A Traveller in War-Time | Page 7

those crumbling,
machicolated ruins that I was in a war-ridden land. Few generations
had escaped the pestilence.
At no great distance lay the little city which had been handed over to us
by the French Government for a naval base, one of the ports where our
troops and supplies are landed. Those who know provincial France will
visualize its narrow streets and reticent shops, its grey-white and ecru
houses all more or less of the same design, with long French windows
guarded by ornamental balconies of cast iron--a city that has never
experienced such a thing as a real-estate boom. Imagine, against such a
background, the bewildering effect of the dynamic presence of a few
regiments of our new army! It is a curious commentary on this war that
one does not think of these young men as soldiers, but as citizens
engaged in a scientific undertaking of a magnitude unprecedented. You

come unexpectedly upon truck-loads of tanned youngsters, whose
features, despite flannel shirts and campaign hats, summon up
memories of Harvard Square and the Yale Yard, of campuses at
Berkeley and Ithaca. The youthful drivers of these camions are alert,
intent, but a hard day's work on the docks by no means suffices to
dampen the spirits of the passengers, who whistle ragtime airs as they
bump over the cobbles. And the note they strike is presently sustained
by a glimpse, on a siding, of an efficient-looking Baldwin, ranged
alongside several of the tiny French locomotives of yesterday;
sustained, too, by an acquaintance with the young colonel in command
of the town. Though an officer of the regular army, he brings home to
one the fact that the days of the military martinet have gone for ever.
He is military, indeed-erect and soldierly --but fortune has amazingly
made him a mayor and an autocrat, a builder, and in some sense a
railway-manager and superintendent of docks. And to these functions
have been added those of police commissioner, of administrator of
social welfare and hygiene. It will be a comfort to those at home to
learn that their sons in our army in France are cared for as no enlisted
men have ever been cared for before.

IV
By the end of September I had reached England, eager to gain a fresh
impression of conditions there.
The weather in London was mild and clear. The third evening after I
had got settled in one of those delightfully English hotels in the heart of
the city, yet removed from the traffic, with letter-boxes that still bear
the initials of Victoria, I went to visit some American naval officers in
their sitting-room on the ground floor. The cloth had not been removed
from the dinner-table, around which we were chatting, when a certain
strange sound reached our ears--a sound not to be identified with the
distant roar of the motor-busses in Pall Mall, nor with the sharp bark of
the taxi-horns, although not unlike them. We sat listening intently, and
heard the sound again.
"The Germans have come," one of the officers remarked, as he finished
his coffee. The other looked at his watch. It was nine o'clock. "They
must have left their lines about seven," he said.
In spite of the fact that our newspapers at home had made me familiar

with these aeroplane raids, as I sat there, amidst those comfortable
surroundings, the thing seemed absolutely incredible. To fly one
hundred and fifty miles across the Channel and southern England,
bomb London, and fly back again by midnight! We were going to be
bombed! The anti- aircraft guns were already searching the sky for the
invaders. It is sinister, and yet you are seized by an overwhelming
curiosity that draws you, first to pull aside the heavy curtains of the
window, and then to rush out into the dark street both proceedings in
the worst possible form! The little street was deserted, but in Pall Mall
the dark forms of busses could be made out scurrying for shelter, one
wondered where? Above the roar of London, the pop pop pop! of the
defending guns could be heard now almost continuously, followed by
the shrieks and moans of the shrapnel shells as they passed close
overhead. They sounded like giant rockets, and even as rockets some of
them broke into a cascade of sparks. Star shells they are called, bursting,
it seemed, among the immutable stars themselves that burned serenely
on. And there were other stars like November meteors hurrying across
space--the lights of the British planes scouring the heavens for their
relentless enemies. Everywhere the restless white rays of the
searchlights pierced the darkness, seeking, but seeking in vain. Not a
sign of the intruders was to be seen. I was induced to return to the
sitting-room.
"But what are they