My hospital experiences in France were a procession of five nights with intermissions of days spent in travel. From the advance dressing-station I was slid over the mud for three miles in a sledge drawn by the Methuselah of horses borrowed from some French farmhouse. His antiquarian gait suited me, and this was the smoothest of the many torturous forms of travel I endured before I was able once again to move up-rightly on my feet as a man should.
At Trones Wood I was swung into a horse ambulance and thereafter swung and swayed for a couple of hours until, closing my eyes, I could fancy I was once again at sea. This was rougher than the sledge, but endurable and certainly the most comfortable of all the wheeled vehicles in which I travelled. I bless the inventor of the springs that kept it swaying gently on a road all ruts and holes.
I was deposited on the table of the operating-theatre in the field-ambulance, while a surgeon overhauled me to see if there was any injury necessitating an immediate operation. Satisfied that I was merely broken and punctured, I was transferred to a cot and so began my first hospital night. I was known personally to all the doctors in our field-ambulance. I had on several occasions messed with them, and they were always very keenly interested in my yarns of No Man's Land, so when the news spread that I had been brought in wounded I soon had a group round my bed, some of them in pyjamas being roused from their sleep to hear the news. One of them very gleefully said: "Hullo, Knyvett, old man—I've just won five pounds on you. We had a bet that you would not last out another month. You know you've had a pretty good innings and mighty lucky only to get wounded." But at that moment I was not in the mood to appreciate this form of humor, until one of them, seeing I was pretty uncomfortable, gave me an injection of morphia. But I was very glad to be resting there and felt I could hardly have endured a longer journey without a spell. I was given here the first good hot meal I had had for weeks, though I had been given a drink of steaming-hot coffee in the ambulance. There was not much sleep to be got, as a constant stream of men were being brought in and taken away, and now and again shells would fall quite close, but the ground thereabouts was very soft, and I counted fifteen shells that fell close by with a wouf and a squelch, but did not explode. This hospital was all under canvas, just three or four big marquees and a score or so of tents for the medical officers and orderlies, and any inclination that I had to complain was taken away by the sight of "walking cases" strolling in with an arm gone, or a hole in the cheek, or their jaw smashed, many far worse than I was, who would sit there waiting their turn to be examined, and then walk out again to the ambulance that carried them on to the next hospital.
Next morning I was carried out to a motor-ambulance and started on the most painful trip of my life. The driver took reasonable care, but could not go too slow, for another load was waiting for him as soon as he could return, but I am sure that I felt every stone in that road. I got the attendant to wedge me in with pillows, but only by holding myself off from the wall with both my hands could I ease the bump, and then I would wait with dread for the next one. I don't know if the other three fellows lying in the ambulance with me were as sore as I was, but I picture to-day the hours that those ambulances travel with wounded men as being added together and totalling a century of pain. Perhaps after the war is ended, when it is too late, some one may invent a motor ambulance on easy springs that will not multiply unnecessarily the pain of torn flesh and the grating edges of bones.
Now comes the night in the casualty clearing-station at Heilly. Straight on to another operating-table, but one in a sea of many—ten operations going on at once. Then began the probing for pieces of metal in my wounds. "Good God!" remarked the surgeon, "the best thing we can do is to run a magnet over you. We'll never find them all otherwise." Nor did they, for I carry some of them still in my body as permanent souvenirs of the few words I had with Fritz. There was a nurse in the theatre with smiling face, laughing blue eyes, and tumbled curls falling beneath her cap, and a brief acquaintance of one day was formed on the spot. She was attending another case, and a wink and a smile served for introduction. She came and visited me in the ward that night and we chatted a brief hour, then she was gone, and I know not even her name. So ships meet, dip their flag, and pass into the night.
In the bed opposite me in this hospital there was a German officer and he bellowed like a bull all night. We got pretty sick of his noise and told the medical officer in charge of the ward when he came on his rounds in the morning that if he did not chloroform or do something to silence the hound, we would. I suggested that he go and tell him that if he did not shut up he would be sent into the ward with his own privates. He did so and there was not another squeak from him.
After breakfast warm sweaters, helmets, scarfs, and mitts were issued to each of us and we were wrapped in warm blankets and carried out to a hospital-train near by. Before I left, however, I wrote out the report of my reconnoissance of the German trenches and despatched it by orderly to G. H. Q. All my possessions I carried in my hand in a small bag not nearly as big as a lady's knitting-bag. My kit was "somewhere in France" and my uniform had been cut off me and was probably ascending as incense from some incinerator, in a ritual that was an appropriate end after much service. Everything was supposed to be taken out of my pockets (which I have no doubt happened) and sent to me (which certainly did not happen). I have no sympathy with the old sanitary sergeant who superintended the last rites in the passing of my much-lived-in clothes when he was slightly wounded by a bullet from a cartridge that somehow or other dropped into the fire at the same time. These incinerators frequently very nearly caused shell-shock to the sanitary squad, and they might just as well have been in the actual trenches, for in the gathering up of rubbish around the camp cartridges would frequently be thrown with it into the fire and explosions would ensue like the firing of a machine-gun, and bullets would whizz in all directions. Once a mule got shot, but it's a wonder that other flesh less valuable was not occasionally punctured, for these incinerators were just on the edge of the camp and generally had a group round them of those who preferred being fire-tenders to ramrod-shovers.
The hospital-train bore us with many interruptions and frequent side-trackings toward the Channel and "Blighty." In England hospital-trains take precedence over all other traffic, but here in France there were many other things more important for the winning of the war than wounded men, so hospital-trains had to step aside and give the right of way to the shells, guns, cartridges, and food for the men still facing the foe. So my third night was spent on the rails lying snugly in a car wrapped in many blankets, and only disturbed by having to "smoke" a thermometer every two or three hours, and by the nurse rousing me at six "ack emma" (A. M.) to have my face and hands washed, which is a mania that afflicts all nurses. A nurse has only one fear, that of displeasing the doctor, and though all should perish, everything must be spotless when he makes his rounds. A doctor is the only man who can awe a woman and obtain perfect obedience. Of course I am referring to them professionally, and not in their domestic relations. I knew a nurse in a military hospital who woke up a patient, who was enjoying his first sound sleep for weeks, to administer a sleeping-draft. When she was remonstrated with she said "the doctor ordered it." In France there has been since the war much "coal-saving," and had it not been that I had been careful to have with me emergency rations of blankets, I would have perished with the cold. I was told that the engine-drivers were given a commission on what coal they saved, so all the steam we got through the warming-pipes hardly took the frost off them. Only the men in the bottom cots were able to see the scenery we passed through, and we up-stairs could have murdered them with pleasure as they kept calling out: "By George! You should see this!" "That's the funniest sight I've seen in my life!" "Isn't that a lovely sight!" etc. But journeys, even on French railways, come to an end eventually, though it only be second-class traffic, and with much joy did we welcome the news that we were running into Rouen.
In the small hours of the morning with the mist still trailing through the streets we were driven to the Infirmary for Aged Women (which they had vacated), and where was housed Number Eight General Hospital. After our labels had been examined and checked with our wounds, and it was quite evident that we were "les hommes blesses" and not baggage, we were carried upstairs and allotted to our wards according to the part of the body in which we were wounded. They had some difficulty in my case, and as I feared that they might be carrying me from ward to ward all day and night I asked them to look on the other side of my tag to see if it was not marked in red: "Fragile, With Care." There was in the ward where I eventually anchored a V. A. D. (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse who will ever live in my memory as the gentlest and most attentive of all that I have known. You could not raise your hand or turn in your sleep without her gliding noiselessly to your bedside to see if you wanted anything. A hundred times would she straighten the pillows, if you fancied you would get extra comfort another way, and she ever had ready a hot glass of milk to make you sleep the better. She was a Canadian, and if there are many more like her among the Canadian women, then the men of Canada are thrice blessed. Thus passed my fourth night in French hospitals.
In the morning I saw through an open door in another ward a friend of mine whom I had parted with on landing in Egypt. I called an orderly to carry me through to an empty bed alongside him so that we might renew our friendship. He was badly wounded in the arm and face, but it was pleasant to meet again after many months. That was many months ago and the other day I met him again in New York. We have only been a short time together on each occasion, yet have continued our acquaintance on four continents, many months intervening between each meeting. There was a great hullabaloo in my ward when the matron came in and found my bed empty. When she discovered where I was, she said: "Who gave you permission to come in here?" I replied: "No one said I was not to!" And anyway the pleasure was worth the commission of the crime! That morning I was again picked up as a bundle and carried I knew not whither, leaving my friend behind.
I was carried on board a British hospital-ship and lowered about three decks down. As placards glared in one's eyes on every side about what to do in case of submarine attack, I did not like very much the idea of going down so far, for I always like to be able to depend upon myself in an emergency, and I was now as helpless as a log. They put me in a swinging cot, which was a great idea to prevent seasickness. We went slowly out the harbor to sea with our prow pointing toward "Blighty," the El Dorado of the wounded Tommy. 'Twas little I saw of river, harbor, or sea from my berth in the nethermost depths of that vessel's hold. I was told we went across with all lights out. The days had passed when, in our folly, we painted our hospital-ships white with a green band and marked them with a red cross, or at night circled them with a row of green lights illuminating a huge red cross near the funnel, for we had found that we were only making them conspicuous as targets for the "human shark of the sea." There have been more hospital-ships sunk than troop-ships, for the troop-ship is armed and convoyed, but the hospital-ship is an easy victim. The English port we entered was shrouded in fog, and wharf buildings never at any time look inviting, but we could nevertheless understand the excitement of our English companions, for it was Home to them, and to us "dear old England," the brave heart of the freest empire this earth has seen, and after all where is the Britisher who does not thrill with pride at landing on the soil of those little islands which have produced a race so great, and foot for foot of soil there is no land on the earth that has produced so much wealth. We could smile with appreciation and not much surprise at the Tommy who remarked; "Say, Bill, don't the gas-works smell lovely!"
By hospital-train, the most comfortable ever devised, did we run into Waterloo Station—doors were opened, and men in gorgeous uniforms—much gold braid and silver buttons—came aboard. We thought that they were admirals and field-marshals at the very least, but it turned out they were only members of the Volunteer Ambulance Corps, men unfit for military service, who had provided their own cars and received not a penny of pay. With the tenderness of women they put us on stretchers and carried us out to their luxurious ambulances. With each four men went a lady to attend to all their wants. Like a mother she hovered over us and you could see her heart was bursting with love for us far-out sons of empire. Through cheering crowds we drove and our Australian hearts leaped as we heard many cooees, which made us feel that we were not far from Home, for twelve thousand miles were bridged in thought by these homelike sounds and the knowledge that we were in the land from which our parents came and where we had many kinsfolk. I was assigned to the Third London General Hospital and out to Wandsworth Common was I taken, where alongside Queen Victoria's school for officers' orphans had been built rows of comfortable huts linked up with seven miles of corridors, while the old orphanage itself contained the administrative headquarters. I was allotted to G ward, but did not know for days what a distinction that was, for the sister in charge was none other than the late Queen of Portugal, and among the V. A. D.'s were several ladies and honorables. They were camouflaged, however, under the titles of "sister" and "nurse," and we had become too intimate to need ceremony before we discovered who they were in social life. In dressing our wounds, washing us, cleaning and scrubbing the floors they were as adept as if to the manner born, but you could not fail to see that they sprung from generations of refinement. On one side of me was an Australian who had been hit on the side of the head by a shell, having therefrom a stiff neck. On the other side was an Irish padre, chaplain to an Australian battalion, and, of course, the life of the ward, and he had a greater fund of good stories than any other man, not excepting other priests, I have known. In an opposite bed was a Welshman with one leg who of necessity answered to the name of "Taffy," while next to him was a Londoner who had a leg that he would have been better without, for it had borne fourteen operations. In London we had the world's specialists for every bodily ill, and some of us who had complications were in the hands of ten doctors at the one time. There were skin specialists and bone specialists, nerve specialists and brain specialists, separate authorities on the eye, ear, nose, and throat, and it is a pity that a man is tied up in one bag, otherwise they might all have operated at the selfsame moment in separate rooms on the same man.
There was one sister whom we all loved—I don't think; but she was only in our ward occasionally. Her real name was unknown to most of us, but she will be remembered for long as "Gentle Annie." She was so gentle that I have known only a few mules rougher, and never, after the first occasion, would I allow her to touch the dressings on my wounds. With so many to be done it was a painful performance even under kindly, sympathetic hands. We expressed our feelings toward her by giving her left-right every time she came into the ward and she would get mad at the second step. One day she called the matron, so we left-righted her as well. Then the doctor was brought in and we left-righted him, but he enjoyed the joke, perhaps realizing his helplessness, for you can't very well punish wounded men lying in bed except by depriving them of food, and we were most of us on diets anyway! The fact that we were Australians was held to be accountable for our misbehavior.
There was a little nurse, mostly on night duty, who was dubbed "Choom," for she came from Yorkshire and had a rich brogue. But her heart was big enough for one twice her size, and she would always tuck us in and attempt to supply all our wants, however unreasonable.
After an operation which I tell about in another chapter I was able to sit up and propel myself in a wheel-chair, and soon was having races with the champion chair-speeders of the other wards. There was a long inclined plane that was the cause of many accidents, for there was a sharp turn at the bottom and our chariots would get out of control. I have more than once turned a double somersault and it is a wonder I did not break my head, and several candid friends said it was cracked anyway. We had concerts in the hall every night, and as it was a couple of miles from our ward, we cripples who brought our own chairs with us would wait in the corridor for one of the blind to propel us along while we would do the guiding ourselves, giving directions to our steeds in nautical terms, such as: "Starboard a little!" "Steady, steady, you idiot!" "Hard aport!" "Quick!" "Now, you darned fool, you jolly nearly smashed that window!" When we got to the door of the hall, we would be piloted into the area reserved for carriages, and so tightly were we jammed that it took about twenty minutes to empty the hall, or twice as long if we tried to get out by ourselves. However, the concerts were worth while, and when Clara Butt or some other world-famed artist came along, we did not mind being late for dinner, the dishes of which were never a surprise if you remembered the day of the week.
In our ward there were mostly leg injuries, and in the one next door arm cases, and hot and fast flew the arguments as to which it were worse to lose. We demonstrated our superiority one night by raiding them for their milk, all the attackers being on crutches, and they were unable to recover it; so we decided to our own satisfaction that we were the most useful members of society, though had we not drunk it so fast they might have got it.
We had some very high talent in the hospital and our monthly gazette was a very creditable production. We had as one of the orderlies a Punch artist and he was always caricaturing some of us. The patients contributed drawings, poems, and articles, and I imagine that in years to come these little papers will be of some value, containing the works of renowned artists and authors from many parts of the world.
A good number from our ward were able to take taxi-rides into the city and would return at late hours, sometimes the merrier for the excursion. I have in my memory as I write, recollections of waking suddenly out of slumber to behold Taffy and a mad Australian waltzing to the strains of a gramophone, each with only one leg, and then old Piddington would persist in rousing the ward that we might sing as a roundelay:
"And when I die,
Don't bury me at all—
Just pickle my bones
In alcohol.
Put a bottle of RUM— (much emphasis here)
At my head and feet,
And then I know
My bones will keep!"
My brothers are in different regiments. We enlisted from different states—one is in an English regiment—yet we all met on Good Friday in this hospital ward. They had seen in the paper my name among the casualties and, inquiring, had found out where I was and there we met, not having seen each other for many years.
One day, like a bolt from the blue, came the intimation that I was to be sent back to Australia in two days as being unfit for further service. I argued the point, went before the Medical Board, and gave each one separately a testimonial that would be no advertisement, but it was of no avail, and I realized that like a worn-out horse I was to be sent out of the fun. But to add injury to insult, I had had no opportunity to see London. What! Go home to Australia and tell them I had been in London and not seen St. Paul's, or the Abbey, or anything? So when I realized appeal was useless I got dressed and called a taxicab and went to see the sights of London. Never was a tourist trip conducted more systematically. On crutches I hobbled round St. Paul's and through the Abbey. I saw the Tower, the Albert Memorial, and all the sights that I could remember or the taxi-driver think of sufficient importance to need a visit. I even went down Petticoat Lane. But most of all I did the theatres, four in one day, returning to the hospital at 1.30 A. M. Next day I repeated and enlarged the dose, returning a little later, but the following morning I was summoned before the O. C. He said: "It is reported to me that you have been returning after hours. Why?" I said: "So would you, sir, if you were returning to Australia in two days and had not viewed London!" He said: "Well, it won't occur again, I hope." To which I replied: "Only to-night, sir!" But the boat was delayed, and I had two more days of strenuous existence in the metropolis of the world.
Once again I entered a hospital-train, but this time I would have no mussing round me as if I were a helpless child, but went upright, as a man should, though on crutches.
When we journeyed to the port there was one of our good old Australian coasters waiting to bear us back again—Home. The old A. U. S. N. steamer that I had so often travelled on from Brisbane to Sydney was now under command of the Australian navy and had the proud designation of "His Majesty's Australian Hospital-Ship."
Some people think that they have made a sea journey when they cross the English Channel, and Dover to Calais holds for many the memory of an age of misery. I don't suppose the provisions on these Channel steamers have very great inroads made upon them by the passengers. The soldiers have a song that well expresses experiences on this narrow stretch of water.
"Sea, sea, why are you angry with me?
Ever since I left Dover,
I thought the ship would go over ——" (etc.)
But on the longer journey across the Atlantic from England to America there is more time to get one's sea-legs, and on the last day or two passengers begin to enjoy the sea journey. But this is quite enough of the sea for any one but an amphibian. The three weeks journey from America to Australia gets decidedly monotonous, and long before sighting Sydney Heads and entering the world's "pearl of ports" every one has had his fill of the sea. But lengthen that journey by three and you have had enough sea travel for a lifetime.
Well, we left England and for an eternity sailed south, seeing land only on one day and smelling it for a week. Then we clung to the end of Africa for seven days and then sailed east for a decade till Australia got in our way, and as it could not be passed without a long detour, we were deposited on its soil. In nine weeks we only called at two ports, Freetown on the west coast of Africa, and Durban on the east coast. Freetown has the usual strong combination smell of nigger, cinnamon, and decaying vegetation, in an atmosphere of heavy steam, that characterizes all tropical towns inhabited by our "black brother." We were told that this place had but a few years ago the pleasant subtitle of "The White Man's Grave." If you served one year here in the government service you were entitled to retire for life on a pension, but the likelihood was that long before your term was up you would retire to a six-foot-by-two allotment near the beach, in the company of countless predecessors. But science had been at work here, as at Panama, and wire gauze and the kerosene spray had captured the first trenches of yellow fever and malaria, and against these weapons of the medico all counter-attacks have been unavailing. Some strong hand was ruling in this town, for the streets were spotless and the dogs lean. And, oh, how the nigger does hate cleanliness! Evidently this town was free in a real sense because well disciplined. We were told that all the white people lived up on the hill that backed the town and many kind invitations of hospitality were sent to us; so those whose wills were stronger than the enervating hand of the weather-master boarded the toy train and were carried up and up toward the summit of the hills above the steam heat, where the air seemed to be fanned from the very cooling-house of God. I had the pleasure of being entertained by a French priest who had been on the western front in the early days of the war, and he added to our knowledge more first-hand stories of the bestial Huns' ravaging of convents and raping of nuns. The bishop of this protectorate could not do enough for us, and although we were not of his faith, he looked on us as children who were very dear to the heart of God because of our sacrifices of blood and flesh for the right.
We loaded ourselves down with curios, buying tiger-rugs, mats, bead-necklaces, tom-toms, and assegais. We strung these chiefly round our necks, as we had to have hands free to manipulate our crutches, and some of us looked more like the "ol' clo' man" than smart army officers. Of course "Bertie Gloom" had to suggest that we would have to pay more duty on the "old junk" when we got it to Australia even than the price that the dealers had already robbed us of.
At Durban the first thing we saw was a girl in white semaphoring like mad from the rocks. As we spelled out that she was trying to tell us that she was an Australian, we gave her three times three. Our difficulty in reading her message was not through her bad signalling but because of her speed. Doubt if we had a signaller on board so quick! This was not the last of our indebtedness to her, for when we got into the wharf she had a regiment of Kaffirs with sugar-bags full of apples and oranges, and while we were still fifty yards from the wharf she began throwing them through the port-holes and into the hands of the men on deck. Not a half of one per cent fell short. She would have made a dandy bomber, and was a dandy all round.
In fact, the people of Durban were the most hospitable and patriotic of any people we had met. A delegation of citizens and ladies came down to the boat to inform us that we were the guests of the city and that everything was free to us. And later on we found them not to have exaggerated in the slightest. No one would accept money from us, though I don't think any of us tried to get diamond rings on these terms, but conductors on tram-cars and trains and motor-drivers and ticket-collectors at theatres one and all told us that our money was no good and gave to us their best seats.
This did not apply to the rickshaws, for they were run by Zulus and charged by the hour. You would climb in, the shafts would go up in the air, until you thought you were going to be tipped out at the back, and a herculean Zulu, decorated with horns and red and white stripes so that he might look like the devil, whom he, in reality, outdevilled, would rest himself on the body of the rick and trot along at a rate of six or seven miles an hour, quite able to keep up the pace all day. As a matter of fact, they never wanted to know where you were going, and even if you told them to take you to the post-office they would go round and round the block, never stopping to let you out unless you gave them a good poke in the ribs with your stick. Somewhere in their brains was an infernal taximeter adding up the dimes, and like their first cousins with the leather caps, they were determined to squeeze from you your last cent.
Apart from the ordinary entertainments we found that fêtes and feasts had been arranged for our delectation at the Y. M. C. A. and soldiers' clubs, so that every minute of our stay was crowded enjoyment. Even those of us who preferred quieter pleasures were not without companions, and I know of no more delightful journey in the whole world than a trip by tram-car to the Zoo or out along the Berea. Durban has certainly one of the most picturesque situations of any city in the world, and the art of man has been used with taste to reinforce nature: there are no homes in more delightful surroundings with lovelier shrubbery and gardens than here. The people of Durban have not only an eye for beauty but they are very up to date and have a coaling apparatus that holds the world's record for speed in the coaling of ships.
Besides these two ports we made two other stops on the journey, but these were where there was no land. The first one was wholly involuntary, and not much to our liking, for through a breakdown in our engines we drifted helplessly for two days in the very centre of the danger zone of submarines.
Our next stop had also some connection with these sharks, for we sighted floating in mid-ocean two life-boats and we went close to them but there was no one on board—only oars and water-casks. That's all—just another mystery of the sea—no name, no clew. Another day we sighted a steamer hull down, evidently water-logged, and we were going to her assistance when a cruiser came along and told us to go about our business and get out of harm's way as quickly as we could. This cruiser was just a little whiff of "scented gum"; and Australian air to us, for she was one of the best known of the Australian squadron.
There is a lonely island in the mid-Indian Ocean which is the only land for thousands of miles, and it is an unwritten law of the sea that every ship going that way should steam round it and watch carefully for signal-fires or signs of human occupation, for it is the place that shipwrecked sailors make for, and therefore there have been placed on the island several casks of fresh water and a supply of flour, and goats have been turned loose until they now overrun it. If a ship should find any one marooned thereon they are bound to replace all the water and flour that has been used. At one time there was a large fresh-water lake in the extinct crater of a volcano, but the sea has now broken through and made it salt. We steamed very close in, blew the siren, and had there been a pygmy there he would not have been overlooked as hundreds of trained eyes searched the rocks with glasses. We also got some fine photographs of this romantic isle in its waste of waters.
The officers' ward was on the upper deck and our nurse had a twin sister in another ward and there was not a particle of difference between them. If I was lying on the deck and should call out to our nurse as she passed to get me something, she would generally say, "I'll ask my sister," for, of course, it was the wrong one. There was endless confusion, for when we had a little tiff with our nurse, her sister would be sent to Coventry as well, and in a deck golf tournament there was great dispute over who won the ladies' prize, for both sisters claimed it. This matter could not be settled, as the umpire was not sure if he had credited the scores to the right one. The prize was a set of brushes and we told them it would have to do for both, which was all right, as we were sure they wore each other's clothes anyway. They told us they had made a vow when they married not to live in the same town for the husbands' sake!
The routine of the days was deadly monotonous with a break of a concert on Saturday and church on Sunday. Unfortunately, we had on board only two who could sing and one who thought he could recite. And even of those whose performance exceeded their own opinion we got tired before the journey ended. There were others who attempted to entertain us who afflicted us so much that after three performances we gave them the choice of suicide or having their tonsils cut, so the concerts petered out and the audience at the last one did not pay for the moving of the piano.
The shipping company who had transferred the ship to the Admiralty for the duration of the war still kept on the catering, and retained the same bill of fare as on their passenger trade. There was a good deal of variety and we always were able to get enjoyment with wondering what we would have for the next meal. They even helped us out a bit by calling the same dish by different names on different days and the same curry tasted differently under the names of "Madras," "Bengal," "Simla," "Ceylon," "Indian," and "Budgeree," and the cooking would even have satisfied Americans. The nurses were seated at one long table in the saloon and formed an island completely surrounded by officers. The twins were on opposite sides of the table, and of course we always found after dinner that we had been signalling to the wrong one. We observed a good deal of ceremony and always stood to attention until the nurses were seated, but the nurse who came in late and made us interrupt an interesting conversation with a tender chicken got plenty of black looks. When the matron rose we stood to attention again while they filed out and then "carried on" with the meal.
One morning there was great excitement. Up from the lower decks the electric current of expectancy ran until every one's steps quickened and those of us who were on wooden legs beat a constant tattoo on the decks. What means this eager, anxious thrill? To-morrow we would sight Australia! Only 43,200 seconds—720 minutes—or 12 hours, and once again we would view the fairest continent planted by God in the seas. Mind you, the first sight of Australia (going that way) is not very attractive. Rottenest Island, outside Fremantle, is sandy and barren and really not much to boast about, yet had you spread before us a scene from the Garden of Eden it had not charmed us half so much. For this was part of Australia, the land that we all called home. Back of that, for three thousand miles, stretched the country that held our ain folk and love and joy and home and what a man fights for and worships.
Every man had to be up on deck to see this sight. There were men there paralyzed, who had never moved during the whole long journey, but the saddest sight was to see the blind turning their sightless eyes in its direction and smiling with ecstasy, and maybe it looked more fair to these than to us who could see. How those boys cheered and cheered again! What a new spirit pervaded the ship! All day laughter and singing rang out, for there are no more patriotic troops in the world than the Australian soldiers, and, East, West, Hame's best. Like the old King of Ithaca we had wandered for years in many lands, but at last had returned home, and soon would have Penelope in our arms.
But only the Westralians were really home, and some of these had two or three hundred miles to go; for the rest of us there was still a fortnight more in the old ship as we sailed across the base of Australia to the eastern States.
When the ship drew in at the Melbourne wharf I made up my mind to escape the fuss and hero-worship, as I was a Queenslander and knew that none of my folks were among the crowd waiting at the gates. I went to the military landing-officer and asked him if I could not go out another way and dodge the procession. He said the orders were that every officer and man was to be driven in special cars to the hospital. I then went down onto the wharf and approached one of the ladies who looked as if she would play the game and I said to her: "If I ride in your car, will you promise to do me a favor?" She said: "I would do anything for you." I then said: "Well, let me out as soon as we get outside the gate." She demurred a good deal but I reminded her that no Australian girl I knew ever broke a promise. When we got outside I boarded a tram-car, which had not gone far before it had to stop to let the procession pass. Of course, every one would see that I was a returned soldier, but there was nothing to show that I was just returned. I stood up in the tram-car with the rest of the passengers and cheered and threw cigarettes and remarked loudly to all and sundry: "Some more boys come back, eh?" But my well-laid plans were entirely spoiled as my friends in the automobile called put, "Here, Knyvett, you dog, come out of that! Here's your place!" and I disgracefully subsided with many blushes, and had to endure all the way up to Melbourne the whispers and concentrated gaze of the whole tramful. I also "fell in" in another way, for when I rang up my uncle I found that he and his daughter were looking for me down at the wharf gates.
Two years ago the site of Caulfield Hospital was a wilderness of weeds and sand. Now it is an area of trim lawns and blazing gardens, bowling-greens, croquet-lawns, and tennis-courts, with comfortable huts, the gift of the people of Melbourne to their wounded soldiers, costing several hundred thousand dollars. As I had served with Victorian troops I was assigned to this hospital, although my home was over a thousand miles away in the northern state of Queensland. All who were fit to travel were given fourteen days "disembarkation leave" to visit their homes, but twelve of these days I had to spend in travel and only had two days at home after such long absence.
My wounds had healed but I was still paralyzed in my left leg, and the only attention I required was daily massage for an hour, and then another hour in the torture-chamber with an electric current grilling me. After this was over, I would go into the city, do the block, have afternoon tea, give an address at the Town Hall recruiting-depot, go to a theatre, and then as there seemed nothing else to be done, would return to the hospital. Such was my programme for ninety days. Sometimes I varied it by visiting the Zoo to commiserate with the wild animals on being caged.
There were many red-letter days when I was entertained by friends; but I am afraid I only squeaked when they expected roars—to be lionized was too unusual not to have stage fright a little.
The women in Australia are well organized and see to it that if a boy has a dull time it's his own fault. All the automobiles of the city were registered with the Volunteer Motor Corps, and each day certain of them were allotted to take wounded soldiers for picnics. We would generally be driven to some pretty suburb and there would be spread before us a feast of good things. At the end of the meal some of us felt like the little boy who said to his mother after the party: "I'm so tired, mummie, carry me up-stairs to bed, but don't bend me!"
There were concerts every night for the stay-at-home, but I only managed to get to one, given by the pupils of Madam Melba, which was a feast of harmony. After the programme refreshments were brought round by V. A. D.'s, whom the boys called, "Very Artful Dodgers," but it was not the "Thank you for the cakes and tea!" that they dodged! We had a cricket-match, one-armers versus one-leggers, and we one-leggers were allowed to catch the ball in our hats; but the one-leggers lost as we were nearly all run out. Some of us being half-way down the pitch as the ball was thrown in, would throw one crutch at the wickets, knocking off the bails, when the umpire, who had no legs at all, would give his decision that we were "stumped."
A huge Red Cross carnival was held near the hospital which netted about fifty thousand dollars. We were guests of honor, and on this occasion in the enormous crowds found "Long John" (one of the doctors, who was seven feet tall) very useful. He wondered why he was being followed about by several girls whom he did not know. We explained to him afterward that a good number of us who had "meets" had thought out the ingenious scheme of telling the girl to meet us at "Long John," who would be the tallest object on the grounds. We told him that he didn't play the game properly by moving about so much, as our friends complained that they were just worn out following him round.
The carnival was one enormous fair—there were row on row of stalls, decorated in the colors of all the Allied flags, with the girls serving at them dressed in peasant costumes. The goods on the needlework-stalls represented the work of weeks—there were flower-stalls, sweet-stalls, produce-stalls, book-stalls, and in and out of the crowds girls went selling raffle-tickets for everything under the sun—from tray-cloths to automobiles and trips to Sydney. Ballyhoo-men stood at tent-doors, calling the crowd to come and see the performing kangaroo, the wild man from Borneo, or, "Every time you hit him you get a good cigar!" "Him" was a grinning black face stuck obligingly through a hole in a sheet. There were groups of tables and chairs under bright-colored umbrellas, every here and there, where good things to eat were served all day. The fun lasted well into the night, when there were concerts, and dancing, and even the one-legged men tried to dance.
I don't think I had any other meals at the hospital than breakfast which I always had in bed. There was an orderly officer who was very unpopular as he had been months round the hospital and missed many chances of going to the front. One day the men played a trick on him. When he came into the dining-room to ask if there were any complaints one of them picked up a dish which was steaming hot and said: "Look here, sir! What do you think of this?" He picked up a spoon and tasted it. "Why, my man, that's very good soup! You're lucky to get such good food." "But, sir, it's not soup, it's dish-water!" (Curtain.)
At last the Medical Board sat on my case and their decision left me gasping for breath, for they recommended that I be discharged as permanently unfit for further military service. But nature sometimes plays sorry pranks with medical decisions. Not more than a week after this, movement suddenly returned to my leg and I threw away my crutches and was able to walk almost as well as ever. About ten days after leaving hospital I had sailed back for France via America, but have not at the time of writing been able to get across the Atlantic.
I have been saving this for a separate chapter; for besides a natural hesitation in admitting that I am not "all there," I want to have sufficient space in which to express my gratitude to the doctor who performed the operation and to the "unknown" who had his leg amputated, so providing me with a portion of his anatomy that I was in sore need of. Of course, in these days when surgical miracles are happening continually there is nothing outstanding about this operation, and surgeons have wonderful opportunities in a military hospital, where there are so many spare human parts lying about to patch up a man with. I quite believe that from three smashed men they could make a whole one, which, after all, would not be such a marvel when one remembers that they are continually grafting bones and nerves, and I for one would not like to say that in the next war they may not be able to cure a man who has lost his head entirely, and as a matter of fact, one of the San Francisco papers informed its readers (and as in this country the impossible of yesterday happens to-day, no doubt they believed it to be true) that I had had another man's leg grafted onto me. After such a statement it is an anti-climax to have to inform the public that it was only a portion of nerve that was grafted.
I had been lying in hospital several weeks before I got worried about the fact that I could not move my leg. Then when the great-hearted, plain-faced doctor who was attending to me said, "How's the man of many wounds this morning?" I asked: "Why is it my leg is dead?" He said: "We're only waiting for the wounds to heal until we test it." And sure enough a day or two later I was put in the electric chair for "reactions." When the current was put onto my right leg I howled and twisted, but with twice the current on my left leg nothing happened, as I felt nothing. Some days later a great nerve specialist operated on me and when I came back to this workaday world from the land of fancy, whither the ether had borne me, I was informed that a portion of nerve had been grafted in my leg and that in about three months I might be able to use it.
At this time I had no idea from whom the portion of nerve came. I did not like to inquire, for I was afraid that if I met its previous owner I might be prejudiced against it. Every portion of one's body is so closely related to the rest that I was afraid if his face did not suit my fancy I might subconsciously come to resemble him. But whenever I met one-legged men in the corridors or concert-hall I would try to pick out the one I would most like to receive such an intimate gift from. Some of these had a refined, delicate appearance, and I immediately feared that I would grow tenderfooted, while others looked like pugilists and I immediately imagined my foot was becoming calloused and might become longer than the other.
So purposely I remained in ignorance of the religion and nationality of my new nerve. Once for a whole day I sweat blood lest it might be a German, and then I plucked up courage to ask if there were any Germans in the hospital, and when I learned that there were not I slept like a child for many hours. On Saturdays I felt it might be a Jew or a Seventh-Day Adventist, but then it did not work on other days either, so I thought it must be I. W. W., "I Won't Work" as they are called in Australia. Then one day I was sure it was from one of the same religion as myself, for that leg was perspiring alone, and in the outback country in Australia, where the temperature reaches one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade, the Presbyterian Church is sometimes called "Perspiration." At any rate, I read in a paper that in one town the three churches were Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Perspiration. As to nationality it might be Scotch, as I had to be "verra cautious" in moving it, or English, being so "sensitive" to the touch. It was only after movement returned that I was quite sure it was Irish! For ever since then the Home Rule controversy has been going on in my body, for when I want to place my foot in a certain position, it's bound to try and go some other way. You can see from all this that I don't know much about nerves, and I even wonder sometimes whether, if they put in my leg a nerve from an arm, I might not try to shake hands with it like the armless man in the circus, or, if it happened to belong to the opposite leg, whether or not I would be pigeon-toed.
I sometimes wonder if the donor of this piece of nerve still "feels it" in his own leg, for, months after a man has lost his leg, he still feels it there. There was one man in the hospital who had lost both legs and screamed with pain every night because his toes were twisted, and it was only when they had dug up his feet and straightened out his toes that he got rest.
There are nerves and nerves, and I am sure that the grafting in me of this piece from the nerves of an Irishman has given to me more nerve than I ever had in my life before, else how could I have written this book?
I know scores of men who have been months in the trenches and over the top in several attacks who have never fired a shot out of their rifles. In fact, it is very, very rarely that the man in the trenches gets a chance to aim at an enemy at a greater range than a hundred yards. There are thousands of men whom I know who believe that the long-range rifles used in our army to-day are useless weapons. A much more serviceable gun to repel a counter-attack would be one firing buckshot like a pump-gun. The bullets from our high-velocity rifles frequently pass through the body of a man at a close range and he is not even conscious of having been hit and continues to come on with as great fury as before. The pellets scattering from a shotgun at a range of a hundred yards or less would do him more damage and be far more certain to stop him. In an actual charge our present rifle is more than useless—it is an encumbrance, and when at grips with the enemy in his own trenches it is often a fatal handicap. With a bayonet at the end it is far too long, and in a trench two to four feet wide it cannot be used with much effect. I have known our men repeatedly to unship the bayonet and take it in their hands, throwing the rifle away. Another danger is that men will fire their rifles down an enemy trench and these high-velocity bullets will pass right through the bodies of the one or two of the enemy in front of him and frequently kill his own comrade beyond. Remember, in a fight in a trench friend and foe are mixed up together and many of our men have been unconsciously shot by their fellows. In every regiment a small squad of picked marksmen only should have these long-range rifles, with the addition of telescopic sights. The average man does not take exact aim before firing, and nearly all the shots go high. If it were not for bombs and machine-guns the enemy could always succeed in getting to our trenches with very little loss. It should be remembered, too, how closely, in an attack, we follow our own barrage—it is impossible to see to fire through it.
The system of barrage fighting that we now use has made warfare as much a hand-to-hand business as it was in olden times and we must go back a good deal to old-fashioned weapons, as we have to a great extent to old-fashioned armor. The picked snipers or sharpshooters could be placed in points of vantage to pick off any of the enemy who exposed themselves and a score of them in each company would get very few shots in a day.
Another weapon that infantry should be armed with is a hand-bayonet as there is no advantage whatever in the long reach that our present rifle and bayonet gives. As a matter of fact, many of our men have been killed through driving their bayonet too far into the body of their opponent, not being able to draw it out, thus being helpless when attacked by another of the enemy. It is no use telling men not to drive their bayonet in more than three or four inches, for in the speed and fury of a charge they will always drive it in right up to the hilt, and while we retain this out-of-date weapon we should certainly put a guard on it not further than six inches from the point. I have used a hand-bayonet which sticks out from the fist like a knuckle-duster and is about six inches long. The shock of the blow is taken on the forearm which also has an iron plate running down it on which to receive the thrust of one's opponent. This is the natural weapon for the Anglo-Saxon, as the fist and arm is used exactly as in boxing. If an enemy comes at you with a bayonet it is the natural and easy thing to throw up your arm and ward it off. The iron plate saves your arm being cut; you are in under his guard; seize his rifle with your left hand and punch with your right, driving the knife home the six inches, which is all that is necessary. I have been in and seen a number of bayonet charges and I am quite satisfied that the parries and thrusts that we teach the infantryman are only of value to get him used to handling his rifle. After that it would be a good thing for him to forget them.
There are only two things that it is essential to remember when you go into a bayonet charge. The first is that the most determined man will win. I have known champion men-at-arms killed by a bayonet in their first charge and other little fellows who were no good in the practice combats kill their man every time. If you go into a bayonet charge with the idea of disarming your opponent and taking him prisoner you will most certainly be killed. But if you are quite sure in your own mind that you are going to kill every man who comes against you, you will do it. Your determination impresses itself upon the man you attack and he will be beaten before you reach him. The other thing that it is wise to remember is to make your opponent attack you on your left side. If he attacks you on the right you have to parry him and then thrust, but for an attack on the left side the action of parrying will bring the toe of your butt into his jaw or ribs, disabling him, and it is a good thing to use your knee at the same time.
The general-staff officers who decide how an army should be weaponed never do the actual fighting and few junior officers or men feel competent to offer their advice. I am quite confident that a majority of the fighters would agree with the foregoing opinions, and I would like the chance of taking a company armed as I have suggested into action, and would be quite satisfied of their superiority to any troops on the front.
The Germans have given to us an illustration, though such was not needed by thinking men to convince them of its truth, of the fact that the beast in humanity only requires encouragement to make us more bestial than any wild thing of the jungle or even the filthy cur of the streets. If any man takes as his guiding principle the devilish doctrine that the "end justified the means" he will soon become a menace to his fellows and any good impulses that he may originally have will pass away. The German Government made savagery, brutality, and bestiality a deliberate policy, and now it is their unconscious impulse. Germany is paying a terrible penalty in the degradation and demoralization of her whole people for having given the direction of the country into the hands of the Devil in exchange for power, and the German army is to-day a forcing-house for bestiality and there is no atmosphere in the whole world that so conduces to evil. In the beginning of the war letters and statements of prisoners showed that there were then many decent Germans who were horrified at the abominations they had seen and committed at the command of their government. But latterly, you cannot find any trace of this feeling. Now they gloat over it.
There is no one in the world to-day except those who are of like mind who do not know that the story of the German atrocities is true, for Germany has admitted enough crimes to convince any sane man that she would stick at nothing. No action could be too cruel, no deed too beastly, no torture too diabolical, no insult too keen, no impulse too filthy, no disfigurement too hideous, no vandalism too shocking, no destruction too complete, no stooping too low that Germany would hesitate to do where she has opportunity. When Germany boasted of the murder by drowning of women and babes on the high seas she proclaimed to the world that she was a criminal, and we do not need to have any other crimes proven to convince us that, while there is such a thing as justice, she must not go unpunished.
Criminals have been forgiven, but not before they are repentant; Safety, as well as Justice, demands that the murderer, the assassin, the raper shall not go free. Germany has not only committed all these crimes, but her theologians and professors have condoned them. The man who counsels forgiveness to Germany adds hypocrisy to the will to commit the same crimes. To forgive, we are told, is divine, but the Divine does not forgive without repentance. Has Germany shown signs of repentance yet? Well, then, the man who talks of forgiveness to Germany before she is on her knees begging for forgiveness is an enemy of peace and a condoner of crime.
It is so easy for those who have not suffered to tell the victims "to forgive." We do not go in nightly dread lest in the morning we should have to rake among the ruins of our homes for the mangled body of our baby! We do not have to work in daily fear lest we should have to return to an empty house whence wife or daughter have been dragged by brutal hands! For three years the people of London and Paris and thousands of other cities have never known but that at any moment their house might be brought down in ruins about their ears, entombing all that they hold dear! For three years the men of northern France and Belgium have never known but that while they were working, under compulsion, against the life of their own blood and country in a German munition factory, some soldiers might not be calling at their homes to take the woman that they love God alone knows where! These very things have happened to tens of thousands. Week after week the human hawks come over London, and ever the toll of civilians and women and babies done to death grows larger! One hundred thousand young girls were taken from Lille and other cities away from knowledge or protection of their kin, and until recently we had no news of any of them, but some have been thrown into Switzerland, of no further use to Germany; used up like sucked lemons, they are cast aside for the Swiss to feed. Germany has in her maw to-day more than ten millions of slaves.
In America or Australia there are no hospitals where lie thousands of girls too young to become mothers who have been raped. We have not hundreds of boys who will never become men. A young girl said to me: "There is a baby coming; it is a boche; when it is born I will cut its throat!" A woman showed me on an estaminet floor the blood-stains of her own baby butchered before her eyes. These were French women, not ours. But what if they had been? Your sister! Your mother! Your wife! And they might have been but for the accident of geography. Would you then have felt as bitter as these people? Or would you still have kindly feelings to Germany and not want to "humiliate her." There may be beings who could see daughter violated or brother mutilated without taking personal vengeance, but such should not be permitted to breathe the air with MEN.
The only people who have a right to say what punishment shall be meted out to Germany for her misdeeds, are the women of France, of Belgium, of Poland, of Serbia, of Rumania, of Italy, who have suffered these things; and if any one, King or President, Parliament or Pope, dares stand between these people and their just wrath they deserve to be pilloried in the minds of men as condoners of crime, as accessories after the fact.
The only chance for permanent peace, and guarantee that these abominable crimes shall not be committed again, is that we should so punish Germany that she shall realize "that war does not pay," and that the whole earth may know that no nation can commit these atrocities and go unpunished.
The observation of men in many circumstances of peril has quite convinced me that it is those who are most afraid that do the bravest deeds. I do not mean that the fact that they are afraid increases the difficulty of the doing, because it lessens it. It is fear that drives men to heroism! And many a man attempts the superhuman feat of courage not to show to others that he is no coward, but as evidence in the court of his own judgment, to disprove the accusations of conscience, which asserts he is craven. The old illustration of one soldier who accused another of having no bravery because he had no fear, by saying, "If you were as much afraid as I am you would have run away long ago," is not true to life, for it is the man of dulled feelings that is the first to run, and the "man who is afraid of being afraid" who stays at his post to the last. I have ever found that the best scouts, men who must generally work alone in the dark, are those of highly strung nervous temperaments. I have noticed, too, that our best airmen were of the same type, for if you go into any mess of pilots on the front you will see them always fidgeting, their hands never still, betraying nervousness. I have gone down the trench before a charge and seen the men with teeth chattering and blanched faces, but at the appointed second these men go over the top, none hesitating, every man performing prodigies of valor; not one but was a hero, yet not one that was not afraid.
There must be something wrong with the make-up of a man who under modern artillery-fire is not afraid. There are no nerves that do not break down eventually under the strain, but the man who shrinks from a shadow, and shudders at the touch of cold mud does his job with care and walks unhesitatingly into the mouth of hell. I have seen our signallers mending the telephone-wire under fire; each time it would break they would curse and tremble, but immediately go out and repair it accurately, slowly, no skimped work, repeating the performance again and again. There is in our spirit some reserve force which on occasion the will uses to stiffen resolution—the second wind of determination.
Fear is the "purgative of the soul"! There is nothing so wholesome for a man as to be "scared to death"! Nothing that so drives out the littlenesses that poison his life and set up the toxaemia of selfishness. Many a man that before the war made the acquiring of wealth or the gaining of the plaudits of his friends his chief aim, now finds that these things have no appeal for him. For he has been to the edge of life and looked into the abyss, and fear has stripped from him the rags of self-adornment; and standing naked between the worlds his soul has found that it needs no beautifying but the cleansing of self-forgetfulness.
This war is one of the greatest blessings this world has ever known, for it has brought to us fear of selfish force, fear of the engines of our own construction, fear of isolation in world politics, fear of secret diplomacy, fear of an unguarded peace, fear of an unprepared future, fear of an undisciplined people, fear of an irresponsible government, and, above all THE FEAR OF FORGETTING!
But there is another reason why a man in battle, though afraid, does not fail. The fact is that men in a regiment or an army are not under the domination of their own will at all, but of the collective will of the whole. That is why some regiments are so anxious to keep alive their traditions, and emblazon their battles on their colors. That is why we devote so much time in the training of young recruits to the knowledge of the esprit de corps of the regiment. That is why the regulars are always the best fighters. It is not their longer training, for that is a handicap with new methods of warfare. It is not because of their superior discipline, for the territorials have not lacked perfect discipline. But there is an atmosphere in the regular regiments that makes one brother that goes into the regulars a better soldier than the other that enlists in militia. This atmosphere is compounded of pride in past achievements and confidence that the colors that have never been lowered, though shot down on many a field, cannot be shamed to-day. The victors of many engagements have an enormous advantage in battle. No one expected anything but the most heroic courage from the British regulars who had never failed when called upon, but every one was not a little anxious how "Kitchener's" would stand their first ordeal of fire.
Every mass of men has, besides the will and mind of each one of them, a collective will and mind. Every town has this—who has not felt, on entering a town and viewing its shops and people, a certain pushing toward behavior—some towns tend to make one frivolous, others grave. I know a city which, every time I enter, makes me think when last I was in church, while there is another in which I always want to dance or view the Follies. Have you not seen countrymen in town, whose clothes proclaim that they have never been out later than nine o'clock in a lifetime, trying to be the gay Lothario, drinking wine in a cabaret? Every house has its personality made up of the collective minds of the people who inhabit it. Take your child to one strange house and he will fidget uncomfortably on the edge of his chair; but take him to another, just as strange, and he will romp about without hesitation. Children are like the canaries we use to detect the presence of poisonous gases, most sensitive to atmosphere.
In the same way an army has ONE WILL, and that is why in battle you will not see one man fail, or there will be panic and all will fail. In every army there are individual men weak in resolution who, left to themselves, would run away; but as the MIND of the army as a whole is courageous, so they are swept along in spite of themselves. The German army has ONE MIND for bestiality, and the Allied army has ONE MIND for victory.
To those who are thrilled by the old-time tales of adventurous chivalry or moved by the narrative of high endeavor and heroic achievement for some noble ideal, I bring a conception of the marvellous glory of these present days. We have been wont to sing of the times when thousands left home and comfort on a Holy Crusade, but the Crusaders of these days are numbered in millions.
Never were there such stirring times as these, never since the first tick of time have the hours been so crowded! Never before did so many men live nobly or die bravely. The young knights from many lands are seeking the Holy Grail, and finding it in forgetfulness of self and in sacrifice for their fellows. You and I are living to-day among the deeds of men that make the deeds of the heroes of past times pale into insignificance. Never were there bred men of such large and heroic mould as the men of to-day.
Here's a trench—on which a shell falls—and where one shell falls another always follows in the same place;—the shell blows in a dugout and there is little chance that the men sheltering therein shall be alive, yet those on either side, knowing that another shell will fall in a second or so, in utter forgetfulness of self leap in and with their bare fingers scrape away the dirt lest haply there should be some life yet remaining in this quivering, mangled human flesh.
Oh! What chances the men of earth have to-day to be as God! The highest conception any religion has given us of God is that he is one that would sacrifice himself—"Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends"—and to-day they're doing it by the million. Every moment is adding names to the honor-roll of heaven of men who follow in His steps.
Have you conceived that the uniting together of the nations that love peace in this struggle will do more to guarantee peace in the future than anything else that has ever happened in world politics,—that it will join France, Britain, and America into a trinity of free peoples who will prevent war, at least for many generations? We are being bound together by the strongest tie that ever tied nation to nation, that ever bound one people to another, not by political treaties that may be torn up, but by the great tie of common blood shed in a common cause on a common soil. That narrow lane that stretches from Switzerland to the sea is the great international cemetery, and for many generations it will be the Mecca of pilgrimages from all our countries. The wreaths of America will mingle with the immortelles of France and the flowers from Britain and the pilgrims shall there get to know, understand, and love each other as they engage in the holy task of paying a common tribute to their common dead. Shall not the mingling blood of Frenchmen, Britons, and Americans make the flowers of peace to grow? They never had such soil before.
There is being created, also, in all our countries a new aristocracy—the aristocracy of courage. We never had a chance up till now to prove who were our real, our best people, and we have been accustomed to measure our citizens by the false and small standards of wealth, birth, and intellect. Well! There has been given to us to-day a new standard whereby we can measure ourselves, the standard of courage, sacrifice, and service. Nobody in England cares to-day whether you are descended from William the Conqueror or not! No one will care in America whether your ancestor came over in the Mayflower, or whether he signed the Declaration of Independence! Every American has a chance to-day of signing a far greater declaration than that great one of '76—the declaration of personal willingness to sacrifice all on the altar of liberty. In England, in America, in Australia, in all the countries of the world in the days that are to be, men and women will make their boast in this one thing, or have no cause for boasting at all, of the part that they had in this fight, the greatest fight that has ever been waged for liberty, for righteousness, and for the virtue of womanhood.
What a splendid opportunity it is for us to be able to personally pay the price of liberty. How easy to forget that freedom has either to be earned by ourselves or enjoyed because some one else has paid the price for us. Had we not forgotten in our countries that the democracy that we boast of is no credit to us because it was won by the blood of other men? Men died that we might be able to govern ourselves! Women carried heart-ache and loneliness to the grave that we might make our own laws!
Liberty! Such an easy word to mouth, but how precious in the sight of God! Liberty is one of the treasures of heaven and only committed to men at great cost, lest they should undervalue it.
In these great and wonderful times there has been given to us the glorious opportunity to earn our own liberty, to prove our own personal right to citizenship in a free country.
You may not be able to pay in good, red blood, you may not be able to pay much in the coin of the republic, but if each of us does not pay in whatsoever coin we have, there will come soon to us the days in which we shall realize that we are thieves and robbers, enjoying that to which we have no right, won so hardly with the deaths and wounds of men and the salt tears of women. In the New World that shall be born after the birth-pangs of the present days, we shall realize that we have no place, our souls shall shrink and shrivel as we gaze on the honor scars of those who have paid, and we shall be elbowed to the outskirts of the crowd, as the people bow before the men whom the President and people delight to honor—the men sightless, the men limbless, the memory of the men lifeless.