And they thought we wouldn't fight Part 4

I did not answer him, but thirty minutes afterward I was pounding out on a typewriter the introduction to a four thousand word newspaper article which I cabled that night and which put the question up to the American public for an answer.

Five weeks later the United States entered the war.

CHAPTER II

PERs.h.i.+NG'S ARRIVAL IN EUROPE

Lean, clean, keen--that's the way they looked--that first trim little band of American fighting men who made their historic landing on the sh.o.r.es of England, June 8th, 1917.

I went down from London to meet them at the port of arrival. In my despatches of that date, I, nor none of the other correspondents, was permitted to mention the name of the port. This was supposed to be the secret that was to be religiously kept and the British censor was on the job religiously.

The name of the port was excluded from all American despatches but the British censor saw no reason to withhold transmission of the following sentence--"Pers.h.i.+ng landed to-day at an English port and was given a hearty welcome by the Mayor of Liverpool."

So I am presuming at this late date of writing that it would serve no further purpose to refrain from announcing flatly that General John J.

Pers.h.i.+ng, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces overseas, and his staff, landed on the date above mentioned, at Liverpool, England.

The sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly on the Mersey when the giant ocean liner, the _Baltic_, came slowly up the harbour in the tow of numerous puffing tugs. The great grey vessel that had safely completed the crossing of the submarine zone, was warped to the dock-side.

On the quay there were a full bra.s.s band and an honourary escort of British soldiers. While the moorings were being fastened, General Pers.h.i.+ng, with his staff, appeared on the promenade deck on the sh.o.r.e side of the vessel.

His appearance was the signal for a crash of cymbals and drums as the band blared out the "Star Spangled Banner." The American commander and the officers ranged in line on either side of him, stood stiffly at attention, with right hands raised in salute to the visors of their caps.

On the sh.o.r.e the lines of British soldiery brought their arms to the present with a snap. Civilian witnesses of the ceremony bared their heads. The first anthem was followed by the playing of "G.o.d Save the King." All present remained at the salute.

As the gangplank was lashed in place, a delegation of British military and civilian officials boarded the s.h.i.+p and were presented to the General. Below, on the dock, every newspaper correspondent and photographer in the British Isles, I think, stood waiting in a group that far outnumbered the other spectators.

There was reason for this seeming lack of proportion. The fact was that but very few people in all of England, as well as in all of the United States, had known that General Pers.h.i.+ng was to land that day.

Few had known that he was on the water. The British Admiralty, then in complete control of the ocean lines between America and the British Isles, had guarded well the secret. England lost Kitchener on the sea and now with the sea peril increased a hundredfold, England took pains to guard well the pa.s.sage of this standard-bearer of the American millions that were to come.

Pers.h.i.+ng and his staff stepped ash.o.r.e. Lean, clean, keen--those are the words that described their appearance. That was the way they impressed their critical brothers in arms, the all-observing military dignities that presented Britain's hearty, unreserved welcome at the water's edge.

That was the way they appeared to the proud American citizens, residents of those islands, who gathered to meet them.

The British soldiers admired the height and shoulders of our first military samples. The British soldier approves of a greyhound trimness in the belt zone. He likes to look on carriage and poise. He appreciates a steady eye and stiff jaw. He is attracted by a voice that rings sharp and firm. The British soldier calls such a combination, "a real soldier."

He saw one, and more than one, that morning shortly after nine o'clock when Pers.h.i.+ng and his staff committed the date to history by setting foot on British soil. Behind the American commander walked a staff of American officers whose soldierly bearing and general appearance brought forth sincere expressions of commendation from the a.s.semblage on the quay.

At attention on the dock, facing the sea-stained flanks of the liner _Baltic_, a company of Royal Welsh Fusiliers Stood like a frieze of clay models in stainless khaki, polished bra.s.s and s.h.i.+ning leather.

General Pers.h.i.+ng inspected the guard of honour with keen interest.

Walking beside the American commander was the considerably stouter and somewhat shorter Lieutenant General Sir William Pitcairn Campbell, K.C.B., Chief of the Western Command of the British Home Forces.

Pers.h.i.+ng's inspection of that guard was not the cursory one that these honourary affairs usually are. Not a detail of uniform or equipment on any of the men in the guard was overlooked. The American commander's attention was as keen to boots, rifles and belts, as though he had been a captain preparing the small command for a strenuous inspection at the hands of some exacting superior.

As he walked down the stiff, standing line, his keen blue eyes taking in each one of the men from head to foot, he stopped suddenly in front of one man in the ranks. That man was File Three in the second set of fours. He was a pale-faced Tommy and on one of his sleeves there was displayed two slender gold bars, placed on the forearm.

The decoration was no larger than two matches in a row and on that day it had been in use hardly more than a year, yet neither its minuteness nor its meaning escaped the eyes of the American commander.

Pers.h.i.+ng turned sharply and faced File Three.

"Where did you get your two wounds?" he asked.

"At Givenchy and Lavenze, sir," replied File Three, his face pointed stiffly ahead. File Three, even now under twenty-one years of age, had received his wounds in the early fighting that is called the battle of Loos.

"You are a man," was the sincere, all-meaning rejoinder of the American commander, who accompanied his remark with a straightforward look into the eyes of File Three.

Completing the inspection without further incident, General Pers.h.i.+ng and his staff faced the honour guard and stood at the salute, while once more the thunderous military band played the national anthems of America and Great Britain.

The ceremony was followed by a reception in the cabin of the _Baltic_, where General Pers.h.i.+ng received the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, the Lady Mayoress, and a delegation of civil authorities. The reception ended when General Pers.h.i.+ng spoke a few simple words to the a.s.sembled representatives of the British and American Press.

"More of us are coming," was the keynote of his modest remarks.

Afterward he was escorted to the quay-side station, where a special train of the type labelled Semi-Royal was ready to make the express run to London.

The reception at the dock had had none of the features of a demonstration by reason of the necessity for the s.h.i.+p's arrival being secret, but as soon as the _Baltic_ had landed, the word of the American commander's arrival spread through Liverpool like wildfire.

The railroad from the station lay through an industrial section of the city. Through the railroad warehouses the news had preceded the train.

Warehouse-men, porters and draymen crowded the tops of the cotton bales and oil barrels on both sides of the track as the train pa.s.sed through.

Beyond the sheds, the news had spread through the many floors of the flour mills and when the Pers.h.i.+ng train pa.s.sed, handkerchiefs and caps fluttered from every crowded door and window in the whitened walls. Most of the waving was done by a new kind of flour-girl, one who did not wave an ap.r.o.n because none of them were dressed that way.

From his car window, General Pers.h.i.+ng returned the greetings of the trousered girls and women who were making England's bread while their husbands, fathers, brothers, sweethearts and sons were making German cemeteries.

In London, General Pers.h.i.+ng and his staff occupied suites at the Savoy Hotel, and during the four or five days of the American commander's sojourn in the capital of the British Empire, a seemingly endless line of visitors of all the Allied nationalities called to present their compliments.

The enlisted men of the General's staff occupied quarters in the old stone barracks of the Tower of London, where they were the guests of the men of that artillery organisation which prefixes an "Honourable" to its name and has been a.s.signed for centuries to garrison duty in the Tower of London.

Our soldiers manifested nave interest in some of England's most revered traditions and particularly in connection with historical events related to the Tower of London. On the second day of their occupation of this old fortress, one of the warders, a "Beef-eater" in full mediaeval regalia, was escorting a party of the Yanks through the dungeons.

He stopped in one dungeon and lined the party up in front of a stone block in the centre of the floor. After a silence of a full minute to produce a proper degree of impressiveness for the occasion, the warder announced, in a respectful whisper:

"This is where Anne Boleyn was executed."

The lined-up Yanks took a long look at the stone block. A silence followed during the inspection. And then one regular, desiring further information, but not wis.h.i.+ng to be led into any traps of British wit, said:

"All right, I'll bite; what did Annie do?"

Current with the arrival of our men and their reception by the honour guard of the Welsh Fusiliers there was a widespread revival of an old story which the Americans liked to tell in the barrack rooms at night.

When the Welsh Fusiliers received our men at the dock of Liverpool, they had with them their historical mascot, a large white goat with horns encased in inscribed silver. The animal wore suspended from its neck a large silver plate, on which was inscribed a partial history of the Welsh Fusiliers.

Some of these Fusiliers told our men the story.

"It was our regiment--the Welsh Fusiliers," one of them said, "that fought you Yanks at Bunker Hill. And it was at Bunker Hill that our regiment captured the great-great-granddaddy of this same white goat, and his descendants are ever destined to be the mascot of our regiment.

You see, we have still got your goat."