Part 4

And what could he say to the Church of Christ and Christian Union Pastor and members waiting to welcome him home to Pall Mall and into renewed fellowship? Probably what he said to the reporter who asked him a leading question. When he was drafted he had no real idea what the fighting was about. “But when I got to camp,” he said, “and my officers told me we were fighting for democracy and peace on earth and for the protection of the small nations, then I knew it was no sin to kill. In fact, I feel a heap stronger spiritually than before I went over to fight. No man could go through what I did without the help of God. I feel He gave us our great victory because we were in the right.

At a reception given York by the Tennessee Society of New York, Major General Duncan, who commanded the 82d Division, said this:

“It is a unique distinction for me to have on one side of me the Admiral who safely conducted all of our troops overseas and on the other side one of the most distinguished soldiers the world has ever produced. His deeds are of the character that will go down in history for our boys and girls to read of and admire.

“York was awarded his medals for having been the leader of a small party which brought in a large number of prisoners after he had killed twenty-five. When I heard of his feat I ordered a full investigation, which resulted in the award of the Congressional Medal. I am happy to see your society doing honor to a man who so thoroughly deserves it.

“I hope your unprecedented policy of banqueting a non-commissioned officer will be forever followed and honor done to the man who carries the gun—the man who goes over the top.”

THE NEMESIS OF FLAME

A Vision of Inferno from which Even a Dante Would Have Shrunk——“What Hell Must Be Like”

[Illustration:

© _International Film Service._

Liquid Fire—The War’s Most Terrible Weapon

It was introduced by the Germans and later adopted by the French. The inflammable liquid was carried in tanks on the backs of soldiers and the flames were expelled through a nozzle at the end of a short hose.]

As a rule the experience of one “caught in his own trap” is regarded with a good deal of satisfaction by human nature in general. The spectacle of anyone “hoist with his own petard” seems quite in the line of poetic justice, and there is not much sympathy with the victim. But there are instances when the merited recoil punishment is too ghastly, too appalling to permit of any other sensation than that of horror, and a French correspondent on the Somme has recorded such an instance. One detachment of the French line was under heavy and concentrated fire, and the commanding officer thought it advisable to withdraw the men to a better position, about fifty yards in the rear. The correspondent quotes the statement of the soldier left behind to watch and signal the movements of the enemy. He says:

“I fixed myself about fifteen feet up in the crotch of a big tree and seized a telephone which was connected with the nearest battery. From there I could see a German trench at the edge of a little wood, about eighty yards from the trench my comrades had vacated.

“For nearly an hour nothing happened. Occasionally I noticed heads peering from the Boche trench, trying to see into the empty trench which was hidden from them by a slight rise of the ground just before it. They would have been a splendid mark for a sniper, but I had other work this time. Suddenly a group of about forty Boches crept from the wood, rapidly followed by the best part of a company. I telephoned: ‘Enemy advancing led by a detachment of flamenwerfer,’ for I had recognized the devilish apparatus carried by the foremost group. When the latter were about eighty feet from the empty trench, they halted in a hollow just below the rise of ground, and then, with appalling suddenness, a dozen jets of white and yellow flames darted up to fall plumb into the trench. The dense smoke hid the Germans from me for a time, but, thanks to my mask, I was able to gasp information to the battery.

“A few moments later I had a glimpse of what hell must be like. Our gunners had the range to an inch, and a torrent of shells burst right among the flame-throwers, exploding the containers. Great sheets of flame shot up, one jet from a container just grazing me, burning my clothes so that my ribs were scorched rather badly. But it was impossible to escape. The ground was a sea of fire. In the midst of it the Germans, like living torches, were dying horribly. One man spun round like a top, not even trying to run away, until he fell in a pool of flame. Others rolled on the ground, but the blazing liquid ran over them everywhere, and I could smell the sickening odor of burning flesh.

“I don’t think any of the fire-throwers escaped. Their screams, heard despite the cannonade and rifle fire, seemed to continue terribly long. The company behind them was panic-stricken. As the smoke lifted, I saw them moving back to the wood, and our _mitrailleuse_ did severe execution, spreading added slaughter over that scene of horror.

“I was nearly fainting with the fumes and the pain of my burns. The Captain sent a patrol, which found me hanging limply in the tree fork. They had trouble getting me, but luckily the Germans were too staggered to interfere.”

HE JESTS AT SCARS

A Bomb Thrower and Tank Master Who “Paid His Way in Huns”

It is very hard to pick out definitely any single name and exclaim “Here is the Hero!” Not that that man would not be a hero, but that he is not the only hero, and definite naming of some seems to exclude all the rest. If this book shows anything, it shows that in the horrors of the vast conflagration—in the terrible, awe-inspiring strain of the fighting on earth and on water, and underneath, and above—practically all the millions involved proved themselves heroes. Many of them found no chance to show their valor in lone ventures, and not all of them lost the lives they were so ready to give up. But they were heroes—all of them—though no papers heralded in brave headlines their deeds of glory, and no medals shine forth the commendation of the superior officers. All we need to see is the mud-stained uniform—and that look in the eye. This book is really a dedication to the innumerable heroes we do not name—heroes to be perhaps ever nameless in human documents.

It is hard even where men were given the opportunity for individual bravery to pick them out. Official records are brief, and, in the main, the men themselves refuse to tell. But _Scribner’s Magazine_ has uncovered one of these hard-to-get heroes. He calls himself Lieutenant “Z.,” and it is only between the lines that we read of his endless sacrifice, courage, and death-defying accomplishments.

The story is taken from letters written by him in the trenches. At the very beginning of the war he had enlisted as a trooper in a newly-formed cavalry regiment. All winter they waited to be called to action. Spring came—and yet no call or need for horsemen. They therefore volunteered to dismount, and were sent to Flanders. He himself joined the “Bombing Squad.”

[Illustration:

© _New York Herald._

Forward With Hand Grenades

A strong arm, a keen eye, and a disregard for danger are the requisites for the man who throws grenades or bombs.]

Bomb throwing, he soon found, is “quite a ticklish business, needing care and accuracy. A badly thrown bomb may kill one’s own men remarkably easily, and in the hands of inexperienced men I should call them good allies for the Germans.” But his own efficiency speaks for itself. In some ten days the records named him as wounded, and he writes a hasty letter home to say that he is well. “My wound is only a scratch on the arm,” he complains, “and I did not show it to the doctor until our return to these billets. It is ridiculous to return me as ‘wounded.’

LIVING NINE PINS

“We went into the trenches on Saturday night last, and came out Thursday morning just before dawn. Four days and five nights practically without sleep, and being shelled by Jack Johnsons more or less the whole time. It is a one-sided game, with the odds with the artillery. We sit and hold a trench, being the nine pins while the guns roll the ball at you. You can do nothing but swear softly. No Germans actually attacked our trench, but they tried to do so on each side of us. But on Tuesday afternoon about 6.30 p.m. I got a little of my own back from them. I had just returned with a sack full of water bottles from a stream near by behind our trench, where we dodge snipers, when the call suddenly came for ‘Bomb throwers to the front’ and the rifles and machine guns started a terrific popping. I was in shirt sleeves, and just slammed on my ammunition equipment and skedaddled off with my rifle up the trench towards the racket, incited by a great eagerness to get into the thick of it.

“After a long time, as it was a long way, crouching and running and crawling I got to where I could see our men throwing bombs into the Germans. You could hear nothing for the noise, for it seemed as if every German rifle, Maxim, and big gun was turned on that spot; their shrapnel was going ‘Brrangg’ overhead and their shells going ‘Whangg’ all about. I took a few shots at the devils with my rifle, by way of resting and getting my breath, and then I got hold of a box of bombs and started to crawl and drag it up there. The box was heavy and, to my delight, another young chap, a Strathcona, came and helped me. We dragged and humped it along, over bumps and across shell holes and over our dead, until we got to the extreme point where the Germans were retreating up their trench and being bombed by our men unmercifully. There I found my own Sergeant of our bomb throwing squad, to my great relief.

“I had never thrown a live bomb in my life but soon found out, as it is quite a simple affair and they were lovely bombs for working. You could see a clump of German bayonets huddled like sheep, over their parapet top, and you chucked a bomb into it and prayed for the explosion. When it came the bayonets wavered and wabbled and then disappeared. If the bomb did not explode you waited and backed up because those plucky Germans lighted it again and threw it back. And so on and so on. I _know_ I got 3 bombs into them fairly and squarely and heard them explode and saw the bayonets flop down. We finally got to a place at a turn in the trench, an angle, and our men, the —— something or other, were firing directly across us, excitedly of course, and they killed about 12 of our men there, two of them being of my squad and within a few feet of me, and two more were wounded. I was by that time about played out and the bombs were all exhausted, so we sat down to wait for more, and when they came I could not get up, for I had cramp in both of my legs and had to be rubbed and rubbed. That must have been about 8 p.m. But I could drag around, so I dressed two wounded men and helped to fill sand bags and pass them along until 10 p.m. I should judge. About 10.30 p.m. the only officer present told us the thing was over for the time and no more could be done, and we crawled back, as the rifles and Maxims and shrapnel and Jack Johnsons were just as busy all the time. The Sergeant and I got back to our own trench after 11 p.m. and I was more than tired. Never have I been so played out in my whole life. We lost three killed, two wounded, and another who went off his head later, out of nine, including the Sergeant, out of our bomb throwing squad. And I had not a scratch. Just a bump on the breast bone from something kicked up by a Jack Johnson. It was a bad thing for the Germans but we lost a lot of good men there.

“Our troop was 38 strong but now only 26 are left. We were in the foremost British trench of the British front here and our Troop had the post of honor. So we ought not to mind anything.”

[Illustration:

_Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._

Sergeant John F. Nugent

_42nd Division, 165th Infantry, 83rd Brigade_

He was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross for three days’ fighting in the Château-Thierry Sector. He was mentioned for having maintained liaison under heavy bombardment, as well as having performed first-aid work.]

“PAID HIS WAY IN HUNS”

Our bomb thrower was twice promoted for bravery, and finally was offered a commission in his regiment “for setting traps for Fritz when he goes a-sniping.” A bomber is called on to do a lot of work besides bombing, such as crawling about at night sniffing trouble, and likely points where Huns may be blown sky high. He would like to get a quick promotion but “at any rate,” he writes, “I can truthfully say that I have already blotted out enough Huns to pay for my scalp, if that business deal comes to the point of record. And it is a most cheerful and fortifying sensation. I would like my epitaph to read ‘He paid his way in Huns.’”

Wounds, yes, and minor disabilities, but he writes, “I don’t need my left side to throw bombs and the Lord has spared my right side for a special purpose. I have got more than my share of Huns as it is and I firmly intend to get some more. Three of us, with sufficient bombs, accounted for 46 dead Huns, 26 wounded and 22 prisoners in one single afternoon. This was a redoubt which they surrendered, after they had had enough.”

He was finally sent away to an Officers’ Training Camp and after six weeks came back to the front as first lieutenant. In the meantime, though, his regiment had been remounted and was doing patrol duty. Patrol duty did not suit Lieutenant Z. He therefore joined the Machine Gun Corps, and spent several months in a “Tank Menagerie.” At Messines Ridge he led a division of the “Rhinos” into battle. The Military Cross he won there is only small evidence to the steadfast heroism he displayed that day.

He was well acquainted with conditions by that time. His description of a battle at the Somme shows that:

“I was only fifteen hundred yards from our front line, and the place taken was on an upward slope, so all was in full sight. At the given moment, 4.45 p.m. of a lovely summer evening, up they went, ‘over the top,’ famous Celtic regiments, all together, a long and gallant line. Bayonets sparkling in the sun, up the slope they go! Behind me our massed batteries are making one great crashing roar till your temples throb and throb, and ahead of our men the very earth is heaving and moving amidst a fog of green and black and yellow and gray smoke. Now, No Man’s Land, so long a desert, is full of life and death and joy and misery. White vicious balls of shrapnel puff above; or deadly black and green ones, and below the great spouts and mushroom columns of jet-black smoke spring up like fungoid growths here and there. The shrill rat-tat of machine guns and the pop-pop-pop of rifles can be heard. On the little figures run and jump, and the bayonets gleam and sparkle, and the first line disappears into the trench ahead, and you are left to imagine what follows. Still, No Man’s Land is well populated. Wave after wave is speeding straight ahead. The ground is dotted with immovable dots, and others which can crawl. A bright magnesium star shoots up well ahead, and the batteries lift their fire without checking. The waves all surge forward and out of sight at last, and No Man’s Land is left to its misery. Then you see the stretcher-bearers out there among the great grinding ‘crumps’ and the shrapnel, calmly picking up their men, and back they come slowly. You watch one group of five. Four bearers and a mangled something which is alive. A monster spout and cloud springs up near. They swerve and crouch for a few seconds and on they come. Another black death entirely hides them from view, and you wonder. No! Here they come. So slowly and steadily through the cloud, and you say to yourself: ‘Hurry, hurry; for God’s sake run!’ But they don’t. They walk slowly and carefully with their burden, straight and the shortest way. Some win home and some do not. Other men are carrying others, and some hobble and limp and stagger by themselves. And all the while the big shells burst and the shrapnel sprays the ground.

“No Man’s Land is again a desert, dotted with dots of death.”

A GO WITH A TANK

On June 6th he was given orders to lead a tank through battle. He must have had brave folks at home to write:

[Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._

Sergeant Grady Parrish

_42nd Division, 167th Infantry, Company “G”_

He reorganized his platoon and personally led it in the attack on Côte de Chatillon. By his daring acts he broke up a heavy enemy counter-attack on his front, thereby setting to his men an example of exceptional heroism and devotion to duty.]

“When you get this, I shall have been through the mill and either all right, in hospital, or blotted out, so don’t worry. As soon as I can I will write and let you know the news; if I can’t, some one else will. We hope to make a page of history, and go into it with light hearts and great confidence. This place is Bedlam, the lions about to be fed, the parrot-house at the Zoo, and a few other noisy places combined. I went through gas last night near dawn, and had no respirator (forgot it). Held my breath till I nearly burst and blew up, and made record time. Beyond a harmless whiff picked up when I exploded for air, which has made smoking less of a pleasure, no harm done.

“Good-by. I have had a long run out here, and I must not complain, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it and would repeat it, every bit of it, if it were necessary.”

The next letter speaks for itself:

“IN BELGIUM, June 10th, 1917.

“DEAR M.:

“Your letter found me in hospital and was most delightful company. My trouble is not much, just a bullet through fleshy part of right forearm and a graze in the side, and I am up and about and going back to my lot in a day or two. We were an active part in the great drama of the 7th, and what with the bursting mine-earthquakes and the tempestuous bombardment, one was lucky to be left with one’s senses. I, personally, was very successful, reaching all my objectives and getting slap into the blue-gray devils, Bavarians, and blazing away like a dreadnought. Oh! The sights which were seen! Luck, good and bad, was with me, for my bus caught on fire in action just where the thing was thickest, and I ordered the whole crew out, with fire-extinguishers, to put it out. Out we went and got busy. I left my crew on the sheltered side (more or less), but my corporal, without orders, got on top, while I went to the exposed side, vociferously ordering the corporal down, and we got the blaze out between us.

“Meantime one of my crew was bowled over. We got him back inside and later he came to and is recovering. Where I was the bullets were splattering around me and hitting old ‘Squash ’em Flat’ and splashing me with fine sprays of broken metal, and there it was I got my trifling wound and scratches, but it was only bad Bavarian shooting that kept me and my corporal (who was untouched) from being turned into human sieves. After that, we carried on, and as I had finished my job to the last letter, we came on home, and I brought the old thing back safely.

SOMETHING OF A MYTH

“Our game sounds comfortable and protected, but that is a myth. It is a mystery how ever any of us got there or got back. You feel very important because you are heralded, followed and encircled by miniature geysers of earth, smoke and biff-bang! Your own infantry flees from you as if you bore the plague. A good many of our lot got into serious trouble, and quite a few faces of chums are missing to-day. The day for the British Army was a veritable howling success, and the Boche fought here with no spirit at all. They bolted like rabbits, throwing away rifles and equipment, some back to Berlin and some to us, hands up, and Kamerading. Our casualties were very light, indeed, owing to the absolutely artistic work of the artillery; and with our airmen the combination is unbeatable. These wonderful airmen! Like meteors in the sky, they swoop and fly, entirely regardless of everything but the job on hand.

“Our men fight so cheerfully and whimsically and sarcastically. There is no vestige of hate toward the Boche, only an abiding disgust and hearty contempt—a feeling as toward a mongrel who has fairly gone and got hydrophobia and must be killed to save valuable human life. We are really most jubilant over the past three days’ work, and every one is smiling and happy and cracking jokes. Gramophones are whirling at top speed, bands are playing in the camps, pipes are skirling and moaning and quickening the pulse, and the Hun is licking his wounds in silence over there to the east, in silence and afraid.”

The War Office took cognizance of the little affair:

“LONDON, July 12th, 1917.

“TO ——:

“Beg to inform you that Lieutenant Z., Heavy Branch Machine-Gun Corps, was wounded June 7th, but remained at duty.

“SECRETARY, WAR OFFICE.”

On June 20th the Military Cross was awarded to Lieutenant Z.

EPIC OF THE FOREIGN LEGION

Its Wonderful Story Will Stand as One of the Vital Things of the War

The self-redeemed have always had the world’s sympathy—sometimes they have won the world’s acclaim. Visitors to that shrine of French honor and glory, the famous Hôtel des Invalides, may now see the battleflag of the Foreign Legion, draped between the flag of the Cuirassiers who fell at Reichshofen, and the standard borne by the Garibaldians in 1870-1871—not only draped in that honorable association, but wearing on its folds the cross of the Legion of Honor. And those who know will tell visitors that that flag was the flag of the redeemed.