"But somehow, when a fellow is out there—alone—facing death in the solitude, it seems so much worse than it is two hours later, when the boys go 'over the top,' dozens of them together, with bayonets gleaming and with yelling and shooting and barrage fire. It doesn't seem nearly so bad in a crowd. I don't mean that the men like it. No man ever likes to go 'over the top,' but there is a hypnotism when the crowd goes with you. It is what the professors call mob psychology. It's the thing that will make a man jump into a scrimmage on the football field eagerly, knowing that he will get hurt, without thinking anything about it. But I went alone. I'm all right but I feel ——" Here his breath came hard.
"The charge was set for three o'clock. A fearful bombardment was opened up. The barrage fire was terrific. Word was finally passed along from mouth to mouth, 'ten minutes till we go over the top!' All the while the bombardment had been going on more fiercely and the firing was let loose, the like of which was never seen before.
"At last it was five minutes of three. The 'death ladders' were put in place, so the men could scale the parapet, and at exactly three o'clock the whistles blew a mighty blast. Up the boys went like monkeys over a garden wall. The curtain fire was thrust forward. Through the lanes they went. Across No Man's Land they rushed, and men were falling all about. At this moment some of the Germans made a kind of countercharge, and a few got very near our trenches. One big German was almost falling into our trench on top of me, when I heard him yell at me. I could not tell what he said, but as his mouth opened in yelling, amazement and fear gripped me, for, like the shiny tongue of a snake, there stuck out of his mouth a long, glistening object. I thought he was making faces at me. But only a second elapsed, until his yell merged into a fiendish shriek and he pitched toward me. One of our men had jammed his bayonet through the big Boche from behind, and it had come out of his mouth. It was the last of him. I know our boys got there. But it sure is hell. But—it—is glorious!" I then realized that he was weakening and when I asked him if he was badly hurt he answered, "No—not bad—I reckon—only—'goin' West.'" As the poor fellow spoke these last words his breath was coming hard. Life was slowly ebbing out and as I stood with his hand clasped in mine he passed over the Great Divide. In solemn reflection I stood beside him for a moment. Yes, it was glorious, in a way, yet for my part it sickened me. I had had enough. I was fed up with the war and I longed for rest.
CHAPTER XXXIX JEAN AND "FRENCHIE"
That rest was to come ere long—but not immediately. I had seen the tragedy and horror of modern warfare but I was still to undergo another heart-tearing ordeal. The boys of a certain company were as handsome a lot as ever donned a uniform. But some of the best of them were marked men. Two of these fellows whom I had come to consider as pals, got theirs a few days later. The name of one was Jean, and I couldn't pronounce the other, so I used to call him "Frenchie." They were both fine, strapping lads, larger than the average Frenchman and had the pep of young Americans. Jean was twenty-one and "Frenchie" I suppose about twenty-five. We used to have great times together trying to understand each other and laughing over my mistakes in speaking French. Some of them were worth laughing at, too.
On occasions I would sit and swap yarns with them or would yield to their requests to tell them all about the United States. We struck up an intimacy which was unusual, and it got so that we sought each other's company whenever possible. The boys used to ask me all kinds of questions about New York and wanted to know how far out Pike's Peak was from the metropolis. I had to laugh at their conception of American geography as much as they did at my conception of their language. Many a pleasant hour we enjoyed together.
But alas! One Sunday afternoon a gas alarm was suddenly sounded. All the men along the trench began excitedly fumbling for their gas masks and shouting to one another. That was the very worst thing that they could do. Remaining cool and keeping your mouth shut is the only possible method of combating this awful weapon. You must lose no time in shaking off your metal trench helmet and getting the gas mask on and buttoned tightly around your neck, but the way to save time is to go about it cooly. Now "Frenchie" had become excited and couldn't find his mask. It wasn't in his bag provided for the purpose. He had lost it. In his excitement, instead of wetting his handkerchief and tying it over his nose as a temporary substitute, he began yelling at the other boys, asking them if they had seen it or if they had an extra one. In doing this he had taken in several breaths of the deadly fumes and was quickly overcome. He was carried back into the receiving station and there he lay in agony. When I got there two men were bending over him as he lay upon the stretcher and with a fan and oxygen tube, they were trying to assist him in getting air into his lungs. I went over and spoke to him, but his eyes were closed and he could not answer. For ten or fifteen minutes we worked with him, but it seemed like eternity. As his eyelids twitched, his throat contracted, and his nostrils distended in the awful effort to get air; I thought I should faint as I was forced to look upon his indescribable suffering. When once or twice I asked him something the agonizing efforts which he made to speak to me were terrible to behold. I would rather die myself than ever have to look on such a sight again. Death isn't hard to see and the sight of it becomes commonplace on the battle line. But the spectacle of a fellow-human going through the slow agonies of the damned, in his vain attempts to get air, is one which no mortal ought ever to be called upon to undergo.