la
SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
ON OUR FRONT
"Traveller, hast thou ever seen so great a grief as mine?'
SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
BY
WILLIAM L. STIDGER
T. M. C. A. WORKEB WITH THE A. E. F.
ILLUSTRATED BT
JESSIE GILLESPIE
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1918
COPTBIGHT, 1918, BT CHARLES SCRIBNER's SONS
PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1918
TO
DOCTOR ROBERT FREEMAN
PIONEEB EELIGIOC3 WOBK DIBECTOB
Or THE T. U. C. A.
AND THE HUNDREDS OF PREACHER-SECHETARIE3
WHO ARE SERVING SO BRAVELT AND EFFICIENTLT
ON THE CRUSADE OF SERVICE IN FRANCE
AND TO THE CHUECHE8 THAT SENT THEM
2138288
FOREWORD
SOME human experiences that one has
in France stand out like the silhouettes of
mountain peaks against a crimson sunset.
I have tried in this book to set down some
of those experiences. I have had but one
object in so doing, and that object has
been to give the father and mother, the
brother and sister, the wife and child and
friend of the boys "Over There" an accu-
rate heart-picture. I have not attempted
the too great task of showing the soul of
the soldier, although I have tried to pic-
ture him at some of his great moments
when he forgets himself and rises to glori-
ous heights, just as he might do at home
if the opportunity called.
I have tried to show his experiences on
the transports, when he lands in France,
his welcome there, the reactions of the
viii FOREWORD
trench life; something of his self-sacrifice,
his willingness to serve even unto the end;
his courage, his sunshine. I have also given
some other pictures of France that aim to
show his heart-relations to his allies and to
the folks at home.
If I have done this, sufficient shall be
my reward.
CONTENTS
MM
I. SILHOUETTES OF SONG 1
II. SHIP SILHOUETTES 21
III. SILHOUETTES OF SACRIFICE 28
IV. SILHOUETTES SPIRITUAL 42
V. SILHOUETTES OF SACRILEGE .... 59
VI. SILHOUETTES OF SILENCE 69
VII. SILHOUETTES OF SERVICE 87
VIII. SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 102
IX. SILHOUETTES OF SUFFERING .... 130
X. SOLDIER SILHOUETTES 147
XI. SKY SILHOUETTES 163
XII. THE LIGHTS OF WAR 166
XIII. SILHOUETTES OF SUNSHINE . 187
ILLUSTRATIONS
" Traveller, hast tkou ever seen so great a grief as
mine?" Frontispiece
FACING PAQB
"What are those dots on the sun?" Doctor Freeman
shouted to me 22
The upturned roots of an old tree were just in front . 78
"The last seen of Dale he was gathering together a
crowd of little children " 88
"The boys call her fThe Woman with Sandwiches
and Sympathy' ' 104
What was the difference? He had gotten a letter . . 142
One night I had the privilege of seeing a plane caught
by the search-light 178
The air-raid had not dampened her sense of humor . 202
I
SILHOUETTES OF SONG
great transport was cutting its
sturdy way through three dangers:
the submarine zone, a terrific storm beating
from the west against its prow, and a night
as dark as Erebus because of the storm,
with no lights showing.
I had the midnight-to-four-o'clock-in-
the-morning "watch" and on this night
I was on the "aft fire-control." Below me
on the aft gun-deck, as the rain pounded,
the wind howled, and the ship lurched
to and fro, I could see the bulky forms
of the boy gunners. There were two to
each gun, two standing by, with telephone
pieces to their ears, and six sleeping on
the deck, ready for any emergency. The
greatcoats made them look like gaunt men
of the sea as they huddled against their
guns, watching, waiting. I wondered what
2 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
they could see in that impenetrable dark-
ness, if a U-boat could even survive in
that storm; but Uncle Sam never sleeps
in these days, and this transport was
especially worth watching, for it carried
a precious cargo of wounded officers and
men back to the homeland, west bound.
For an hour I had heard no sound from
the boys on the gun-deck below me. When
I was on watch in the daylight I knew
them to be just a great crowd of fine,
buoyant, happy American lads, full of
pranks and play and laughter, but they
were strangely silent to-night as the ship
ploughed through the storm. The storm
seemed to have made men of them. They
were just boys, but American boys in these
days become men overnight, and acquit
themselves like men.
I watched their silent forms below me
with a great feeling of wonderment and
pride. The ship lurched as it swung in its
zigzag course. Then suddenly I heard a
SILHOUETTES OF SONG 3
sweet sound coming from one of the boys
below me. I think that it was big, raw-
boned "Montana" who started it. It was
low at first and, with the storm and the
vibrations of the ship, I could not catch
the words. The music was strangely fa-
miliar to me. Then the boy on the port
gun beside "Montana" took the old hymn
up, and then the two reserve gunners who
were standing by, and then the gunners
on the starboard side, and I caught the
old words of
"Jesus, Saviour, pilot me
Over life's tempestuous sea;
Unknown waves before me roll
Hiding rock and treacherous shoal;
Chart and compass came from Thee;
Jesus, Saviour, pilot me.*'
Above the creaking and the vibrations
of the great ship, above the beating of the
storm, the gunners on the deck below> all
unconsciously, in that storm-tossed night
i
were singing the old hymn of their memories,
4 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
and I think that I never heard that won-
derful hymn when it sounded sweeter to
me than it did then, as the second verse
came sweetly from the lips and hearts of
those gunners:
"As a mother stills her child
Thou canst hush the ocean wild;
Boistrous waves obey Thy will
When Thou sayst to them, * Be still.'
Wondrous Sovereign of the sea,
Jesus, Saviour, pilot me."
We hear a good deal of how our boys
sing "Hail! Hail! The Gang's All Here"
and "Where Do We Go From Here,
Boys?" as a ship is sinking. I know Ameri-
can soldiers pretty well. I do not know
what they sang when the Tuscania went
down, but I am glad to add my picture to
the other and to say that I for one heard a
crowd of American gunners singing "Jesus,
Saviour, Pilot Me Over Life's Tempestuous
Sea." The mothers and fathers of America
must know that the average American boy
SILHOUETTES OF SONG 5
will have the lighter songs at the end of
his lips, but buried down deep in his heart
there is a feeling of reverence for the old
hymns, and whether he sings them aloud
or not they are there singing in his heart;
and sometimes, under circumstances such
as I have described, he sings them aloud
in the darkness and the storm.
If you do not believe this because you
have been told so often by magazine corre-
spondents, who see only the surface things,
that all the boys sing is ragtime, let Bishop
McConnell, of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, tell you of that Sunday evening
when, at the invitation of General Byng,
he addressed, under the auspices of the
Y. M. C. A., a great regiment of the
Scottish Guards. That night, in a shell-
destroyed stone theatre, he spoke to them
on "How Men Die." In a week from that
night more than two-thirds of them had
been killed. When Bishop McConnell asked
them what they would like to sing, this
6 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
great crowd of sturdy, bare-kneed soldiers
of democracy, who had borne the brunt of
battle for three years, asked for "O God,
Our Help in Ages Past."
Yes, I know that the boys sing the rag-
time, but this must not be the only side of
the picture. They sing the old hymns, too,
and memories of nights "down the line,"
when I have heard them in small groups
and in great crowds singing the old, old
hymns of the church, have burned their
silhouettes into my memory never to die.
One night I remember being stopped by
a sentry at "Dead Man's Curve," because
the Boche was shelling the curve that
night, and we had to stop until he "laid
off," as the sentry told us. Between shells
there was a great stillness on the white
road that lay like a silver thread under
the moonlight. The shattered stone build-
ings, with a great cathedral tower standing
like a gaunt ghost above the ruins, were
tragically beautiful under that mellow light.
SILHOUETTES OF SONG 7
One almost forgot there was war under the
charm of that scene until "plunk! plunk!
plunk!" the big shells fell from time to
time. But the thing that impressed me
most that waiting hour was not the beauty
of the village under the moonlight, but the
fact that the lone sentry who had stopped
us, and who amid the shelling stood si-
lently, was unconsciously singing an old
hymn of the church, "Rock of Ages,
Cleft for Me." I got down from my
truck and walked over to where he was
standing.
"Great old hymn, isn't it, lad?"
"I'll say so," was his laconic reply.
"Belong to some church back home?"
I asked him.
"Folks do; Presbyterians," he replied.
"Like the old hymns?" I asked.
"Yes, it seems like home to sing 'em."
I didn't get to talk with him for a few
minutes, for he had to stop another truck.
Then he came back.
8 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
"Folks at home, Sis and Bill and the kid,
mother and father, used to gather around
the piano every Sunday evening and sing
'em. Didn't think much of them then, but
liked to sing. But they mean a lot to me
over here, especially when I'm on guard at
nights on this 'Dead Man's Curve.' Seems
like they make me stronger." As I walked
away I still heard him humming "Rock of
Ages, Cleft for Me."
One of the most vivid song silhouettes
that I remember is that of a great crowd
of negroes singing in a Y. M. C. A. hut.
There must have been a thousand of them.
I was to speak to them on "Lincoln Day."
I remember how their white teeth shone
through the semidarkness of that candle-
lighted hut, and how their eyes gleamed,
and how their bodies swayed as they sang
the old plantation melodies.
The first song startled me with the uni-
versality of its simple expression. It was an
adaptation of that old melody which the
SILHOUETTES OF SONG 9
negroes have sung for years, "It's the Old-
Time Religion."
A boy down front led the singing. A curt
"Sam, set up a tune," from the Tuskegee
colored secretary started it.
This boy sat with his back to the audi-
ence. He didn't even turn around to face
them. Low and sweetly he started singing.
You could hardly hear him at first. Then a
few boys near him took up the music. Then
a few more. Then it gradually swept back
over that crowd of men until every single
negro was swaying to that simple music,
and then it was that I caught the almost
startlingly appropriate words:
"It is good for a world in trouble;
It is good for a world in trouble;
It is good for a world in trouble;
And it's good enough for me.
It's the old-time religion;
It's the old-time religion;
It's the old-time religion;
And it's good enough for me.
10 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
It was good for my old mother;
It was good for my old mother;
It was good for my old mother;
And it's good enough for me."
Then much to my astonishment they
did something that I have since learned is
the very way that these songs grew from
the beginning. They extemporized a verse
for the day, and they did it on the spot. I
made absolutely certain of that by careful
investigation. They sang this extra verse:
"It was good for ole Abe Lincoln;
It was good for ole Abe Lincoln;
It was good for ole Abe Lincoln;
And it's good enough for me."
"That first verse, 'It is good for a world
in trouble/ is certainly a most appropri-
ate one for these times in France," I said
aside to the secretary.
"Yes," he replied; "if ever this pore ole
worP needed the sustainin' power of the
religion of the Christ, it does now; an' if
SILHOUETTES OF SONG 11
ever this pore ole worP was in trouble, that
time suttinly is right now," he added with
fervor.
And now I can never think of the world,
nor of the folks back here at home, nor of
the millions of our boys over there that I
do not hear the sweet voices of that crowd
of negroes singing reverently and fervently :
"It is good for a world in trouble;
It is good for a world in trouble;
It is good for a world in trouble;
And it's good enough for me."
Another Silhouette of Song that stands
out against the background of memory is
that of a hymn that I heard in Doctor
Charles Jefferson's church just before I
sailed for France. I was lonely. I walked
into that great city church a stranger, as
thousands of boys who have sailed from
New York have done. I never remember
to have been so unutterably lonely and
homesick. It was cold in the city, and I
12 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
was alone. I turned to a church. Thousands
of boys have done the same, may the
mothers and fathers of America know, and
they have found comfort. If the parents of
this great nation could know how well
their boys are guarded and cared for in
New York City before they sail, they would
have a feeling of comfort.
I sat down in this great church. I was
thinking more of other Sabbath mornings
at home, with my wife and baby, than any-
thing else. A hymn was announced. I stood
up mechanically, but there was no song in
my throat. There was a great lump of lone-
liness only. But suddenly I listened to the
words they were singing. Had they selected
that hymn just for me ? It seemed so. It so
answered the loneliness in my heart with
comfort and quiet. That great congrega-
tion was singing:
"Peace, perfect peace;
With loved ones far away;
In Jesus' keeping, we are safe; and they."
SILHOUETTES OF SONG 13
A great sense of peace settled over my
heart, and I have quoted that old hymn
all over France to the boys, and they have
been comforted.. Many a boy has asked
me to write him a copy of that verse to
stick in his note-book. It seemed to give a
sense of comfort to the lads, for their loved
ones, too, were "far away," and since I
have come home I find that this, too,
comes as a great comfort hymn to those
who are here lonely for their boys "over
there."
And who shall forget the silhouette of
approaching the shores of France by night
as they have sailed down along the coast,
cautiously and carefully, to find the open-
ing of the submarine nets ? Who shall forget
the sense of exhilaration that the news that
land was near brought? Who shall forget
the crowding to the railings by all on
board to scan anxiously through the night
for the first sight of land ? Then who shall
forget seeing that first light from shore
14 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
flash out through the darkness of night?
Who shall forget the red and green and
white lights that began to twinkle, and
gleam, and flash, and signal, and call?
How beautiful those lights looked after the
long, dangerous, eventful, and dark voyage,
without a single light showing on the ship !
And who shall forget the man along the
railing, who said, "I never knew before the
meaning of that old song, 'The Lights
Along the Shore'"? And then who can
forget the fact that suddenly somebody
started to sing that old hymn, "The Lights
Along the Shore," and of how it swept
along the lower decks, and then to the
upper decks, until a whole ship-load of
people was singing it? And then who shall
forget how somebody else started "Let the
Lower Lights Be Burning"? Can such
scenes ever be obliterated from one's mem-
ory? No, not forever. That silhouette re-
mains eternally !
Five great transports were in. They were
SILHOUETTES OF SONG 15
lined up along the docks in the locks. A
Y. M. C. A. secretary was standing on the
docks yelling up a word of welcome to the
crowded railings of the great transports.
The boats were not "cleared" as yet. It
would take an hour, and the secretary
knew that something must be done, so he
started to lead first one ship and then an-
other in singing.
"What shall we sing, boys?" he would
shout up to them from the docks below.
Some fellow from the railing yelled, "Keep
the Home Fires Burning," and that fine
song rang out from five thousand throats.
I have heard it sung in the camps at home,
I have heard it sung in great huts in France,
but I never heard it when it sounded so
significant and so sweet in its mighty
volume as it sounded coming from that
great khaki-lined transport, which had
just landed an hour before in France. I
stood beside the song-leader there on the
docks looking up at that great mass of
16 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
American humanity, a hundred feet above
us, so far away that we could not recognize
individual faces, on the high decks of one
of the largest ships that sails the seas, and
as that sweet song of war swept out over
the docks and across the white town, and
back across the Atlantic, I said to myself:
"That volume sounds as if it could make
itself heard back home."
The man beside me said: "The folks
back home hear it all right, for they are
eagerly listening for every sound that comes
from that crowd of boys. Yes, the folks back
home hear it, and they'll 'keep the home
fires burning' all right. God bless them !"
The last Silhouette of Song stands out
against a background of green trees and
spring, and the odor of a hospital, and Red
Cross nurses going and coming, and boys
lying in white robes everywhere. My friend
the song-leader had gone with me to hold
the vesper service in the hospital. Then
we visited in the wards in order to see those
SILHOUETTES OF SONG 17
who were so severely wounded that they
could not get to the service.
There was a little group of men in one
room. The first thing I knew my friend had
them singing. At first they took to it awk-
wardly. Then more courageously. Then
sweetly there rang through the hospital
the strains of "My Daddy Over There."
It melted my heart, for I have a baby
girl at home who says to the neighbors,
"My daddy is the prettiest man in the
world," and believes it. I said to Cray:
"Why did you sing that particular song?"
"Oh," he replied, "my baby's name is
* Betty,' and I found a guy whose baby's
name is 'Betty' too, and we had a sort of
club formed; and another guy had a baby
boy, and then I just thought they'd like
to sing 'My Daddy Over There.' But we
ended up with 'Jesus, Lover of My Soul,'
so that ought to suit you."
"Suit me, man? Why I got a 'Betty'
baby of my own, and that 'Daddy Over
18 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
There' song you sang is the sweetest thing
I've heard in France, and it will help those
daddies more than a hymn would. I'm glad
you got them to singing."
And now I'm back home, and I thought
the Silhouettes of Song were all over, but I
stepped into a church the other Sunday.
Up high above the sacred altars of that
church fluttered a beautiful silk service
flag. It was starred in the shape of a letter
"S." In the circle of each "S" was a red
cross. The church had two members in the
Red Cross. Above the "S" and below it
were two red triangles. The church had
men in the service of the Y. M. C. A. Then
grouped about the "S" were the stars of
boys in the service.
As I looked up at this cross a flood of
memories swept over me. I could not keep
back the tears. All the love, all the loneli-
ness, all the heartache, all the pride, all
the hope of the folks at home, their rever-
ence, their loyalty, was summed up in that
SILHOUETTES OF SONG 19
flag. I stood to sing, my eyes brimming
with tears. The great congregation started
that beautifully sweet hymn that is being
sung all over America in the churches in
loving memory of the boys over there:
"God save our splendid men,
Send them safe home again,
God save our men.
Make them victorious,
Patient and chivalrous,
They are so dear to us,
God save our men.
God keep our own dear men,
From every stain of sin,
God keep our men.
When Satan would allure,
When tempted, keep them pure,
Be their protection sure —
God keep our men.
God hold our precious men,
And love them to the end,
God hold our men.
Held in Thine arms so strong
To Thee they all belong.
This ever be our song:
God hold our men."
20 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
I stood the pressure until that great con-
gregation came to that line "They are so
dear to us," and the voice of the mother
beside me broke, and she had to stop.
Then I had to stop, too, and we looked at
each other through our tears and smiled
and understood, so that when she sweetly
said, "I have a boy over there," her words
were superfluous. And so I have added
another memory of song to the hours that
will never die.
II
SHIP SILHOUETTES
TT was nearing the dawn, and flaming
•*• heralds gave promise of a brilliant day
coming up out of France to the east. Three
of us stood in the "crow's-nest" on an
American transport, where we had been
standing our "watch" since four o'clock
that morning.
Suddenly as we peered through our glasses
off to the west we saw the masts of a great
cruiser creeping above the horizon of the
sea. We reported it to the "bridge," where
it was confirmed. Then in a few minutes
we saw another mast, and then another,
and another; four, five, six, seven, eight,
nine, ten, twenty — five, six — twenty-six
ships coming up over the western horizon,
bound for France, bearing the most precious
burden that ever a caravan of the sea car-
ried across the waters of the deep; American
boys ! Your boys !
21
22 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
It was a marvellous sight. We had been
so intently watching this that we had
forgotten about the dawn. Then we turned
for a minute, and off to the east a brilliant
red dawn was splashing its way out of the
sea.
"What are those dots on the sun?"
Doctor Freeman shouted to me.
"Why, I believe it's the convoy of de-
stroyers coming out to meet those trans-
ports," I replied.
Then before our eyes, up out of the
eastern horizon, just as we had watched
the transports and the cruiser come up
over the western horizon, those slender
guardians of the deep came toward us in
formation. There were ten of them, and they
met the great American convoy just abreast
our transport. We saw the American flag
fly to the winds on each ship, and the flash-
ing of signal-lights even in the dawning.
"Those destroyers coming out of the
east against that sunrise remind me of the
"What are those dots on the sun?" Doctor Freeman
shouted to me.
SHIP SILHOUETTES 23
experiences one has in France in these
vivid war days,'* I said to my fellow watcher
in the "crow's-nest."
"How is that?"
"They stand out like the Silhouettes of
Mountain Peaks against a crimson sunrise,"
I replied.
And so have many Silhouettes of the Sea
stood out.
There was the afternoon that we stood
on the deck of a ship bound for France.
The voyage had been full of dangers.
Submarines had harassed us for days. One
night such a lurch came to the ship as threw
everybody about in their staterooms. We
thought it was a storm until the morning
came, and we were informed that it was
a sudden lurch to avoid a submarine. The
voyage had been full of uneasiness, and
now we were coming to the most dangerous
part of it, the submarine zone.
Everybody was on deck. It was Sunday
afternoon. Suddenly off to the east several
24 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
spots appeared on the horizon. What were
they, friendly craft or enemy ships?
Nobody knew, not even the captain.
There was a wave of uneasiness over the
boat.
Speculation was rife.
Then we saw the signal boy go aft, and
in a moment the tricolor of France was
fluttering in the winds, and we knew that
the approaching craft were friendly. Then
through powerful glasses we could make
them out to be long, low-lying, lithe, swift
destroyers coming out to meet us. They
were a welcome sight. Like "hounds of the
sea" they came, long and lean. Headed
straight for us, they came like the winds.
Then suddenly a slight mist began to fall,
but not enough to obscure either the de-
stroyers or the sun. Through this mist the
sun burned its way, and almost as if a mir-
acle had been performed by some master
artist, a beautiful rainbow arched the sky
to the east, and under the arch of this
SHIP SILHOUETTES 25
rainbow fleetly sailed those approaching
destroyers.
It was a beautiful sight, a Silhouette of
the Sea never to be forgotten while memory
lasts. The French flag fluttered, the band
started to play the "Marseillaise," and a
ship-load of happy people sang it.
A sense of peace settled down over us
all. The rainbow, covenant of old, promise
of the eternal God to his people, seemed
to have new significance that memorable
day.
Another Silhouette of the Sea ! Troops
are expected in at a certain port of entry.
The camp has been emptied of ten thou-
sand men. That means but one thing, that
new troops are expected. The great dirigi-
bles sailed out a few hours ago. The sea-
planes followed. Thousands of American
men and women lined the docks waiting,
peering with anxious eyes out toward the
"point." Here at this point a great cape
jutted out into the ocean, and around this
26 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
cape we were accustomed to catch sight
of the convoys first.
A sense of great expectancy was upon
us. We had heard rumors of submarines off
the shore for several days. Then suddenly
we heard a terrific cannonading, and we
knew that the transports and the convoys
were in a battle with the U-boats that
had lain in wait for them. An anxious hour
passed. The sun was setting and the west
was a great rose blanket.
Then a shout went up far down the line
of waiting Americans as the first great
transport swung around the cape. Then
another, and a third and a fourth, and
finally a fifth; great gray bulks, two of
them camouflaged until you could not
tell whether they were little destroyers or
a group of destroyers on one big ship. Then
they got near enough to see the American
boys, thousands of them, lining the rail-
ings. Through the glasses we could make
out the names of the transports. They were
SHIP SILHOUETTES 27
some of the largest that sail the Atlantic.
When as they came slowly in on the full
tide, with that rose sunset back of them,
the bands on their decks playing across the
waters, and five thousand boys on the first
boat singing "Keep the Home Fires Burn-
ing," then the "Marseillaise," and finally
"The Star-Spangled Banner," in which the
crowd on the shore joined, there was a
Silhouette of the Sea that burned its way
into our souls.
There were the great ships, and beyond
them the cape, and beyond that the
hovering dirigibles, and beyond them the
great bird seaplanes, and beyond them the
background of a rose-colored sky, and
beyond that the memories of home.
Ill
SILHOUETTES OF SACRIFICE
Tj^VERY day for two months, February
•*-•' and March, sometimes when the roads
were hub-deep with mud, and sometimes
when the roads were a glare of ice and snow
and driving the big truck was dangerous
work, we passed the crucifix.
It was the guide-post where four roads
forked. One road went up to the old mon-
astery, where we had, in one corner, a
canteen. Another road led down toward
divisional headquarters. Another road led
into Toul, and a fourth led directly toward
the German lines, over which, if we had
driven far enough, as we started to do one
night in the dark, we could have gone
straight to Berlin.
The first night that I went "down the
line" alone with a truck-load I was trem-
bling inside about directions. The divisional
man said: "Go straight out the east gate of
28
SILHOUETTES OF SACRIFICE 29
the city, down the road until you come to
the cross at the forks of the road. Take the
turn to the left."
But even with these directions I was not
certain. I was frankly afraid, for I knew
that a wrong turn would take me into
German lines. I did not like that prospect
at all.
I drove the big car cautiously through the
night. There were no lights, and at best
it was not easy driving. This night was im-
penetrably dark. When I came to the cross-
roads I stopped the machine and climbed
down. I wanted to make sure of the direc-
tions, and they were printed in French on
the sign-board that was near the crucifix
about which he had told me.
I got my directions all right, and then,
moved by curiosity, flashed my pocket-
light on the figure of the bronze Christ on
the crucifix there at the crossroads guide-
post. There was an inscription. Laboriously
finding each small letter with my flash hi
30 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
the darkness, my engine panting off to the
side of the road, I spelled it all out:
"Traveller, hast thou ever seen so great
a grief as mine?"
Off in the near distance the star-shells
were lighting up No Man's Land. "Trav-
eller, hast thou ever seen so great a grief
as mine ? " they seemed to say to me.
I climbed into the machine and started
on.
Suddenly I heard the purring of Boche
planes overhead. One gets so that he can
distinguish the difference between French
planes and Boche planes. These were Boche
planes, and they were bent on mischief.
Then the search-lights began to play in the
sky over me. But they were too late, for
hardly had I started on my way when
"Boom! boom! boom! boom!" one after
another, ten bombs were dropped, and as
each dropped it lighted up the surround-
ing country like a great city in flames.
As I saw this awful desecration of the
SILHOUETTES OF SACRIFICE 31
land the phrase of the cross seemed to sing
in unison with the beating of the engine
of my truck:
"Traveller, hast tLou ever seen so great
a grief as mine ? "
Suddenly out of the night crept an am-
bulance train, which passed my slower and
larger machine. They had no time to wait
for me. They were American boys on their
errands of mercy, and the front was calling
them. I knew that something must be
going on off toward the front lines, for the
rumbling of the big guns had been going
on for an hour. As these ambulances passed
me — more than twenty-five of them passed
as silent ships pass in the night — that
phrase kept singing: "Traveller, hast thou
ever seen so great a grief as mine?"
Then I drove a bit farther on my way,
and off across a field I saw the walls of a
great hospital. It was an evacuation hos-
pital, and I had visited in its wards many
times after a raid, when hundreds of our
32 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
boys had been brought in every night and
day, with four shifts of doctors kept busy
day and night in the operating-room caring
for them. As I thought of all that I had
seen in that hospital, again that singing
phrase of the crucifix at the crossroads
was on my lips: "Traveller, hast thou ever
seen so great a grief as mine ? "
A mile farther, and just a few feet from
the road, I passed a little "God's acre"
that I knew so well. As its full meaning
swept over me there in the darkness of
that night, the heartache and loneliness of
the folks at home whose American boys
were lying there, some two hundred of
them, the old crucifix phrase expressed it all :
"Traveller, hast thou ever seen so great
a grief as mine ? "
And, somehow, as I drove back by the
crucifix in the darkness of the next morning,
about two o'clock, I had to stop again and
with my flash-light spell out the lettering
on the cross.
SILHOUETTES OF SACRIFICE 33
Then suddenly it dawned on me that
this was France speaking to America:
"Traveller, hast thou ever seen so great a
grief as mine ? "
And when I paused in the darkness of
that night and thought of the one million
and a quarter of the best manhood of France
who had given their lives for the precious
things that we hold most dear: our homes,
our children, our liberty, our democracy;
and when I thought that France had saved
that for us; and when I remembered the
funeral processions that I had seen every
day since I had been in France, and when
I remembered the women doing the work
of men, handling the baggage of France,
ploughing the fields of France; doing the
work of men because the men were all
either killed or at the front; when I remem-
bered the little fatherless children that I
had seen all over France, whose sad eyes
looked up into mine everywhere I went;
and when I remembered the young widows
34 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
(every woman of France seems to be in
black) ; and when I remembered the thou-
sands of blind men and boys that I had
seen being led helplessly about the streets
of the cities and villages of France; and
when I remembered that lonely wife that
one Sunday afternoon in Toul I had
watched go and kneel beside a little mound
and place flowers there — the dates on the
stone of which I later saw were "March,
1916," then I cried aloud in the darkness
as I realized the tremendous sacrifice that
France has made for the world, as well as
England and Belgium. "No, France ! No,
England ! No, little Belgium ! this traveller
has never seen so great a grief as thine !"
"No, mothers and fathers, little children,
wives, brothers, sisters of France, and Eng-
land, and Belgium, this traveller, America,
has never seen so great a grief as thine ! "
And later I learned, after living in the
Toul sector for two months, that the chal-
lenging sentence on the crucifix had been
SILHOUETTES OF SACRIFICE 35
read by nearly every boy who had passed
it; and all had. Either he had read it him-
self or it had been quoted to him, and this
one crucifix question had much to do with
challenging the boys who passed it to a new
understanding of all that France had passed
through in the war.
The American boys have learned to re-
spect the French soldier because of the sac-
rifice that he has made. The American sol-
dier remembers that crowd of men called
"Kitchener's Mob," which Kitchener sent
into the trenches of France to stem the tide
of inhumanity, and to whom he gave a
message: "Go! Sacrifice yourselves while
I raise an army in England !" The American
soldier knows all of this. He knows that
little Belgium might have said to all the
world, "The forces were too great for us,"
and she could have stepped aside and the
world would have forgiven her.
But instead she chose deliberately to
sacrifice herself for the cause of freedom,
36 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
and sacrifice herself she did. And that sen-
tence on the crossroads crucifix in the Toul
sector, day after day, sends its reminder
into the heart of the American soldiers,
who stop their trucks and their ammuni-
tion wagons, pause their weary marches to
read it; sends its reminder of the sacrifices
that our allies have already made, and the
sacrifices that we may be called upon to
make. "Traveller, hast thou ever seen so
great a grief as mine?"
And the American officer and soldier
must admit that he has not; and he prays
God silently in the night as he rides by on
his horse, or as he drives by on his motor-
truck, or as he flashes by on his motor-
cycle, though they may be willing to
suffer as France has suffered, if need be,
prays God that that may never be neces-
sary, for the American soldier, since he
has been in France, has seen what suffering
means.
And so that crossroads crucifix stands
SILHOUETTES OF SACRIFICE 37
out against the lurid night of France, with
its reminder constantly before the Ameri-
can soldier, and it tends to make him more
gentle with French children and women,
and more kindly with French men. There
is a new understanding of each other, a new
cement of friendship binding our allies
together hi France; there is a new world-
wide brotherhood breaking across the hori-
zon of time, coming through sacrifice.
The world is once again being atoned
for. Its sin is being washed away. Innocent
men are suffering that humanity may be
saved.
The last time I saw this cross was by
night. I had seen it first at night, and fitting
it was that I should see it last at night.
There was a terrible bombardment down
the lines. Hundreds of American boys had
been killed. One was wounded who was
a son of one of the foremost Americans.
News of the fight had been coming in to
us all day-long. Night came and "runners"
38 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
were still bringing in the gruesome details.
The ambulances were running in a continu-
ous procession. We had seen things that day
and night that made our hearts sick. We
had seen American boys white and uncon-
scious. We had seen every available .room
in the great evacuation hospital crowded.
We had been told that a hundred surgical
cases were in the hospital, mostly shrapnel
wounds, and that every available doctor
and nurse was working night and day.
We had seen, under one snow-covered
canvas, six boys who had been killed by
one shell early that morning — boys that
the night before we had talked with down
in a front-line hut — boys who had been
killed in their billet in one room. We had
seen a captain come staggering into our hut
wet to the skin, soaked with blood, his hair
dishevelled, his face haggard. He had been
fighting since three o'clock that morning.
He had been shell-shocked, and had been
sent into the hospital.
SILHOUETTES OF SACRIFICE 39
"My God !" he cried, "I saw every offi-
cer in my company killed. First it was my
first lieutenant. They got him in the head.
Then about ten o'clock I saw my second
lieutenant fall. Then early in the afternoon
my top-sergeant got a bayonet, and a
hand-grenade got a group of my non-
commissioned officers. Hah* of my boys are
gone."
Then he sat down and we got him some
hot chocolate. This seemed to 'revive his
spirits, and he said: "But, thank God, we
licked them ! We licked them at their own
game ! We got them six to one, and drove
them back ! No Man's Land is thick with
their beastly bodies. They are hanging on
the wires out there like trapped rabbits !"
Then the thoughts of his own officers
came back.
"My God ! Now we know what war
means. We've been playing at war up to
this time. Now we've got to suffer! Then
we'll know what it all means." He was half-
40 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
delirious, we could see, and sent for an
ambulance.
As I drove home that night I passed the
crossroads crucifix. This time I needed no
lights to guide me. The whole horizon was
alight with bursting shells and Very lights.
Long before I got to it I could see the gaunt
form of the cross reaching its black but
comforting arms up against the background
of lurid light along the front where I knew
that American men were dying for me.
The picture of that wayside cross, looming
against the lurid light of battle, shall
never die in my memory.
It was the silhouette of France and
America suffering together, a silhouette
standing out against a livid horizon of fire.
I needed no tiny pocket search-light to
read the words on the cross. They had
already burned their way into my heart
and into the hearts of that whole division
of American soldiers, that division which
has since so distinguished itself at Belleau
SILHOUETTES OF SACRIFICE 41
Woods ! But now America has a new under-
standing of the meaning of that sentence,
for America, too, is suffering, and she is
sacrificing.
"Traveller, hast thou ever seen so great
a grief as mine?"
"Yes, France; we understand now."
IV
SILHOUETTES SPIRITUAL
TT was the gas ward. I had held a vesper
-*• service that evening and had had a
strange experience. Just before the service
I had been introduced to a lad who said to
the chaplain who introduced me that he
was a member of my denomination.
The boy could not speak above a whis-
per. He was gassed horribly, and in addi-
tion to his lungs being burned out and his
throat, his face and neck were scarred.
"I have as many scars on my lungs as
I have on my face,'* he said quite simply.
I had to bend close to hear him. He could
not talk loud enough to have awakened a
sleeping child.
He said to me: "I used to be leader
of the choir at home. At college I was in
the glee-club, and whenever we had any
singin' at the fraternity house they al-
42
SILHOUETTES SPIRITUAL 43
ways expected me to lead it. Since I came
into the army the boys in my outfit have
depended upon me for all the music. In
camp back home I led the singing. Even
the Y. M. C. A. always counted on me to
lead the singing in the religious meetings.
Many's the time I have cheered the boys
comin* over on the transport and in camp
by singin' when they were blue. But I
can't sing any more. Sometimes I get pretty
blue over that. But I'll be at your meeting
this evening, anyway, and I'll be right down
on the front seat as near the piano as I can
get. Watch for me."
And sure enough that night, when the
vesper service started, he was right there.
I smiled at him and he smiled back.
I announced the first hymn. The crowd
started to sing. Suddenly I looked toward
him. We were singing "Softly Now the Light
of Day Fades Upon My Sight Away." His
book was up, his lips were moving, but no
sound was coming. That sight nearly broke
44 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
my heart. To see that boy, whose whole
passion in the past had been to sing, whose
voice the cruel gas had burned out, started
emotions throbbing in me that blurred my
eyes. I couldn't sing another note myself.
My voice was choked at the sight. A lump
came every time I looked at him there with
that book up in front of him, a lump that
I could not get out of my throat. I dared
not look in his direction.
After the service was over I went up to
him. I knew that he needed a bit of laughter
now. I knew that I did, too. So I said to
him: "Lad, I don't know what I would
have done if you hadn't helped us out on
the singing this evening."
He looked at me with infinite pathos and
sorrow in his eyes. Then a look of triumph
came into them, and he looked up and
whispered through his rasped voice: "I
may not be able to make much noise any
more, and I may never be able to lead the
choir again, but I'll always have singing
SILHOUETTES SPIRITUAL 45
in my soul, sir ! I'll always have singing in
my soul !"
And so it is with the whole American
army in France — it always has singing in
its soul, and courage, and manliness, and
daring, and hope. That kind of an army
can never be defeated. And no army in the
world, and no power, can stand long be-
fore that kind of an army.
That kind of an army doesn't have to be
sent into battle with a barrage of shells in
front of it and a barrage of shells back of
it to force it in, as the Germans have been
doing during the last big offensive, accord-
ing to stories that boys at Chateau-Thierry
have been telling me. The kind of an army
that, in spite of wounds and gas, "still has
singing in its soul" will conquer all hell on
earth before it gets through.
Then there is the memory of the boys
in the shell-shock ward at this same hos-
pital. I had a long visit with them. They
were not permitted to come to the vesper
46 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
service for fear something would happen
to upset their nerves. But they made a
special request that I come to visit them
in their ward. After the service I went. I
reached their ward about nine, and they
arose to greet me. The nurse told me that
they were more at ease on their feet than
lying down, and so for two hours we stood
and talked on our feet.
"How did you get yours?" I asked a
little black-eyed New Yorker.
"I was in a front-line trench with my
'outfit,' down near Amiens,'* he said. "We
were having a pretty warm scrap. I was
firing a machine-gun so fast that it was
red-hot. I was afraid it would melt down,
and I would be up against it. They were
coming over in droves, and we were mow-
ing them down so fast that out in front of
our company they looked like stacks of
hay, the dead Germans piled up every-
where. I was so busy firing my gun, and
watching it so carefully because it was so
SILHOUETTES SPIRITUAL 47
hot, that I didn't hear the shell that sud-
denly burst behind me. If I had heard it
coming it would never have shocked me."
"If you hear them coming you're all
right?" I asked.
"Yes. It's the ones that surprise you that
give you shell-shock. If you hear the whine
you're ready for them; but if your mind
is on something else, as mine was that day,
and the thing bursts close, it either kills
you or gives you shell-shock, so it gets you
both going and coming." He laughed at
this.
"I was all right for a while after the
thing fell, for I was unconscious for a half-
hour. When I came to I began to shake, and
I've been shaking ever since."
"How did you get yours?" I asked an-
other lad, from Kansas, for I saw at once
that it eased them to talk about it.
"I was in a trench when a big Jack
Johnson burst right behind me. It killed
six of the boys, all my friends, and buried
48 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
me under the dirt that fell from the para-
pet back of me. I had sense and strength
enough to dig myself out. When I got out
I was kind of dazed. The captain told me
to go back to the rear. I started back
through the communication-trench and
got lost. The next thing I knew I was wan-
dering around in the darkness shakin' like
a leaf."
Then there was the California boy. I
had known him before. It was he who
almost gave me a case of shell-shock. The
last time I saw him he was standing on
a platform addressing a crowd of young
church people in California. And there he
was, his six foot three shaking from head
to foot like an old man with palsy, and stut-
tering every word he spoke. He had been
sent to the hospital at Amiens with a case
of acute appendicitis. The first night he was
in the hospital the Germans bombed it
and destroyed it. They took him out and
put him on a train for Paris. This train had
SILHOUETTES SPIRITUAL 49
only gotten a few miles out of Amiens
when the Germans shelled it and destroyed
two cars.
"After that I began to shake," he said
simply.
"No wonder, man; who wouldn't shake
after that?" I said. Then I asked him if
he had had his operation yet.
"It can't be done until I quit shaking."
"When will you quit?" I asked, with a
smile.
"Oh, we're all getting better, much better;
we'll be out of here in a few months; they
all get better; 90 per cent of us get back in
the trenches."
And that is the silver lining to this Sil-
houette Spiritual. The doctors say that a
very large percentage of them get back.
"We call ourselves the * First American
Shock Troops,'" my friend from the West
said with a grin.
"I guess you are 'shock troops/ all right.
I know one thing, and that is that you
50 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
would give your folks back home a good
shock if they saw you."
Then we all laughed. Laughter was in the
air. I have never met anywhere in France
such a happy, hopeful, cheerful crowd as
that bunch of shell-shocked boys. It was
contagious. I went there to cheer them up,
and I got cheered up. I went there to give
them strength, and came away stronger
than when I went in. It would cheer the
hearts of all Americans to take a peep into
that room; if they could see the souls back
of the trembling bodies; if they could get
beyond the first shock of those trembling
bodies and stuttering tongues. And, after
all, that is what America must learn to do,
to get beyond, and to see beyond, the
wounds, into the soul of the boy; to see
beyond the blinded eyes, the scarred faces,
the legless and armless lads, into the glory
of their new-born souls, for no boy goes
through the hell of fire and suffering and
wounds that he does not come out new-
SILHOUETTES SPIRITUAL 51
born. The old man is gone from him, and
a new man is born in him. That is the
great eternal compensation of war and
suffering.
I have seen boys come out of battles
made new men. I have seen them go into
the line sixteen-year-old lads, and come
out of the trenches men. I saw a lad who
had gone through the fighting in Belleau
Woods. I talked with him in the hospital
at Paris. His face was terribly wounded.
He was ugly to look at, but when I talked
with him I found a soul as white as a lily
and as courageous as granite.
"I may look awful," he said, "but I'm
a new man inside. What I saw out there in
the woods made me different, somehow. I
saw a friend stand by his machine-gun, with
a whole platoon of Germans sweeping down
on him, and he never flinched. He fired that
old gun until every bullet was gone and
his gun was red-hot. I was lying in the grass
where I could see it all. I saw them bayonet
52 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
him. He fought to the last against fifty
men, but, thank God, he died a man; he
died an American. I lay there and cried to
see them kill him, but every time I think
of that fellow it makes me want to be
more of a man. When I get back home I'm
going to give up my life to some kind of
Christian service. I'm going to do it be-
cause I saw that man die so bravely. If he
can die like that, in spite of my face I can
live like a man."
The boys in the trenches live a year in
a month, a month in a week, a week in a
day, a day in an hour, and sometimes an
eternity in a second. No wonder it makes
men of them overnight. No wonder they
come out of it all with that "high look"
that John Oxenham writes about. They
have been reborn.
Another wounded boy who had gone
through the fighting back of Montdidier
said to me in the hospital:
"I never thought of anybody else at
SILHOUETTES SPIRITUAL 53
home but myself. I was selfish. Sis and
mother did everything for me. Everything
at home centred in me, and everything was
arranged for my comfort. With this leg gone
I might have some right now, according to
the way they think, to that attention, but
I don't want it any longer. I can't bear the
thoughts of having people do for me. I
want to spend the rest of my life doing
things for other folks.
"Back of Noyon I saw a friend sail into
a crowd of six Germans with nothing but
his bayonet and rifle. They had surrounded
his captain, and were rushing him back as
a prisoner. They evidently had orders to
take the officers alive as prisoners. That
big top-sergeant sailed into them, and after
killing two of them, knocking two more
down, and giving his captain a chance to
escape, the last German shot him through
the head. He gave his life for the captain.
That has changed me. I shall never be the
same again after seeing that happen. There's
54 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
something come into my heart. I'm going
back home a Christian man."
Yes, America must learn to see beyond
the darkness, beyond the disfigured face,
to the soul of the boy. And America will
do it. America is like that. And so back of
these shaking bodies and these stuttering
tongues of the shell-shocked boys I saw
their wonderful souls. And after spending
that two hours with them I can never be
the same man again.
I could, as Donald Hankey says, "get
down on my knees and shine their boots
for them any day," and thank God for the
privilege. I think that this is the spirit of
any non-combatant in France who has any
immediate contact with our men on the
battle-front or in the hospitals. They are
so brave and so true.
"How do the Americans stand dressing
their wounds and the suffering in the hos-
pitals ? " a friend of mine asked a prominent
surgeon.
SILHOUETTES SPIRITUAL 55
"They bear their suffering like French-
men. That is the highest compliment I can
pay them,'* he replied.
And so back of their wounds are their
immortal, undying, unflinching souls. And
back of the tremblings of these boys that
night, thank God, I had the glory of seeing
their immortal souls, and to me the soul
of an American boy under fire and pain is
the biggest, finest, most tremendous thing
on earth. I bow before it in humility. It
dazzled mine eyes. All I could think of as
I saw it was:
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of
the Lord."
That night I said, just before I left:
"Boys, it's Sunday evening, and they
wouldn't let you come to my meeting !
Would you like for me to have a little
prayer with you ? "
"Yes ! Sure ! That's just what we want !"
were the stammered words that followed.
56 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
"All right; we'll just stand, if it's easier
for you."
Then I prayed the prayer that had been
burning in my heart every minute as we
stood there in that dimly lit ward, talking
of home and battle and the folks we all
loved across the seas. All that time there
had been hovering in the background of
my mind a picture of a cool body of water
named Galilee, and of a Christ who had
been sleeping in a boat on that water
with some of his friends, when a storm
came up. I had been thinking of how
frightened those friends had been of the
storm; of the tossing, tumbling, turbulent
waves. I had thought of how they had trem-
bled with fear, and then of how they had
appealed to the Master. I told the boys
simply that story, and then I prayed:
"O Thou Christ who stilled the waves
of Galilee, come Thou into the hearts
of these boys just now, and still their
trembling limbs and tongues. Bring a
SILHOUETTES SPIRITUAL 57
great sense of peace and quiet into their
souls."
"Oh, ye of little faith !" When I looked
up from that prayer, much to my own
astonishment, and to the astonishment of
the friend who was with me, the tremblings
of those fine American boys had perceptibly
ceased. There was a great sense of quiet and
peace in the ward.
The nurse told me the next day that
after I had gone the boys went quietly to
bed; that there was little tossing that night
and no walking the floors, as there had been
before. A doctor friend said to me: "After
all, maybe your medicine is best, for while
we are more or less groping in the dark as
to our treatment of shell-shock, we do know
that the only cure will be that something
comes into their souls to give them quiet
of mind and peace within."
"I know what that medicine is," I told
him. "I have seen it work."
"What is it? "he asked.
58 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
Then I told him of my experience.
"You may be right."
And so it is all over France; where I have
worked in some twenty hospitals — from the
first-aid dressing-stations back through the
evacuation hospitals to the base hospitals
— and have found that the reaction of our
boys to wounds and suffering is always a
spiritual reaction. I know as I know no
other thing, that the boys of America are
to come back, wounded or otherwise, a
better crowd of men than they went away.
They are men reborn, and when they come
back, when it's "over, over there," there is
to be a nation reborn because of the leaven
that is within their souls.
V
SILHOUETTES OF SACRILEGE
TAURING the last year there has come
*~* into French art^a new era of the sil-
houette. In every art store in Paris one sees
wonderful silhouettes which tell the story
of the horror of the Hun better than any
words can paint it, and when one attempts
to paint it he must attempt it in word
silhouettes.
The silhouette catches the picture better
than color. Gaunt, naked, ruined cathe-
drals, homes, towers, and forests are better
pictured in black silhouettes than any other
way. There is nothing much left in some
places in France but silhouettes.
Those who have seen Rheims know that
the best reproduction of its ruins has been
conveyed by the simple silhouette of the
artist. There it stands outlined against the
sky. Rheims that was once the wonder of
the world is now naked ruins, tottering
59
60 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
walls, with its towers still standing, loom-
ing against the sky like tottering trees.
And when, during the past year, the walls
fell, they
"Left a lonesome place against the sky"
of all the world.
The church at Albert was like that. Only
a silhouette can describe or picture it.
There it stood against the sky by day and
night, with the figure on its top leaning.
The old legend of the soldiers that when
the figure of the Virgin fell to the earth the
war would end has been dissipated, for
during the last drive that figure fell, and
the tower with it. But forever (although it
has fallen to dust and debris, because of
descriptions we have seen of it) it shall
stand out in our memories like a lonely,
toppling tree against a crimson sunset !
Every day on the Toul line we used to
drive through a village that had been
shelled until it was in ruins. Only the tower
SILHOUETTES OF SACRILEGE 61
and the walls of a beautiful little church re-
mained. Every other house in the village was
razed to the ground. Nothing else remained.
There it stands to this day, for when
I saw it last in June it was still stand-
ing as it was in January. Every evening
about sunset we used to drive down that
way, taking supplies to the front-line huts.
Many things stand out in one's memory
of a certain road over which he drives night
after night and day after day. There is the
cross at the forks of the roads. There is
the old monastery, battered and in ruins,
that stood out like a gaunt ghost of the
vandal Hun. There was the little God's
acre along the road which we passed every
day. There were always the observation-
balloons against the evening sky. There
were always the fleet-winged birds of the
air outlined against the evening. There were
always the marching men and the ambu-
lance trains. But standing out above them
all, etched with the acid of regret and an-
62 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
ger and horror, stood that lonely tower.
Night after night we approached it with
a beautiful sunset off to the west where
the Germans lay buried in their trenches.
Coming back from the German lines we
would see this church-tower outlined against
the crimson sky like a finger pointing God-
ward, and declaring to all the world that
the God above would avenge this silent, ac-
cusing Silhouette of Sacrilege.
There has been a good deal of discussion
over a certain book entitled "I Accuse."
I never saw that finger pointing into the
sky as we drove through this village that
it did not cry out to the heavens and across
the short miles to the German Huns, looking
down, as it did, at its feet where the ruined
homes lay, the village that it had mothered
and fathered, the village that had wor-
shipped within its simple walls, the village
that had brought its joys and sorrows there,
the village that had buried the dead within
its shadows, the village that had brought
SILHOUETTES OF SACRILEGE 63
its young there to be married and its aged
to be buried; there it stood, night after
night, against the crimson sky sometimes,
against the golden sky at other times;
against the rose, against the blue, against
the purple sunsets; and ever it thundered:
"I accuse ! I accuse ! I accuse !"
Then there is that Silhouette of Sac-
rilege up on the Baupaume Road. This is
called "the saddest road in Christendom,"
because more men have been killed along
its scarred pathway than along any other
road in all the world. Not even the road to
Calvary was as sad as this road.
Along this road when the French held
it, during the first year of the war, they
gathered their dead together and buried
them in a little cemetery. Above the sacred
remains of their comrades these French
soldiers erected a simple bronze cross as a
symbol not only of the faith of the nation,
but a symbol also of the cause in which
they had died.
64 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
A few months later when the Germans
had recaptured this spot, and it had been
fought over, and the bronze cross still
stood, the Hun, too, gathered his dead
together and buried them side by side with
the French. Then he did a characteristic
thing. He got a large stone as a base and
mounted a cannon-ball on top of this stone,
and left it there, side by side with the
French cross.
Whether he meant it or not, his sacrilege
stands as a fitting expression of his philos-
ophy, the philosophy of the brute, the re-
ligion of the granite rock and the iron can-
non-ball.
He told his own story here. Side by side
in those two monuments the contrast is
made, the causes are placed. One is the
cause of the cross, the cause of men willing
to die for brotherhood; the other is the
cause of those who are willing to kill to
conquer.
And these two monuments, side by side
SILHOUETTES OF SACRILEGE 65
on the Baupaume Road, stand out as one
of the Silhouettes of Sacrilege.
Then there is St. Gervais. On Good
Friday afternoon a Hun shell pierced the
side of this beautiful cathedral as the spear-
thrust pierced the side of the Master so
long ago. On the very hour that Jesus was
crucified back on that other and first Good
Friday the Hun threw his bolt of death
into the nave of this church, and crucified
seventy-five people kneeling in memory of
their Saviour's death.
I was in that church an hour after this
terrible sacrilege happened. Never can one
forget the scene. I dare not describe it
here in its awful details.
The entire arches of stone that held up
the roof had fallen in from the concussion
of the gases of the shell. Three feet of solid
stones covered the floor. Men and women
were being carried out. Silk hats, canes,
shoes, hats, baby clothes, an expensive fur,
lay buried in the stone and dirt.
66 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
As I stood horrified, looking on this scene
of death and destruction, the phrase came
into my heart:
"And the veil of the temple was rent in twain."
And this scene, too, shall remain as one
of the Silhouettes of Sacrilege.
But perhaps the worst Silhouette of Sac-
rilege that the film of one's memory has
brought away from France is that of a
certain afternoon in Paris.
I happened to be walking along the Bou-
levard to my hotel. The big gun had been
throwing its shells into the city all day.
Suddenly one fell so close to where I was
walking that it broke the windows around
me, and I was nearly thrown to my feet.
In my soul I cursed the Hun, as all who
have lived in Paris finally come to be doing
as each shell bursts. But I had more reason
to curse than I knew at that moment.
The people were running into a side
street, the next one toward which I was
SILHOUETTES OF SACRILEGE 67
approaching. I followed the crowd. My
uniform got me past the gendarmes in
through a little court, up a pair of stairs
where the shell had penetrated the walls
of a maternity hospital.
What I saw there in that room shall
make me hate the Hun forever.
New-born babes had been killed, a nurse
and two mothers. When I thought of the
expectant homes into which those babes
had come, when I thought of the fathers
at the front who would never see again
either their wives or those new babies,
when I saw the blood that smeared the
plaster and floors of that room, when I
saw the little twisted baby beds, a flush of
hatred swept over me, as it did over all
who saw it, a new birth of hatred that
could never die until those little babies and
those mothers and the nurse are avenged.
That is a Silhouette of Sacrilege that makes
the gamut complete.
There was the desecration of the holy
68 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
sanctuaries; there was the desecration of the
graves of brave soldiers of France; there
was the derision of his bronze cross; there
was the desecration of the most sacred day
in Christendom, Good Friday, and then
the desecration of little children, mothers
of new-born babes, and nurses. Could the
case be more complete? Could Silhouettes
of Sacrilege cover a wider gamut of hatred
and disgust than these silhouettes picture ?
VI
SILHOUETTES OF SILENCE
fT^WO o'clock in the morning on the sea
•*• is sometimes cold and disagreeable,
and sometimes it is glorious with wonder
and beauty. But whether it is beautiful or
whether it is cold and disagreeable, at that
exact hour in the war zone on every Ameri-
can transport, now, every boy is summoned
on deck until daylight. This is only one of
the many precautions that the navy is
taking to save life in case of a U-boat
attack. One thing that ought to comfort
every mother and father in America is the
care that is manifested and the precautions
that are taken by the navy in getting the
soldiers to France. One of the most thrill-
ing chapters of the history of this war, when
it is written, will be that chapter. And one
of the most wonderful, the most colossal
feats will be the safe transportation over-
69
70 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
seas of those millions of soldiers with so
little loss of life while doing it.
And one of the best precautions is this
of getting every boy up out of the hold
and out of the staterooms, officers and all,
on deck, standing by the assigned life-boats
and rafts. Not a single boy remains below
in the war zone.
Day is just breaking across the sea. It is
a beautiful dawning. Five thousand Ameri-
can boys line the railings of a certain great
transport. They are not allowed to smoke.
They do not sing. They do not talk much.
Some of them are sleepy, for the average
American boy is not used to being awakened
at two in the morning. They just stand and
wait and watch through five hours of silence
as the great ship plunges its way defiantly
through the danger zone, saying in so
many words: "We're ready for you !"
And the silhouette of that great ship,
lined with khaki-clad American boys, wait-
ing, watching, as seen from another trans-
SILHOUETTES OF SILENCE 71
port, where the watcher who writes this
story stands, is a sight never to be equalled
in art or story. To see the huge bulk of a
great transport just a stone's throw away,
moving forward, without a sound from its
rail-lined, soldier-packed deck, is one of the
striking Silhouettes of Silence.
Thomas Carlyle once said of man:
"Stands he not thereby in the centre of
Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities?"
One day I saw the American army stand-
ing "in the centre of immensities, in the
conflux of eternities," at the focus of his-
tories. One day I saw the American army
in France march in answer to General Persh-
ing's offer to the Allies at the beginning of
the big drive, march to its place in history
beside its Allies, the English and the French.
The news came. The first division of
American troops was to leave overnight
and march overland into the Marne line.
Our Allies needed us. They had called. We
were answering.
72 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
As a tribute to the efficiency of the
American army, may I say that the one
well-trained, seasoned division of troops
that we had in a certain quiet sector picked
up bag and baggage overnight and, like
the Arabs, "silently stole away," and did
it so well and so efficiently that not even
the Y. M. C. A. secretaries, who had been
living with this division intimately for
months, knew that they were gone, and that
a new division had taken its place, until
the next morning. Talk about German
efficiency — that phrase, "German effi-
ciency," has become a bugaboo to frighten
the world. American efficiency is just as
great, if not greater.
I saw that division marching overland.
It was a thrilling sight. Coming on it sud-
denly, and looking down upon its march-
ing columns from the brow of a hill, and
then riding past it in a Ford camionet all
day long with Irving Cobb, riding past its
ammunition-wagons, past its machine-gun
SILHOUETTES OF SILENCE 73
battalion, past its great artillery com-
pany, past its hundreds of infantrymen,
past its trucks, past its clean-cut officers
astride their horses, past its supply-trains,
past its flags and banners, past its kitchen-
wagons, seeing it stop to eat, seeing it
shoulder its rifles, seeing its ambulances
and its Red Cross groups, seeing its khaki-
clad American boys wind through the val-
leys and up the hills and over the bridges
(the white stone bridge), through its vil-
lages, many in which American soldiers
had never been seen before; welcomed by
the people as the saviors of France, seeing
its way strewn with the flowers of spring
by little children, and with the welcome
and the tears of French mothers and daugh-
ters clad in black, seeing it march along the
French streams from early morning until
late at night, this was a sight to stir the
pride of any American to the point of rev-
erence.
But all day as we rode along that wind-
74 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
ing trail I thought of the song that the
soldiers are singing, "There's a Long, Long
Trail Awinding to the Land of Our Dreams,"
and when I looked into the faces of those
American boys I saw there the determina-
tion that the trail that they were taking
was a trail that, although it was leading
physically directly away from home, and
toward Berlin, yet it was, to their way of
thinking, the shortest way home. The trail
that the American army took that day as
it marched into the Marne line was the
"home trail," and every boy marched that
road with the determination that the sooner
they got that hard job ahead over with,
the sooner they would get home. I talked
with many of them as they stopped to
rest and found this sentiment on every lip.
• But it was a silent army. I heard no sing-
ing all day long — not a song. Men may
sing as they are marching into training-
camps; they may sing when they board
the boats for France now; they may sing
SILHOUETTES OF SILENCE 75
as they march into rest-billets, but they
were not singing that day as they marched
into the great battle-line of Europe.
I heard no laughter. I heard no loud
talking, I heard no singing; I heard only
the tramp, tramp, tramp of marching feet,
and the crunching of the great motor-trucks,
and the patter of horses as the officers
galloped along their lines. That army of
American men knew that the job on which
they were entering was not child's play.
They knew that democracy depended upon
what they did in that line. They knew that
many of them would never come back.
They knew that at last the real thing was
facing them. They were not like dumb,
driven beasts. They were men. They were
American men. They were thinking men.
They were silent men. They were brave
men.
They were marching to their place in
history unafraid, and unflinching, but
thoughtful and silent.
76 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
Another Silhouette of Silence. It was after
midnight on the Toul line. We were driving
back from the front. The earth was covered
with a blanket of snow. Everything was
white. We were moving cautiously because
with the snow over everything it was hard
to tell where the icy road left off and the
ditches began; and those ditches were four
feet deep, and a big truck is hard to get
out of a hole. Then there were no lights,
for we were too near the Boche bat-
teries.
"Halt!" rang out suddenly in the night,
and a sentry stepped into the middle of
the road.
I got down to see what he wanted.
"There are fifty truck-loads of soldiers
going into the trenches to-night, and they
are coming this way. Drive carefully, for
it is slippery." ,
In a few moments we came to the first
truck filled with soldiers, and passed it. A
hundred yards farther we came to the
SILHOUETTES OF SILENCE 77
second one, loaded down with American
boys. Their rifles were stacked in the front
of the truck, and their helmets made a
solid steel covering over the trucks. One
by one, fifty trucks loaded with American
soldiers passed us. One can hardly imagine
that many American boys anywhere with-
out some noise, but the impressive thing
about that scene was that not a single
word, not a sound of a human voice, came
from a single one of those fifty trucks.
The only sound to be heard breaking the
silence of the night was the crunching of
the chained wheels of the heavy trucks in
the snow. We watched that strangely silent
procession go up over a snow-covered hill
and disappear. Not a single sound of a
human voice had broken the silence.
Another Silhouette of Silence: It is an
operating-room in an evacuation hospital.
The boy was brought in last night. An
operation was immediately imperative. I
had known the boy, and was there by
78 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
r
courtesy of the major in charge of the hos-
pital. The boy had asked that I come.
; For just one hour they worked, two
skilled American surgeons, whose names,
if I were to mention them, would be recog-
nized as two of America's greatest special-
ists. France has many of them who have
given up their ten-thousand-dollar fees to
endure danger to save our boys. During
that hour's stress and strain, with sweat
pouring from their brows, they worked.
Now and then there was a nod to a nurse,
who seemed to understand without words,
and a motion of a hand, but not three words
were spoken. It made a Silhouette of Si-
lence that saved a boy's life.
The next scene is a listening-post. Two
men are stretched on their stomachs in the
brown grass. A little hole, just enough to
conceal their bodies, has been dug there.
The upturned roots of an old tree that a
bursting shell had desecrated was just in
front. "Tap ! Tap ! Tap !" came the sounds
The upturned roots of an old tree were just in front.
SILHOUETTES OP SILENCE 79
of Boches at work somewhere near and
underground. It is needless to say that this
was a Silhouette of Silence, and that a cer-
tain Y. M. C. A. secretary was glad when
it was all over and he got back where he
belonged.
The beautiful columns of the Madeleine
bask under the moonlight. Paris was never
so quiet. The silence of eternity seemed to
have settled down over her. As one looked
at the Madeleine under that magical white
moonlight he imagined that he had been
transported back to Athens, and that he
was no longer living in modern times and
in a world at war. It was all so quiet and
peaceful, with a great moon floating in the
But what is that awful wail that sud-
denly smites the stillness as with a blow?
It seems like the wailing of all the lost souls
of the war. It sounds like the crying of
the more than five million sorrowing women
80 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
there are left comfortless in Europe. It is
the siren. An air-raid is on. The "alert" is
sounding. The bombs begin to fall. The
Boches have gotten over even before the
barrage is up. Hell breaks loose for an hour.
No battle on the front ever heard more
terrific cannonading than the next hour.
The barrage was the heaviest ever sent up
over Paris. The six Gothas that got over the
city dropped twenty-four bombs.
The terrific bombardment, however, now
as one looks back, only serves to make the
preceding silence stand out more emphati-
cally, and the Madeleine, basking in the
moonlight the hour before, more beautiful
in its silhouette of grace and bulk against
the golden light.
A month on the front lines with thunder
beating always, a month of machine-gun
racket, a month of bombing by Gothas every
night, a month of crunching wheels, a month
of pounding motors and rumbling trucks, a
month of marching men, a month of the
SILHOUETTES OF SILENCE 81
pounding of horses' hoofs on the hard roads
of France, a month of sirens and clanging
church-bells in the tocsin, and then a day
in the valley of vision, down at Domremy
where Jeanne d'Arc was born, was a contrast
that gave a Silhouette of Silence to me.
One day on the Toul line, a train by
night, and the next morning so far away
that all you could hear was the singing of
birds. Peasants quietly tended their flocks.
Children played in the roads. The valley was
beautiful under the sunh'ght of as warm and
as beautiful a spring day as ever fell over the
fields of France. I stood on the very spot
where the peasant girl of Orleans caught her
vision. I looked down over the valley with
"the green stream streaking through it,"
with silence brooding over it, a bewilder-
ing contrast with the day and the month
that had just preceded; and it all stands
out as one of the Silhouettes of Silence.
Another day, another hour, another part
82 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
of France. They call it "Calvaire." It covers
several acres. The peasants go there to
worship in pilgrimage every year. There is
a Garden of Gethsemane, with marvellous
statues built life-size. Then through the
woods there is a worn pathway to the
Sanhedrin. This is of marble. Jesus is here
before his accusers in marble statuary.
As his accusers question him and he
answers them not, they wonder. But those
who have seen "Calvaire" in France do
not wonder, for from that room there is
a clean swath of trees cut, and a quarter
of a mile away looms, on a hill, a real
Calvary, with the tree crosses silhouetted
against the sky, and Jesus is seeing down
the pathway the hill of the cross.
Then there is "The Way of the Cross,"
built by peasant hands. It is a road covered
with flintstones as sharp as knives. This
flint road must be a mile long, and it winds
here and there leading to Calvary, and
along its way are the various stations of
SILHOUETTES OF SILENCE 83
the cross in life-size figures. Jesus is seen
at every step of this agony bearing his
cross until relieved by Simon. Over this
flintstone every year the people come by
thousands, and crawl on their naked knees
or walk on their naked feet. Every stone is
stained with blood; stumbling, cruelly hurt,
bleeding, they go " The Way of the Cross,"
and I have no doubt but that they go
back to their homes better men and
women for having done so.
The day that we went to "Calvaire" it
was a fitful June afternoon. As we walked
along "The Way of the Cross," across the
field, past the living, almost breathing,
statues of the Master bearing his cruel
cross, past the sneering figures of those
who hated him, and past the weeping
figures of those who loved and would aid
him, and as we came to the hill itself, sud-
denly black clouds gathered behind it and
rain began to pour.
"I am glad the clouds are there back of
84 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
Calvary. I am glad it is raining as we
climb the hill of Calvary. I am willing to be
soaked. It seems more fitting so, with the
black clouds there and all. It reminds me
of 'The Return from Calvary' in the paint-
ing," one of the party said impressively.
Up the winding hill we climbed, and
there gaunt and cruel against a sombre
sky stood the three crosses, just as we
have always imagined them. The hill was
so high that it overlooked as beautiful a
valley as I had seen in all France. It was
in Brittany, as yet untouched by the war
as far as its fields are concerned (not so its
men and its women and its homes) ; but on
that spring day as we looked down from
the hill of Calvary we could see off in the
distance the tomb, with the stone rolled
away, and life-size angels standing there
with uplifted wings. Then farther along
the road, perhaps another quarter mile
away, on another hill, were the figures of
the disciples, and the women watching the
SILHOUETTES OF SILENCE 85
ascension with rapt faces, and a glory shone
round about them all.
And as we stood there on that Calvary,
built in memory of the crucifixion and
resurrection and ascension of their Master
by the peasants, and looked down over the
earth, bright with crimson poppies every-
where in field and hill, brilliant with the
old-gold blossom of the broom flower, as
we stood there, our hearts subdued to awe
and wonder, looking down, suddenly the
rain ceased and the sun shone in its full
glory and lighted anew the white marble
of the figures of the ascension far below
us in the field.
As we stood there the thought came to me:
"So is the Christian world standing to-
day on the hill of 'Calvaire.' The storms
have been black about the Christian world.
The clouds have seemed impenetrable.
The earth has been desolate. We have
walked on our hands and knees and in our
bare feet up the flinty road of Baupaume,
86 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
cthe saddest road in Christendom,' and
along this road we have borne the cross.
We, the Christian world, the mothers, the
fathers, the little children, have bled. We
have stumbled and fallen along the way.
And when we climbed the hill of Calvary,
as we have been doing for these years of
war, the clouds darkened and we saw only
the ominous silhouettes of the three crosses.
"But the sun is now breaking the clouds,
and it shall burn its way to a glorious day.
Across the fields we see the open tomb and
the resurrection is about to dawn; the day
of brotherhood, democracy, justice, love,
and peace forever.
"Hope is in the world, hope brooding,
hope dominant, hope triumphant, hope in
its supreme ascension."
One could not see this Silhouette of Si-
lence, this "Calvaire" of the French na-
tion, and not come away knowing the full
meaning of the war. It is "The New Cal-
vary" of the world.
VII
SILHOUETTES OF SERVICE
A NEWSPAPER paragraph in a Paris
•• ^- paper said: "Dale was last seen in a
village just before the Germans entered
it, gathering together a crowd of little
French children, trying to get them to a
place of safety."
Dale has never been seen since, and that
was two months ago. Whether he is dead
or alive we do not know, but those who
knew this manly American lad best, say
unanimously: "That was just like Dale; he
loved kids, and he was always talking
about his own and showing us their pic-
tures."
No monument will ever be erected to
Dale, for he was just a common soldier;
but I for one would rather have had the
monument of that simple paragraph in the
press despatches; I for one would rather
87
88 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
have it said of me, "The last seen of Dale
he was gathering together a crowd of little
children " ; I would rather have died in such
a service than to have lived to be a part
of the marching army that is one day to
enter the streets of Berlin. That was a
man's way to die; dying while trying to
save a crowd of little children from the
cowardly Hun.
If I had died in that kind of service, in
my dying moments I could have heard the
words of John Masefield from "The Ever-
lasting Mercy" singing in my heart:
"Whoever gives a child a treat
Makes joybells ring in Heaven's street;
Whoever gives a child a home,
Builds palaces in Kingdom Come;
Whoever brings a child to birth,
Brings Saviour Christ again to earth."
Or, better, I would have seen the Master
blessing little children, taking them up in
His arms and saying to the Hebrew mothers
that stood about with wondering eyes:
"The last seen of Dale he was gathering together a crowd
of little children."
SILHOUETTES OF SERVICE 89
"Suffer the little children to come unto
me, and forbid them not, for of such is
the kingdom of heaven."
And perhaps I should have heard the
echo of Joaquin Miller's sweet interpreta-
tion of that scene, for when men die, strange,
sweet memories, old hymns and verses, old
faces, all come back:
"Then lifting His hands He said lowly,
Of such is my Kingdom, and then
Took the little brown babes in the holy
White hands of the Savior of men;
Held them close to His breast and caressed them;
Put His face down to theirs as in prayer;
Put His cheek to their cheeks; and so blessed them
With baby hands hid in His hair."
And I am certain that last of all I should
have heard the voice of the Master himself
saying:
"Insomuch as ye have done it unto the
least of one of these little ones, my chil-
dren, ye have done it unto me."
Thank God for a death like that. One
90 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
could envy such a passing, a passing in the
service to little children.
I have seen some of the most magnificent
episodes of service on the part of men in
France, scenes that have thrilled me to the
bone.
I know a Protestant clergyman in France
who walked five miles on a rainy February
day to find a rosary for a dying Catholic
boy.
I know a Y. M. C. A. secretary who in
America is the general secretary of one of
the largest organizations in one of the
largest Eastern cities. He has always had
two hobbies: one is seeing men made
whole, and the other has been fighting
cigarettes. Never bigger fists or more de-
termined fists pounded down the walls
that were building themselves up around
American youth in the cigarette industry.
He was militant from morning till night in
his crusade against cigarettes. Some of his
friends thought he was a fanatic. He even
SILHOUETTES OF SERVICE 91
lost friends because of his uncompromising
antagonism to the cigarette.
But the last time I heard of him he
was in a front-line dugout. This was near
Chateau-Thierry. The boys were coming
and going from that awful fight. Men would
come in one day and be dead the next. He
had been with them for months, and they
had come to love him in spite of his fighting
their favorite pastime. They knew him for
his uncompromising antagonism to ciga-
rettes. They loved him none the less for that
because he did not flinch. Neither was he
narrow about selling them. He sold them
because it was his duty, but he hated them.
Then for three days in the midst of
the Chateau-Thierry fighting the matches
played out. Not a match was to be had for
three days. The boys were frantic for their
smokes, for the nervous strain was greater
than anything they had suffered in their
lives. The shelling was awful. The noise
never ceased. Machine-gun fire and bomb-
92 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
ing by planes at night kept up every hour.
They saw lifelong friends fall by their
sides every hour of the day and night.
They needed the solace of their smokes.
Their secretary found two matches in his
bag. He lit a cigarette for a boy, and the
match was gone. Then he used the other
one. Then he did a magnificent piece of
service for which his name shall go down
forever in the memory of those lads. For-
ever shall he hold their affections in the
hollow of his hands. He proved to those
boys that his sense of service was greater
than his prejudices. He kept three ciga-
rettes going for two days and two nights
on the canteen beside him, smoking them
himself in order that that crowd of boys,
coming and going into the battle, in and
out of the underground dugout, might
have a light for the cigarettes during the
few moments of respite that they had from
the fight.
What a thrill went down the line when
SILHOUETTES OF SERVICE 93
that news got to the boys out there in the
woods fighting. One boy told me that a
fellow he told wept when he heard it.
Another said : " Good old ! I knew he
had the guts !" Another said: "I'll say he's
a man !" Another came in one evening and
said: "I'm going to quit cigarettes from now.
If you're that much of a man, you're worth
listening to!" Another said: "If I get out
of this it's me for the church forever if it
has that kind of men in it !"
Is it any wonder that they brought their
last letters to him before they went into the
trenches ? Is it any wonder that they asked
him for a little prayer service one night
before they went into the trenches? Is it
any wonder that they love him and swear
by him?
Is it any wonder that when one of them
was asked how they liked their secretary,
the boy said: "Great ! He's a man !"
Is it any wonder that when another boy
was asked if their secretary was very re-
94 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
ligious, responded in his own language:
"Yes, he's as religious as hell, but he's a
good guy anyhow!"
That kind of service will win anybody,
and that is exactly the kind of service that
the boys of the American army, your boys,
are getting all over France from big, heroic,
unprejudiced, fatherly, brotherly men, who
are willing to die for their boys as well as
to live for them and with them down where
the shells are thickest and the dangers are
constant.
More than a hundred Y. M. C. A. men
gassed and wounded to date, and more
than six killed. One friend of mine stepped
down into his cellar one morning, got a full
breath of gas, and was dead in two minutes.
There had been a gas-raid the day before,
and the gas had remained in the cellar.
Another I know stayed in his hut and served
his men even though six shell fragments
came through the hut while he was doing
it. Another I know lived in a dugout for
SILHOUETTES OF SERVICE 95
three months, under shell fire every day.
One day a shell took off the end of the old
chateau in which he was serving the men.
His dugout was in the cellar. But he did
not leave. Another day another shell took
off the other end of the chateau, but he
did not leave. He had no other place to go,
and the boys couldn't leave, so why should
he go just because he could leave if he
wished ? That was the way he looked at it.
One man whom I interviewed in Paris, a
Baptist clergyman, crawled four hundred
yards at the Chateau-Thierry battle with a
young lieutenant, dragging a litter with
them across a stubble wheat-field under a
rain of machine-gun bullets and shells, in
plain view of the Germans, and rescued a
wounded colonel. When they brought him
back they had to crawl the four hundred
yards again, pushing the litter before them
inch by inch. It took them two hours to
get across that field. A piece of shrapnel
went through the secretary's shoulder. He
96 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
is nearly sixty years of age, but he did
not stop when a service called him that
meant the almost certain loss of his own
life.
I know another secretary, Doctor Dan
Poling, a clergyman, and Pest, a physical
director, who carried a wounded German,
who had two legs broken, through a bar-
rage of German shells across a field to safety.
But all the Silhouettes of Service are
not in the front h'nes.
There are two divisions to the army.
They used to be "The Zone of Advance"
and "The Zone of the Rear." Now they call
the second division "The Services of Sup-
plies." All the men who are not in the
actual fighting belong to " The Services of
Supplies."
"How many men does it take to keep
one pilot in the machine flying out over
those waters to guard the transports in?"
I asked the young ensign in charge of a
seaplane station.
SILHOUETTES OF SERVICE 97
"Twenty-eight," he replied. "There are
twenty-eight men back of every machine
and every pilot."
The service that these men render, al-
though it is hard for them to see it, is just
as real and just as heroic as the service
of those in the front lines. The boys in
"The Services of Supplies" are eager to
get up front. I have had the joy of making
them see in their huts and camps that
their service is supremely important.
One cannot tell what service is more im-
portant.
When I landed at Newport News, the
first sound that I heard was the machine-
gun hammering of thousands of riveters
building ships. I know how vital that ser-
vice is to the boys "over there." They could
not live without the ships.
Then I came from Newport News to
Washington, on my way home, and we
entered that great city by night. The Capitol
dome was flooded with light. As I looked
98 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
at it I said to myself: "To-day from this
city emanates the light of the world. The
eyes of the whole of humanity are turned
toward this city. That lighted dome is
symbol of all this."
As I looked out of the train window as
we entered Washington from Richmond,
Virginia, I thought: "Surely not the ship-
building but the ideals that go out from
the Capitol are the most important 'Ser-
vices of Supplies.5 '
The next morning I was in Pittsburgh.
As my train pulled into that great city, all
along the Ohio River I saw great armies
of laboring men going and coming from
work. As one tide of humanity flowed out
of the mills across the bridges, another
flowed in, and I said: "Surely not the ship-
builders, nor the ideal-makers at Washing-
ton, but this great army of laboring men
in America forms the most important part
of 'The Services of Supplies' !"
Then I came to New York. In turn I
SILHOUETTES OF SERVICE 99
spoke before two significant groups of men
and women. One was a group of women
meeting each day to make Red Cross band-
ages, and knowing the scarcity of such in
France, and knowing how at times nurses
have had to tear up their skirts to bandage
wounds of dying boys, I said: "Surely this
is it!"
Then I spoke before the artists of New
York, with Mr. Charles Dana Gibson head-
ing them, and as I had seen their stirring
posters everywhere arousing the nation
to action, and knew what an important
part the artists and writers in France had
played in "The Services of Supplies," I
said: "Surely these are the most impor-
tant !"
But I have found at last that none of
these are the most important of all. There
is another section to "The Services of Sup-
plies," and that is more important than the
mechanic behind the pilot, more important
than the man who assembles the motor
100 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
trucks and the ambulances in France, more
important than the ship-builders, more
important than the lawmakers themselves,
more important even than the President,
more important than that great army of
laborers which I saw in Pittsburgh, more
important than the artists and the Red
Cross workers, and that supreme and im-
portant part of the great "Services of Sup-
plies" is the father and mother, the wife, the
child, the home, the church, the great mass
of the common thinking, feeling, suffering,
praying, hoping people of America. If
these fail, all fails. If these lose faith and
courage and hope, all lose faith and courage
and hope. If these grow faint-hearted, all
before them lose heart. These are they who
furnish the real sinews of war. These are
they who must furnish the morale, the love,
the letters, the prayers, the support to both
government and soldier. Yes, the common
folks over here at home, I have seen
clearly, are the most important part of
SILHOUETTES OF SERVICE 101
the great division of the army that we
call "The Services of Supplies." May we
never fail the boy in France.
These are the Silhouettes of Service.
I
VIII
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW
WONDERED at his hold on the hearts
of the boys in a certain hospital in
France. It was a strange thing. I went
through the hospital with him and it seemed
to me, judging by the conversation with
the boys in the hundreds of cots, that he
had just done something for a boy, or he
was just in the process of doing something,
or he was just about to do something.
They called him "daddy."
All day long I wondered at his secret, for
he was so unlike any man I had seen in
France in the way he had won the hearts of
the boys. I was curious to know. Some-
thing in his eyes made me think of Lincoln.
They had a look like Lincoln in their depths.
That night when I was about to leave I
blunderingly stumbled on his secret. About
the only ornament in his bare pine room in
102
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 103
the hut was a picture on the desk. I seized
on it immediately, for next to a sweet-faced
baby about the finest thing on earth to
look at is a boy between five and twelve.
And here were two, dressed in plaid suits,
with white collars, tousled hair, clean, fine
American boys.
I exclaimed as I picked the picture up:
"What a fine pair of lads !"
Then I knew that I had, unwittingly,
stumbled into his secret, for a look of in-
finite pain swept over his face.
"They are both dead. Last August wife
called me on the phone and said that some-
thing awful had happened to the boys.
They were all we had, and I hurried home.
"They had gone out on a Boy Scout
picnic. The older had gone in swimming in
the river and had gotten beyond his depth.
The younger went in after him and both
were drowned."
"I'm sorry I brought it back," I said
humbly.
104 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
He didn't notice what I said, but went on.
"Wife and I were broken-hearted. There
didn't seem much to live for. We had lost
all. Then came this Y. M. C. A. work, and
we thought that we would like to come over
here and do for all the boys in the army
what we could not do for our own. And now
wife and I are here, and every time I do
something for a wounded boy in this hos-
pital, I feel as if I were serving my own dear
lads."
"And you are," I said. "And if the
mothers and fathers of America know that
men and women of your type are here
looking after their lads it will give them a
new sense of comfort and you will be serv-
ing them also."
"And my wife," he added. 'You know
the boys up at call her 'The Woman
with the Sandwiches and Sympathy.' She
got her name because one night a drunken
soldier staggered into the hut and asked
for her. He didn't remember her name, but
"The boys call her 'The Woman with Sandwiches and
Sympathy.' "
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 105
she had darned his socks, she had written
letters for him, she had mothered him, she
had tried to help him. They wanted to put
the poor lad out, but he insisted upon see-
ing my wife. Finally, in desperation, seeing
that he couldn't think of her name, he said,
'Wan' see that woman wif sandwiches and
sympathy,' and after that the name stuck."
And as we knelt in prayer together there
in the hut and I arose to clasp his hand in
sympathy, I knew that through service
there in France, through service to your
sons, mothers and fathers of America, this
brave man, as well as his wife, were solac-
ing their grief. They were conquering sor-
row in service, thank God.
Yes, there are Silhouettes of Sorrow, but
these silhouettes always have back of them
the gold of a new dawn of hope. They are
black silhouettes, but they have a glorious
background of sunrise and hope. I tell of
no sorrows here that are not triumphant
sorrows, such as will hearten the whole
106 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
world to bear its sorrow well when it
comes, pray God.
Up at on the beautiful Loire is
my friend the secretary. It is a humble
position, and there are not many soldiers
there, but he is serving and brothering,
tenderly and faithfully, the few that are
there. No one would ever think of him as a
hero, but I do. He, too, is a hero who is
conquering sorrow in service.
His only daughter had been accepted for
Y. M. C. A. service in France. She was all
he had. He was a minister at home, and had
given up his church for the duration of the
war. Both were looking forward with keen
anticipation to her coming to France. Then
came the cable of her death.
I was there, the morning it arrived, to
preach for him. He said no word to me
about the blow. We went on with the ser-
vice as usual. I noticed that no hymns had
been selected, and that things were not in
very good order for the service. I was a
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 107
little annoyed at this, but I am thankful
with all my heart this day that I said
nothing. I had decided in my heart that
he was not a very efficient religious di-
rector until I heard the next day.
When I asked him why he had not told
me, he said a characteristic thing: "I didn't
want to spoil the service. I thought I would
keep my grief in my own heart and fight
it out alone."
And fight it out he did. Letters kept
coming for several weeks after the cable,
letters full of girlish hope about France,
and full of joy at the thoughts of seeing
"daddy" soon. This was the hardest of all.
He could not tear up those precious let-
ters. Her last words and thoughts were
treasures; all that he had left; but they
were spear-thrusts of pain also. But bravely
he fought out his battle of grief, and ten-
derly he ministered, mothers and fathers of
America, to your boys. Is it any wonder
that they loved him, that they went to him
108 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
with their loneliness and their heartaches;
is it any wonder that he understood all
the troubles that they brought and that
they bring to him?
And then there was the young secretary
who had just landed in France. It had been
hard to leave home, especially hard to
leave that little tot of a six-year-old girl,
the apple of his eye.
Some of us who have such experiences
will understand this story; some of us who
remember what the parting from loved ones
meant when we went to France. One such
I remember vividly.
There was the night before in the hotel
in San Francisco, when "Betty," six-year-
old, said, "Don't cry, mother. Be brave
like Betty," and who even admonished her
daddy in the same way, "Don't cry,
daddy! Be brave like Betty!" for it was
just as hard for the daddy to keep the tears
back, as he thought of the separation, as
it was for the mother.
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 109
Then the daddy would say to the mother:
"I feel ashamed of myself to cry when I
think of the thousands of daddies and hus-
bands who are leaving their homes, not for
six months' or a year's service, but 'for the
period of the war,' and leaving with so
much more of a cloud hanging over them
than I. I have every hope that I will be
back with you in six or eight months, but
they "
"Yes, but your own grief will make you
understand all the better what it means to
the daddies in the army who leave their
babies and their wives, and oh, dear, be
good to them!"
Then there was the next morning at the
Oakland pier as the great transcontinental
train pulled out, when the little six-year-old
lady for the first time suddenly saw what
losing her daddy meant. She hadn't visual-
ized it before. Consequently, she had been
brave, and had even boasted of her bravery.
But now she had nothing to be brave about,
110 SOLDIER; SILHOUETTES
for as the train started to move she sud-
denly burst into sobs and started down the
platform after the train as fast as her
sturdy little legs could carry her, crying
between sobs, "Come back, daddy! Come
back to Betty ! Don't go away !" with her
mother after her.
The daddy had no easy time as he
watched this tragedy of childhood from the
observation-car. It was a half-hour before
he dared turn around and face the rest of
the sympathetic passengers.
Going back on the ferry to San Francisco
the weeping did not cease. In fact it be-
came contagious, for a kindly old gentle-
man, thinking that the little lady was
afraid of the boat, said: "What's the mat-
ter, dear? Are you afraid?"
"No, sir, I'm not afraid; but my daddy's
gone to France, and I want him back ! I
want my daddy ! I want my daddy ! " and
the storm burst again. Then here and there
all over the boat the women wept. Here
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 111
and there a man pulled a handkerchief out
of his pocket and pretended to blow his
nose.
And so we understand what it meant to
this young secretary when, upon landing
in France, he got the cable telling of the
death of his baby girl.
At first he was stunned by the blow.
Then came a brave second cable from
his wife telling him that there was nothing
that he could do at home; to stay at his
contemplated task of being a friend to the
boys.
The brave note in the second cable gave
him new spirit and new courage, and in
spite of a heavy heart he went into a can-
teen, and will any wonder who read this
story that he has won the undying devo-
tion of his entire regiment by his tireless
self-sacrificing service to the American boys ?
What triumphs these are, what triumphs
over sorrow and pain.
All of France is filled with these Sil-
112 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
houettes of Sorrow, but each has a back-
ground of triumphant, dawning light.
There was the woman and child that I
saw in the Madeleine in Paris, both in
black. They walked slowly up the steps
and in through the great doors to pray for
their daddy aviator, who had been killed a
year before.
A man at the door told me that every
day they come, that every day they keep
fresh the memory of their loved one.
"But why does she come so long after
he is dead?" I asked.
"She comes to pray for the other avi-
ators," he added simply.
It was a tremendous thing to me. I went
into the great, beautiful cathedral and
reverently knelt beside them in love and
thankfulness that no harm had come to
my own wife and baby. But the memory
of that woman's brave pilgrimage of prayer
each day for a year, "for the other aviators,"
the picture of the woman and child kneel-
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 113
ing, etched its way into my soul to remain
forever.
"As I shot down through the night, falling
to what I was certain was immediate death,
I had just one thought," a young aviator
said, as we sat talking in a hotel in Paris.
I said: "What was it?"
"I said to myself: 'What will the poor
kiddie do without his dad ? ' '
Then there is that Silhouette of Sorrow
that my friend brought back from Ger-
many, he who was on the Peace Ship Com-
mission, and who saw a train-load of Ger-
man boys leaving a certain German town
to fill in the gaps caused by the losses at
Verdun; and because this sorrow is char-
acteristic of the mother sorrow of the
whole world, and especially of the American
mother, and because it has a note of won-
derful triumph, I tell it.
"I thought they were the hardest women
in the world," he said, "for as I watched
them saying farewell to their boys there
114 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
wasn't a tear. There was laughter every-
where, shouting and smiles, as if those poor
boys were going off to school, or to a picnic,
when we all knew that they were going to
certain death.
"I felt like cursing their indifference to
the common impulses of motherhood. I
watched a thousand mothers and women
as that train started, and I didn't see a
tear. They stood waving then* hands and
smiling until the train was out of sight. I
turned in disgust to walk away when a
woman near me fainted, and I caught her
as she fell. Then a low moan went up all
over that station platform. It was as if
those mothers moaned as one. There was
no hysteria, just a low moan that swept
over them. I saw dozens of them sink to
the floor unconscious. They had kept their
grief to themselves until their lads had
gone. They had sent their boys away with
a smile, and had kept their heartache
buried until those lads had departed."
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 115
I think that this is characteristic of the
triumphant motherhood of the whole world.
It is a Silhouette of Sorrow, but it has a
background of the golden glory of bravery
which is the admiration of all the world.
A recent despatch says that a woman, an
American, sent her boy away smiling a
few weeks ago, and then dropped dead on
the station, dead of grief.
One who has lived and worked in France
has silhouette memories of funeral proces-
sions standing out in sombre blackness
against a lurid nation. He has memories
of funeral trains in h'ttle villages and in
great cities; he has memories of brave men
standing as doorkeepers in hotels, with
arms gone, with crosses for bravery on
their breasts, but somehow the cloud of
sorrow is always fringed with gold and sil-
ver. He has memories of funeral services in
Notre Dame and the Madeleine, and in lit-
tle towns all over France, but in and
around them all there is somewhere the
116 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
glory of sunlight, of hope, of courage. In-
deed, one cannot have silhouettes, even of
sorrow, if there is no background of light
and hope.
For we know that even in war-time God
"still makes roses,*' as John Oxenham, the
English poet, tells us:
"Man proposes — God disposes;
Yet our hope in Him reposes
Who in war-time still makes roses."
John Oxenham, one of the outstanding
poets of the war, wrote. this verse, and for
me it has been a sort of a motto of faith
during my service in France. I have quoted
it everywhere I have spoken, and it has
sung its way into my heart, like a benedic-
tion with its comfort and its assurance.
It has been surprising, too, the way the
boys have grasped at it. I have quoted it
to them privately, in groups, and in great
crowds down on the line, and back in the
rest-camps, and in the ports, and every-
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 117
where I have quoted it I have had many
requests to give copies of it to the boys. I
quoted it once in a negro hut, hesitating
before I did so lest they should not appre-
ciate it enough to make quoting it excus-
able. But I took a chance.
When the service was over a long h'ne
of intelligent-looking negro boys waited
for me. I thought that they just wanted to
shake hands, but much to my astonish-
ment most of them wanted to know if
I would give them a copy of that verse,
and so I was kept busy for half an hour
writing off copies of that brief word of
faith.
One never quite knows all that this verse
means until he has been in France and has
seen the suffering, the heartache, the lone-
liness, the mud, and dirt and hurt; the
wounds and pain and death which are
everywhere.
Then he turns from all the suffering to
find a blood-red poppy blooming in the field
118 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
behind him; or a million of them covering
a green field like a great blanket. These
poppies are exactly like our golden Cali-
fornia poppies. Like them they grow in the
fields and along the hedges; even covering
the unsightly railroad-tracks, as if they
would hide the ugly things of life.
I thought to myself: "They look as if
they had once been our golden California
poppies, but that in these years of war
every last one of them had been dipped in
the blood of those brave lads who have
died for us, and forever after shall they
be crimson in memory of these who have
given so much for humanity."
One day in early June I was driving
through Brittany along the coast of the
Atlantic. On the road we passed many old-
fashioned men, and women in their little
white bonnets and their black dresses.
We stopped at a beautiful little farm-
house for lunch. It attracted us because of
its serene appearance and its cleanliness.
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 119
A gray-haired little old woman was in the
yard when we stopped our machine.
The yard was literally sprinkled with
blood-red poppies. As we walked in and
were making known our desire for lunch a
beautiful girl of about twenty-five, dressed
in mourning, stepped to the doorway, her
black eyes flashing a welcome, and cried out:
"Welcome, comrade Americaine." Behind
her was a little girl, her very image.
I guessed at once that in this quiet Brit-
tany home the war had reached out its dev-
astating hand. I had remarked earlier in
the day as we drove along: "It is all so
quiet and beautiful here, with the old-gold
broom flowering everywhere on hedge and
hill, and with the crimson poppies blowing
in the wind, that it doesn't seem as if war
had touched Brittany."
A friend who knew better said: "But
have you not noticed that women are pull-
ing the carts, women are tilling the fields?
Look at that woman over there pulling a
120 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
plough. Have you not noticed that there
are no men but old men everywhere ? "
He was right. I could not remember to
have seen any young men, and everywhere
women were working in the field, and in
one place a woman was yoked up with an
ox, ploughing, while a young girl drove the
odd pair.
"And if that isn't enough, wait until we
come to the next cathedral and I'll show
you what corresponds to our * Honor Rolls'
in the churches back home. Then you'll
know whether war has touched Brittany
or not."
We entered with reverent hearts the next
ancient cathedral of Brittany, in a little
town with a population of only about two
thousand, we were told, and yet out of this
town close to five hundred boys had been
killed in the Great War. Their names were
posted, written with many a flourish by
some village penman. In the list I saw the
names of four brothers who had been killed,
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 121
and their father. The entire family had been
wiped out, all but the women.
So I was mistaken. As quiet and peace-
ful as Brittany was during May and June,
as beautiful with broom and poppies as
were its fields, it had not gone untouched
by the cruel hand of war. It, too, had suf-
fered, as has every hamlet, village, and
corner of fair France; suffered grievously.
Thus I was not surprised to hear that
this beautiful young woman was wearing
black because her husband had been killed,
and that the little girl behind her in the
doorway had no longer any hope that her
soldier daddy would some day come home
and romp with her as of old. At the lunch
we were told all about it. True, there were
tears shed in the telling, and these not
alone by these brave Frenchwomen and
the little girl, but it was a sweet, simple
story of courage. Several times during its
telling the little girl ran over to kiss the
tears out of her mother's eyes, and to say,
122 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
with such faith that it thrilled us: "Never
mind, mother, the Americains are here
now; they will kill the cruel Boches."
After dinner we walked amid the red
poppies in the great lawn that was the
crowning feature of that white-stone home.
On the walls of the ancient house grew the
most wonderful roses that I have ever seen
anywhere, not excepting California. Great
white roses, so large and fragrant that they
seemed unreal, delicately moulded red roses,
which unfolded like a baby's lips, climbed
those ancient stone walls. The younger
woman cared for them herself, and was
engaged in that task of love even before
we went away.
I said to her, in what French I could
command: "They are the most beautiful
roses I have ever seen."
"Even in your own beautiful America?"
she asked with a smile.
"Yes, more beautiful even than in my
own America."
"Yes," she said, "they are most beauti-
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 123
ful, but they are more than that; they are
full of hope for me. They are my promise
that I shall see him some time again. They
come back each spring. He loved them and
cared for them when he was alive. Even on
his leave in 1915 he gloried in them. And
when they come back each spring they
seem to come to give me promise that I
shall see him again."
Then I translated Oxenham's verses about
the roses for her. The translation was poor,
but she caught the idea, and her face beamed
with a new light, and she said: "Ah, yes, it
is as I believe, that the good God who still
makes the beautiful roses, he will not take
him away from me forever."
I never read Oxenham's verse now that
I do not see that little cottage in Brittany
that has sheltered the same family for cen-
turies; twined about with great red and
white roses; and the old mother and the
young mother and the little lonely girl.
"Yet our hope in Him reposes
Who in war-time still makes roses."
124 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
' Another time, down on the Toul front
lines, I had this thought forced home by a
strange scene. It was in mid-March and
for three days a heavy blizzard had been
blowing. I, who had lived in California for
several years, wondered at this blizzard and
revelled in it, although I had had to drive
amid its fury, sometimes creeping along at
a snail's pace, without lights, down near
the front lines. It was cruelly cold and hard
for those of us who were in the "truck
gang."
One night during this blizzard, which
blew with such fury as I have never seen
before, we were lost. At one time we were
headed directly for the German lines, which
were close, but an American sentry stopped
us before we had gone very far, demanding
in stern tones: "Where are youse guys goin*
that direction?"
I replied: "To Toul."
"To Toul ! You're going straight toward
the Boche lines. Turn around. You're the
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 125
third truck that's got lost in this blizzard.
Back that opposite way is your direction."
The morning after it had cleared it was
worth all the discomfort to see the hills
and fields of France. One group of hills
which I had heard were the most heavily
fortified in all France, loomed like two
huge sentinels before the city. The Ger-
mans knew this also, and military experts
say that that is the reason why they did
not try to reach Paris by this route in the
beginning of the war.
We were never permitted on these hills,
but we had seen them belch fire many a
time as the German airplanes came over
the city.
But on this morning, after three days of
snow, those great black hills were trans-
formed, covered with a pure white blanket.
The trees were robed in white. Not a spot
of black appeared. Even the great guns on
the top of the hill looked like white fingers
pointing toward Berlin. The roads and
126 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
fields and hills of France had suddenly been
transformed as by a magic wand into things
beautiful and white.
War is black. War is muddy. War is
bloody. War is gray. War is full of hate
and hurt and wounds and blood and death
and heartache and heartbreak and home-
sickness and loneliness.
Thomas Tiplady, in "The Cross at the
Front," was right when he described war
as symbolized by the great black cloud of
smoke that unrolled in the sky when a
great Jack Johnson had exploded. Every-
thing that war touches it makes ugly, ex-
cept the soul, and it cannot blacken that.
It ruins the fields and makes them torn
and cut; it tears the trees into ragged
stumps. It kills the grass and tramples it
underfoot. It takes the most beautiful
architecture in the world and makes a pile
of dust and dirt of it. It takes a beautiful
face and makes it horrible with the scars
of bayonet and burning gases.
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 127
But on this morning God seemed to be
covering up all of that ugliness and dirt and
mud and blackness. Fields that the day
before had been nothing but ugly blotches
were white and beautiful. Ammunition
dumps, horrible in their suggestion of death,
seemed now to have been covered over and
hidden by some kindly hand of love. The
great brown-bronzed hills, the fortifica-
tions filled with death and horror were
gleaming white in the morning sunlight.
I said to the other driver: "Well, it's too
beautiful to be true, isn't it? It's a shame
to think that when we get back from the
front it will all be gone, melted, and the
old mud and dirt will be back again."
" Yes, but it means something to me," he
said.
"What does it mean?"
"It means the future."
"What are you talking about, man?"
"Why, it means that some day this land
will be beautiful again. It means that, im-
128
possible as that idea seems, the war will
cease, that people will till these fields
again, that grass will grow, that flowers
will bloom in these fields again, that people
will come back to their homes in peace. It
is symbolical of that great white peace that
will come forever, when the ugly thing we
call war will be buried so deeply underneath
the white blanket of peace and brotherhood
that the world will know war no more. It's
like a rainbow to me. It is a promise.'*
I had never heard Tom grow so eloquent
before, and what he said sounded Christian.
It sounded like man's talk to me. It was
the dream of the Christ I knew. It was the
dream of the prophets of old. It was Ten-
nyson's dream. Such a dream will not die
from the earth, and men will just keep on
dreaming it until some day it will come
true, for —
"Man proposes — God disposes;
Yet my hope in Him reposes,
Who in war-time still makes roses."
SILHOUETTES OF SORROW 129
The white and crimson roses of that
little cottage in Brittany, the quiet and
peace and promise and vision of a Jeanne
d'Arc in the village of Domremy ; the bloom-
ing of a billion red poppies in the fields of
France; the blanketing of the earth with
a covering of white snow sufficient to hide
the ugliness of war, even for a day, all give
promise of the God who, in the end, when
he has given man every chance to redeem
himself, and who, even amid cruel wars
"still makes roses," will finally bring to
pass "peace on earth; good-will to men."
"Somewhere in France."
IX
SILHOUETTES OF SUFFERING
A LL night long a group of Red Cross
•* *• and Y. M. C. A. men and women
had been feeding the refugees from Amiens.
There were two thousand of them in one
basement room of the Gare du Nord. They
had not eaten for forty-eight hours. Most
of them were little children, old men, and
women of all ages.
Two hundred or more of them had been
in the hands of the Germans for two years,
and when a few days before it came time
for the Germans to open their second big
Somme drive, they had driven these women
and little girls out ahead of them, saying:
"Go back to the French now, we do not
want you any longer."
For two days and nights these refugees
had tramped the roads of France without
food, many of them carrying little babies
130
SILHOUETTES OF SUFFERING 131
in their arms, all of them weary and sick
near unto death.
The little children gripped your heart.
As you handed them food and saw their
little claw-like hands clutch at it, and as you
saw them devour it like starved animals,
the while clutching at a dirty but much-
loved doll, somehow you could not see for
the mists in your eyes as you walked up
and down the narrow aisles of that crowded
basement pouring out chocolate and hand-
ing out food. The things you saw every
minute in that room hung a veil over your
eyes, and you were afraid all the while
that in your blinding of tears you would
step on some sleeping, starving child, who
was lying on the cold floor in utter exhaus-
tion, regardless of food.
One woman especially attracted me. I
noticed her time and time again as I walked
past her with food. She was lying on her
back on the floor, with nothing under her,
her arms thrown back over her head, a
132 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
child in her arms, or rather, lying against
her breast asleep. She looked like an edu-
cated, cultured woman. Her features were
beautiful, but she looked as if she had
passed through death and hell in suffering.
I asked her several times as I passed by if
she wouldn't have some food, and each
time she gave some to her baby but took
none herself. She could hardly lift her body
from the stone basement to feed the child,
and feeling that the thing that she needed
most herself was food, I urged her to eat,
but she would not.
Finally I stopped before her and asked
her if she was ill. She looked up into my face
and said: "Tres fatiguee, monsieur! Tres
fatiguee, monsieur!" (Very weary, sir!
Very weary, sir !)
By morning she was rested and accepted
food. Then she told me her story. Two days
before in her village they had been ordered
by the army to leave their homes in a half-
hour; everybody must be gone by that
SILHOUETTES OF SUFFERING 133
time; the Germans were coming, and there
was no time to lose. She had hastily gath-
ered some clothes together. The baby was
lying in its crib. Her other child, a little
six-year-old girl, had gone out into the
front of the home watching for the truck
that was to gather up the village people.
A bomb fell from a German Gotha and
killed this child outright, horribly mangling
her body. This suffering mother just had
time to pick the little mangled body up
and lay it on a bed, kiss its cheeks good-by
and leave it there, for there was no other
way. She did not even have the satisfaction
of burying her child.
"Very weary! Very weary!" I can hear
her words yet: "Tres fatiguee! Tres fa-
tiguee!" No wonder you were fatigued,
mother heart. You had a right to be, weary
unto death. No wonder you did not care
to eat all that long horrible night in the
Gare du Nord.
Loneliness is naturally one of the things
134 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
with which our own boys suffer most. When
one remembers that these Americans of
ours are thousands of miles away from their
homes, most of them boys who have never
been away from home in their lives before;
most of them boys who have never crossed
the ocean before, they will judge fairly and
understand better the loneliness of the
American soldier. It is not a loneliness that
will make him any the less a soldier. Ay,
it is because of that very home love, and
that very eagerness to get back to his home,
that he will and does fight like a veteran
to get it over.
"Gosh! I wish I would find just one
guy from Redding ! " a seventeen-year-old
boy said to me one night as I stood in a
Y. M. C. A. hut. He was about the lone-
liest boy I saw in France. I saw that he
needed to smile. He was nothing but a
kid, after all.
"Gosh ! I wish I'd see just one guy from
San Jose!" I said with a smile. Then we
SILHOUETTES OF SUFFERING 135
both laughed and sat down to some choc-
olate, and had a good talk, the very thing
that the lad was hungry for.
He had been in France for nearly a year
and he hadn't seen a single person he knew.
He had been sick a good deal of the time
and had just come from an appendix opera-
tion. He was depressed in spirits, and his
homesickness had poured itself out in that
one phrase: "Gosh ! I wish I'd see just one
guy from Redding !"
Those who do not think that homesick-
ness comes under the heading of "Suffering"
had better look into the face of a truly
homesick American boy in France before
he judges.
The English Tommy is only a few hours
from home, and knows it. The French sol-
dier is fighting on his own native soil, but
the American is fighting three thousand
miles away from home, and some of them
seven thousand.
"I haven't had a letter in five months
136
from home," a boy in a hospital said to
me. He was lonely and discouraged. And
right here may I say to the American peo-
ple that there is no one thing that needs
more constant urging than the plea that
you write, write, write to your soldier in
France. He would rather have letters than
candy, or cigarettes, or presents of any
kind, as much as he loves some of these
material things. I have put it to a vote
dozens of times, and the result is always
the same; ten to one they would rather
have a letter from home than a package of
cigarettes or a box of candy. I have seen
boys literally suffering pangs that were a
thousand times worse than wounds be-
cause they did not receive letters from those
at home.
"Hell ! Nobody back there cares a damn
about me ! I haven't received a letter in
five months ! " a boy burst out in my pres-
ence in Nancy one night.
"Have you no mother or sister?"
SILHOUETTES OF SUFFERING 137
"Yes, but they're careless; they always
were about letter- writing."
I tried to fix up excuses for them, but it
tested both my imagination and my en-
thusiasm to do it. I could put no real heart
into making excuses for them, and so my
words fell like lame birds to the ground,
and the tragedy of it was that both of us
knew there was no good excuse. It was the
most pitiable case I saw in France. God
pity the careless mother or sister or father
or friend who isn't willing to take the time
and make the sacrifice that is needed to at
least supply a letter three times a week to
the lad who is willing to sacrifice his all, if
need be, that those at home may live in
peace, free from the horror of the Hun.
"Less Sweaters
And More Letters"
might very well be the motto of the folks
here at home, for the boys would profit
more in the long run, both in their bodies
138 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
and in their souls. A censor friend of mine
said to me one day: "If you ever get a
chance when you go home to urge the people
of America to write, and write, and write
to their boys, do it with all your heart.
You could do no better service to the boys
than that."
"What makes you feel so keenly about
it ? " I asked him, for he talked so earnestly
that it surprised me. Ordinarily you think
of the censor as utterly devoid of humani-
tarian impulses, just a sort of a machine
to slice out the really interesting things in
your letters, a great human blue pencil,
or a great human pair of scissors. But here
was a censor that felt deeply what he was
saying.
"I'll tell you," he replied, "it is because
some of the letters that I read which are
going back home from lonely boys, begging
somebody to write to them; literally beg-
ging somebody, anybody, to write ! It gets
my goat ! I can't stand it. I often feel like
SILHOUETTES OF SUFFERING 139
adding a sentence to some letters myself
going home, telling them they ought to be
ashamed the way they treat their boys
about letter- writing; but the rules are so
stringent that I must neither add to nor
take from a letter save in the line of my
duties. I'd like to tell a few of the people
back home what I think of them, and I'd
like for them to read some of the heart-
aches that I read in the letters of the boys.
Then they'd understand how I feel about
it."
I shall never forget my friend the wrestler
when I asked how it was that he kept so
clean, and he replied: "The letters help a
lot."
I have seen boys suffering from wounds
of every description. I have seen them lying
in hospitals with broken backs. I have seen
them with blinded eyes. I have seen them
with legs gone, and arms. I have seen
them when the doctors were dressing their
wounds. I remember one captain who had
140 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
fifty wounds in his back, and he had them
dressed without a single cry. I have seen
them gassed, and I have seen them shot
to pieces with shell shock, and yet the
worst suffering I have seen in France has
been on the part of boys whose folks back
home have neglected them; boys who, day
after day, had seen the other fellows get
their letters regularly, boys who had gone
with hope in their hearts time after time
for letters, and then had lost hope. This is
real suffering, suffering that does more to
knock the morale out of a lad than any-
thing that I know in France.
Silhouettes of Suffering stand out in my
memory with great vividness. One general
cause of suffering in addition to the above
is loneliness in the heart of the young hus-
band and father, who has a wife and kiddie
back home.
I remember one young officer that I saw
in a Paris hotel. He had been out in the
Vosges Mountains with a company of
SILHOUETTES OF SUFFERING 141
wood-choppers for six months. He had
come in for his first leave. His leave lasted
eight days. Instead of going to the theatres
he sat around in our officers' hotel lobby
and watched the women walking about,
the Y. M. C. A. girls who were the hostesses
there. They noticed him as he sat there all
evening, hardly moving. After several nights
one of the men secretaries went up to him
and said: "Why don't you go over and
talk with them? They would be glad to
talk with you."
"Oh," he said, "I never was much for
women at home, except my wife and kid.
I never did know how to talk to women.
Especially now, for I've been up in the
woods for six months. Just let me sit
here and look at 'em. That's enough for
me. Just let me sit here and look at
'em!"
And that was the way he spent his leave,
just loafing around in that hotel lobby
watching the women at their work.
142 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
"This has been the loneliest day of my
life," a major said to me on Mother Day
in a great port of entry.
"Why, major?"
Then he reached into his pocket and
pulled out the picture of a seven-year-old
boy and that boy's mother.
Suffering ? Yes, of course I have seen boys
wounded, as I have said, but for real down-
right suffering, loneliness is worst, and it
lies entirely within the province of the
folks at home to alleviate this suffering. I
have seen a boy morose and surly, dis-
couraged and grouchy in the morning. He
didn't know what was the matter with
himself. In the afternoon I have seen him
laughing and yelling like a wild animal at
play, happy as a lark.
What was the difference ? He had gotten
a letter.
Then there is the Silhouette of Physical
Suffering. Hundreds of these sombre sil-
houettes stand out against a lurid back-
What was the difference? He had gotten a letter.
SILHOUETTES OF SUFFERING 143
ground of fire and blood. One only I quote
because it has a fringe of hope.
The boy's back was broken. It had been
broken by a shell concussion. There were no
visible signs of a wound on his body any-
where, the doctors told me in the hospital.
He did not know it as yet. He thought it
was his leg that was hurt. They asked me to
tell him, as gently as I could. It was a
hard task to give a man.
He was lying on a raised bed so that,
when I went up to it, it came up to my
neck almost, and when I talked with the
lad I could look straight into his eyes.
Those eyes I shall never forget, they were
so fearless, so brave, and yet so full of
weariness and suffering.
I took his hand and said: "Boy, I am a
preacher." For once I didn't say anything
about being a secretary. I just told him I
was a preacher.
He said: "I am so glad you have come.
I just wanted to see a real, honest-to-
144 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
goodness preacher." He forced a smile to
accompany this sentence.
"Well, I'm all of that, and proud of it,"
I replied, smiling back into his brave
eyes.
"I'm so tired. I try to be brave, but I've
been lying here for three months now, and
my leg doesn't seem to get any better. It
pains all the time until I think I'll die with
the agony of it. I never sleep only when
they give me something. But I try hard to
be brave."
"You are brave!" I said to him. "They
all tell me that, the doctors and nurses."
"They are so good to me," he said in
low tones so that I had to bend to hear
them. "But my leg; they don't seem to be
able to help me."
Then I told him as gently as I could that
it was not his leg, that it was his back, and
that he would likely not get well. Then I
tried to tell him of the room in his Father's
house that was ready for him when he was
SILHOUETTES OF SUFFERING 145
ready to accept it, and of what a glorious
welcome there was there.
He reached out for my hand in the semi-
darkness of that evening. I can feel his
hand-clasp yet. I didn't know what to say,
but a phrase that had lingered in my mind
from an old story came to the rescue.
"Don't you want the Christ to help you
bear your pain ? " I asked him.
"That is just what I do want," he said
simply. "That was why I was so glad you
came — an honest-to-goodness preacher,"
and he smiled again, so bravely, in spite of
his suffering, and in spite of the news that
I had just broken to him.
Then we prayed. I stood beside his bed
holding his hand and praying. The room
was full of other wounded boys, but in the
twilight I doubt if a lad there knew what
we were doing. I spoke low, just so he could
hear, and the Master knew what was in
my heart without hearing.
When I was through I felt a pressure of
146 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
his hand, and he said: "Now I feel stronger.
He is helping me bear my burden. Thank
you for coming, and" — then he paused
for words "and — thank you for bringing
Him."
Yes, there is suffering in France, suffer-
ing among our soldiers, too, but suffering
that is glorified by courage.
SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
night down near the front lines
as we drove the great truck slowly
over the icy roads, on the top of a little
knoll stood a lone sentinel against a back-
ground of snow, and that is a silhouette
that I shall never forget.
Another night there was a beautiful after-
glow, and being a lover of the beautiful as
well as a driver of a truck, I was lost in the
wonder of the crimson flush against the
western hills.
"Makes me homesick," said the big man
beside me, whose home is in the West.
"Looks for all the world like one of our
Arizona afterglows."
"It is beautiful," I replied, and then we
were both lost in silent appreciation of the
scene before us, when suddenly we were
startled witless.
147
148 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
"Halt!" rang out through the semi-
darkness. "Who goes there?"
"Y. M. C. A." we shot back as quick as
lightning, for we had learned that it doesn't
pay to waste time in answering a sentinel's
challenge down within sound of the Ger-
man guns.
"Pass on, friends," was the grinning
reply. That rascal of a sentry had caught
us unawares, lost in the afterglow, and he
was tickled over having startled us into
astonishment.
But even though he did give us a scare,
I am sure that the picture of him standing
there in the middle of that French road,
with his gun raised against the afterglow,
will be one of the outstanding silhouettes
of the memories of France.
Then there was the old Scotch dominie
down at Chateau-Thierry, with the marines.
The boys called him "Doc," and loved him,
for he had been with them for eight months.
One night, in the midst of the hottest
SOLDIER SILHOUETTES 149
fighting in June, the old secretary thought
he would go out in the night and see how
the boys were getting along. He walked
cautiously along the edge of the woods
when suddenly the word "Halt!" shot
out in low but distinct tones.
"Who goes there?"
"A friend," the secretary replied.
"Oh, it's you, is it, Doc? Gee, I'm glad
to see you ! This is a darned weird place
to-night. Every time the wind blows I
think it's a Boche."
There was a slight noise out in No Man's
Land. "What's that, Doc, a Boche?"
"I think not."
"You can't tell, Doc; they're everywhere.
If I've seen one, I've seen ten thousand
to-night on this watch."
That old gray-haired secretary will never
forget that night when he walked among
the men in the trenches with his little gifts
and his word of cheer, that memorable
night before the Americans made them-
150 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
selves heroes forever in the Bois du Belleau.
He will never forget the sound of that boy
sentry's voice when he said, "Gee, Doc,
I'm glad it's you"; nor will he forget the
looks of the boy as he stood there in the
darkness, the guardian of America's hopes
and homes, nor will he forget the firm, warm
clasp of the lad's hands as he walked away
to greet others of his comrades.
These are Soldier Silhouettes that re-
main vivid until time dies, until the "springs
of the seas run dust," as Markham says:
"Forget it not 'til the crowns are crumbled;
'Til the swords of the Kings are rent with rust;
Forget it not 'til the hills lie humbled;
And the springs of the seas run dust."
No, we do not forget scenes and moments
like these in our lives.
Then there is the silhouette of the pro-
file of the captain of a certain American
machine-gun company who, in March,
marched with his men into the Somme line.
SOLDIER SILHOUETTES 151
He was an old football-player back in the
States, and we were having a last dinner
together in Paris, a group of college men.
After dinner, when we had finished dis-
cussing the dangers of the coming weeks,
and he had told us that his major had said
to him, "If fifteen per cent of us come out
alive, I shall be glad," and after we had
drifted back to the old college days, and
home and babies, and after he had shown
us a picture of his wife and his kiddies, it
became strangely quiet in the room, and
suddenly he turned his face from us, with
just the profile showing against the light
of the window, and exclaimed: "My God,
fellows, for a half-hour you have made me
forget that there is a war, and I have been
back on the old campus again playing foot-
ball, and back with my babies."
Then his jaw set, and I shall never forget
the profile of his face as that set look came
back and once again he became the captain
of a machine-gun company.
152 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
Then there was the lone church service
that my friend Clarke held one evening at
a crossroads of France. He had held seven
services that Sunday, one in a machine-
gun company's dugout, with six men; an-
other with a group of a dozen men in a
front-line trench; another with several offi-
cers in an officers' dugout; another with a
battery outfit who were "On Call," ex-
pecting orders to send over a few shells;
another with several men out in No Man's
Land, on the sunny side of an old upturned
mass of tree roots; one in a listening-post,
and finally this service with a lone sentry
at a crossroads.
"But how did you do it?" I asked.
"I just saw him there," Clarke replied,
"and he looked lonely, and I walked up
and said: 'How'd you like to have me read
a little out of the Book ? '
"'Fine! 'he said.
"Then I prayed with him, standing there
at the crossroads, and I asked him if he
SOLDIER SILHOUETTES 153
didn't want to pray. He was a church boy
back home, and he prayed as fine a prayer
as ever I heard. Then we sang a hymn to-
gether. It was * Jesus, Lover of My Soul/
and neither of us can sing much, but as I
look back on it, it was the sweetest music
that I ever had a part in making. The only
thing I didn't do was take up a collection.
Outside of that, it was just as if we had
gone through a regular church service at
home. I even preached a little to him. No,
not just preached, but talked to him about
the Master."
"Did you even go so far with your lone
one-man congregation as to have a bene-
diction?" I asked him.
"No, I just said what was in my heart
when we were through, 'God bless and
keep you, boy,' and went on."
"I never heard a finer benediction than
that, old man," I replied with feeling.
And the silhouette of that one Y. M. C. A.
secretary holding a religious service with
154 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
a lone sentry of a Sunday evening, bring-
ing back to the lad's memory sacred
things of home and church and the Christ,
giving him a new hold on the bigger, better
things, bringing the Christ out to him there
on that road, that silhouette is mine to
keep forever close to my heart. I shall
see that and shall smile in my soul over
it when eternity calls, and shall thank
God for its sweetening influence in my
life.
And so this comfort may come to the
mothers and fathers of America, that
through the various agencies of the Ameri-
can army, through General Pershing's in-
tense interest in righteous things, through
that Lincoln-like Christian leader of the
chaplains, Bishop Brent, through the
Y. M. C. A., and the Salvation Army, and
the Knights of Columbus, your boy has
his chance, whatever creed, or race, or
church, to worship his God as he wishes;
and not one misses this opportunity, even
SOLDIER SILHOUETTES 155
the lonely sentinel on the road. And the
glorious thing about it is that boys who
never before thought of going to church at
home, crowd the huts on Sundays and for
the good-night prayers on week-days.
Just before the battle of Chateau-Thierry,
"Doc," of whom I have spoken in this
chapter before, said: "Boys, do you want
a communion service?"
"Yes," they shouted.
Knowing that there were Catholics and
Jews and Protestants and non-believers
there, he said: "Now, anybody who doesn't
want to take communion may leave."
Not a single man left. Out of one hundred
or more men only two did not kneel to
take of the sacred bread and wine. Two
Jews knelt with the others, several Roman
Catholics, and men of all Protestant de-
nominations. Half of them were dead before
another sunrise came around, but they had
had their service.
Every man has his opportunity to wor-
156 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
ship God in his own way and as nearly as
possible at his own altars in France. There
was the story of "The Rosary."
It was Hospital Hut Number , and
half a thousand boys from the front,
wounded in every conceivable way, were
sitting there in the hut in a Sunday-evening
service. Many of them had crutches be-
side them; others canes. Some of them had
their heads bandaged; others of them car-
ried their arms in slings. Some of them had
lost legs, and some of them had no arms
left. Their eager faces were lighted with a
strange light, such as is not seen on land
or sea, and on most of those faces, un-
ashamed, ran over pale cheeks the tears
of homesickness as the young corporal
whom I had taken with me from another
town sang "The Rosary." I have never
heard it sung with more tenderness, nor
have I heard it sung in more beautiful
voice. That young lad was singing his
heart out to those other boys. He had not
SOLDIER SILHOUETTES 157
been up front himself as yet, for he was in
a base port attending to his duties, which
were just as important as those up front,
but it was hard for him to see it that way.
So he loved and respected these other lads
who had, to his way of thinking, been
more fortunate than he, because they had
seen actual fighting. He respected them
because of their wounds, and he wanted to
help them. So he lifted that rich, sweet,
sympathetic tenor voice until the great
hut rang with the old, old song, and hearts
were melted everywhere. I saw, back in the
audience, a group of nurses with bowed
heads. They knew what the rosary meant
to those who suffer and die in the Catholic
faith. They, too, had memories of that
beautiful song. A group of officers, includ-
ing a major, all wounded, listened with
heads bowed.
As I sat on the crude stage and saw the
effects of his magical voice on this crowd
I got to thinking of what this war is mean-
158 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
ing to that fine understanding of those
who count the beads of the rosary and
those who do not. I had seen so many
examples of fine fraternal fellowship be-
tween Catholic and Protestant that I felt
that I ought to put it down in some per-
manent form.
There is a true story of one of our
Y. M. C. A. secretaries who was called to
the bedside of a dying Catholic boy. There
was no priest available, and the boy wanted
a rosary so badly. In his half-delirium he
begged for a rosary. This young Protestant
Y. M. C. A. secretary started out for a
French village, five miles away, on foot, to
try to find a rosary for this sick Catholic
boy, and after several hours' search he
found a peasant woman whom he made
understand the emergency of the situation,
and he got the loan of the rosary and took
it back through five miles of mud to the
bedside of that Catholic lad, and comforted
him with the feel of it in his fevered hands
SOLDIER SILHOUETTES 159
and the Lope of it in his fevered soul. When
I heard this story it stirred me to the very
fountain depths, but I have seen so much
of this fine spirit of service in the Y. M. C. A.
since then that I have come to know that
as far as the Y. M. C. A. is concerned all
barriers of church narrowness are entirely
swept away.
I have had most delightful comradeship
since I have been in France in one great
area as religious director with two Knights
of Columbus secretaries and one father —
Chaplain Davis — all of whom say freely
and eagerly: "We have never had anything
but the finest spirit of co-operation and
friendship from the Y. M. C. A."
"Why," added Chaplain Davis, a Catho-
lic priest, "why, the first Sunday I was
here, when I had no place to take my boys
for mass, a secretary came to me and
offered me the hut. It has always been that
way."
The story of the French priest who con-
160 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
fessed a dying Catholic boy through a
Y. M. C. A. Protestant secretary inter-
preter, in a Y. M. C. A. hut, has been told
far and wide, but it is only illustrative of
the broadening lines of Catholicism and
the wider fraternal relations of all pro-
fessed Christians.
The marvellous story that my friend, the
French chaplain, tells of being marooned
in a shell-hole at Verdun for several days
with a Catholic priest, and of their discus-
sion of religion and life there under shell-
fire, and the tenderness with which the
Catholic priest kissed the hand of the
Protestant French chaplain when the two
had agreed that, after all, there was one
common God for a common, suffering na-
tion of people, and that this war would
break all church barriers down, and that
out of it would come a new spirit in the
Catholic church, a new brotherhood for
all. That was an impressive indication of
the thing that is sweeping France to-day
SOLDIER SILHOUETTES 161
in church circles, and that will sweep
America after the war.
Then there is that other story of the
Catholic priest who had been in the same
regiment with a French Protestant chap-
lain, each of whom deeply respected the
other because of the unflinching bravery
that each had displayed under intense shell-
fire, and of the great love that each had
seen the other show in two years of con-
stant warfare in the same regiment. Then
came that terrible morning at Verdun, when
the French Protestant chaplain, the friend
of the Catholic priest, had been killed while
trying to bring in a wounded Catholic boy
from No Man's Land. On the day of this
Protestant chaplain's funeral the Catholic
priest stood in God's Acre with bared head,
and spoke as tender and as sincere a
eulogy as ever a man spoke over the grave
of a dear friend, spoke with the tears in
his eyes most of the time. Church lines
were forgotten here. It was a prophetic
162 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
scene, this, where a Catholic priest spoke
at the funeral of a Protestant chaplain.
It was prophetic of that new church brother-
hood that is to come after the war is over.
XI
SKY SILHOUETTES
are the lights, the lights of war.
-*- Sometimes they are just the stars shin-
ing out that makes the wounded soldier out
in No Man's Land look up, in spite of shell-
fire and thunder, in spite of wounds and
death, in spite of loneliness and heartache,
in spite of mud and rain, to exclaim, as
Donald Hankey tells us in a most wonder-
ful chapter of "A Student in Arms": "God !
God everywhere, and underneath are the
everlasting arms ! "
Sometimes the Sky Silhouettes number
among their own just a moonlight night
with a crescent moon sailing quietly and
serenely over the horizon in the east, while
great guns belch fire in the west, a fire
that seems to shame the timid moon itself.
Sometimes they are search-lights cleaving
the sky over a great city like Paris, or along
163
164 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
the front lines, or gleaming from an air-
ship.
Sometimes they are signal-lights flashing
out of the darkness from a patrolling plane
overhead, or a blazing trail of fire as a pa-
trol falls to its death in a battle by night.
Sometimes they are signal-lights flash-
ing from an observation balloon anchored
in the darkness over the trenches to guard
the troops from dangers in the air.
Sometimes they are the flashes, the fleet,
swallow-like flashes, of an enemy plane
caught in the burning, blazing path of a
search-light, and then hounded by it to its
death.
Sometimes they are signals flashed from
the top of a cruiser on the high seas across
the storm-tossed waters to a little destroyer,
which flashes back its answer, and then in
turn flashes a message of light to one of
the convoying planes overhead in the dim
dusk of early evening.
Sometimes these Sky Silhouettes are the
SKY SILHOUETTES 165
range-finders that poise in the air for a
few seconds, guiding the air patrols home,
and sometimes they are just the varied,
interesting, gleaming, flashing "Lights of
War."
o
XII
THE LIGHTS OF WAR
NE'S introduction into the war zone
and into war-zone cities and villages,
and one's visits "down the line" to the
front by night, will always be filled with
the thrill of the unusual because of the
Lights of War. Where lights used to be,
there are no lights now, and where they
were not seen before the war, they are
radiant and rampant now.
The first place that an American trav-
eller notices this absence of lights is on the
boat crossing over the Atlantic. From the
first night out of New York the boats
travel without a single light showing.
Every light inside of the boat is covered
with a heavy black crape, and the port-
holes and windows are so scrupulously and
carefully chained down that the average
166
THE LIGHTS OF WAR 167
open-air fiend from California or elsewhere
feels that he will suffocate before morning
comes, and even in the bitterest of winter
weather I have known some fresh-air fiends
to prefer the deck of the ship, with all of
its bitter winds and cold, to the inside of a
cabin with no windows open. I stood on
the deck of an ocean liner "Somewhere on
the Atlantic* * a few months ago as the
great ship was ploughing its zigzag course
through the black waters, dodging sub-
marines. There was not a star in the sky.
There was not a light on the boat. Abso-
lutely the only lights that one saw was
when he leaned over the railing and saw
the splash of innumerable phosphorescent
organisms breaking against the boat. I
have seen the like of it only once before,
and this was on the Pacific down at Asil-
omar one evening, when the waves were
running fire with phosphorescence. It was
a beautiful sight there and on the Atlantic
too.
168 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
IT WAS MIDNIGHT
On this particular night, as far as one
could see, this brilliant organic light illu-
minated the sea like the hands of my lumi-
nous wrist-watch were made brilliant by
phosphorescence. I noticed this and looked
down at my watch to see what time it was.
It was midnight.
As I looked, my friend, who was stand-
ing beside me on the deck, said: "The last
order is that no wrist-watches that are
luminous may be exposed on the decks at
night. That order came along with the or-
der forbidding smoking on the decks at
night. The Germans can sight the light of
a cigar a long distance through their peri-
scopes."
I smiled to myself, for it was my first
introduction to the romantic part that
lights and the lack o' lights is playing in
this great World War. Then my friend con-
tinued his observations as we stood there
THE LIGHTS OF WAR 169
on the aft deck watching the white waves
break, glorious with phosphorescence. He
said: "What a topsyturvy world it is.
Three years ago if a great ship like this
had dared to cross the Atlantic without a
single light showing, it would have horri-
fied the entire world, and that ship captain
would have been called to trial by every
country that sails the seas. He would have
been adjudged insane. But now every ship
sails the seas with no navigation-lights
showing."
IN WAR COUNTRY
But when one gets his real introduction
into the lights o' war is when he gets into
the war country. It is eight o'clock in a
great French city. This French city has
been known the world over for its brilliant
lights. It has been known for its gayly
lighted boulevards, and indeed this might
apply to one of three or four French cities.
Light was the one scintillating character-
170 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
istic of this great city. The first night that
one finds himself here he feels as though
he were wandering about in a country vil-
lage at home. No arc-lights shine. The win-
dow-lights are all extinguished. The few
lights on the great boulevards are so dimmed
that their luminosity is about that of a
healthy firefly in June back home. One
gropes his way about, feeling ahead of him
and navigating cautiously, even the main
boulevards.
The first time I walked down the streets
of this great city at night I had the same
feeling that I had on the Atlantic. I was
sailing without lights, on an unknown
course, and I felt every minute that I would
bump into some unseen human craft, as
indeed I did, both a feminine craft and a
male craft. I also had the feeling that in
this particular city, in the darkness I
might be submarined by a city human
U-boat, which would slip up behind me.
After having my second trip here I still
THE LIGHTS OF WAR 171
have that feeling as I walk the streets; the
unlighted streets of this city, and especially
the side-streets, by night.
FRENCH CITY DURING RAID
But the one time when you catch the
very heart and soul of the lights o' war is
when you happen to drop into a French
city while the Boches are making a raid
overhead. I have had this experience in
towns and villages and cities. At the signal
of the siren the lights of the entire city
suddenly snuff out, and the city or town
or village is in total darkness. Candles may
be lighted and are lighted, but on the whole
one either walks the dark streets flashing
his electric "Ever Ready," or huddled up
in a subway or in a cellar, or in a hallway
listening to the barrage of defense guns and
to the bombs dropping, watches and listens
and waits in total darkness, and while he
waits he isn't certain half the time whether
the noise he hears is the dropping of Ger-
172 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
man bombs or the beating of his own heart.
Both make entirely too much noise for
peace and comfort.
As one approaches the front-line cities
and towns he learns something more about
the lights o* war. It is dark. He is in a little
town and must go to another town nearer
the front lines. He is standing at the depot
(gare). No lights are visible save here and
there an absolutely necessary red or green
light, which is veiled dimly. His train pulls
silently in. There is not a single light on it
from one end to the other. It creeps in like
a great snake. There is nobody to tell you
whether this is your train or not, but you
take a chance and climb into a compart-
ment which is pitch-dark.
HEARS AMERICAN VOICE
You have a ticket that calls for first-
class military compartment, but you
climbed into the first open door you saw,
and didn't know and didn't care whether
THE LIGHTS OF WAR 173
it was first, second, third, or tenth class
just so you got on your way. Your eyes
soon became accustomed to the darkness
and you discerned two or three forms in
the seat opposite you. You wondered if
they were French, Italians, Belgians, Eng-
lish, Australians, Canadians, Moroccans,
Algerians, or Americans. It was too dark
to see, but suddenly you heard a familiar
voice saying, "Gosh, I wish I was back in
little ole New York," and you made a grab
in the darkness for that lad's hand.
All during your trip no trainman appears.
You are left to your own sweet will at
nights in the war zone when you are on a
train. No stations are announced. You are
supposed to have sense enough to know
where you are going, and to have gumption
enough to get off without either being as-
sisted or told to do so. The assumption, I
suppose, is that anybody who travels in
the war zone knows where he is going.
Personally, I felt like the American phrase,
174 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
<"I don't know where I'm going but I'm
on the way," and I tried to jump off at
two or three towns before I got to my own
destination, but the American soldiers had
been that way before on their way to the
trenches, and wouldn't let me off at the
wrong place. I thought surely that some-
body would come along to take my ticket,
but nobody appeared. I soon found that
night trains "on the line" pay little atten-
tion to such minor matters as tickets, and
I have a pocketful that have never been
taken up. Time after time I have piled into
a train at night, after buying a ticket to
my destination; have journeyed to my
destination, have gone through the depot
and to my hotel without ever seeing a train-
man to take the ticket. I was let severely
alone. And even if a conductor had come
along through the train it would have been
too dark for him to have seen me, and I
am sure I could have dodged him had I
so desired. Maybe that's the reason they
THE LIGHTS OF WAR 175
don't take the tickets up. Anyhow, I have
given you a picture of a great train in the
war zone, winding its way toward the front,
in complete darkness.
FLASH-LIGHTS
Flash-lights have come into their own in
this war. One would as soon think of living
without a flash-light as he would think of
travelling without clothes in Greenland.
It simply cannot be done. In any city, from
Paris to the smallest towns on the front,
one must have his flash-light. The streets of
the cities and towns of France are a hun-
dred times more crooked than those of
Boston. If Boston's streets followed the
cow-paths, the streets of the cities of France
followed cows with the St. Vitus dance.
Around these streets one had to find his
way by night with a flash-light, especially
during an air-raid. One must have a flash,
too, for the houses and hotels when an air-
raid is on, and one must have it when one
176 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
is driving a big truck or an automobile down
along the front lines, for no lights are per-
mitted on any machines, official or other-
wise, after a certain point is reached. One
of the favorite outdoor sports of this
preacher for a month was to lie on his
stomach on the front mud-guard of a big
Fierce-Arrow through the war-zone roads,
bumping over shell-holes, with a little
pocket flash-light playing on the ground,
searching out the shell-holes, and trying to
help the driver keep in the road. It is a
delightful occupation about two o'clock in
the morning, with a blizzard blowing, and
knowing that the big truck is rumbling
along within sight and sound of the German
big guns. Trucks make more noise on such
occasions than a Twentieth Century Lim-
ited. "No lights beyond divisional head-
quarters" was the order, and night after
night we travelled along these roads with
only an occasional flash of the Ever Ready
to guide. And so it is that the flash-light has
THE LIGHTS OF WAR 177
come to its own, and every private soldier,
officer, and citizen in France is equipped
with one. He would be like a swordfish
without its sword if he didn't have it.
LADDER OF LIGHT
Then suddenly you see a strange finger
of light reaching into the sky. Or you may
liken it to a ladder of light climbing the sky.
Or you may liken it to a lance of light
piercing the darkness. Or you may just call
it a good, old-fashioned search-light, which it
is. It is watching for Hun planes, and it plays
all night long from north to south, from
east to west, restlessly, eagerly, quickly,
like a "hound of the heavens" guarding the
earth. First it sweeps the horizon, and then
it suddenly shoots straight up into the
zenith like another sun, and it seems to
flood the very skies. No German plane can
cut through that path of light without
being seen, and one night I had the rare
privilege of seeing a plane caught by the
178 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
search-light on its ever-vigilant patrol. It
was a thrilling sight. One minute later the
anti-aircraft guns were thundering away
and the shrapnel was breaking in tiny
patches around this plane while the search-
lights played on both the plane and the
shrapnel patches of smoke against the sky,
making a wonderful picture. Military writ-
ers say that the enemy planes are more
afraid of these search-lights than of the
guns.
But perhaps the most thrilling sight of
all is that dark night when one sees for the
first time the star-shells along the horizon.
At first you may see them ten miles away
making luminous the earth. Then as you
drive nearer and nearer, that far-off heat-
lightning effect disappears and you can
actually see the curve of the star-shells
as they mount toward the skies over No
Man's Land and fall again as gracefully
as a fountain of water. Sometimes you will
see them for miles along the front, making
One night I had the privilege of seeing a plane caught by
the search-light.
THE LIGHTS OF WAR 179
night day and lighting up the fields and
surrounding hills as though for a great
celebration.
BURSTING BOMBS
The light of bursting shells as they fall,
or of bursting bombs from an aeroplane, is
a short, sharp, quick light like an electric
flash when a wire falls or a flash of sharp
lightning, but the light of the great guns
along the line as they thunder their mis-
siles of death can be seen for miles when a
bombardment is on. One forgets the thun-
der of these belching monsters, and one
forgets the death they carry, in the glory
of the flame of noonday light that they
make in the night.
Then there are the range-finders. These
suddenly shoot up in the night, steady and
clear, and remain for several minutes burn-
ing brightly before they go out. I used to
see these frequently driving home from the
front. They were sent up from the hangars
180 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
to guide the French and American planes
to a safe landing by night.
Then there is the moonlight. Moonlight
nights in towns along the war front are
dreaded, for it invariably means a Boche
raid. Clear moonlight nights with a full
moon are fine for lovers in a country that
is at peace, but it may mean death for
lovers in a country that is at war. But
moonlight nights are beautiful even in war
countries, with dim old cathedrals looming
in the background, and the white villages
of France, a huge chateau here and there
against the hillside or crowning its summit;
and the white roads and white fields of
France swinging by. One forgets there is
war then, until he hears the unmistakable
beat of the Hun plane overhead and sees the
flash of one, two, three, four, five, six, ten,
twelve, fifteen bombs break in a single field
a few hundred yards away, and ths driver
remarks: "I knew we'd have a raid to-
night. It's a great night for the Boche !"
THE LIGHTS OF WAR 181
STARLIGHT AT FRONT
Then there is the starlight on No Man's
Land, for the starlight is a part of the
lights o' war just as are the moonlight and
the star-shells and the little flash-lights
and the range-finders and the bursting
shells and bombs. But there are other more
significant lights o' war.
There is the "Light that Lies in the Sol-
diers' Eyes," of which my friend Lynn
Harold Hough has written so beautifully
and understandingly. Only over here it is
a different light. It is the light of a great
loneliness for home, hidden back of a light
that we see in the eyes of the three soldiers
in the painting "The Spirit of Seventy-
Six." It is there. It is here. One sees it in
the eyes of the lads who have come in out
of the trenches after they have had their
baptism of fire. I have seen them come in
after successfully repulsing a German raid
and I have seen their eyes fairly luminous
182 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
with victory, and that light says, as said
the spirit of France, not only "They shall
not pass," but it says something else. It
says: "We'll go get 'em ! We'll go get 'em !"
That's the light o' war that lies in the
soldiers' eyes back of the light of home. I
verily believe that the two are close akin.
The American lad knows that the sooner
we lick the Hun the sooner he'll get back
home, where he wants to be more than he
wants anything else on earth.
Y. M. C. A.'s LIGHT
Then there's the light in the Y. M. C. A.
hut, and from General Pershing down to
the lowest private the army knows that
this is the warmest, friendliest, most home-
like, most welcome light that shines out
through the darkness of war. It not only
shines literally by night, but it shines by
day. I have seen some huts back of the front
lines lighted by the most brilliant electricity.
Some of it is obtained from local power-
THE LIGHTS OF WAR 183
plants, and some of it is made by the
Y. M. C. A. Then I have seen some huts
up near the lines that were lighted by old-
fashioned oil-lamps. Then I have been in
Y. M. C. A. dugouts and cellars and holes
in the ground, up so close to the* German
lines that they were shelled every day, and
these have been lighted by tallow candles
stuck in a bottle or in their own melted
grease. I have seen huts back of the lines
away from danger of air-raids that could
have their windows wide open, and I have
seen the light pouring in a flood out of
these windows, a constant invitation to
thousands of American boys. And again I
have seen our huts in places so near the
lines that the secretaries had not only tc
use candles but to screen their windows
with a double layer of black cloth, so that
not a single ray of that tiny candle might
throw its beams to the watching German
on the hill beyond. I never knew before
what Shakespeare meant when he said:
184 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
"How far a tiny candle throws its beams."
But whether it has been in the more pro-
tected huts back of the lines or in the dan-
gerous huts close to the lines, the lights in
the huts are usually the only lights availa-
ble for the boys, and to these lights they
flock every night. It is a Rembrandt pic-
ture that they make in the dim light of
the candles sitting around the tables writ-
ing letters by candle-light. It is their one
warm, bright spot, for a great stove nearly
always blazes away in the Y. M. C. A. hut,
and it is the only warmth the lad knows.
Few of the billets or tents in France boast
of a stove.
Two things I shall never forget. One was
the sight of a Y. M. C. A. hut that I saw
in a town far back of the trenches. It was
in the town where General Pershing's head-
quarters are located. On the very tip of
the hill above me was the hut. Its every
window was a blaze of light. It was the
one dominating, scintillating building of
THE LIGHTS OF WAR 185
the town, a big double hut. When I climbed
the hill to this hut I found it crowded to
its limits with men from everywhere. The
rest of the town was dark and there was
little life, but here was the pulse of social
life and comradeship, and here was the one
blaze and glory of light.
The other sight that I shall not forget
was up within a few hundred yards of the
German lines. It was night. We were re-
turning from our furtherest hut "down the
line." We met a crowd of American sol-
diers tramping through the snow and mud
and cold. They were shivering even as they
walked. We stopped the machine and gave
them a lift. I asked one of the lads where
he was going. He said: "Down to the *Y*
hut in ." I said : " WTiere is your camp ? "
He replied: "Up at - -." I said: "Why,
boy, that's four miles away from the hut."
"We don't care. We walk it every night.
It's the only warm place in reach and the
only place where we can be where there are
186 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
lights at night and where we can get to
see the fellows and write a letter. We stay
there for an hour or two and tramp back
through this (censored) mud to our
billets."
And of all the lights o* war one must
know that the lights of the Y. M. C. A.
huts cast their beams not only into the
hearts of these lads but across the world,
and sometimes I think across the eternities,
for in these huts innumerable lads are see-
ing the light that never was on land or sea,
and are finding the light that lights the
way to Home. And these are the lights o*
war.
XIII
SILHOUETTES OF SUNSHINE
^ INHERE is laughter and song and sun-
••• shine among our boys in France. Let
every mother and father be sure of that.
Your boys are always lonely for home and
for you, but they are not depressed, and
they are there to stay until the job is done.
There are times of unutterable loneliness,
but usually they are a buoyant, happy,
human crowd of American boys.
Those of us who have lived with them,
slept with them, eaten with them, come
back with no sense of gloom or depression.
I say to you that the most buoyant, happy,
hopeful, confident crowd of men in the
wide world is the American army in France.
If you could see them back of the lines,
even within sound of the guns, playing a
game of ball; if you could see them putting
on a minstrel show in a Y. M. C. A. hotel
187
188 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
in Paris; if you could see a team of white
boys playing a team of negro boys; if you
could see a whole regiment go in swimming;
if you could see them in a track meet, you
would know that, in spite of war, they are
living normal lives, with just about the
same proportion of sunshine and sorrow
as they find at home, with the sunshine
dominant.
Some Silhouettes of Sunshine gleam
against the background of war like scintil-
lating diamonds and
"Send a thrill of laughter through the framework
of your heart;
And warm your inner being 'til the tear drops
want to start."
There was that watch-trading incident
on the Toul line.
The Americans had only been there a
week, but it hadn't taken them long to
get acquainted with the French soldiers.
About all the two watch-trading Americans
SILHOUETTES OF SUNSHINE 189
knew of French was "Oui ! Oui !" and they
used this every minute.
The American soldiers had a four-dollar
Ingersoll watch, and this illuminated time-
piece had caught the eye of the French sol-
dier. He, in turn, had an expensive, jew-
elled, Swiss-movement pocket-watch. The
American knew its value and wanted it.
They stood and argued. Several times
during the interesting transaction the Amer-
ican shrugged his shoulders and walked
away as if to say: "Oh, I don't want your
old watch. It isn't worth anything."
Then they would get together again,
and the gesticulating would begin all over;
the machine-gun staccato of "Oui Oui's"
would rattle again, and the argument
would continue, without either one of the
contracting parties knowing a word of the.
other's language.
At last I saw the American soldier un-
strap his Ingersoll and hand it over to the
Frenchman, who, in turn, pulled out the
190 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
good Swiss-movement watch, and both
parties to the transaction went off happy,
for each had gotten what he wanted.
One of the funniest things that happened
in France while I was there was told me
by a wounded boy one Sunday afternoon
back of the Notre Dame cathedral. He was
invalided from the Chateau-Thierry scrap
in which the American marines had played
such a heroic part. He was a member of
the marines, and was slightly wounded.
He saw that I was a secretary, and thought
to play a good joke on me. He pulled out
of his breast-pocket a small black thing
that looked and was bound just like a
Bible. Its corner was dented, and it was
plain to be seen that a bullet had hit it,
and that that book had stopped its death-
dealing course.
I should have been warned by a gleam
that I saw in his eyes, but was not. I said:
"So you see that it's a good thing to be
carrying a Bible around in your pocket?"
SILHOUETTES OF SUNSHINE 191
"Yes, that saved my life last week," he
said impressively. Then he showed me the
hole in his blouse where it had hit. The
hole was still torn and ragged. In the mean-
time I was opening what I thought was his
Bible.
It was a deck of cards.
I can hear that fine American lad's
laughter yet. It rang like the bells of the
old cathedral itself, in the shadow of which
we stood. His laughter startled the group
of old men playing checkers on a park
bench into forgetting their game and join-
ing in the fun. Everybody stopped to see
what the fun was about. That lad had a
good one on the secretary, and he was en-
joying it as much as the secretary himself.
Then he said: "Now I'll tell you a good
story to make up for fooling you."
"You had better," I said with a sheepish
grin.
Then he began:
"There was a fellow named Rosenbaum
SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
brought in with me last week to the Paris
hospital, wounded in three places. They
put me beside him and he told me his story.
"It was at Belleau Wood and the
Americans were plunging through to the
other side driving the Boche before them.
This Jewish boy is from New York City,
and one of the favorites of the whole ma-
rine outfit. He had gotten separated from
his friends. Suddenly he was confronted
by a German captain with a belching
automatic revolver. The Hun got him in
the shoulder with the first shot. Then the
American made a lunge with his bayonet,
and ran the captain through the neck, but
not before the captain shot him twice
through the left leg. The two fell together.
When the boy from New York came to
consciousness he reached out and there
was the dead German officer lying beside
him.
"The boy took off the captain's helmet
first, and pulled it over to himself. Then
SILHOUETTES OF SUNSHINE 193
he took his revolver and his cartridge-belt
and piled them all in a little pile. Then he
took off his shoes and his trousers and
every stitch of clothes that the officer had
on, and painfully strapped them around
himself under his own blouse. After he had
done this he strapped the officer's belt on
himself. When the stretcher-bearers got to
him and had taken him to a first-aid and
the nurses took his clothes off, they found
the officer's outfit.
"Say, boy, are you a walking pawn-
shop?' the good-natured doctor said, and
proceeded to take the souvenirs away.
"This was the military procedure, but
the New York boy cried and said: TU die
on your hands if you take them away.'
"He was a serious case, and so they
humored him and let him keep his sou-
venirs, and when I saw them take him out
to a base hospital this morning, he still
had them strapped to him, with a grin on
his face like a darky eating watermelon."
194 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
"What did you say his name was?" I
asked.
"Rosenbaum," the boy replied. "Rosen-
baum from New York."
"Say, if they'd only recruit a regiment
like that from America, we'd send the
whole German army back to Berlin naked,"
added another soldier who was standing
near.
Then we all had another good laugh,'
which in its turn disturbed the old men
playing checkers on the bench under the
trees back of Notre Dame. But the soldier
who told me the story added thoughtfully
a truth that every one in France knows.
"At that, I'm tellin* you, boy, there
aren't any braver soldiers in the American
army than them Jewish boys from New
York. I got 'o hand it to them."
"Yes, we all do," I replied.
This good-natured raillery goes on all
over the army, for it is a cosmopolitan
crowd, such as never before wore the uni-
SILHOUETTES OF SUNSHINE 195
form of the United States, and each group,
the negro group, the Italian group, the
Jewish group, the Slav group, the Western
group, the Southern group, the Eastern
group, all have their little fun at the ex-
pense of the others, and out of it all comes
much sunshine and laughter, and no bit-
terness.
The Jewish boy loves to repeat a good
joke on his own kind as well as the others.
I myself saw the letter that a Jewish boy
was writing to his uncle in New York,
eulogizing the Y. M. C. A. He was not an
educated lad, but he was a wonderfully
sincere boy, and he pleaded his cause well.
He had been treated so well by the "Y"
that he wanted his uncle to give all his
spare cash to that great organization.
This is the letter:
"DEAR UNCLE:
"This here Y. M. C. A. is the goods.
They give you chocolate when you're goin'
196 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
into the trenches and they gives you choc-
olate 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 Colurnbuses; 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 Sun-
shine. 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
SILHOUETTES OF SUNSHINE 197
Gothas had played havoc with two blocks
of buildings on a certain Paris street be-
cause 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 Colum-
bus 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;
198 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
of how just after they had walked along
a certain street the Big Bertha had dropped
a shell 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 hor-
rible 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 hav-
SILHOUETTES OF SUNSHINE 199
ing 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 Niag-
ara.
When I got close enough to hear, he was
at his most climactic and last period of elo-
quence. 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 dis-
appeared, 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
200 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
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 any-
thing he thinks it wants to know about the
"horrible details" of war in France, and
facts do not bafBe his inventive genius.
SILHOUETTES OF SUNSHINE 201
One characteristic of the American sol-
dier 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
202 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
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 so-
ber but hilarious American soldiers march-
ing down the middle of the boulevard, arm
in arm, singing "Sweet Adelaide" at the top
of their voices, while the bombs were drop-
ping all over Paris, and a continuous bar-
rage from the anti-aircraft guns was can-
nonading 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 passed me, "C'est un abri, mon-
The air-raid had not dampened her sense of humor.
SILHOUETTES OF SUNSHINE 203
sieur?" looking up. The air-raid had not
dampened her sense of humor even if it
had destroyed her trade for that night.
Another story illustrative 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 dis-
couraged? 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 hus-
band 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
204 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
i-.
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 bloody 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 sub-
marines were plying in American waters
near New York, did it produce consterna-
tion ? 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 up-
roariously; 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 nobody in the offices, to
throw a few shells into one of those New
York skyscrapers."
SILHOUETTES OF SUNSHINE 205
"I'll say so ! I'll say so !" was the laugh-
ing 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 sunshine-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 fif-
teen 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 com-
motion.
The next morning the fellow who struck
the blow was summoned before the captain
of the transport.
"See here, my man, you are already sen-
tenced 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."
206 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
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 dis-
agrees 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 SUNSHINE 207
Silhouettes of Sunshine ? 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 shine, 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 base-
ball 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, sing-
ing, 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
208 SOLDIER SILHOUETTES
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 Ger-
mans. You stevedores are always com-
plaining 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, dread-
ing 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
SILHOUETTES OF SUNSHINE 209
to their chins, when the captain shouted
"As you were !" and such a hilarious, shout-
ing, laughing, splashing, jumping, yelling,
fun-filled hour as followed the world never
saw. The gleaming of white teeth, the flash-
ing 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 sol-
dier 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 effer-
vescent spirit of sunshine and laughter his
morale is the best morale that any army in
the history of the world has ever shown.
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