CHAPTER XI A SIX WEEKS’ HIKE THROUGH FRANCE

Lists of men were being made. Officers were hurrying with papers.

An order had come. There was cleaning of rifles and machine-guns, washing of clothes, inspection, and making up of packs preparatory to a march.

Several sick and wounded men were returned from the hospital as fit for duty. Among these was Private Beaudett, whose hurt had been a clean gun shot wound which was not entirely healed but the doctors, at his urgent request, had discharged him as again fit for duty. We were glad to greet him and have him with us once more.

A cheerful, hopeful man like him, one who sees the bright side of every hardship, and who has a stock of good humor, and fun in him, puts a valuable addition of cheerfulness and life into a company of soldiers. This characteristic can neither be measured, nor weighed. It is called its _morale_. Napoleon said that an army with this imponderable quality, made up in part of hope, cheerfulness and confidence in itself and its commander, was worth, in actual service, three times as much as an army without it.

No doubt it was this fun-loving and fun-seeing quality that had conduced to Beaudett’s quick recovery from his wound.

“An’ sure,” said Pat Quinn, “ye’s look as good as new, ye little son of a gun.”

“Yes, be Shorge! pretty much better for muche good companee of Red Cross leetle nurse; an’ I cheets him doctor and de bugs,” responded Beaudett with a significant scratch and a grin; “_Oui_, I have none of he.”

“We will be generous,” said Corporal Sutherland with a wink, “and share our cooties with you. So you can begin scratching at once.”

And he did!

The rain poured down in torrents, and with a persistence worthy of even France in war, when we began our march. For neither weather, nor general or special orders, have the least regard for the soldiers’ comfort in emergencies; and no more consults their convenience than a brigadier general does a mule or an auto truck.

The whitish clay stuck to our feet, magnifying them in both size and weight to such a degree that when, at one time, we halted for rest in a village Pat Quinn looked ruefully downward, and said: “It’s them that look like big loaves of gingerbread before they are patted into shape. An’ sure how will I iver know them again for me feet?”

“A bog trotter like you,” said Sutherland roughly, “ought to be thankful for good clean mud like this.”

And then, had not the mud been so vexingly deep, there would have been a quarrel.

That night we halted in a downpour of rain in a small village, wet, tired and hungry, our packs and feet increased in weight by mud and water.

But our hunger was soon satisfied by a plentiful supply of steaming hot stew with coffee and bread from our kitchen on wheels. Men sing of sparkling wine; but I have never tasted anything that equalled good army chow and fragrant coffee for comfort, after a long march.

Most of our men smoked, as soldiers generally do; but Lieutenant Nickerson and I, and strange to say, Quinn, were exceptions to this general rule, and did not use tobacco or whiskey. An Irishman who neither smokes nor drinks, as Peter Beaudett said, “Was de queer bug, begar!”

Pat’s explanation of this was, “Me mither tould me I had better not get the habit of smoking or drinking, or I might get where I could not get either whiskey or tobacco.”

Those soldiers who do smoke say there is great solace in a pipe, but to my mind a soldier with the fewest artificial wants, is, on the whole, the most easily comforted.

We soon began to see some of the destruction that grim-visaged war had dealt out to battle-scarred France.

We had halted in a litter of shattered stone and plastered houses which was once a village. The walls were in unpicturesque ruin. Very few houses had roofs, and but few walls were standing. Yet we found several families still clinging to what had once been their homes, reluctant to leave the ground whereon had stood their dwellings, and which had sheltered, no doubt, several generations of their kind. These homes, and even the gardens, trees and vines were torn from the soil. Orchards and vineyards that had borne fruit for them and their children were cut down by shot and shell or, with German thoroughness, had been sawed down so that they would never again bring sustaining comforts to them.

At the place where my platoon was quartered was a black eyed, sad-faced little woman, with a family of small children, living in a cellar. Her mournful face lit up and her eyes sparkled, at the sight of our friendly faces and uniforms--and for one day, at least, neither she nor her little ones were hungry. For we shared our rations with them and gave to them all that we could spare when we resumed our march in the morning.

This first glimpse of a ruined village left a deep impression on us. The surpassing brutality of it all! The homes, the factories and churches, the gardens and orchards and vineyards to which so much loving care had been given, can never be replaced to those whose loving work and sacrifice created them. The needless cruelty of it seemed to us, so recently from the safe shelter of American homes, almost beyond belief.

On our next day’s march we passed through several such ruined villages; and, in the intervening country, had found women and old men working on their little farms, with faith in their armies and brave soldiers that was wonderful and pathetic.

Later we found peasants laboring to raise crops on land not over a mile from the trenches where battles raged.

And all through our march through ruined France were white-aproned women sitting in ruined doorways, or in huts of corrugated sheet iron sewing and knitting for their children, or for their absent loved ones fighting for “beautiful France.” Though their part of it was blighted by the invader, they were clinging to their ruined homes with a tenacity of faith in their armies almost beyond belief. The love of home and country was stronger in their hearts than the fear of death.

It was well for them and us that we saw these things, for it strengthened our resolve to fight to the death those who had blighted these homes. So we marched on, in storm and sunshine, observing all these bitter cruelties, gaining with every step new resolution to rescue France from her brutal invaders.

It seems to me that the German authorities, who sanctioned all the cruelties of this war, little comprehended how firm a friend they were making of America for France, and how steadfast an enemy for themselves, when their pitiless hands were laid on all that is sacred in humanity, love, and religion.

At one mass of ruined homes, where we had halted, we were sheltered for a night in the wine cellars. One of the cellars the Germans had used as a range-finder. These cellars were so vast, that even the German hordes had not been able to deplete its stores of wine by their thirsty demands, though their destructiveness was seen on every side.

We passed through town after town without roofs to the houses and with precious little of the walls left standing. All the orchards were relentlessly cut or sawed down, leaving behind them little of value save the unconquerable spirit of their brave and home-loving people.

We slept in barns and houses and under the unroofed sky, as we halted on our march. At one of our halting places, after a fatiguing day, we slept in an immense electric-lighted cave, big enough to shelter several thousand people.

It had been excavated, we were told, by French soldiers,--prisoners of war, under the direction of their German taskmasters. It was divided into rooms, in many cases luxuriously fitted with baths, bed furniture, rugs, and set bowls with water.

Apparently all the material for its furnishing was plundered from destroyed villages and near-by homes. Some of these were left with scrupulous care, as though their German occupants expected to return and resume their use. In several of these were insulting inscriptions such as “Gottstrafe England, der Schweinhund!”

Jot was with me while I was viewing these wonderful excavations, and translated for me some of the inscriptions which do not bear repeating.

I was so indignant that I hastily said to Jot, “I should be ashamed to speak the language of such brutes!”

To which Jot replied, “If those who speak German were as noble as their language, I could almost forgive them their trespasses.” And then, as though excusing them, quoted a sentence from my Latin reader, “In the midst of wars the laws are silent.”

After two weeks’ march through ruined France, the scenes began to change. Villages and cities unscathed by war’s blighting touch began to appear along our line of march. These were all the more beautiful by contrast with those scorched and withered by the destroying hand of the Hun.

Stately palace-like residences, lovely châteaus, vine-clad cottages, stately public buildings and churches, appeared in vivid contrast to the war-ruined villages over which war had spread its wings of desolation.

We saw many sad faces and heard many sad stories from the brave daughters of France, mothers of heroes then contending with the German hordes. But their faces brightened at the sight of our flag. They recognized it as the emblem of freedom, and those who bore it as faithful allies and friends. Matrons, young women, girls, and children thronged around us at every halting place. Some offered us food, others wreaths and bouquets, and all greeted us with glad smiles and cheers of welcome.

We had halted, stacked arms, and thrown ourselves sprawling upon the ground among the vine-covered cottages when, on a little plateau above us, we saw a fluttering of the stars and stripes from the roof of an unpretentious dwelling. Then word ran around that it was the home of an American woman. Soon there appeared a little matron whose face and bearing proclaimed her nationality--American!

Nothing in all France with its grandeur and beauty of ages had looked so fine to our eyes as this little unassuming American lady. She was attended by her French maid, who, judging by her acts and expressions was devoted to her. We gave her a reception fit for a queen, and in return were treated to coffee in delicate china, and dainty sandwiches, and slices of fragrant American ham. Never to me or my comrades had the American woman and American language, seemed so dear as when in this distant land she had brought to us a breath of home.

A few more days of marching brought us again to the sound of battle and the distant booming of guns. Here again were signs of war’s withering touch. We began to meet hurrying French and American battalions with cannon, machine guns, airplanes, and all the seeming clutter of moving columns. Here and there were fleeing citizens, mostly women, old men and children, with wagons piled high with their household goods.

Airplanes were soaring like the white sea-gulls we had seen when leaving New York harbor. They flew singly and in flocks, some so high as to be but dimly seen, others swooping down as though about to attack us. These latter were said to be German craft in search of information.

Nearer and nearer came the boom! boom! boom of the guns. Then, late that evening, we were assigned to billets, and knew that our long hike was over, and that we were again confronted by the enemy.

Thus ended our six weeks’ march through France.