“My understanding is similar to yours,” he said. “We all know, of course, that our losses have been very heavy in the last few months—particularly in the last attempt to break through at Ypres. I’ll tell you something,” and he leaned forward, “had the Allied armies, reinforced as they have been by American troops, followed up our defeat there, we would have been compelled to fall back.”
“Why, sir,” said Hal, “this is news to me.”
“So it is,” returned the colonel. “Yet it’s true.”
Hal now became convinced of something he had begun to suspect since the moment the colonel became so talkative. The man had been drinking. In no other way could the lad account for his condescension in conversing with an officer beneath him in rank. Also, when the man leaned toward him, Hal could catch the odor of his breath.
“By Jove!” the lad told himself. “It may be that luck has turned our way at last. If I could get hold of those dispatches he carries I might learn something.”
To the colonel he said:
“Are you on your way to General von Mackensen’s quarters, sir?”
“I am,” was the reply. “Now I’ll tell you something more. Between the two of us, I am getting tired of this war; I wish it would come to an end. We know we can’t win, you and I, and so does every member of the staff. Why, our ranks have been so depleted that it takes wonderful generalship to make the enemy believe we are still impregnable in our present positions.”
“Is that so, sir?” said Hal. “I had no idea it was as bad as that.”
“Only the other day,” continued the colonel, “I chanced to be in Berlin. The emperor was there at the time, in conference with Generals Ludendorff, von Mackensen and Hindenburg. I, as you know, am on von Mackensen’s staff. Now let me tell you what I heard old Hindenburg himself say. ‘Your Majesty,’ said he, ‘we’ve got to continue our attacks, for when we stop the enemy will begin his. By our attacks we must keep from him the fact that we could not resist an offensive on a large scale.’”