"I could not stay. They offered me a desk in London, and it was tough
to leave the wife and little girls; but I couldn't stay."
At that time he was one of six men in the British Empire who had three
times received the "D. S. O." (Distinguished Service Order)--once in
South Africa where he enlisted as a private, and twice in France. After
five months he was sufficiently recovered from his third wound to
report for duty.
What is this spirit, the spirit of the trenches? There is humor in
it. Lieutenant Johrens, who returned with me from France, was on the
Tuscania when she was sent down by submarine attack. As the destroyer
which picked up the boat company of which he was in charge cruised
about in the darkness near the scene of the catastrophe, the officers
heard singing in the distance. Searching out the spot from which
the voices came, they found twenty privates on a catamaran, shouting
lustily the refrain of the popular song,
"Where do we go from here, boys?
Where do we go from here?"
The Lieutenant added that a French pastor in Tours on being told the
story seemed deeply impressed, but not even slightly amused. The
next Sunday, referring to the incident, he said impressively to his
sympathetic congregation:
"Our brave allies are not only men of action; they are all men of deep
spiritual conviction. In danger their thoughts turn instinctively
toward God. As they clung to their frail raft in the darkness of the
tempest and the blackness of the night, they searched their hearts, and
with the mingled emotions of men facing the vast unknown they sang that
glorious old Billy Sunday hymn,
'Where do we go from here, boys?
Where do we go from here?'"
The humor of homesickness makes no pretence, and is unashamed. A chap
from Montana came up to the canteen counter behind which I stood, and
said,
"Say, did you ever hear the story of the Statue of Liberty?" and I
replied,
"Which one?"
He tipped his helmet forward, mocked me with a deep bow, and said,
"This one: A fellow had been started toward Davy Jones's locker three
times by 'subs.' Finally he got a tub that made through connections;
and, as he came up the harbor of 'little ol' Broadway,' he saw the
'Lady' standing up there and looking out through the mist, holding the
lamp up to the window for him, and saying, 'Hello, kid; welcome home!'
and he swallowed his Adam's apple, stood at attention, saluted, and
said, 'Thank you, madam; I'm mighty glad to see you. But, if you ever
see me again, _you'll have to turn around_!'"
He didn't wait for a laugh. He knew that the tale had "whiskers" and
that many a man now old "had kicked the slats out of his cradle" in
protesting against its resurrection. He hadn't told it to amuse me, but
to "spill himself." But I laughed just the same, for it was richly done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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