Soldier Silhouettes on our Front Part 13

"DEAR UNCLE:

"This here Y. M. C. A. is the goods. They give you chocolate when you're goin' into the trenches and they gives you chocolate when you're comin' out and they don't charge you nothin' for it neither. If you are givin' any money don't you give it to none of them Red Crosses nor to none of them Salvation Armies, nor to none of them Knights of Columbuses; but you give it to them Y. M. C. A.'s. They treat you right. They have entertainments for you and wrestlin' matches, and they give you a place to write. And what's more, Uncle _they don't have no respect fer no religion_.

"Yours,

"BILL."

Yes, France is full of Silhouettes of Suns.h.i.+ne. There was the eloquent Y. M. C. A. secretary. And while he didn't exactly know it, he too was adding his unconscious ray of light to a dull and desolate world.

The Gothas had come over Paris the night before, and so had a group of some one hundred and fifty new secretaries. The Gothas had played havoc with two blocks of buildings on a certain Paris street because of the fact that the bombs they dropped had severed the gas-mains. The result did have a look of desolation I'll have to admit. So far the new secretaries had done no damage.

Now there is one thing common to all the newly arrived in France, be they Y. M. C. A. secretaries, Knights of Columbus workers, Red Cross men, or just the common garden variety of "investigators," and that is that for about two weeks they are alert to hear the bloodiest, most drippy, and desolate-with-danger stories that they can hear, for the high and holy purpose of writing back home to their favorite paper, or to their wives or sweethearts, of how near they were to getting killed; of how the bombs fell just a few minutes before or just a few minutes after they were "on that very spot"; of how the raid came the very night after they were in London or Paris; of how just after they had walked along a certain street the Big Bertha had dropped a sh.e.l.l there; of how the night after they had slept in a certain hotel down in Nancy the Germans blew it up. We're all alike the first week, and staid war correspondents are no exception to the rule. It gets them all.

I came on my friend telling this crowd of eager new secretaries of the damage that the Gothas had done the night before. There they stood in a corner of the hotel with open ears, eyes, and mouths. Most of them were on their toes ready to make a break for their rooms and get all the horrible details down in their letters home and their diaries before it escaped them. They were torn between a fear that they would forget some of the horrid details and for fear some other fellow would get the big story back home to the local paper before they could get it there. When I came in, this nonchalant narrator was having the time of his young life. He was revelling in description. Color and fire and blood and ruin and desecration flowed from his eloquent lips like water over Niagara.

When I got close enough to hear, he was at his most climactic and last period of eloquence. He made a gesture with one hand, waving it gracefully into the air full length, with these words: "Why, gentlemen, I didn't see anything worse at the San Francisco earthquake."

In three seconds that crowd had disappeared, each to his own letter, and each to his own diary. Not a detail must escape. How wonderful it would be to describe that awful destruction, and say at the end of the letter: "And this happened just the night before we reached Paris."

Only the vivid artist of description and myself remained in the hotel lobby, and having heard him mention San Francisco, my own home, I was naturally curious and wanted to talk a bit over old times, so I went up to the gentleman and said: "I heard you say to that gang that you hadn't seen anything worse at the San Francisco earthquake, so I thought I'd have a chat about San Francisco with you."

"Why, I was never in San Francisco in my life," he said with a grin.

"But you said to those boys, 'I didn't see anything worse at the San Francisco earthquake,'" I replied.

"Well, I didn't, for I wasn't there. I just gave them guys what they was lookin' for in all its horrible details, didn't I? Ain't they satisfied? Well, so am I, bo."

This story has a meaning all its own in addition to the fact that it produced one of the bright spots in my experiences in France. That eloquent secretary represents a type who will tell the public about anything he thinks it wants to know about the "horrible details" of war in France, and facts do not baffle his inventive genius.

One characteristic of the American soldier in France is his absolute fearlessness about dangers. He doesn't know how to be afraid. He wants to see all that is going on. The French tap their heads and say he is crazy, a gesture they have learned from America. And they have reason to think so. When the "alert" blows for an air-raid the French and English have learned to respect it. Not so the American soldier.

"Think I'm comin' clear across that darned ocean to see something, and then duck down into some blamed old cellar or cave and not see anything that's goin' on! Not on your life. None o' that for muh! I'm going to get right out on the street where I can see the whole darned show!"

And that's just what he does. I've been in some twenty-five or thirty air-raids in four or five cities of France, and I have never yet seen many Americans who took to the "abris." They all want to see what's going on, and so they hunt the widest street, and the corner at that, to watch the air-raids.

One night during a heavy raid in Paris, when the French were safely hidden in the "abris," because they had sense enough to protect themselves, I saw about twenty sober but hilarious American soldiers marching down the middle of the boulevard, arm in arm, singing "Sweet Adelaide" at the top of their voices, while the bombs were dropping all over Paris, and a continuous barrage from the anti-aircraft guns was cannonading until it sounded like a great front-line battle.

That night I happened to be watching the raid myself from a convenient street-corner. Unconsciously I stood up against a street-lamp with a shade over me, made of tin about the size of a soldier's steel helmet.

Along came a French street-walker, looked at me standing there under that tiny canopy, and with a laugh said as she swiftly pa.s.sed me, "C'est un abri, monsieur?" looking up. The air-raid had not dampened her sense of humor even if it had destroyed her trade for that night.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The air-raid had not dampened her sense of humor.]

Another story ill.u.s.trative of the never-die spirit of the Frenchwomen, in spite of their sorrows and losses: One night, when the rain was pouring in torrents, a desolate, chilly night, I saw a girl of the streets plying her trade, standing where the rain had soaked her through and through. Were her spirits dampened? Was she discouraged?

Was she blue? No; she stood there in the rain humming the air of an opera, oblivious to the fact that she was soaked through and through, and cold to the bone.

This is the undying spirit of France. I do not know whether this girl was driven to her trade because she had lost her husband in the war, but I do know that many have been. I do not know anything about her life. I do know that there she stood, soaked through and through, a frail child of the street, plying her trade, and singing in the rain.

The silhouette of this frail girl and her spirit is typical of France: "Her head though b.l.o.o.d.y is unbowed." Somehow that sight gave me strength.

The reaction of the German submarining in American waters on the boys "Over There" will be interesting to home-folks. When the news got to France that submarines were plying in American waters near New York, did it produce consternation? No! Did it produce regret? No! Did it make them mad? No!

It made them laugh. All over France the boys laughed, and laughed; laughed uproariously; doubled up and laughed. I found this everywhere.

I do not attempt to explain it. It just struck their funny bones. I heard one fellow say: "Now the next best thing would be for a sub some night, when there was n.o.body in the offices, to throw a few sh.e.l.ls into one of those New York skysc.r.a.pers."

"I'll say so! I'll say so!" was the laughing reply.

"Wow! There'd be somethin' doin' at home then, wouldn't there?" my friend the artillery captain said with a grin.

But about the funniest thing I heard along the suns.h.i.+ne-producing line was not in France but coming home from France, on the transport. It came from a prisoner on the transport who was sentenced to fifteen years for striking a top-sergeant.

One night outside of my stateroom I heard some words, and then a blow struck, and a man fall. There was a general commotion.

The next morning the fellow who struck the blow was summoned before the captain of the transport.

"See here, my man, you are already sentenced for fifteen years, and it's a serious offense to strike a man on the high seas."

"I didn't strike him on the high seas, sir, I struck him on the jaw."

The captain was baffled, but went on:

"What did you hit the man for?"

"He argued with me. I can't stand it to be argued with."

"But you shouldn't strike a man and split his mouth open just because he disagrees with you," said the captain severely.

"I just don't seem to be able to stand it to have a guy argue with me,"

he replied, not abashed in the slightest.

"Well, you go to your bunk. I'll think it over and tell you in the morning what I'll do about it," said the captain, and turned away.

But the man waited. The captain, seeing this, turned and said: "Well, what do you want?"

"All I got to say, captain, is that you mustn't let any of them guys argue with me again, for if they do I'll do the same thing over if you give me fifty years for it. I just can't stand it to have a man argue with me."

Silhouettes of Suns.h.i.+ne? France is full of them. There were the fields full of a million blood-red poppies back in Brittany, and the banks of old-gold broom blooming along a thousand stone walls; there were the negro stevedores marching to work, winter and summer, rain or s.h.i.+ne, night or day, always whistling or singing as they marched, to the wonderment of French and English alike. Their spirits never seemed to be dampened. They always marched to music of their own making.

There was that baseball game, when an entire company of negroes, watching their team play a white team, at the climax of the game when one negro boy had knocked a home run, ran around the bases with him, more than two hundred laughing, shouting, grinning, singing, yelling negroes, helping to bring in the score that won the game. Then there was that Sunday morning when several white captains decided that their negro boys should have a bath. They took their boys down to an ocean beach. It was a bit chilly. The negroes stripped at order, but they didn't like the idea of going into that cold ocean water. One captain solved the difficulty. He took his own clothes off. He got in front of his men. He lined them up in formation. Then he said: "Now, boys, we're going to play that ocean is full of Germans. You stevedores are always complaining about not getting up front, and you tell me what you'd do to the Germans if you once got up front. Now I'm going to see how much nerve you've got. When I say 'Forward! March!' it is a military order. I'm going to lead you into that water. We are going in military formation.

"'Forward! March!'"

And that company of black soldiers marched into that cold ocean water, dreading it with all their souls but soldiers to the core, without a quaver, eyes to the front, heads up, chests out, unflinchingly, up to their knees, up to their waists, up to their chins, when the captain shouted "As you were!" and such a hilarious, shouting, laughing, splas.h.i.+ng, jumping, yelling, fun-filled hour as followed the world never saw. The gleaming of white teeth, the flas.h.i.+ng of ebony limbs through green water and under sparkling sunlight that Sunday morning was full of a fine type of fun and laughter that made the world a better place to live in, and certainly a cleaner place.

War is grim. War is serious. War is full of hurt and hate and pain and heartache and loneliness and wounds, and mud and death and dearth; but the American soldier spends more time laughing than he does crying; more time singing than he does moaning; more time playing than he does moping; more times shouting than he does whimpering; more time hoping than he does despairing; and because of this effervescent spirit of suns.h.i.+ne and laughter his morale is the best morale that any army in the history of the world has ever shown.