Part 15

But all that was now a part of the past and springtime had come once again in France. Meantime a spirit of change had crept over all the land. After one tremendous shout for victory the world had fallen into the silence that follows a supreme struggle—the silence of exhaustion, the silence of death. Many of the thousands who had pressed forward in those terrific battles crying “Victory!” had fallen and lain together under the bleak, dark winter skies of France. It was a period, too, of reckoning and realization of the price paid. But springtime had come again in France with its song-birds and blood-red poppies, and with it the quick consciousness that the dead lying en-masse on the battlefields must be given resting places befitting heroes.

Here was a tremendous task for the surviving American soldiers, but far more sacred than tremendous. Whose would be the hands to gather as best they could and place beneath the white crosses of honor the remains of those who had sanctified their spirits through the gift of their lifeblood? It would be a gruesome, repulsive and unhealthful task, requiring weeks of incessant toil during the long heavy days of summer. It also meant isolation, for these cemeteries for the American dead would be erected on or near the battlefields where the men had fallen. But it would be a wonderful privilege the beauty and glory of which would reveal itself more and more as the facts of the war should become crystallized into history.

Strange that the value of such a task did not gather full significance in the minds of all American soldiers. Strange that when other hands refused it, swarthy hands received it! Yet, perhaps, not so strange, for Providence hath its own way, and in those American cemeteries in France we have strong and indisputable evidence of the wonderful devotion and loyalty and the matchless patience and endurance of the colored soldier. The placing of this task—the most sacred of the whole war—in his hands may have been providentially planned. It may have been just another means, as against the force of arms, to hasten here at home the recognition and enforcement of those fundamental principles that for four long years had held the world in deadly struggle.

We looked upon these soldiers of ours—the splendid 813th, 815th and 816th Pioneer Regiments and the numerous fine labor battalions—as they constructed the cemeteries at Romagne, Beaumont, Thiencourt, Belleau Woods, Fere-en-Tardenois and Soissons. We watched them as they toiled day and night, week after week, through drenching rain and parching heat. And yet these physical ills were as naught compared with the trials of discriminations and injustices that seared their souls like hot iron, inflicted as they were at a time when these soldiers were rendering the American army and nation a sacred service. Always in those days there was fear of mutiny or rumors of mutiny. We felt most of the time that we were living close to the edge of a smoldering crater. At Belleau Woods the soldiers _en-masse_ banished some who mistreated them. We recall an incident at Romagne. Even though it was May the nights were winter cold, so that when one snuggled between army blankets in the tent, it required a bit of heroism to crawl out. This particular night we had just retired when shots were heard, fired in rapid succession. Without thought of the cold we began dressing and were sitting wrapped in cloak thinking rapidly about what was happening when someone called, “It is only a fire!” What a relief it was! What did it matter if the whole camp burned in comparison with our boys being goaded by prejudice beyond reason! Rations were often scarce and poor at Romagne because we were so far from supplies, hence we prepared and served food for the soldiers all day long. But this was but a small task compared with that of keeping the men in good spirits and reminding them again and again of the glory of the work they had in hand. Always, whether in the little corner set aside in the Y barracks as our reception room, or among the books they liked so well to read, whether by the side of the piano or over the canteen, we were trying to love them as a mother or a dear one would into a fuller knowledge and appreciation of themselves, their task and the value of forbearance.

We had gone from Romagne—women of fine spirit had taken our place and were lovingly ministering to the needs of these soldiers, when things happened too grievous to be calmly borne. At one stroke down came tents of discrimination and injustice, but the work there went on and the soldiers completed the difficult task assigned them.

For weeks at Romagne we watched these men fare forth with the dawn to find the dead on the 480 square miles of battlefield of the Meuse-Argonne. At eventide we would see them return and reverently remove the boxes from the long lines of trucks and place them on the hillside beside the waiting trenches that other soldiers had been digging all the long busy day. Far into the night we would sit in our darkened tent looking out on the electric-lighted cemetery, watching the men as they lowered the boxes into the trenches. Sometimes we could hear only a low murmur of voices, and sometimes again there would come to us a plaintive melody in keeping with the night hour and its peculiar task.

Mr. William G. Shepherd, in the New York _Evening Post_, gives the following picture:

“As we moved about the battlefield later, we saw in fields, in groves, on hillsides, and even in the yards of what had been the houses of French villages, groups of Negro soldiers at their worthy but infinitely slow task of calling the roll of our American dead and gathering them together at the hillside rendezvous of Romagne.

“One of the burning pictures of all this war to me was a view of these Negro sexton-soldiers working on a hilltop one rainy evening at dusk. They were outlined against the gloomy sky. Their huge motor-truck stood near by, ready to carry their burden to Romagne. I thought of the home back in the United States where this one doughboy’s empty chair held its sacred place; of how the ‘home fires,’ of which our doughboys had so often sung, had been kept burning for him. I thought of how the heart-love in that home would flash across the Atlantic to this bleak French hilltop faster than any wireless message—if the homefolk only knew.

“It was good to know that he was being taken from his solitary bed, in the midst of the battlefield’s desolation, back to the crowd of his buddies at Romagne. This, that I saw on the sky-line, was his second mobilization. Not this time will he sing and romp and play and joke and fight; after his second mobilization at Romagne he will just lie still and rest with all the other thousands of his fellow soldiers, his job well done, until it is time for us he saved to take him back home.”

We have yet another picture. It was the day before the 30th of May, 1919. Every soldier was helping to put the Romagne cemetery in readiness for its dedication by General Pershing on the next day. Looking out from our little kitchen window of the Y barrack, we saw what seemed to us a wonderful sight. Two long lines of soldiers were before us—one moving slowly over the hill and the other coming up the main road—each man bearing on his shoulder a single white cross that would rest above the grave of a fellow-hero. Quickly our mind traveled back over the centuries to Him who had borne the cross toward Golgotha, and we saw in these dark-skinned sons of America bearing those white crosses, something of the same humility and something of the same sorrow that characterized the Master, but we also beheld in them the Christ spirit grown large, beautiful and eternal with the ages. Behind the vivid picture drawn by Mr. Shepherd and behind this other picture, one sees not only the twenty-two thousand homes represented by these crosses at Romagne, but the ten thousand _real_ Americans, colored men of the Pioneer Infantries and labor battalions, who, through the sweat of toil, linked that place of sainted pilgrimage on the Western Front with those American homes.

Our outstanding impression of those faithful ones who wore the insignia of Alsace-Lorraine is their strict allegiance to the trust imposed upon them, with heart and purpose fixed to pay the price entailed in the completion of their severe task.

Whether they sought their comrades by the winding Meuse or on the battle-seamed heights of “No Man’s Land;” whether they found their bodies in the shadows of the ruined cathedrals of Rheims, Soissons or Ypres, always they were making an unconscious challenge to the very heart of the United States for the rights of the twelve millions of its citizens whose loyalty had thus endured the test.

May we not hope that as the heart of this homeland finds its way to those American shrines in France, a real peace, born of knowledge and gratitude, shall descend upon us, blotting out hate and its train of social and civil injustices? Then shall we realize the value and meaning of the pain and sacrifice of these dark-browned heroes of ours.

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What are the things that make life bright? A star gleam in the night. What hearts us for the coming fray? The dawn tints of the day. What helps to speed the weary mile? A brother’s friendly smile. What turns to gold the evening gray? A flower beside the way.

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR.

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Stray Days ————

There were days of travel from one post of duty to another, and days of recreation that took us away from the camp for a little but seldom away from the soldiers themselves. Army restrictions were as numerous and as intricate as the barbed wire entanglement of the front. But in spite of limitations, and in some instances because of them, we had many novel and interesting experiences in what we called Stray Days.

Waiting, as simple as it seems, could sometimes be one of the most trying ordeals of a soldier’s life. This was true of those who reached France in the heat of the conflict to become in some small way a part of it. Arriving in Paris and finding it sorely pressed by the foe, one immediately became a part of the anxious throng within its gates, with scant desire for sight-seeing or visits to places of interest during those tense days. This was especially true if one had known that city when it was all life and light, before the pall of suffering and dread had fallen over it.

Now one preferred to sit in the Garden of the Tuilleries, if the bomb and shell of the enemy permitted it. Looking out upon the huge dark form of the Louvre or letting the eyes wander past the remains of the palace to the Place de la Concorde, it would be most natural that the thoughts or conversation would turn to the long struggle of France for the attainment of an ideal democracy. Usually the conversation would be with a wounded soldier or sad old civilian of the French who would add much to our knowledge of his people and their history. Or in those same oppressive days, we would ride past the palatial residences with their fast-closed windows, on the Champs Elysées to the Bois de Boulogne. Sitting there with face toward Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe, one would come to understand that kingdoms and principalities, builded by selfishness and tyranny, survive but a day. Through the gruesome crucible of the Bastille and guillotine, France had won the democracy that she was now battling to preserve. The grim insistence of this determination could be seen in the wounded men that were ever near us.

But when the French had finally won, life and light once again filled Paris, and with it the urge and joy of long days of sight-seeing for the Americans. Soldiers “on three days’ leave” wanted to see luxurious Versailles whatever else was omitted. Others preferred Fontainebleau with its stately palace, or St. Denis with its hundreds of royal tombs. All wanted to go to the tombs of Lafayette and Napoleon. One would find the Chapel of the Invalides crowded with soldiers looking down upon the great sarcophagus of the Emperor, while a Y man related the history. Now and then as we listened, we felt that the shade of the great warrior might be protesting all unseen against some of these original expositions of his life.

Aside from the best-known places of interest, one liked to go out to Père la Chaise with a group of men and show them its wonderful beauty, even though a cemetery—show them the graves of great scholars and artists of France, even those of its great lovers like Héloise and Abelard. Often the day would be closed with a restful ride on the Seine, where, somehow, one came into more intimate touch with historical Paris and a keener understanding of it than from any other point. The long dark form of the Louvre; the beautiful Notre Dame with the nearby Hotel de Ville, and the gold-domed Hotel des Invalides are among the dominating views of the famous little Seine, and in them is summed up much of the death and resurrection of a nation. But outside of Paris the footsteps of the world seemed to turn toward Rheims. Rheims with its far-famed cathedral, all war-despoiled, became a place of pilgrimage not only for the devoted French, but for the thousands of foreigners on their soil. Towering above the ruined city, the cathedral, so rich in artistic value and historical associations, stands all shattered and torn. Thirty years to restore, they told us there. Somehow as we looked upon it, standing proudly erect in spite of its ghastly wounds and piles of wreckage heaped high about it, it seemed strongly emblematic of its wonderful people, who even then had begun the herculean task of restoring their villages and towns. Aside from walking through the ruins to reach the cathedral and our ride to the fort and battlefield with its never-ending trenches, we have two distinct memories of our visit to Rheims. First, it was a wonderful way to celebrate the birthday of one of us; and second, a secret service man, posing as a Frenchman, completely won our confidence. Once before in Paris when one of our number had a dinner in honor of the Liberian delegates to the Peace Conference, we found close at our side an American in faultless evening dress. He quite amused us by the way he pretended to be engrossed in his dinner and book, while he really gave himself to listening. A little diplomacy, and his calling was discovered. But at Rheims it was all different. Sprawled on a bench in real French attire with wine bottle in hand, this man spoke perfect French. It was the hottest day we had ever experienced in France, so he opened the conversation with questions about the weather in different sections of the United States, thus locating us. Then came other questions about colored people, their relations and feelings to their country. After a while our little party went to purchase postcards, and when we returned our erstwhile Frenchman had become an unmistakable American. He laughingly revealed his identity. Now, perhaps it was the environment, but, at any rate, we had all stood the test that day of being rather good Americans; even the “buck” private who accompanied us seemed to have forgotten the many grievances of his kind and spoke with, a kind of glow upon his face of his home in Baltimore. Our secret service man was well pleased with our Americanism, but we felt rather chagrined that we had missed so splendid an opportunity to share with him certain truths about colored folk at home that he probably had not learned.

Seeing Rheims, one also wished to see the city so close by and so closely linked to it for all the war. But we had seen Chateau Thierry first. One Saturday afternoon the two writers were started from Verdun with “movement orders” for Paris. But the spirit of adventure was very strong in them. They were in a region that within a year had changed the map of the world and added miraculous pages to history. They were in a sector where their own men, side by side with the French, had fought bravely to victory, so that to see it only from the fast moving train was hardly possible. At Chalons they descended, and so full of their adventure were they that the difficulty of securing suitable lodgings in that city, overcrowded with American officers and soldiers, did not disturb them. Two Frenchmen carrying their baggage, contentedly jogged along with them, now and then offering a suggestion. The old cathedral, one of the finest in France and the old buildings of the city, were well worth the time spent in hunting a place to sleep. Next morning they hurried over to the ruined city of Chateau Thierry with its little Marne that had twice held the world in breathless anxiety. How glad they were to join there two other Y women and a man who were also out for a day of recreation! Already they had found the headquarters’ company of the “813th,” and the colonel of that regiment granted the use of two camions or wagonettes in which they all raced to Belleau Woods, where Messrs. Kindal and Parks, with Miss Thomas and Mrs. Williamson were faithfully serving those companies of the “813th” who were building the cemetery there and of whom we have spoken. There, too, we found Dr. Wilberforce Williams helping the regular staff. Never was a dinner served in the properly appointed way eaten more joyously than the one to which those ten secretaries sat down that Sunday in Belleau Woods. It had been gathered from devious sources by the soldiers of the regiment and brought to the Y hut, so that the courses would not have pleased an epicurean taste. However, there were few fragments left from that meal.

We have told about the soldiers at Chateau Thierry and Fere-en-Tardenois, but we have not told about our race from one place to the other, about thirty miles, with stops here and there to find our way, pick up hats and caps blown away, and to repair the camions.

That night we slept at Epernay and that is still another story. There, too, we found the city crowded by Americans. We thought we would sit in the depot all night, but the sleeping crowd and steamy atmosphere drove us forth into the clean night air. We were just endeavoring to drive a bargain with the owner of a _voiture_ for its use as a sleeping carriage, when a tiny French lady in voluminous black bombazine swept us away to her small apartment with its big feather bed. The next day, having satisfied for the time our desire for sight-seeing, we most demurely handed in “movement orders” at the Paris office.

During the war Epernay, like Bar-le-Duc and Chalons, was always just on the rim of that gulf of fire and smoke that swept Eastern France. For the most part these cities escaped with only an ugly scar here and there. Verdun saved them, for could the Crown Prince but have realized his dream, they, too, would have been as Soissons, Rheims and Chateau Thierry, mere heaps of ruins.

There were other trips over battlefields and through their tunnels that most of those who went to France had the privilege of making. But it was away from the beaten paths of travelers, and especially along the west coast of France, that these Stray Days afforded us the greatest pleasure. At St. Nazaire there were days when we would leave the noise of the camp and wander down long shady roads, by high stone walls that hid from view beautiful cottages and gardens, down steep inclines to the sea, stepping from boulder to boulder till we would be far out. Then we would rest with the breeze full of the salt of the sea blowing about us. Sometimes we would talk of home and loved ones over there in the west, sometimes of our work, but oftener we would be silent. Looking up we might see a khaki-clad form high above that would come down to us at a frightfully rapid pace. There were lovely moonlight nights when we would stand by the sea-wall on the ocean boulevard and watch the transports that so often filled the harbor, resting on the glistening waves. But there were other nights when, clad in storm raiment, we enjoyed equally as well seeing the great waves dash over the wall and across the boulevard in turbulent anger.

Now and then there would be a whole day in which we could leave the camp entirely. Then we could go to one of the many little seaside resorts about us—Pornichet, for instance, with its great stretch of white beach, quaint and quiet inns and tempting sea food. There one would go to sleep with the roar of the waves in the ears and the salt of the sea filling the atmosphere.

Now and then there would be need of supplies for our hut that the local _magasins_ or shops could not supply, and it would afford a chance for a shopping expedition to the quaint and historical old city of Nantes. Once there we would spend most of the day in the crowded but wonderfully attractive shops. Then we would seek for a _voiture_ with a versatile and talkative owner who would show us the points of interest in the old town that had known so much of persecution and despotism. The river Loire, now filled with supplies for the army, was once filled with barges in which hundreds of human souls were drowned. Nantes was one of the important war bases, and was always crowded by Americans.

Another outing took us to Vannes on the Brittany coast, one of the oldest towns of France. In Celtic times it was the capital of Venetis and it takes the honor of giving Venice its name as well as colonizing the Adriatic. Because its inhabitants resisted Cæsar with so much vigor he said of them “they have bodies of iron and hearts of steel.” Looking at the everyday life of those inhabitants of the Brittany coast, one feels that time has brought few changes in conditions and customs. The men driving their cows and sheep on market day, the women and children riding in the carts or walking about the towns, all in the native costume of their class, close the door on the present and, for a time, make one a part of the past. Its old stone gateways and courts, its old squares and old passages and more than all else, its old men and women with their clattering wooden shoes, reveal how little the outer world has penetrated to that ancient spot.

A half day only left for Vannes, and Carnac with its Druid Stones almost thirty kilometres away! How was it to be done? We could not miss seeing such a wonder. There was but one way, and well for us that we did not know then all the army regulations or we would have missed this place now engraven in our memory. But we did not know, so we did the one thing possible, hired an automobile with chauffeur—both French—and sped to Carnac. It is neither beautiful nor ugly, but it is wonderful to see hundreds of gray stones rising skyward out of the heather-covered fields. So regular the rows, so silent the surroundings that one can almost believe the legend that makes them an army turned to stone. There is much of tradition and history in all of this part of Brittany.