Soldier Silhouettes on our Front Part 11

A. hut, has been told far and wide, but it is only ill.u.s.trative of the broadening lines of Catholicism and the wider fraternal relations of all professed Christians.

The marvellous story that my friend, the French chaplain, tells of being marooned in a sh.e.l.l-hole at Verdun for several days with a Catholic priest, and of their discussion of religion and life there under sh.e.l.l-fire, and the tenderness with which the Catholic priest kissed the hand of the Protestant French chaplain when the two had agreed that, after all, there was one common G.o.d for a common, suffering nation of people, and that this war would break all church barriers down, and that out of it would come a new spirit in the Catholic church, a new brotherhood for all. That was an impressive indication of the thing that is sweeping France to-day in church circles, and that will sweep America after the war.

Then there is that other story of the Catholic priest who had been in the same regiment with a French Protestant chaplain, each of whom deeply respected the other because of the unflinching bravery that each had displayed under intense sh.e.l.l-fire, and of the great love that each had seen the other show in two years of constant warfare in the same regiment. Then came that terrible morning at Verdun, when the French Protestant chaplain, the friend of the Catholic priest, had been killed while trying to bring in a wounded Catholic boy from No Man's Land. On the day of this Protestant chaplain's funeral the Catholic priest stood in G.o.d's Acre with bared head, and spoke as tender and as sincere a eulogy as ever a man spoke over the grave of a dear friend, spoke with the tears in his eyes most of the time. Church lines were forgotten here. It was a prophetic scene, this, where a Catholic priest spoke at the funeral of a Protestant chaplain. It was prophetic of that new church brotherhood that is to come after the war is over.

XI

SKY SILHOUETTES

They are the lights, the lights of war. Sometimes they are just the stars s.h.i.+ning out that makes the wounded soldier out in No Man's Land look up, in spite of sh.e.l.l-fire and thunder, in spite of wounds and death, in spite of loneliness and heartache, in spite of mud and rain, to exclaim, as Donald Hankey tells us in a most wonderful chapter of "A Student in Arms": "G.o.d! G.o.d everywhere, and underneath are the everlasting arms!"

Sometimes the Sky Silhouettes number among their own just a moonlight night with a crescent moon sailing quietly and serenely over the horizon in the east, while great guns belch fire in the west, a fire that seems to shame the timid moon itself.

Sometimes they are search-lights cleaving the sky over a great city like Paris, or along the front lines, or gleaming from an air-s.h.i.+p.

Sometimes they are signal-lights flas.h.i.+ng out of the darkness from a patrolling plane overhead, or a blazing trail of fire as a patrol falls to its death in a battle by night.

Sometimes they are signal-lights flas.h.i.+ng from an observation balloon anch.o.r.ed in the darkness over the trenches to guard the troops from dangers in the air.

Sometimes they are the flashes, the fleet, swallow-like flashes, of an enemy plane caught in the burning, blazing path of a search-light, and then hounded by it to its death.

Sometimes they are signals flashed from the top of a cruiser on the high seas across the storm-tossed waters to a little destroyer, which flashes back its answer, and then in turn flashes a message of light to one of the convoying planes overhead in the dim dusk of early evening.

Sometimes these Sky Silhouettes are the range-finders that poise in the air for a few seconds, guiding the air patrols home, and sometimes they are just the varied, interesting, gleaming, flas.h.i.+ng "Lights of War."

XII

THE LIGHTS OF WAR

One's introduction into the war zone and into war-zone cities and villages, and one's visits "down the line" to the front by night, will always be filled with the thrill of the unusual because of the Lights of War. Where lights used to be, there are no lights now, and where they were not seen before the war, they are radiant and rampant now.

The first place that an American traveller notices this absence of lights is on the boat crossing over the Atlantic. From the first night out of New York the boats travel without a single light showing. Every light inside of the boat is covered with a heavy black c.r.a.pe, and the port-holes and windows are so scrupulously and carefully chained down that the average open-air fiend from California or elsewhere feels that he will suffocate before morning comes, and even in the bitterest of winter weather I have known some fresh-air fiends to prefer the deck of the s.h.i.+p, with all of its bitter winds and cold, to the inside of a cabin with no windows open. I stood on the deck of an ocean liner "Somewhere on the Atlantic" a few months ago as the great s.h.i.+p was ploughing its zigzag course through the black waters, dodging submarines. There was not a star in the sky. There was not a light on the boat. Absolutely the only lights that one saw was when he leaned over the railing and saw the splash of innumerable phosph.o.r.escent organisms breaking against the boat. I have seen the like of it only once before, and this was on the Pacific down at Asilomar one evening, when the waves were running fire with phosph.o.r.escence. It was a beautiful sight there and on the Atlantic too.

IT WAS MIDNIGHT

On this particular night, as far as one could see, this brilliant organic light illuminated the sea like the hands of my luminous wrist-watch were made brilliant by phosph.o.r.escence. I noticed this and looked down at my watch to see what time it was. It was midnight.

As I looked, my friend, who was standing beside me on the deck, said: "The last order is that no wrist-watches that are luminous may be exposed on the decks at night. That order came along with the order forbidding smoking on the decks at night. The Germans can sight the light of a cigar a long distance through their periscopes."

I smiled to myself, for it was my first introduction to the romantic part that lights and the lack o' lights is playing in this great World War. Then my friend continued his observations as we stood there on the aft deck watching the white waves break, glorious with phosph.o.r.escence. He said: "What a topsyturvy world it is. Three years ago if a great s.h.i.+p like this had dared to cross the Atlantic without a single light showing, it would have horrified the entire world, and that s.h.i.+p captain would have been called to trial by every country that sails the seas. He would have been adjudged insane. But now every s.h.i.+p sails the seas with no navigation-lights showing."

IN WAR COUNTRY

But when one gets his real introduction into the lights o' war is when he gets into the war country. It is eight o'clock in a great French city. This French city has been known the world over for its brilliant lights. It has been known for its gayly lighted boulevards, and indeed this might apply to one of three or four French cities. Light was the one scintillating characteristic of this great city. The first night that one finds himself here he feels as though he were wandering about in a country village at home. No arc-lights s.h.i.+ne. The window-lights are all extinguished. The few lights on the great boulevards are so dimmed that their luminosity is about that of a healthy firefly in June back home. One gropes his way about, feeling ahead of him and navigating cautiously, even the main boulevards.

The first time I walked down the streets of this great city at night I had the same feeling that I had on the Atlantic. I was sailing without lights, on an unknown course, and I felt every minute that I would b.u.mp into some unseen human craft, as indeed I did, both a feminine craft and a male craft. I also had the feeling that in this particular city, in the darkness I might be submarined by a city human U-boat, which would slip up behind me. After having my second trip here I still have that feeling as I walk the streets; the unlighted streets of this city, and especially the side-streets, by night.

FRENCH CITY DURING RAID

But the one time when you catch the very heart and soul of the lights o' war is when you happen to drop into a French city while the Boches are making a raid overhead. I have had this experience in towns and villages and cities. At the signal of the siren the lights of the entire city suddenly snuff out, and the city or town or village is in total darkness. Candles may be lighted and are lighted, but on the whole one either walks the dark streets flas.h.i.+ng his electric "Ever Ready," or huddled up in a subway or in a cellar, or in a hallway listening to the barrage of defense guns and to the bombs dropping, watches and listens and waits in total darkness, and while he waits he isn't certain half the time whether the noise he hears is the dropping of German bombs or the beating of his own heart. Both make entirely too much noise for peace and comfort.

As one approaches the front-line cities and towns he learns something more about the lights o' war. It is dark. He is in a little town and must go to another town nearer the front lines. He is standing at the depot (gare). No lights are visible save here and there an absolutely necessary red or green light, which is veiled dimly. His train pulls silently in. There is not a single light on it from one end to the other. It creeps in like a great snake. There is n.o.body to tell you whether this is your train or not, but you take a chance and climb into a compartment which is pitch-dark.

HEARS AMERICAN VOICE

You have a ticket that calls for first-cla.s.s military compartment, but you climbed into the first open door you saw, and didn't know and didn't care whether it was first, second, third, or tenth cla.s.s just so you got on your way. Your eyes soon became accustomed to the darkness and you discerned two or three forms in the seat opposite you. You wondered if they were French, Italians, Belgians, English, Australians, Canadians, Moroccans, Algerians, or Americans. It was too dark to see, but suddenly you heard a familiar voice saying, "Gosh, I wish I was back in little ole New York," and you made a grab in the darkness for that lad's hand.

All during your trip no trainman appears. You are left to your own sweet will at nights in the war zone when you are on a train. No stations are announced. You are supposed to have sense enough to know where you are going, and to have gumption enough to get off without either being a.s.sisted or told to do so. The a.s.sumption, I suppose, is that anybody who travels in the war zone knows where he is going.

Personally, I felt like the American phrase, "I don't know where I'm going but I'm on the way," and I tried to jump off at two or three towns before I got to my own destination, but the American soldiers had been that way before on their way to the trenches, and wouldn't let me off at the wrong place. I thought surely that somebody would come along to take my ticket, but n.o.body appeared. I soon found that night trains "on the line" pay little attention to such minor matters as tickets, and I have a pocketful that have never been taken up. Time after time I have piled into a train at night, after buying a ticket to my destination; have journeyed to my destination, have gone through the depot and to my hotel without ever seeing a trainman to take the ticket. I was let severely alone. And even if a conductor had come along through the train it would have been too dark for him to have seen me, and I am sure I could have dodged him had I so desired. Maybe that's the reason they don't take the tickets up. Anyhow, I have given you a picture of a great train in the war zone, winding its way toward the front, in complete darkness.

FLASH-LIGHTS

Flash-lights have come into their own in this war. One would as soon think of living without a flash-light as he would think of travelling without clothes in Greenland. It simply cannot be done. In any city, from Paris to the smallest towns on the front, one must have his flash-light. The streets of the cities and towns of France are a hundred times more crooked than those of Boston. If Boston's streets followed the cow-paths, the streets of the cities of France followed cows with the St. Vitus dance. Around these streets one had to find his way by night with a flash-light, especially during an air-raid.

One must have a flash, too, for the houses and hotels when an air-raid is on, and one must have it when one is driving a big truck or an automobile down along the front lines, for no lights are permitted on any machines, official or otherwise, after a certain point is reached.

One of the favorite outdoor sports of this preacher for a month was to lie on his stomach on the front mud-guard of a big Pierce-Arrow through the war-zone roads, b.u.mping over sh.e.l.l-holes, with a little pocket flash-light playing on the ground, searching out the sh.e.l.l-holes, and trying to help the driver keep in the road. It is a delightful occupation about two o'clock in the morning, with a blizzard blowing, and knowing that the big truck is rumbling along within sight and sound of the German big guns. Trucks make more noise on such occasions than a Twentieth Century Limited. "No lights beyond divisional headquarters" was the order, and night after night we travelled along these roads with only an occasional flash of the Ever Ready to guide.

And so it is that the flash-light has come to its own, and every private soldier, officer, and citizen in France is equipped with one.

He would be like a swordfish without its sword if he didn't have it.

LADDER OF LIGHT

Then suddenly you see a strange finger of light reaching into the sky.

Or you may liken it to a ladder of light climbing the sky. Or you may liken it to a lance of light piercing the darkness. Or you may just call it a good, old-fas.h.i.+oned search-light, which it is. It is watching for Hun planes, and it plays all night long from north to south, from east to west, restlessly, eagerly, quickly, like a "hound of the heavens" guarding the earth. First it sweeps the horizon, and then it suddenly shoots straight up into the zenith like another sun, and it seems to flood the very skies. No German plane can cut through that path of light without being seen, and one night I had the rare privilege of seeing a plane caught by the search-light on its ever-vigilant patrol. It was a thrilling sight. One minute later the anti-aircraft guns were thundering away and the shrapnel was breaking in tiny patches around this plane while the search-lights played on both the plane and the shrapnel patches of smoke against the sky, making a wonderful picture. Military writers say that the enemy planes are more afraid of these search-lights than of the guns.

[Ill.u.s.tration: One night I had the privilege of seeing a plane caught by the search-light.]

But perhaps the most thrilling sight of all is that dark night when one sees for the first time the star-sh.e.l.ls along the horizon. At first you may see them ten miles away making luminous the earth. Then as you drive nearer and nearer, that far-off heat-lightning effect disappears and you can actually see the curve of the star-sh.e.l.ls as they mount toward the skies over No Man's Land and fall again as gracefully as a fountain of water. Sometimes you will see them for miles along the front, making night day and lighting up the fields and surrounding hills as though for a great celebration.

BURSTING BOMBS

The light of bursting sh.e.l.ls as they fall, or of bursting bombs from an aeroplane, is a short, sharp, quick light like an electric flash when a wire falls or a flash of sharp lightning, but the light of the great guns along the line as they thunder their missiles of death can be seen for miles when a bombardment is on. One forgets the thunder of these belching monsters, and one forgets the death they carry, in the glory of the flame of noonday light that they make in the night.

Then there are the range-finders. These suddenly shoot up in the night, steady and clear, and remain for several minutes burning brightly before they go out. I used to see these frequently driving home from the front. They were sent up from the hangars to guide the French and American planes to a safe landing by night.

Then there is the moonlight. Moonlight nights in towns along the war front are dreaded, for it invariably means a Boche raid. Clear moonlight nights with a full moon are fine for lovers in a country that is at peace, but it may mean death for lovers in a country that is at war. But moonlight nights are beautiful even in war countries, with dim old cathedrals looming in the background, and the white villages of France, a huge chateau here and there against the hillside or crowning its summit; and the white roads and white fields of France swinging by.

One forgets there is war then, until he hears the unmistakable beat of the Hun plane overhead and sees the flash of one, two, three, four, five, six, ten, twelve, fifteen bombs break in a single field a few hundred yards away, and the driver remarks: "I knew we'd have a raid tonight. It's a great night for the Boche!"