Part 70 (1/2)
It thrilled him to be back at work again. The silence of the hospital had irked his soul. Here the air was full of the pneumatic riveter.
They called it the gun that would win the war. The s.h.i.+pyard atmosphere was shattered all day long as if with machine-gun fire and the riveters were indeed firing at Germany. Every red-hot rivet was a bullet's worth.
The cry grew louder for s.h.i.+ps. The submarine was cutting down the world's whole fleet by a third. In February the Germans sank the _Tuscania_, loaded with American soldiers, and 159 of them were lost.
Uncle Sam tightened his lips and added the _Tuscania's_ dead soldiers to the _Lusitania's_ men and women and children on the invoice against Germany. He tightened his belt, too, and cut down his food for Europe's sake. He loosened his purse-strings and poured out gold and bonds and war-savings stamps, borrowing, lending, and spending with the desperation of a gambler determined to break the bank.
While Davidge was still in the hospital the German offensive broke. It succeeded beyond the scope of the blackest prophecy. It threw the fear of h.e.l.l into the stoutest hearts. All over the country people were putting pins in maps, always putting them farther back. Everybody talked strategy, and geography became the most dreadful of topics.
On March 29th Pers.h.i.+ng threw what American troops were abroad into the general stock, gave them to Haig and Foch to use as they would.
On the same day the mysterious giant cannon of the Germans sent a sh.e.l.l into Paris, striking a church and killing seventy-five wors.h.i.+pers. And it was on a Good Friday that the men of _Gott_ sent this harbinger of good-will.
The Germans began to talk of the end of Great Britain, the erasure of France, and the reduction of America to her proper place.
Spring came to the dismal world again with a sardonic smile. In Was.h.i.+ngton the flower-duel was renewed between the Emba.s.sy terrace and the Louise Home. The irises made a drive and the forsythia sent up its barrage. The wistaria and the magnolia counterattacked. The Senator took off his wig again to give official sanction to summer and to rub his bewildered head the better.
The roving breezes fluttered tragic newspapers everywhere--in the parks, on the streets, on the scaffolds of the buildings, along the tented lanes, and in the barrack-rooms.
This wind was a love-zephyr as of old. But the world was frosted with a tremendous fear. What if old England fell? Empires did fall.
Nineveh, Babylon, and before them Ur and Nippur, and, after, Persia and Alexander's Greece and Rome. Germany was making the great try to renew Rome's sway; her Emperor called himself the Caesar. What if he should succeed?
Distraught by so many successes, the Germans grew frantic. They were diverted from one prize to another.
The British set their backs to the wall. The French repeated their Verdun watchword, ”No thoroughfare,” and the Americans began to come up. The Allies were driven finally to what they had always realized to be necessary, but had never consented to--a unified command. They put all their destinies into the hands of Foch.
Instantly and melodramatically the omens changed. Foch could live up to his own motto now, ”Attack, attack, attack.” He had been like a man gambling his last francs. Now he had word that unlimited funds were on the way from his Uncle Sam. He did not have to count his money over and over. He could squander it regardless.
In every direction he attacked, attacked, attacked. The stupefied world saw the German hordes checked, driven rearward, here, there, the other place.
Towns were redeemed, rivers regained, prisoners scooped up by the ten thousand. The pins began a great forward march along the maps. People fought for the privilege of placing them. Geography became the most fascinating sport ever known.
Davidge had come from the hospital minus one arm just as the bulletins changed from grave to gay. He was afraid now that the war would be over before his s.h.i.+ps could share the glorious part that s.h.i.+ps played in all this victory. The British had turned all their hulls to the American sh.o.r.es and the American troops were pouring into them in unbelievable floods.
Secrecy lost its military value. The best strategy that could be devised was to publish just how many Americans were landing in France.
General March would carry the news to Secretary Baker and he would scatter it broadcast through George Creel's Committee on Public Information, using telegraph, wireless, telephone, cable, post-office, placard, courier.
Davidge had always said that the war would be over as soon as the Germans got the first real jolt. With them war was a business and they would withdraw from it the moment they foresaw a certain bankruptcy ahead.
But there was the war after the war to be considered--the war for commerce, the postponed war with disgruntled labor and the impatient varieties of socialists and with the rabid Bolshevists frankly proclaiming their intention to destroy civilization as it stood.
Like a prudent skipper, Davidge began to trim his s.h.i.+p for the new storm that must follow the old. He took thought of the rivalries that would spring up inevitably between the late Allies, like brothers now, but doomed to turn upon one another with all the greater bitterness after war. For peace hath her wickedness no less renowned than war.
What would labor do when the spell of consecration to the war was gone and the pride of war wages must go before a fall? The time would come abruptly when the spectacle of employers begging men to work at any price would be changed to the spectacle of employers having no work for men--at any price.
The laborers would not surrender without a battle. They had tasted power and big money and they would not be lulled by economic explanations.
Mamise came upon Davidge one day in earnest converse with a faithful old toiler who had foreseen the same situation and wanted to know what his boss thought about it.
Iddings had worked as a mechanic all his life. He had worked hard, had lived sober, had turned his wages over to his wife, and spent them on his home and his children.