The train ran slowly over the open fields and through the
dark wooded marshes, rendered darker by the wisps of gray
fog which hung low over the hillsides. It was a morning for
bright eyes and silence; a morning for drawing your cloak closely
about your shoulders as you slouched back in your corner to watch
from the windows the panorama of green fields and gray forests,
of rough, haggard peasants tilling the fields, and of housewives
and daughters availing themselves of their domestic privileges
in the dooryards of crumbled stone houses.
There was a shrill blast from the engine's whistle, and the
train came to a stop in the village of Fismes. I had hoped to
visit
this place for a few hours, for it was here that a division
of troops from my own state (the 32nd Division) had distinguished
itself by capturing the village from the Germans after a sanguinary
encounter in which the bayonet had figured not a little. Moreover,
there was a graveyard nearby in which slept nearly two thousand
of my countrymen, - and I wondered if any were there whom I knew,
and about whose poppy-covered graves I could carry a word to
someone at home.
I had, however, been warned on the previous evening, at Reims,
that the inhabitants of this sequestered hamlet were not
friendly toward Americans, and that some sailors from my
own ship had met with difficulty in trying to purchase food and
drink at a tavern. An Irish carpenter considered it unsafe for
me to stop, and remembering his warning I stepped out onto the
platform, leaving my baggage on the train. He was correct in
his estimate of the situation, for as I wandered along the remains
of the platform, small groups of wrinkled peasants drew their
kerchiefed heads together and began to chatter wildly as I passed.
Not a few gestures were made, and although I understood not a
dozen words of the native tongue, it was obvious to me that the
tone of the conversation was not one of friendliness toward me.
In traveling over the world one learns a language of gestures,
facial expressions and shrugs; but to the meanest, untraveled
country bumpkin, the thoughts in the minds of those few rustics
would have been perfectly clear.
The reason for this animosity was apparent when one looked
over the highboard fence into the village. Every building,
shop, home or factory, had suffered almost beyond hope of
repair from heavy artillery bombardment. The railroad station
had disappeared entirely - only some blackened and scattered
stones showed where it had stood. Everywhere standing out in
bright relief against the green background of the grassy rise
beyond the town, were freakish spires and monuments and piles
of wrecked machinery, being the remains of once cheerful homes
and shops of thriving industry.
When the French had abandoned the town before the advance
of the Germans, the evacuation had been so rapid that
the advancing armies had not been obliged to bombard, but
once entrenched the Germans deigned to remain, so that it had
required artillery to dislodge them before the American attack
was made. The ruins were mute witness of the efforts of our soldiers.
Poor people! Is it any wonder that they should hate us more
than they do the Allemands? After all, people fight to save
their homes, a great many of which constitute a country.
We are affected by those things which touch us personally; and
if we be free, then by that, which closest approaches ourselves
and what we hold dear. The greatest patriotism is that animal
nature in us by which we defend to the utmost power our hearths.
I hurriedly snatched a fragment of rock from the platform,
and as the long, low train sped out of the village I carried,