"Every time we are in the trenches, Crack! There breaks the shell."
But his French has a verve that no literal translation will give. Let us take it as he sang it:
"Crack! Il tombe des obus," sang the slight young Belgian, leaning out toward the two thousand men of many colors, many nations; and soon the sky in the north was spotted with white clouds of shrapnel-smoke.
"There we are, all of us, crouching with bent back—Crack! Once more an obus. The shrapnel, which try to stop us at our job, drive us out; but the things that bore us still more—Crack!—are just those obus."
With each "Crack! Il tombe des obus," the big bass-drum boomed like the shell he sang of. His voice was as tense and metallic as a taut string, and he snapped out the lilting line in swift staccato as if he were flaying his audience with a whip. Man after man on the hillside took up the irresistible rhythm in an undertone, and "Cracked" with the singer. In front of me was being created a folk-song. The bitterness and glory of their life were being told to them, and they were hearing the singer gladly. Their leader was lifting the dreary trench night and death itself into a surmounting and joyous thing.
"When you've made your entrenchment, then you must go and guard it without preliminaries. All right; go ahead. But just as you're moving, you have to squat down for a day and a night—yes, for a full twenty-four hours—because things are hot. Somebody gives you half a drop of coffee. Thirst torments you. The powder-fumes choke you."
Here and there in the crowd, listening intently, men were stirring. The lad was speaking to the exact intimate detail of their experience. This was the life they knew. What would he make of it?
"Despite our sufferings, we cherish the hope some day of returning and finding our parents, our wives, and our little ones. Yes, that is my hope, my joyous hope. But to come to that day, so like a dream, we must be of good cheer. It is only by enduring patience, full of confidence, that we shall force back our oppressors. To chase away those cursed Prussians—Crack! We need the obus. My captain calling, 'Crack! More, still more of those obus!' Giving them the bayonet in the bowels, we shall chase them clean beyond the Rhine. And our victory will be won to the waltz of the obus."
It was a song out of the heart of an unconquerable boy. It climbed the hillock to the top. The response was the answer of men moved. His song told them why they fought on. There is a Belgium, not under an alien rule, which the shells have not shattered, and that dear kingdom is still uninvaded. The mother would rather lose her husband and her son than lose the France that made them. Their earthly presence is less precious than the spirit that passed into them out of France. That is why these weary men continue their fight. The issue will rest in something more than a matter of mathematics. It is the last stand of the human spirit.
What is this idea of country, so passionately held, that the women walk to the city gates with son and husband and send them out to die? It is the aspect of nature shared in by folk of one blood, an arrangement of hill and pasture which grew dear from early years, sounds and echoes of sound that come from remembered places. It is the look of a land that is your land, the light that flickers in an English lane, the bells that used to ring in Bruges.