Credo Fitch Harris

“ Even above the cannonading he could hear men give vent to savage cheering. But his blood congealed and his fingers dug into the earth, his breath came in agonized gasps, as he watched them rush pell-mell, with bayonets fixed, across that deadly strip of ground.
Then suddenly the artillery ceased. The far-off German guns still roared, but they were as taps of rain upon a roof to ears that had almost bled from other detonations. For a moment Jeb thought he had been stricken deaf, and turned a questioning glance at Bonsecours, whose eyes were staring ahead in strained expectancy. ”

“ For the machine-gun redoubts had to be taken before their deadly fire could pour into those brave fellows who had swept ahead—and this must be done before uncompromising daylight made the work too costly! So he turned without glancing again at Marian. Yet no decoration for a brave deed might have been more brilliant than her look which followed him, could she have shut out the torturing picture of his debasement at the shell hole. A quick prayer sprang from her soul into space as she whispered fervently: "God keep his courage stiff!" ”

“ To Jeb's highly imaginative, and now half-crazed, mind these represented newly liberated souls, in anguish seeking refuge from the hurricane of death and its drenching rain of fire. He had not then found out how many hundreds of shells must be fired to wound one man!
On the Allied side the bombardment, with growing intensity, became a barrage. Explosions came as thick as drum taps when a roll is sounded. There seemed to be no intermission, really; no more, at any rate, than one's ear can detect between clicks in a telegraph room when the instruments work rapidly. ”

“ All of the plucky sergeant's grief, fury, self-condemnation—aye, and love—were in that wail of agony.
The sailor was aiming for another shot when Jeb's ears were filled with a weird, screeching noise; a violent jolt of air almost knocked him from the box, and a geyser of spray shot up ten feet from the submarine's bow. Before even the deep boom of the distant gun that had fired this projectile reached him, another screeching followed, another jolt of air struck him in the face, and this time, with a mighty roar, the undersea boat split almost in two. ”

“ Then, turning in a sudden fury, he thundered: "But the hell of it is, that every born male baby should be then and there a born soldier, else nature has blundered in making it a male!—for a boy-child that comes into the world without that divine element which later would make it joyfully die for its country, ought to be a girl-child! I'm not sure that it ought to be anything at all, judging from the nobility our girls, our women, have always shown when their country bleeds! There's Marian Strong, possessed with the courage of a lion—yes, sir, a lion! ”

“ Whatever the hope to which Colonel Hampton clung, he could no longer doubt Jeb's earnestness nor his sanity. He saw that this son of his dead friend was speaking a horrible truth which he, himself, could not possibly understand. And then he seemed suddenly to have aged, to have grown old in a moment.
Sometimes an autumn will progress far while still holding the bounteous greens of summer; the skies will have tempered their chill to trees and grass, and even scattered wild flowers will retain their bloom. ”

“ You're going out to play a mighty big game, boy, wherein Humanity is trumps, and Patriotism, Righteousness and Service are the other three aces. Yet, even if you hold all these, you may still lose unless you possess one more magic card: Self-respect! We all owe to our soul a certain measure of self-respect, Jeb. It is a gentleman's personal debt of honor to himself, demanding payment before every other obligation, and is satisfied only when we face each of life's crises with steel-tipped, crystal courage! ”

“ A little gasp?—some dizziness?—surprise, perhaps?—and then God's great entwining arms?"
But the dead eyes staring at him seemed to answer:
"Not until you face it like a soldier of Humanity! Not until you strike a manly blow for the little nations which were ravaged; the women, children, helpless men, ground in the mailed fist of a lying tyrant! God entwines those within His arms who fight for right, not run from it!"
Jeb sprang up, alive to action. Death, then, was but an ephemeral part of this big game; he was fighting not only for today, but for the future ”

“ If he is downright honest he will not permit himself to be deceived—but the trouble is that hopes which he wishes were beliefs, and wishes that he hopes will become beliefs, are blindfolds deliberately placed across his eyes to spare him an unrestricted vision of his naked soul. This is the most common type of cowardice in the world.
The brave words Jeb uttered were most agreeable to his senses; they fed the hole that should have been filled with courage, and he therefore plunged onward into the realm of imageries until the little ladies felt that they had never really known their Jeb. ”

“ He's nothing but a boy!"
Miss Sallie was seldom out of patience with her more tender sister, yet at this moment her love and her patriotism—by which is meant her heart and soul—were violently in conflict. Fearing lest the former might prevail, she replied with greater asperity:
"Well, be a fool if you must, but for pity sake don't let Jeb see you! He's no boy any more; since this morning he's grown into a big, mature man!—just the kind we need to end this horrible war! As for Marian, she'll be glad enough to wait for him!" ”

“ Bonsecours stepped nearer and studied him, bellowing in a tone that had made more than one man obey:
"There are twenty thousand fine fellows, mon chère enfant, each about to spring from his trench with the firm belief that if he gets hit we shall bring him in. No man dares break faith [Pg 189] with a friend who thus relies on him!" He had put both hands on Jeb's shoulders and now continued to look steadfastly, honestly into his eyes. Then quickly he kissed him on both cheeks, saying: "I'll believe in you tonight, to do as I would do were my duty not back here!" ”

“ Some time before daylight Jeb fell asleep. In the work and hustle of getting aboard and stowing supplies for his unit, of dodging a company of Canadians looking to their own embarkation, and of steering his course through half an army of sweating stevedores who were loading vast quantities of freight for the Allied army, he had not thought of himself. But he had felt the elation which comes to all who are cohesively striving for a single purpose that lies beyond dangerous, and as yet insurmountable, ground. ”

“ Barrow, noting this with the eye of a skilful physician, sent a nurse for black coffee and a bowl of soup, but Jeb rebelled in disgust at the thought of it.
"Come, now," his chief said commandingly, when the nurse returned, "shut your eyes and drink them down, I tell you! We need you, Jeb; you mustn't kick up sick the first day!"
We need you! The words stirred new life in him. Then came a vision of the great Bonsecours as he had pointed toward No Man's Land and cried: "It is those whom the good God expects us to bring in!" ”

“ Also did the whole scene change as sky and earth increased their fury in this blending of the real and unreal; for, now added to the noises and fitful lights, were huge balls of white smoke, and brown, springing into quick existence; some expanded to balloon size and swept majestically onward, upward; some, caught in a vortex of madness,—swirling, writhing, darting,—formed devilishly gruesome arabesques that yet were formless; some burst like pon-pons; some released long streamers and darted earthward. Jeb's eyes were held by this appalling grandeur ”

“ Each knew the French guns had searched out and were crumbling up the German defenses, but none had previously suspected that an artillery bombardment could reach such fury. The desultory firing of yesterday might well be understood as a moment decalme!
In this instant of terrified amazement Jeb and his comrades remained as statues, simply staring with owlish eyes devoid of intelligence, since it was well nigh impossible for men, uninitiated, to master their faculties until the first shock had been absorbed. ”

“ Jeb and the Colonel watched the two red signal lights growing smaller, until shut out by a curve; but they continued to stand, listening to the rumble as it faded into the distance—into the dawn of a new world, where the souls of men were calling, and from which the souls of slackers stood back in fear! ”

“ To Jeb it might have marked the very brink of hell. The flashes were almost as a steady white and greenish-orange blaze, and showed the earth spurting in great bunches upward; stiff winds that had sent clouds scurrying the day before now caught the ground smoke and drew it, as a [Pg 192] sweeping prairie fire, back upon the enemy. This was a propitious wind, and on its wings the death gas sped.
Between the armies lay No Man's Land in utter desolation, but each little detail, each inconspicuous bit of wreckage left from earlier struggles, stood boldly outlined in the calcium glare. ”

“ Jeb suggested, "for Aunt Sallie and Aunt Veemie will want to hear the news."
"Tell them the town will be proud of you, my boy," Mr. Strong gave him a salute; and the Colonel, in his enthusiasm forgetting he had harbored a doubt of Jeb, shouted:
"And tell 'em I wouldn't be surprised if some day we put up a monument to you! When a fellow charges through hails of bullets, each singing him a lullaby, he never knows what instant one will come 'chunk!' into his stomach! ”

“ Incidentally this will spare him the odium—the odium, sir—of being drafted like a common slacker!"
"I'd die if I were drafted," Jeb put in. "I don't see how drafted men can face their own kind, much less the enemy!"
"You're right," the Colonel thundered. "Such a system saps our manhood! I thank God, Amos, that in the old days men responded to the call without being driven like a herd of moral lepers!"
"Not so fast, not so fast," Mr. Strong began to laugh at them. "In the old days, Roger, we owed our successes at arms to luck, rather than to a finely organized army. ”

“ Scarcely had the gate closed after them when Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie, guilt written in every line of their radiant faces, tiptoed from the house, stepped into the garden and ran to the fence. As they had formerly done while watching Colonel Hampton stalk angrily townward, they now, also, leaned farther and farther over the pickets, keeping the young people who comprised their hope in view to the very last. ”

“ Before him lay what had once been the little hamlet on the scarp—he recognized it, remembering how the French barrage had in mercy been lifted over it. But it had not escaped a severe pounding. A few sections of torn walls, a few chimneys, here and there a gable still supporting one end of a caved-in roof, made a skyline that was saggy, unreal and awe-inspiring. No life was anywhere apparent. Crumbled on its solitary hill, overlooking a white-and-brown streaked sea of smoke that lapped its feet, it typified the most acute expression of desolation. ”

“ Streams of these steel-helmeted fellows now began to pass—as the fluid line had passed in yesterday's twilight—close below Jeb. In the broadening daylight he could distinctly see their bronzed, immobile faces; their swinging gait, suggesting abundant reserve power, and their eyes that bespoke an utter disregard of dangers. They were men, second to none in determination and reckless personal valor, who did not endure hardship, but rode upon it; who did not work, without first laughing it into play. If the sun was hot, they sweated good humor ”

“ Jeb felt a rush of self-righteous anger that for the moment transcended his horror of going forward. While in Paris he had read official translations from the German press; now with his own eyes he was looking upon the things gloatingly described in the Berliner Tageblatt [1] when it told the people of Berlin: "The enemy's mouth must stay dry, his eyes turn in vain to the wells—they are buried in rubble. No four walls for him to settle down into; all levelled and burnt out, the villages turned into dumps of rubbish, churches and church towers laid out in ruins. ”

“ What hope of an army, or hope of mercy from it, whose Kaiser confesses himself to be a liar or a lunatic by proclaiming: "The spirit of God has descended upon Me because I am the German Emperor! I am the instrument of the Most High. I am His sword, His representative on earth. Woe [Pg 252] and death to those who oppose My will! Death to the infidel who denies My mission! Let all the enemies of the German nation perish. God demands their destruction—God, who by My mouth summons you to carry out His decrees!" [3]
As Jeb recalled these utterances, their blasphemy made him cringe. ”

“ Get this in your mind, Jeb: bravery is the absence of fear, but courage is the ability to overcome fear! It's no disgrace to be afraid; it's only a disgrace to be a slave to fear. The man who possesses one pound of fear and two pounds of courage, is a lion ”

“ Jeb gripped the seat in terror, feeling now that before they got half way down the slope a German gunner would pick them out and touch the magic spring which reduces men—not symbolically but literally—to dust. ”

“ The most dangerous propaganda waged by German spies in this country—more alarming in its results thus far than the blowing up of munition factories, the setting afire of grain elevators, the enciting of Mexico—has been the honorless skill with which they have fed the American mind upon the idea of a disgruntled Germany, a starving Germany, and all such twaddle! ”

“ A moment later eight Germans came toward him, picking their way over piles of rubble and carrying spidery things he recognized as machine-guns. Crouching low beneath the crater's side he waited breathlessly, while they passed so near that he could smell their sweaty clothing. After several minutes he peeped out; the sentry and they had disappeared. Without doubt this was a night party fortifying the ruined hamlet on the scarp; but, if that were so, where in the name of God, he asked himself, could the Allied army be! ”