The Defenders of Democracy

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In the meantime rabbits burrowed under the wire netting to bark
his young trees, and an orchardist who held the job of ditch tender
along the Tonkawanda, began to take an interest in the Homesteader's
daughter. Seldom any smoke went up now from the cabin under the
Dolphin's nose. Occasionally there rose a blue thread of it far up
on the thinly forested crest of San Jacinto where the buck, bedded
in the low brush between the bosses of the hills, kept a look out
across the gullies from which Greenhow attempted to ambuscade him.
Day by day the man would vary the method of approach until almost
within rifle range, and then the wind would change or there would
be the click of gravel underfoot, or the scrape of a twig on stiff
overalls, and suddenly the long oval ears would slope forward, the
angular lines flow into grace and motion and the game would begin
again.

Greenhow killed many deer that season and got himself under suspicion
of the game warden, but never THE deer; and a very subtle change
came over him, such a change as marks the point at which a man
leaves off being hunter to become the hunted. He began to sense,
with vague reactions of resentment, the personality of Power.

It was about the end of the rains that the DITCH TENDER who was
also an orchardist, took the Homesteader's daughter to ride on his
unoccupied Sunday afternoon. He had something to say to her which
demanded the wide, uninterrupted space of day. They went up toward
the roots of the mountain between the green dikes of the chaparral,
and he was so occupied with watching the pomegranate color of her
cheeks and the nape of her neck where the sun touched it, that
he failed to observe that it was she who turned the horses into
the trail that led off the main road toward the shack of the Pot
Hunter. The same change that had come over the man had fallen on
his habitation. through the uncurtained window they saw heaps of
unwashed dishes and the rusty stove, and along the eaves of the
lean-to, a row of antlers bleaching.

"There's really no hope for a man," said the ditch tender, "once
he gets THAT habit. It's worse than drink."

"Perhaps," said the Homesteader's daughter, "if he had any one at
home who cared..." She was looking down at the bindweed that had
crept about the roots of a banksia rose she had once given the Pot
Hunter out of her own garden, and she sighed, but the ditch tender
did not notice that either. He was thinking this was so good an
opportunity for what he had to say that he drew the horses toward
the end of the meadow where the stream came in, and explained to
her particularly just what it meant to a man to have somebody at
home who cared.

The Homesteader's daughter leaned against the oak as she listened,
and lifted up her clear eyes with a light in them that was like a
flash out of the deep, luminous eye of day, which caused the ditch
tender the greatest possible satisfaction. He did not think it
strange, immediately he had her answer, to hear the titter of the
leaves of the lilac and the sudden throaty chuckle of the water.

"I am so happy," laughed the ditch tender, "that I fancy the whole
world is laughing with me."

All this was not so long as you would imagine to look at the Pot
Hunter. As time went on the marking of the pot came out on him
very plainly. He acquired the shifty, sidelong gait of the meaner
sort of predatory creatures. His clothes, his beard, his very
features have much the appearance that his house has, as if the
owner of it were distant on another occupation, and the camise has
regained a considerable portion of his clearing. Owing to the
vigilance of the game warden his is not a profitable business;
also he is in disfavor with the homesteaders along the Tonkawanda
who credit him with the disappearance of the mule-deer, once
plentiful in that district. A solitary specimen is occasionally
met by sportsmen along the back of San Jacinto, exceedingly gun
wary. But if Greenhow had known a little more about the Greeks it
might all have turned out quite differently.

[signed] Mary Austin

Men of the Sea

The afternoon sun etched our shadows on the whitewashed wall behind
us. Acres of grain and gorse turned the moorland golden under a
windy blue sky. In front of us the Bay of Biscay burned sapphire
to the horizon.

"You men of the sea," I said, "attain a greater growth of soul than
do we whose roots are in the land. You are men of wider spiritual
vision, of deeper capacity than are we."

The coastguard's weather-beaten visage altered subtly.

"How can that be, Monsieur? Our sins stalk us like vast red shadows.
We live violently, we men of the sea."

"But you really LIVE--spiritually and physically. You attain a
spiritual growth, a vision, an understanding, a depth seldom reached
by us:--a wide kindness, a charity, a noble humanity outside the
circumference of our experience."

He said, looking seaward out of vague, sea-gray eyes: "We drink
too deeply. We love too often. We men of the sea have great need
of intercession and of prayer."

"Not YOU."

"There was a girl at Rosporden.... And one at Bannalec.... And
others...from the ends of the earth to the ends of it...We Icelanders
drank deep. And afterwards...in the China seas...."

His gray Breton eyes brooded on the flowing sapphire of the sea;
the low sun painted his furrowed face red.

"Not one among you but lays down his life for others as quietly
and simply as he fills his pipe. From the rocking mizzen you look
down calmly upon the world of men tossing with petty and complex
passions--look down with the calm, kindly comprehension of a mature
soul which has learned something of Immortal toleration. The
scheme of things is clearer to you than to us; your pity, wiser;
our faith more logical."

"We are children," he muttered, "we men of the sea."

I have tried to say so--in too many words," said I.

My dog looked up at me, then with a slight sigh settled himself
again beside the game bag and tucked his nose under his flank. On
the whitewashed walls of the ancient, ruined fort behind us our
shadows towered in the red sunset.

I turned and looked at the roofless, crumbling walls, then at the
coast where jeweled surf tumbled, stained with crimson.

These shores had been washed with a redder stain in years gone
by: these people were forever stamped with the eradicable scar
of suffering borne by generations dead. The centuries had never
spared them.

And, as I brooded there, watching two peasants, father and son,
grubbing out the gorse below us to make a place for future wheat,
the rose surf beyond seemed full of little rosy children and showy
women, species of the endless massacres that this sad land had
endlessly endured.

"They struck you hard and deep," I said, thinking of the past.

"Deep, Monsieur," he replied, understanding me. "Deep as your
people's hatred."

"Oh, poor ca"--he made a vague gesture. "The dead are dead," he
said, leaning over and opening my game bag to look into it and sort
and count the few braces of partridge, snipe and widgeon.

Presently, from below, the peasants at work in the gorse, shouted
up to us something that I did not understand.

They were standing close together, leaning on mattock and spade,
grouped around something in the gorse.

"What do they say?" I asked.

"They have found a soldier's body."

"A body?"

"Long dead, Monsieur. The skeleton of one of these who scourged
this coast in the old days."

He rose and started leisurely down through the flowering gorse. I
followed, and my dog followed me.

In the shallow excavation there lay a few bones and shreds and bits
of tarnished metal.

I stooped and picked up a button and a belt buckle. The royal arms
and the Regimental number were decipherable on the brasses. One
of the peasants said:

"In Quimper lives a rich man who pays for relics. God, in his
compassion, sends us poor men these bones."

The coastguard said: "God sends them to you for decent internment.
Not to sell."

"But," retorted the peasant, "these bones and bits of brass belonged
to one of those who came here with fire and sword. Need we respect
our enemies who slew without pity young and old? And these bones
are very ancient."

"The living must respect the dead, Jean Le Locard."

"I am poor," muttered Le Locard. "We Bretons are born to misery
and sorrow. Life is very hard. Is it any harm if I sell these
bones and brasses to a rich man, and buy a little bread for my wife
and little ones?"

The coastguard shook his head gravely: "We Bretons may go hungry
and naked, but we cannot traffic in death. Here lies a soldier,
a hundred years hidden under the gorse. Nevertheless--"

He touched his cap in salute. Slowly the peasants lifted their
caps and stood staring down at the bones, uncovered.

"Make a grave," said the coastguard simply. He pointed up at the
old graveyard on the cliff above us. Then, touching my elbow, he
turned away with me toward the little hamlet across the moors.

"Let us find the Cure," he murmured. "We men of the sea should
salute the death God sends with the respect we owe to all His gifts
to man."

Our three gigantic shadows led us back across the moor,--my dog,
myself, and the gray-eyed silent man who knew the sea,--and something
perhaps, of the sea's Creator:--and much of his fellow men.

[signed] Robert W. Chambers

Jim--A Soldier of the King

We were machine gunners of the British Army stationed "Somewhere
in France" and had just arrived at our rest billets, after a weary
march from the front line sector.

The stable we had to sleep in was an old, ramshackle affair,
absolutely over-run with rats. Great, big, black fellows, who used
to chew up our leather equipment, eat our rations, and run over
out bodies at night. German gas had no effect on these rodents;
in fact, they seemed to thrive on it.

The floor space would comfortably accommodate about twenty men lying
down, but when thirty-three, including equipment, were crowded into
it, it was nearly unbearable.

The roof and walls were full of shell holes. When it rained, a
constant drip, drip, drip was in order. We were so crowded that if
a fellow was unlucky enough (and nearly all of us in this instance
were unlucky) to sleep under a hole, he had to grin and bear it.
It was like sleeping beneath a shower bath.

At one end of the billet, with a ladder leading up to it, was a sort
of grain bin, with a door in it. This place was the headquarters
of our guests, the rats. Many a stormy cabinet meeting was held
there by them. Many a boot was thrown at it during the night
to let them know that Tommy Atkins objected to the matter under
discussion. Sometimes one of these missiles would ricochet, and
land on the upturned countenance of a snoring Tommy, and for about
half an hour even the rats would pause in admiration of his flow
of language.

On the night in question we flopped down in our wet clothes, and
were soon asleep. As was usual, No. 2 gun's crew were together.

The last time we had rested in this particular village, it was
inhabited by civilians, but now it was deserted. An order had
been issued, two days previous to our arrival, that all civilians
should move farther back of the line.

I had been asleep about two hours when I was awakened by Sailor
Bill shaking me by the shoulder. He was trembling like a leaf,
and whispered to me:

"Wake up, Yank, this ship's haunted. There's some one aloft who's
been moaning for the last hour. Sounds like the wind in the rigging.
I ain't scared of humans or Germans, but when it comes to messin'
in with spirits it's time for me to go below. Lend your ear and
cast your deadlights on that grain locker, and listen."

I listened sleepily for a minute or so, but could hear nothing.
Coming to the conclusion that Sailor Bill was dreaming things, I
was again soon asleep.

Perhaps fifteen minutes had elapsed when I was rudely awakened.

"Yank, for God's sake, come aboard and listen!" I listened and
sure enough, right out of that grain bin overhead came a moaning
and whimpering, and then a scratching against the door. My hair
stood on end. Blended with the drip, drip of the rain, and the
occasional scurrying of a rat overhead, that noise had a super-natural
sound. I was really frightened; perhaps my nerves were a trifle
unstrung from our recent tour in the trenches.

I awakened "Ikey" Honney, while Sailor Bill roused "Happy" Houghton
and "Hungry" Foxcroft.

Hungry's first words were, "What's the matter, breakfast ready?"

In as few words as possible, we told them what had happened. By
the light of the candle I had lighted, their faces appeared as
white as chalk. Just then the whimpering started again, and we
were frozen with terror. The tension was relieved by Ikey's voice:

"I admint I'm afraid of ghosts, but that sounds like a dog to me.
Who's going up the ladder to investigate?"

No one volunteered.

I had an old deck of cards in my pocket. Taking them out, I
suggested cutting, the low man to go up the ladder. They agreed.
I was the last to cut. I got the ace of clubs. Sailor Bill was
stuck with the five of diamonds. Upon this, he insisted that it
should be the best two out of three cuts, but we overruled him,
and he was unanimously elected for the job.

With a "So long, mates, I'm going aloft," he started toward the
ladder, with the candle in his hand, stumbling over the sleeping
forms of many. Sundry grunts, moans, and curses followed in his
wake.

As soon as he started to ascend the ladder, a "tap-tap-tap" could
be heard from the grain bin. We waited in fear and trembling the
result of his mission. Hungry was encouraging him with "Cheero,
mate, the worst is yet to come."

After many pauses, Bill reached the top of the ladder and opened
the door. We listened with bated breath. Then he shouted:

"Blast my deadlights, if it ain't a poor dog! Come alongside mate,
you're on a lee shore, and in a sorry plight."

Oh, what a relief those words were to us.

With the candle in one hand and a dark object under his arm, Bill
returned and deposited in our midst the sorriest-looking specimen
of a cur dog you ever set eyes on. It was so weak it couldn't
stand. But that look in its eyes--just gratitude, plain gratitude.
Its stump of a tail was pounding against my mess tin and sounded
just like a message in the Morse code. Happy swore that it was
sending S O S.

We were a lot of school children, every one wanting to help and
making suggestions at the same time. Hungry suggested giving it
something to eat, while Ikey wanted to play on his infernal jew's
harp, claiming it was a musical dog. Hungry's suggestion met our
approval, and there was a general scramble for haversacks. All we
could muster was some hard bread and a big piece of cheese.

His nibs wouldn't eat bread, and also refused the cheese, but not
before sniffling it for a couple of minutes. I was going to throw
the cheese away, but Hungry said he would take it. I gave it to
him.

We were in a quandary. It was evident that the dog was starving
and in a very weak condition. Its coat was lacerated all over,
probably from the bites of rats. That stump of a tail kept sending
S O S against my mess tin. Every tap went straight to our hearts.
We would get something to eat for that mutt if we were shot for
it.

Sailor Bill volunteered to burglarize the quartermaster's stores
for a can of unsweetened condensed milk, and left on his perilous
venture. He was gone about twenty minutes. During his absence,
with the help of a bandage and a capsule of iodine, we cleaned the
wounds made by the rats. I have bandaged many a wounded Tommy,
but never received the amount of thanks that that dog gave with
its eyes.

Then the billet door opened and Sailor Bill appeared. He looked
like the wreck of the HESPERUS, uniform torn, covered with dirt
and flour, and a beautiful black eye, but he was smiling, and in
his hand he carried the precious can of milk.

We asked no questions, but opened the can. Just as we were going
to pour it out, Happy butted in and said it should be mixed with
water; he ought to know, because his sister back in Blighty had
a baby, and she always mixed water with its milk. We could not
dispute this evidence, so water was demanded. We could not use
the water in our water bottles, as it was not fresh enough for our
new mate. Happy volunteered to get some from the well--that is, if
we would promise not to feed his royal highness until he returned.
We promised, because Happy had proved that he was an authority on
the feeding of babies. By this time the rest of the section were
awake and were crowding around us, asking numerous questions, and
admiring our newly found friend. Sailor Bill took this opportunity
to tell of his adventures while in quest of the milk.

"I had a fair wind, and the passage was good until I came alongside
the quartermaster's shack, then the sea got rough. The porthole
was battened down, and I had to cast it loose. When I got aboard,
I could hear the wind blowing through the rigging of the supercargo
(quartermaster sergeant snoring), so I was safe. I set my course
due north to the ration hold, and got my grappling irons on a cask
of milk, and came about on my homeward-bound passage, but something
was amiss with my wheel, because I ran nose on into him, caught him
on the rail, amidships. Then it was repel boarders, and it started
to blow big guns. His first shot put out my starboard light, and
I keeled over. I was in the trough of the sea, but soon righted,
and then it was a stern chase, with me in the lead. Getting into
the open sea, I made a port tack and have to in this cove with the
milk safely in tow."

Most of us didn't know what he was talking about, but surmised
that he had gotten into a mix-up with the quartermaster sergeant.
This surmise proved correct.

Just as Bill finished his narration, a loud splash was heard, and
Happy's voice came to us. It sounded very far off:

"Help, I'm in the well! Hurry up, I can't swim!" Then a few
unintelligible words intermixed with blub! blub! and no more.

We ran to the well, and way down we could hear an awful splashing.
Sailor Bill yelled down, "Look out below; stand from under; bucket
coming!" With that he loosed the windlass. In a few seconds a
spluttering voice from the depths yelled up to us, "Haul away!"

It was hard work, hauling him up. We had raised him about ten
feet from the water, when the handle of the windlass got loose from
our grip, and down went the bucket and Happy. A loud splash came
to us, and grabbing the handle again, we worked like Trojans. A
volley of curses came from that well which would have shocked Old
Nick himself.

When we got Happy safely out, he was a sight worth seeing. He
did not even notice us. Never said a word, just filled his water
bottle from the water in the bucket, and went back to the billet. We
followed. My mess tin was still sending S O S.

Happy, though dripping wet, silently fixed up the milk for the
dog. In appetite, the canine was close second to Hungry Foxcroft.
After lapping up all he could hold, our mascot closed his eyes and
his tail ceased wagging. Sailor Bill took a dry flannel shirt from
his pack, wrapped the dog in it, and informed us:

"Me and my mate are going below, so the rest of you lubbers batten
down and turn in."

We all wanted the honor of sleeping with the dog, but did not dispute
Sailor Bill's right to the privilege. By this time the bunch were
pretty sleepy and tired, and turned in without much coaxing, as it
was pretty near daybreak.

Next day we figured out that perhaps one of the French kiddies had
put the dog in the grain bin, and, in the excitement of packing up
and leaving, had forgotten he was there.

Sailor Bill was given the right to christen our new mate. He
called him "Jim." In a couple of days Jim came around all right,
and got very frisky. Every man in the section loved that dog.

Sailor Bill was court-martialed for his mix-up with the quartermaster
sergeant, and got seven days field punishment No. 1. This meant
that two hours each day for a week he would be tied to the wheel
of a limber. During those two-hour periods Jim would be at Bill's
feet, and no matter how much we coaxed him with choice morsels
of food, he would not leave until Bill was untied. When Bill was
loosed, Jim would have nothing to do with him--just walked away
in contempt. Jim respected the king's regulations, and had no use
for defaulters.

At a special meeting held by the section, Jim had the oath
of allegiance read to him. He barked his consent, so we solemnly
swore him in as a soldier of the Imperial British Army, fighting
for king and country. Jim made a better soldier than any one of
us, and died for his king and country. Died without a whimper of
complaint.

From the village we made several trips to the trenches; each time
Jim accompanied us. The first time under fire he put the stump of
his tail between his legs, but stuck to his post. When "carrying
in" if we neglected to give Jim something to carry, he would make
such a noise barking that we soon fixed him up.

Each day Jim would pick out a different man of the section to follow.
He would stick to the man, eating and sleeping with him until the
next day, and then it would be some one's else turn. When a man
had Jim with him, it seemed as if his life were charmed. No matter
what he went through, he would come out safely. We looked upon
Jim as a good-luck sign, and believe me, he was.

Whenever it came Ikey Honney's turn for Jim's company, he was
over-joyed, because Jim would sit in dignified silence, listening
to the jew's-harp. Honney claimed that Jim had a soul for music,
which was more than he would say about the rest of us.

Once, at daybreak, we had to go over the top in an attack. A man
in the section named Dalton was selected by Jim as his mate in this
affair.

The crew of gun No. 2 were to stay in the trench for over-head fire
purposes, and, if necessary, to help repel a probably counter-attack
by the enemy. Dalton was very merry, and hadn't the least fear or
misgiving as to his safety, because Jim would be with him through
it all.

In the attack, Dalton, closely followed by Jim, had gotten about
sixty yards into No Man's Land, when Jim was hit in the stomach by
a bullet. Poor old Jim toppled over, and lay still. Dalton turned
around, and, just as he did so, we saw him throw up his hands and
fall face forward.

Ikey Honney, who was No. 3 on our gun, seeing Jim fall, scrambled
over the parapet, and through that rain of shells and bullets,
raced to where Jim was, picked him up, and, tucking him under his
arm, returned to our trench in safety. If he had gone to rescue
a wounded man in this way he would have no doubt been awarded the
Victoria Cross. but he only brought in poor bleeding, dying Jim.

Ikey laid him on the fire step alongside of our gun, but we could
not attend to him, because we had important work to do. So he
died like a soldier, without a look of reproach for our heartless
treatment. Just watched our every movement until his lights burned
out. After the attack, what was left of our section gathered around
Jim's bloodstained body. There wasn't a dry eye in the crowd.

Next day, we wrapped him in a small Union Jack belonging to Happy,
and laid him to rest, a soldier of the king.

We put a little wooden cross over his grave which read:

PRIVATE JIM
MACHINE-GUN COMPANY
KILLED IN ACTION
APRIL 10, 1916
A DOG WITH A MAN'S HEART

Although the section has lost lots of men, Jim is never forgotten.

[signed] Arthur Guy Empey

Heel and Toe

That man--it could only have been a man--who invented the Klinger
darning and mending machine struck a blow at marriage. Martha
Eggers, bending over her work in the window of the Elite Hand
Laundry (washing delivered same day if left before 8 A.M.) never
quite evolved this thought in her mind. When one's job is that
of darning six bushels of socks a day, not to speak of drifts of
pajamas and shirts, there remains very little time for philosophizing.

The window of the Elite Hand Laundry was a boast. On a line strung
from side to side hung snowy, creaseless examples of the ironer's
art. Pale blue tissue paper, stuffed into the sleeves and front
of lace and embroidery blouses cunningly enhanced their immaculate
virginity. White pique skirts, destined to be grimed by the sands
of beach and tee, dangled like innocent lambs before the slaughter.
Just behind this starched and glistening ambush one glimpsed the
bent head and the nimble fingers of Martha Eggers, first aid to
the unwed.

As she sat weaving, in and out, in and out, she was a twentieth
century version of any one of the Fates, with the Klinger darner
and mender substituted for distaff and spindle. There was something
almost humanly intelligent in the workings of Martha's machine.
Under its glittering needle she would shove a sock whose heel bore
a great, jagged, gaping wound. Your home darner, equipped only with
mending egg, needle, and cotton, would have pronounced it fatal.
But Martha's modern methods of sock surgery always saved its life.
In and out, back and forth, moved the fabric under the needle.
And slowly, the wound began to heal. Tack, tack, back and forth.
The operation was completed.

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