“There is not much to tell,” returned Philip after a pause, with the hesitancy of one who dislikes to talk about himself, “for you must know I am no hero.” He smiled at the girlish faces so eagerly watching him. Suddenly he sat bolt upright, unconsciously pushing Jean from him. “I am an American,” he exclaimed abruptly, “for my father came of good old New England stock, although I was born in the South. But my heart has been strangely stirred since I came over here, for the Americans are asleep,—they do not sense what they are up against in this war of the nations.” His dark gray eyes flashed into flame. “Sometimes I feel I would like to be another Paul Revere, and ride like the wind, knocking on doors and windows, shouting to the slumberers, ‘The Huns are coming!’ They must be roused to the truth that this war is their war, and that they have not buckled to their job.”
He paused a moment, the fire dying out of his eyes as he continued, “I was feeling in unusually good spirits that summer of 1914, for I had just formed a partnership with a well-known architect, and business gave assurance of giving me a very comfortable income, and place me in a position to repay my mother, who had denied herself in order to put me through college.
“Into this mood of complacent satisfaction with myself and world in general, came a jar one day in June when the newspapers announced, in glaring headlines, the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand. And, almost before we had digested its portent, came Austria’s ultimatum to little Serbia. People began to grow restive, alarm-fired, keyed to a tense state of expectancy that something was in the air, but—what? Then tongues were loosened and eyes flashed fire as the Prime Minister’s scathing denunciation of Germany’s ‘infamous proposal’ was bandied from mouth to mouth, followed by Great Britain’s ultimatum that Belgium’s neutrality must be respected.
“Then came hours of anxious suspense, a harrowing waiting-time, with every one’s heart aquiver, while a little group of men in Downing Street held their watches in their hands as they awaited Germany’s reply. It came. The deep-toned clang of Big Ben told to English hearts that the world’s decades of peace had been shattered, and that the Prussian barbarians had struck their first blow at civilization.
“From every corner and window now glared forth, ‘Your King and your Country need you.’ Those words seared my heart like fire, but no, I argued, I must make good with mother. But no matter how I tried to cajole myself, the words seemed to follow me around like an accusing finger. No, he wasn’t my king. I was an American by right of birth, but still they blazoned at me until I could see them with my eyes shut. They starred the darkness of night; why, even in my sleep they clutched me in a ghostly dream. The next day and for many days I saw them aflame on the pavement, they were written on the sky in white letters, but still I fought.
“When England’s young manhood sprang, as it were, from the earth, armed to the teeth, and marched shoulder to shoulder in regular beat,—it seemed like the pulsation of my own heart—as they swung along through the streets of London, my head swam, my throat tightened, and—But when I read of heroic little Belgium so nobly holding out against the ruthless destroyer of justice and honor, I gave in and became one of Kitchener’s mob.
“Those were not pleasant hours,” continued Philip, “waiting at the Horse Guard Parade to read when I must report at the regimental depot at Hounslow, for I felt I was a misfit, in with a lot of men that, to my inexperienced eyes, seemed the scum of England, and I sickened of my job.
“But when the news continued to pour in that Liège had fallen, that the Germans had entered Brussels, that the British Expeditionary Forces were retreating, heroically fighting, that Namur, Louvain, and other towns were being ruthlessly seized and devastated by the enemy, and their hellish atrocities began to be rumored about, the past, together with all hopes and desires for the future, were wiped out as clean as a slate in a spirit of forgetfulness. I lived in the moment, buoyed by the grim determination to fight like hell to down the oppressor of men’s rights, to lose my life if need be, in order to give freedom to those who were to come after.
“My spirits took a leap when I registered at the Hounslow Barracks as a Royal Fusileer, although I grinned humorously, for if I had felt like a misfit in London I was a guy now, appareled like a bloomin’ lay-figure in the cast-off rags of some old-clothes shop, and had sensed that I was only a steel rivet in a big machine. I was no duck either, taking to the drills like water, for I would stand hopelessly bewildered at the sharp orders, ‘Form fours! One-one-two! Platoon! Form Fours!’ and similar commands, that were like kicks on a befuddled brain. But I gritted my teeth and stuck to my guns.
“As soon as my rawness wore off and I began to get the hang of it, the martial spirit asserted itself. I began to be obsessed by the desire to show that I was the right stuff, that the heroism of my American ancestors, the spirit of ’76, was in me. Through all my intensive training I was feverishly eager to know every detail of company and battalion drill, musketry and target-practice, and all the daily grind of the other sundry factors in military discipline.