TO get to the civic1 midriff of the ancient and honorable French city of Laon you must ascend2 a road that winds in spirals about a high, steep hill, like threads cut in a screw. Doing this you come at length to the flat top of the screw—a most curiously3 flat top—and find on this side of you the Cathedral and the market-place, and on that side of you the H?tel de Ville, where a German flag hangs among the iron lilies in the grille-worked arms of the Republic above the front doors. Dead ahead of you is the Prefecture, which is a noble stone building, facing southward toward the River Aisne; and it has decorations of the twentieth century, a gateway4 of the thirteenth century and plumbing5 of the third century, when there was no plumbing to speak of.
We had made this journey and now the hour was seven in the evening, and we were dining[Pg 199] in the big hall of the Prefecture as the guests of His Excellency, Field Marshal von Heeringen, commanding the Seventh Army of the German Kaiser—dining, I might add, from fine French plates, with smart German orderlies for waiters.
Except us five, and one other, the twenty-odd who sat about the great oblong table were members of the Over-General's staff. We five were Robert J. Thompson, American consul6 at Aix-la-Chapelle; McCutcheon and Bennett, of the Chicago Tribune; Captain Alfred Mannesmann, of the great German manufacturing firm of Mannesmann Mulag; and myself. The one other was a Berlin artist, by name Follbehr, who having the run of the army, was going out daily to do quick studies in water colors in the trenches7 and among the batteries. He did them remarkably8 well, too, seeing that any minute a shell might come and spatter him all over his own drawing board. All the rest, though, were generals and colonels and majors, and such—youngish men mostly. Excluding our host I do not believe there was a man present who had passed fifty years of age; but the General was nearer eighty than fifty, being one of the veterans of the Franco-Prussian War, whom their Emperor had ordered out of desk jobs in the first days of August to shepherd his forces in the field. At his call they came—Von Heeringen and Von Hindenberg and Von Zwehl, to mention three names[Pg 200] that speedily became catchwords round the world—with their gray heads full of Prussian war tactics; and very soon their works had justified9 the act of their imperial master in choosing them for leadership, and now they had new medals at their throats and on their breasts to overlay the old medals they won back in 1870-71.
Like many of the older officers of the German Army I met, Von Heeringen spoke10 no English, in which regard he was excessively unlike ninety per cent of the younger officers. Among them it was an uncommon11 thing in my experience to find one who did not know at least a smattering of English and considerably12 more than a smattering of understandable French. Even that marvelous organism, the German private soldier, was apt to astonish you at unexpected moments by answering in fair-enough English the questions you put to him in fractured and dislocated German.
Not once or twice, but a hundred times during my cruising about in Belgium and Germany and France, I laboriously13 unloaded a string of crippled German nouns and broken-legged adjectives and unsocketed verbs on a hickory-looking sentry14, only to have him reply to me in my own tongue. It would come out then that he had been a waiter at a British seaside resort or a steward15 on a Hamburg-American liner; or, oftener still, that he had studied English at the public schools in his[Pg 201] native town of Kiel, or Coblenz, or Dresden, or somewhere.
The officers' English, as I said before, was nearly always ready and lubricant. To one who spoke no French and not enough German to hurt him, this proficiency17 in language on the part of the German standing18 army was a precious boon19. The ordinary double-barreled dictionary of phrases had already disclosed itself as a most unsatisfying volume in which to put one's trust. It was wearing on the disposition20 to turn the leaves trying to find out how to ask somebody to pass the butter and find instead whole pages of parallel columns of translated sentences given over to such questions as "Where is the aunt of my stepfather's second cousin?"
As a rule a man does not go to Europe in time of war to look up his relatives by marriage. He may even have gone there to avoid them. War is terrible enough without lugging21 in all the remote kinsfolk a fellow has. How much easier, then, to throw oneself on the superior educational qualifications of the German military machine. Somebody was sure to have a linguistic22 life net there, rigged and ready for you to drop into.
It was so in this instance, as it has been so in many instances before and since. The courteous23 gentlemen who sat at my right side and at my left spoke in German or French or English as the occasion suited, while old[Pg 202] Von Heeringen boomed away in rumbling24 German phrases. As I ate I studied him.
Three weeks later, less a day, I met by appointment Lord Kitchener and spent forty minutes, or thereabouts, in his company at the War Office in London. In the midst of the interview, as I sat facing Kitchener I began wondering, in the back part of my head, who it was Lord Kitchener reminded me of. Suddenly the answer came to me, and it jolted25 me. The answer was Von Heeringen.
Physically26 the two men—Kitchener of Khartoum and Von Heeringen, the Gray Ghost of Metz—had nothing in common; mentally I conceived them to be unlike. Except that both of them held the rank of field marshal, I could put my finger on no point of similarity, either in personality or in record, which these men shared between them. It is true they both served in the war of 1870-71; but at the outset this parallel fell flat, too, because one had been a junior officer on the German side and the other a volunteer on the French side. One was a Prussian in every outward aspect; the other was as British as it is possible for a Briton to be. One had been at the head of the general staff of his country, and was now in the field in active service with a sword at his side. The other, having served his country in the field for many years, now sat intrenched behind a roll-top desk, directing the machinery28 of the War Office, with a pencil for a[Pg 203] baton29. Kitchener was in his robust30 sixties, with a breast like a barrel; Von Heeringen was in his shrinking, drying-up seventies, and his broad shoulders had already begun to fold in on his ribs31 and his big black eyes to retreat deeper into his skull32. One was beaky-nosed, hatchet-headed, bearded; the other was broad-faced and shaggily mustached. One had been famed for his accessibility; the other for his inaccessibility33.
So, because of these acutely dissimilar things, I marveled to myself that day in London why, when I looked at Kitchener, I should think of Von Heeringen. In another minute, though, I knew why: Both men radiated the same quality of masterfulness; both of them physically typified competency; both of them looked on the world with the eyes of men who are born to have power and to hold dominion34 over lesser35 men. Put either of these two in the rags of a beggar or the motley of a Pantaloon, and at a glance you would know him for a leader.
Considering that we were supposed to be at the front on this evening at Laon, the food was good, there being a soup, and the invariable veal36 on which a German buttresses37 the solid foundations of his dinner, a salad and fruit, red wine and white wine and brandy. Also, there were flies amounting in numbers to a great multitude. The talk, like the flies, went to and fro about the table; and always it was worth hearing, since it dealt largely with first-hand[Pg 204] experiences in the very heart of the fighting. Yet I must add that not all the talk was talk of war. In peaceful Aix-la-Chapelle, whence we had come, the people knew but one topic. Here, on the forward frayed38 edge of the battle line, the men who had that day played their part in battle occasionally spoke of other things. I recall there was a discussion between Captain von Theobald, of the Artillery39, and Major Humplmayer, of the Automobile40 Corps41, on the merits of a painting that filled one of the panels in the big, handsome, overdecorated hall. The major won, which was natural enough, since, in time of peace, he was by way of being a collector of and dealer42 in art objects at Munich. Somebody else mentioned big-game shooting. For five minutes, then, or such a matter, the ways of big game and the ways of shooting it held the interest of half a dozen men at our curve of the table.
In such an interlude as this the listener might almost have lulled43 himself into the fancy that, after all, there was no war; that these courteous, gray-coated, shoulder-strapped gentlemen were not at present engaged in the business of killing44 their fellowmen; that this building wherein we sat, with its florid velvet45 carpets underfoot and its too-heavy chandeliers overhead, was not the captured chateau46 of the governor of a French province; and that the deep-eyed, white-fleeced, bull-voiced old man who sat just opposite was not the commander[Pg 205] of sundry47 hundreds of thousands of fighting men with guns in their hands, but surely was no more and no less than the elderly lord of the manor48, who, having a fancy for regimentals, had put on his and had pinned some glittering baubles49 on his coat and then had invited a few of his friends and neighbors in for a simple dinner on this fine evening of the young autumn.
Yet we knew that already the war had taken toll51 of nearly every man in uniform who was present about this board. General von Heeringen's two sons, both desperately52 wounded, were lying in field hospitals—one in East Prussia, the other in northern France not many miles from where we were. His second in command had two sons—his only two sons—killed in the same battle three weeks before. When, a few minutes earlier, I had heard this I stared at him, curious to see what marks so hard a stroke would leave on a man. I saw only a grave middle-aged53 gentleman, very attentive54 to the consul who sat beside him, and very polite to us all.
Prince Scharmberg-Lippe, whom we had passed driving away from the Prefecture in his automobile as we drove to it in ours, was the last of four brothers. The other three were killed in the first six weeks of fighting. Our own companion, Captain Mannesmann, heard only the day before, when we stopped at Hirson—just over the border from Bel[Pg 206]gium—that his cousin had won the Iron Cross for conspicuous55 courage, and within three days more was to hear that this same cousin had been sniped from ambush56 during a night raid down the left wing.
Nor had death been overly stingy to the members of the Staff itself. We gathered as much from chance remarks. And so, as it came to be eight o'clock, I caught myself watching certain vacant chairs at our table and at the two smaller tables in the next room with a strained curiosity.
One by one the vacant chairs filled up. At intervals57 the door behind me would open and an officer would clank in, dusted over with the sift58 of the French roads. He would bow ceremoniously to his chief and then to the company generally, slip into an unoccupied chair, give an order over his shoulder to a soldier-waiter, and at once begin to eat his dinner with the air of a man who has earned it. After a while there was but one place vacant at our table; it was next to me. I could not keep my eyes away from it. It got on my nerves—that little gap in the circle; that little space of white linen59, bare of anything but two unfilled glasses. To me it became as portentous60 as an unscrewed coffin61 lid. No one else seemed to notice it. Cigars had been passed round and the talk eddied62 casually63 back and forth64 with the twisty smoke wreaths.
An orderly drew the empty chair back with[Pg 207] a thump65. I think I jumped. A slender man, whose uniform fitted him as though it had been his skin, was sitting down beside me. Unlike those who came before him, he had entered so quietly that I had not sensed his coming. I heard the soldier call him Excellency; and I heard him tell the soldier not to give him any soup. We swapped66 commonplaces, I telling him what my business there was; and for a little while he plied67 his knife and fork busily, making the heavy gold curb68 chain on his left wrist tinkle69 musically.
"I'm rather glad they did not get me this afternoon," he said as though to make conversation with a stranger. "This is first-rate veal—better than we usually have here."
"Get you?" I said. "Who wanted to get you?"
"Our friends, the enemy," he answered. "I was in one of our trenches rather well toward the front, and a shell or two struck just behind me. I think, from their sound, they were French shells."
This debonair70 gentleman, as presently transpired71, was Colonel von Scheller, for four years consul to the German Embassy at Washington, more lately minister for foreign affairs of the kingdom of Saxony, and now doing staff duty in the ordnance72 department here at the German center. He had the sharp brown eyes of a courageous73 fox terrier, a mustache that turned up at the ends, and a most beautiful[Pg 208] command of the English language and its American idioms. He hurried along with his dinner and soon he had caught up with us.
"I suggest," he said, "that we go out on the terrace to drink our coffee. It is about time for the French to start their evening benediction74, as we call it. They usually quit firing their heavy guns just before dark, and usually begin again at eight and keep it up for an hour or two."
So we two took our coffee cups and our cigars in our hands and went out through a side passage to the terrace, and sat on a little iron bench, where a shaft75 of light, from a window of the room we had just quit, showed a narrow streak76 of flowering plants beyond the bricked wall and a clump77 of red and yellow woodbine on a low wall.
The rest lay in blackness; but I knew, from what I had seen before dusk came, that we must be somewhere near the middle of a broad terrace—a hanging garden rather—full of sundials and statues and flower beds, which overhung the southern face of the Hill of Laon, and from which, in daylight, a splendid view might be had of wooded slopes falling away into wide, flat valleys, and wide, flat valleys rising again to form more wooded slopes. I knew, too, from what I remembered, that the plateau immediately beneath us was flyspecked78 with the roofs of small abandoned villages; and that the road which ran straight from the[Pg 209] base of the heights toward the remote river was a-crawl with supply wagons79 and ammunition81 wagons going forward to the German batteries, seven miles away, and with scouts82 and messengers in automobiles84 and on motor cycles, and the day's toll of wounded in ambulances coming back from the front.
We could not see them when we went to the parapet and looked downward into the black gulf85 below, but the rumbling of the wheels and the panting of the motors came up to us. With these came, also, the remote music of those queer little trumpets86 carried by the soldiers who ride beside the drivers of German military automobiles; and this sounded as thinly and plaintively87 to our ears as the cries of sandpipers heard a long way off across a windy beach.
We could hear something else too: the evening benediction had started. Now fast, now slow, like the beating of a feverish88 pulse, the guns sounded in faint throbs89; and all along the horizon from southeast to southwest, and back again, ran flares91 and waves of a sullen92 red radiance. The light flamed high at one instant—like fireworks—and at the next it died almost to a glow, as though a great bed of peat coals or a vast limekiln lay on the farthermost crest93 of the next chain of hills. It was the first time I had ever seen artillery fire at night, though I had heard it often enough by then in France and in Belgium, and[Pg 210] even in Germany; for when the wind blew out of the west we could hear in Aix-la-Chapelle the faint booming of the great cannons94 before Antwerp, days and nights on end.
I do not know how long I stood and looked and listened. Eventually I was aware that the courteous Von Scheller, standing at my elbow, was repeating something he had already stated at least once.
"Those brighter flashes you see, apparently95 coming from below the other lights, are our guns," he was saying. "They seem to be below the others because they are nearer to us. Personally I don't think these evening volleys do very much damage," he went on as though vaguely96 regretful that the dole97 of death by night should be so scanty98, "because it is impossible for the men in the outermost99 observation pits to see the effect of the shots; but we answer, as you notice, just to show the French and English we are not asleep."
Those iron vespers lasted, I should say, for the better part of an hour. When they were ended we went indoors. Everybody was assembled in the long hall of the Prefecture, and a young officer was smashing out marching songs on the piano. The Berlin artist made an art gallery of the billiard table and was exhibiting the water-color sketches100 he had done that day—all very dashing and spirited in their treatment, though a bit splashy and scrambled-eggish as to the use of the pigments101.
[Pg 211]
A very young man, with the markings of a captain on shoulder and collar, came in and went up to General von Heeringen and showed him something—something that looked like a very large and rather ornamental102 steel coal scuttle103 which had suffered from a serious personal misunderstanding with an ax. The elongated104 top of it, which had a fluted105, rudder-like adornment106, made you think of Siegfried's helmet in the opera; but the bottom, which was squashed out of shape, made you think of a total loss.
When the general had finished looking at this object we all had a chance to finger it. The young captain seemed quite proud of it and bore it off with him to the dining room. It was what remained of a bomb, and had been loaded with slugs of lead and those iron cherries that are called shrapnel. A French flyer had dropped it that afternoon with intent to destroy one of the German captive balloons and its operator. The young officer was the operator of the balloon in question. It was his daily duty to go aloft, at the end of a steel tether, and bob about for seven hours at a stretch, studying the effects of the shell fire and telephoning down directions for the proper aiming of the guns. He had been up seven hundred feet in the air that afternoon, with no place to go in case of accident, when the Frenchman came over and tried to hit him.
"It struck within a hundred meters of me,"[Pg 212] called back the young captain as he disappeared through the dining-room doorway107. "Made quite a noise and tore up the earth considerably."
"He was lucky—the young Herr Captain," said Von Scheller—"luckier than his predecessor108. A fortnight ago one of the enemy's flyers struck one of our balloons with a bomb and the gas envelope exploded. When the wreckage109 reached the earth there was nothing much left of the operator—poor fellow!—except the melted buttons on his coat. There are very few safe jobs in this army, but being a captive-balloon observer is one of the least safe of them all."
I had noted110 that the young captain wore in the second buttonhole of his tunic111 the black-and-white-striped ribbon and the black-and-white Maltese Cross; and now when I looked about me I saw that at least every third man of the present company likewise bore such a decoration. I knew the Iron Cross was given to a man only for gallant112 conduct in time of war at the peril113 of his life.
A desire to know a few details beset114 me. Humplmayer, the scholarly art dealer, was at my side. He had it too—the Iron Cross of the first class.
"Yes," he said; "only the other day I received it."
[Pg 213]
"And for what, might I ask?" said I, pressing my advantage.
"Oh," he said, "I've been out quite a bit in the night air lately. You know we Germans are desperately afraid of night air."
Later I learned—though not from Humplmayer—that he had for a period of weeks done scout83 work in an automobile in hostile territory; which meant that he rode in the darkness over the strange roads of an alien country, exposed every minute to the chances of ambuscade and barbed-wire mantraps and the like. I judge he earned his bauble50.
I tried Von Theobald next—a lynx-faced, square-shouldered young man of the field guns. To him I put the question: "What have you done, now, to merit the bestowal116 of the Cross?"
"Well," he said—and his smile was born of embarrassment117, I thought—"there was shooting once or twice, and I—well, I did not go away. I remained."
So after that I quit asking. But it was borne in upon me that if these gold-braceletted, monocled, wasp-waisted exquisites118 could go jauntily119 forth for flirtations with death as aforetime I had seen them going, then also they could be marvelously modest touching on their own performances in the event of their surviving those most fatal blandishments.
Pretty soon we told the Staff good night, according to the ritualistic Teutonic fashion, and took ourselves off to bed; for the next[Pg 214] day was expected to be a full day, which it was indeed and verily. In the hotels of the town, such as they were, officers were billeted, four to the room and two to the bed; but the commandant enthroned at the H?tel de Ville looked after our comfort. He sent a soldier to nail a notice on the gate of one of the handsomest houses in Laon—a house whence the tenants120 had fled at the coming of the Germans—which notice gave warning to all whom it might concern that Captain Mannesmann, who carried the Kaiser's own pass, and four American Herren were, until further orders, domiciled there. And the soldier tarried to clean our boots while we slept and bring us warm shaving water in the morning.
Being thus provided for we tramped away through the empty winding121 streets to Number Five, Rue27 St. Cyr, which was a big, fine three-story mansion122 with its own garden and courtyard. Arriving there we drew lots for bedrooms. It fell to me to occupy one that evidently belonged to the master of the house. He must have run away in a hurry. His bathrobe still hung on a peg123; his other pair of suspenders dangled124 over the footboard; and his shaving brush, with dried lather125 on it, was on the floor. I stepped on it as I got into bed and hurt my foot.
Goodness knows I was tired enough, but I lay awake a while thinking what changes in our journalistic fortunes thirty days had[Pg 215] brought us. Five weeks before, bearing dangerously dubious126 credentials127, we had trailed afoot—a suspicious squad—at the tail of the German columns, liable to be halted and locked up any minute by any fingerling of a sublieutenant who might be so minded to so serve us. In that stressful time a war correspondent was almost as popular, with the officialdom of the German army, as the Asiatic cholera129 would have been. The privates were our best friends then. Just one month, to the hour and the night, after we slept on straw as quasi-prisoners and under an armed guard in a schoolhouse belonging to the Prince de Caraman-Chimay, at Beaumont, we dined with the commandant of a German garrison130 in the castle of another prince of the same name—the Prince de Chimay—at the town of Chimay, set among the timbered preserves of the ancient house of Chimay. In Belgium, at the end of August, we fended131 and foraged132 for ourselves aboard a train of wounded and prisoners. In northern France, at the end of September, Prince Reuss, German minister to Persia, but serving temporarily in the Red Cross Corps, had bestirred himself to find lodgings133 for us. And now, thanks to a newborn desire on the part of the Berlin War Office to let the press of America know something of the effects of their operations on the people of the invaded states, here we were, making free with a strange French gentleman's chateau and mess[Pg 216]ing with an Over-General's Staff. Lying there, in another man's bed, I felt like a burglar and I slept like an oyster134—the oyster being, as naturalists135 know, a most sound sleeper136.
In the morning there was breakfast at the great table—the flies of the night before being still present—with General von Heeringen inquiring most earnestly as to how we had rested, and then going out to see to the day's killing. Before doing so, however, he detailed137 the competent Captain von Theobald and the efficient Lieutenant128 Giebel to serve for the day as our guides while we studied briefly138 the workings of the German war machine in the actual theater of war.
It was under their conductorship that about noon we aimed our automobiles for the spot where, in accordance with provisions worked out in advance, but until that moment unknown to us, we were to lunch with another general—Von Zwehl, of the reserves. We left the hill, where the town was, some four miles behind us, and when we had passed through two wrecked139 and silent villages and through three of those strips of park timber which Continentals140 call forests, we presently drew up and halted and dismounted where a thick fringe of undergrowth, following the line of an old and straggly thorn hedge, met the road at right angles on the comb of a small ridge141 commanding a view of the tablelands to the southward.
[Pg 217]
As we climbed up the banks we were aware of certain shelters which were like overgrown rabbit hutches cunningly contrived142 of wattled faggots and straw sheaves plaited together. They had tarpaulin143 interlinings and dug-out earthen floors covered over thickly with straw. These cozy144 small shacks145 hid themselves behind a screen of haws among the scattered146 trees which flanked an ancient fortification, abandoned many years before, I judged, by the grass-grown looks of it. Out in front, upon the open crest of the rise, staff officers were grouped about two telescopes mounted on tripods. An old man—you could tell by the hunch147 of his shoulders he was old—sat on a camp chair with his back to us and his face against the barrels of one of the telescopes. With his long dust-colored coat and the lacings of violent scarlet148 upon his cap and his upturned collar he made you think of one of those big gray African parrots that talk so fluently and bite so viciously. But when, getting nimbly up, he turned to greet us and be introduced the resemblance vanished. There was nothing of the parrot about him now. Here was a man part watch dog and part hawk149. His cheeks and the flanges150 of his nostrils151 were thickly hair-lined with those little red-and-blue veins152 that are to be found in the texture153 of good American paper currency and in the faces of elderly men who have lived much out-of-doors during their lives. His jowls were heavy and pen[Pg 218]dulous like a mastiff's. His frontal bone came down low and straight so that under the flat arch of the brow his small, very bright agate-blue eyes looked out as from beneath half-closed shutters154. His hair was clipped close to his scalp and the shape of his skull showed, rounded and bulgy155; not the skull of a thinker, nor yet the skull of a creator, just the skull of a natural-born fighting man. The big, ridgy156 veins in the back of his neck stood out like window-cords from a close smocking of fine wrinkles. The neck itself was tanned to a brickdust red. A gnawed157 white mustache bristled158 on his upper lip. He was tall without seeming to be tall and broad without appearing broad, and he was old enough for a grandfather and spry enough for his own grandchild. You know the type. Our Civil War produced it in number.
At his throat was the blue star of the Order of Merit, the very highest honor a German soldier can win, and below it on his breast the inevitable159 black-and-white striped ribbon. The one meant leadership and the other testified to individual valor160 in the teeth of danger. It was Excellency von Zwehl, commander of the Seventh Reserve Corps of the Western Army, the man who took Maubeuge from the French and English, and the man who in the same week held the imperiled German center against the French and English.
We lunched with the General and his staff[Pg 219] on soup and sausages, with a rare and precious Belgian melon cut in thin, salmon-tinted crescents to follow for dessert. But before the lunch he took us and showed us, pointing this way and that with his little riding whip, the theater wherein he had done a thing which he valued more than the taking of a walled city. Indeed there was a certain elemental boylike bearing of pride in him as he told us the story.
If I am right in my dates the defenses of Maubeuge caved in under the batterings of the German Jack161 Johnsons on September sixth and the citadel162 surrendered September seventh. On the following day, the eighth, Von Zwehl got word that a sudden forward thrust of the Allies threatened the German center at Laon. Without waiting for orders he started to the relief. He had available only nine thousand troops, all reserves. As many more shortly re-enforced him. He marched this small army—small, that is, as armies go these Titan times—for four days and three nights. In the last twenty-four hours of marching the eighteen thousand covered more than forty English miles—in the rain. They came on this same plateau, the one which we now faced, at six o'clock of the morning of September thirteenth, and within an hour were engaged against double or triple their number. Von Zwehl held off the enemy until a strengthening force reached him, and then for three days, with his face to the river and his back to the hill, he fought. Out of a[Pg 220] total force of forty thousand men he lost eight thousand and more in killed and wounded, but he saved the German Army from being split asunder163 between its shoulder-blades. The enemy in proportion lost even more than he did, he thought. The General had no English; he told us all this in German, Von Theobald standing handily by to translate for him when our own scanty acquaintance with the language left us puzzled.
"We punished them well and they punished us well," he added. "We captured a group of thirty-one Scotchmen—all who were left out of a battalion165 of six hundred and fifty, and there was no commissioned officer left of that battalion. A sergeant166 surrendered them to my men. They fight very well against us—the Scotch164."
Since then the groundswell of battle had swept forward, then backward, until now, as chance would have it, General von Zwehl once more had his headquarters on the identical spot where he had them four weeks before during his struggle to keep the German center from being pierced. Then it had been mainly infantry167 fighting at close range; now it was the labored168 pounding of heavy guns, the pushing ahead of trench-work preparatory to another pitched battle.
Considering what had taken place here less than a month before the plain immediately before us seemed peaceful enough.[Pg 221] Nature certainly works mighty169 fast to cover up what man at war does. True, the yellow-green meadowlands ahead of us were scuffed170 and scored minutely as though a myriad171 swine had rooted there for mast. The gouges172 of wheels and feet were at the roadside. Under the broken hedge-rows you saw a littering of weather-beaten French knapsacks and mired173 uniform coats, but that was all. New grass was springing up in the hoof174 tracks, and in a pecking, puny175 sort of way an effort was being made by certain French peasants within sight to get back to work in their wasted truck patches. Near at hand I counted three men and an old woman in the fields, bent176 over like worms. On the crest above them stood this gray veteran of two invasions of their land, aiming with his riding whip. The whip, I believe, signifies dominion, and sometimes brute177 force.
Beyond the tableland, and along the succession of gentle elevations178 which ringed it in to the south, the pounding of the field pieces went steadily179 on, while Von Zwehl lectured to us upon the congenial subject of what he here had done. Out yonder a matter of three or four English miles from us the big ones were busy for a fact. We could see the smoke clouds of each descending180 shell and the dust clouds of the explosion, and of course we could hear it. It never stopped for an instant, never abated181 for so much as a minute. It had been going[Pg 222] on this way for weeks; it would surely go on this way for weeks yet to come. But so far as we could discern the General paid it no heed—he nor any of his staff. It was his business, but seemingly the business went well.
It was late that afternoon when we met our third general, and this meeting was quite by chance. Coming back from a spin down the lines we stopped in a small village called Amifontaine, to let our chauffeur182, known affectionately as The Human Rabbit, tinker with a leaky tire valve or something. A young officer came up through the dusk to find out who we were, and, having found out, he invited us into the chief house of the place, and there in a stuffy183 little French parlor184 we were introduced in due form to General d'Elsa, the head of the Twelfth Reserve Corps, it turned out. Standing in a ceremonious ring, with filled glasses in our hands, about a table which bore a flary lamp and a bottle of bad native wine, we toasted him and he toasted us.
He was younger by ten years, I should say, than either Von Heeringen or Von Zwehl; too young, I judged, to have got his training in the blood-and-iron school of Bismarck and Von Moltke of which the other two must have been brag-scholars. Both of them, I think, were Prussians, but this general was a Saxon from the South. Indeed, as I now recall, he said his home in peace times was in Dresden. He seemed less simple of manner[Pg 223] than they; they in turn lacked a certain flexibility185 and grace of bearing which were his. But two things in common they all three had and radiated from them—a superb efficiency in the trade at which they worked and a superb confidence in the tools with which they did the work. This was rather a small man, quick and supple186 in his movements. He had a limited command of English, and he appeared deeply desirous that we Americans should have a good opinion of the behavior of his troops and that we should say as much in what we wrote for our fellow Americans to read.
Coming out of the house to re?nter our automobile I saw, across the small square of the town, which by now was quite in darkness, the flare90 of a camp kitchen. I wanted very much to examine one of these wheeled cook wagons at close range. An officer—the same who had first approached us to examine our papers—accompanied me to explain its workings and to point out the various compartments187 where the coal was kept and the fuel, and the two big sunken pots where the stew16 was cooked and the coffee was brewed188. The thing proved to be cumbersome189, which was German, but it was most complete in detail, and that, take it, was German too. While the officer rattled190 the steel lids the cook himself stood rigidly191 alongside, with his fingers touching the seams of his trousers. Seen by the glare of his own fire he seemed[Pg 224] a clod, fit only to make soups and feed a fire box. But by that same flickery light I saw something. On the breast of his grease-spattered blouse dangled a black-and-white ribbon with a black-and-white Maltese cross fastened to it. I marveled that a company cook should wear the Iron Cross of the second class and I asked the captain about it. He laughed at the wonder that was evident in my tones.
"If you will look more closely," he said, "you will see that a good many of our cooks already have won the Iron Cross since this war began, and a good many others will yet win it—if they live. We have no braver men in our army than these fellows. They go into the trenches at least twice a day, under the hottest fire sometimes, to carry hot coffee and hot food to the soldiers who fight. A good many of them have already been killed.
"Only the other day—at La Fère I think it was—two of our cooks at daybreak went so far forward with their wagon80 that they were almost inside the enemy's lines. Sixteen bewildered Frenchmen who had got separated from their company came straggling through a little forest and walked right into them. The Frenchmen thought the cook wagon with its short smoke funnel192 and its steel fire box was a new kind of machine gun, and they threw down their guns and surrendered. The two cooks brought their sixteen prisoners back to[Pg 225] our lines too, but first one of them stood guard over the Frenchmen while the other carried the breakfast coffee to the men who had been all night in the trenches. They are good men, those cooks!"
So at last I found out at second hand what one German soldier had done to merit the bestowal of the Iron Cross. But as we came away, I was in doubt on a certain point and, for that matter, am still in doubt on it: I am in doubt as to which of two men most fitly typified the spirit of the German Army in this war—the general feeding his men by thousands into the maw of destruction because it was an order, or the pot-wrestling private soldier, the camp cook, going to death with a coffee boiler193 in his hands—because it was an order.
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1
civic
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| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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2
ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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3
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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4
gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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5
plumbing
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| n.水管装置；水暖工的工作；管道工程v.用铅锤测量（plumb的现在分词）；探究 | |
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6
consul
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| n.领事；执政官 | |
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trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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8
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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9
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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10
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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11
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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12
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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13
laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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14
sentry
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| n.哨兵，警卫 | |
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15
steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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16
stew
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| n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑 | |
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17
proficiency
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| n.精通，熟练，精练 | |
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18
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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19
boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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20
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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21
lugging
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| 超载运转能力 | |
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22
linguistic
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| adj.语言的，语言学的 | |
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23
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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24
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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25
jolted
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| （使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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26
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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27
rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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28
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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29
baton
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| n.乐队用指挥杖 | |
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30
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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31
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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32
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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33
inaccessibility
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| n. 难接近, 难达到, 难达成 | |
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34
dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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35
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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36
veal
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| n.小牛肉 | |
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37
buttresses
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| n.扶壁，扶垛( buttress的名词复数 )v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的第三人称单数 ) | |
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38
frayed
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| adj.磨损的v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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40
automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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41
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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42
dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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43
lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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44
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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45
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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46
chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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47
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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48
manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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49
baubles
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| n.小玩意( bauble的名词复数 )；华而不实的小件装饰品；无价值的东西；丑角的手杖 | |
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50
bauble
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| n.美观而无价值的饰物 | |
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51
toll
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| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
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52
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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53
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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54
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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55
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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56
ambush
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| n.埋伏(地点)；伏兵；v.埋伏；伏击 | |
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57
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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58
sift
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| v.筛撒，纷落，详察 | |
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59
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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60
portentous
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| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
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61
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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62
eddied
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| 起漩涡，旋转( eddy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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63
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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64
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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65
thump
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| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
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66
swapped
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| 交换（工作）( swap的过去式和过去分词 )； 用…替换，把…换成，掉换（过来） | |
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67
plied
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的过去式和过去分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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68
curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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69
tinkle
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| vi.叮当作响；n.叮当声 | |
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70
debonair
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| adj.殷勤的，快乐的 | |
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71
transpired
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| （事实，秘密等）被人知道( transpire的过去式和过去分词 )； 泄露； 显露； 发生 | |
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72
ordnance
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| n.大炮，军械 | |
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73
courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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74
benediction
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| n.祝福；恩赐 | |
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75
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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76
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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77
clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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78
flyspecked
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| v.弄脏( flyspeck的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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79
wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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80
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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81
ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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82
scouts
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| 侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员 | |
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83
scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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84
automobiles
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| n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 ) | |
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85
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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86
trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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87
plaintively
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| adv.悲哀地，哀怨地 | |
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88
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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89
throbs
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| 体内的跳动( throb的名词复数 ) | |
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90
flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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91
flares
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| n.喇叭裤v.（使）闪耀( flare的第三人称单数 )；（使）（船舷）外倾；（使）鼻孔张大；（使）（衣裙、酒杯等）呈喇叭形展开 | |
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92
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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93
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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94
cannons
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| n.加农炮，大炮，火炮( cannon的名词复数 ) | |
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95
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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96
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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97
dole
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| n.救济，（失业）救济金；vt.（out）发放，发给 | |
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98
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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99
outermost
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| adj.最外面的，远离中心的 | |
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100
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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101
pigments
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| n.（粉状）颜料( pigment的名词复数 )；天然色素 | |
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102
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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103
scuttle
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| v.急赶，疾走，逃避；n.天窗；舷窗 | |
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104
elongated
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| v.延长，加长( elongate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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105
fluted
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| a.有凹槽的 | |
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106
adornment
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| n.装饰；装饰品 | |
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107
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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108
predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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109
wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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110
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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111
tunic
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| n.束腰外衣 | |
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112
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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113
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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114
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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115
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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116
bestowal
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| 赠与，给与； 贮存 | |
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117
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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118
exquisites
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| n.精致的( exquisite的名词复数 )；敏感的；剧烈的；强烈的 | |
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119
jauntily
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| adv.心满意足地；洋洋得意地；高兴地；活泼地 | |
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120
tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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121
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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122
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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123
peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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124
dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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125
lather
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| n.(肥皂水的)泡沫，激动 | |
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126
dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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127
credentials
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| n.证明，资格，证明书，证件 | |
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128
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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129
cholera
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| n.霍乱 | |
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130
garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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131
fended
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| v.独立生活，照料自己( fend的过去式和过去分词 )；挡开，避开 | |
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132
foraged
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| v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西） | |
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133
lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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134
oyster
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| n.牡蛎；沉默寡言的人 | |
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135
naturalists
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| n.博物学家( naturalist的名词复数 )；（文学艺术的）自然主义者 | |
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136
sleeper
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| n.睡眠者，卧车，卧铺 | |
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137
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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138
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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139
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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140
continentals
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| n.（欧洲）大陆人( continental的名词复数 ) | |
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141
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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142
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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143
tarpaulin
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| n.涂油防水布，防水衣，防水帽 | |
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144
cozy
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| adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的 | |
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145
shacks
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| n.窝棚，简陋的小屋( shack的名词复数 ) | |
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146
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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147
hunch
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| n.预感，直觉 | |
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148
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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149
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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150
flanges
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| n.（机械等的）凸缘，（火车的）轮缘( flange的名词复数 ) | |
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151
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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152
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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153
texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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154
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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155
bulgy
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| a.膨胀的；凸出的 | |
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156
ridgy
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| adj.有脊的；有棱纹的；隆起的；有埂的 | |
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157
gnawed
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| 咬( gnaw的过去式和过去分词 )； （长时间） 折磨某人； （使）苦恼； （长时间）危害某事物 | |
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158
bristled
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| adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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159
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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160
valor
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| n.勇气，英勇 | |
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161
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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162
citadel
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| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
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163
asunder
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| adj.分离的，化为碎片 | |
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164
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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165
battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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166
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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167
infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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168
labored
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| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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169
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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170
scuffed
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| v.使磨损( scuff的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚走 | |
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171
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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172
gouges
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| n.凿( gouge的名词复数 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出…v.凿( gouge的第三人称单数 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出… | |
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173
mired
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| abbr.microreciprocal degree 迈尔德（色温单位）v.深陷( mire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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174
hoof
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| n.(马，牛等的)蹄 | |
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175
puny
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| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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176
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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177
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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178
elevations
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| （水平或数量）提高( elevation的名词复数 )； 高地； 海拔； 提升 | |
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179
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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180
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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181
abated
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| 减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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182
chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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183
stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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184
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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185
flexibility
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| n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性 | |
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186
supple
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| adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺 | |
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187
compartments
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| n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层 | |
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188
brewed
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| 调制( brew的过去式和过去分词 )； 酝酿； 沏（茶）； 煮（咖啡） | |
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189
cumbersome
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| adj.笨重的，不便携带的 | |
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190
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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191
rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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192
funnel
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| n.漏斗；烟囱；v.汇集 | |
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193
boiler
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| n.锅炉；煮器(壶，锅等) | |
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