Part 4

Then there are the Indians, who never take a prisoner. By training and tradition they are great head-hunters, and enjoy nothing better than creeping out at night over No Man’s Land and waiting before the enemy’s trench until a sentry puts up his head to observe. A quick sweep of the curved knife, the head is secured, and the Indian returns with the feeling of “something accomplished, something done, has earned a night’s repose.” Their sense of humor has much in common with that of the Algerians—and of the Germans.

Many of the heads, in all stages of curing, have been found in the knapsacks and equipments of these troops—when they were dead or unconscious. While conscious, the Indian will guard them with his life, feeling that they are legitimate souvenirs.

* * * * *

THERE are three French medals which are given for service in this war, not to mention a number of lesser ones which are seen rarely. The most coveted of these is the Legion of Honour, a medal famous for some centuries both in war and peace. This is divided into several classes. There is the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, a very large medal worn over the right-hand pocket with no ribbon. This has been awarded to a few men of the greatness of Joffre and Petain. Then there is the grade of Commander of the Legion of Honour. This is a smaller cross worn at the neck. There are also the ranks of Officer and Chevalier. Both are small crosses on red ribbons, but the former has a rosette on the ribbon to distinguish it. These are awarded to officers only and are greatly prized.

Two new medals were struck for the war,—the _Médaille Militaire_ and the _Croix de Guerre_. The _Médaille_ is a round medal on a yellow ribbon of one class only, and is awarded to officers and soldiers alike for actual bravery on the field. The _Croix de Guerre_ is a bronze cross on a green and red ribbon, and has three classes,—the _Croix de Guerre d’Armée_, which has a bronze palm on the ribbon, _de Corps d’Armée_, which has a bronze star on the ribbon, and _de Division_, which has a plain ribbon. They are awarded for different degrees of bravery or service to officers and soldiers alike, and may be won unlimited times. In aviation a _Croix_ with palm is given to an aviator for every enemy plane he is officially credited with downing. Thus Gynemer at the time of his death was privileged to wear fifty-five palms on his ribbon. For the benefit of such as he a silver palm is worn, representing five bronze, and a gold palm in place of ten bronze. Before this was allowed, Gynemer wore his ribbon with forty odd palms.

In addition to these there are the colonial medals and a number of French decorations which have not strictly to do with the war.

* * * * *

TONIGHT I am on guard. I have just taken a walk around the cars. It is the hour before the dawn, and the cold, grey mist hangs over all, robing the jagged ruins and harmonizing the rough outlines into something more human, while accentuating the stare of the vacant window-openings. There is the first crescent of the moon in the sky. Two companies of artillery have just passed along the road. The guns and caissons creak and rumble, and the men, preserving a sleepy silence, bend forward on their horses, their heavy sabres smacking against the horses’ sides, and their blue uniforms melting into the mist.

The officer halts to water his horse, and we chat for a minute. The _contre-avions_ are after a raider headed for Bar-le-Duc, and I put out my lantern. We smile as the shrapnel bursts more than a mile from the machine. The officer speaks a few words of praise about his men, then vaults on his horse. We exchange “_bonne chance_” and he canters off down the road, disappearing in the blue-grey mist.

* * * * *

A RUMOR creeps into camp that the next attack will be at V——. More rumors follow, supported by the increased traffic. We are on the main road to V——, and are keenly critical. We take out our maps and examine the outline of the front in the sector just as if we knew something about it. Would-be strategists hold forth in heated arguments, and many bitter debates follow. Those of us who have the early watch just at daybreak notice many companies of _soixante-quinzes_ rumbling by each morning, and observe that they take the left fork of the road. This is important, for the left road leads towards M——, which is really not in our sector. More argument follows, and ears are constantly strained to catch the first augmentation of the distant thunder of the guns, and to determine from which end of the sector it comes.

Now all the officers admit that an attack is to ensue shortly, but they do not know when. We tune up our cars and get our baggage ready, as we may be called. The lieutenant receives some orders and warns us to be ready to move on a moment’s notice.

The traffic is incessant now. _Camions_ with shells, barbed wire, _camouflage_ cloth, _torpilles_, and more shells rush by. Convoys pass filled with troops, cheering wildly, thirty-five hundred or more in an evening. The thunder is gradually intensified, and the sky flashes faintly in the distance like heat lightning. From a hilltop artillery rockets and star-shells can be seen in the far horizon. More troops keep going up, and the guns pound the line with unabated fury.

It is evening, and we are formed in a circle listening to some story. The lieutenant walks up to us:

“We move at seven in the morning,” he says laconically, and steps off.

IV

AT THE FRONT

THIS time we have a different run. It is from Montzéville to Hill 239, and the wounded are brought in through the communication trench which leads to Mort Homme—the well-named Dead Man’s Hill. The road was once lined for a distance of perhaps a mile with towering poplars, evinced by the size of the stumps, but now not one of them is left higher than three or four feet. The road runs the entire distance across open meadows, and as what _camouflage_ there was has been shot away by the Boche in his search for two 220 batteries, which have long since moved on, the enemy _saucisses_ can regulate the traffic quite simply. The place has been shot up so much recently that there has been no time to repair the roads fully, and now there are long stretches temporarily patched with rough, broken stone, which makes bad going. Riding forward, one sees large German shells breaking on the road ahead like sudden black clouds, which disappear slowly and convey to the mind uncomfortable premonitions.

Mort Homme comes suddenly and bleakly into view about two kilometres on our left,—a hill, not exceedingly high, commanding a great plain, it is imposing only in the memory of the rivers of blood that have flowed down its sides. Once—and looking at it one can scarcely believe it—this was covered with trees and vegetation like many another less famous hill. Now it is reduced to a mere sandpile, pitted with the scars of a million shells. After standing the continuous bombardment of both combatants for over a year, there is left not a stick of vegetation, nor an inch of ground that has not been turned over by shells many times. Crowned by the pink of the sunset, it stands there on the plain a great monument to the glorious death of thousands.

The French lost many thousands of lives in their attempts to capture Mort Homme, and were very bitter, consequently, against its defenders. There was a large tunnel running through the hill, and when three sides had been captured and both ends of the tunnel were held, it was discovered that they had trapped there three thousand Germans. I talked with a man who walked through the tunnel the day after the massacre and he told me that it was literally inches deep in blood.

Arrived at the _poste_, which is nothing more than a hole in the ground, we stand around while the _brancardiers_ load the car and exchange lies with any one who happens to be there. The Boche sends a dozen or more shells whining over our heads to break on the road or beside it, and near enough for every one to gravitate slowly towards the _abri_ in preparation for a wild dive should the next shell fall much nearer. One man asked me why they put stairs leading into an _abri_, as nobody ever thought of using them. When I asked him how else one would get out, he said he had never thought of that.

There is nothing quite so uncomfortable to hear as the near whistle of a shell. The more one hears the sound the more it affects him. There is something in the sharp whine which seems to create despair and induce subconscious melancholy. There is a feeling of helplessness and powerlessness that is most depressing. The thunder of the guns or the crash of the bursting shells cannot be compared with the sound of this approaching menace. It is as if some demon from the depths of Hades were hurtling towards you, its weird laughter crying out, calling to you and chilling your blood. For the second of its passage a hush falls on the conversation, and the best jokes die in dry throats. But it is only for that second, and instantly laughter rings out again at some jest. Speculations or comments are made on the probable or observed place where it exploded, and all is the same except for that subconscious tenseness which, for the most part unrealized, grips every man while he goes about his work here.

The first ordeal by fire is the easiest. It is then but a new and interesting sensation and experience. Later, after one has seen the effect and had some close calls, it is more of a nervous strain. The whine of a shell is very high-pitched, and after a time the sound wears distinctly on the nerves. It is a curious fact that, in spite of the philosophy developed, the longer a man has been under shell-fire the harder it is for him to stand it. By no means would he think of showing it, but he would not deny the fact. It is only the philosophy and callousness developed which keep the men from breaking down, and in many cases the strain on the nerves becomes so great that men do collapse under it. This is one of the forms of so-called “shell-shock.”

The car loaded with _blessés_, we start back, driving more slowly this time, as precious lives are in our care and jolts must be avoided wherever possible. We find the road still more “out of repair” than when we went over it before, with a number of new shell-holes varying from two to ten feet in diameter, and much wood, dirt, and torn _camouflage_ strewn about, and often a horse lying where it was hit, its blood coloring the mud in the gutter.

Approaching the town of Montzéville one sees at first a wood—_ci-devant_—now a few blackened tree-trunks of spectre-like appearance against the grey of the evening sky. Behind these appears the town, a mass of jagged ruins, at that distance seeming to be absolutely deserted. In fact it is, except for the dozen odd men who live in two or three scattered _abris_ for some obscure purpose. An air of desolation and despair broods over the place, and God knows it has seen enough to haunt it.

From Montzéville we ride on to Dombasle and Jouy, the hospital, and after handing over our more or less helpless charges to the tender mercies of the _brancardiers_, we return to the relay station at Montzéville to wait for our next roll, and to wonder what possible good those _poilus_ can be doing who sit all day so peacefully at the door of the _abri_ opposite ours, sipping _Pinard_ and smoking their cigarettes.

* * * * *

THE soldiers at the front are always looking for the bright side of life, and after a little one gets to see humor in many more things than he would have believed possible at home. As an example, there seems to be little humor connected with a funeral, yet one of the times I saw the _poilus_ most amused was one day at P 4, our relay station, on such an occasion.

There had been an intermittent bombardment, and we were sitting or standing inside the _abri_ waiting for it to let up. The _abri_ was located in the corner of a graveyard, and there was always the unpleasant feeling that the next rain might wash a few bones in on us. The _abri_ was small, very crowded, and, as it was several feet underground, none too well ventilated. Every one spent long stretches here, and brought his food with him. What was too poor to eat soon mixed with the mud on the floor, lending an unsavory odor to the atmosphere. Presently one of the Frenchmen went out to see if the bombardment had stopped. This is discovered by the same method one ascertains whether or not it is raining—if he gets wet the storm is not over. The bombardment was not over, and we waited. At last it seemed to have let up, only an occasional shell crashing into the woods across the road, and we went out to stretch and get a breath of air.

The _poilus_ gathered our inquisitive friend from the surrounding shrubbery and trees and put him into several empty sandbags which they laid on a stretcher, carefully placing the head, which appeared to have been solid enough to withstand the shock, at the upper end. Another man carried a freshly-made pine-wood coffin. In high spirits, the assembled soldiers formed a procession and marched into the graveyard, singing alternately a funeral dirge and “Madelon,” the French “Tipperary.” This graveyard, not being on the firing-line itself, was rather a formal affair. The graves were laid out in neat rows, and each man had one all to himself with a wooden cross and his name on it. Of course occasionally the shells did a little mixing, but that was a jest of the Fates which disturbed no one, least of all those who were mixed.

Arrived at the grave, the _poilus_ rolled in the fragments of our late friend and covered them with dirt.

“_Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note._”

Then they came back, roaring with laughter and tossing the coffin in the air. The hero had expected the coffin and they had fooled him. Now they could use it again.

The usual method of burial on the French front, where there is little time to attend to such matters, is to dig a ditch six feet wide, ten feet deep, and twenty feet long approximately. As each man is killed, time and circumstances permitting, he is divested of his coat and shoes, and his pockets are emptied. He is then thrown into the ditch and covered with a few shovelfuls of dirt. This system is all very well until new divisions relieve those in the trenches, and start digging ditches for their own men. As there are no marks to show the location of the old ones, they sometimes uncover rather unpleasant sights.

The reputation we have gained at home of being cold-blooded and lacking in the finer senses is undeserved. While one is in it he cannot permit himself to realize or dwell on the horrors or they would overwhelm him and drive him insane. What is more natural than for the reaction to turn the matter into jest and joke, to permit it to glance from the surface without inflicting a wound?—“_C’est la guerre._”

* * * * *

PLUNGED suddenly from the commonplaces of peace into the seething cauldron of war, France has had to adjust herself. Every one without exception has lost many who were dear to him and much that he had considered essential. The homes and hopes of thousands have been blasted. Destruction, following in the wake of the invaders, has laid waste much of the land, in many cases irreparably.

Entering the war a man is possessed of the greatest seriousness. He thinks of its causes, the results both immediate and future, and of the effect of each on him. He is stunned by what he believes himself to be bearing up under. Then, as he moves up into the zone, into service and action, and sees how others are affected, how much suffering and misfortune come to them, he merges his troubles with theirs, realizing the pettiness and insignificance of his own in the _tout ensemble_. He laughs, and from this laugh springs the philosophy,—“_C’est la guerre._”

If a fly falls in his soup, if his best friend is blown to bits before him, if his home and village are destroyed, he calmly shrugs his shoulders, and remarks, “_C’est la guerre._”

* * * * *

THE roads at the front are cared for by a class of unsung heroes, the roadbuilders. Back of the lines German prisoners are often used for this work, but it is a rule of warfare that prisoners must not be worked under fire, and the Allies observe this as the other rules of civilized warfare. The roads are the arteries of the front, and during an attack the enemy does his best to cripple them. If he succeeds, the troops in the trenches, cut off from food, ammunition, and other supplies, are at his mercy. During one attack through which I worked, the Boche, whose hobby is getting ranges down to the inch and applying them as all other things in a definite system, put a 150 every ten yards down the more important roads.

All work in the zone is done by three classes of workers, excluding the necessary military operations carried on by the troops in action. First, there are the German prisoners who do every kind of work out of the zone of fire. Then there are the French prisoners in the army, who have committed some military crime, from sneezing in ranks to shooting a colonel. Instead of serving time in a guardhouse, these are put in the front-line trenches and kept there unarmed to build up the parapet, attend to the drains, stop Boche bullets, and perform other functions. If, for instance, a French soldier sends a letter through the civil instead of the military mails, where the censorship is more strict, he receives a thirty days’ sentence. If these prisoners make a suspicious move they are shot by their own men. Second timers are rare, but many serve life sentences.

Then there is the third class, a regular branch of the army, a subdivision of the engineers, termed _pionniers_. The engineers do the nastiest work in the army, and the _pionniers_ do the nastiest work in the engineers. It is their duty to see that the wire is properly cut before a charge, that the parapet is in repair and does not lack sandbags,—and it is in this class that the roadbuilders come.

All along the roads lie piles of broken stone, which are continually replaced by loads from the rear. At intervals are placed _abris_ filled with roadbuilders who watch until a shell hits the road in their sector. Then, almost before the dirt settles, they rush out armed with shovels, and pile this rough stone into the hole and rush back again to shelter, to wait for the next shell, which is not long in coming. This rough patching is consolidated later when the sector quiets down, but does admirably for the time-being, as the mud and traffic push it rapidly into shape.

Steam-rollers are then sent up to finish the work, but find themselves _persona non grata_ when left over night in the middle of a narrow and muddy road, with no lights showing. We _ambulanciers_ are not fond of the species at any time, as they seem to have a great affinity for six-inch shells. When disintegrated, any one of the numerous parts blocks our way. We are perfectly content to have the task left to the simple roadbuilder, who proves less of an obstruction after meeting a one-fifty.

* * * * *

MANY undeveloped instincts lie dormant in the subconscious mind of man. In this war, where man has turned back the pages of civilization to live and act for a period of time as a glorified cave-dweller, a number of these unknown faculties have been discovered and developed.

Many animals have the power of seeing in the dark, and all species can sense an unknown danger. These senses have been denied to civilized man, but the primitive life at the front has developed them and other instincts in those who live there so that it seems as if man might again become possessed of all his latent powers.

A man going along a road has a conviction that if he continues he will be killed. He makes a wide detour to avoid the road, and a shell strikes where he would have been. Then again, men have premonitions that they will be killed in the next attack or battle. All this is coupled with absolute fatalism. They feel either that they are going to be killed or will live through everything, and whichever it is, they merely shrug their shoulders, remark, “_C’est la guerre_,” and permit nothing to alter their belief. Many say that the shell with their name on it has not yet been made, or if it has—“Why worry? We cannot escape it.” I carried one man, while doing evacuation work, who had served three years without a scratch, and when _en repos_ had fallen from an apple tree and broken his leg. He thought it a great joke.

The _ambulancier_ has developed two of these instincts to quite a degree. The first is that he can always locate an _abri_, his or some one else’s, and disappear in it with astounding rapidity. The second is that he can keep the road with no lights. This has to be done almost entirely by instinct on many nights, and we find it usually safer to make a turn where the “inner voice” directs us rather than where we remember it should be. It is not remarkable, of course, that an occasional car falls into a ditch or a shell-hole, but astonishing rather how seldom this happens. While our Fords never attained any great speed in night driving, I rode once with a friend from another section in a Fiat, when he drove in pitch darkness faster than fifty miles an hour, taking every turn accurately and safely by instinct and luck.

* * * * *

THE mud plays havoc with calculations, and we long to set our foot once again on dry land. All the water in France seems to have gone into mud. Water has never been a popular beverage here, and now it is even less so. One horrified _poilu_, who had observed me drinking a glass of water, asked if it did not give me indigestion. At the front there is good reason for this. With so many men buried in the ground and so many animals uninterred on it, all the springs are contaminated, and the germs of every disease lurk in the water.

The French army provides a light red wine to take its place. This wine is little stronger than grape juice and is the _Pinard_ of the _poilus_. The government also provides tobacco which, to quote one _ambulancier_, cannot be smoked without a gas mask.

The water in the streams is little better, and a bath in one of them gives more moral than physical satisfaction. One French artilleryman told me with great glee of seeing from his observation post a company of German soldiers marched down to a river for a bath. As soon as they were in the water he signalled the range to his battery, and they put a barrage between the bathers and their clothes.

* * * * *

VERDUN is more than a name now—it is a symbol. France’s glorious fight here with her back to the wall has gone down in history as a golden page. The foe thundered at the gates and the gates held,—held for months while the fate of France hung in the balance, and then opening, the hosts of France poured out and drove the foe back mile by mile, bitter miles.

The city does not boast an unscarred building, but these wounds do not bleed in vain. For every one here there shall be two across the frontier when the day of reckoning comes. An awe-inspiring silence broods over the littered streets. There are no civilians here now, but many soldiers, and as one walks an occasional cheer greets him,—“_Vive l’Amérique!_”