate, in the Café d'Or one looked upon life unchanged. True, there were some new clients in the place of old ones. There were a half dozen soldiers in khaki, and we of the American ambulance column, dressed in the same cloth. In a corner sat a young lieutenant in the gorgeous blue of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, drinking vermouth with a grizzled captain of artillery. Other French uniforms dotted the place. The "honest bourgeois" were all there--the chief supports of the establishment in peace or war. They missed the evening _apéritif_ during the twelve days of German occupation, but now all were in their accustomed places. For the places of oldtimers are sacred at the Lion d'Or.

Madame la patronne acted in place of her husband, who was now safely serving in the cooking department of the army, some kilometers from the firing line. Madame sat contentedly at the caisse superintending the activities of two youthful, inexperienced garçons. The old waiters, Jean and André, vanished into the "zone of military activity" on the first day of the war. After several post cards, Jean had not been heard from. André was killed at the battle of the Marne.

We had heard the garrulous tale of the German occupation many times. It was thrillingly revealed, both at the Restaurant de Commerce and the Hotel de Soleil. At the Lion d'Or it was Madame's absorbing theme, when she was not haranguing the new waiters or counting change. Madame had remained throughout the trouble. "But yes, to be sure." She was not the woman to flee and leave the Lion d'Or to the invaders. Her ample form was firmly ensconced behind the caisse when the first of the Uhlans entered. They were officers, and--wonder of wonders--they spoke French. The new waiters were hiding in the cellar, so Madame clambered from her chair with dignity, and placed glasses and drink before them. And then--would wonders never cease?--these Germans had actually paid--even overpaid, _ma foi_--for one of them flung a golden half louis on the counter, and stalked from the place refusing change. Of course at the Hotel de Ville, the invaders behaved differently. There the Mayor was called upon for one million francs--war indemnity. But that was a matter for the city and not for the individual. Madame still had that golden half louis and would show it if we cared to see. Gold was scarce and exceedingly precious. The sight of it was good.

Now the Germans were gone--forced out, grace à Dieu, so the good citizens no longer lived in the cellars. They were again in their places at the Lion d'Or, sipping vermouth and offering gratitude to the military régime that had the decency to allow cafés open until eight o'clock. Outside the night was cold and a fine drizzle beat against the windows. Several newcomers shivered and remarked that it must be terrible in the trenches. But the electric lights, the clinking glasses on the marble tables, the rattling coins, soon brought them into the general line of speculation on how long it would take to drive the Germans from France.

V--A NIGHT AT THE LION D'OR

For a hundred years the cafés have been the Forum of France. The Lion d'Or had for that entire period been the scene of fierce verbal encounters between members of more political and religious faiths than exist in any other nation of the world. Every Frenchman, no matter how humble in position or purse has decided opinions about something. But now the voices in the Lion d'Or arose only in appellations concerning _les Boches_. There was unanimity of opinion on the absorbing subject of the war.

The members of the American ambulance column sat at a table near the door. Our khaki always brought looks of friendly interest. Almost every one took us to be English, and even those who learned the truth were equally pleased. We finished the _apéritif_ and consulted about dinner. We were off duty--we might either return for the army mess or buy our own meal at the restaurant. We paid the garçon and decided upon the restaurant a few doors away. Several of the men were struggling into their rubber coats. I told them that I would follow shortly. I had just caught a sentence from across the room that thrilled me. It held a note of mystery--or tragedy. It brought life out of the commonplace normality of _apéritif_ hour at the Lion d'Or.

The speakers were two Frenchmen of middle age--fat and bearded. They were dressed in ordinary black, but wore it with a ceremonial rather than conventional manner. The atmosphere of the city did not seem upon them. They might rather be the butcher and the grocer of a small town. One of the pair had sat alone for some time before the second arrived. I had noticed him. He seemed to have no acquaintances in the place--which was unusual. He drank two cognacs in rapid succession--which was still more unusual. One drink always satisfies a Frenchman at _apéritif_ hour--and it is very seldom cognac.

When the second man entered the other started from his seat and held out both hands eagerly. "So you got out safe!" were the words I heard; but our crowd was hurrying toward the door, and I lost the actual greeting. I ordered another vermouth and waited.

The two men were seated opposite each other. The first man nervously motioned to the waiter and the newcomer gave his order. It was plain that they were both excited, but the table adjoining was unoccupied, so they attracted no attention. The noisy waiter, banging bottles on the table, drowned out the next few sentences. Then I heard the second man: "So I got out first, but you managed to get here yesterday--a day in advance."

The other replied: "I was lucky enough to get a horse. They were shelling the market place when I left."

The second man gulped his drink and plucked nervously at the other's sleeve. "My wife is at the hotel," he almost mumbled the words, "I must tell her--you said the market place. But how about the Rue Jeanne d'Arc?--her sister lived there. She remained."

"How about the Rue Jeanne d'Arc?" the other repeated. He clucked his tongue sympathetically. "That was all destroyed in the morning."

The second man drew a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped the sweat from his forehead.

VI--STORIES OF THE REFUGEES FROM THE SOMME

They were climbing out of the cattle cars into the mud of the freight yards. They numbered about fifty,--the old, the halt, the blind and the children. We were whizzing past on a motor ambulance with two desperately wounded men inside, headed for a hospital a half mile away. The Medical Major said that unless we hurried the men would probably be dead when we arrived. So we could not lessen speed as those from Quesnoy-sur-Somme descended painfully from the cattle cars. Instead, we sounded the siren for them to get out of the way. The mud from our wheels splattered them. But it was not mud--not regular mud. It was black, unhealthy ooze, generated after a month of rain in the aged layers of train soot. It was full of fever germs. Typhoid was on the rampage.

As we passed the sentinels at the gates of the yards we were forced to halt in a jam of ammunition and food wagons. To the army that survives is given the first thought. The wounded in the ambulance could wait. We took right of way only over civilians--including refugees.

We asked a sentinel concerning those descending from the cattle cars, "_là bas_." He said they came from a place called Quesnoy-sur-Somme. It was not a city he told us, nor a town--not even a village. Just a straggling hamlet along the river bank--a place called Quesnoy-sur-Somme.

The past tense was the correct usage of the verb. The place _was_ that; but now--now it is just a black path of desolation beside a lifeless river. The artillery had thundered across the banks for a month. The fish floated backs down on the water.

When the ammunition and food wagons gave us room enough, we again raced through the streets and delivered our wounded at the hospital--alive. Then we returned to the freight yards for more. Several ambulance columns had worked through the night from the field hospitals to the freight yards. There the men were sorted and the less desperate cases entrained.

We plowed our way carefully through the ooze of the yards, for ahead of us walked those from Quesnoy-sur-Somme on their way to the _gare_. They walked slowly--painfully, except the children, who danced beside our running board and laughed at the funny red crosses painted on the canvas sides of the ambulance. It was raining--as usual. The sky was the coldest gray in the universe, and the earth and dingy buildings, darker in tone, were still more dismal. But one tiny child had a fat slab of bread covered thickly with red jam. She raised her sticky pink face to ours and laughed gloriously. She waved her pudgy fist holding the bread and jam, and shouted, "_Vive la France!_"

We were now just crawling through the mire. The refugees surrounded us on all sides. The mother seized the waving little arm, and dragged the child away. The woman did not look at us. She just plodded along, her eyes fixed on the mud that closed over her shoes at every step. She was bareheaded and the rain glistened in great drops upon her hair. The child hung back. The mother merely tightened her grip, doggedly patient. She was past either curiosity or reproof.

VII--THE FORLORN MASS ON THE BATTLE ROADS

Our car ran so slowly that accidentally we killed the engine. I got out to crank her up and meantime the forlorn mass surged by. Two soldiers herded them over the slippery tracks to a shed beside the gare where straggled some rough benches. We lined our car up behind the other ambulances. Then we went to look at the refugees.

They had dropped onto the benches, except the children. The littlest ones tugged fretfully at their mothers' skirts. The others ran gleefully about, fascinated by the novelty of things. It was a holiday. Several Red Cross women were feeding the crowd, passing about with big hampers of bread and pots of coffee. Each person received also a tin of dried meat; and a cheese was served to every four. We helped carry the hampers.

Most of the refugees did not even look at us; they did not raise their eyes from the mud. They reached out their hands and took what we gave them. Then they held the food in their laps, listless; or staring out across the yards into the wet dusk.

One or two of them talked. They had been hustled out at sunrise. The French army thought they had occupied that dangerous place long enough. There was no longer hope for any living thing remaining. So they came away--bringing nothing with them, herded along the line by soldiers. Where they were going they did not know. It did not matter where. "_C'est la guerre!_ It is terrible--yes." They shrugged their shoulders. It is war!

One old man, nearly blind and very lame, sat forlornly at one end of the line. He pulled at an empty pipe. We gave him some tobacco--some fresh English tobacco. He knew that it was not French when he rolled it in his hand. So we explained the brand. We explained patiently, for he was very deaf. He was delighted. He had heard of English tobacco, but had never had any. He stuffed the pipe and eagerly lit it. He leaned back against the cold stone wall and puffed in ecstasy. Ah! this English tobacco _was_ good. He was fortunate.

We glanced back along the line. As we looked several of the women shrank against the wall. One covered her eyes. Two French ambulances passed, carrying a wounded Zouave on a stretcher. A yard engine went shrieking across their path and the ambulanciers halted. The huddled figure under the blankets groaned horribly. Then the procession proceeded to our first ambulance. The men were on the seat, ready for the race against time to the hospital.

After a few minutes the soldiers who had herded the refugees into the shed came again to herd them out--back to the cattle cars. I asked one of the soldiers where they were going. He waved his hand vaguely toward the south. "_Là bas_," he muttered. He didn't know exactly. They were going somewhere--that was all. There was no place for them here. This station was for wounded. And would they ever return? He shrugged his shoulders.

I looked at the forlorn procession sloshing across the yards. The rain beat harder. It was almost dark; the yard lamps threw dismal, sickish gleams across the tracks. The old man with the tobacco brought up the rear, helped along by an old woman hobbling on a stick.

We heard the voice of the Medical Major bawling for "_les ambulances Américaines_." We looked behind into the gloom of the gare; a procession emerged--stretchers with huddled forms under blankets. As far down the yards as we could see--just on the edge of the night, those from Quesnoy-sur-Somme were climbing slowly into the cattle cars.

FOOTNOTE:

[5] All numerals relate to stories told herein--not to chapters in the book.

"PRIESTS IN THE FIRING LINE"--THE CROSS AND CRUCIFIX

_A Reverend Father in the French Army_

_By Réné Gaell--Translated by H. Hamilton Gibbs and Madame Berton_

This is the revelation of the soul of a priest, who heard "the call
to duty" and went to the battle lines to fight for his country and
to relieve the suffering. He tells about his experiences at "A
Soldier's Death Bed"; "Mass Under Shell Fire"; "Absolution Before
the Battle"; "The Blood of Priests"; "How They Die"; "Confession
on a Parapet"; "The Blessed Sacrament"; and "The Last Blessing."
The chapters here given on "His Call to Duty" and "The Story of a
Wounded Man" is by permission of his publishers, _Longmans, Green
and Company_.

[6] I--STORY OF A PRIEST'S "CALL TO DUTY"

"It's no joke, this time," said my old friend the General.

These words were uttered on the evening of the International Congress at Lourdes.

Hearts and voices were raised in prayer.

I, too, was filled with the thought of a peace which seemed as though it could have no end.

But the General was filled with quite other thoughts. "No," he said, with that fine strength which is capable of facing the saddest emergencies and of stilling the fever which the thought of the dreaded future sends rushing to the brain. "No, it's no joke this time.... War is upon us."

And he began to explain the international complications, the appalling pride of Germany faced by two alternatives, to expand or to perish.

He showed me the uselessness of diplomacy--the treachery of international peace-parties--the rush of events towards the inevitable yet outrageous catastrophe.

In a week or perhaps less, millions of men would receive marching orders, and Europe would be bathed in blood.

Five days later, I left a deserted Lourdes. I read on the cover of my military certificate my destination for the first time ... my destination ... my orders to rejoin my unit ... and that simple piece of paper suddenly spoke to me with formidable eloquence.

I was a soldier, and this time it was "no joke." I was going to fight. The citizen in me shuddered, as every one shuddered in those first terrible hours whose emotion still prolongs itself and is not likely to end soon.

But the priest in me felt bigger, more human. To every one who asked if I were going too, I replied, "Yes, but not to kill--to heal, to succour, to absolve."

I felt those tear-filled eyes gaze wistfully at me, and that in passing, I left behind me a feeling of trust, of comfort.

A mother, whose five sons were going to the front, and who was seated near me in the train, said in a strong voice, but with the tears streaming down her cheeks: "They have scattered priests in all the regiments. You will be everywhere.... It is God's revenge!"

How much anguish has been soothed, how many sacrifices have been accepted more bravely, at the thought, "they will be there."

It was at the headquarters of a certain division of the Medical Service, during the first days of mobilisation.

There, as everywhere, feverish preparation was going on--a tumultuous activity. Through the big town, the first regiment passed on their way to the firing line.

How the fine fellows were acclaimed, how they were embraced!

There were a thousand of us already, and we were the first to be called up. Half of us were priests, and our clerical garb attracted a lot of sympathy. The love of our country and the love of God so long separated were now as one. It is no longer time to scoff or to be indifferent to religion. People now wrung us by the hand, and came close up to us.

An officer came up to us and before that enormous assembly of men, said: "Gentlemen, I should like to embrace each one of you in the name of every mother in France.... If only you knew how they count on you, those women, and how they bless you for what you are going to be to their sons. _We_ don't know the words that bring strength and healing, and we are ignorant of the prayers that solace the last agony ... but you...." And at the words, he wept, without attempting to hide his feelings. He already realised the immensity of the sacrifice, and the powerlessness of man to bring consolation to those struck down in their first manhood.

No, it was no longer "a joke" this time, and every one felt it and showed it by their respectful looks and manner.

The others, those millions of men on their way to the front, were starting for the unknown.

We, on the other hand, knew well what lay before us ... we should have to succour the wounded and throw wide the Gates of Heaven for them to enter in--we should have to dress their wounds and arouse courage in those crushed, by the burden too heavy for mere flesh and blood to bear.

Never had we felt such apostles ... never had our hearts dilated with such brotherly feeling.

II--CARRYING THE CROSS OF CHRIST TO THE BATTLEFIELDS

"Attention!"

Instantly there was dead silence. In imagination we saw nothing but those far-off battlefields.

Our names were called, and we were allotted our several tasks. First the stretcher-bearers. There was a long list of these, and in two hours they were to set out for the front, to pick up the wounded in the firing line.

From time to time the officer broke the monotony of the roll-call by trenchant remarks--such as one makes on those occasions when one has accepted one's share of sacrifice simply because it's one's duty to do so.

"You will be just as exposed as those who are fighting. The enemy will fire on the ambulances; and the Red Cross on your armlets and on the buildings will not protect you from German bullets."

The list was growing longer. In their turn men of thirty and forty received the badges of their devotedness.

"There are many of you who will never come back. Your courage will only be the finer. They may kill you, but you will not be able to kill. Your sole duty is to love suffering in spite of everything, no matter how mutilated the being may be who falls across your path, and who cries for pity."

"Even the Boches?"

The officer smiled, then said almost regretfully: "Even the Boches."

Amongst us there was a hum of dissent.

"I quite understand," said the officer, "but when you remember that your duty is that of heroism without thought of revenge--just pure heroism, that of apostles who are made of the stuff martyrs are made of...."

He who had protested, and who happened to be standing next to me, was a dear old friend of mine, one of those valiant souls who fear nothing and nobody. He was a fine, soldierly priest.

He was among the number of those who were off to the front, and his face had lit up when he heard his name called.

"Thank Heaven! I was so afraid of being left behind."

To be left behind was a kind of disgrace we felt ... and we old territorials who were to be sent to the hospitals in the west, felt it badly.

The Abbé Duroy was already living it all in spirit. His eyes saw the near future and his heart beat with joy at the thought of his great work. He was going down to the terrible "là-bas," to anguish unspeakable and to death, and in his person, I thought I saw all the priests of France going towards the frontiers, invested with the divine mission of opening the gates to eternal life to those who were quitting this poor mortal life.

When we had separated, in order to pack our traps, Duroy took me apart.

"You are jealous," he said.

"Why not?"

"I understand. After all this new life is part of our very being. Do you think though that it was necessary to be mobilised in order to do what we are doing? For twenty years, always, we have been patriots ... soldiers who blessed and upheld."

There was a bugle call. It was the first signal for departure. He held out his hand ... our eyes met and spoke the same great thought, the same great fear.

I was the weaker man, and the question which wrung my heart, escaped to my lips.

"When shall we meet again?"

He, proud and stern at the thought of danger, repeated my words.

"Shall we meet again?"

Then he broke the short silence. "To die like that, and only thirty.... I'm afraid I don't deserve such a grace."

Then becoming the true soldier he always was, he struck me on the shoulder and said--

"I've an idea, old friend. I'll write to you from 'là-bas,' as often as I can ... and from the impressions you get, joined to mine, I'm sure you'll be able to write some touching pages. I am your War Correspondent."

He embraced me, and I felt that his promise was one of those which are kept.

III--A PRIEST'S STORY OF THE MAN NOT AFRAID TO DIE

It was night-time, and I could hear the hours striking, hours which would have been long if I had not beside me moaning and groaning, suffering to be consoled. We had had to wait for them for a fortnight, but there they were now, filling the great dormitories of a school which had been turned into a military hospital, where we had joined our post in the war. They suffer in silence, or when in the throes of a hideous nightmare, they scream and groan with the torture their mutilated bodies wrings from them.

I went up to a bed over which the lamp shed a subdued light. There lay a young fellow of about twenty, awakened by the intensity of his suffering. I had seen him but a short time before on his stretcher, a poor broken thing, his eyes staring, with the horrors of his dreadful journey still pictured in them.

What appalling scenes had I read in them. All the horrors of war had become present to me.

Stretched out motionless on his stretcher, he looked like a corpse, whose eyes had not been properly closed, indifferent to all around him. Then, when we had lifted him, and with such care, he began to scream and cry out. A doctor should have dressed his wounds at the front, but they had not been done for four days. On being lifted up, his shattered leg, cramped and asleep, gave him excruciating pain, and his whole body writhed as though it had been on the rack.

I had noticed this young Marseillais, with his child's face among all the other wounded men, and I had been attracted by his youth and his sufferings.

I went up to his bed. I leant over him, and said with the instinctive gentleness which compassion inspires one with: "You are suffering, my child?"

Without answering, he withdrew his burning hand from mine, and put his arm round my neck.

"Father," he said, in a weak voice, "Father, am I going to die?"

What answer could I make? I didn't know; besides, even when one is sure, one can't say it out brutally like that.

Then the poor boy guessed I had misunderstood him, and his proud, brave soul wished to keep the glory of the soldier, who has braved danger without flinching. Now he defied death and found strength to smile.

"Oh! I'm not a bit afraid, but I wanted to ask you...."

He stopped and began to cry. He drew me still closer to him. He was no coward, this young trooper. One felt it instinctively. I knew that this lad who had lived through the bloody epopee, was not to be approached by maddening fear. His heart was stamped with virility. A month's campaign had made of him an old soldier who had gone through tragic adventures.

"No, I'm not afraid. I've seen so many die all around me that I don't care a scrap whether I live or die. But ... It's my mother, I'm thinking of. If I die, she won't understand, and it will kill her too."

Little by little the sighs and moans had ceased in the darkened ward. Only his solemn words broke the silence. Everything else faded away at the meeting of the two beings, at that supreme moment, more than mere men, the soldier and the priest, to whom France had confided the guarding of her frontiers and the treasure of her ideal.

Then, knowing how nature rebounds, and trusting to the hardy stock from which he sprang, I dared to assure him that he was not mortally wounded.

"No, my child, you won't die, you are too young to die." A sceptical smile stopped me.

"And what about those others 'là-bas?'"

All the same, I don't believe that we shall not be able to save the poor, mangled body. The head doctor, whose diagnosis is never wrong, said only a little while ago that he would save him.

"I tell you, you will recover."

IV--THE STORY FROM HIS DYING LIPS

The poor fellow looked at me, and this time believed me. He raised himself a little, made the sign of the cross, and whispered--

"You must pray for me."

He closed his eyes in prayer, and I could no longer see him, for the tears in my own. To comfort him, I placed my hand on his breast.

He winced. "Forgive me, father, I've had a bullet through there, too."

Not only had he a shattered leg, but a bullet had gone through his breast, and another had gone just above his heart.

His shirt was red with blood which had oozed through the dressings. Somehow it did not occur to me to think of his great suffering. He seemed more like a martyr broken on the wheel, with a halo round his head. This young boy, who knew how to suffer so well, must have fought magnificently.

And I thought as I raised my hand to bless him: "How fine he is!"

Four medals hung round his neck, and he held them out for me to kiss them.

They tasted of blood, and I still have the strange taste on my lips of those medals which had lain over the wound, which bled above his heart.

"That one, the biggest, was given me by a priest down there in the ambulance, which was an old farm once, and whose walls are riddled with shells. What a night it was! and what an amount of blood there was about!"

My young Marseillais writhed, not with the pain from his wounds, but with the fearful remembrance of that night. The horror of that superhuman agony took possession of his mind. I wanted him to sleep, but words poured from his lips, in his fever. It was useless to try to stop him, so I let him tell me his sad tale.

"We had been fighting all day long, and felt death stalking beside us all day too. It was like a frightful tempest, like hell let loose. Bullets fell round us like hail, and I saw my comrades fall at my side cut in half or blown into bits by shell fire. They uttered no cries, they were wiped out instantaneously. But the others ... those who were still alive.... I can tell you it was enough to make your blood run cold. It was enough to make one go raving mad."

He stopped to drink a little. I thought he was exhausted with the effort of recalling the awful scene.

"Try to rest now, my child. You shall tell me the rest to-morrow."

But he would not listen to me. Up to now, it was the man who had been speaking, now suddenly the soldier awoke, the lover of his country, the French trooper fascinated by the glory of it all.

"It was so sad, yet so fine. War may kill you, but it makes you drunk; in spite of everything one had to laugh. I don't know what makes one laugh at such times.... Something great and splendid passes before one's eyes.... There is danger, but there is excitement, and it's that which attracts us.... The captain was standing, we were lying down. From time to time he would say: 'It's all right, boys.... We're making a fine mess of the Huns! Can you hear the 75's singing?'

"So well were they singing that, over there, helmets were falling like nuts which one shells when they're ripe. Their voices shook the ground, and each of their cries went to our hearts and made them beat the higher. Then we sprang up to rush forward, and then we flung ourselves down again flat, as above us the bullets whistled in their thousands."

He squeezed my hand tighter then, as if to drive home the truth of his story.

"You see, it was fine in spite of everything. Even when a bullet laid you low.... It happened to me about six o'clock, just as the captain fell, shouting 'Forward, men, and at them with the bayonets!' We went forward to the attack. In front of us we saw nothing but the flames from the cannons ... our ears were deafened with the cry of the shells. I took ten steps. We were walking in flames. It was red everywhere, as far as one could see. Suddenly a thunderbolt burst in the middle of us.... I fell near a comrade, brought down at the same time as I was.

"It was the chaplain of the division, a reservist, aged twenty-eight, who called out to me, laughing: 'You've got it in the leg, old man, I've got it in my shoulder!'

"He was drenched with blood, and still he went on joking. Then, suddenly, he became serious, and he began speaking like a priest speaks to the dying.

"'Now, my children, make an act of contrition. Repeat after me with your whole heart, 'My God, I am sorry for my sins; forgive me!'

"I can see him now, half raised on his elbow; his unwounded hand was raised, while the poor fellow blessed us all, as we prayed God to have mercy on those who would never rise again.

"I saw him again in the field hospital, half an hour later. He was breathing with difficulty, but he kept on smiling. It was then that he gave me his medal.

"He died, with his rosary in his hands, and I looked at him for a long time when he had breathed his last. His face was like an angel's, and the blood went on flowing....

"I remember that the doctor stopped at this moment, and bent over him. Then standing upright he called the other orderlies round and pointed to the dead man:

"'There's a man who knew how to die finely. The poor devils who die before us so often, are sometimes sorry for themselves. This poor fellow has had no thought but for others for the last two hours. Look at him, he is still smiling.'"

The wounded boy stopped, his heart was torn at the thought of his friend. He, too, forgot his suffering in thinking of the priest whose absolution had strengthened and consoled him in his torture. I gave him something to drink; he kissed his medals, especially the big one, his precious legacy, and went off to sleep without dreaming that he had told me a sublime story.

There were twenty-four like him in the ward, and seeing them stretched out there overcome by pain, I told myself that the humblest among them, the most illiterate peasant even, had his share of glory, and that they were all transfigured by the halo round their heads.

Somehow, that first evening in the wards, I felt that I too had my share of courage and of usefulness.

Down there, in the firing line, they had found wherewith to feed their pride; here, the young heroes would be able to unburden their souls. At the front they had seen the living France. In this hospital, perhaps, they would come face to face with God--forgotten, misunderstood, abandoned--God who is so good to those who fall.

The major gave us his recommendations and the last orders. He was struck at seeing so many budding moustaches, and beards.

"Heavens! I only see priests to the fore!"

"Priests to the fore!" That is indeed our motto. Our comrades say we are rash. All the same, they are as rash as we are. _They_ go to the bloody business laughing, _we_ go praying.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] All numerals relate to stories told herein--not to chapters in the book.

STORIES OF AN AMERICAN WOMAN--SEEN WITH HER OWN EYES

"_Journal of Small Things_"

_Told by Helen Mackay, an American Author_

This is a story of little things and impressions gathered on the
battle grounds by a woman of sensitive vision and understanding.
She relates her impressions with a delicate pathos, little
incidents half observed, half forgotten, which clustered around
the big tragedy. Mrs. Mackay has gathered several hundred of
these little stories into a book. A few of them, typical of their
literature and woman quality are here related by permission of her
publishers, _Duffield and Company_: copyright 1917.

[7] I--THE STORY OF THE DEPOT D'ECLOPES

The dépot d'éclopés is just beyond the town, on the Roman road. The building was once the Convent of the Poor Claires. When the Sisters were sent away it was used as Communal Schools. There is a great plane tree outside the door in the yellow wall, and a bench in the shade. There is room for seven éclopés to sit crowded together on the bench. They bring out some chairs also.

All day long, and every day, as many of the éclopés as can get about, and do not mind that the road see them, and can find space in the shade of the plane tree, sit there, and look up and down the sunshine and the dust.

Some of them have one leg, and some of them have one arm. There is one of them who is packed into a short box on wheels. He sits up straight in the box, and he can run it about with his hands on the wheels. There is another in such a little cart, but that one has to lie on his back, and cannot manage the wheels himself. There is one who lies on a long stretcher, that they fix on two hurdles. There are two who are blind. The two blind men sit, and stare and stare....

I often go and stay with the éclopés at the gate, they like to have anybody come. It was a long time before I dared go in at the gate.

Inside the gate there is a courtyard that was once the nuns' garden, with their well in the middle of it and their fruit trees trained along the walls. And there, there move about all day, or keep to the shadow, of first the east wall, then the west, those of the éclopés whom the road must not see.

Some of them look up at you when you come in. But most of them turn away from you.

The two blind men at the gate who stare and stare, they cannot see the golden town or the golden mountains. They cannot see the compassion and the kindness that there is for them in the faces of all those who look upon them.

But these men in the courtyard, however will they learn to bear, down all their lives, the looks that there will be for them in the most kind, compassionate faces?

There are not ever enough chairs under the plane tree. There are more éclopés than there are chairs. How they laugh! They think it very droll to see a man who has only his left leg and a man who has only his right leg sharing a chair.

The men who have no legs say that that is not nearly so bad as having no arms. They say that the men with no arms are ashamed to be seen, like the men wounded in the face. They say that the men with no arms will never come out even to the gate.

They never will let you stand. It is a dreadful thing to do, to take one of their chairs. But they like to talk to a stranger.

All of them, except the man whose spine has been hurt, love to talk.

The man whose spine has been hurt lies all day, the days he can be brought out, on a stretcher, never stirring. He never speaks except to say one thing. He is very young. He looks as if he were made of wax.

He keeps saying, "How long the days are at this season!"

He will ask, over and over again, "What time is it?" and say, "Only eleven o'clock?" Or, "Only three o'clock?"

And then always, "How long the days are at this season!"

They are taking out for a walk those of the éclopés who are fit for it. There must be nearly a hundred of them. In every possible sort of patched, discolored uniform, here they come hopping and hobbling along. They have more crutches and canes than feet among the lot of them.

One of the men who has no legs goes so fast on his wooden stump and his crutches that everybody stops to look, and all the éclopés laugh, and the people stopping to look, laugh, and he laughs more than any of them.

If things are tragic enough, they are funny. I have come to know that, with the éclopés at the gate. And inside the gate, with those of the éclopés who keep back against the walls, I have come to know that the only safety of life is death.

II--STORY OF THE OLD WOMAN AND THE OMELET

The vine was red on the white old soft wall. It was very beautiful. There were masses of purple asters under the red vine, against the wall. There was a bowl of purple asters on the table between the carafes of red and white wine.

We had an omelet and bread and butter and raspberries, and water, very beautiful in the thick greenish glasses.

Under the yellow boughs of the lime tree we could see the misty valley and the mountains.

The table had a red-and-white cloth.

The little old thin brown woman who served us wanted to talk all the time with us. She wanted to talk about the omelet; she had made it and was very proud of it. She wanted to talk about the war and to talk about her son.

She said that there had been some horrible, strange mistake and that people thought that he was dead. She had had a paper from the Ministry of War telling her he was dead. It was very strange. She had had a letter also from the Aumonier, telling her he was dead. But, of course, she knew.

She said he would come home, and be so sorry she had had such dreadful news, and so glad that she had not believed it.

They would laugh together. He had beautiful white teeth, she said, and his eyes screwed tight up when he laughed.

She told us how she and he would laugh together.

III--STORY OF THE APACHE BABY--AND ITS WAYWARD MOTHER

They telephoned from the cantine that the baby of the girl Alice was dead at the hospital, and that the funeral was to be from there that afternoon at three o'clock, and that Alice wanted me to come.

Mademoiselle Renée, the économe, who telephoned, said it was the apache girl with the ear-rings.

I don't know why she wanted me to come to the funeral of her baby. Of the nearly three hundred women who came twice every day to the cantine, she had never been especially my friend. Her baby had been a sick little thing, and I had been touched by her wild love of it. It had no father, she told me. We never ask questions at the cantine, but she had been pleased to tell me that. She had said she was glad, because, so, it was all her own. She had rocked it as she held it wrapped in the folds of her red shawl, and shaken her long bright ear-rings, laughing down at it, over her bowl of soup. And now it is dead.

Claire came to me. We had just time, if we took a taxi, to get to the hospital, stopping on the way for some flowers. It was raining more or less, and very dark.

At the hospital they sent us round to the back, to a sort of shed opening on a street that was being built up, or had been torn down, I don't know which, desolate in the rain.

In the room of the shed there were two families in black, two mothers with dingy crape veils, and two dead babies in unpainted pine boxes that were open.

The baby in the box on the right was quite big, the size of the most expensive doll one could get for a rich little girl at Christmas. There was a quite fine white tin wreath on the floor, tilted up against the pine box. The family of the bigger baby was quite numerous, half a dozen women, an old man, and several children. They all had shoes, and several of the women had umbrellas, and one of them had a hat.

In the smaller box was the baby of Alice, very, very small and pinched and blue, even more small and pinched and blue than when she used to bring it to the cantine. The family of Alice consisted of a small boy with bare feet and no hat, a small girl with a queer colored skirt and felt slippers and a bit of black crape over her red hair, and a boy of perhaps seventeen, also in felt slippers, with his coat collar turned up and a muffler round his chin and his cap dragged down over his eyes. Alice had a hat and a crape veil and a black coat and skirt, and down-trodden, shapeless shoes much too big for her.

There was a small bunch of violets in the pine box with the baby.

We put our roses down on the floor at the foot of the box.

Both babies had on the little white slips that the hospital gives.

The family of the bigger baby, and the brother and sister of Alice, stared at us.

The mother of the bigger baby stood leaning against the wall, her head against the whitewash, her two hands over her eyes. She was making a queer little noise through her teeth. She kept it up all the time we were in the shed, a sort of hissing. She never once uncovered her eyes.

Alice was standing close, close beside her baby in the pine box, just looking down at it. She never took her eyes from it. She is a tall, straight girl, but she was bent over, as if she were feeble and old. Her veil was pushed back from her face. It had been wet, and the black had run over her face. But it must have been the rain, for she was not crying at all. All the time in the shed she never moved or cried at all.

Her little brother and sister stood back as if they were afraid of her.

Claire and I waited near the door of the shed.

For a long time we waited like that.

Then two croquemorts came, in their shining black clothes. One of them had a sort of hammer in his hand.

They went to the box of the bigger baby, and one of them picked up the cover of the box and put it on, and the other began to drive the nails in.

When he drove the first nail in, the woman with her eyes covered so she could not see him, heard, and knew what it was, and began to shriek. With her hands over her eyes she stood against the wall and shrieked.

The croquemort drove in all the nails, and the woman kept on shrieking.

Then the other croquemort put the tin wreath on the lid of the box, and then both of them came over to our baby.

Alice had been just looking and looking at her baby. When the men came, and one of them took up the lid of the box from the floor, and the other stood with his hammer, she gathered herself up as if she would spring upon the men who would take her little dead thing from her and put it away for ever. I thought she would fight over it, quite mad. The little brother and sister stood away from her, shivering.

But what she did was to stoop and take up our roses from where they lay on the floor, and put them into the pine box with the baby. She put them all in about the baby, covering it with them. She hid it away under roses and then stood close, close to it, while the croquemort drove the nails in, all the nails, one by one.