Ballads of a Bohemian

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August 30th.

The men have gone. Only remain graybeards, women and children.
Calvert and I have been helping our neighbors to get in the harvest.
No doubt we aid; but there with the old men and children
a sense of uneasiness and even shame comes over me. I would like to return
to Paris, but the railway is mobilized. Each day I grow more discontented.
Up there in the red North great things are doing and I am out of it.
I am thoroughly unhappy.

Then Calvert comes to me with a plan. He has a Ford car. We will all three
go to Paris. He intends to offer himself and his car to the Red Cross.
His wife will nurse. So we are very happy at the solution,
and to-morrow we are off.

Paris.

Back again. Closed shutters, deserted streets. How glum everything is!
Those who are not mobilized seem uncertain how to turn.
Every one buys the papers and reads grimly of disaster. No news is bad news.

I go to my garret as to a beloved friend. Everything is just as I left it,
so that it seems I have never been away. I sigh with relief and joy.
I will take up my work again. Serene above the storm I will watch and wait.
Although I have been brought up in England I am American born.
My country is not concerned.

So, going to the Do^me Cafe, I seek some of my comrades.
Strange! They have gone. MacBean, I am told, is in England.
By dyeing his hair and lying about his age he has managed to enlist
in the Seaforth Highlanders. Saxon Dane too. He has joined
the Foreign Legion, and even now may be fighting.

Well, let them go. I will keep out of the mess. But why did they go?
I wish I knew. War is murder. Criminal folly. Against Humanity.
Imperialism is at the root of it. We are fools and dupes.
Yes, I will think and write of other things. . . .

~MacBean has enlisted~.

I hate violence. I would not willingly cause pain to anything breathing.
I would rather be killed than kill. I will stand above the Battle
and watch it from afar.

~Dane is in the Foreign Legion~.

How disturbing it all is! One cannot settle down to anything.
Every day I meet men who tell the most wonderful stories
in the most casual way. I envy them. I too want to have experiences,
to live where life's beat is most intense. But that's a poor reason
for going to war.

And yet, though I shrink from the idea of fighting, I might in some way help
those who are. MacBean and Dane, for example. Sitting lonely in the Do^me,
I seem to see their ghosts in the corner. MacBean listening with his keen,
sarcastic smile, Saxon Dane banging his great hairy fist on the table
till the glasses jump. Where are they now? Living a life
that I will never know. When they come back, if they ever do,
shall I not feel shamed in their presence? Oh, this filthy war!
Things were going on so beautifully. We were all so happy,
so full of ambition, of hope; laughing and talking over pipe and bowl,
and in our garrets seeking to realize our dreams. Ah, these days
will never come again!

Then, as I sit there, Calvert seeks me out. He has joined an ambulance corps
that is going to the Front. Will I come in?

"Yes," I say; "I'll do anything."

So it is all settled. To-morrow I give up my freedom.

BOOK FOUR

WINTER

I

The Somme Front,
January 1915.

There is an avenue of noble beeches leading to the Chateau,
and in the shadow of each glimmers the pale oblong of an ambulance.
We have to keep them thus concealed, for only yesterday morning
a Taube flew over. The beggars are rather partial to Red Cross cars.
One of our chaps, taking in a load of wounded, was chased and pelted
the other day.

The Chateau seems all spires and towers, the glorified dream
of a Parisian pastrycook. On its terrace figures in khaki are lounging.
They are the volunteers, the owner-drivers of the Corps,
many of them men of wealth and title. Curious to see
one who owns all the coal in two counties proudly signing for his ~sou~ a day;
or another, who lives in a Fifth Avenue palace, contentedly sleeping
on the straw-strewn floor of a hovel.

Here is a rhyme I have made of such an one:

Priscilla

Jerry MacMullen, the millionaire,
Driving a red-meat bus out there --
How did he win his ~Croix de Guerre~?
Bless you, that's all old stuff:
Beast of a night on the Verdun road,
Jerry stuck with a woeful load,
Stalled in the mud where the red lights glowed,
Prospect devilish tough.

"Little Priscilla" he called his car,
Best of our battered bunch by far,
Branded with many a bullet scar,
Yet running so sweet and true.
Jerry he loved her, knew her tricks;
Swore: "She's the beat of the best big six,
And if ever I get in a deuce of a fix
Priscilla will pull me through."

"Looks pretty rotten right now," says he;
"Hanged if the devil himself could see.
Priscilla, it's up to you and me
To show 'em what we can do."
Seemed that Priscilla just took the word;
Up with a leap like a horse that's spurred,
On with the joy of a homing bird,
Swift as the wind she flew.

Shell-holes shoot at them out of the night;
A lurch to the left, a wrench to the right,
Hands grim-gripping and teeth clenched tight,
Eyes that glare through the dark.
"Priscilla, you're doing me proud this day;
Hospital's only a league away,
And, honey, I'm longing to hit the hay,
So hurry, old girl. . . . But hark!"

Howl of a shell, harsh, sudden, dread;
Another . . . another. . . . "Strike me dead
If the Huns ain't strafing the road ahead
So the convoy can't get through!
A barrage of shrap, and us alone;
Four rush-cases -- you hear 'em moan?
Fierce old messes of blood and bone. . . .
Priscilla, what shall we do?"

Again it seems that Priscilla hears.
With a rush and a roar her way she clears,
Straight at the hell of flame she steers,
Full at its heart of wrath.
Fury of death and dust and din!
Havoc and horror! She's in, she's in;
She's almost over, she'll win, she'll win!
~Woof! Crump!~ right in the path.

Little Priscilla skids and stops,
Jerry MacMullen sways and flops;
Bang in his map the crash he cops;
Shriek from the car: "Mon Dieu!"
One of the ~blesse/s~ hears him say,
Just at the moment he faints away:
"Reckon this isn't my lucky day,
Priscilla, it's up to you."

Sergeant raps on the doctor's door;
"Car in the court with ~couche/s~ four;
Driver dead on the dashboard floor;
Strange how the bunch got here."
"No," says the Doc, "this chap's alive;
But tell me, how could a man contrive
With both arms broken, a car to drive?
Thunder of God! it's queer."

Same little ~blesse/~ makes a spiel;
Says he: "When I saw our driver reel,
A Strange Shape leapt to the driving wheel
And sped us safe through the night."
But Jerry, he says in his drawling tone:
"Rats! Why, Priscilla came in on her own.
Bless her, she did it alone, alone. . . ."
~Hanged if I know who's right.~

As I am sitting down to my midday meal an orderly gives me a telegram:

~Hill 71. Two couche/s. Send car at once.~

The uptilted country-side is a checker-board of green and gray, and,
except where groves of trees rise like islands, cultivated to the last acre.
But as we near the firing-line all efforts to till the land cease,
and the ungathered beets of last year have grown to seed.
Amid rank unkempt fields I race over a road that is pitted with obus-holes;
I pass a line of guns painted like snakes, and drawn by horses
dyed khaki-color; then soldiers coming from the trenches,
mud-caked and ineffably weary; then a race over a bit of road that is exposed;
then, buried in the hill-side, the dressing station.

The two wounded are put into my car. From hip to heel
one is swathed in bandages; the other has a great white turban on his head,
with a red patch on it that spreads and spreads. They stare dully, but make
no sound. As I crank the car there is a shrill screaming noise. . . .
About thirty yards away I hear an explosion like a mine-blast,
followed by a sudden belch of coal-black smoke. I stare at it in a dazed way.
Then the doctor says: "Don't trouble to analyze your sensations.
Better get off. You're only drawing their fire."

Here is one of my experiences:

A Casualty

That boy I took in the car last night,
With the body that awfully sagged away,
And the lips blood-crisped, and the eyes flame-bright,
And the poor hands folded and cold as clay --
Oh, I've thought and I've thought of him all the day.

For the weary old doctor says to me:
"He'll only last for an hour or so.
Both of his legs below the knee
Blown off by a bomb. . . . So, lad, go slow,
And please remember, he doesn't know."

So I tried to drive with never a jar;
And there was I cursing the road like mad,
When I hears a ghost of a voice from the car:
"Tell me, old chap, have I `copped it' bad?"
So I answers "No," and he says, "I'm glad."

"Glad," says he, "for at twenty-two
Life's so splendid, I hate to go.
There's so much good that a chap might do,
And I've fought from the start and I've suffered so.
'Twould be hard to get knocked out now, you know."

"Forget it," says I; then I drove awhile,
And I passed him a cheery word or two;
But he didn't answer for many a mile,
So just as the hospital hove in view,
Says I: "Is there nothing that I can do?"

Then he opens his eyes and he smiles at me;
And he takes my hand in his trembling hold;
"Thank you -- you're far too kind," says he:
"I'm awfully comfy -- stay . . . let's see:
I fancy my blanket's come unrolled --
My ~feet~, please wrap 'em -- they're cold . . . they're cold."

There is a city that glitters on the plain. Afar off we can see
its tall cathedral spire, and there we often take our wounded
from the little village hospitals to the rail-head. Tragic little buildings,
these emergency hospitals -- town-halls, churches, schools;
their cots are never empty, their surgeons never still.

So every day we get our list of cases and off we go, a long line of cars
swishing through the mud. Then one by one we branch off
to our village hospital, puzzling out the road on our maps.
Arrived there, we load up quickly.

The wounded make no moan. They lie, limp, heavily bandaged,
with bare legs and arms protruding from their blankets.
They do not know where they are going; they do not care.
Like live stock, they are labeled and numbered. An orderly brings along
their battle-scarred equipment, throwing open their rifles
to see that no charge remains. Sometimes they shake our hands
and thank us for the drive.

In the streets of the city I see French soldiers wearing the ~fourragere~.
It is a cord of green, yellow or red, and corresponds to
the ~Croix de Guerre~, the ~Me/daille militaire~ and the Legion of Honor.
The red is the highest of all, and has been granted only to
one or two regiments. This incident was told to me by a man who saw it:

The Blood-Red ~Fourragere~

What was the blackest sight to me
Of all that campaign?
~A naked woman tied to a tree
With jagged holes where her breasts should be,
Rotting there in the rain.~

On we pressed to the battle fray,
Dogged and dour and spent.
Sudden I heard my Captain say:
"~Voila\!~ Kultur has passed this way,
And left us a monument."

So I looked and I saw our Colonel there,
And his grand head, snowed with the years,
Unto the beat of the rain was bare;
And, oh, there was grief in his frozen stare,
And his cheeks were stung with tears!

Then at last he turned from the woeful tree,
And his face like stone was set;
"Go, march the Regiment past," said he,
"That every father and son may see,
And none may ever forget."

Oh, the crimson strands of her hair downpoured
Over her breasts of woe;
And our grim old Colonel leaned on his sword,
And the men filed past with their rifles lowered,
Solemn and sad and slow.

But I'll never forget till the day I die,
As I stood in the driving rain,
And the jaded columns of men slouched by,
How amazement leapt into every eye,
Then fury and grief and pain.

And some would like madmen stand aghast,
With their hands upclenched to the sky;
And some would cross themselves as they passed,
And some would curse in a scalding blast,
And some like children cry.

Yea, some would be sobbing, and some would pray,
And some hurl hateful names;
But the best had never a word to say;
They turned their twitching faces away,
And their eyes were like hot flames.

They passed; then down on his bended knee
The Colonel dropped to the Dead:
"Poor martyred daughter of France!" said he,
"O dearly, dearly avenged you'll be
Or ever a day be sped!"

Now they hold that we are the best of the best,
And each of our men may wear,
Like a gash of crimson across his chest,
As one fierce-proved in the battle-test,
The blood-red ~Fourragere~.

For each as he leaps to the top can see,
Like an etching of blood on his brain,
A wife or a mother lashed to a tree,
With two black holes where her breasts should be,
Left to rot in the rain.

So we fight like fiends, and of us they say
That we neither yield nor spare.
Oh, we have the bitterest debt to pay. . . .
Have we paid it? -- Look -- how we wear to-day
Like a trophy, gallant and proud and gay,
Our blood-red ~Fourragere~.

It is often weary waiting at the little ~poste de secours~. Some of us
play solitaire, some read a "sixpenny", some doze or try to talk in bad French
to the ~poilus~. Around us is discomfort, dirt and drama.

For my part, I pass the time only too quickly, trying to put into verse
the incidents and ideas that come my way. In this way I hope to collect
quite a lot of stuff which may some day see itself in print.

Here is one of my efforts:

Jim

Never knew Jim, did you? Our boy Jim?
Bless you, there was the likely lad;
Supple and straight and long of limb,
Clean as a whistle, and just as glad.
Always laughing, wasn't he, dad?
Joy, pure joy to the heart of him,
And, oh, but the soothering ways he had,
Jim, our Jim!

But I see him best as a tiny tot,
A bonny babe, though it's me that speaks;
Laughing there in his little cot,
With his sunny hair and his apple cheeks.
And my! but the blue, blue eyes he'd got,
And just where his wee mouth dimpled dim
Such a fairy mark like a beauty spot --
That was Jim.

Oh, the war, the war! How my eyes were wet!
But he says: "Don't be sorrowing, mother dear;
You never knew me to fail you yet,
And I'll be back in a year, a year."
'Twas at Mons he fell, in the first attack;
For so they said, and their eyes were dim;
But I laughed in their faces: "He'll come back,
Will my Jim."

Now, we'd been wedded for twenty year,
And Jim was the only one we'd had;
So when I whispered in father's ear,
He wouldn't believe me -- would you, dad?
There! I must hurry . . . hear him cry?
My new little baby. . . . See! that's him.
What are we going to call him? Why,
Jim, just Jim.

Jim! For look at him laughing there
In the same old way in his tiny cot,
With his rosy cheeks and his sunny hair,
And look, just look . . . his beauty spot
In the selfsame place. . . . Oh, I can't explain,
And of course you think it's a mother's whim,
But I know, I know it's my boy again,
Same wee Jim.

Just come back as he said he would;
Come with his love and his heart of glee.
Oh, I cried and I cried, but the Lord was good;
From the shadow of Death he set Jim free.
So I'll have him all over again, you see.
Can you wonder my mother-heart's a-brim?
Oh, how happy we're going to be!
Aren't we, Jim?

II

In Picardy,
January 1915.

The road lies amid a malevolent heath. It seems to lead us
right into the clutch of the enemy; for the star-shells,
that at first were bursting overhead, gradually encircle us.
The fields are strangely sinister; the splintered trees
are like giant toothpicks. There is a lisping and a twanging overhead.

As we wait at the door of the dugout that serves as a first-aid
dressing station, I gaze up into that mysterious dark,
so alive with musical vibrations. Then a small shadow detaches itself
from the greater shadow, and a gray-bearded sentry says to me:
"You'd better come in out of the bullets."

So I keep under cover, and presently they bring my load. Two men
drip with sweat as they carry their comrade. I can see that they all three
belong to the Foreign Legion. I think for a moment of Saxon Dane.
How strange if some day I should carry him! Half fearfully
I look at my passenger, but he is a black man. Such things only happen
in fiction.

This is what I have written of the finest troops in the Army of France:

Kelly of the Legion

Now Kelly was no fighter;
He loved his pipe and glass;
An easygoing blighter,
Who lived in Montparnasse.
But 'mid the tavern tattle
He heard some guinney say:
"When France goes forth to battle,
The Legion leads the way.

~"The scourings of creation,
Of every sin and station,
The men who've known damnation,
Are picked to lead the way."~

Well, Kelly joined the Legion;
They marched him day and night;
They rushed him to the region
Where largest loomed the fight.
"Behold your mighty mission,
Your destiny," said they;
"By glorious tradition
The Legion leads the way.

~"With tattered banners flying
With trail of dead and dying,
On! On! All hell defying,
The Legion sweeps the way."~

With grim, hard-bitten faces,
With jests of savage mirth,
They swept into their places,
The men of iron worth;
Their blooded steel was flashing;
They swung to face the fray;
Then rushing, roaring, crashing,
The Legion cleared the way.

~The trail they blazed was gory;
Few lived to tell the story;
Through death they plunged to glory;
But, oh, they cleared the way!~

Now Kelly lay a-dying,
And dimly saw advance,
With split new banners flying,
The ~fantassins~ of France.
Then up amid the ~melee~
He rose from where he lay;
"Come on, me boys," says Kelly,
"The Layjun lades the way!"

~Aye, while they faltered, doubting
(Such flames of doom were spouting),
He caught them, thrilled them, shouting:
"The Layjun lades the way!"~

They saw him slip and stumble,
Then stagger on once more;
They marked him trip and tumble,
A mass of grime and gore;
They watched him blindly crawling
Amid hell's own affray,
And calling, calling, calling:
"The Layjun lades the way!"

~And even while they wondered,
The battle-wrack was sundered;
To Victory they thundered,
But . . . Kelly led the way.~

Still Kelly kept agoing;
Berserker-like he ran;
His eyes with fury glowing,
A lion of a man;
His rifle madly swinging,
His soul athirst to slay,
His slogan ringing, ringing,
"The Layjun lades the way!"

~Till in a pit death-baited,
Where Huns with Maxims waited,
He plunged . . . and there, blood-sated,
To death he stabbed his way.~

Now Kelly was a fellow
Who simply loathed a fight:
He loved a tavern mellow,
Grog hot and pipe alight;
I'm sure the Show appalled him,
And yet without dismay,
When Death and Duty called him,
He up and led the way.

~So in Valhalla drinking
(If heroes meek and shrinking
Are suffered there), I'm thinking
'Tis Kelly leads the way.~

We have just had one of our men killed, a young sculptor of immense promise.

When one thinks of all the fine work he might have accomplished,
it seems a shame. But, after all, to-morrow it may be the turn of any of us.
If it should be mine, my chief regret will be for work undone.

Ah! I often think of how I will go back to the Quarter
and take up the old life again. How sweet it will all seem.
But first I must earn the right. And if ever I do go back,
how I will find Bohemia changed! Missing how many a face!

It was in thinking of our lost comrade I wrote the following:

The Three Tommies

That Barret, the painter of pictures, what feeling for color he had!
And Fanning, the maker of music, such melodies mirthful and mad!
And Harley, the writer of stories, so whimsical, tender and glad!

To hark to their talk in the trenches, high heart unfolding to heart,
Of the day when the war would be over, and each would be true to his part,
Upbuilding a Palace of Beauty to the wonder and glory of Art . . .

Yon's Barret, the painter of pictures, yon carcass that rots on the wire;
His hand with its sensitive cunning is crisped to a cinder with fire;
His eyes with their magical vision are bubbles of glutinous mire.

Poor Fanning! He sought to discover the symphonic note of a shell;
There are bits of him broken and bloody, to show you the place where he fell;
I've reason to fear on his exquisite ear the rats have been banqueting well.

And speaking of Harley, the writer, I fancy I looked on him last,
Sprawling and staring and writhing in the roar of the battle blast;
Then a mad gun-team crashed over, and scattered his brains as it passed.

Oh, Harley and Fanning and Barret, they were bloody good mates o' mine;
Their bodies are empty bottles; Death has guzzled the wine;
What's left of them's filth and corruption. . . . Where is the Fire Divine?

I'll tell you. . . . At night in the trenches, as I watch and I do my part,
Three radiant spirits I'm seeing, high heart revealing to heart,
And they're building a peerless palace to the splendor and triumph of Art.

Yet, alas! for the fame of Barret, the glory he might have trailed!
And alas! for the name of Fanning, a star that beaconed and paled,
Poor Harley, obscure and forgotten. . . .
Well, who shall say that they failed!

No, each did a Something Grander than ever he dreamed to do;
And as for the work unfinished, all will be paid their due;
The broken ends will be fitted, the balance struck will be true.

So painters, and players, and penmen, I tell you: Do as you please;
Let your fame outleap on the trumpets, you'll never rise up to these --
To three grim and gory Tommies, down, down on your bended knees!

Daventry, the sculptor, is buried in a little graveyard near one of our posts.
Just now our section of the line is quiet, so I often go and sit there.
Stretching myself on a flat stone, I dream for hours.

Silence and solitude! How good the peace of it all seems!
Around me the grasses weave a pattern, and half hide
the hundreds of little wooden crosses. Here is one with a single name:

AUBREY.

Who was Aubrey I wonder? Then another:

~To Our Beloved Comrade.~

Then one which has attached to it, in the cheapest of little frames,
the crude water-color daub of a child, three purple flowers
standing in a yellow vase. Below it, painfully printed, I read:

~To My Darling Papa -- Thy Little Odette.~

And beyond the crosses many fresh graves have been dug.
With hungry open mouths they wait. Even now I can hear the guns
that are going to feed them. Soon there will be more crosses,
and more and more. Then they will cease, and wives and mothers
will come here to weep.

Ah! Peace so precious must be bought with blood and tears.
Let us honor and bless the men who pay, and envy them
the manner of their dying; for not all the jeweled orders
on the breasts of the living can vie in glory with the little wooden cross
the humblest of these has won. . . .

The Twa Jocks

Says Bauldy MacGreegor frae Gleska tae Hecky MacCrimmon frae Skye:
"That's whit I hate maist aboot fechtin' -- it makes ye sae deevilish dry;
Noo jist hae a keek at yon ferm-hoose them Gairmans are poundin' sae fine,
Weel, think o' it, doon in the dunnie there's bottles and bottles o' wine.
A' hell's fairly belchin' oot yonner, but oh, lad, I'm ettlin' tae try. . . ."
~"If it's poose she'll be with ye whateffer,"
says Hecky MacCrimmon frae Skye.~

Says Bauldy MacGreegor frae Gleska: "Whit price fur a funeral wreath?
We're dodgin' a' kinds o' destruction, an' jist by the skin o' oor teeth.
Here, spread yersel oot on yer belly, and slither along in the glaur;
Confoond ye, ye big Hielan' deevil! Ye don't realize there's a war.
Ye think that ye're back in Dunvegan, and herdin' the wee bits o' kye."
~"She'll neffer trink wine in Dunfegan," says Hecky MacCrimmon frae Skye.~

Says Bauldy MacGreegor frae Gleska: "Thank goodness! the ferm-hoose at last;
There's no muckle left but the cellar, an' even that's vanishin' fast.
Look oot, there's the corpse o' a wumman, sair mangelt and deid by her lane.
Quick! Strike a match. . . . Whit did I tell ye!
A hale bonny box o' shampane;
Jist knock the heid aff o' a bottle. . . .
Haud on, mon, I'm hearing a cry. . . ."
~"She'll think it's a wean that wass greetin',"
says Hecky MacCrimmon frae Skye.~

Says Bauldy MacGreegor frae Gleska:
"Ma conscience! I'm hanged but yer richt.
It's yin o' thae waifs of the war-field, a' sobbin' and shakin' wi' fricht.
Wheesht noo, dear, we're no gaun tae hurt ye.
We're takin' ye hame, my wee doo!
We've got tae get back wi' her, Hecky. Whit mercy we didna get fou!
We'll no touch a drap o' that likker --
that's hard, man, ye canna deny. . . ."
~"It's the last thing she'll think o' denyin',"
says Hecky MacCrimmon frae Skye.~

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