This great war has been illumined by star-like deeds of beautiful, simple humanity, performed, in many cases, by men who were unconscious of their own heroism. One such still shines forth from the Battle of Meaux.
A Scottish regiment was occupying a trench, swept by violent rifle and artillery fire, when two privates noticed that a Frenchman, attached to the battalion as interpreter, occupied the most exposed place in the trench.
“The Frenchman is awkwardly placed,” observed one of them, “let us widen his trench.”
At once the two Scots, paying no attention to the hail of bullets and shrapnel, set to deepening the trench, after which they calmly went back to their own stations.
I expect some of you will envy a certain French boy named André. He lived in Paris, and on the declaration of war he watched with very mixed feelings his brother and most of the grown-up men he knew start off for the front. In France every man between the ages of eighteen and forty-five is, in time of war, a soldier, ready to defend his dear country to the last drop of his blood.
André was only twelve years old, but when he heard that the enemy was now close to Paris, he decided that he must go and defend his country too. So he suddenly disappeared, leaving a letter which ran:
“My dear father and mother,
“I am starting for the war. Don’t worry about me. I have my savings bank money.”
After nearly a fortnight a sunburnt André reappeared in Paris, and told all that had befallen him. It had been quite easy for him to find the army, and the soldiers hadn’t had the heart to send him away. Marching with them by day, and sleeping in their bivouacs or billets at night, he stayed with them until the battalion reached Meaux. There the colonel began to ask questions. André’s soldier friends had to confess that they had adopted him as a human mascot. The colonel sent for André, and although at first very angry, soon relaxed into a broad smile, but insisted that the boy’s share in the campaign must now come to an end, and so André went sadly home.
In these days when hundreds of thousands of soldiers are pitted against one another, a battle consists of a number of separate fights, or, as we call them now, engagements. It was in one of these, during this same battle of Meaux, that a perambulator figures in a grand deed of heroism.