Part 16 (1/2)

The door opened and the strictest disciplinarian in the American army permitted himself the shadow of a smile. ”I'm General Pers.h.i.+ng,” he said.

One battalion came back from the front with an additional member. He was a large dog of uncertain breed who had deserted from the German lines.

At least it was hard to say whether he belonged to the German army or the French. The French first saw him one afternoon when he came lumbering across No Man's Land and pushed himself through the wire in a place where it had grown a bit slack. One French soldier fired at him.

The poilu thought it might be a new trick of the Germans. For all he knew a couple of Boches might have been concealed inside the big hound.

He was no marksman, this soldier, for he missed the dog who promptly turned sharply to the left and came in at another point in the trenches.

The soldiers made him welcome although there was some discussion as to what his nationality might be. It was evident that he had come across from the German lines, but it was possible that he was a French dog captured in one of the villages which fell to the invaders. The men in the front line tried him with all the German they knew--”You German pig,” ”what's your regiment?” ”d.a.m.n the Kaiser,” ”to Berlin,” and a few others. He indicated no understanding of the phrases. Later he was taken further back and examined at length by an intelligence officer but no single German word could be found which he seemed to recognize. On the other hand it was ascertained that he was equally ignorant of French.

However, he understood signs, would bark for a bone and never missed an invitation to eat.

During the first week of his stay the soldiers were generous in giving him a share of their rations. Later he became an old friend and did not fare so well. One night he disappeared and an outpost saw him lumbering back to the German lines. The Boches were out on patrol that night and apparently the big dog reached their lines without being fired upon. He was gone three weeks and then he returned for a long stay with the French. So it went on. He never affiliated himself permanently with either army and he never gave away secrets. Possibly his coming gave some sign of declining morale across the way for when the men became cross and testy the big dog simply changed sides. There was never any indication that he had been underfed even when rumors were strongest about the food shortage in Germany. The Boches took a pride in belying these stories, as best they could, by keeping the hound sleek and fat.

The French called him Quatre Cent Vingt after the big gun but n.o.body knew for certain his German alias. Once when he left the German lines in broad daylight the Boches all along the line were heard whistling for him to come back, but no one called him by name. The French chose to believe that across the way he was known as ”Kamerad,” but there was no evidence on this point. It is true that he would stand on his hind legs and wave his paws when anybody said ”Kamerad,” but this was a trick and took teaching.

He must have heard somehow or other about the coming of the Americans for he left the Germans at noon one day when the doughboys had hardly become settled in their new home. A French interpreter vouched for him and he was allowed free access to third line, second line, first line and, what he valued much more, to the company kitchen. Here for the first time he tasted slum. Soldiers are fond of belittling this combination of beef, onions, potatoes and carrots but Quatre Cent Vingt was frank in his admiration of the dish. Naturally, free-born American citizens could not be expected to know him by his outlandish French name or any abbreviation of it and he became Big Ed in honor of the mess sergeant. Hitherto Quatre Cent Vingt had been careful to show no favors.

He had been the company's dog but he became so distinctly partial to the mess sergeant that the soldier took him over as his own and when the company went away Quatre Cent Vingt went too, following closely behind a rolling kitchen.

The experience in the trenches made American soldiers a little more expressive than they had been before but the national character remained baffling. As a nation we unquestionably have personality but our army is somewhat lacking in this quality even among its leaders. Pers.h.i.+ng is a personality, of course, and Bullard and Sibert and March, but for the rest all major generals seemed much alike to us. Sibert we remembered because he was a quiet, kindly man who got the things he wanted without much fuss. He was among the thinkers of the army. Mostly he was listening to other people, but when he talked he wasted no words.

Undoubtedly he was one of the best loved men in the army for he combined with his efficiency and his kindliness an occasional playful flash of humor. I remember a visit which three American newspaperwomen paid to him one day at his headquarters. The conversation had scarcely begun when one of the women somewhat tactlessly remarked, ”General, this is a young man's war, isn't it?”

General Sibert is husky enough but he is a bit gray and he smiled quizzically as he looked at his questioner over the top of a big pair of horn-rimmed gla.s.ses.

”When I was a cadet at West Point,” said General Sibert, ”I used to console myself with the thought that Napoleon was winning battles when he was thirty. Now, I find that my mind dwells more on the fact that Hindenburg is seventy.”

Robert H. Bullard is probably the most picturesque figure in the American army. He has a reputation as a fighter and a daredevil and he is still one of the best polo players and broadsword experts in the American army. They say that when a second lieutenant swore at him one day in the heat of a game he made no complaint but laid for the young man later on and sent him sprawling off his horse in a wild scrimmage.

He will fight broadsword duels with anybody regardless of rank if his opponent promises to be a man who can test his mettle. And yet it was a bit surprising that when the command of one of the crack divisions in France was open, General Pers.h.i.+ng chose Bullard for the command because Major General Robert H. Bullard is perhaps the worst dressed major general in the American army. A poilu in one of the provincial cities mistook him for an American enlisted man and talked to him with great freedom for more than half an hour before an excited French officer rushed up and told him that the man with whom he was talking so familiarly was an American general.

”Oh, that's all right,” said Bullard, ”I wanted to hear what he had to say. Come around to my headquarters sometime and tell me some more.”

On another occasion I saw an American captain suffer acutely because Bullard appeared at a public Franco-American function with two days'

growth of beard. ”What kind of an aide can he have,” moaned the captain. ”I was on his staff for two years and I never let him come out like that. I always had him fixed up when there was anything important on.”

Tall, spare, hawk-featured and straight, Bullard represents a type of officer who has a large part to play in the American army. It is around such men that tradition grows and tradition is the marrow of an army. It was Bullard, too, who gave the best expression to the hope and purpose of the American army which I heard in France. He had said that what the American army must always maintain as its most important a.s.set was the offensive spirit and when we asked him just what that was he lapsed into a story which was always his favorite device for exposition.