Part 7

Coming out from under the trestle, I saw, sleeping under the high embankment of the railway, a greenish canal. Dug in the side of the opposite bank, that slanted upward forty feet from the water, I saw a hole shaped like a door, and as I looked, an officer darted forth and, scrambling up over the slippery clay, disappeared in a scraggle of bushes. I saw the mud-spattered carriages of two German field pieces, their dull barrels lying back between the wheels and serenely pointing into the blue and gray mottled sky.

Leaving the road, we sank shin deep into a yellow ooze, and standing on some planks about the yards behind the guns, we waited. The boyish-looking artillerymen, rigid gray-green figures, so statuesque that something in the mud must have turned them to stone, they seemed waiting too. And then, from the direction of the hole in the bank, I heard:

"_Links! Ein viertal tiefer!_"

And the statues by the guns became alive; they darted this way and that. They reminded me of sprinters leaving the mark. One leaped to the sights. "_Links! Ein viertal tiefer!_" And as the man on the bank bellowed again, the soldiers at the sights began tugging madly on something I could not see; and I knew that the range receiving telephones must be in that cave in the bank, for it dawned upon me now what that shouting meant: "Left! A quarter deeper." Sight the gun to the left, advancing the range a quarter--some scale on the gun obviously--and they would get the French! I glanced towards the shouter; he was disappearing into the hole in the bank.

I saw another of the boyish artillerymen bend down over one of the brown straw baskets that stood in neat little piles and lift from it a shell, evidently heavy, for while stripping off a waterproofed cover, he rested the projectile on his knee. As he darted towards the opened muzzle, the waterproof cover fell in the mud, but instantly the soldier who had just lain the brown shell basket upon a pile of empties, picked up the cover and, neatly folding it, saved that too. And I saw a pile of discharged shell cases; copper was too valuable these days to leave in the mud. And as I saw them load and prepare to fire, each man doing his task with the speed and deftness of a whirling gear, I thought of it as one part of the war machine in which individuality was utterly lost in the gun; but that was before I went into the hole in the canal bank.

And then I saw that all the soldiers were holding their hands on their ears; and I was quick to put mine there too. But even then, as the gun discharged, I could feel my ear drums trembling as though they would break--the long red flash, the roar, the frightened recoil of the barrel, the dark puff of quick dispelling smoke, the air flying with black specks, and then a sound like a gigantic coil of wire being whirled through the air and a 7.7 centimeter shell was whistling towards the French line.

As swiftly as they had loaded and fired, the youthful artillerymen withdrew the shell and when one of them stood patting the copper jacket of a new projective and glancing towards the edge of the bank, as if waiting for the man who cried "_Links, ein viertal tiefer!_" to appear, I knew that they were firing shrapnel. They must wait for the range before setting the tiny indicator which travels with the projectile through the air. And as I waited, marveling at the detailed accuracy for shooting at an enemy who must be nearly two miles away, the other gun in the battery went off with a roar, and, while my ears throbbed madly, I watched the village hidden among the dense trees about a quarter of a mile away, for an enemy's shrapnel was spreading its white clouds there. And just above those trees there appeared another white speck, two more and the sky was ringed with curling smoke; then two heavy booms and tatters of black smoke whirled from the trees. The French had opened fire on the village. As I waded through the mud to go down into the bombproof, it struck me uneasily that our officers glanced at each other.

I was slipping down the bank as the "Links ein viertal tiefer" man rushed from the bombproof, bellowing something to the gun crews. Then we climbed down through the hole of a door into darkness. The first thing I saw by flashing on an electric lamp was a dirt wall, a little artificial Christmas tree that stood in a niche in the walls; beside it a half loaf of black bread, a bottle of wine and a picture of the Emperor. And then the man who lived there nodded to me.

He was sitting at a rough board table. He looked as absurdly young as the men under his command. I saw from his shoulder straps that he was an Unter-Lieutenant, and, even as I looked, his features seemed to grow grave with something he must be hearing through the telephone, which was strapped to his head. The stub of a candle guttered on the table and only his face seemed lighted; everything else faded away into shadowy silhouetting darkness. I saw him begin to race his pencil across a little pad and calling the orderly who, standing back in the darkness, I had not seen, he sent him scurrying away. The telephone buzzed. He called into it, lighting as he did a cigarette; from the blackened stubs strewn on the table, it was evident that he smoked constantly. He began scribbling again. I saw that he was looking at me nervously. I was thinking how this little room with the bread, wine, and Christmas tree, and the Emperor's picture, was the very organism of the battery and that this good-looking, nervous young lieutenant was directing it all, when I saw the orderly hurrying in. Another officer hurried after him. I noticed that the Lieutenant at the table looked relieved.

"You gentlemen will have to go now," said the officer, whom I saw was an artillery captain. "The French have opened the village with heavy _grenaten_ and two just burst four hundred yards from here."

"What was that lieutenant so excited about?" I asked, as we left the bombproof.

"Why, his observer just telephoned that the French and their aeroplanes were ascending."

Even as I climbed up the canal bank, I saw the young artillerymen reluctantly covering their guns with branches, until, through a distant field glass, they would seem to be bushes. Their battery was "strategically silenced." I saw the under officers scampering down into the bombproof and their guns transformed into big gray leafless bushes, the boyish soldiers ran into hiding behind the blackened brick wall of a shelled house. Boo-oom! Boo-oom! Over in the village the smoke was pouring from a burning house and above the treetops the shrapnel spread their fleecy clouds.

In the next field I saw a patch of blackened smoke; dirt flew.

"Run!" shouted the Bavarian Captain, who had been in America. "Run like hell."

And as we tore pell mell past the ruined house, the artillerymen grinned and waved their hands.

"_Gute Reise!_" one of them yelled.

Pleasant journey!

VI

A NIGHT BEFORE YPRES

The following are expanded pages of the diary that I kept from five o'clock in the evening of January 10th, 1915, to seven o'clock the next morning.

5 P. M.: The motor has stopped, but I wonder why. In Houthem the Bavarian captain told us that we were going to Brigade Headquarters. I can see though only a dirty brick farmhouse; its door is open and the light of a lamp falling on the yard seems to float in a yellow watery pool. But the other gray-green army car has stopped too, and Hauptmann Kliewer is getting out.

So we pile out on the muddy road just as Hauptmann Kliewer beckons us to come on. Behind us the ruined walls of Houthem are hiding in the thickening dusk, but the grayish steeple where the Germans have--and the French used to have--their observers, persistently shows itself.

Hauptmann Kliewer and the Bavarian captain have left the road and are wading through the mud of the farmhouse yard. I thought we were going to Brigade Headquarters. We splash on after them. Hours before at the battery we sank in mud to the tops of our puttees; now the novelty has worn off. Through an open barn door I see a motor and think of it as being hidden there, an impression which grows, upon noticing that all the windows in the rear of the house are covered with boards, so that no light is visible. But the front door is visible. Yes, but that faces Houthem where the Germans are, and these rear windows face Ypres and the English and the French. About that silent house broods mystery. Hauptmann Kliewer is knocking and the door opens just enough for us to pass in one at a time, and is hurriedly closed. I wonder if a French observer could have seen that narrow bar of light. Probably not, for in the room only candles are burning--three stubby candles on a long kitchen table, around which soldiers are sitting. And something buzzes, and picking up one of the many telephones, a soldier says into it, "_Brigade Hauptquartier._" A moment, and it buzzes again. And once more the monotonous "_Brigade Hauptquartier._" And it dawns upon me that this dirty farmhouse must be the Brigade Headquarters that they told us we would visit. The kitchen now has a new interest.

Bidding us wait, Hauptmann Kliewer and the Bavarian captain have gone with an orderly into another room. The man at the table with the ragged beard and the boyish face has clamped a telephone to his head and is writing rapidly, pausing now and then to assure the man at the other end of the wire that he is getting every word. I wonder where that other man is? Down in a trench, perhaps, or possibly in the regimental headquarters. What is he saying? Have the French attacked? The other man at the table, puffing stolidly at the briar pipe, is clasping a telephone as though ready should the buzzer call. I wonder how he can be fresh and clean shaven, when all the other faces seen in the flickering candle light look weary and unkempt.

"Come!" Hauptmann Kliewer is calling us, so we leave the men around the kitchen table, who, unlike most of the German soldiers we have met, seem too exhausted to talk, and file through a latched door into a room that might have been in a farmhouse somewhere near Monroe, New York. The little black, pillow-seated chairs, the old-fashioned piano with its rack of torn music, the red-cushioned stool with the stuffing coming out, a hideous colored print of Antwerp on the wall, the oil lamp with the buff china shade, it all seems so utterly un-European. And then the door to an adjoining room opens and a slender, nervous-looking man in the fifties, whose impressive shoulder straps indicate an officer of high rank, begins to bow to us all. "General Major Clauss," Hauptmann Kliewer is introducing us, and at once the General Major dominates the room. It is for him to say whether we must go back to Lille, or spend the night at one of his regimental headquarters.

He begins a long conversation with the Hauptmann. General Major Clauss is shaking his head. I guess it's back to Lille.

"Ask him," I beg the Hauptmann, as he begins to give us the substance of what had been said, "if they cannot let us go to the firing line, if they'll let us stay here until morning."

With a smile, Hauptmann Kliewer is telling the General Major our wishes, but he too smiles, and spreads out his hands--the right one is wounded--as though it were out of the question.

The little parlor is filling with officers. They are all bowing and smiling in a friendly way. I appeal to one of them, a young chap, handsome in spite of the dueling scar across his chin. "We can do nothing," he says regretfully, in English. The General Major, apparently, is reluctant even to ask one of his regimental commanders to assume the responsibility for us. As if to bid us good-by, the staff is standing at attention. We urge the Hauptmann to telephone. "I shall try," he says, with rare good nature. General Major Clauss has closed the door behind him in his bedroom, and the Hauptmann buttonholes a Major. The Staff officers look at each other in surprise. They believed they were well rid of us. Briefly the Hauptmann is making the point for us. The young officer with the scarred chin puts in a word. The Major seems undecided. A lieutenant says something that I imagine would translate into, "Telephone,--anything to be rid of them," but he regards us with the amazing polite smile.

The Major darts into the kitchen where the telephones are and then, smiling broadly, Hauptmann Kliewer comes in followed by the Major.

"Permission has been granted," he says, "for you to go to the headquarters of the Seventeenth Regiment. You will spend the night there, and be here at seven in the morning, where I shall meet you with the motor."

"Aren't you coming with us, Captain?" somebody asks.

"I'm going to spend the evening in the headquarters of my own regiment in Commines," the Hauptmann explains. "One of the officers here will take you to the Seventeenth's headquarters."

Thanking everybody, we leave the parlor, and the officers smile sententiously. We pass through the dimly lit kitchen where the tired soldiers sit around the table, and cautiously opening that betraying light filled door, we file, one at a time, into the stable yard. It is still dusk, and as we follow our officer towards the narrow road, that meets the one we had taken from Houthem, Kliewer bids us good-by. "Be careful," he calls. His motor drives away, and to my surprise our car follows. "Call back that driver," I say to our officer, "he's made a mistake."

"No, he is right," smiles the officer. "No automobile ever goes up this road. The French would see it. It's an easy walk, only a mile."

We follow him through the mud, finally setting foot on the road, less muddy I notice, than the road from Houthem. We are on our way to the headquarters of the Seventeenth Regiment, The dream of every correspondent in this war is about to be realized. We are on our way to spend the night on the firing line.

5:30. We have been walking ten minutes. We have passed a mounted patrol and an unarmed private, walking fast. The long twilight has grayed, but even far up the road I can still distinguish the posts of the wire fence. We have just passed a lonely, brown frame cottage, the last house between the open fields and a fringe of wood, when the Lieutenant stops short and faces us.

"From now on," says the Lieutenant, with that easy way of authority, "we shall walk at intervals of thirty paces."

I know what that means. Only a few hours before, when approaching a battery, Hauptmann Kliewer told us the same thing. I remember his words: "Altogether we make too plain a mark. We must separate."... How uneasy you feel, walking along this way. Not only are you gauging your own interval of thirty paces, but you are careful to keep an eye on the others, ready to warn them if they draw too close; and they are keeping an eye on you. You expect something to happen. Uneasy, you watch the sky, but no shrapnel is bursting nearby. Ahead somewhere the artillery is booming, but here everything is quiet. This walking along, pacing your distance, restlessly glancing to right and left, and listening, is getting on my nerves. No wonder I can't hear anything. The flaps of that aviator's cap are tight around my ears. Expectantly I unloosen them. And then I hear it, above us, a sound that makes me stop short; a sound as though a giant had sucked in his breath.

Above us a shell is screaming on its way to the French trenches. From beyond the woods the cannonading sounds heavier. Through the trees, where the road bends to the right, a row of roofless houses seems ghostly gray in the dusk. "That's what's left of Hollenbeck," I am saying to Poole; "I heard the Major say we'd pass through it." And then it seems as though the air is being sucked in all around us; it shrills to a multitude of strange whistlings. The fence wire rings; a twig rattles along the dried limbs of a tree and floats down; something spats against a stone and goes ricocheting away. I'm positive we're going to be hit; the air is wild with bullets. The trees are closer. There we'll be safe. Why don't the others hurry, so that we can move faster, too?

And then, right on the road, almost where my heel has just lifted, a bullet strikes. The dirt flies high. Instinctively I lurch forward and fall on one knee. Forgetting his blanket, Poole bends over me. "Did you get it?" he asks. I wonder if I didn't, and look at my foot. "It was close," he says, relieved; "I heard the thing hit right behind you."

"I don't think we're seen," I unconcernedly try to say. "They wouldn't have let us come up here if we were. These must be wild bullets flying above the trenches. They're just beyond the wood, you know."

"Too wild," is Poole's comment, with which I agree. We are climbing a slight hill now, the road turning to the right into Hollenbeck, a silent place of unroofed, shell-battered houses. Here you feel safe for the walls protect you, but over our head the loud whining of the German shells keeps up the sound of war. Passing the last house we come upon two squads of soldiers waiting in its shelter, and as we go on out into the open road, they grin. The dusk is turning to black, and ahead it is hard to tell where the tops of that clump of trees leave off, and the sky begins. I am certain that those trees are our destination, and although the bullets are whistling again, one feels safe.

A few minutes' walking and we have turned into what seems to be a wooded lawn. A hundred feet away the vague shape of a low roofed house marks itself by a thin bar of light, evidently from a closed door. The lawn is muddy, and as, walking in single file, we cross on planks, the liquid ground sloshes beneath our feet. As we approach what seems to be the stable of a farm, those in front walk slower, and even slower descend into the earth. Poole and I follow them down a flight of rough stone steps, and seeing two uprights of stout logs standing as a doorway and, level with my head as I descend, a roof of tree trunks and dirt, I whisper, "Bombproof."

The opening of what seems to be an old kitchen door. A warning to keep your head down, and we go stooping into a room dug in the ground, at the other end of which a genial, gray-haired man, whom you instantly decide is Colonel Meyer of the Seventeenth Infantry, is rising from beside a homemade table spread with military maps, a hospitable smile on his ruddy face.

"Welcome," he is saying in German. "So you got up the road all right?"

A sudden suspicion possesses me, and after introductions are over, I ask: "Colonel, there were too many bullets on that road. Where did they come from? Wild?"

"Wild?" he chuckled. "Why, sir, that road is our line of communication. It is watched and is covered by French sharpshooters. We lose half a dozen men on it every day."

And the officers at Brigade Headquarters smiled.

* * * * *

5:57 P. M. The broad wooden benches against the walls seem to us as comfortable as a cushioned lounge, and repeating, with many a "_glaube mir_"--which the Colonel and his Adjutant are quick to catch on to as the "believe me" of American slang--that wild horses couldn't drag us out on that road again, we take in the details of the room. It is about ten feet from where I sit to the strip of burlap covering the earthen wall behind the opposite bench. I should say that from the shelf, where the Colonel has his personal belongings, down to the other end of the room, which the glow from our big oil table lamp only lights faintly, is about twenty-five feet, enough for men to sleep on the benches along either wall. In the middle squats a red bellied stove, its pipe going up through the roof. The door looks as if it came from a farmhouse kitchen; it is paneled with four little squares of glass, one of them cracked, probably from the concussion of a bursting shell.

Yes, the timbers overhead look strong, intensely safe unless a _grenat_ should burst squarely on top of them. And only by one chance in a thousand could a shrapnel ball fly down through the door. Yes, it seems safe in here; slowly we began to forget about the road. The Colonel excuses himself to study a map that seems to have been done by a stencil, and I cannot help but notice that it has been executed to the most minute detail, even individual trees and bushes being marked. I wonder what the scale is. I have to compel myself to glance elsewhere, for the fascination of the map is strong.

Above the shelf that runs across the end of the room, just so high that the Colonel who is sitting beside me, can reach up and take from it what he wants, stands a large square mirror. It seems also to be doing service as a visiting card tray, for stuck in the frame are five or six cards bearing the names of officers and their regiments. Somebody is taking good care of the Colonel--I imagine he's married--for the shelf is filled with luxuries, boxes of cigars and cigarettes, bottles of liquor, and there's a quart of sparkling Moselle! Strewn in a long row are all varieties of those wonderful food pastes that Germany began to put up so extensively in tubes, since the war--Strassburg gooselivers, anchovies, rum chocolate. Colonel, you're living well down here!

It's queer how you can, in a few minutes, learn the tastes and habits of a man in a place like this. The Colonel is religious. There is a crucifix fastened to the burlap over my head. The Colonel must sleep on this bench. At the ends of his shelf, I see two other crucifixes, and there, standing on the top of a box of cigars, is a colored print, a Station of the Cross. I begin to know the Colonel better than if I had observed him for months in his Bavarian home. As I gaze at him now, bending over the map, that in his preoccupation he has pushed farther across the table, the lamp's yellow glow shows me his face in relief against the shadowed walls. It is a strong face, and kind; the chin is grim and square, but the eyes are big and gentle, grayish though, the color of a fighter. The gray mustache almost hides it, but reveals enough of the full mouth of one who is not ascetic. As for the crucifixes and the picture; they belong to the eyes. A seasoned man, the Colonel.

With a nervous start, that seems incongruous with his broad shoulders, the Colonel looks up. Then, appearing suddenly to remember something, he pushes the map towards me. I see it is a map of his position.

"There," he says, running his finger the length of a broken line in the upper right hand corner, "are the French trenches." "There," and he points to lines paralleling them, "is our position. Here," and his finger travels down the map, to rest on a group of oblongs and squares, "is where we are now. This _unterstand_," and he makes a mark beside the smallest square, "was dug next to the shed where the farmer kept his wagons. This place is known as...." Were I to name this place, it would, upon publication, be cabled to France, and telephoned out to the French artillery positions. "Now," and the Colonel smiles and runs his finger along a thick blue line that makes an angle and then disappears at the lower end of the map, "that is the road by which you came from Houthem, and at this point you were fired upon. Notice the curve that the French trenches make. From the extremity of that trench," and the Colonel indicates an imaginary line sweeping a section of the road, "it is not a thousand meters, easy for a sharpshooter."

"And that," I laugh, and I'm trying to make this gaiety real, "is the point that we don't care about crossing when we return."

"Can we not go back by some other road," Poole suggests, "a longer way, making a detour?"

The Colonel shakes his head with a reluctant smile.