Stories from the Trenches: Humorous and Lively Doings of Our 'Boys Over There'

Carleton B. Case

Stories from the Trenches: Humorous and Lively Doings of Our 'Boys Over There'

THE MAN WHO “CAME BACK”

ONE of the strangest of the many personal romances which the war has brought is the tale of a man who, dismissed from the British Army by court martial, redeemed himself through service with that most heterogeneous of organizations, the French Foreign Legion. His name was John F. Elkington, and he had held an honored post for more than thirty years. Then, just as his regiment, in the closing months of 1914, was going into the fighting on the Western front, he was cashiered for an unrevealed error and deprived of the opportunity to serve his country.

Heavy with disgrace, he disappeared, and for a long time no one knew what had become of him. Some even went so far as to surmise that he had committed suicide, until finally he turned up as an enlisted soldier in the Foreign Legion. In their ranks he went into the conflict to redeem himself. Today, says the New York Herald, he is back in England. He will never fight again, for he has practically lost the use of his knees from wounds. But he is perhaps the happiest man in England, and the account tells why, explaining:

Pinned on his breast are two of the coveted honors of France – the Military Medal and the Military Cross – but most valued possession of all is a bit of paper which obliterates the errors of the past – a proclamation from the official London Gazette announcing that the King has “graciously approved the reinstatement of John Ford Elkington in the rank of lieutenant-colonel, with his previous seniority, in consequence of his gallant conduct while serving in the ranks of the Foreign Legion of the French Army.”

Not only has Colonel Elkington been restored to the Army, but he has been reappointed in his old regiment, the Royal Warwickshires, in which his father served before him.

In the same London Gazette, at the end of October, 1914, had appeared the crushing announcement that Elkington had been cashiered by sentence of general court martial. What his error was did not appear at the time, and has not been alluded to in his returned hour of honor. It was a court martial at the front at a time when the first rush of war was engulfing Europe and little time could be wasted upon an incident of that sort. The charge, it is now stated, did not reflect in any way upon the officer’s personal courage.

But with fallen fortunes he passed quietly out of the Army and enlisted in the Legion – that corps where thousands of brave but broken men have found a shelter, and now and then an opportunity to make themselves whole again.

Colonel Elkington did not pass unscathed through fire. His fighting days are ended. His knees are shattered and he walks heavily upon two sticks.

“They are just fragments from France,” he said of those wounded knees, and smiled in happy reminiscence of all they meant.

“It is wonderful to feel,” said Colonel Elkington, “that once again I have the confidence of my King and my country. I am afraid my career in the field is ended, but I must not complain.”

Colonel Elkington made no attempt to cloak his name or his former Army service when he entered the ranks of the Legion.

“Why shouldn’t I be a private?” he asked. “It is an honor for any man to serve in the ranks of that famous corps. Like many of the other boys, I had a debt to pay. Now it is paid.”

The press of London is unanimous in welcoming the old soldier back into his former rank. One of them, The Evening Standard, contains the account of how he went about enlisting for France when he saw he would best leave London. It is written by a personal friend of Colonel Elkington, with all the vividness and sympathy of an actual observer of the incidents detailed. We are told:

“Late in October, 1914, I met him, his Army career apparently ruined. He had told the truth, which told against him; but in the moment when many men would have sunk, broken and despairing, he bore himself as he was and as he is today, a very gallant gentleman. He had been cashiered and dismissed from the service for conduct which, in the judgment of the court martial, rendered him unfit and incapable of serving his sovereign in the future in any military capacity. The London Gazette came out on October 14, 1914, recording the fact, and it became known to his many friends. For over thirty years he had served, and for distinguished service wore the Queen’s medal with four clasps after the Boer War. He went to France with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment at the outbreak of this conflict. His chance had come after twenty-eight years.”

During the first terrible two months he had done splendid work. A moment sufficient to try the discretion of any officer arrived. He made his mistake. He told his story to the general court martial. He vanished – home; and the London Gazette had the following War-Office announcement:

“Royal Warwickshire Regiment. – Lieutenant-Colonel John F. Elkington is cashiered by sentence of a general court martial. Dated September 14, 1914.”

He recognized at once, as he sat with me, what this meant. We chatted about various projects, and at last he said, “There is still the Foreign Legion. What do you say?”

Being acquainted with it, I told him what I knew; how it was the “refuge” for men of broken reputations; how it contained Italians, Germans, Englishmen, Russians, and others who had broken or shattered careers; the way to set about joining it by going to the recruiting office at – ; how the only requirement was physical fitness; that no questions would be asked; that I doubted if he would like all his comrades; that the discipline was very severe; that he might be sent to Algiers; that he would find all kinds of men in this flotsam – men of education and culture, perhaps scoundrels and blackguards as well; but he would soon discover perfect discipline.

Now for a man of his age to smile as he did, to set out on the bottom rung of the ladder as a ranker in a strange army, among strangers, leaving all behind him that he held dear, was a great act of moral courage. We heard of him at intervals, but such messages as dribbled through to his friends were laconic. We heard also he had been at this place and that, and that he was well and apparently doing well. That he had been repeatedly in serious action of recent months we also knew, and then came the news that he had won the coveted Médaillé Militaire– and more, that it was for gallant service. A curious distinction it is in some ways. Any meritorious service may win it; but not all ranks can get it. A generalissimo like General Joffre or Sir Douglas Haig may wear it for high strategy and tactics, and a non-commissioned officer or private may win and wear it for gallantry or other distinction. But no officer below a generalissimo can gain it. This distinction Elkington won. We all felt he had made good in the Legion, where death is near at all times, and we waited.

Today’s Gazette announcement has given all who knew him the greatest pleasure. He has told none of them for what particular act he received the coveted medal – just like Jack Elkington’s modesty.

But, as soon as he arrived home in England, the interviewers went after him hot and heavy. He found it all very boresome, for, now that the affair was over, he could see no use in talking about it to everybody. A reporter for The Daily Chronicle, however, managed to get what is probably the most satisfactory interview with him and one which shows to best advantage the peculiar psychology of this man who has experienced so many different sides of life. The interviewer, in telling of their conversation, portrays the Colonel as saying:

“Complaint? Good Lord, no! The whole thing was my own fault. I got what I deserved, and I had no kick against anyone. It was just ‘Carry on!’”

Brave words from a brave man – a man who has proved his bravery and worth in what surely were as heartrending circumstances as ever any man had to face. My first sight of the Man Who Has Made Good was as he descended the stairs, painfully and with the aid of two sticks, into the hall of his lovely old home by the river at Pangbourne. It is a house which the great Warren Hastings once called home also.

Very genial, very content, I found the man whose name today is on everyone’s lips; but very reticent also, with the reticence natural to the brave man who has achieved his aim and, having achieved it, does not wish it talked of.

“And now,” I suggested, “you have again got what you deserve?”

Colonel Elkington drew a long breath. “I hope so,” he said, at length, very quietly. “I have got my name back again, I hope cleared. That is what a man would care for most, isn’t it?”

“There is always a place in the Foreign Legion for someone who is down in the world,” he told me. “Directly after the court martial, when the result appeared in the papers, I said I must do something; that I could not sit at home doing nothing, and that as I could not serve England I would serve France. Yes, I did offer my services again to England, but it is military law that no man who has been cashiered can be employed again for the King while the sentence stands. So there was nothing for it but the Foreign Legion – that home for the fallen man.”

Of that strange and famous corps Colonel Elkington cannot speak without a glint of pride in his keen blue eyes. Splendid men, the best in the world, he calls them, “and every one was as kind as possible to me.” Many there were who had become legionaries because they, too, had failed elsewhere, “lost dogs like myself,” the Colonel called them; but the majority of the men with whom he served were there because there was fighting to be done, because fighting was second nature to them, and because there was a cause to be fought for. The officers he describes as the “nicest fellows in the world and splendid leaders.”

When Colonel Elkington first joined there were many Englishmen included in its ranks, but most of these subsequently transferred to British regiments. He enlisted in his own name, but none knew his story, and often he was questioned as to his reason for not transferring – “and I had to pitch them the tale.”

He kept away from British soldiers as much as possible, “but one day someone shouted my name. I remember I was just about to wash in a stream when a staff motor drove by and an officer waved his hand and called out. But I pretended not to hear and turned away…

“I don’t think that the men in the Legion fear anything,” he said. “I never saw such men, and I think in the attack at Champaigne they were perfectly wonderful. I never saw such a cool lot in my life as when they went forward to face the German fire then. It was a great fight; they were all out for blood, and, though they were almost cut up there, they got the German trenches.”

The time he was recognized, as detailed above, was the only one. At no other time did any of his comrades suspect his identity, or else, if they did, they were consideration itself in keeping it to themselves. Of this recognition and some of his subsequent experiences, the London Times remarks, speaking of its own interview with him:

It was the only voice from the past that came to him, and he took it as such. A few minutes afterward he was stepping it out heel and toe along the dusty road, a private in the Legion.

Shot in the leg, Colonel Elkington spent ten months in hospital and eight months on his back. This was in the Hôpital Civil at Grenoble. He could not say enough for the wonderful treatment that was given him there. They fought to save his life, and when they had won that fight, they started to save his leg from amputation. The head of the hospital was a Major Termier, a splendid surgeon, and he operated eight times and finally succeeded in saving the damaged limb. When he was first in hospital neither the patients nor any of the hospital staff knew what he was or what he had done. Elkington himself got an inkling of his good fortune at Christmas when he heard of his recommendation for the Croix de Guerre.

“Perhaps that helped me to get better,” he said. “The medals are over there on the mantelpiece.” I went over to where there were two glass cases hanging on the wall. “No, not those; those are my father’s and my grandfather’s.” He showed me the medals, and on the ribbon of the cross there was the little bronze palm-branch which doubles the worth of the medal.

When he was wounded Dr. Wheeler gave him a stiff dose of laudanum, but he lay for thirteen hours until he saw a French patrol passing. He was then 100 yards short of the German second line of trenches, for this was in the Champaigne Battle, on September 28, when the French made a magnificent advance.

It was difficult to get Colonel Elkington to talk about himself. As his wife says, he has a horror of advertisement, and a photographer who ambushed him outside his own lodge-gates yesterday made him feel more nervous than when he was charging for the machine gun that wounded him. To say he was happy would be to write a platitude. He is the happiest man in England. He is now recuperating and receiving treatment, and he hopes that he will soon be able to walk more than the 100 yards that taxes his strength to the utmost at present.

FOUR TO THE GOOD

In times of peace Smith might have been an author who had drifted into some useful occupation, such as that of a blacksmith, but just now he is cook to the Blankshire officers’ mess. Smith sent Murphy into the village to bring home some chickens ordered for the mess.

“Murphy,” said Smith, the next day, “when you fetch me chickens again, see that they are fastened up properly. That lot you fetched yesterday all got loose, and though I scoured the village I only managed to secure ten of them.”

“’Sh!” said Murphy. “I only brought six.”

FRANCO-YANKO ROMANCES

THE story is told of a British “Tommy” who could not make up his mind whether to acquire a farm or a village store, by marriage, “somewhere in France.” He could have either, but not both. Dispatches say that the banns have already been read for some of our “Sammies,” and when the war is over France will have some sturdy Yankee citizens. Difference of language seems to form no bar; in fact, the kindly efforts of each to learn the language of the other acts as an aid. It must be said that the British, so far, have rather the best of it. They have beaten the Yankees to the altar of Hymen, but they had the field to themselves for some time. By the end of the war the Americans may have caught up, for love and war have always walked hand in hand with Uncle Sam’s boys. Nevertheless the British have a big start, for Judson C. Welliver, writing to the New York Sun from Paris, says that in Calais hundreds of young English mechanics have married French girls. The writer tells of being accosted by a young man from “the States” at the corner of the Avenue de l’Opéra and “one of those funny little crooked streets that run into it.” Breezily the American introduced himself and said:

“Say, do you happen to know a little caffy right around here called the – the – blame it, I can’t even remember what that sign looked like it was trying to spell.”

I admitted that the description was a trifle too vague to fit into my geographic scheme of Paris.

“Because,” he went on, “there’s a girl there that talks United States, and she’s been waiting on me lately. I get all the best of everything there and don’t eat anywhere else. But this morning I took a walk and coming from a new direction I can’t locate the place. I promised her I’d be in for breakfast this morning.”

“Something nifty?” I ventured, being willing to encourage that line of conversation. Whereat he plainly bridled:

“She’s a nice girl,” he said; “family were real people before the war. Learned to talk United States in England; went to school there awhile. Why, she wouldn’t let me walk home with her last night, but said maybe she would tonight.”

There isn’t anybody quite so adaptable as the young Frenchwoman. Only in the last few months has Paris seen any considerable number of English-speaking soldiers, because earlier in the war the British military authorities kept their men pretty religiously away from the alleged “temptations” of the gay capital. Later they discovered that Paris was rather a better place than London for the men to go.

So the French girls, in shops and cafés, have been learning English recently at an astounding rate. They began the study because of the English invasion; they have continued it with increased zeal because since the Americans have been coming it has been profitable.

To be able to say “Atta boy!” in prompt and sympathetic response to “Ham and eggs” is worth 50 centimes at the lowest. The capacity to manage a little casual conversation and give a direction on the street is certain to draw a franc.

Besides, there aren’t going to be so many men left, after the war, in France!

Mademoiselle, figuring that there are a couple of million Britishers in the country and a million or maybe two of Americans coming, has her own views about the prospect that the next generation Frenchwomen may be old maids.

In Calais there is a big industrial establishment to which the British military authorities have brought great numbers of skilled mechanics to make repairs to machinery, reconstruct the outworn war-gear, tinker obstreperous motor-vehicles, and, in short, keep the whole machinery and construction side of the war going. Most of the mechanics who were sent there were young men.

Calais testifies to the ability of the Frenchwomen to make the most of their attractions. English officers tell me that hundreds of young Englishmen settled in Calais “for the duration” have married French girls and settled into homes. They intend, in a large proportion of cases, to remain there, too.

The same thing is going on in Boulogne, which is to all intents and purposes nowadays as much an English as a French port. Everywhere English is spoken and by nobody is it learned so quickly as by the young women.

Frenchwomen have always had the reputation of making themselves agreeable to visiting men, but one is quite astonished to learn the number of Englishmen who married Frenchwomen even before the war. The balance is a little imperfect, for the records show that there are not nearly as many Frenchmen marrying English girls. But, says the writer in the Sun, a new generation of girls of marriageable age has arrived with the war, and:

Not only in the military, industrial, and naval base towns are the British marrying these Frenchwomen, but even in the country nearer the front. There are incipient romances afoot behind every mile of the trench-line.

Two related changes in French life are coming with the war which make these international marriages easier. Both relate to the dot [dowry] system. On the one side there are many French girls who have lost their dots and have small prospect of reacquiring the marriage portion. To live in these strenuous times is about all they can hope for. For these the free-handed Americans, Canadians, and Australians look like good prospects for a well-to-do marriage.

Even the British Tommy, though he enjoys no such income as the Americans and colonials, is nevertheless quite likely to have a bit of private income from the folks “back in Blighty” to supplement the meager pay he draws. The portionless French maid sees in these prosperous young men who have come to fight for her country not only the saviors of the nation, but a possibility of emancipation from the dot system that has broken down in these times.

On the other side, there are more than a few young women in France who must be rated “good catches” to-day, though their dots would have been unimportant before the war. A girl who has inherited the little property of her family, because father and brothers all lie beneath the white crosses along the Marne, not infrequently finds herself possessed of a little fortune she could never have expected under other conditions. Many of these, likewise, bereft of sweethearts as well as relatives, have been married to English and colonial soldiers or workmen; and pretty soon we will be learning that their partiality for America – for there is such a partiality, and it is a decided one – will be responsible for many alliances in that direction.

How it will all work out in the end is only to be guessed at as yet. The British officers who have been observing these Anglo-French romances for a long time assert that the British Tommy who weds a Frenchwoman is quite likely to settle in France; particularly if his bride brings him a village house or a few hectares of land in the country.

On the other hand, the colonials insist on taking their French brides back to New Zealand or Canada, or wherever it may be – India, Shanghai, somewhere in Africa – no matter, the colonial is a colonial forever; he has no idea of going back to the cramped conditions of England. He likes the motherland, all right, is willing to fight for it, but wants room to swing a bull by the tail, and that isn’t to be had in England, he assures you.

Probably the Americans will be like the colonials; those who find French wives will take them home after the war. That a good many of them will marry French wives can hardly be doubted.

Yes, the French girls like the American boys. But there is another scene. It is that of the country billet, which varies from a château to a cellar, the ideal one – from the point of view of a billeting officer – being a bed for every officer, and nice clean straw for the men. Get this picture of “Our Village, Somewhere in France,” back of the line, as drawn by Sterling Hielig in the Los Angeles Times:

A French valley full of empty villages, close to the fighting line. No city of tents. No mass of shack constructions. The village streets are empty. Geese and ducks waddle to the pond in Main Street.

It is 4 o’clock a. m.

Bugle!

Up and down the valley, in the empty villages, there is a moving-picture transformation. The streets are alive with American soldiers – tumbling out of village dwelling-houses!

Every house is full of boarders. Every village family has given, joyfully, one, two, three of its best rooms for the cot beds of the Americans! Barns and wagon-houses are transformed to dormitories. They are learning French. They are adopted by the family. Sammy’s in the kitchen with the mother and the daughter.

Bugle!

They are piling down the main street to their own American breakfast – cooked in the open, eaten in the open, this fine weather.

In front of houses are canvas reservoirs of filtered drinking-water. The duck pond in Main street is being lined with cement. The streets are swept every morning. There are flowers. The village was always picturesque. Now it is beautiful.

Chaplains’ clubs are set up in empty houses. The only large tent is that of the Y. M. C. A.; and it is camouflaged against enemy observers by being painted in streaked gray-green-brown, to melt into the colors of the hill against which it is backed up, practically invisible. Its “canteen on wheels” is loaded with towels, soap, razors, chocolate, crackers, games, newspapers, novels, and tobacco. At cross-roads, little flat Y. M. C. A. tents (painted grass and earth color) serve as stations for swift autos carrying packages and comforts. In them are found coffee, tea, and chocolate, ink, pens, letter-paper, and envelopes; and a big sign reminds Sammy that “You Promised Your Mother a Letter, Write It Today!”

All decent and in order. Otherwise the men could never have gone through the strenuous coaching for the front so quickly and well.

In “Our Village,” not a duck or goose or chicken has failed to respond to the roll call in the past forty days – which is more than can be said of a French company billet, or many a British.

Fruit hung red and yellow in the orchards till the gathering. I don’t say the families had as many bushels as a “good year”; but there is no criticism.

In a word, Sammy has good manners. He looks on these French people with a sort of awed compassion. “They had a lot to stand!” he whispers. And the villagers, who are no fools (“as wily as a villager,” runs the French proverb), quite appreciate these fine shades. And the house dog wags his tail at the sight of khaki, as the boys come loafing in the cool of the back yard after midday dinner.