The picturesqueness and romance of the war of picture books were missing.To stand beside an English battery of thirty guns laying a barrage as they fired their shells to a point ten miles distant, made one feel as if one were an actual part of real warfare, and yet far removed from it, until the battery was located from the enemy's "sausage observation"; then the shells from the enemy fired a return salvo, and the better part of valor was discretion a few miles farther back.
The amazing part of the "show," however, was the American doughboy.
Never was there a more cheerful, laughing, good-natured set of boys in the world; never a more homesick, lonely, and complaining set.But good nature predominated, and the smile was always uppermost, even when the moment looked the blackest, the privations were worst, and the longing for home the deepest.
Bok had been talking to a boy who lived near his own home, who was on his way to the front and "over the top" in the Argonne mess.Three days afterward, at a hospital base where a hospital train was just discharging its load of wounded, Bok walked among the boys as they lay on their stretchers on the railroad platform waiting for bearers to carry them into the huts.As he approached one stretcher, a cheery voice called, "Hello, Mr.Bok.Here I am again."It was the boy he had left just seventy-two hours before hearty and well.
"Well, my boy, you weren't in it long, were you?""No, sir," answered the boy; "Fritzie sure got me first thing.Hadn't gone a hundred yards over the top.Got a cigarette?" (the invariable question).
Bok handed a cigarette to the boy, who then said: "Mind sticking it in my mouth?" Bok did so and then offered him a light; the boy continued, all with his wonderful smile: "If you don't mind, would you just light it? You see, Fritzie kept both of my hooks as souvenirs."With both arms amputated, the boy could still jest and smile!
It was the same boy who on his hospital cot the next day said: "Don't you think you could do something for the chap next to me, there on my left? He's really suffering: cried like hell all last night.It would be a Godsend if you could get Doc to do something."A promise was given that the surgeon should be seen at once, but the boy was asked: "How about you?""Oh," came the cheerful answer, "I'm all right.I haven't anything to hurt.My wounded members are gone--just plain gone.But that chap has got something--he got the real thing!"What was the real thing according to such a boy's idea?
There were beautiful stories that one heard "over there." One of the most beautiful acts of consideration was told, later, of a lovable boy whose throat had been practically shot away.During his convalescence he had learned the art of making beaded bags.It kept him from talking, the main prescription.But one day he sold the bag which he had first made to a visitor, and with his face radiant with glee he sought the nurse-mother to tell her all about his good fortune.Of course, nothing but a series of the most horrible guttural sounds came from the boy: not a word could be understood.It was his first venture into the world with the loss of his member, and the nurse-mother could not find it in her heart to tell the boy that not a word which he spoke was understandable.
With eyes full of tears she placed both of her hands on the boy's shoulders and said to him: "I am so sorry, my boy.I cannot understand a word you say to me.You evidently do not know that I am totally deaf.
Won't you write what you want to tell me?"A look of deepest compassion swept the face of the boy.To think that one could be so afflicted, and yet so beautifully tender and always so radiantly cheerful, he wrote her.
Pathos and humor followed rapidly one upon the other "at the front" in those gruesome days, and Bok was to have his spirits lightened somewhat by an incident of the next day.He found himself in one of the numerous little towns where our doughboys were billeted, some in the homes of the peasants, others in stables, barns, outhouses, lean-tos, and what not.
These were the troops on their way to the front where the fighting in the Argonne Forest was at that time going on.As Bok was walking with an American officer, the latter pointed to a doughboy crossing the road, followed by as disreputable a specimen of a pig as he had ever seen.
Catching Bok's smile, the officer said: "That's Pinney and his porker.
Where you see the one you see the other."Bok caught up with the boy, and said: "Found a friend, I see, Buddy?""I sure have," grinned the doughboy, "and it sticks closer than a poor relation, too.""Where did you pick it up?"
"Oh, in there," said the soldier, pointing to a dilapidated barn.
"Why in there?"
"My home," grinned the boy.
"Let me see," said Bok, and the doughboy took him in with the pig following close behind."Billeted here--been here six days.The pig was here when we came, and the first night I lay down and slept, it came up to me and stuck its snout in my face and woke me up.Kind enough, all right, but not very comfortable: it stinks so.""Yes; it certainly does.What did you do?""Oh, I got some grub I had and gave it to eat: thought it might be hungry, you know.I guess that sort of settled it, for the next night it came again and stuck its snout right in my mug.I turned around, but it just climbed over me and there it was.""Well, what did you do then? Chase it out?""Chase it out?" said the doughboy, looking into Bok's face with the most unaffected astonishment."Why, mister, that's a mother-pig, that is.
