Part 25 (1/2)

IV

All winter long the papers had been full of talk about a mighty German offensive that was coming in the spring. The German people were being told all about it, and how it was to end the war with a glorious triumph. In America n.o.body was sure about the matter; the fact that the attack was boldly announced seemed good reason for looking elsewhere. Perhaps the enemy was preparing to overwhelm Italy, and wished to keep France and England from sending troops to the weakened Italian line!

But now suddenly, in the third week of March, the Germans made a mighty rush at the British line in front of Cambrai; army upon army they came, and overwhelmed the defenders, and poured through the breach. The British forces fell back--every hour it seemed that their retreat must be turned into a rout. Day by day, as the dispatches came in, Jimmie watched the map in front of the Herald office, and saw a huge gap opening in the British line, a spear-head pointing straight into the heart of France. Three days, four days, five days, this ghastly splitting apart went on, and the whole world held its breath. Even Jimmie Higgins was shaken by the news--he had got enough into the war by this time to realize what a German triumph would mean. It took a strong pacifist stomach indeed to contemplate such an issue of events without flinching.

Comrade Mary Allen had such a stomach; to her religious fervour it made no difference whatever which set of robbers ruled the world.

Comrade Schneider had it also; he knew that Germany was the birth-place and cradle of Socialism, and believed that the best fate that could befall the world was for the Germans to conquer it, and let the German Socialists make it into a co-operative commonwealth by and by. Comrade Schneider was now openly gloating over this new proof of German supermanity, the invincibility of German discipline.

But most of the other members of the local were awed--realizing in spite of themselves the seriousness of the plight which confronted civilization.

Jimmie would inspect the bulletin board, and go over to watch the drilling, and then to Tom's ”Buffeteria” with Emil Forster. He had always had an intense admiration for Emil, and now the young designer, distressed by the strife at home, was glad of someone to pour out his soul to. He would help Jimmie to realize the meaning of the British defeat, the enormous losses of guns and supplies, the burden it would put upon America. For America would have to make up these losses, America would have to drive the Germans out of every foot of this newly-conquered territory.

Jimmie would listen and study the matter out on the map; and so gradually he learned to be interested in a new science, that of military strategy. When once you have fallen under the spell of that game, your soul is lost. You think of men, no longer as human creatures, suffering, starving, bleeding, dying in agony; you think of them as chess-p.a.w.ns; you dispose of them as a gambler of his chips, a merchant of his wares; you cla.s.sify them into brigades and divisions and corps, moving them here and there, counting off your losses against the losses of the enemy, putting in your reserves at critical moments, paying this price for that objective, wiping out thousands and tens of thousands of men with a sweep of your hand, a mark of your pencil, a pressure on an electric b.u.t.ton! Once you have learnt to take that view of life, you are no longer a human heart, to be appealed to by pacifists and humanitarians; you are a machine, grinding out destruction, you are a ripe apple, ready to fall into the lap of the G.o.d of war, you are an autumn leaf, ready to be seized by the gales of patriotism and blown to destruction and death.

CHAPTER XVIII

JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES THE PLUNGE

I

Jimmie went home one evening to the Meissners, and there got a piece of news that delighted him. Comrade Stankewitz had come back from Camp Sheridan! The man to whom he had sold his tobacco-store having failed to pay up, Stankewitz had got a three days' furlough to settle his business affairs. ”Say, he looks fine!” exclaimed Meissner; and so after supper Jimmie hurried off to the little store on the corner.

Never had Jimmie been so startled by the change in a man; he would literally not have known his Roumanian Jewish friend. The wrinkles which had made him look old had filled out; his shoulders were straight--he seemed to have been lifted a couple of inches; he was brown, his cheeks full of colour--he was just a new man! Jimmie and he had been wont to skylark a bit in the old days, as young male creatures do, putting up their fists, giving one another a punch or two, making as if they were going to batter in one another's noses.

They would grip hands and squeeze, to see which could hold out longest. But now, when they tried it, there was ”nothing to it”--Jimmie got one squeeze and hollered quits.

”Vat you tink?” cried Stankewitz. ”I veigh tventy pounds more already--tventy pounds! They vork you like h.e.l.l in that army, but they treat you good. You don't never have such good grub before, not anyvere you vork.”

”You like it?” demanded Jimmy, in amazement.

”Sure I like it, you bet your money! I learn lots of things vat I didn't know before. I get myself straight on this var, don't you ferget it.”

”You believe in the war?”

”Sure I believe in it, you bet your money!” Comrade Stankewitz, as he spoke, pounded with an excited fist on the counter. ”Ve got to vin this var, see? Ve got to beat them Yunkers! I vould have made up my mind to that, even if I don't go in the army--I vould have make it up ven I see vat they do vit Russia.”

”But the revolution--”

”The revolution kin vait--maybe vun year, maybe two years already.