Night is the troublesome time.  The children hide under their beds with terror.  The nurses have to go the rounds continually.  If the children would only cry, they would give warning.  But instead, they creep silently out from between the sheets and crouch against the floor like dumb animals.  Dumb animals!  That is what they are when first they are brought in.  Their most primitive instincts for the beginnings of cleanliness seem to have vanished.  They have been fished out of caves, ruined dug-outs, broken houses.  They are as full of skin-diseases as the beggar who sat outside Dives’ gate, only they have had no dogs to lick their sores.  They have lived on offal so long that they have the faces of the extremely aged.  And their hatred!  Directly you utter the word “Boche,” all the little night-gowned figures sit up in their cots and curse.  When they have done cursing, of their own accord, they sing the Marseillaise.

Surely if God listens to prayers of vengeance, He will answer the husky petitions of these victims of Hun cruelty!  The quiet, just, deep-seated venom of these babies will work the Hun more harm than many batteries.  Their fathers come back from the trenches to see them.  On leaving, they turn to the American nurses, “We shall fight better now,” they say, “because we know that you are taking care of them.”

When those words are spoken, the American Red Cross knows that it is achieving its object and is winning its war of compassion.  The whole drive of all its effort is to win the war in the shortest possible space of time.  It is in Europe to save children for the future, to re-kindle hope in broken lives, to mitigate the toll of unavoidable suffering, but first and foremost to help men to fight better.

IV

THE LAST WAR

The last war! I heard the phrase for the first time on the evening after Great Britain had declared war.  I was in Quebec en route for England, wondering whether my ship was to be allowed to sail.  There had been great excitement all day, bands playing the Marseillaise, Frenchmen marching arm-in-arm singing, orators, gesticulating and haranguing from balconies, street-corners and the base of statues.

Now that the blue August night was falling and every one was released from work, the excitement was redoubled.  Quebec was finding in war an opportunity for carnival.  Throughout all the pyramided city the Tri-colour and the Union Jack were waving.  At the foot of the Heights, the broad basin of the St. Lawrence was a-drift in the dusk with fluttering pennons.  They looked like homing birds, settling in dovecotes of the masts and rigging.

As night deepened, Chinese lanterns were lighted and carried on poles through the narrow streets.  Troops of merry-makers followed them, blowing horns, dragging bells, tin-cans, anything that would make a noise and express high spirits.  They linked arms with girls as they marched and were lost, laughing in the dusk.  If a French reservist could be found who was sailing in the first ship bound for the slaughter, he became the hero of the hour and was lifted shoulder high at the head of the procession.  War was a brave game at which to play.  This was to be a short war and a merry one.  Down with the Germans!  Up with France!  Hurrah for the entente cordiale!