Part 8

I hear then the same buzzing that I heard in the kitchen at Brigade headquarters. And from the top of a varnished box, on the floor where I had not seen it, the Adjutant picks up a telephone. "_Hier ist Siebzehn Bayrischer Regiment_," he calls, and hands the instrument across the table to the Colonel. "_Hier ist Oberst Meyer_," says the Colonel, "_Ja ... Jawohl ... Adieu_." With a chuckle, he turns to us. "That was Hauptmann Kliewer," he explains, "telephoning from Houthem. Somebody must have told him there about the road. He was rather concerned for you, but I assured him that you were about to take dinner."

Feebly we try to protest. But the Colonel insists that we'll have to eat with him, and we all feel guilty and self-conscious. It's just like these Germans to share their black bread and army wurst with us. But this is the firing line; this bombproof is only eight hundred meters from the French trenches, and every scrap of food must count. An electric torch flashes on the wall outside the door; some one is coming down. A black mustached, young Bavarian comes in, and picking up the varnished box, which I now see sprouts with vine-like wires that climb up the wall and out under the roof, he carries the telephone away. The door opens again and another private comes in. Clicking his heels in a salute, he bows low from the waist, and then announces dinner. In bewilderment we look at each other and follow the Colonel up the earthen stairs.

"I always dine," Colonel Meyer seems to be apologizing, "in the farmhouse."

Overhead a stray bullet whistles, and I hear it rattling through the dried tops of the trees.

* * * * *

7:05 P. M. It seems safe, until leaving the shelter of the bar, we see that we have to cross an open space before reaching the farmhouse. I can see, standing outside the door there, the vague form of a soldier. He passes the shaded window, a faint orange square in the shadowy wall, and his bayonet flashes. As we cross this open space the Adjutant is asking us to turn off our electric lamps, for their reflection might attract French observers. So we trust to luck in the darkness and, slipping in mud, dart behind the shelter of the farmhouse. I hear a bullet thudding against the stone wall of the barn.

The door creaks open and we go in. As I gape around, the fragrance of good cooking comes from a coal stove, crammed with tall cylindrical army pots. The room is evidently the kitchen--a typical farmhouse kitchen with a wide fireplace of red bricks and a long mixing table along the wall by the shade-drawn window. Tacked to a slate-colored pantry door is a calendar with the month of October not yet torn off, and on top of the fireplace an old wooden clock that has run down at half past four--was it on the day the Germans came? "Sit down, gentlemen," the Colonel is saying, indicating a round kitchen table, around which six chairs are crowded. On a snow white cloth our places have been set. There are not enough forks to go round so some have soup spoons. I see only three knives, so some of us will have to use our pocket knives. A comfortable yellow light falls from the yellow lamp in the center of the table. We begin to feel as snug as a fireside cat. "Our knives and forks are rather limited," apologizes the Adjutant, who introduces himself as Hauptmann Koller, a tall handsome Bavarian with a scraggy black growth on his chin. "However, there are dishes enough to go around." I begin to have a suspicion that our sympathy has been absurd. Black bread and army wurst never gave out the odors that are coming from those pots on the stoves, and then our surprise is complete when the Colonel offers us a cocktail. Cocktails, and the French trenches eight hundred meters away!

"A German cocktail," smiles the Colonel, as he pours out the white _schnapps_, "not like the kind you have in America. One of my friends had a bottle of them in München--Bronx cocktails," and the Colonel makes a grimace. There are only two cordial glasses, but by passing them around, we succeed in drinking the Colonel's health. As we take our seats at the table I notice that while four of the chairs seem to belong to the kitchen, the other two are richly tapestried. There must be a château near here. The Colonel is sitting in one of them and Dunn in the other. Leave it to Dunn to be lounging in the other tapestried chair. Hauptmann Koller, who is opposite, is hacking off chunks of bread from a round rye loaf. On my other side Reed is looking at the bottle of _schnapps_ and wearing his unextinguishable smile.

A soldier brings a pot from the stove and the Colonel serves us. It is an oxtail stew, canned of course, but smells appetizing. "The Colonel hasn't any left for himself," exclaims Poole; but the Colonel is holding up his hand. "There is plenty," he says, and the soldier brings another steaming pot. Magically, tall, dark liter bottles make their appearance and on the labels I see "_Hacker-Brau_."

"Münchener Beer," cries Reed. "Isn't this amazing?" The Colonel looks at Hauptmann Koller and grins. I think that from their viewpoint they are enjoying it as much as we. Canned boiled beef follows the stew; more of the tall, dark bottles appear. I see a soldier open a green door in the wall at my left and, reaching into what is evidently another room, straighten up with his arms full of beer bottles. "That is our Bierkeller in there," explains Koller. Dunn decides that it is the very place for him to sleep.

"Colonel," says Poole, pointing at the wall behind me, "what did you do, have those windows boarded up so that the light wouldn't be seen?"

Hauptmann Koller is laughing and rubbing his frowsy chin in delight.

"Those are not windows," the Colonel says, with a laugh. "They are shell holes." We press Koller to give us the story: "The Colonel was dictating a report in here one morning. That orderly was writing it," and Koller nods towards the smiling, good-looking private with the Iron Cross, who is writing at the mixing table. "Without warning, for our battery was not in action and there was nothing to draw the French fire, two shrapnels tore through the wall and burst in the room. You can see the holes their balls made in the other walls and the floor--and the Colonel wasn't hit!"

With a wave of his hand the Colonel indicates the last of three cots against the wall. "I was sitting on the edge of that bed," he says, "and the shells passed over the other two beds."

Almost incredulously we gaze at him as if to make sure that he is wounded but doesn't know it.

I am staring now at the walls and ceiling, trying to count the little shrapnel holes. Above the Colonel's head there is an Empire mirror that never hung in any farmhouse, and perched upon it a brass-black, hair-plumed helmet of a French Cuirassier.

"Out in the yard," remarks the Colonel, "there is an unexploded shell, one of the French 'twenty-eights.' It fell there one day and didn't burst. We had one of our ordnance experts up to examine it, but he says it won't explode now. If it did, it would blow up the house."

So we sit here thinking of the silent guest in the yard outside. I forget that there is something more to eat. With the cheese and coffee, the evening concert begins. A German field piece in the woods close by has opened fire. Suddenly the night is roaring with the bursting of shells, and down in the trenches the rifles begin their incessant harsh croaking. The Colonel is looking at the tiny watch dial on his wrist. "The same as last night," he remarks to Hauptmann Koller, adding to us, "The French always open heavy fire at eight."

That's the third German officer I've heard make that statement in as many days. The French always shelled Mouchy at three; they put _grenaten_ in Houthem every evening at six; they concentrated their fire here at eight. Frenchmen, the last people in the world you would suspect of systemization!

"They'll keep it up," continues the Colonel, "until two, and then they'll stop and begin again at five for two hours. We know exactly what to expect from them. They're hammering on us, for we hold the furthest front on this part of the line. I dare not advance any further until my supports come up."

We ask him to tell us something about the fighting here.

"The French attacked on December second," says Colonel Meyer, "more than a month ago. They came in columns of fours, and you can see them now, lying out there between the trenches in columns of fours. They were mowed down, and for a month the fighting has been so heavy that they can't get out to bury their dead. You can see them afterwards when the rockets go up. They make it quite bright."

"How many rockets, Colonel, do you send up in a night?"

"About a hundred generally."

"And how many men on an average are in the trenches?"

The Colonel considers long. "That varies greatly," he says finally. "At some points only 400 men of a regiment are in the trenches, at a time; at others, 800. I have used as high as 1200 for repelling a hard attack."

"Strange things happen, fighting the French," he muses. "The night after they were cut up so, they were ordered to attack again. As soon as it came dark, one of our soldiers heard a Frenchman calling across to him in German. The Frenchman had crawled across from his own trench on his belly. 'Don't shoot,' he told my man. 'Two hundred soldiers and an officer want to surrender.' The soldier kept him covered, and sent for an under officer. They telephoned me from the trenches and I told them to let the Frenchmen come over if they threw down their arms. And two hundred Frenchmen with their officers, did come over. I asked their officer why they had surrendered, and he told me that the order had come to storm our trenches again that night, and that all day his men had been looking out and seeing their comrades lying in the mud in columns of fours, and that they nearly went mad." And the Colonel slowly shakes his head. "I saw them lying there, too. I can understand how it affected them."

As Hauptmann Koller pushes back his chair and goes to the fireplace, I notice that his shoulder straps are covered with meaningless cloth; no sharpshooter will pick him for choice game. And from beside the old wooden clock Koller takes down a box of cigars, piling on it a tin of cigarettes, while with the other hand he picks up a bottle of Anisette. "They're Austrian cigars," he says, "but they're all right." While we are lighting up, he pours out the Anisette. This time we drink Koller's health and then the officers insist upon drinking ours; we return with a toast to Bavaria. Colonel comes back with a standing health to the United States.

"Tell them," he begs, "that we are not barbarians. I have a sister who lives in Wyckoff, New York, and I'm afraid that by reading your newspapers, she thinks that I've become a terrible ogre." Again the Colonel is the easy smiling host.

The door opens; a private comes in and sits by the telephone. He moves it down the mixing table quite close to us. "Is it time for the concert?" asks the Colonel.

Hauptmann Koller nods. "At eight thirty. It's that now."

"_Gut!_" and the Colonel indicates us with a wave of his hand, "Gentlemen, be my guests at our regular evening concert."

We look at each other blankly. The Colonel seems to have a huge joke up his sleeve. He is bustling about the telephone like a man dressing a Christmas tree. He takes up the instrument and holds it to his ear. "Come," he says, beckoning me. I pick up the receiver and almost drop it in my amazement. Somewhere an excellent pianist is playing the _Valkerie_. In a spell, I listen to the music, each note retaining its sweetness over the wire. The music stops; I hear a flutter of handclapping.

"Where is it?" I gasp, coming over to the table.

"That comes from the headquarters in Houthem," explains Koller, while the Colonel nods, smiling, as with a surprise well planned. "That was General Major Clauss at the piano. He was playing under great difficulties."

"The man with the wounded hand!" I exclaim. Poole takes up the 'phone.

"He is playing Tristam," whispers Poole, and outside I hear the growing fury of the shells and the crash of the German field piece close by. The Colonel is telling me how on Christmas Eve they played "_Heilige Nacht_" for them, down in Houthem, and that while he was listening to the music a heavy shell burst down in the trenches, killing eight of his men. But I am not following half of what he says. Everything seems to be in a daze. It is all too incredible. We have finished what seemed to be one of the best savory dinners I have ever eaten. The supply of golden-brown Münchener beer seems to be limitless. We are finishing with coffee, cigarettes, cigars, and a cordial; and now a concert. And outside the sky is hideous with war, and eight hundred meters away are the French. And this is war.

Koller is at the 'phone now. "When General Clauss is through," I tell him, "ask him to play something from Chopin." In a moment Koller nods for me to come over. And I am listening to the opening bars--perhaps my nerves are overstrained--but I hear a noise that sounds like a bullet hitting a wire fence, and the music is still. Snatching up the 'phone the orderly tries in vain for a connection and finally transfers it to another wire. Perhaps, after all, I heard only a normal snapping of the wire. Imagination plays strange tricks in this world of uncanny and violent impressions.

The door opens and an orderly comes in with the mail. There are two letters for the Colonel, and while he is reading them Koller opens a bottle of cognac. The Colonel is stuffing one of the letters inside his coat. His eyes are wet and, not to embarrass him, I watch Hauptmann Koller measuring out the cognac. Probably a letter from the Colonel's wife. The door opens again; the room fills with officers, who click their heels and bow to us. "The relief," whispers Koller.

A thin, gray-mustached man, whose precise speech makes you think of a university professor, comes forward; the Colonel remains on his feet. The room seems to stiffen with military etiquette. The Major is making his report to the Colonel. I catch the words: "They put heavy shells on us, beginning with eleven o'clock last night and lasting until one." What time is it now? Ten thirty-three. Soon the shelling starts. It is a very detailed report and, unfolding his map, the Colonel spreads it on the table and indicates a position. The Major studies it and offers some thoughtful comment. How like those Civil War plays played in New York years ago, in fact identical in situation. The Colonel gives some orders, asks if there are any questions, and to the clicking of heels and polite adieus, the relief officers file out. They are going to the trenches.

The good looking private with the Iron Cross salutes. "Sir, the concert is ready."

What! do they keep it up all night? But the Colonel is getting up, leading us out of the room. We follow him out into the night--and the sky seems faintly luminous with weird light--going along the farmhouse wall until we come to a short flight of steps into the ground. Descending, we are seated in an extremely low-roofed bombproof, in which five soldiers, half in uniform, are sitting around a wooden table. They look like the comic band of the music halls. One has a harmonica, another a flute, another sits before an inverted glass bowl, which he is ready to tap with a bayonet tip and beside him is the guitar man--a wonderfully made guitar, its wires, telephone strings, its box, a case for canned goods, planed thin; and there is a serious-faced drummer. But facing them, blasé and autocratic, is a man with sensitive features and pince nez. He has discarded his uniform for an old black coat, and with a dirty hat pulled down over his eyes, he suggests the Jewish comedian of burlesque. Evidently he is the leader for, raising a bayonet scabbard, counting, "_Ein, zwei, drei_," he brings it down and the concert begins.

You recognize _Puppchen_. Leisurely beating time, sipping a glass of coffee that our orderly with the Iron Cross has filled for him from a pot that simmers on the squat coal stove, the leader is having the time of his life. They play some old German Folk songs, and once the harmonica man is late in starting and receives a boisterous reprimand from the leader. They are singing now, "_Röslein auf der Heide ... Morgen Rot_," and you think how sinister the words are, "leads me to an early death." Red morning! Will it ever be for them? Even here under the earth I can hear the hungry growling of the shells.

Modestly the leader is telling us that the Bavarian musicians are the best in Germany, "therefore our band is the best in the trenches," and the Colonel is beaming on them all. The orderly with the Iron Cross, who, unable to speak a word of English, has been smiling at me all night, urges us to take some more coffee; and it's "Good-by, boys! Good Luck," and we're out into the battle-shaken night.

"Want to have a look at it?" Hauptmann Koller asks me. I nod, yes. Hugging the wall, Koller and I turn the corner of the barn and slowly go down the open space between the buildings, that we had rushed past earlier in the evening, plastering ourselves against the walls. As if that would do us any good! We can hear the French bullets whistling by, and the air is shaking with heavy guns.

"After eleven," remarks Koller, "I fancy the French are at it with big _grenaten_," and as he speaks I see a flash in the trees not two hundred meters away and a field piece discharges with a crash. "Our seven answering them," Koller is pointing towards where a greenish light seems to flash in the sky. "Over there about a mile," he says, "is the Ypres Canal. The Thirty-sixth Division is on the other bank, and as soon as they push back the French, we'll go ahead again," he speaks with a quiet confidence that makes you feel that the advance of his regiment is a matter of course.

"Come down here," he suggests, "and you can see the battle. Don't scorn the shelter of those trees. Keep them between you and the trenches. Go from one tree to the other."

I hear him splash through the mud; he is waving from behind a tree. I plow after him, going so fast that I almost slip and fall. The whistle of a bullet will make you move faster than you ever thought possible. Out of breath we come to the edge of the little grove and look out on the battlefield.

It is all color and noise--unearthly colors, unearthly noises. I stand at the edge of an Inferno. The heavens streak with a sulphurous green, and the earth is scarred with flame. I see the rockets swishing up from the trenches, breaking with the weird light that would reveal any enemy creeping up, and falling in a shower of sparks, like shooting stars. It gives a strange confirmation of an old saying that when a star falls some one dies.

I see the steady, streaming, reddish line of rifle fire and the yellow flash of shells. I hear their fierce, harsh croaking and their deafening boom. I see, in the burst of a rocket, the wet fields glistening with mud; and the night crashes and rolls with awful clamor.

Koller is handing me his binoculars. Through them I can see the Ypres Canal, a monstrous glistening water snake, sleepily drinking the blood of men. It is a green night, a green land, a universe gone mad, for the sky was never meant to shine with those hideous lights. And the rockets spread their fiery trail and spill their hideous glare; and the line of fire brightens and grows dim and brightens again; perhaps as men are falling and others are springing to their places, and I turn my glasses on the glistening fields, and think I can see the columns of fours, the mounds of the dirt, the color of the mud, and I can hear the bullets panging in the mud at our feet. How they must be riddling the bodies of the dead!

"I've had enough," I tell Hauptmann Koller.

We say good night and cross the farmyard. The din of the battle seems to have died down, although the bullets still whistle and rattle among the dried trees. We lie down on the benches in the bombproof, with our clothes on, with the dirty blankets over us. Our night of nights is done.

12 P. M. to 6 A. M. Bits of dirt from the ceiling fall on my face. Hauptmann Koller is snoring.... The guns are rumbling again. Koller snores blissfully on. The cannonading is terrific. Those poor devils down in the trenches.... The cannonading sounds fainter and fainter.... The handsome orderly with the Iron Cross is flashing a lamp on Koller's blanket. "All right," calls Koller, but in a moment he's snoring. Only stray rifles are crackling now. The glowing phosphorescent face of the watch on my wrist shows six o'clock. Morning! Hauptmann Koller is already out of bed.

"Good morning," he says, with a yawn. "The orderly was in a minute ago. Breakfast will be served at six-thirty."

In the trenches it's the hour when they pick up the dead.

VII

IN THE TRENCHES

By the first of October, 1914, every European war map had become a bore. After Von Kluck had conducted what a United States military attaché in Berlin told me was the most masterly retreat in the history of the world, the black fishhook line stopped moving across northern France and fastening its barb in Belgium, it ceased to move. Day after day, as we read the newspapers we saw that the line was the same; perhaps near Dixmude or Mulhausen it changed from time to time, but by November first it was evident that it was there to stay--for a time at least--and war maps became a bore. The reality of that line of ink is not, I assure you.

The next time you read your newspaper, glance again at the map of the West front. Follow the line that begins on the Channel above Calais, turning southeast above Ypres and ending in the passes of the Vosges in Alcasse; and then think of it in this way. On the dunes you can enter a ditch that has been dug across Europe from the English Channel to Mulhausen. You can walk about three hundred miles under ground, eat three meals a day, and sleep on officers' cots without once having to expose yourself in the open. You will realize as you see second, third, and fourth trenches parallel and connecting by labyrinthine passages that the amount of excavating required would dig a subway. The labor involved in the New York Aqueduct, the Chicago Subway, the irrigation works of our West seem trivial when you consider this work was done under fire.

Before I came to Germany I was told: "There is not much doing in the West. Both armies are marking time." Since then the battle line has become about three hundred miles long. A surgeon in the _Feld Lazarette_, in Vis-en-Artois, told me that they had on the average ten wounded a day and that their hospital was fed by a segment of the front about two miles long. When you recall the terrific fighting near the Channel ports, this average is not high for the whole line. So when you glance at the little map in your newspaper think of it as meaning three thousand wounded men a day, ninety thousand a month, and a tenth as many dead. Remember also the Ypres Canal, where soldiers have gone mad and thrown themselves into red water, and at the same time the field of Soissons, strewn twice with the dead; of men in the trenches of the Argonne, undermined, dynamited, their bodies blown as high as leafless forest trees.

Again, when any one says to you, "There is not much doing in the West," imagine a three hundred mile line with three quarters of a million soldiers standing in muddy brown water, and three quarters of a million more, too, whom they have just relieved, lying on beds of straw, too exhausted to remove their uniforms until it is time to wash; think of that line in which for every five minutes of every day a German is being killed--and God knows how many English, French and Belgians.