At the end of August, orders came for the battalion to return to the front. There were two days of bustling preparation, and then the troops entrained and were carried back to where the noise of the seventy-fives on the one side and the seventy-sevens on the other, came rumbling and thundering again to their ears, and the pall of smoke along the horizon marked the location of the firing line.

But their destination this time was farther to the south, on the British right wing, where French and English soldiers touched elbows with each other, and Canadian and Australian fraternized in a common enterprise. Here again the old trench life was resumed; sentinel duty, daring adventures, wild charges, the shock and din of constant battle, brief periods of rest and recuperation. But the process of attrition was going on, the enemy was being pushed back, inch by inch it seemed, but always, eventually, back. As for Pen, he led a charmed life. Men fell to right of him and to left of him, and were torn into shreds at his back; but, save for superficial wounds, for temporary strangulation from gas, for momentary insensibility from shock, he was unharmed.

It was in October, after Lieutenant Davis had been promoted to the captaincy, that Pen was made second lieutenant of his company. He well deserved the honor. There was a little celebration of the event among his men, for his comrades all loved him and honored him. They said it would not be long before he would be wearing the Victoria Cross on his breast. Yet few of them had been with him from the beginning. Of those who had landed with him upon French soil the preceding May only a pitifully small percentage remained. Killed, wounded, missing, one by one and in groups, they had dropped out, and the depleted ranks had been filled with new blood.

In November they were sent up into the Arras sector, but in December they were back again in their old quarters on the Somme. And yet it was not their old quarters, for the British front had been advanced over a wide area, for many miles in length, and imperturbable Tommies were now smoking their pipes in many a reversed trench that had theretofore been occupied by gray-clad Boches. But they were not pleasant trenches to occupy. They were very narrow and very muddy, and parts of the bodies of dead men protruded here and there from their walls and parapets. Moreover, in December it is very cold in northern France, and, muffle as they would, even the boys from Canada suffered from the severity of the weather. They asked only to be permitted to keep their blood warm by aggressive action against their enemy. And, just before the Christmas holidays, the aggressive action they had longed for came.

It was no great battle, no important historic event, just an incident in the policy of attrition which was constantly wearing away the German lines. An attempt was to be made to drive a wedge into the enemy's front at a certain vital point, and, in order to cover the real thrust, several feints were to be made at other places not far away. One of these latter expeditions had been intrusted to a part of Pen's battalion. At six o'clock in the afternoon the British artillery was to bombard the first line of enemy trenches for an hour and a half. Then the artillery fire was to lift to the second line, and the Canadian troops were to rush the first line with the bayonet, carry it, and when the artillery fire lifted to the third line they were to pass on to the second hostile trench and take and hold that for a sufficient length of time to divert the enemy from the point of real attack, and then they were to withdraw to their own lines. Permanent occupation of the captured trenches at the point seemed inadvisable at this time, if not wholly impossible.

It was not a welcome task that had been assigned to these troops. Soldiers like to hold the ground they have won in any fight; and to retire after partial victory was not to their liking. But it was part of the game and they were content. So far as his section was concerned Pen assembled his men, explained the situation to them, and told them frankly what they were expected to do.

"It's going to be a very pretty fight," he added, "probably the hardest tussle we've had yet. The Boches are well dug in over there, and they're well backed with artillery, and they're not going to give up those trenches without a protest. Some of us will not come back; and some of us who do come back will never fight again. You know that. But, whatever happens, Canada and the States will have no reason to blush for us. We're fighting in a splendid cause, and we'll do our part like the soldiers we are."

"Aye! that we will!" "Right you are!" "Give us the chance!" "Wherever you lead, we follow!"

It seemed as though every man in the section gave voice to his willingness and enthusiasm.

"Good!" exclaimed Pen. "I knew you'd feel that way about it. I've never asked a man of you to go where I wouldn't go myself, and I never shall. I simply wanted to warn you that it's going to be a hot place over there to-night, and you must be prepared for it."

"We're ready! All you've got to do is to say the word."

No undue familiarity was intended; respect for their commander was in no degree lessened, but they loved him and would have followed him anywhere, and they wanted him to know it.

The unusual activity in the Allied trenches, observed by enemy aircraft, combined with the terrific cannonading of their lines, had evidently convinced the enemy that some aggressive movement against them was in contemplation, for their artillery fire now, at seven o'clock, was directed squarely upon the outer lines of British trenches, bringing havoc and horror in the wake of the exploding shells.

It was under this galling bombardment that the men of the second section adjusted their packs, buckled the last strap of their equipment, took firm bold of their rifles, and crouched against the front wall of their trench, ready for the final spring.



At seven-thirty o'clock the order came. It was a sharp blast of a whistle, made by the commanding officer. The next moment, led by Lieutenant Butler, the men were up, sliding over the parapet, worming their way through gaps in their own wire entanglements, and forming in the semblance of a line outside. It all took but a minute, and then the rush toward the enemy trenches began. It seemed as though every gun of every calibre in the German army was let loose upon them. The artillery shortened its range and dropped exploding shells among them with dreadful effect. Machine guns mowed them down in swaths. Hand-grenades tore gaps in their ranks. Rifle bullets, hissing like hail, took terrible toll of them. Out of the blackness overhead, lit with the flame of explosions, fell a constant rain of metal, of clods of earth, of fragments of equipment, of parts of human bodies. The experience was wild and terrible beyond description.

Pen took no note of the whining and crashing missiles about him, nor of the men falling on both sides of him, nor of the shrieking, gesticulating human beings behind him. Into the face of death, his eyes fixed on the curtain of fire before him, heroic and inspired, he led the remnant of his brave platoon. Through the gaps torn out of the enemy entanglements by the preliminary bombardment, and on into the first line of Boche entrenchments they pounded and pushed their way. Then came fighting indeed; hand to hand, with fixed bayonets and clubbed muskets and death grapples in the darkness, and everywhere, smearing and soaking the combatants, the blood of men. But the first trench, already battered into a shapeless and shallow ravine, was won. Canada was triumphant. The curtain of artillery fire lifted and fell on the enemy's third line. So, now, forward again, leaving the "trench cleaners" to hunt out those of the enemy who had taken refuge in holes and caves. Again the rain of hurtling and hissing and crashing steel. Human fortitude and endurance were indeed no match for this. Again the clubs and bayonets and wild men reaching with blood-smeared hands for each other's throats in the darkness.

And then, to Penfield Butler, at last, came the soldier's destiny. It seemed as though some mighty force had struck him in the breast, whirled him round and round, toppled him to earth, and left him lying there, crushed, bleeding and unconscious. How long it was that he lay oblivious of the conflict he did not know. But when he awakened to sensibility the rush of battle had ceased. There was no fighting around him. He had a sense of great suffocation. He knew that he was spitting blood. He tried to raise his hand, and his revolver fell from the nerveless fingers that were still grasping it. A little later he raised his other hand to his breast and felt that his clothing was torn and soaked. He lifted his head, and in the light of an enemy flare he looked about him. He saw only the torn soil covered with crouched and sprawling bodies of the wounded and the dead, and with wreckage indescribable. Bullets were humming and whistling overhead, and spattering the ground around him. Men in the agony of their wounds were moaning and crying near by. He lay back and tried to think. By the light of the next flare he saw the rough edge of a great shell-hole a little way beyond him toward the British lines. In the darkness he tried to crawl toward it. It would be safer there than in this whistling cross-fire of bullets. He did not dare try to rise. He could not turn himself on his stomach, the pain and sense of suffocation were too great when he attempted it. So he pulled himself along in the darkness on his back to the cavity, and sought shelter within it. Bodies of others who had attempted to run or creep to it, and had been caught by Boche bullets on the way, were hanging over its edge. Under its protecting shoulder were many wounded, treating their own injuries, helping others as they could in the darkness and by the fitful light of the German flares. Some one, whose friendly voice was half familiar, yet sounded strange and far away, dragged the exhausted boy still farther into shelter, felt of his blood-soaked chest, and endeavored, awkwardly and crudely, for he himself was wounded, to give first aid. And then again came unconsciousness.

So, in the black night, in the shell-made cavern with the pall of flame-streaked battle smoke hanging over it, and the whining, screaming missiles from guns of friend and foe weaving a curtain of tangled threads above it, this young soldier of the American Legion, his breast shot half in two, his rich blood reddening the soil of France, lay steeped in merciful oblivion.



CHAPTER XIII

When Colonel Butler declared his intention of going to New York and Washington to consult with his friends about the great war, to urge active participation in it by the United States, and to offer to the proper authorities, his services as a military expert and commander, his daughter protested vigorously. It was absurd, she declared, for him, at his age, to think of doing anything of the kind; utterly preposterous and absurd. But he would not listen to her. His mind was made up, and she was entirely unable to divert him from his purpose.

"Then I shall go with you," she declared.

"May I ask," he inquired, "what your object is in wishing to accompany me?"

"Because you're not fit to go alone. You're too old and feeble, and something might happen to you."

He turned on her a look of infinite scorn.

"Age," he replied, "is no barrier to patriotism. A man's obligation to serve his country is not measured by his years. I have never been more capable of taking the field against an enemy of civilization than I am at this moment. To suggest that I am not fit to travel unless accompanied by a female member of my family falls little short of being gross disrespect. I shall go alone."

Again she protested, but she was utterly unable to swerve him a hair's breadth from his determination and purpose. So she was obliged to see him start off by himself on his useless and Quixotic errand. She knew that he would return disappointed, saddened, doubly depressed, and ill both in body and mind.

Since Pen's abrupt departure to seek a home with his Grandpa Walker, Colonel Butler had not been so obedient to his daughter's wishes. He had changed in many respects. He had grown old, white-haired, feeble and despondent. He was often ill at ease, and sometimes morose. That he grieved over the boy's absence there was not a shadow of doubt. Yet he would not permit the first suggestion of a reconciliation that did not involve the humble application of his grandson to be forgiven and taken back. But such an application was not made. The winter days went by, spring blossomed into summer, season followed season, and not yet had the master of Bannerhall seen coming down the long, gray road to the old home the figure of a sorrowful and suppliant boy.

When the world war began, his mind was diverted to some extent from his sorrow. From the beginning his sympathies had been with the Allies. Old soldier that he was he could not denounce with sufficient bitterness the spirit of militarism that seemed to have run rampant among the Central Powers. At the invasion of Belgium and at the mistreatment of her people, especially of her women and children, at the bombardment of the cathedral of Rheims, at the sinking of the Lusitania, at the execution of Edith Cavell, at all the outrages of which German militarism was guilty, he grew more and more indignant and denunciatory. His sense of fairness, his spirit of chivalry, his ideas of honorable warfare and soldierly conduct were inexpressibly shocked. The murder of sleeping women and children in country villages by the dropping of bombs from airships, the suffocation of brave soldiers by the use of deadly gases, the hurling of liquid fire into the ranks of a civilized enemy; these things stirred him to the depths. He talked of the war by day, he dreamed of it at night. He chafed bitterly at the apparent attempt of the Government at Washington to preserve the neutrality of this country against the most provoking wrongs. It was our war, he declared, as much as it was the war of any nation in Europe, and it was our duty to get into it for the sake of humanity, at the earliest possible moment and at any cost. His intense feeling and profound conviction in the matter led finally to his determination to make the trip to New York and Washington in order to present his views and make his recommendations, and to offer his services in person, in quarters where he believed they would be welcomed and acted on. So he went on what appeared to his daughter to be the most preposterous errand he had ever undertaken.

He returned even sooner than she had expected him to come. In response to his telegram she sent the carriage to the station to meet him on the arrival of the afternoon train. When she heard the rumbling of the wheels outside she went to the door, knowing that it would require her best effort to cheerfully welcome the disappointed, dejected and enfeebled old man. Then she had the surprise of her life. Colonel Butler alighted from the carriage and mounted the porch steps with the elasticity of youth. He was travel-stained and weary, indeed; but his face, from which half the wrinkles seemed to have disappeared, was beaming with happiness. He kissed his daughter, and, with old-fashioned courtesy, conducted her to a porch chair. In her mind there could be but one explanation for his extraordinary appearance and conduct; the purpose of his journey had been accomplished and his last absurd wish had been gratified.

"I suppose," she said, with a sigh, "they have agreed to adopt your plans, and take you back into the army."

"Into the what, my dear?"

"Into the army. Didn't you go to Washington for the purpose of getting back into service?"

"Why, yes. I believe I did. Pardon me, but, in view of matters of much greater importance, the result of this particular effort had slipped my mind."

"Matters of greater importance?"

"Yes. I was about to inform you that while I was in New York I unexpectedly ran across my grandson, Master Penfield Butler."

She sat up with a look of surprise and apprehension in her eyes.

"Ran across Pen? What was he doing there?"

"He was on his way to Canada to join those forces of the Dominion Government which will eventually sail for France, and help to free that unhappy country from the heel of the barbarian."

"You mean—?"

"I mean that Penfield was to enlist, has doubtless now already enlisted, with the Canadian troops which, after a period of drilling at home, will enter the war on the firing line in northern France."

"Well, for goodness sake!" It was all that Aunt Millicent could say, and when she had said that she practically collapsed.

"Yes," he rejoined, "he felt as did I, that the time had come for American citizens, both old and young, with red blood in their veins, to spill that blood, if necessary, in fighting for the liberty of the world. Patriotism, duty, the spirit of his ancestors, called him, and he has gone."

Colonel Butler was radiant. His eyes were aglow with enthusiasm. His own recommendations for national conduct had gone unheeded indeed, and his own offer of military service had been civilly declined; but these facts were of small moment compared with the proud knowledge that a young scion of his race was about to carry the family traditions and prestige into the battle front of the greatest war for liberty that the world had ever known.

In Pen's second letter home from Canada he told of the arrival and enlistment of Aleck Sands, and of the complete blotting out of the old feud that had existed between them. Later on he wrote them, in many letters, all about his barrack life, and of how contented and happy he was, and how eagerly he was looking forward to the day when he and his comrades should cross the water to those countries where the great war was a reality. The letter that he wrote the day before he sailed was filled with the brightness of enthusiasm and the joy of anticipation. And while the long period of drill on English soil became somewhat irksome to him, as one reading between the lines could readily discover, he made no direct complaint. It was simply a part of the game. But it was when he had reached the front, and his letters breathed the sternness of the conflict and echoed the thunder of the guns, that he was at his best in writing. Mere salutations some of them were, written from the trenches by the light of a dug-out candle, but they pulsated with patriotism and heroism and a determination to live up to the best traditions of a soldier's career.

Colonel Butler devoured every scrap of news that came from the front in the half dozen papers that he read daily. He kept in close touch with the international situation, he fumed constantly at the inactivity of his own government in view of her state of unpreparedness for a war into which she must sooner or later be inevitably plunged. He lost all patience with what he considered the timidity of the President, and what he called the stupidity of congress. Was not the youngest and the reddest and the best of the Butler blood at the fighting line, ready at any moment to be spilled to the death on the altar of the world's liberty? Why then should the government of the United States sit supinely by and see the finest young manhood of her own and other lands fighting and perishing in the cause of humanity when, by voicing the conscience of her people, and declaring and making war on the Central Powers, she could most effectually aid in bringing to a speedy and victorious end this monstrous example of modern barbarism? Why, indeed!

One day Colonel Butler suggested to his daughter that she go up to Lowbridge and again inquire whether Pen's mother had any needs of any kind that he could possibly supply.

"And," he added, "I wish you to invite her to Bannerhall for a visit of indefinite duration. In these trying and critical times my daughter-in-law's place is in the ancestral home of her deceased husband."

Aunt Millicent, delighted with the purport of her mission, went up to Lowbridge and extended the invitation, and, with all the eloquence at her command, urged its acceptance. But Sarah Butler was unyielding and would not come. She had been wounded too deeply in years gone by.

So spring came, and blade, leaf and flower sprang into beautiful and rejoicing existence. No one had ever before seen the orchard trees so superbly laden with blossoms. No one had ever before seen a brighter promise of a more bountiful season. And the country was still at peace, enriching herself with a mintage coined of blood and sorrow abroad, though drifting aimlessly and ever closer to the verge of war.

There was a time early in July when, for two weeks, no letter came from Pen. The suspense was almost unbearable. For days Colonel Butler haunted the post-office. His self-assurance left him, his confident and convincing voice grew weak, a haunting fear of what news might come was with him night and day.

At last he received a letter from abroad. It was from Pen, addressed in his own hand-writing. The colonel himself took it from his box at the post-office in the presence of a crowd of his neighbors and friends awaiting the distribution of their mail. It was scrawled in pencil on paper that had never been intended to be used for correspondence purposes.

Pen had just learned, he wrote, that the messenger who carried a former letter from the trenches for him had been killed en route by an exploding shell, and the contents of his mail pouch scattered and destroyed. Moreover he had been very busy. Fighting had been brisk, there had been a good many casualties in his company, but he himself, save for some superficial wounds received on the Fourth of July, was unhurt and reasonably well.

"I am sorry to report, however," the letter continued, "that my comrade, Aleck Sands, has been severely wounded. We were engaged in a brisk assault on the enemy's lines on the Fourth of July, and captured some of their trenches. During the engagement Aleck received a bayonet wound in the shoulder, and a badly battered knee. I was able to help him off the field and to an ambulance. I believe he is somewhere now in a hospital not far to the rear of us. I mean to see him soon if I can find out where he is and get leave. Tell his folks that he fought like a hero. I never saw a braver man in battle.

"You will be glad to learn that since the engagement on the fourth I have been made a sergeant, 'for conspicuous bravery in action,' the order read.

"I suppose the flag is flying on the school-house staff these days. How I would like to see it. If I could only see the Stars and Stripes over here, and our own troops under it, I should be perfectly happy. The longer I fight here the more I'm convinced that the cause we're fighting for is a just and glorious one, and the more willing I am to die for it.

"Give my dear love to Aunt Milly. I have just written to mother.

"Your affectionate grandson, "Penfield Butler."

Colonel Butler looked up from the reading with moist eyes and glowing face, to find a dozen of his townsmen who knew that the letter had come, waiting to hear news from Pen.

"On Independence Day," said the colonel, in answer to their inquiries, "he participated in a gallant and bloody assault on the enemy's lines, in which many trenches were taken. Save for superficial wounds, easily healed in the young and vigorous, he came out of the melee unscathed."

"Good for him!" exclaimed one.

"Bravo!" shouted another.

"And, gentlemen," the colonel's voice rose and swelled moderately as he proceeded, "I am proud to say that, following that engagement, my grandson, for conspicuous bravery in action, was promoted to the rank of sergeant in the colonial troops of Great Britain."

"Splendid!"

"He's the boy!"

"We're proud of him!"

The colonel's eyes were flashing now; his head was erect, his one hand was thrust into the bosom of his waistcoat.

"I thank you, gentlemen!" he said, "on behalf of my grandson. To pass inherited patriotism from father to son, from generation to generation, and to see it find its perfect fulfillment in the latest scion of the race, is to live in the golden age, gentlemen, and to partake of the fountain of youth."

His voice quavered a little at the end, and he waited for a moment to recover it, and possibly to give his eloquence an opportunity to sink in more deeply, and then he continued:

"I regret to say, gentlemen, that in the fierce engagement of the fourth instant, my grandson's gallant comrade, Master Alexander Sands, was severely wounded both in the shoulder and the knee, and is now somewhere in a hospital in northern France, well back of the lines, recuperating from his injuries. I shall communicate this information at once to his parents, together with such encouragement as is contained in my grandson's letter."

Proud as a king, he turned from the sympathetic group, entered his carriage and was driven toward Chestnut Valley.

It was late in September when Aleck Sands came home. The family at Bannerhall, augmented within the last year by the addition of Colonel Butler's favorite niece, was seated at the supper table one evening when Elmer Cuddeback, now grown into a fine, stalwart youth, hurried in to announce the arrival.

"I happened to be at the station when Aleck came," he said. "He looked like a skeleton and a ghost rolled into one. He couldn't walk at all, and he was just able to talk. But he said he'd been having a fine time and was feeling bully. Isn't that nerve for you?"

"Splendid!" exclaimed the colonel, holding his napkin high in the air in his excitement. "A marvelous young man! I shall do myself the honor to call on him in person to-morrow morning, and compliment him on his bravery, and congratulate him on his escape from mortal injury."

He was as good as his word. He and his daughter both went down to Cherry Valley and called on Aleck Sands. He was lying propped up in bed, attended by a thankful and devoted mother, trying to give rest to a tired and irritated body, and to enjoy once more the sights and sounds of home. He was too weak to do much talking, but almost his first words were an anxious inquiry about Pen. They told him what they knew.

"He came to see me at the hospital in August," said Aleck. "It was like a breeze from heaven. If he doesn't come back here alive and well at the end of this war, with the Victoria Cross on his breast, I shall be ashamed to go out on the street; he is so much the braver soldier and the better man of the two of us."

"He has written to us," said the colonel, and his eyes were moist, and his voice choked a little as he spoke, "that you, yourself, in the matter of courage in battle, upheld the best traditions of American bravery, and I am proud of you, sir, as are all of your townsmen."

The colonel would have remained to listen to further commendation of his grandson, and to discuss with one who had actually been on the fighting line, the conditions under which the war was being waged; but his daughter, seeing that the boy needed rest, brought the visit to a speedy close.

"Give my love to Pen when you write to him," said Aleck, as he bade them good-by; "the bravest soldier—and the dearest comrade—that ever carried a gun."

After the winter holidays a week went by with no letter from Pen. The colonel began to grow anxious, but it was not until the end of the second week that he really became alarmed. And when three weeks had gone by, and neither the mails nor the cable nor the wireless had brought any news of the absent soldier, Colonel Butler was on the verge of despair. He had haunted the post-office as before, he had made inquiry at the state department at Washington, he had telegraphed to Canada for information, but nothing came of it all. Aleck Sands had heard absolutely nothing. Pen's mother, almost beside herself, telephoned every day to Bannerhall for news, and received none. The strain of apprehensive waiting became almost unbearable for them all.

One day, unable longer to withstand the heart-breaking tension, the old patriot sent an agent post-haste to Toronto, with instructions to spare no effort and no expense in finding out what had become of his grandson.

Three days later, from his agent came a telegram reading as follows:

"Lieutenant Butler in hospital near Rouen. Wound severe. Suffering now from pneumonia. Condition serious but still hopeful. Details by letter."

This telegram was received at Bannerhall in the morning. In the early afternoon of the same day Pen's mother received a letter written three weeks earlier by his nurse at the hospital. She was an American girl who had been long in France, and who, from the beginning of the war, had given herself whole-heartedly to the work at the hospitals.

"Do not be unduly alarmed," she wrote, "he is severely wounded; evidently a hand-grenade exploded against his breast; but if we are able to ward off pneumonia he will recover. He has given me your name and address, and wished me to write. I think an early and cheerful letter from you would be a great comfort to him, and I hope he will be able to appreciate some gifts and dainties from home by the time they could reach here. Let me add that he is a model patient, quiet and uncomplaining, and I am told that he was among the bravest of all the brave Americans fighting with the Canadian forces on the Somme."

Between Bannerhall and Sarah Butler's home at Lowbridge the telephone lines were busy that day. It was a relief to all of them to know that Pen was living and being cared for; it was a source of apprehension and grief to them that his condition, as intimated in the telegram, was still so critical.

As for Colonel Butler he was in a fever of excitement and distress. Late in the afternoon he went to his room and, with his one hand, began, hastily and confusedly, to pack a small steamer trunk. His daughter found him so occupied.

"What in the world are you doing?" she asked him.

"I am preparing to go to Rouen," he replied, "to see that my grandson is cared for in his illness in a manner due to one who has placed his life in jeopardy for France."

"Father, stand up! Look at me! Listen to me!" The very essence of determination was in her voice and manner, and he obeyed her. "You are not to stir one step from this town. Sarah Butler and I are going to France to be with Pen; we have talked it over and decided on it; and you are going to stay right here at Bannerhall, where you can be of supreme service to us, instead of burdening us with your company."

He looked at her steadily for a moment, but he saw only rigid resolution and determination in her eyes; he was too unstrung and broken to protest, or to insist on his right as head of the house, and so—he yielded. Later in the day, however, a compromise was effected. It was agreed that he should accompany his daughter and his daughter-in-law to New York, aid them in securing passage, passports and credentials, and see them safely aboard ship for their perilous journey, after which he was to return home and spend the time quietly with his niece Eleanor, and make necessary preparations for the return of the invalid, later on, to Bannerhall.

He carried out his part of the New York program in good faith, and had the satisfaction, three days later, of bidding the two women good-by on the deck of a French liner bound for Havre. He had no apprehension concerning the fitness of his daughter to go abroad unaccompanied save by her sister-in-law. She had been with him on three separate trips to the continent, and, in his judgment, for a woman, she had displayed marked traveling ability. His only fear was of German submarines.

"A most cowardly, dastardly, uncivilized way," he declared, "of waging war upon an enemy's women and children."

He was in good spirits as the vessel sailed. His parting words to his daughter were:

"If you should have occasion to discuss with our friends in France the attitude of this nation toward the war, you may say that it is my opinion that the conscience of the country is now awake, and that before long we shall be shoulder to shoulder with them in the destruction of barbarism."



CHAPTER XIV

For twenty-five years there has stood, in one of the faubourgs of Rouen, not far from the right bank of the Seine, a long two-story brick building, with a wing reaching back to the base of the hill. Up to the year 1915 it was used as a factory for the making of silk ribbons. Rouen had been a center of the cotton manufacturing industry from time immemorial. Why therefore should not the making of silk be added? It was added, and the enterprise grew and became prosperous. Then came the war, vast, terrible, bringing in its train suffering, poverty, a drastic curtailment of all the luxuries of life. Silk ribbons are a luxury; they go with soft living. So, then; voila tout! Before the end of the first year of the conflict the factory was transformed into a hospital. The clatter of looms and the chatter of girls gave place to the moanings of sick and wounded men, and the gentle voices of white and blue clad nurses. It was no longer bales of raw silk that were carted up to the big doors of the factory, and boxes of rolled ribbon that were trundled down the drive to the street, to the warehouses, and thence to the admiring eyes of beauty-loving women. The human freight that was brought to the big doors in these days consisted of the pierced and mutilated bodies of men; soldiers for whom the final taps would soon sound. If they chanced to be of the British troops, and held fast to the spark of life within them, then they were close enough to the seaport to be taken across the channel for final convalescence under English skies.

It was to this hospital that Lieutenant Penfield Butler was brought from the battlefield of the Somme. His battalion had done the work assigned to it in the fight, had done it well, and had withdrawn to its trenches, leaving a third of its men dead or wounded between the lines. Later on, under cover of a galling artillery fire, rescue parties had gone out to bring in the wounded. They had found Pen in the shelter of the shell-hole, still unconscious. They had brought him back across the fire-swept field, and down through the winding, narrow trenches, to the first-aid station, from which, after a hurried examination and superficial treatment of his wounds, he was taken in a guard-car to a field hospital in the rear of the lines. But space in these field hospitals is too precious to permit of wounded men who can be moved without fatal results, remaining in them for long periods. The stream of newcomers is too constant and too pressing. So, after five days, Pen was sent, by way of Amiens, to the hospital in the suburbs of Rouen. He, himself, knew little of where he was or of what was being done for him. A bullet had grazed his right arm, and a clubbed musket or revolver had laid his scalp open to the bone. But these were slight injuries in comparison with the awful wound in his breast. Torn flesh, shattered bones, pierced lungs, these things left life hanging by the slenderest thread. When the medecin-chef of the hospital near Rouen took his first look at the boy after his arrival, he had him put under the influence of an anaesthetic in order that he could the more readily and effectively examine, probe and dress the wound, and remove any irritating splinters of bone that might be the cause of the continuous leakage from the lungs. But when he had finished his delicate and strenuous task he turned to the nurse at his side and gave a hopeless shake of his head and shrug of his shoulders.

"Fichu!" he said; "le laisser tranquille."

"But I am not going to let him die," she replied; "he is too young, too handsome, too brave, and he is an American."

He smiled, shook his head again and passed on to the next case. The girl was an American too, and these American nurses were always so optimistic, so faithfully persistent, she might pull him through, but—the smile of incredulity still lay on the lips of the medecin-chef.

The next day the young soldier was better. The leakage had not yet wholly ceased; but the wound was apparently beginning to heal. He was still dazed, and his pain was still too severe to be endured without opiates. It was five days later that he came fully to his senses, was able to articulate, and to frame intelligent sentences. He indicated to his nurse, Miss Byron, that he wished to have his mother written to.

"No especial message," he whispered, "just that I am here—have been wounded—recovering."

But the nurse had already learned from other men of Pen's company, less seriously wounded than he, who were at the same hospital, something about the boy's desperate bravery, and how his stern fighting qualities were combined with great tenderness of heart and a most loving disposition, and she could not avoid putting an echo of it in her letter to his mother.

Later on Pen developed symptoms of pneumonia, a disease that follows so often on an injury to the structure of the lungs.

When the medecin-chef came and noted the increase in temperature and the decrease in vitality, he looked grave. Every day, with true French courtesy, he had congratulated Miss Byron on her remarkable success in nursing the young American back to life. But now, perhaps, after all, the efforts of both of them would be wasted. Pneumonia is a hard foe to fight when it attacks wounded lungs. So an English physician was called in and joined with the French surgeon and the American nurse to combat the dreaded enemy. It seemed, somehow, as if each of them felt that the honor of his or her country was at stake in this battle with disease and death across that hospital bed in the old factory near Rouen.

It was late in February when Pen's mother and his Aunt Millicent reached Havre, and took the next available train up to Rouen. They had not heard from Pen since sailing, and they were almost beside themselves with anxiety and apprehension. But the telephone service between the city and its faubourgs is excellent, Aunt Millicent could speak French with comparative fluency, and it was not many minutes after their arrival before they had obtained connection with the hospital and were talking with Miss Byron.

"He is very ill," she said, "but we feel that the crisis of his disease has passed, and we hope for his recovery."

So, then, he was still living, and there was hope. In the early twilight of the winter evening the two women rode out to the suburban town and went up to the hospital to see him. He did not open his eyes, nor recognize them in any way, he did not even know that they were with him.

"There have been many complications of the illness from his wound," said the nurse; "double pneumonia, typhoid symptoms, and what not; we dared not hope for him for a while, but we feel now that perhaps the worst is over. He has made a splendid fight for his life," she added; "he deserves to win. And he is the favorite of the hospital. Every one loves him. The first question all my patients ask me when I make my first round for the day is 'How is the young American lieutenant this morning?' Oh, if good wishes and genuine affection can keep him with us, he will stay."

So, with tear-wet faces, grateful yet still anxious, the two women left him for the night and sought hospitality at a modest pension in the neighborhood of the hospital.

But a precious life still hung in the balance. As he had lain for many days, so the young soldier continued to lie, for many days to come, apparently without thought or vitality, save that those who watched him could catch now and then a low murmur from his lips, and could see the faint rise and fall of his scarred and bandaged breast.

Then, so slowly that it seemed to those who looked lovingly on that ages were going by, he began definitely to mend. He could open his eyes, and move his head and hands, and he seemed to grasp, by degrees, the fact that his mother and his Aunt Millicent were often sitting at his bedside. But when he tried to speak his tongue would not obey his will.

One day, when he awakened from a refreshing sleep, he seemed brighter and stronger than he had been at any time before. The two women whom he most loved were sitting on opposite sides of his cot, and his devoted and delighted nurse stood near by, smiling down on him. He smiled back up at each of them in turn, but he made no attempt to speak. He seemed to know that he had not yet the power of articulation.

His cot, in an alcove at the end of the main aisle, was so placed that, when the curtains were drawn aside, he could, at will, look down the long rows of beds where once the looms had clattered, and watch wan faces, and recumbent forms under the white spreads, and nurses, some garbed in white, and some in blue, and some in more sober colors, moving gently about among the sufferers in performance of their thrice-blest and most angelic tasks. It was there that he was looking now, and the two women at his bedside who were watching him, saw that his eyes were fixed, with strange intensity, on some object in the distance. They turned to see what it was. To their utter astonishment and dismay they discovered, marching up the aisle, accompanied by an infirmiere, Colonel Richard Butler. Whence, when, and how he had come, they knew not. He stopped at the entrance to the alcove, and held up his hand as though demanding silence. And there was silence. No one spoke or stirred. He looked down at Pen who lay, still speechless, staring up at him in surprise and delight.

Into the colonel's glowing face there came a look of tenderness, of rapt sympathy, of exultant pride, that those who saw it will never forget.

He stepped lightly forward and took Pen's limp hand in his and pressed it gently.

"God bless you, my boy!" he said.

No one had ever heard Richard Butler say "God bless you" before, and no one ever heard him say it again. But when he said it that day to the dark-haired, white faced, war-worn soldier on the cot in the hospital near Rouen, the words came straight from a big, and brave, and tender heart.

He laid Pen's hand slowly back on the counterpane, and then he parted his white moustache, as he had done that night at the hotel in New York, and bent over and kissed the boy's forehead. It may have been the rapture of the kiss that did it; God knows; but at that moment Pen's tongue was loosened, his lips parted, and he cried out:

"Grandfather!"

With a judgment and a self-denial rare among men, the colonel answered the boy's greeting with another gentle hand-clasp, and a beneficent smile, and turned and marched proudly and gratefully back down the long aisle, stopping here and there to greet some sick soldier who had given him a friendly look or smile, until he stood in the open doorway and lifted up his eyes to gaze on the blue line of distant hills across the Seine.

Later, when the two women came to him, and he went with them to the pension where they were staying, he explained to them the cause of his sudden and unheralded appearance. He had received their cablegrams indeed; but these, instead of serving to allay his anxiety, had made it only the more acute. To wait now for letters was impossible. His patience was utterly exhausted. He could no more have remained quietly at home than he could have shut up his eyes and ears and mouth and lain quietly down to die. The call that came to him from the bed of his beloved grandson in France, that sounded in his ears day-time and night-time as he paced the floors of Bannerhall, was too insistent and imperious to be resisted. Against the vigorous protests of his niece, and the timid remonstrances of the few friends who were made aware of his purpose, he put himself in readiness to sail on the next out-going steamer that would carry him to his longed-for destination. And it was only after he had boarded the vessel, and had felt the slow movement of the ship as she was warped out into the stream, that he became contented, comfortable, thoroughly at ease in body and mind, and ready to await patiently whatever might come to him at the end of his journey.

So it was in good health and spirits that he landed at Havre, came up to Rouen, and made his way to the hospital.

And for once in her life his daughter did not chide him. Instinctively she felt the power of the great tenderness and yearning in his breast that had impelled him to come, and, so far as any word of disapproval was concerned, she was silent.

He talked much about Pen. He asked what they had learned concerning his bravery in battle, the manner in which he had received his wounds, the nature of his long illness, and the probability of his continued convalescence.

"I hope," said Pen's mother, "that I shall be able to take him back to Lowbridge next month."

The old man looked up in surprise and alarm.

"To Lowbridge?" he said, and added: "Not to Lowbridge, Sarah Butler. My grandson will return to Bannerhall, the home of his ancestors."

"Colonel Butler, my son's home is with me."

"And your home," replied the colonel, "is with me. My son's widow must no longer live under any other roof than mine. The day of estrangement has fully passed. You will find welcome and affection, and, I hope, an abundance of happiness at Bannerhall."

She did not answer him; she could not. Nor did he demand an answer. He seemed to take it for granted that his wish in the matter would be complied with, and his will obeyed. But it was not until his daughter Millicent, by much argument and persuasion, through many days, had convinced her that her place was with them, that her son's welfare and his grandfather's length of days depended on both mother and son complying with Colonel Butler's wish and demand, that she consented to blot out the past and to go to live at Bannerhall.

It was on the second day of April, 1917, that the President of the United States read his world famous message to Congress, asking that body to "declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States" and to "employ all of its resources to bring the Government of Germany to terms and to end the war."

And it was on the third day of April that Colonel Richard Butler, walking up the long aisle of the war hospital near Rouen in the late afternoon, smiled and nodded to right and left and said:

"At last we are with you; we are with you. America has answered the call of her conscience, she will now come into her own."

And they smiled back at him, did these worn and broken men, for the news of the President's declaration had already filtered through the wards; and they waved their hands to the brave American colonel with the white moustache, stern visage, and tender heart, and in sturdy English and voluble French and musical Italian, they congratulated him and his noble grandson, and the charming ladies of his family, on the splendid words of his President, to which words the patriotic Congress would surely respond.

And Congress did respond. The Senate on April 4, and the House on April 6, by overwhelming majorities, passed a resolution in full accordance with the President's recommendation, declaring that a state of war had been thrust upon the United States by the German government, and authorizing and directing the President "to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States, and the resources of the government, to carry on war against the Imperial German government."

Colonel Richard Butler was at last content.

"I am proud of my country," he declared, "and of my President and Congress. I have cabled the congressman from my district to tender my congratulations to Mr. Wilson, and to offer my services anew in whatever capacity my government can use them."

If he had favored the Allied cause before going abroad he was now thrice the partisan that he had been. For he had seen France. He had seen her, bled white in her heroic endeavor to drive the invader from her soil. He had seen her ruined homes, and cities, and temples of art. He had seen her women and her aged fathers and her young children doing the work of her able-bodied men who were on the fighting line, replacing those hundreds of thousands who were lying in heroes' graves. He had been, by special favor, taken to the front, where he had seen the still grimmer visage of war, had caught a glimpse of life in the trenches, of death on the field, and had heard the sweep and the rattle and the roar of unceasing conflict. And in his eyes and voice as he walked up and down the aisles of the hospital near Rouen, or sat at the bedside of his grandson, was always a reflection of these things that he himself had seen and heard.

And he was a favorite in the wards. Not alone because he so often came with his one arm laden with little material things to cheer and comfort them, but because these men with the pierced and broken and mutilated bodies admired and liked him. Whenever they saw the familiar figure, tall, soldierly, the sternly benevolent countenance with its white moustache and kindling eyes, enter at the hospital doors and walk up between the long rows of cots, their faces would light up with pleasure and admiration, and the friendliness of their greetings would be hearty and unalloyed.

Somehow they seemed to look upon him as the symbol and representative of his country, the very embodiment of the spirit of his own United States. And now that his government had definitely entered into the war, he was in their eyes, thrice the hero and the benefactor that he had been before.

When he entered the hospital the morning after news of America's war declaration had been received, and turned to march up the aisle toward his grandson's alcove, he was surprised and delighted to see from every cot in the ward, and from every nurse on the floor, a hand thrust up holding a tiny American flag. It was the hospital's greeting to the American colonel, in honor of his country. He stood, for a moment, thrilled and amazed. The demonstration struck so deeply into his big and patriotic heart that his voice choked and his eyes filled with tears as he passed up the long aisle.

There were many greetings as he went by.

"Hurrah for the President!"

"Vive l'Amerique!"

And one deep-throated Briton, in a voice that rolled from end to end of the ward shouted:

"God bless the United States!"



But perhaps no one was more rejoiced over the fact of America's entrance into the war than was Penfield Butler. From the moment when he heard the news of the President's message he seemed to take on new life. And as each day's paper recorded the developing movements, and the almost universal sentiment of the American people in sustaining the government at Washington, his pulses thrilled, color came into his blanched face, and new light into eyes that not long before had looked for many weeks at material things and had seen them not.

He was sitting up in his bed that morning, and had seen his grandfather come up the aisle amid the forest of little flags and the sound of cheering voices.

Grouped around him were' his mother, his Aunt Millicent, the medecin-chef, and his devoted nurse, the American girl, Miss Byron. She was waving a small, silk American flag that had long been one of her cherished possessions.

"We are so proud of America to-day, Colonel Butler," she exclaimed, "that we can't help cheering and waving flags."

And the medecin-chef shouted joyously:

"A la bonne heure, mon Colonel!"

Pen, looking on with glowing eyes and cheeks flushed with enthusiasm, called out:

"Grandfather, isn't it glorious? If I could only fight it all over again, now, under my own American flag!"

Colonel Butler's face had never before been so radiant, his eyes so tender, or his voice so vibrant with emotion as when standing on the raised edge of the alcove, he replied:

"On behalf of my beloved country, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you. She has taken her rightful place on the side of humanity. Her flag, splendid and spotless, floats, to-day, side by side with the tri-color and the Union Jack, over the manhood of nations united to save the world from bondage and barbarism."

He faced the medecin-chef and continued: "Your cry to us to 'come over into Macedonia and help' you, shall no longer go unheeded. Our wealth, our brains, our brawn shall be poured into your country as freely as water, to aid you in bringing the German tyrant to his knees, and, as our great President has said: 'To make the world safe for democracy.'"

He turned toward the rapt faces of the listening scores who lined the wards: "And men, my brothers, I say to you that you have not fought and suffered in vain. We shall win this war; and out of our great victory shall come that thousand years of peace foretold by holy men of old, in which your flag, and yours, and yours, and mine, floating over the heads of freemen in each beloved land, will be the most inspiring, the most beautiful, the most splendid thing on which the sun's rays shall ever fall."



Short Historical Sketch of the United States Flag

After the war of the Revolution, it became necessary for the newly formed United States of America to devise a symbol, representing their freedom. During the war the different colonies had displayed various flags, but no national emblem had been selected. The American Congress, consequently, on the 14th of June, 1777, passed the following Resolution:

"Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen united states shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation."

Betsy Ross, an upholsterer, living at 239 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa., had the honor of making the first flag for the new republic. The little house where she lived is still standing, and preserved as a memorial. This flag contained the thirteen stripes as at present, but the stars were arranged in a circle. This arrangement was later changed to horizontal lines, and the flag continued to have thirteen stars and thirteen stripes until 1795. When Vermont and Kentucky were added to the Union, two more stripes, as well as two more stars, were added. In 1817, it was seen that it would not be practicable to add a new stripe for each new state admitted to the Union, so after deliberation, Congress, in 1818, passed the following Act:

"An Act to establish the flag of the United States.

"Sec. 1. That from and after the 4th of July next, the flag of the United States be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white—that the Union have twenty stars, white in a blue field.

"Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, that on the admission of every new State into the Union, one star be added to the Union of the flag, and that such addition shall take effect on the 4th of July next succeeding such admission."

Since the passing of this Act, star after star has been added to the blue field until it now contains forty-eight, each one representing a staunch and loyal adherent.



Boy Scouts Pledge to the Flag

"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

THE END