Huts in Hell — Reading Notes

There were West Pointers in the company, stalwart young officers only a few months from the Orient, and graduates of Annapolis, one, now the ranking aviator of the navy, a soft-voiced Southerner, who was the champion light-weight boxer of the Naval Academy.

Down well in front--and while I was speaking his eye never left mine--sat the English "flier." His cane was by his side, and on his sleeve were the gold bars that tell of wounds.

There was no false sentiment in that company, but there was a profound emotion. Practical men they were, and they were dreamers too. In their dreams that day were the faces of fair women and of little children, for "the bravest are the tenderest"; and in their dreams were the soft caresses that thrust them forth to the battles' hardness, for love has the keener goad where honor marks the path of duty.

We were on the backward track of Columbus, and those men sailing out of the New World which the far-visioning mariner first saw four hundred years ago were discoverers too. They have found themselves; they and their brothers have found their country's soul, and they go now on a spiritual adventure holier than that which brought Richard the Lion-Hearted to the walls of Jerusalem.

The shipboard meeting was arranged by the secretaries of the Y. M. C. A., and the English clergyman who conducted the formal portion of the service selected as the Scripture lesson the story of the journey of Mary with the Christ-child into Egypt and their return to Nazareth when the danger of King Herod's wrath was passed. At first the lesson seemed a trifle unusual, a little out of place for the occasion; but now I am of the opinion that it was peculiarly fitting. Out of the tale of the babe whose weakness was stronger than hate, and whose helplessness was not despised, came to thoughtful men the memories of the sacred associations of their "yesterdays," a satisfying calm, a sober exaltation that was to their souls what food is to the body.

These modern knights, bound on their Crusade farther than flew the imperial eagles of Rome, gathered there beneath the starry banner of their fathers and under the flag of the church with as true a consecration and as fine a faith as ever thrilled the breasts of mail-clad men when ancient knighthood was in flower. No cause since men fought to free the sepulchre of Christ, no tourney of kings, no search for a grail, has been so worthy as the cause in which these soldiers of Democracy go forth by land and sea to dare their best and all.

And there were other soldiers on board, soldiers of the Red Triangle, soldiers as brave and soldiers as vital to the cause of their country as those who wear the insignia of the combatant. After the service that morning one of these slipped his arm into mine as I steadied myself against a particularly heavy sea, and said, "I've just had a great time, old man."

I knew by the eager look in his eyes that he wanted to talk about it, and so I led him over to a sheltered spot on the deck where we could be alone. The secretary was a college professor with a wife and two babies in the "States," and he had been a very nervous man all the way across the ocean; but now he was quite himself and very happy.

"I've just had a good hour with a lieutenant from S----," he continued. "He came to me in trouble. The story is the old one, one God knows we'll hear many times in the next few months. The chap is paying the price of his sin, rather the price of his ignorance, for he is just an overgrown country boy. He never saw the ocean until this ship carried him out upon it, and New York was too big and bad and attractive for him. Well, things might be worse. I helped him, and started him in the right direction; and then I said: 'Say, lad, you've got a stiff battle before you in France, stiffer than any the Germans can give you, stiffer than New York; and I know what you need. Do you want it?' and the chap looked me in the eye, and said, 'I do.' Well," the secretary continued, "we were on our knees presently, and God helped me first, and then helped him, to pray. Now Jesus Christ has another follower on this transport."

There was silence between us for a moment, and then the secretary concluded: "Last night I slept with my clothes on; I suppose we all did. I listened to the steady pound of the engines, and waited, tense and anxious, for the crash of the torpedo I knew might come; and then I got a grip on myself. I said: 'What are you here for? Who sent you? Whose are you?' and I promised God to stop being a coward. I asked Him to give me a chance to make amends for the time I had lost on this voyage looking for a submarine that is not likely to come. I asked God to give me a man out of these hundreds in uniform, to give me a man for Christ.

"And how quickly God has answered my prayer! Now I know why I'm here, and I have the first-fruit of my ministry."

A great thing it is to know why you are _here_! The man who has a reason for his journey, and the evidence of his decision in his own heart, has the peace that passeth understanding, and that not even U-boats can take away.

_WAR CAPITALS OF THE ALLIES_

The war capitals of the Allies, Paris and London, have much in common. Soldiers in many-colored uniforms, from the brilliant red and black and blue of the French headquarters to the faded, mud-caked khaki of the helmeted "Tommy" just back from the trenches; Y. M. C. A. secretaries and nurses; wounded--streets filled with battle-marked and cheerful men; women in black, who turn neither to the right nor to the left as they hurry along with eyes that search for that which they will never see again; and shouting boys.

Of course London and Paris have many other things in common, but these are at once apparent. I suppose that I mentioned the boys because there are so many of them, the little fellows, and they are so shrill of voice. They are doing so many things that the "elders" used to do and with which we have never before associated them that they are quite impressive. But London and Paris do not have a monopoly of them.

In their spirit, too, they are part of the stern and stirring time. On the sea one morning I was awakened by "Billy Buttons"--I was his christener. His "Hot water, sir," was shrill and cheery; and his smile was the map of Ireland. On this particular morning I sat up in bed and said sternly, very sternly, "Billy Buttons, what are you doing here, anyhow?" and like a shot the sturdy lad sent back the answer, "Doing my bit, sir; doing my bit."

His daddy sailed the sea bringing bread to Britain until his ship went down unwarned; a brother died in France; a brother-in-law was killed in the battle of Jutland; another brother was then recovering from a wound received in a submarine attack; a sister was a nurse, but Billy seemed quite as proud, I am ashamed to say, of another sister who was an "actress"; and Billy himself, Billy of the sixteen blazing buttons, whose years entitled him to only fourteen, was "doing his bit." _Blessed Billy Buttons!_

London is massive and slow to arouse. During an air raid I saw women knitting in the basement of the hotel whither the management had tried to hurry its guests, and the trams only slightly quickened their pace. London has learned in the years of this war that "haste makes waste" and that "direct hits" from airplanes respect not even the stoutest buildings anyhow. Of course, shrapnel is a different proposition, and one is very foolish to walk abroad when the "barrage" is under way.

One day I saw an aviator "loop the loop" directly above Piccadilly Circus. He did the trick repeatedly while not more than four hundred feet above the hotel roof. Scores of people in the streets did not turn away from staring into shop windows. At another time I saw two "silver queens"; beautiful beyond words these dirigibles were when they manoeuvred in the still air above St. Paul's. For these the crowds did turn from their mundane pursuits.

My first war visit to London almost convinced me that it was a city of the "woman of the cigarette," and that she had few sisters, if any, who were not victims of her habit. In the dining-room of my hotel I found literally scores of women, perhaps as many as three hundred, smoking. The young, the middle-aged, and the old, were all at it. I saw a young mother calmly blow smoke over the head of her eight-year old son, who displayed only a mild interest.

And what I saw in the hotel I witnessed in every down-town eating-place that I visited. During my entire journey across England I witnessed a wild nicotine debauch, for in every public place tobacco was king, and his throne of smoke filled everywhere. English railway-carriages are marked "smoking" or left undesignated, but nowadays (this does not apply to Scotland) every compartment is in reality a smoker. A man in uniform, particularly, wherever he finds himself, brings forth the inevitable "pill-box"; and there is none to say him nay.

Out of Hull one morning I found myself chatting with a delightful company, several gentlemen and a lady; and modesty forbids my telling who was the one person who did not burn up any cigarettes! Later in the day a modest young woman, carrying every air of gentle breeding, was seated directly across from me at dinner. She smoked--languidly, but nevertheless smoked--between courses. And, by the way, one sees much more smoking in _public_ among women in London than he sees in Paris.

For a man who is old-fashioned enough to prefer womanhood _à la_ his wife and mother the "woman of the cigarette" is very disquieting, to say the least. But not all the women of England smoke. Only a superficial observer would take a London hotel, or London down-town dining-rooms, or any number of mere incidents, as a warrant for charging English womanhood universally with the cigarette habit. I have found the mother and wife of the average Englishman quite as simple and "unmodernized" as our own American mothers and wives. New York hotel life will perhaps approach the hotel life of London; and London, we should remember, has the whole world to contend with. Her allies and their families are doing a good deal of the smoking for which she gets the credit.

Perhaps I am very old-fashioned, too, when I prefer a preacher who does not smoke; but I do. For the pastor of the church in which I find a family pew, and where I gather my sons and daughters, I continue to select a minister who knows not the weed and on whose breath the aroma of it is not found.

But in London I discovered myself often in the company of clergymen who blew rings with a deftness not acquired in a fortnight. I did not allow my own discomfort to inconvenience my brethren, however. A very distinguished divine blew tobacco smoke into my nose and eyes for an hour after dinner one evening. I suffered nearly as severely as I did later from German gas in France, but I bore the infliction meekly.

Three months before I should have denied that any man could have done for ten seconds what that man did for sixty minutes, and live to tell the story--without a lisp! But we have learned to do and tolerate a great many things since April, 1917, and many of us who refuse to learn to do _some things_ appreciate fully the fact that all who have the greater good at heart, who labor for the things of first and vast importance, _must work together_.

In London my feet never tired of pressing the streets that led me to the golden shrines of history. I lost myself in Westminster Abbey and in the Tower. I stood upon London Bridge, and hours afterwards found myself humming the old, old chorus, "London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down." But London Bridge is not falling down. Hear the Tommies marching in the street!

The low buildings of the mighty city are a surprise for the American, even though he has known of them. Not until he has walked for miles and miles by them can he realize that London is a vast community. Always he has associated cities with "sky-scrapers."

That conditions in a war capital are different from those in ordinary cities I quickly discovered when I tried to have my watch repaired. The dealer assured me that he would do his best to have it for me in four weeks! I purchased an Ingersoll; but not in London, for London was sold out! The war has drained the European nations of skilled artisans. They are making other things than watches now.

Paris is swifter on its feet than London, and one does not wait so long for his laundry. There is much politeness visible, too. A Frenchman will spend ten minutes in trying to understand what you mean to impart, simply for the chance of rendering you a service. My first battle on French soil was with a button that I desired to have a tailor sew on my coat while I lunched. Between my finger in my mouth, with which I hoped to reveal to him my gastronomic purposes, and the button in my other hand, with which I pointed to my coat, I was able to convince him at last--that I had swallowed a similar button and was looking for a doctor. He did the best that he could for me--directed me to a druggist!

Paris is exquisite in the little things. She knows and values the amenities of social intercourse as no other city I have ever visited. Even the "cabbies" curse you with infinite politeness.

A striking difference between Paris and any Canadian or American city lies in the fact that even in wartime the former employs so many people that a few modern labor-saving devices would release. While the telephone and the typewriter are used, they are not common. To this day it is impossible to telephone to the Paris Gas Society, an enormous organization with several hundred branches. The company does not wish to be bothered. London is not unlike Paris in this respect. In the metropolis of the British Empire thousands of ministers and professional men and business houses do not have telephones. In Paris when your gas is in trouble you take a day off and "explain." You may finally receive the assurance that the matter will be adjusted sometime within the week. If you grumble, a clerk will smile and say, "C'est la guerre." And of course the war is much to blame for delays, but more telephones would help greatly; typewriters and carbon-paper would be more efficient than cumbersome copying-press machines, and a checkbook would release many a lad and many an elderly gentleman who now walk about paying bills with currency.

But Paris is inspiring in her quiet courage and her unshaken determination. Long-range guns and air raids have left her unbroken. Indeed, they seem to have cured her of the "nerves" she was supposed to have. On the morning after a distressing night of suspense following the loss of more than a hundred lives as the result of bombs, I rode from Paris to Bordeaux. At dinner I sat opposite a very distinguished-looking gentleman. He was quite friendly, and introduced himself; he had been Master of Horse to King George of Greece, was a brigadier-general in the old Grecian army, and was of one of the most ancient families of Montenegro--le Comte de Cernowitz. After the pro-German designs of King Constantine of Greece had become established le Comte de Cernowitz took up his residence in Paris. As he left me, he casually remarked that on the previous night his house had been struck by a bomb, that the roof had been torn off, but that no one had been killed. He was going to Bordeaux to "await the repairs"!

And Paris now is always a city of surprises. Early one Monday morning I found myself drawing into a great station. The night had been a very uncomfortable one. I was in a compartment with a friend--an American captain--and two French officers. The Frenchmen were very polite, but they preferred to have the window closed. The air was very close. I would cautiously open the window, and after an interval our allies would cautiously close it! The compartment was dark, and finally I shoved a corner of my pillow under the sash, and waited. Presently down came the window on the pillow! We had a little breeze for the rest of the night, anyhow.

I had boarded the train at Rennes, and had been surprised at the close inspection the local officers had given my papers. But on alighting at Paris I was even more surprised. French and American soldiers were drawn up on both sides of the platform, and at the gate stood General Pershing and his staff. Six o'clock in the morning is early for a commanding officer to be meeting trains! I waited, and was rewarded by seeing the Secretary of War, Mr. Newton Baker, whose secret journey to Europe and the western front was one of the unusual military features of 1918, leave his car.

Both London and Paris have a regal distinction, a distinction in common. They are the meeting-points for the going and coming armies of democracy. No double-track system is this. As they go, so they return. Here by the Seine and yonder by the Thames these knights of a new era salute each other as they pass. From Canada and Australia, from Scotland and Ireland, and from a dozen other places, some of them as far away as South Africa, the English-speaking soldiers are gathered into the welcoming arms of London and then thrust forth to be scattered along the lines of Flanders and France. And to London they come back--those who do not remain where they fell--to be welcomed tenderly and then dropped into the distant places that have never faded from their eyes in all the days of their bloody pilgrimage.

And to Paris the world sends her best, the black and white and yellow children of the Old World and the New; and Paris smiles upon them through her resplendent tears, and passes them on. Later, by way of her vast treasures of the storied past, they march again to find the track to the open sea and their "own countries."

Once I saw two armies in the selfsame street, one dirty and bedraggled and with thinned ranks, the other fresh and with the light of eager quest in its eyes. One was marching south while the other was marching north. One was from Yorkshire in old England and the other was from America. Ah, it was a sight to turn stone into tears when the tall, sinewy lads from the western hemisphere halted just where the avenue faces the Madeleine, and cheered those weary heroes marching back from hell.

Paris is far behind me as I write, but the soldiers who shouted their admiration for the wounds of a thousand convalescent "Tommies" bound for "Blighty" are with me. God only knows how many of those far-called heroes will be marching down that glorious way of Paris when the battalion musters out for home. They are now where civilization has reared her altars, where democracy has found her Gethsemane. But this we all know: they will "carry on."

"The Boche is coming back," a man yelled into the entrance of the cellar. A second later I was above ground and with my head at the sky-scraper angle. There he was! Like a great homing pigeon he was streaking it for his own lines after an observation-flight far behind ours. He was high, but not high enough to hide the telltale crosses on the under side of his wings, and the churn of his engine was unmistakable.