The A. E. F.: With General Pershing and the American Forces

"I wasn't ever in New York," she said. "I come from Lima, Ohio."

Like the medical corps, the engineers were peculiarly American and peculiarly efficient as well. We first came upon them when we saw a tall, stringy man looking out of the window of a little locomotive which pulled a train up to a point at the French front. We thought he was an American because his jaws were moving back and forth slowly and meditatively. Inquiry brought confirmation.

"Sure, I'm an American," said the man in the blue jumpers. "I guess I've kicked a hobo off the train for every telegraph pole back on the old Rock Island, but this is the toughest railroading job I've struck yet."

The man in the locomotive was a member of an American regiment of railroad engineers which had taken over an important military road. They had the honor to be the first American troops at the French front who came under fire. The engineers were willing to admit that while washouts and spreading rails were old stories to them, they did get a bit of a thrill the first time they found their tracks torn up by shellfire. But the aeroplanes were worse.

"One night," said our friend the engineer, "there was one of those flying machines just followed along with us and every time we fired the engine and the sparks flew up she'd drop a bomb on us or shoot at us with her machine gun. We tried to hit it up a bit, but she kept right up with us. They didn't hit us, but once they got so rough we just slowed down and laid under the engine for a spell until they decided to quit picking on us."

This regiment of railroad engineers was the huskiest outfit I saw in France. It was carefully selected from the railroads running into Chicago. Of the men originally selected only about one-seventh were taken because the railroads found so many men who were eager to go. One company boasted one hundred and twenty-five six-footers and all were two-fisted fighters. The discipline of the regiment, of course, was not that of an infantry unit. I watched an animated discussion between a captain and his men as to where some material should be placed when the regiment first moved into a new camp.

"You've got the wrong dope about that, Bill," said a private to his captain very earnestly. The officer looked at him severely.

"I've told you before about this discipline business, Harry," he said. "Any time you want to kick about my orders you call me mister." It is hard for a railroad man to realize that a couple of silver bars have changed a yardmaster into a captain.

The regiment set great store by the number thirteen. It was put into service on a Friday the thirteenth and it left its American base in two sections of thirteen cars each. The locomotives' headlight numbers each totaled thirteen and the thirteenth of a month found the regiment arriving at its European port of entry. The thirteenth of the next month found the regiment starting for its French base and when the camp was reached a group of interpreters was waiting.

"How many are you?" asked the colonel.

"Myself and twelve companions," replied one of the Frenchmen.

The regiment will never forget the first night at its French base. It arrived at midnight but crowds thronged the darkened streets and gave the big Americans an enthusiastic greeting, although it was forbidden to talk above undertones. Since they could not hurrah for the soldiers, the villagers hugged them, and from black windows roses were pelted on shadowy figures who tramped up the street to the low rumble of a muffled band.

"Great people, these French, so demonstrative," said a captain, who was once a trainmaster in a Texas town.

"I was in the theater the other night," he said, "and a couple of performers on the stage started to sing 'Madelon.' Well, I'd heard it before and I knew the chorus, so when they got that far along I joined in. Well, there was a young girl sitting next me and when she saw that I knew the song she just threw her arms around my neck and kissed me.

"And now," said the captain, "everybody in the regiment's after me to teach 'em that song."

CHAPTER XIV

WE VISIT THE FRENCH ARMY

"The Germans haven't thrown a single shell into Rheims today," said our conducting officer apologetically. "Yesterday," he continued more cheerfully, "they sent more than five hundred big ones and they wounded two of my officers."

We left the little inn at the fringe of the town and rode into the square in front of the cathedral. At the door the officer turned us over to the curator. The old man led us up the aisle to a point not far from the altar. Here he stopped, and pointing to a great shell hole in the floor said: "On this spot in the year 496 Clovis, the King of the Franks, was baptized by the blessed St. Remi with oil which was brought from heaven in a holy flask by a dove."

Something flew over the cathedral just then, but we knew it was not a dove. It whistled like a strong wind, and presently the shop of a confectioner some ten blocks away folded up with a ripping, smashing sound. Clovis, with his fourteen centuries wrapped about him, was safe enough. He had quit the spot in time. But a younger man ducked. The old guide did not even look up.

"The first stone of the present cathedral was laid in May, 1212, by the Archbishop Alberic de Humbert," he said.

Another big shell tore the sky, and this time the smash was nearer. It seemed certainly no more than nine blocks away. The young man began to calculate. He figured that he was seven centuries down, while the Germans had nine blocks to go. That was something, but the guide failed to keep up his pace through the centuries. There were no more happy hiatuses.

"Scholars dispute," he continued, "as to who was the architect of the cathedral. Some say it was designed by Robert de Coucy; others name Bernard de Soissons, but certain authorities hold to Gauthier de Reims and Jean d'Orbais." Two more shells crossed the cathedral. The controversy seemed regrettable and the young man shifted constantly from foot to foot. He appeared to feel that there was less chance of being hit if he were on the wing, so to speak.

"One or two have named Jean Loups," said the guide, but he shook his head even as he mentioned him. It was evident that he had no patience with Loups or his backers. Indeed, the heresy threw him off his stride, and the next smash which came during the lull was more significant than any of the others. The crash was the peculiarly disagreeable one which occurs when a large shell strikes a small hardware store. Even the guide noticed this shell. It reminded him of the war.

"Since April," he said, "the Germans have been bombarding Rheims with naval guns. All the shells which they fire now are .320 or larger. They fire about 150 shells a day at the city, mostly in the afternoon, and they usually aim at the cathedral or some place near by."

The young man noted by his watch that it was just half-past one.

"A week ago the Germans fired a .320 shell through the roof, but it did not explode. I will show it to you, but first I must ask you to touch nothing, not even a piece of glass, for we want to put everything back again that we can after the war."

On the floor there was evidence that some patient hand had made a beginning of seeking to fit together in proper sequence all the available tiny glass fragments from the shattered rose windows. It was a pitiful jigsaw puzzle, which would not work. The curator stepped briskly up the nave, and at the end of a hundred paces he stopped.

"This is the most dangerous portion of the cathedral," he explained. "Most of the big shells have come in here." And he pointed to three great holes in the ceiling. Then he showed us the monstrous shell which had not exploded and the fragments of others which had. Down toward the west end of town fresh fragments were being made. Each hole in the cathedral roof sounded a different note as the shells raced overhead. But the old curator was musing again. He had forgotten the war, even though the smashed and twisted bits of iron and stone from yesterday's clean hit lay at his feet.

"The first stone of the present cathedral was laid in May, 1212, by the Archbishop Alberic de Humbert," he said. "Alberic gave all the money he could gather and the chapter presented its treasury, and all about the clergy appealed for funds in the name of God. Kings of France and mighty lords made contributions, and each year there was a great pilgrimage, headed by the image of the Blessed Virgin, through all the villages. And the building grew and sculptors from all parts of France came and embellished it and in 1430 it was finished. You see, gentlemen," he said, "it took more than two hundred years to build our cathedral."

We left the cathedral then and paused for a minute in the square before the statue of Jeanne d'Arc, who brought her king to Rheims and had him crowned. In some parts of France devout persons speak of the Jeanne statue in Rheims as a miracle because, although the cathedral has been scarred and shattered and every building round the square badly damaged, the statue of Jeanne is untouched. I looked closely and found the miracle was not perfect. A tiny bit of the scabbard of Jeanne had been snipped off by a flying shrapnel fragment, but the sword of Jeanne, which is raised high above her head, has not a nick in it.

Crossing the square we went into the office of L'Eclaireur de l'Est. This daily newspaper has no humorous column, no editorials, no sporting page and no dramatic reviews, and yet is probably the most difficult journal in the world to edit. The chief reportorial task of the staff of L'Eclaireur is to count the number of shells which fall into the city each day. That doesn't sound hard. The reporter can hear them all from his desk and many he can see, for the cathedral just across the street is still the favorite target of the Germans. Sometimes the reporter does not have to look so far. The office of L'Eclaireur has been hit eleven times during the bombardment and three members of the staff have been killed. One big shell fell in the composing room and so now the paper is set by hand. It is a single sheet and the circulation is limited to the three or four thousand civilians, who have stuck to Rheims throughout the bombardment. One of the few who remain is a man who keeps a picture postcard shop in a building next door to the newspaper office. His roof has been knocked down about his head and his business is hardly thriving. I asked him why he remained.

"I started to go away several months ago after one day when they put some gas shells into the town," he said. "The very next morning I put all my things into a cart and started up that street there. I had gone just about to the third street when a shell hit the house behind me. It killed my horse and wrecked the wagon and so I picked up my things and came back. It seemed to me I wasn't meant to go away from Rheims."

The shelling increased in violence before we left the office of L'Eclaireur. One shell was certainly not more than a hundred and fifty yards away, but the work went on without interruption. The printers who were setting ads never looked up. Mostly these advertisements were of houses in Rheims which were renting lower than ever before. If there was anyone in the visiting party who felt uncomfortable he was unwilling to show it, for just outside the door of the newspaper office there sat an old lady with a lapful of fancy work. A shell came from over the hills and, in the seconds while it whistled and then smashed, the old lady threaded her needle.

A day later, when some of us were willing to confess that of all miserable sounds the whistling of a shell was the meanest, we found a curious kink in the brain of everyone. It was the universal experience that the slightest bit of cover, however inadequate, gave a sense of safety out of all proportion to its utility. Thus we all felt much more uncomfortable in the square than when we stood in the composing room of the newspaper which was shielded by the remains of a glass skylight. The same curious psychological twist can be found among soldiers at the front. Again and again men will be found taking apparent comfort in the fact that half an inch of tin roof protects them from the shells of the Germans.

One is always taken from the cathedral of Rheims to the wine cellars. The children of darkness are invariably wiser than the children of light and the champagne merchants have not suffered as the churchmen have. Their business places have been knocked about their heads, but their treasures are underground deep enough to defy the biggest shells. In the cellar of a single company which we visited there were 12,000,000 quarts of wine. Even the German invasion at the beginning of the war failed to deplete this stock. Hundreds of people live in these cellars, which are laid out in avenues and streets. We came first to New York, a street with tier upon tier of wine bottles; then to Boston, then to Buenos Ayres, then to Montreal. One of the visitors explained that the street named New York contained the wine destined to be shipped to that city, while Buenos Ayres contained the consignment for the Argentine capital, and so on. We nodded acceptance of the theory, but the next wine-laden street was called Carnot and the next was Jeanne d'Arc.

From the cellars we made a journey to a battery of French .75's. It was a peaceful military station, for so well were the guns concealed that they seemed exempt from German fire, in spite of the fact that they had been in place for half a year. The men sat about underground playing cards and reading newspapers, but the commander of the battery was unwilling that we should go with such a peaceful impression of his guns. He brought his men to action with a word or two and sent six shells sailing at the German first line trenches for our benefit. We left, half deafened, but delighted.

No child could be more eager to show a toy than is a French officer to let a visitor see in some small fashion how the war wags. We went from the battery to a first line trench. It was slow work down miles and miles of camouflaged road to the communicating trench, and all along the line we were stopped by kindly Frenchmen, who wanted us to see how their dugouts were decorated or the nature of their dining room or the first aid dressing station or any little detail of the war with which they were directly concerned. Much can be done with a dugout when a few back numbers of La Vie Parisienne are available. Still, this scheme of decoration may be carried too far. I will never forget the face of a Y. M. C. A. man who joined us at a French officers' mess one day. It was a low ceilinged room, with pine walls, but not an inch of wall was visible, for a complete papering of La Vie Parisienne pictures had been provided. Among the ladies thus drafted for decorative purposes there was perhaps chiffon enough to make a single arm brassard.

Trenches, save in the very active sectors, give the visitor a sense of security. Open places are the ones which try the nerves of civilians, and it was pleasant to walk with a wall of earth on either hand, even if some of us did have to stoop a bit. From the point where we entered the communication trench to the front line was probably not more than half a mile as the crow flies – if, indeed, he is foolish enough to travel over trenches – but the sunken pathway turned and twisted to such an extent that it must have been two miles before we struck even the third line. Here we were held while ever so many dugouts and kitchens and gas alarm stations and telephones were exhibited for us. They were all included in the routine of war, but of a sudden romance popped up from underground. The conducting officer paused at the entrance of a passage. "Another dugout" we thought.

"Bring them up!" said the officer to a soldier, and the poilu scrambled down the steps and came up with a bird cage containing two birds.

"These are the last resort," explained the officer. "We send messages from the trenches by telephone, if we can. If the wires are destroyed we use flashes from a light, but if that station is also broken and we must have help the birds are freed."

Neither pigeon seemed in the least puffed up over the responsibility which rested upon him.

The German trenches were just 400 yards away from the first lines of the French. It was possible to see them by peering over the rim of the trench, but we quickly ducked down again. Presently we grew less cautious, and one or two tried to stare the Germans out of countenance. If they could see that strangers were peeping at them they paid no attention.

The French officer in charge seemed embarrassed. He explained that it was an exceptionally quiet day. Only the day before the Germans had been active with trench mortars, and he couldn't understand why they were sulking now. Possibly the bombardment from the French .75's, which had been going on all day, had softened them a bit. He looked about the trench dejectedly. The soldiers of the front line were playing cards, eating soup or modeling little grotesque figures out of the soft rock which lined the walls of the trenches. He called sharply to a soldier, who fetched a box of rifle grenades out of a cubbyhole and sent half a dozen, one after the other, spinning at the German lines. Probably they fell short, or perhaps the Germans were simply sullen. At any rate, they paid no attention. They were not disposed into being prodded to show off for American visitors.

The officer suddenly thought up a method to retrieve the lost reputation of his trench. If we could only stay until dark he would send us all out on a patroling party right up to the wire in front of the German first line. We declined, and made some little haste to leave this ever so obliging officer. In another moment we feared he would organize an exhibition offensive for our benefit and reserve us places in the first wave.

If things were quiet on the ground there was plenty of activity aloft. It was a clear day, and both sides had big sausage balloons up for observation. Once a German plane tried to attack a French sausage, but it was driven off, and all day long the Germans sought without success to wing the balloon with one of their long range guns. In that particular sector on that particular day the French unquestionably had the mastery of the air. We saw four of their 'planes in the air to every one German, and once a fleet of five cruised over the German lines. The Boche opened on them with shrapnel. It was a clear day, without a breath of wind, and the white puffs clung to the sky at the point where they broke. Presently the French planes swooped much lower, and the Germans opened on them with machine guns. Somebody has said that machine gun fire sounds as if a crazy carpenter was shingling a roof, and somebody else has compared the noise to a typewriter being operated in an upper room, but it is still more like a riveting machine. It has a business-like, methodical sound to me. To my ear there is no malice in a machine gun, but then I have never heard it from an aeroplane.

The officer in charge accompanied us to the end of the communicating trench.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

We told him that we were going directly to Paris.

"Have a good time," he said, "but leave one dinner and one drink for me."

"You are going to Paris?" we asked.

He looked over toward the German wire and smiled a little. "I may," he said.

CHAPTER XV

VERDUN

FROM the hills around Verdun we saw the earth as it must have looked on perhaps the fourth day of creation week. It was all frowsy mud and slime. Man was down deep in the dust from which he will spring again some day. There was not even a foothold for poppies on the hills around Verdun, for mingled with the old earth scars were fresh ones, and there will be more tomorrow.

The Germans have been pushed back of the edges of the bowl in which Verdun lies, and now their only eyes are aeroplanes. Big naval guns are required to reach the city itself, but the Germans are not content to leave the battered town alone. They bang away at ruins and kick a city which is down. They fire, too, at the citadel, but do no more than scratch the top of this great underground fortress.

Our guide and mentor at Verdun was a distinguished colonel, very learned in military tactics and familiar with every phase of the various Verdun campaigns. The extent of his information was borne home to us the first day of the trip, for he stood the party on top of Fort Souville and carried on a technical talk in French for more than half an hour, while German shells, breaking a few hundred yards away, sought in vain to interrupt him.

From the top of Souville it was possible to see gun flashes and to spy, now and again, aeroplanes which darted back and forth all day, but not a soldier of either side was to be seen through the strongest glasses. On no front have men dug in so deeply as at Verdun. They have good reason to snuggle into the earth, for the French have a story that one of their projectiles killed men in a dugout seventy-five feet below the surface. They thought that this terrific penetration must have been due to the fact that the shell hit fairly upon a crack in the concrete and wedged its way through.

Barring plumbing, which is always an after thought in France, the French make the underground dwellings of the soldiers moderately comfortable. There are ventilating plants and electric lights, and in the citadel a motion picture theater. In one underground stronghold we found the telephone central for all the various positions around Verdun. We wondered whether or not he was ever obliged to report, "Your party doesn't answer."

We traveled far underground, and at last the colonel brought us out again near the high, bare spot where the automobiles had been left. As we walked down the road there was a particularly vicious bang some place to our left.

"That wasn't very far away," said the colonel.

This was the first shell which had stirred him to interest or attention. Presently there came another bang, and this seemed just as loud. The colonel paused thoughtfully.

"Maybe one of their aeroplanes has seen us and spotted us for the artillery," he said. "Tell the chauffeurs to turn the cars around at once, and we'll go."

The chauffeurs turned the cars with commendable alacrity and the colonel walked slowly toward them. But his roving glance rested for an instant upon a little ridge across the valley to his left which brought memories to his mind and he stopped in the middle of the road and began: "In the Spring of 1915 – " On and on he went in his beautiful French and described some small affair which might have influenced the entire subsequent course of events. It seemed that if the Germans had varied their plan a little the French defensive scheme would have been upset and all sorts of things would have happened. At the end of twenty minutes he had done full justice to the subject and then he recollected.

"We'd better go now," he said, "the Germans may have spotted us."

We messed with the French officers in the citadel that night and found that they were ready to converse on almost any subject but the war. Literature was their favorite topic. Although the colonel spoke no English, he was familiar with much American literature in translation. Poe he knew well, and he had read a few things of Mark Twain's. Somebody mentioned William James, and a captain quoted at length from an essay called "A Moral Equivalent for War." The lieutenant on my right wanted to know whether Americans still read Walt Whitman, and I wondered whether the same familiarity with French literature would be encountered in any American mess. This little lieutenant had been a professor or instructor some place or other when the war began and had several poetical dramas in verse to his credit. He had written a play called "Dionysius" in rhymed couplets. At the beginning of the war he had enlisted as a private and had seen much hard service, which had brought him two wounds, a medal and a commission. He hoped ardently to survive the war, for he felt that he could write ever so much better because he had been thrown into close relationship with peasants and laborers. He found their talk meaty, and at times rich in poetry. One day, he remembered, his regiment had marched along a country road in a fine spring dawn. His comrade to the right, a Parisian peddler, remarked as they passed a gleaming forest: "There is a wood where God has slept." The little lieutenant said that if he had the luck to live through the war he was going to write plays without a thought of the Greeks and their mythology. He hoped, if he should live, to write for the many as well as the few. I wondered to myself just what sort of plays one of our American highbrows would write if he served a campaign with the 69th or drove an army mule.