THE WHITE BATTALION
Starting Point. “It was in those intolerable days of 1917 when Russia had fallen away and America seemed perilously unready; when German intrigue helped by treachery behind the allied lines in France, England and Italy was winning the war for Germany; intolerable to those of soldier blood whose years put them beyond the dead line of enlistment requirements and who could do nothing more than work and earn and give over here.
I was haunted interminably by the suffering of the women of France whose men had died on the field of honor—wasted suffering if, in the end, the German won. I knew the women would fight against any—is there a stronger adjective of horror now than Germanic odds? How could these widowed women, or even the dead bear it—and in a flash “The White Battalion” came.
Always the supernatural stories “flash” in this way, apparently in answer to a long sub-conscious demand for justice beyond human power to compass. Other stories build more or less painfully, save for the big scene.”—Frances Gilchrist Wood.
Plot.
Initial Impulse: Widows of certain heroic Frenchmen, petitioning to be entered and drilled as the —nth Battalion of Avengers, are accepted and trained.
Steps toward the Dramatic Climax: Each woman adds a packet of potassium cyanide to her equipment. They request, further, to be assigned to the position which will be in the course of advance to retake the ground held to the death by their men. Major Fouquet commands them. Order comes for the attack, and they go over the top, eagerly, gripping their bayonets as they follow the barrage across No Man’s Land. When the barrage lifts the women see “thrust shield-wise above the heads of the Huns—frightened and sobbing—hundreds of little children!” (This is a minor climax.) The women recognize they must either betray a trust or cut through the barricade of children. After an instant only the woman captain makes the sign of the cross and stumbles forward—on her wrist bound the packet of death! They will charge, her followers understand, but the poison will erase the hideous memory forever. The captain falls....
Dramatic Climax: As the women grip to thrust, there sweeps down a battalion of marching shadows in a blur of gold and blue that outstrips the advance of the Avengers. There is a flash of charging steel and the waving colors of the old —nth as they sweep over the untouched children into the trench.
Steps toward the Climax of Action: The bravest man in the old —nth bends over the fallen captain; there is a smile of recognition, then the woman’s figure springs to his side and sweeps forward with the Battalion.
Climax of Action: The old soldiers of the —nth, led by “a shining one,” save their women from the “last hellish trap set by fiends”! The Avengers and the White Battalion retake the ground for which the —nth gave their lives.
Dénouement: Fouquet and Barres, having seen the field from different angles, report the episode.
Presentation. The rehearsal of this dramatic occurrence, so shortly after the event, scarcely detracts from its stirring qualities. So striking are they, in fact, that presented directly they would probably suffer from over-emphasis and consequent lack of conviction. Moreover, reality is conveyed through
1. The curiosity of the foreign officers over losing contact with the French forces;
2. The colloquial way in which the history of the —nth Battalion is given;
3. The establishing of truth through the mouths of two witnesses;
4. The emphasis on the forty seconds, which under the conditions of presentation gains significance;
5. The assurance that the children have been sent to the rear to be cared for.
Characterization. The individual characters of the main incident are lost in the group—save for the bright passage about the dead woman captain. Avenging their dead, righting a wrong, holding sacred a trust, keeping faith with the Fatherland, dying in performance of duty—of all these the avenging women were nobly capable. The struggle, in its relation to woman nature, is one of the most psychologically true found in fiction. It was all over in forty seconds; yet the so-called instinct of woman—in reality her ability to judge and decide quickly—terminated the struggle between tenderness and trust, with ample time left over. Faith would be kept, even at the expense of their mortal bodies and of their immortal souls.—The characteristic of the White Battalion is the spirit of protection. The characteristics of Fouquet and Barres are simplicity, honesty and an almost homely every-day-heroic quality, all of which work to the conviction of the reader. Because of the family relations, the fundamental notions of honor, and elemental ideals exhibited, this story is destined to last. Founded on bed-rock principles of life itself, it towers into the realm of spirit.
“The short-story is, of course, the recountal of some struggle or complication so artistically told as to leave upon the reader one dominant impression. Perhaps the ‘artistic’ is redundant, for can a story leave such an impression unless it be artistically told? Even geniuses must master their vehicle of expression or remain dumb. To win the sought for reaction to a short-story, painting, play or oratorio, one learns either in the hard, blind school of ‘rejection slips’ or by the intelligent method of skilled critic and master, but learn one must.
“The high water mark in story writing is reached most often for me by the dramatic story, objectively told. It is the genius who selects just the right, again the artistic, material which limns the personality of the character and reveals it to us through that unconscious tell-tale, the character himself; whose story-people talk in just the tone that makes even the impossible carry conviction; and who last, or perhaps first, has a story to tell and an unhackneyed way of telling it.
“Suggestion and restraint in a story appeal to me most strongly.... And when in ‘the joy of working’ one masters the writer’s art, genius as well as mere talent, the reaction will come; the audience will laugh or cry—or both, if the gods are kind.”—Frances Gilchrist Wood.