I'm still very tired from my last adventure and am limping about with very sore feet—but I'm very happy. I begin to feel that we're drawing to the end of the war. The Hun knows now that the jig is up. He was going to have defeated us this summer while the Americans were still preparing—instead of that we're pushing him back. I don't think he will gain another square yard of France. From now on he must go back and back.
This moving battle has been a grand experience; it enables you to see everything unfolding like a picture—tanks, cavalry, infantry, guns. The long marches were very wearying, and we were always pushing on again before we were rested. Not that we minded—the game was too big. The first day of the attack I sailed out into the blue alone, following up the Hun. I had the huge felicity of firing at his retreating back over open sights at a range of less than 1000 yards. We pushed so far that night that we got in front of our infantry and were turned back by enemy machine-gun fire. The Hun is a champion runner when he starts to go and difficult to keep up with. However, we caught him up several times after that and helped him to hurry a bit faster. I never saw anything finer in my life than the clouds of cavalry mustering—the way the horses showed their courage and never budged for shell-fire set an example to us men. The destruction burst in the midst of them, but they stood like statues till the order was given to advance. Then away they went, like a whirlwind of death, with the artillery following at the trot and coming into action point-blank. I came across one machine-gun emplacement that a horseman had charged. The horse lay dead on top of the emplacement, having smothered the machine gunner out of action. That day when I was off by myself with my two guns, I fed my horses on the oats of the fallen cavalry and my men on the rations in the haversacks of the dead. In the ripe wheat the dying stared at us with uninterested eyes as we passed. The infantry going cheering by when we were firing, waved their hands to us, shouting, “That's the stuff, boys. Give 'em hell!” We gave them hell, right enough.
I've come through without a scratch and now I'm off to bed. Don't worry if I don't write you—it's impossible sometimes, and I'll always cable through London as soon as I can.
LXXII
France
August 22,1918
I can't sleep to-night. It's nearly one. The candle lights up the mud walls and makes the other occupants of my dug-out look contorted and grotesque. They sigh and toss in their dreams. Now an arm is thrown out and a face is turned. They've been through it, all of them, in the past few days. They have a haggard look. And somewhere in shell-holes, wheatfields, woods, they lie to-night—those others. Pain no longer touches them—their limbs have ceased to twitch and their breath is quiet. They have given their all. For them the war is finished—they can give no more.
Do people at home at all realize what our men are doing and have done? Coarse men, foulmouthed men—men whose best act in life is their manner in saying good-bye to it. And then there are the high-principled fellows from whom ideals are naturally to be expected—whatever we are, we all go out in the same way and in the same rush of determined glory. We climb the steep ascent of Heaven through peril, toil, and pain—and at last our spirits are cleansed.
I think continually of the mothers who stand behind these armies of millions. Mothers just like my mother, with the same hopes and ambitions for their sons. Poor mothers, they never forget the time when the hands that smite to-day were too strengthless to do more than grope at the breast. They follow us like ghosts; I seem to see their thoughts like a grey mist trailing behind and across our strewn battlefields. When the rain descends upon our dead, it is their tears that are falling. The whispering of the wheat is like the tiptoe rustling of approaching women.
Pray for us; we need your prayers—need them more than you think, perhaps. Tuck us up in our scooped-out holes with your love, the way you used to before we began to adventure. Above all be proud of us, whether we stand or fall—so proud that you will not fret. God will let us be little again for you in Heaven. We shall again reach up our arms to you, relying on your strength. We shall be afraid and cry out for your comfort. We're not brave—not brave naturally; we shall want you in Heaven to tell us we are safe.