on the
knapsack or tied inside a faded red handkerchief; and a dingy, scarred
tin Billy-can. At his shapeless, rolling waist his belt hung heavy with
a bayonet in its casing. On the shoulder rested a dirt-caked spade, with
a clanking of metal where the bayonet and the Billy-can struck the
handle of the spade. Under a peaked cap showed the bearded face and the
white of strained eyes gleaming through dust and sweat. The man was too
tired to smile and talk. The weight of the pack, the weight of the
clothes, the dust, the smiting sun--all weighted down the man, leaving
every line in his body sagging and drooping with weariness.

These are the men that spade the trenches, drive the food-transports and
ammunition-wagons, and carry through the detail duties of small honor
that the army may prosper. When has it happened before that the older
generation holds up the hands of the young? At the western front they
stand fast that the youth may go forward. They fill in the shell-holes
to make a straight path for less-tired feet. They drive up food to give
good heart to boys.

War is easy for the young. The boy soldier is willing to make any day
his last if it is a good day. It is not so with the middle-aged man. He
is puzzled by the war. What he has to struggle with more than bodily
weakness is the malady of thought. Is the bloody business worth while?
Is there any far-off divine event which his death will hasten? The wines
of France are good wines, and his home in fertile Normandy was pleasant.

As we stood in the street in the sun one hot afternoon, four men came
carrying a wounded man. The stretcher was growing red under its burden.
The man's face was greenish white, with a stubble of beard. The flesh of
his body was as white as snow from loss of blood. It was torn at the
chest and sides. They carried him to the dressing-station, and half an
hour later lifted him into our car. We carried him in for two miles.
Four flies fed on the red rim of his closed left eye. He lay silent,
motionless. Only a slight flutter of the coverlet, made by his
breathing, gave a sign of life. At the Red Cross post we stopped. The
coverlet still slightly rose and fell. The doctor, brown-bearded, in
white linen, stepped into the car, tapped the man's wrist, tested his
pulse, put a hand over his heart. Then the doctor muttered, drew the
coverlet over the greenish-white face, and ordered the marines to remove
him. In the moment of arrival the wounded man