Chapter 11

Soon after landing in France, he wrote a description of a long march made by his regiment. At the end of the march, the men were too weary even to spread out their blankets, but dropped down to rest on the floor of the loft in the French peasant home where they were billeted for the night. But even that experience was new and interesting. Later, when the men were somewhat rested, they missed one of their mates, and on going down stairs found him with his frozen feet in a tub of cold water furnished him by the peasant woman. The little girl of the home was on his knees, and the two boys were standing beside him--as Joyce Kilmer described them--"_envying_ him" his frozen feet.

He also found interesting work at the front, in connection with the trench newspaper, _The Stars and Stripes_.

At the dawn of a dark and misty Sunday morning in July, his regiment was ordered to charge across the river Ourcq and take the hill beyond, from where the enemy's machine guns were pouring down a withering rain of bullets. His own battalion, he learned, was not to be in the lead. So he promptly asked and obtained permission to join the leading battalion.

Across the river they charged and for five days fought for the heights. But Joyce Kilmer was not there to witness the victory.

In the fiercest battles, the bravest officers often go before and lead their men into the fight, thus encouraging them more than if following them or charging at their side. The fight beyond the Ourcq was a fierce one, and the chief officer dashed on ahead of his men. Touching elbows with him was Sergeant Kilmer. When the battalion adjutant was killed, he served, although without a commission, as a sort of aid to the battalion commander.

To the very heights he rushed, and threw himself down at a little ridge where he might peer over and seek out the hidden enemy machine gun battery. It was there, lying as if still scouting, that his comrades found him, so like his living self that they did not at first think him dead.

They buried him at the edge of a little wood, called the Wood of the Burned Bridge, close to the rippling waters of the Ourcq, and at the foot of the unforgetable hill.

Deep and keen was the loss felt by his comrades and his officers. From their pockets many of the men drew forth verses written by the poet about some incident in the trenches or some comrade who had been lost.

One of the poems to a lost soldier was read over the poet's grave. A refrain, supposed to be sounded by the bugle, is repeated through the verses, and as these lines were read the sad notes of "taps" sounded faintly from the grove. On his little wooden cross were written the simple words: "Sergeant Joyce Kilmer," then his company and regiment, and "Killed in Action, July 30, 1918."

But Joyce Kilmer and his verses will long live in the minds and hearts, not only of his comrades in battle, but of all Americans.

Such a buoyant, happy life does not seem to have passed away. Some beautiful tributes to him, written by other American poets, express this thought.

One friend at the news of Kilmer's death was reminded of his poem, "Main Street."

"God be thanked for the Milky Way that runs across the sky; That is the path my feet would tread whenever I have to die. Some folks call it a Silver Sword, and some a Pearly Crown, But the only thing I think it is, is Main Street, Heaventown."

Then the friend touchingly added, "Perhaps Seeger and Kilmer are strolling down Main Street together tonight."

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TREES

I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

JOYCE KILMER.

BLOCKING THE CHANNEL

Bruges is an important city of Belgium made familiar to American boys and girls by Longfellow's beautiful poem, "The Belfry of Bruges." He describes what "the belfry old and brown" has seen.

"Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand, 'I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land.'"

What a terrible story the historian or poet will have to tell who narrates what the belfry of Bruges has seen during the fifty-two months of the World War, a year, we may call it, in which each week had become a month.

The port of Bruges, called Zeebrugge or Bruges on the Sea, lies not far from the city, at the mouth of a maritime canal. The entrance to this canal was protected by a great crescent-shaped mole thirty feet high inclosing the harbor.

The Germans in the shipbuilding yards at Antwerp built small warships and submarines and sent them over the canals across Belgium to Ostend and Zeebrugge, from where they went out to destroy Allied shipping.

The English determined to put an end to this and on the night of April 22, 1918, an expedition was sent to block the channel and to destroy as far as possible the mole which protected it. It has been said that it was "one of the most thrilling and picturesque of the naval operations of the war. To Americans it recalled Hobson's exploit with the Merrimack, at Santiago, while to Englishmen it brought back memories of Sir Francis Drake and his fire ships in the harbor of Cadiz." The fight lasted only an hour but the British lost 588 men, for the channel and the mole were so fully guarded with searchlights, machine guns, and artillery that such an attempt was looked upon by the Germans as foolhardy and doomed to absolute failure.

A British cruiser, the _Vindictive_, in charge of Commander Alfred F. B. Carpenter, with two ferryboats, the _Daffodil_ and the _Iris_, were to escort six obsolete British cruisers filled with concrete and sand to the harbor mouths at Ostend and Zeebrugge and to sink them there in the channels. The ferryboats carried sailors and marines who were to attack and destroy the mole. It was thought that this attack would divert the attention of the defenders and make it easier to sink the concrete laden cruisers in the channel. Two old and useless submarines, filled with explosives, were to be blown up against the viaduct joining the mole and the shore.

A heavy protective curtain of smoke was essential to the success of the plan. Commander Brock, who was killed during the action, planned the smoke screen and carried it out so successfully that the _Vindictive_ was able to get almost to the mole before being discovered. At Ostend the wind blew from such a direction that the smoke screen did not hide the boats and the attack there on that night was for that reason a failure. It succeeded better later, on May 9, when the battered _Vindictive_ was sunk in the channel.

The following is the story of the action at Zeebrugge taken from the official report of the British Admiralty:--

"The night was overcast and there was a drifting haze. Down the coast a great searchlight swung its beam to and fro in the small wind and short sea. From the _Vindictive's_ bridge, as she headed in toward the mole, with the faithful ferryboats at her heels, there was scarcely a glimmer of light to be seen shoreward. Ahead, as she drove through the water, rolled the smoke screen, her cloak of invisibility, wrapped about her by small craft. This was the device of Wing Commander Brock, without which, acknowledges the Admiral in command, the operation could not have been conducted.

"A northeast wind moved the volume of it shoreward ahead of the ships. Beyond it, was the distant town, its defenders unsuspicious. It was not until the _Vindictive_, with blue-jackets and marines standing ready for landing, was close upon the mole that the wind lulled and came away again from the southeast, sweeping back the smoke screen and laying her bare to eyes that looked seaward.

"There was a moment immediately afterward when it seemed to those on the ships as if the dim, coast-hidden harbor exploded into light. A star shell soared aloft, then a score of star shells. The wavering beams of the searchlights swung around and settled into a glare. A wild fire of gun flashes leaped against the sky, strings of luminous green beads shot aloft, hung and sank. The darkness of the night was supplemented by a nightmare daylight of battle-fired guns and machine guns along the mole. The batteries ashore awoke to life.

"It was in a gale of shelling that the _Vindictive_ laid her nose against the thirty-foot high concrete side of the mole, let go her anchor and signaled to the _Daffodil_ to shove her stern in.

"The _Iris_ went ahead and endeavored to get alongside likewise. The fire was intense, while the ships plunged and rolled beside the mole in the seas, the _Vindictive_ with her greater draught jarring against the foundations of the mole with every lunge. They were swept diagonally by machine-gun fire from both ends of the mole and by the heavy batteries on shore.

"Commander (now Captain) Carpenter commanded the _Vindictive_ from the open bridge until her stern was laid in, when he took up his position in the flame thrower hut on the port side. It is marvelous that any occupant should have survived a minute in this hut, so riddled and shattered is it.

"The officers of the _Iris_, which was in trouble ahead of the _Vindictive_, describe Captain Carpenter as handling her like a picket boat. The _Vindictive_ was fitted along her port side with a high false deck, from which ran eighteen brows or gangways by which the storming and demolition parties were to land.

"The men gathered in readiness on the main lower decks, while Colonel Elliott, who was to lead the marines waited on the false deck just abaft of the bridge. Captain Halahan, who commanded the blue-jackets, was amidships. The gangways were lowered, and they scraped and rebounded upon the high parapet of the mole as the _Vindictive_ rolled in the seaway.

"The word for the assault had not yet been given when both leaders were killed, Colonel Elliott by a shell and Captain Halahan by machine-gun fire which swept the decks. The same shell that killed Colonel Elliott also did fearful execution in the forward Stokes mortar battery. The men were magnificent; every officer bears the same testimony.

"The mere landing on the mole was a perilous business. It involved a passage across the crashing and splintering gangways, a drop over the parapet into the field of fire of the German machine guns which swept its length, and a further drop of some sixteen feet to the surface of the mole itself. Many were killed and more wounded as they crowded up the gangways, but nothing hindered the orderly and speedy landing by every gangway.

"Lieutenant H. T. C. Walker had his arm shot away by shell on the upper deck, and lay in darkness while the storming parties trod him under. He was recognized and dragged aside by the commander. He raised his remaining arm in greetings. 'Good luck to you,' he called as the rest of the stormers hastened by. 'Good luck.'

"The lower deck was a shambles as the commander made the rounds of the ship, yet those wounded and dying raised themselves to cheer as he made his tour. . . .

"The _Iris_ had troubles of her own. Her first attempts to make fast to the mole ahead of the _Vindictive_ failed, as her grapnels were not large enough to span the parapet. Two officers, Lieutenant Commander Bradford and Lieutenant Hawkins, climbed ashore and sat astride the parapet trying to make the grapnels fast till each was killed and fell down between the ship and the wall. Commander Valentine Gibbs had both legs shot away and died next morning. Lieutenant Spencer though wounded, took command and refused to be relieved.

"The _Iris_ was obliged at last to change her position and fall in astern of the _Vindictive_, and suffered very heavily from fire. A single big shell plunged through the upper deck and burst below at a point where fifty-six marines were waiting for the order to go to the gangways. Forty-nine were killed. The remaining seven were wounded. Another shell in the wardroom, which was serving as a sick bay, killed four officers and twenty-six men. Her total casualties were eight officers and sixty-nine men killed, and three officers and 103 men wounded.

"Storming and demolition parties upon the mole met with no resistance from the Germans other than intense and unremitting fire. One after another buildings burst into flame or split and crumbled as dynamite went off. A bombing party working up toward the mole extension in search of the enemy destroyed several machine-gun emplacements, but not a single prisoner rewarded them. It appears that upon the approach of the ships and with the opening of fire the enemy simply retired and contented themselves with bringing machine guns to the short end of the mole."

The story of the three block ships that were to be sunk in the channel at Zeebrugge, also from the report of the British Admiralty, is as follows:--

"The _Thetis_ came first, steaming into a tornado of shells from great batteries ashore. All her crew, save a remnant who remained to steam her in and sink her, already had been taken off her by a ubiquitous motor launch, but the remnant spared hands enough to keep her four guns going. It was hers to show the road to the _Intrepid_ and the _Iphigenia_, which followed. She cleared a string of armed barges which defends the channel from the tip of the mole, but had the ill fortune to foul one of her propellers upon a net defense which flanks it on the shore side.

"The propeller gathered in the net, and it rendered her practically unmanageable. Shore batteries found her and pounded her unremittingly. She bumped into the bank, edged off, and found herself in the channel again still some hundreds of yards from the mouth of the canal in practically a sinking condition. As she lay she signaled invaluable directions to others, and her commander, R. S. Sneyed, also accordingly blew charges and sank her. Motor launches under Lieutenant Littleton raced alongside and took off her crew. Her losses were five killed and five wounded.

"The _Intrepid_, smoking like a volcano and with all her guns blazing, followed. Her motor launch failed to get alongside outside the harbor, and she had men enough for anything. Straight into the canal she steered, her smoke blowing back from her into the _Iphigenia's_ eyes, so that the latter was blinded, and, going a little wild, rammed a dredger, with her barge moored beside it, which lay at the western arm of the canal. She was not clear, though, and entered the canal pushing the barge before her. It was then that a shell hit the steam connections of her whistle, and the escape of the steam which followed drove off some of the smoke and let her see what she was doing.

"Lieutenant Stuart Bonham Carter, commanding the _Intrepid_, placed the nose of his ship neatly on the mud of the western bank, ordered his crew away, and blew up his ship by switches in the chart room. Four dull bumps were all that could be heard, and immediately afterward there arrived on deck the engineer, who had been in the engine room during the explosion, and reported that all was as it should be.

"Lieutenant E. W. Bullyard Leake, commanding the _Iphigenia_, beached her according to arrangements on the eastern side, blew her up, saw her drop nicely across the canal, and left her with her engines still going, to hold her in position till she should have bedded well down on the bottom. According to the latest reports from air observation, two old ships, with their holds full of concrete, are lying across the canal in a V position, and it is probable that the work they set out to do has been accomplished and that the canal is effectively blocked. A motor launch, under Lieutenant P. T. Deane, had followed them in to bring away the crews and waited further up the canal toward the mouth against the western bank.

"Lieutenant Bonham Carter, having sent away his boats, was reduced to a Carley float, an apparatus like an exaggerated life-buoy, with the floor of a grating. Upon contact with the water it ignited a calcium flare and he was adrift in the uncanny illumination with a German machine gun a few hundred yards away giving him its undivided attention. What saved him was possibly the fact that the defunct _Intrepid_ still was emitting huge clouds of smoke which it had been worth nobody's while to turn. He managed to catch a rope, as the motor launch started, and was towed for a while till he was observed and taken on board."

A short time after the attack, the Kaiser visited Zeebrugge and gave out the statement that practically no damage had been done and that the channel was still clear. But then an Allied airplane flew over the channel and the mole and secured photographs showing two cruisers sunk in the channel just as had been planned, and effectively blocking it, and also a break in the viaduct sixty to one hundred feet in length. "Only another German lie, this time indorsed by the Kaiser," declared the British papers. A leading German daily said, however, "It would be only foolishness to deny that the British naval forces scored a great success. By a stroke, crazy in its audacity, they penetrated one of the most important strongholds over which the German flag floats."

THE FLEET THAT LOST ITS SOUL

Sailors and especially fighters on the sea have in all ages possessed the noblest and bravest of souls and the finest morale. This is why the British sailors have felt so bitter about the atrocities committed by the German U-boats. In case a ship is sinking, the members of the crew do not expect to leave her until all the passengers are in the lifeboats, and the captain is always the last man to leave. Sometimes he prefers to go down with his ship so that it may never be said that his soul failed him. For sea fighters in U-boats to disregard this traditional chivalry of the sea and to sink merchant ships without warning and without assuring the passengers of their safety seemed to the sailors of other lands like giving up the high ideals that had grown out of their dangerous calling--like poisoning their souls with deceit and violence.

Most naval officers would rather die than surrender. Captain Lawrence, fighting for America in the war of 1812, wounded and dying, cried to his men, "Don't give up the ship." To fight rather than to surrender even in the face of the greatest odds has been for centuries the idea of sea fighters.

Admiral Cervera at Santiago in 1898 knew he was outmatched by the American fleet waiting for him off the harbor; but he brought his ships out and made a brave fight in trying to escape. Lieutenant Hobson knew there were terrible odds against him when he and his little company went in under the guns of the forts and attempted to block the channel. In the Russo-Japanese War, the Russians in the Sea of Japan with their ships foul and barnacled after a voyage of thousands of miles were not afraid to face certain defeat. Brave men do not lose their souls in the face of tremendous odds or even in the face of sure death.

Did the soul of Private George Dilboy of Somerville, Massachusetts, faint in him when he charged alone the German machine gun? He had come with his platoon up a little rise to a railroad track at the top, when suddenly an enemy machine gun opened fire upon them at about one hundred yards distance. Dilboy did not throw himself on the ground to escape the bullets. No, he raised his rifle to his shoulder and standing in plain sight of the German gunners, began to fire at them. As they were partially hidden he was not sure of his aim. So he ran down the embankment and across a wheat field towards them. The machine gun was immediately turned upon him and before he reached it, he fell with one leg nearly severed above the knee by the rain of lead and with several bullets through his body. Half crouched on the only knee left him, he aimed at the gunners one after another until he had killed or dispersed them all, and then fainted and died. He had advanced in the face of certain death, but had saved the lives of many of his comrades, for the gun had to be captured to gain their objective.

The brute is usually a coward at heart. The sinking of unarmed merchant ships and of hospital ships by the German U-boats, the bombing of undefended towns and hospitals, and the firing upon Red Cross workers were acts of brutes and cowards. So it is not strange that the great German fleet which all through the war, except at the battle of Jutland, had hidden in security behind the guns of Heligoland and the defenses of the Kiel Canal lost its soul when, as a last hope, it was ordered out to fight the Allied fleet. The German sailors knew the battle would really be a gigantic sacrifice and refused to fight it for the Fatherland.

There is always a very slight chance that through accident or some peculiar combination of unusual circumstances, a battle even against very great odds may be won. The German fleet had this chance--a very, very slight one, to be sure; and did not take it. The fleet had lost its soul.

Two weeks later, after the signing of the armistice, the German fleet surrendered to the Allies. It was the greatest, the most amazing, and some add, the most shameful surrender in the naval history of the world. It was also the greatest concentration of sea power and the most magnificent spectacle old ocean has ever witnessed.

The surrender was demanded by the terms of the armistice and was made on November 21, according to the program laid down by the commander of the British fleet. It was not the surrender of a foe beaten in a fair battle and yet recognized by his enemies as worthy of his steel. It was the surrender of a foe who declined to fight with the strong and the armed, but who had taken every opportunity to kill the weak and the defenseless. The British sailors could not forget, and they say they never will, the barbarous treatment of their brothers in the merchant marine by the German U-boats. There was therefore none of the sympathy and the fraternization that usually has accompanied a great surrender at sea.

On the afternoon of the day before the surrender the following notice was posted on all the Allied ships:--

"Let it be impressed on all--officers and men--that a state of war exists during the armistice. Their relations with officers and men of the German navy with whom they may now be brought in contact are to be strictly of a formal character in dealing with the late enemy, while courteous.

"It is obligatory that the methods by which they waged war must not be forgotten. No international compliments are to be paid, and all conversation is forbidden except in regard to the immediate business to be transacted.

"If it should be necessary to provide food for the German officers and men, they should not be entertained, but it should be served to them in a place specifically set. If it should be necessary to accept food from the Germans, the request is made that it be similarly served."