Part 1

Produced by Al Haines.

_Forward_, Children!

by

Paul Alexander Bartlett

Title: Forward, Children Author: Paul Alexander Bartlett Publisher: My Friend Publisher Address: #101, 654-3 Yeoksam-Dong. Kangnam-Ku, Seoul, Korea Registration Number: 16-1534 Date of Registration: October 17, 1997

Copyright (C) 1998 Steven Bartlett. All rights reserved.

Printed and bound in Republic of Korea.

First Printing: March 10, 1998 ISBN 89-88034-03-1

*Project Gutenberg edition 2014*

_Forward, Children!_ was published in 1998 in Korea, nearly a decade after the author's death. The author's literary executor, Steven James Bartlett, has decided to make the novel available as an open access publication, freely available to readers through Project Gutenberg under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, which allows anyone to distribute this work without changes to its content, provided that both the author and the original URL from which this work was obtained are mentioned, that the contents of this work are not used for commercial purposes or profit, and that this work will not be used without the copyright holder's written permission in derivative works (i.e., you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work without such permission). The full legal statement of this license may be found at

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode

*OTHER BOOKS BY PAUL ALEXANDER BARTLETT*

_When the Owl Cries_ (novel), Macmillan, 1960.

Available as a free downloadable eBook in a variety of formats from Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40245.

_Wherehill_ (collection of poems), Autograph Editions, 1975.

_Adios, Mi Mexico_ (novelette), Autograph Editions, 1979.

_Spokes for Memory_ (collection of poems), Icarus Press, 1979.

_The Haciendas of Mexico: An Artist's Record_, University Press of Colorado, 1990.

_Voices from the Past - A Quintet: Sappho's Journal, Christ's Journal, Leonardo da Vinci's Journal, Shakespeare's Journal, and Lincoln's Journal_, Autograph Editions, 2007.

Available as an illustrated printed edition from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Past-Paul-Alexander-Bartlett/dp/061514120X/ref=sr*1*1/102-5793561-6667321?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177817149&sr=1-1

Available as a free downloadable eBook in a variety of formats from Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39468

_Lincoln's Journal_ (the fifth novel of _Voices from the Past_).

Available as a free downloadable audiobook from: http://archive.org/details/VoicesFromThePast-LincolnsJournal

_Sappho's Journal_, Autograph Editions, 2007.

Available as a separately printed illustrated edition from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb*sb*noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=9780615156460&x=0&y=0

Available as a free downloadable eBook in a variety of formats from Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39467

_Christ's Journal_, Autograph Editions, 2007.

Available as a separately printed illustrated edition from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Christs-Journal-Paul-Alexander-Bartlett/dp/0615156452/ref=sr*1*1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325740964&sr=1-1

Available as a free downloadable eBook in a variety of formats from Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39400

Available as a free downloadable audiobook from: https://archive.org/details/VoicesFromThePast-ChristsJournal

*TO THE YOUTH OF THE WORLD*

_Allons, enfants de la patrie,_ _Le jour de la gloire est arrive!_ --_La Marseillaise_

_Forward, children of our country,_ _the day of glory is at hand._

*Forward, Children!*

*by*

*Paul Alexander Bartlett*

*INTRODUCTION*

*Steven James Bartlett*

_Forward, Children!_ is a gripping anti-war novel. It brings vividly back to life the experience of WWII tank warfare as it was fought and endured by soldiers in the tank corps. The novel is also a story of love in French Ermenonville, where Rousseau lived during the last period in his life and was buried.

The title _Forward, Children!_ comes from the opening line of _La Marseillaise_, the French national anthem (_Allons, enfants de la patrie_). _Forward, Children!_ is a novel that was long in the making. Paul Alexander Bartlett completed the first manuscript of _Forward, Children!_ in the years before the outbreak of the second world war. He had been deeply affected by the first world war, by the horrors and suffering it caused. Wishing to bring to readers a convincing and powerful first-hand experience of that war, he portrayed in the first version of _Forward, Children!_ the hardship and terror of tank warfare as it had been conducted by the American Expeditionary Forces Tank Corps during World War I.

Renowned English novelist, poet, and critic Ford Madox Ford thought highly of _Forward, Children!_, and shortly before his death devoted a large part of an essay published in the _Saturday Review of Literature_ to praise for the novel, urging its publication.

"_Forward, Children!_ ... is the projection of the life of a fighting soldier in the A. E. Tank Corps in France. It is so to the life that for some days after reading it, the writer's nights were rendered heavy by the return of the lugubrious dreams that for years after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles attended on his slumbers. When you read _Forward, Children!_ you _are_ in a tank crawling amidst unspeakable din and unthinkable pressure up the sides of houses, and down the banks of dried-up canals, crashing through the walls of factories.... [I]f not on artistic grounds then at least for the public weal this book should be published and widely circulated."

Ford Madox Ford died two weeks after this essay was published in 1939. In the subsequent years, with the attention of the world now fixed on WWII, Bartlett decided to rewrite _Forward, Children!_ to portray tank warfare in the ongoing world war. He had already become knowledgeable about tank warfare in the first world war and he now researched the conditions and accounts of tank fighting in the second. As a result, _Forward, Children!_ builds on the author's attempt to stand in the combat boots of the tank soldiers of both world wars and conveys to the reader an account of their experience with unforgettable realism.

_Forward, Children!_ was ironically never published during the author's life, despite the strongest commendations the work received not only from Ford Madox Ford, but also from John Dos Passos, who remarked: "Praise from Ford Madox Ford is praise indeed. The descriptions of tank warfare are vivid and as far as I know unique. This is a very, very good novel."

Russell Kirk added his admiration for the novel: "Permit me to commend _Forward, Children!_ The novel attains a pathos rare in war novels. The scenes of battle are drawn with power. Bartlett is an accomplished writer." Pearl Buck, Nobel Laureate in Literature, wrote: "He [Bartlett] is an excellent writer. _Forward, Children!_ is an excellent piece of work, with fine characterizations."

Upton Sinclair wrote: "I found _Forward, Children!_ extremely interesting and convincing. I think it is one of the best descriptions of fighting I have ever read. In fact, I can't remember any account of tank fighting in such detail and [which is so] convincing." James Purdy remarked: "_Forward, Children!_ ranks with the best books--its anti-war message is inescapable. It is an important book and [Bartlett is] an important writer."

_Forward, Children!_ eventually came to interest a small press in war-scarred Korea; in 1998, the press published the book in a limited edition that has reached few readers. To remedy this, the author's literary executor has decided to re-publish the book in open access form as an eBook to be made freely available to readers through Project Gutenberg.

Whatever the obstacles have been that so often stand in the way of authors, and that plague the world of publishing, after many, many decades it is time for _Forward, Children!_ to reach its readers.

*ABOUT THE AUTHOR*

Paul Alexander Bartlett (1909-1990) was both a writer and an artist, born in Moberly, Missouri, and educated at Oberlin College, the University of Arizona, the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City, and the Instituto de Bellas Artes in Guadalajara. His work can be divided into three categories: He is the author of many novels, short stories, and poems; second, as a fine artist, his drawings, illustrations, and paintings have been exhibited in more than 40 one-man shows in leading galleries, including the Los Angeles County Museum, the Atlanta Art Museum, the Bancroft Library, the Richmond Art Institute, the Brooks Museum, the Instituto-Mexicano-Norteamericano in Mexico City, and many other galleries; and, third, he devoted much of his life to the most comprehensive study of the haciendas of Mexico that has been undertaken.

Three hundred and fifty of his pen-and-ink illustrations of the haciendas and more than one thousand hacienda photographs make up the Paul Alexander Bartlett Collection held by the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection of the University of Texas, and form part of a second diversified collection held by the American Heritage Center of the University of Wyoming, which also includes an extensive archive of Bartlett's literary work, fine art, and letters. A third archive consisting primarily of Bartlett's literary work is held by the Department of Special Collections at UCLA. Bartlett's book about the history and life on the haciendas, including a selection of his illustrations and photographs, was published by the University Press of Colorado in 1990 under the title _The Haciendas of Mexico: An Artist's Record_.

Paul Alexander Bartlett's fiction has been commended by many authors, among them Pearl Buck, Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, James Michener, Upton Sinclair, Evelyn Eaton, and many others. He was the recipient of numerous grants, awards, and fellowships, from such organizations as the Leopold Schepp Foundation, the Edward MacDowell Association, the New School for Social Research, the Huntington Hartford Foundation, the Montalvo Foundation, Yaddo, and the Carnegie Foundation. His novel _When the Owl Cries_ received national acclaim; his fine art has been exhibited throughout the United States and in Mexico; his poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies and has been published in individual volumes of his collected poetry. Bartlett was very prolific and left to the archives of his work many as yet unpublished manuscripts, including poetry, short stories, and novels, as well as more than a thousand paintings and illustrations.

His wife, Elizabeth Bartlett, a widely published and internationally recognized poet, is the author of seventeen published books of poetry, more than one thousand individually published poems, numerous short stories and essays in leading literary quarterlies and anthologies, and, as the founder of Literary Olympics, Inc., served as the editor of a series of multi-language volumes of international poetry to honor the work of outstanding contemporary poets.

The author of this Introduction (Paul and Elizabeth Bartlett's only child)] apparently inherited their writer's gene and has published books and articles in the fields of philosophy and psychology.

* * * * * * * *

*Forward, Children!*

*PORTRAIT*

Orville Dennison was five feet eleven inches tall and weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. He had the body of an athlete, the body of a crewman and a tennis player.

His eyes were brown with flecks of grey in them. He had brown hair and combed it straight back and when it was long it bulged out on the sides and had waves that crossed from ear to ear, waves that were sun bleached on the top.

His nose was aquiline, his mouth was thin-lipped and rather small. He had large ears. His eyebrows were bushy and his lashes were long and thick. His forehead was broad but was not unusual except that it was very smooth while the skin of his face, which was rather florid, had enlarged pores here and there.

His hands were wide across the back and his fingers were strong; his shoulders and arms were muscular.

He walked quickly with a natural swing.

He had a ready smile and even teeth.

His voice was pleasant.

He was twenty-four.

One was struck by the sadness in his face, the careworn lines about his mouth and eyes.

*1*

Landel shook Dennison's shoulder.

"Whatcha want?" Dennison mumbled, raising himself on one elbow and unconsciously pushing aside his blanket.

"The supply trucks have come," Landel yelled.

"Who's come?"

"The trucks and tanks are here. Three trucks have brought supplies. We've got food. Are you awake? Hey, do you hear me?"

"What did you say? Sure, sure, I'm awake," Dennison replied hazily. He squinted and ducked as Landel shot the beam of his flashlight directly into his face.

Landel knelt down beside Dennison and fumbled about the floor of the abandoned plank and sandbag irrigation shack for his tank helmet. His tall body almost filled the place. His bald head looked repulsively bald to Dennison--something surgical.

"I let ya sleep a little longer than the other guys," Landel yelled. "Yeah, you needed sleep." He shifted his flashlight around the crude shack, over the mounds of blankets where their crewmates had been sleeping.

"Our kitchen's here! The trucks are here ... three of them," he repeated.

"We've got something hot to eat," he hollered. "Are you awake?" He pushed Dennison--shoved him against the floor. "Come on, get out of here!"

"What time is it?" Dennison asked.

"Nearly fifteen ... we've got to get moving," Landel crabbed. He found his helmet underneath a sandy, greasy blanket and stuck it on. "Raub's got here with his kitchen ... so, let's go ... okay? Now?" He was talking to himself, spitting out words, annoyed by the day's problems, war's problems. He rose from his knees and, stooping low to keep from cracking himself against the roof, edged, crab-fashion, toward the door.

"I'm leavin' ... I'm goin'," he cried.

"I'll be along in a minute," Dennison said, yawning and propping himself against the wall, legs and shoulders feeling stiff.

Landel reappeared.

"Go on ... I'm awake!" he shouted. "See you at the chuck wagon."

"We've got to eat quick ... we've a hell of a lot to do," Landel screamed, his head in the doorway. He zoomed his flashlight into Dennison's eyes, like a warning, and walked off.

Angry, Dennison rubbed his hands over his bearded face, slumped down onto the floor again.

Through the doorway he caught glimpses of the flashlights and lanterns of men headed for the kitchen: legs and lights passed with metronome jerkiness across the sand: dust came up from beneath boots. Shellfire rumbled in the distance, a sound that had in it all the vacuity of the African desert.

A jab of wind dribbled sand through the doorway and shook sand from the make-shift roof of the shelter where only yesterday gunners had been trapped emplacing a gun.

Dennison smelled the stench of gasoline and grease from the tanks and a tank dump nearby; he could smell the gas and grease on his clothes; it seemed to swirl around him.

The incoming air was chilly.

Shivering, he hauled a blanket around him and with his shoulders against a sandbag, lit a cigarette. As his lighter flared he noticed his squashed, grease-pocked helmet; sleepily, he reached for it and placed it across his lap, pressing it down, making it a part of him. One hand holding his pack of cigarettes, the other bringing a cigarette to his mouth, he tried to think.

It seemed to him that he had dreamed during the night.

The tip of the cigarette glowed encouragingly.

Yes, he had dreamed about the library tower, the chimes, the sounds travelling down the hill slopes, down toward Lake Cayuga, the tower and the sounds blurring. Kids were sitting in the library, at long tables, faces, faces. There seemed to be an elm tree at the far end of the reading room, snow, lake ...

He tried to remember the sound of those chimes.

Huddled against sandbags, he drowsed and as he drowsed he saw a campfire in the woods somewhere, students standing around the fire, some of them singing. A guy was playing his harmonica, muting his music by cupping both hands over the instrument ...

Dennison's arms and hands had fallen asleep.

Yesterday the pace across the desert had been formidable, the heat increasing, a shortage of water, the water warm and sickening, nothing at all to eat at noon ...

He shook his hands and arms to bring back the circulation, groaning, cold, the exhaust of a tank stinking and coughing nearby. The sound brought with it the sensation of violent pitching, the distress of gasoline and oil fumes, the threat of shellfire at close range.

Shoving his sweater inside his trouser, adjusting his belt, he knelt and fished about: his helmet had rolled heedlessly and bumped against the wall: recovering it, he strapped it on, tilting it over his forehead, aware of its grime.

Slipping on his leather jacket, yanking the zipper, he wormed about the blankets for his mess kit and stepped out into the open, feeling sand drop off his clothes.

Outdoors, his cigarette tasted better and he inhaled deeply to help wake up. The chilly air nipped his face and hands, as he stood motionless urinating.

Behind the shack rose a tangle of rusty machinery from an irrigation pump, the machinery snarled over a cannon-sized conduit, the pipe's mouth toward the sky. The stars seemed closer because of the junked pipes and gears: the sky, utterly cloudless, was defiant: in a few hours its sun would be hammering, leading on and on, sand gobbling sand, dunes blurring into hills: heat and flies would move it together, thirst would be everywhere.

A G.I. scuffed by, coughing and spitting.

"Raub's here," he called, noticing Dennison and his cigarette. "We're ready to eat!" He coughed again.

Dennison wet his lips with his tongue and swallowed.

"I'm right behind you," he said. "Wait a second ... I've got my flashlight. Here, Millard!"

He pulled his flash from his jacket pocket and walked behind his crewmate--the sand deep, their boots scuffing, the flashlight wobbling as if asleep.

"Gonna get hot today," Millard hollered.

"Can't hear you," Dennison hollered.

"Any news on the radio?"

"What was it you said?"

Raub had his kitchen under lopsided leafless trees and a scabby fire of branches burned close to it, kitchen and blaze hidden behind a dune, an enormous crested thing with skeletal brush and camel grass growing on its side. Gaunt, set off by stars, it threatened the kitchen and men, hung, swollen, a thing of unbelievable weight. Yellow light crept up the slope and bounced off the scarred steel of the field kitchen. Steam gushed from pots at the rear of the stove; the air smelled of coffee and hash.

His flashlight in his pocket, Dennison worked his way through sixty or eighty men, brushing sand out of a mess kit with a dirty handkerchief and the palm of his hand. It seemed to him that he had done this many times.

"Hi," he greeted one of the Corps.

"Hi, Dennison ... Hi. Goddamn desert, cold. Freeze off your ass." The man drained his coffee and then blew into the bottom of his cup. "Coffee's good," he said.

"Give me a cup of coffee," Dennison said to Raub, at the kitchen: Raub had his coffee pot raised for pouring, his face smudged, his eyes puttied with sleep; cups were scattered along the kitchen counter in front of him, some of them clean.

"Howdy, any news from you guys?" Raub asked, tilting the pot, arm extended across the counter, the pot steaming. He smiled at Dennison, liking him: Dennison reminded him of a fellow back home, in Atlanta, a boy he'd grown up with.

"You ought to know the news," Dennison said, "you just came in with your outfit, so what's the news? What's up?"

"Not a damn thing! Here, hold still, have some hash. Hungry? It's not bad stuff."

"Sure," Dennison said.

"Fill'er up," Millard said, behind Dennison. "I could eat anything!"

The Corpsmen wore regulation uniforms or the coveralls of the mechanic; there were a number in fatigues; some men wore helmets; they were an unshaven lot. Their khaki did not count for much: they were all of a piece: their greasy, oily, gasoline messed clothes stuck to their greasy, oily bodies; they had not washed in days. No water, no inclination.

They appeared strangely alike in the firelight, each with a bush on his face, each with a crew cut or helmet, each with his mess kit or cup of coffee.

A shell thudded behind the great dune.

"Hell, I hope they don't lay a line on this fire," Millard said, moving a few yards away from the kitchen to allow others to queue up.

His pan filled, Dennison stepped out of line and pushed his way through the crewmen.

"Captain Meyers had guys pull some of the wood out of the blaze," a fat sergeant told Dennison.

"They're not near enough for a hit," Dennison belched cheerfully, spooning some hash.

"Christ, there's a village burning up over there, beyond that dune," somebody yelled. "What's a piddling campfire alongside a village! We'll be out of here in an hour. It'll be our turn to let them have it!"

Dennison found a hollow and sat down on a dead tree, a palm, a frondless bole; shoes sliding into the sand, he resumed eating, spooning and chewing slowly, listening to the men talk, noticing the stars now and then. The pan burned pleasantly in his hand and he shifted it about and spooned another spoonful of hash, his mouth sticking out, his nose in the steam.

On one side of him, Millard was shouting:

" ... Why, you know the drag of those cylinders, the lousy combustion; why, man alive, the Panzer tanks withstand the desert heat a hell of a lot better than our machines. Why..."

Somebody was yelling for more hash.

Somebody beefed:

"We've got fifteen Sherman tanks in reserve ... I'll bet we never use them!"

Dennison was familiar with some of the voices and the familiarity helped: the fire was encouraging: the hash was really hot: there was more at the chuck wagon. Coffee too.

Yesterday ... he tried to shut off the memory as he would a tap, but memory trickled through: Jesus, the vast terrain they had covered, that whamming through the sand, screwing round to avoid rocks, ducking behind a dune, climbing to fall into the direct fire of a Panther, her guns blazing ...

Luck, nothing but luck had pulled them out of that jam.

You never could tell, maybe they would have a lucky break today ... maybe it wouldn't get too hot inside the bus; maybe there might be enough water, stuff that was fit to drink ... they could travel across some comparatively level ground, none of the loose sand to baulk the treads. And food? Maybe they'd have something to eat, a chance to eat outside the tank.

It was a wretched kind of hope, the same hope that everyone got up with every morning--but it was hope. Gazing at the smoke from the fire, he followed it upward where the sky was a thousand stars, no New York sky; even through the smoke the points blinked brightly. Coldly. He held a mouthful of coffee on his tongue before he tackled his food once more. The bread was fresh. Good crust. He felt his body lose a little of its weariness; one leg sank into the sand; probably the desert was not too bad in the winter time, at some oasis, town or city.

He signalled to Isaac Jacobs who was wandering through the crowd of crewmen, walking sleepily, balancing his heaped up mess kit, coffee cup in the midst of the hash. Zinc's beard shone weirdly, crazily red in the light. He pushed his way past a couple of gesturing men and stepped on a smoldering log someone had dragged from the campfire.