Chapter FIFTEEN: The Eleventh Hour

The Colonel was speaking.

“Now listen to what the Intelligence Report has to say about the enemy’s defensive arrangements.

“_The road leading into the Wood on the west side is said to be furnished with tank traps._ Well, we don’t have any tanks to-day, so we should worry about that. (By the way, boys, remind me to tell you a story afterwards about a tank.) _All indications point to the fact that the enemy battalion occupying the north side of Lapin Wood_—that’s where we are now—_has received orders to hold the position to the last._ Well, the last will come, we hope, about five-fifteen this morning. _When dislodged, it is probable that the enemy will fall back nearly two kilometres, in order to occupy prepared positions on a newly constructed line south of the village of Ventreuil._ That need not worry us, because we shall be relieved as soon as we fire him out of here.… Now for machine guns! _Nine machine guns have been located between points A and B on the northern edge of Lapin Wood-_-that is delightful—_distributed as follows_—Company Officers, get these down on your maps.… _Wire._ H’m-m-m! _Three lines interwoven in the trees on north side of wood, at distance of three metres._ Well, wire is the business of the Trench Mortar folks. _Trenches. Enemy’s fire-trenches are situated along northern edge of wood._ We have noticed them! _Elements of trenches are visible on open ground behind, at points.…_ Take this down, please.… _Miscellaneous. Bois des Loups. Flashes have been observed in this wood._ They certainly have! _Careful observation of the angle of fall and sound-ranging reports lead to the conclusion that there are at least three batteries of Seventy-sevens there, together with two or three heavy mortars._ Well, I guess our Artillery will take care of _that_.”

The Colonel looked up from the Report and wiped his spectacles, which had grown dim in the humid atmosphere of the dugout.

“Machine guns will be our chief snag, I guess,” he observed. “Talking of machine guns, just how badly was Boone Cruttenden hit last week?”

“Shrapnel in the right shoulder, sir,” replied Jim Nichols. “Not very serious, I believe.”

“He was gotten away all right, I hope?”

“Yes. His own men brought him back.”

“He did a fine piece of work,” said the Colonel. “But I want the names of _all_ concerned, for citation. How did Boone and his bunch manage to get into that machine-gun nest at all? I have had no time to go through the official report yet. Did he creep around behind and catch them napping, or what?”

“Partly that, sir. But what helped most was the action of a single enlisted man. We were lying in a belt of trees. A clearing lay between us and the German line, which was less than two hundred yards away. The machine-gun nest was on our left front, and commanded the clearing.”

“Yes, yes, I get that. Go on!”

“Boone and his party,” continued Jim, “had been gone about twenty minutes on their detour through the undergrowth which was to cut out this nest. We were lying along the edge of the clearing, ready to make a supporting bayonet rush if Boone got in among them. At what I thought was the right moment I passed the word down the line for the men to be ready. And then—and then—”

“Well?”

“And then, sir, the _darndest_ thing you ever saw!” proclaimed Jim, breaking away from strict technicalities in his emotion. “One of my men jumped suddenly to his feet and charged out into the middle of the clearing. He had a little flag—our flag—on the end of his bayonet, and he acted like he was stark insane.”

“Who was the man?”

“His name was Smithers. Miss Sissy Smithers, the boys called him. He was a sissy, in his ways, usually.”

“And what did he do?”

“He stood there shouting to the enemy to come out and fight. He yelled,—‘I see you, you Dutchmen! You Squareheads! You Slobs! Look at me! Look at this li’l old Flag! Fire on that if you dare!’ Then he held his rifle up high, with the Stars and Stripes on the end of it.”

There ran a sudden thrill around the crowded table. The American venerates his Flag in a fashion hardly comprehended by the Englishman. Every nation must worship some totem. In the Englishman this impulse finds vent in loyalty to the Crown. We love the Union Jack, and we salute it upon state occasions. But we take off our hats to the King, and pray God to save him, because he stands for a tradition that goes right back a thousand years and more. The American pins everything—national honor, national tradition, personal loyalty, everything—to Old Glory.

“Well?” enquired the Colonel—presently.

“For a moment,” pursued Nichols, “the enemy did nothing. He was kind of paralyzed, I guess. Then the machine guns in that nest spoke up, and poor Smithers went down. Even then he was only hit in the legs. He sat up, and waved his flag again. Then they got him in the body, and he fell on his back. But he managed to keep his rifle erect for another fifteen seconds or so. He shouted, too, as he lay—calling them cowards, and daring them to come and take the Flag. By that time the guns were trained right on him, and—he passed out. But”—Nichols’s voice rose again exultantly—“they had been so busy trying to fix poor Sissy that they never thought to look around behind them; and right then Boone and his bunch jumped in on their necks, and the nest was out of business for keeps! We went across with the supporting party and helped them clean up. Turned their own machine guns on them too, until a German field battery got to work on us.”

“I suppose that was when you got most of your casualties?” said the Colonel.

“Yes, sir. Two men killed, besides Smithers, and Boone and seven others wounded. The men were all fine. After the shelling died down at dusk, and we were settling into our new positions, two or three Huns who knew a little English started to josh us; explained how they were coming over presently to turn us out, and beat us up, and show themselves a time generally. Finally one of our men, called McCarthy, pushed his head over the sandbags, and yelled: ‘Aw, what’s the use of pulling that stuff? Is this a War, or a Chautauqua?’ That fixed them. I guess McCarthy had stepped right outside their vocabulary!”

“Great boys, great boys!” chuckled the Colonel. “They were just the same on the Hindenburg Line.” He turned to Floyd. “Our idioms there puzzled some of our British friends, Major. But between us we got the goods on old man Hindenburg, I fancy.”

“I have heard rumours to that effect, Colonel,” replied Floyd. “The coöperation was pretty good, eh?”

“It was great,” said the Colonel. “French, British, or American, it did not seem to matter who was in command. We all kept touch, and we all made our objectives. And team-work! Here is a letter I received from an Australian commander under whom we worked for quite a while. He was a busy man, but he found time to write me this.”

The Colonel produced a frayed field-despatch from the breast pocket of his tunic, and read:

_I desire to take the opportunity of tendering to you, as their
immediate commander, my earnest thanks for the assistance and
service of the four companies of Infantry who participated
in yesterday’s brilliant operations. The dash, gallantry, and
efficiency of these American troops left nothing to be desired,
and my Australian soldiers speak in the very highest terms in
praise of them._

“There is some more,” added the Colonel, “but that will be sufficient to show you what that General thought of my boys. The Australians have a pretty high standard of their own, and they don’t pin orchids on other people unnecessarily. So we appreciated _this_.” He tapped the despatch. “The fact is, we were a band of brothers. The only occasion upon which we indulged in anything like ceremony or company manners was on the Fourteenth of July. (Corresponds to our Fourth.) I went along with a few others to represent the Americans at a swell lunch which was to be given in the Town Hall of Amiens in honor of the occasion. Amiens was under shell-fire at the time—right in view of the enemy, who were up on the high ground back of Villers Brettoneux, not ten miles away. But no one worried. We had our lunch in a cellar—French, British, Australian, and American officers. Some lunch! There were flowers on the table, too. _Flowers!_ God knows where they came from. But that’s France—just France! They had to have them! Speeches, too, by Senators from Paris. _Speeches_, with German shells bursting in the street outside! They’re a great nation!”

“How did the British Tommy and the Doughboy get along?” inquired Floyd.

Colonel Graham’s frosty eyes twinkled.

“Each took a little while,” he said, “to get the combination of the other. You see, Major, we Americans consider ourselves the greatest nation on earth; and being Americans, we have to say so. Perhaps you have noticed that?”

“I have,” assented Floyd, “and I have lived in America long enough to learn to like hearing you say so. I like the young American’s passionate affection for his country and all her institutions, and his fixed determination to boost everything connected with her. The other day I was waiting in a village for an American Staff car which was being sent for me from Chaumont. I found one standing at the corner of the street, so I asked the chauffeur, thinking he might be from headquarters,—‘Where are you from?’ And he sat up, and replied, all in one breath, as if I had pressed a button,—‘Sir, I am from Marion, Ohio, the Greatest Steam-Shovel Producing Centre in the World!’—Just like that. That is what I call the right spirit. But I am interrupting you, Colonel.”

“You British, on the other hand,” resumed the Colonel, “also consider yourselves the greatest nation upon earth, but you do not say so to people, because you take it for granted that they know already!”

“A palpable hit, sir!” conceded Floyd, amid laughter.

“Well,” continued the Colonel, “those two points of view required quite a little adjustment, in the first place. Then again, there was a certain amount of ‘We-have-come-to-win-this-War-for you’ stuff from our boys, and a certain amount of ‘You-have-been-a-darned-long-while-making-up your-minds-about-it’ stuff from yours; and all these little corners had to be rounded off. On top of that there was a lot of very insidious, very clever work by German agencies, to make trouble between them. But you know about that. Then, they suffered from the handicap of a common language. Believe me, it’s a darned sight easier to keep on clubby terms with an ally whose language you don’t know than an ally whose language you do! But they are wise to one another now. Each has learned to respect and tolerate the other’s point of view. Of course they don’t _understand_ one another; and never will. In that respect they are three thousand miles and several centuries apart. So they tacitly agreed to regard one another as crazy, but likeable—and leave it at that. In my view that is about as far as Anglo-American sentiment will ever get; and I shall be glad and satisfied if we here, who _know_, can maintain it at that standard—and it’s a higher standard than would appear at first sight. But I am talking too much. Where was I?”

“You were going to tell us a story about a tank, sir,” announced a respectful voice.

“Was I? Well, I might as well, for we can do nothing at this moment but wait. Up north, in September, my outfit were attacking day after day, with an escort of British tanks. The Germans were scared to death of those tanks. They did everything to stop them—brought up field guns to point-blank range; dug deep ditches, sprung land mines, and everything. The tanks suffered; but they never weakened, and most of them arrived at their objective. Their crews were marvels, and as for the children who commanded them, they were the cunningest little things you ever saw. One day we were detailed to carry a village, lying just back of a wood. We got there in the course of time, rather more easily than I had expected. When our men reached the little market-square, the reason revealed itself, in the form of a British tank, squatting plumb in the centre, having beaten us to it by four minutes. The usual infant was in charge, sitting on the top and twirling the place where he hoped one day to raise a mustache. When he saw our senior Major doubling down the street at the head of our men, he scrambled down and saluted very smart and proper, and said: ‘Major, I hereby hand over this village to you, as my superior officer, with cordial compliments, world without end, Amen!’—or words to that effect. The Major saluted back, very polite, and thanked him. Then the child said, kind of thoughtfully, jerking his head towards the grinning Tommies who were peeking out of the inside of the machine: ‘Still, we wish somehow, don’t you know, that we had something to show—just to show, sir, that we were here first.’ The Major thought a minute. Then he said, ‘I can fix that for you. I’ll give you a receipt for the village.’ And he did!” concluded the Colonel, amid a rising tide of laughter: “_Received from officer commanding British Tank, ‘Bing Boy,’ one village—in poor condition._”

A salvo of German five-point-nine shells detonated amid the tree-roots far above their heads.

“Enemy getting nervous,” commented the Colonel. “Let him wait! Our artillery preparation isn’t due for an hour or more. Now, do you boys understand your orders? Any questions to ask? If so, shoot! That’s what I’m here for.”

He answered one or two eleventh-hour inquiries, and added: “Make the most of this attack. You may not have another opportunity.”

“You mean,” suggested Floyd, “that this battle is going to peter out?”

“I mean,” replied Colonel Graham deliberately, “that this war is going to peter out! And,” he added, with sudden concentrated bitterness, “if it does—_now_—we Americans are going to regret it for the rest of our history!”

The figures round the table sat up—quite literally. But one or two of the older men nodded their heads.

“If only we could be allowed to go on for another three months!” pursued the Colonel earnestly. “If only this great beautiful machine of an American Army could be given a chance to climb to its top speed! Then we should be functioning in proper shape—with our own guns, and our own tanks, plenty of horse-transport, and sufficient airplanes to direct our own fire and locate the enemy’s. We should be employing acquired experience instead of borrowed experience. We should have a trained Staff. We could send these great-hearted boys of ours into action adequately protected by a perfectly timed barrage. We could cut down our casualties seventy-five per cent, and make future victories a real matter for rejoicing. Of course it won’t matter to the folks at home. They have no opportunity to discriminate. They would cheer themselves hoarse over us if we were a Sanitary Section from the Base. But—we should like to show our friends over here what the American Army really is and not merely what it is going to be. And—we could extract some sort of adequate interest from the capital—the capital of our men’s lives—that we have been sinking in this year’s campaign. But there isn’t time! There isn’t time!” The old soldier’s gnarled fist dropped despairingly upon the trestle table. “We are still on our second speed, and however hard we may step on the gas, we can’t get real results for a little while to come. There isn’t time!”

There was a pause, while another salvo burst overhead. Then Jim Nichols asked:—

“Colonel, just why are you so sure? Is Peace really on the way?”

(Certainly, the question was worth asking. Within the past five days the following rumours have reached us, _seriatim_, supported by every variety of unreliable testimony:—

(1) Austria is trying to quit.

(2) The German Fleet has come out and surrendered.

(3) Kiel is in the hands of mutineers.

(4) The Kaiser and the Crown Prince have abdicated.

(5) Germany has asked for Peace, and Foch has given her seventy-two hours to accept his terms.)

“Not peace,” replied the Colonel, “nor anything like it. But an armistice may come any day. From all accounts the Hun is willing to submit to almost any terms so long as he can get out now, while the going is any good at all. That looks as if his military discipline were growing shaky—or else his civilian morale. Perhaps both. Anyway, he seems suspiciously anxious to quit. The real question is, What are we going to do about it?”

“I fancy we are going to accede to his request,” said Floyd. “In all probability, if we hammered him for another six weeks or so, we should have him in such a state that only a vacuum-cleaner could clear up the mess. We should probably take a million prisoners. We could sit down upon the Boche’s prostrate carcass and dictate any terms we pleased. But—but—but—well, there _might_ be a miscarriage. We might find ourselves committed to another year’s campaigning. Labour, so-called, is getting fed up, and, though we are driving the Huns before us like sheep, an avoidable casualty-list might produce a crisis in that quarter. As you say, Colonel, the big American machine is running more smoothly and powerfully every day; but France and Britain are down to a pretty fine edge now.”

“But your men and the French are all veterans, Major,” exclaimed Jim Nichols: “the finest material—”

“That is just the trouble,” said Floyd, shaking his head. “In this crazy war veterans are no use. To-day experience simply means loss of nerve. The most effective—the only effective—troops in this kind of warfare are young, green, ignorant recruits, and the British and French have precious few of that type left. They all know too much now! Moreover, the people at home are suffering badly. They have not too much to eat, and the casualty-list is approaching the three-million mark. They are not kicking: they are prepared to go on for another twenty years if national security demands it: but it is the sacrifice of the last few lives in a war at which national conscience boggles, and I fancy that if our statesmen see a chance of a victorious peace they will grab it.”

“I am afraid you are right, Major,” sighed the Colonel. “Looks as if we were going to weaken on the proposition of the knock-out blow. If we do, two things are going to happen. First, hundreds and thousands of American boys over at home are going to break their hearts. Think of it! Months and months of hard training and feverish anticipation in those big dreary camps. Then—on their top note of anticipation—Peace! Demobilization! Reaction! Instead of soldiers—and remember the title ‘soldier’ is the proudest in the world!—with a record of duty done and victory achieved, we shall have created a few million disgruntled, unemployed, unemployable might-have-beens—robbed, _robbed_, of their fair share in the greatest Adventure that life can offer!”

“Still,” rejoined Floyd, “you can honestly tell them this: When the credit for the victories of this summer comes to be apportioned, a big share must go to troops which have never set foot in France—which have never even had the chance to leave America: because it was the promise of their presence that enabled Foch to take the offensive right away—to take chances, in fact, which would have been utterly impossible if he had not known that he had the whole trained manhood of America behind him. So their labour was not altogether in vain, you see!”

But the old war-horse refused to be comforted.

“We _ought_ to go on, Major,” he said doggedly. “That brings me to the other thing I said was going to happen. America, as a whole, has not yet felt this War: and she _must_, if she is to extract from it the benefit that belongs to her by right. What are a quarter of a million casualties to a nation the size of ours? We _ought_ to suffer some more, if only to save us from unreadiness and mismanagement in the future. If we stop now, all that we shall have won will be the opportunity—and you know how our orators and patriotism-mongers will use it—to announce that America just stepped in, and the War was won! It may be true; it may not; but that line of talk never did any good to any nation. We here round this table all know that, and there are thousands of folk at home who know it too. Yes, we ought to get deeper in. God knows, no one wants to make widows and orphans. But a war, however bloody, which teaches a nation its own weaknesses, is worth while. Individuals suffer, as individuals must and do; but the commonwealth gains. It is true we are losing good Americans by the hundred to-day; but we are making thousands more. Listen. A few weeks ago I was in a Field Dressing-Station, talking to the wounded. One man replied to my enquiries in a strong foreign accent. He was a splendid-looking boy—a Dane, I guess. I asked him: ‘What nationality are you?’ He looked just the least bit surprised, and replied: ‘American, sure!’ I said: ‘I can see that, son: but tell me, what _made_ you an American?’ And he laid his hand on a great whale of a wound in his side, and he said, quite simply: ‘_That_ made me an American!’ And that is what this War is doing for our big, beloved, half-grown country—making Americans! And now we’ve got to quit!”

“Still,” smiled Floyd, “you have made a good many. You have a couple of million of them over here now, and they will form a very useful leaven when they get home again. He is a great man, your Doughboy, Colonel. I have been privileged to make his acquaintance, and I have seen him fight: and I take off my tin hat to him, because I know what his difficulties have been. When he gets home he will no doubt be smothered in praise—by people incapable of discriminating between the easy and the difficult things that he did. But he will deserve all that he gets, and more, on account of the difficulties he overcame which people at home know nothing about—the things that never get into the papers.”

There was a sympathetic murmur from the company. The Colonel nodded.

“You are right, Major,” he said cheerfully. “Meanwhile, I wish to report that I feel much better. I needed that outburst badly. Moreover, I don’t say that I have any particular _personal_ objection to a spell of Peace. I guess we can all do with a vacation. How will you celebrate your first day, Major?”

“I don’t know,” replied Floyd thoughtfully. “The idea of Peace does not particularly appeal to me in my present frame of mind. More than three quarters of a million of my fellow-countrymen have been killed during the past four years—most of them in their early twenties—and at my time of life I feel almost ashamed to be alive. And the idea of ‘settling down’ does not altogether attract me, either. As you very rightly observe, Colonel, the community may benefit by a good searching war, but, by God! individuals suffer. Especially if they happen to be of that misguided type which hastens to get into the scrap first, while wiser persons are deciding whether to volunteer or be fetched. That was when I lost my friends—in nineteen-fourteen and fifteen. That stratum of our community has almost ceased to exist. My own Battalion has been replaced—which means wiped out—thirteen times in four years, and I, even I, only am left. So I view the prospect of settling down with mixed feelings. Tell us how _you_ propose to spend the first day of the Armistice, Colonel—when it comes!”

“I?” said the Colonel. “I shall start by sending a cable to the best little woman in America, in a little town in Tennessee that you never heard of, Major; telling her that I have come through, and that she and the bunch of marauders that belong to both of us—we have two boys and two girls—can quit worrying. Then I shall sit down and amplify my sentiments in a letter. But I am old and sentimental. What will you do, Jim Nichols?”

“I guess I’ll muster the Battalion,” replied the newly promoted and zealous second in command, “and have them clean up their rifles and equipment. They’re in a terrible mess, after the time we’ve been having.”

“Well, well! We’ll try some one less wedded to his duty!” laughed the Colonel. “What will you do, boy?” He turned to the youthful aviator.

Master Harvey Blane meditated. He had twice been wounded, once brought down in flames, and several times driven down out of control.

“I guess,” he said at last, “I shall go along down to the airdrome, and order out my machine, and have the boys tune her up very carefully. Then I shall have her wheeled out, and I shall climb on board and test all the contacts. Then I shall run the engine for a spell, and maybe take a turn around the airdrome, along the ground. Then I shall load up with bombs. Then I shall look up in the sky, and say: ‘Boys, I don’t think after all I feel like going out to-day. Run her back and put her to bed!’”

There was appreciative laughter at this, and Floyd said:

“That reminds me of an English subaltern of my acquaintance who came home for a week’s leave after four continuous months in the Salient, in nineteen-fifteen—and after that experience one required a little leave! He took a room at the Savoy and left certain explicit instructions with the night clerk about the time he was to be called. In due course, at three o’clock in the morning, the telephone beside his bed rang, and our friend sat up and answered it. The voice of the clerk said: ‘Colonel’s compliments, sir, and he wants you in the firing-trench immediately.’ And the child replied: ‘Give _my_ compliments to the Colonel, and request him to go to Hell!’ Then he rolled over and slept till the afternoon. His real leave had begun! He was an artist like yourself, Blane!”

As Floyd concluded this highly probable anecdote, in his usual sepulchral tone, a signal orderly came down the steps that led to the regions above, and handed a despatch to the Adjutant.

Colonel Graham glanced affectionately around the table.

“I hope you boys will all be in a position soon to send me such a message!” he said. “But only for a week or two, mind! Leave, not Demobilization. We haven’t finished the War yet.”

The Adjutant handed him the despatch. Colonel Graham adjusted his glasses, read it, and looked up.

“Yes, we have,” he said. “The rumours were true. German delegates are to meet Allied delegates at five o’clock this morning, when the Allied terms will be dictated. _Dictated_, not discussed!” He glanced at his wrist-watch. “They are being dictated at this moment. Boys, we are through! For better or worse, we are through with this War! Countermand the attack.”