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Page 58
The German army was made of stern material. Having planted its feet here
it refused to be driven back. Its cannon was a line of flaming
volcanoes, its cavalry charged again and again into the face of death,
and its infantry perished in masses, but the stern old general spared
nothing. Passing up and down the lines, listening at the telephone and
receiving the reports of air scouts and land scouts, he always hurled
in fresh troops at the critical points and Fritz and Karl and Wilhelm
and August, sober and honest men, went forward willingly, sometimes
singing and sometimes in silence, to die for a false and outworn system.
John as a prisoner had a better view than he would have had if with the
French army. In a country open now he could see a full mile to right and
left, where the German hosts marched again and again to attack, and
while the French troops were too far away for his eyes he beheld the
continuous flare of their fire, like a broad red ribbon across the whole
western horizon.
The passing of time was nothing to him. He forgot all about it in his
absorption. But the sun climbed on, afternoon came, and still the battle
at this point raged, the French unable to drive the Germans farther and
the Germans unable to stop the French attacks. John roused himself and
endeavored to dissociate the thunder on their flanks from that in front,
and, after long listening, he was able to make the separation, or at
least he thought so. He knew now that the struggle there was no less
fierce than the one before him.
The Kaiser himself must be present with one or the other of these
armies, and a man who had talked for more than twenty years of his
divine right, his shining armor, his invincible sword and his mailed
fist must be raging with the bitterness of death to find that he was
only a mortal like other mortals, and that simple French republicans
were defeating the War Lord, his Grand Army and the host of kings,
princes, dukes, barons, high-born, very high-born, and all the other
relics of medievalism. Dipped to the heel and beyond in the fountain of
democracy, John could not keep from feeling a fierce joy as he saw with
his own eyes the Germans fighting in the utmost desperation, not to take
Paris and destroy France, but to save themselves from destruction.
The afternoon, slow and bright, save for the battle, dragged on. Scott
and Fleury kept together. Weber appeared once more and spoke rather
despondently. He believed that the Germans would hold fast, and might
even resume the offensive toward Paris again, but Fleury shook his head.
"Today is like yesterday," he said.
"How can you tell?" asked Weber.
"Because the fire on both flanks is slowly moving eastward, that is, the
Germans there are yielding ground. My ears, trained to note such things,
tell me so. My friend, I am not mistaken."
He spoke gravely, without exultation, but John took fresh hope from his
words. Toward night the fire in their front died somewhat, and after
sunset it sank lower, but they still heard a prodigious volume of firing
on both flanks. John remembered then that they had eaten nothing since
morning, but when some of the prisoners who spoke German requested food
it was served to them.
Night came over what seemed to be a drawn battle at this point, and
after eating his brief supper John saw the automobiles and stretchers
bringing in the wounded. They passed him in thousands and thousands,
hurt in every conceivable manner. At first he could scarcely bear to
look at them, but it was astonishing how soon one hardened to such
sights.
The wounded were being carried to improvised hospitals in the rear, but
so far as John knew the dead were left on the field. The Germans with
their usual thorough system worked rapidly and smoothly, but he noticed
that the fires were but very few. There was but little light in the wood
of S�nouart or the hills beyond, and there was little, too, on the
ridges that marked the French position.
John kept near the edges of the space allotted to the prisoners, hoping
that he might again see von Arnheim. He had discovered early that the
Germans were unusually kind to Americans, and the fact that he had been
taken fighting against them did not prevent them from showing generous
treatment. The officer in charge of the guard even wanted to talk to him
about the war and prove to him how jealousy had caused the other nations
to set upon Germany. But John evaded him and continued to look for the
young prince who was serving as a mere lieutenant.
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