The doctor was called away a moment, and as I watched him stride off, his sturdy figure carrying well the olive-drab of the United States army, I noticed again that the heads of the wounded turned, following him with thankful eyes, and it was not difficult longer to understand how these few Americans were able to come into the midst of strange Silesia, and transform that theater, where at night if they forget to shut the door, they can hear the ribald clamor from the cheap cabaret next door; it was not difficult to understand how they, all of them having their first experience with war, had developed an efficiency which the Germans had complimented by sending them the worst cases from the firing line. That sturdy, wide-shouldered man in army olive-drab personified something that made you thrill at the thought that you were an American.
But Dr. Sanders was not the last impression that I had of Gleiwitz, although he waved good-by to me at the train.
As I look back at Gleiwitz now, I can see the flat-floored theater with the gray nurses lighting lamps. The early twilight is coming through the windows. It is all quiet. In two hours the wounded will have supper, and here and there you can hear the deep breathing of sleep. In the lingering light the steel curtain has turned a vague gray and of the three flags, only our own is sharply defined. I see Sister Anna walking softly between the rows of gingham-spread cots, her kind, almost saintly face hallowed by the lamp in her hands. She is beckoning. She raises the lamp so that its pale reflection falls upon a bed. And there I see the boy from the Schleswig-Holstein village, who, with his chum, burned a Russian village, and whose ambition is to kill a hundred men; and the boy's face is buried in the pillow, his arm circling round it, like a baby asleep.
XV
THE SECRET BOOKS OF ENGLAND'S GENERAL STAFF
Of course Germany was prepared. Russia and France were prepared, not so sufficiently, of course, as Germany; yet with their reorganized armies both were judged powerful on land. England though was unprepared. Everybody knew that. The newspapers said so. Statesmen said so, Parliament admitted it. To be sure the British Navy for years was prepared. Winston Churchill announced that. But the empire was not ready for its army was not ready. It was a small army, a quarter of a million men, twice as large as the United States army. It was useful in the colonies. Everybody knew Tommy Atkins. Kipling did that. But for fighting on the continent of Europe was like venturing into a strange land for these soldiers of England's colonial domain. They were not ready. Any Englishman will tell you that. But the most amazing part of it all is that the British army was wonderfully prepared.
This will be merely a document of military wonders; diplomatic considerations will have no part in it. I promise you to abstain from the use of that tiresome word—neutrality.
