The Hearing Ear
There were three American boys from the region of Philadelphia
in the dugout, "Somewhere in France"; and they found it a snug
habitation, considering the circumstances.
The central heating system--a round sheet-iron stove, little larger
than a "topper" hat--sent out incredible quantities of acrid smoke
at such times as the rusty stovepipe refused to draw. But on cold
nights and frosty mornings the refractory thing was a distinct
consolation. The ceiling of the apartment lacked finish. When
wet it dropped mud; when dry, dust. But it had the merit of being
twenty feet thick--enough to stop any German shell except a "Jack
Johnson" full of high explosive. The beds were elegantly excavated
in the wall, and by a slight forward inclination of the body
you could use them as _fauteuils_. The rats approved of them
highly.
There were two flights of ladder-stairs leading down from the trench
into the dugout, and the holes at the top which served as vestibules
were three or four yards apart. It was a comfort to think of this
architectural design; for if the explosion of a big shell blocked
up one of the entrances, the other would probably remain open, and
you would not be caught in a trap with the other rats.
The main ornament of the _salon_ was a neat but not gaudy
biscuit-box. The top of it was a centre-table, illuminated by a
single, guttering candle; the interior was a "combination" wardrobe
and sideboard. Around this simple but satisfying piece of furniture
the three transient tenants of the dugout had just played a game
of dummy bridge, and now sat smoking and bickering as peacefully
as if they were in a college club-room in America. The night on
the front was what the French call _"relativement calme."_
Sporadic explosions above punctuated but did not interrupt the
debate, which eddied about the high theme of Education--with a
capital "E"--and the particular point of dispute was the study of
languages.
"Everything is going to change after the war," said Phipps-Herrick,
a big Harvard man from Bryn Mawr and a member of the Unsocial
Socialists' Club. "We are going to make a new world. Must have a
new education. Sweep away all the old stuff--languages, grammar,
literature, philosophy, history, and all that. Put in something modern
and practical. Montessori system for the little kids. Vocational
training for the bigger ones. Teach them to make a living. Then
organize them politically and economically. You can do what you
like, then, with England, France, and America together. Germany
will be shut out. Why study German? From a practical point of view,
I ask you, why?"
"Didn't you take it at Harvard?" sarcastically drawled Rosenlaube,
a Princeton man from Rittenhouse Square. (His grandfather was born
at Frankfort-on-the-Main, but his mother was a Biddle, and he had
penetrated about an inch into the American diplomatic service when
the war summoned him to a more serious duty.) "I understood that
all you Harvard men were strong on modern languages, especially
German."
Phipps-Herrick grunted.
"Certainly I took it. It was supposed to be a soft-snap course.
What do you think we go to Harvard for? But that little beast,
Professor von Buch, gave me a cold forty-minus on examination. So
I dropped it, and thank God I've forgotten the little I ever knew
of German! It will be absolutely useless in the new world."
"Right you are," said Rosenlaube. "My grandfather used to speak
it when he was angry--a sloppy, slushy language, extremely ugly.
At Princeton, you know, we stand by the classics, Latin and Greek,
the real thing in languages. You ought to hear Dean Andy West talk
about that. Of course a fellow forgets his Virgil and his Homer when
he gets out in the world. But, then, he's had the benefit of them;
they've given him real culture and literature. There's nothing
outside of the classics, except perhaps a few things in French
and Italian. Thank God I never studied German!"
The third man, who had kept silence up to this point, now gently
butted in. It was little Phil Mitchell, of Overbrook, a University
of Pennsylvania man, who had been stopped in his junior year by
a financial catastrophe in the family, and had gone out to Idaho
to earn his living as third assistant bookkeeper in a big mining
concern. He took a few real books with him, besides those that
he was to "keep." Double entry was his business; reading, his
recreation; thinking, his vocation. From all this the great war
called him as with a trumpet.
"Look here, you fellows," he said quietly, "in spite of this war
and all the rest of it, there are some good things in German."
"What," they cried, "you, a fire-eater, stand up for the Kaiser
and his language? Damn him!"
"With all my heart," assented Mitchell. "But the language isn't his.
It existed a long while before he was born. It isn't very pretty,
I'll admit. But there are lots of fine things in it. Kant and Lessing,
Goethe and Schiller and Heine--they all loved liberty and made it
shine out in their work. Do you mean to say that I must give them
up and throw my German overboard because these modern Potsdammers
have acted like brutes?"
"Yes," cried Phipps-Herrick and Rosenlaube, nodding at each other,
"that's what we mean, and that's what America means. The German
language must go!"
"Look here," said Phipps-Herrick, "you admit that modern education
must be useful? Well, there won't be any more use for German, because
we are going to shut Germany out of the international trades-union.
She has betrayed the principles of the new era. We are going to
boycott her."
"Won't that be rather difficult?" queried Mitchell, shaking his
head. "Seventy or eighty million people--hard to shut them out of
the world, eh?"
"Nonsense, dear Phil," drawled Rosenlaube; "it will be easy enough.
But I don't agree with Phipps-Herrick about the reason or method.
We are going to have a new era after the war. But it will not
be a utilitarian age. It will be a return to beauty and form and
culture--not with a 'k.' First of all, we are going to kill a great
many Germans. Then we are going to Berlin to knock down all the
ugly statues in the _Sieges-Allee_ and smash the parvenu German
Empire. Then we shall have a new age on classic lines. People will
still use French and English and Italian because there is some beauty
in those languages. But nobody outside of Germany will speak or
read German. It is a barbarous tongue--shapeless and hideous--used
by barbarians who gobble and snort when they talk. Sorry for Kant
and Goethe and Heine and all that crowd, but their time is up;
they've got to go out with their beastly language!"
"Yes," said Phipps-Herrick, "out with them, bag and baggage. Think
what the German spies and propagandists have done in America.
Schools full of pacifist and pro-German teachers; text-books full
of praise of the German Empire and the Hohenzollern Highbinders;
newspapers full of treason, printed in the German language. Why,
it's only a piece of self-defense to clean it all out, root and
branch. No more German taught or spoken, printed or read, in the
United States. Forget it! Twenty-three for the Hun language!"
"Noble," gently murmured Mitchell, shaking his head again; "very
noble! But not very easy and perhaps not entirely wise. Why should I
throw away something that has been useful to me, and may be again?
Why forget the little German that I know and burn my Goethe and
refuse to listen to Beethoven's music? I won't do it, that's all."
"Our little friend is a concealed Kaiserite," said Rosenlaube. "He
wants to Germanize America."
"No, Rosy," said Mitchell, thoughtfully running his hand over some
nicks on the butt of his rifle in the corner; "you know I'm not a
Kaiserite of any kind. I've got seven scored against him already,
and I'm going to get some more. But the language question seems to
me different. Cut out the German newspapers and the German schools
in America by all means! No more teaching of the primary branches
in any language but English! Make it absolutely necessary for
everybody in the U. S. A. to learn the language of the country the
first thing. Then in the high schools and universities let German
be studied like any other foreign language, by those who want
it--chemists, and philosophers, and historians, and electrical
engineers, and so on. We could censor the text-books and keep out
all complimentary allusions to the Hohenzollern family."
"Oh, shut up, Phil," growled Phipps-Herrick. "You're too soft,
you old easy-mark! You don't go half far enough. We may not decide
to exterminate the Hun race in Europe. But we have decided to
exterminate their language in America."
His hand was groping inside the biscuit-box. He pulled out a little
ditty-bag and carefully extracted a bit of newspaper.
"Listen to this, you fellows. This is from the National Obscurity
Society. You know a chap with a German name is president of it,
but he's a real patriot, hundred per cent, not fifty-fifty, Philly.
'The following States have abolished the teaching of German:
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois,
Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado,
Montana, California, and Oregon.' _Abolished_, mind you! What
do you think of that?"
"Most excellent Phippick," nodded Rosenlaube, "I opine, as Horace
said to Cicero, 'That's the stuff,' or words to that effect. What
saith the senator from Mitchellville?"
"Noble," grinned Phil, "unmistakably noble! Those Obscurity fellows
are a fiery lot. It reminds me that during the late war with Spain,
when I was a little, tiny boy, but brimful of ferocity, I refused
to eat my favorite dessert because it was called _Spanish_
cream. I felt sure at the time that my heroic conduct was of distinct
assistance to Dewey in the battle of Manila Bay."
"Well, then," said Phipps-Herrick, grabbing him by the shoulders
and shaking him good-humoredly, "you murderous little pacifist
with seven nicks on your gun, will you give up your German? Will
you forget it?"
Mitchell chuckled and shook his head,
"As far as requisite under military orders. But no further, not by
a--"
A pair of muddy boots was heard and seen descending one of
the ladders, followed by the manly and still rather neat form of
Lieutenant Barker Bunn, a Cornell man from West Philadelphia. The
three men sprang to their feet and saluted smartly, for the lieutenant
was very stiff about all the preliminary forms.
"Too loud talking here," he said gruffly. "I heard you before I
came down. Who is here? Oh, I see, Sergeant Phipps-Herrick, Privates
Rosenlaube and Mitchell. It's your turn to go out on listening
post to-night, sergeant. Twelve sharp, stay three hours, go as far
as you can, come back and report, take Mitchell or Rosenlaube with
you. Captain's orders."
The sergeant saluted again, and the two men looked at each other.
"Why not both of us, sir?" said Mitchell.
The lieutenant regarded him with some surprise. Listening post is
not a detail passionately desired by the men. It is always dirty,
frequently dangerous, generally obscure, and often fatal. Hence
there is no keen competition for it.
"Two is the usual number for a listening post," said Barker Bunn
thoughtfully. "But there is no regulation about it, and the captain
did not specify any number. Well, yes, I suppose you can all three
go, if you are set on it. In fact, I give the order to that effect."
"Thank you, sir," said Rosenlaube and Mitchell. Phipps-Herrick,
feeling that the strict etiquette of the preliminaries had been
fully observed and the time to be human had come, held out a box
of "Fierce Fairies."
"Have a cigarette, Bunn, and take a chair, do. Time for a little
talk this quiet night? Tell us what's doing up above."
"Nothing particular," said Barker Bunn, lighting and relaxing. "But
the old man has a hunch that the Fritzies are grubbing a mine--a
corker--to get our goat. Hence this business of ears forward.
The old man thinks the Fritzies have a strong grouch against this
little alley, and since they couldn't take it top side last week
they're going to try to bust it out bottom side with a big bang some
day soon. Maybe so--maybe just greens--but, anyway, you've got to
go on the Q. T. with this job--no noise, don't even whisper unless
you have to; just listen for all you're worth. P'r'aps you'll hear
that little tap-tap-tapping that tells where Fritzie Mole is at
work. Then if you come back and tell the old man where it is, he'll
give you all the cigarettes you want. But say, do you want me to
give you a pointer on the way to go, the method of procedure, as
the old man would call it?"
They agreed that they were thirsting for information and instruction.
"Well, it's this way," continued Barker Bunn. "You know I had a
bit of experience in listening post while I was with the Canadians
down around 'Wipers'; and I noticed that most of the troubles
came from a bad method of procedure. Fellows went out any old way;
followed each other in the dark, and then hunted for each other
and came to grief; all those kind of silly fumbles. Now, what you
need is _formation_--see? Must have some sort of formation
for advance. Must keep in touch. For two men a tandem is right. For
three men, what you want is a spike-team--middle man crawls ahead,
other men follow on each side just near enough to touch his left
heel with right hand and right heel with left hand--a triangle,
see? Keep touching once every thirty seconds. If you miss it,
leader crawls back, side men crawl in, sure to meet, nobody gets
lost. Go as far _as_ you can, then spread out like a fan, fold
together _when_ you can, come back _if_ you can--that's
the way to cover the most possible ground on a listening post. Do
you get me?"
"We get you," they nodded. "It's a wonderful scheme." And Rosenlaube
added in his most impressive literary manner: "Plato, it _must_
be so, thou reasonest well."
"But tell me," said the lieutenant, "what were you fellows chattering
about so loud when I came down?"
So they told him, and, according to the habit of college boys,
they skirmished over the ground of debate again, and Barker Bunn
vigorously supported the majority opinion, and Mitchell was left
in a hopeless minority of one, clinging obstinately to his faith
that there had been, and still might be, some use for the German
language.
Midnight came, and with it the return of the lieutenant's official
manner. He saw the trio slide over the top, one by one, vanishing
in the starless dark. "Good luck going and coming," he whispered;
and it sounded almost like an unofficial prayer.
In single file they crept through the prepared opening in the
barbed-wire entanglement, and so out into No Man's Land, where they
took up their spike-team formation. Phipps-Herrick was the leader,
the other men were the wheelers. They had agreed on a code of
silent signals: One kick with the heel or one pinch with the hand
meant "stop"; two meant "back"; three meant "get together." They
carried no rifles, because the rifle is an awkward tool for a
noiseless crawler to lug. But each man had a big trench-knife and
a pair of automatic pistols, with plenty of ammunition.
The space between the two front lines of barbed wire in this region
was not more than four or five hundred yards. In the murk of that
unstarred, drizzling night, where every inch must be felt out, it
seemed like a vast, horrible territory. There was nothing monotonous
about it but the blackness of darkness. To the touch it was a
_paysage accidente_, a landscape full of surprises. Dead bodies
were sprinkled over it. It was pockmarked with small shell-holes
and pitted with large craters, many of them full of water, all slimy
with mud. Phipps-Herrick nearly slipped into one of the deepest, but
a lively kick warned his followers of the danger, and they pulled
him back by the heels.
Now and then a star-shell looped across the spongy sky, casting a
lurid illumination over the ghastly field. When the three travellers
caught the soft swish of its ascent, they "froze"--motionless as
a shamming 'possum--mimicking death among the dead.
It was a long, slow, silent, revolting crawl. Sounds which did
not concern them were plenty--distant cannonade, shells exploding
here and there, scattered rifle-shots. All these they unconsciously
eliminated, listening for something else, ears pressed to the ground
wherever they could find a comparatively dry spot. From their
point of hearing the night was still as the grave--no subterranean
tapping and scraping could they hear anywhere under the sea of
mud.
Once Rosenlaube caught a faint metallic sound, and signalled
through Phipps-Herrick's left leg to Mitchell's left arm, "Stop!"
All three listened tensely. They crawled toward the faint noise.
It was made by a loose end of wire swaying in the night-wind and
tapping on a broken helmet.
They were getting close to the German barbed wire. The leader had
swung around to the west, following what he judged to be the line
of the front trench, perhaps forty yards away. He was determined
to hear something before he went back. And he did!
Just as he had made up his mind to call up the other fellows for the
final spreadout in fan formation, his groping right hand touched
something round and smooth and hard. It seemed to be made fast to
a string or wire, but he pulled it toward him and gave the "stop"
signal to his followers.
The thing he had picked up was a telephone receiver. How it came
to be there he did not know. Perhaps a German listening post had
carried it out last night, in order to receive directions from the
trench; perhaps the mining party--man killed, receiver dropped,
wire connection not cut, or tangled up with other wires--who can
tell? One thing is sure--here is the receiver, faintly buzzing.
Phipps-Herrick joyfully puts it to his ear. He hears a voice and
words, but it is all gibberish to him. With a look of desperation
on his face he gives the "get together" signal.
Rosenlaube crawls up first and takes hold of the cylinder, puts it
to his ear. He hears the sound, but it says absolutely nothing to
him. It is like being at the door of the secret of the universe
and unable to get over the threshold.
Then comes Mitchell, slowly, a little lame, and almost "all in."
Phipps-Herrick thrusts the receiver into his hand. As he listens
a beatific expression spreads over his face. It lasts a long time,
and then he lays down the cylinder with a sigh.
The three heads are close together, and Mitchell whispers under
his breath:
"Got 'em--got the whole thing--line of mine changed--raiders coming
out now--twelve men--rough on us, but if we can get back to our
alley we've got 'em! Crawl home quick."
[Illustration with caption: "I'm going to carry you in, spite of
hell"]
They crawled together in a bunch, formation ignored. Presently
steps sounded near them. A swift light swept the hole where they
crouched, a volley of rifle-shots crashed into it. The Americans
answered with their pistols, and saw three or four of the dark
forms on the edge of the hole topple over. The rest disappeared.
But Rosenlaube had a rifle-ball through his right hip and another
through his shoulder. Mitchell and Phipps-Herrick started to carry
him.
"Drop it," he whispered. "I'm safe here till dawn--you get home,
quick! Specially Phil. He's the one that counts. Cut away, boys!"
Meantime the American trench had opened fire and the German trench
answered. The still night broke into a tempest of noise. A bullet
or a bit of shell caught Mitchell in the knee and crumpled him up.
Phipps-Herrick lifted him on his back and stood up.
"Come on," he said, "you little cuss. You're the only one that has
the stuff we went out after. I'm going to carry you in, 'spite of
hell."
And he did it.
Mitchell told the full story of the change in the direction of the
German mine and the plan of the next assault, as he had heard it
through that lost receiver. The captain said it was information
of the highest value. It counted up to a couple of hundred German
prisoners and three machine-guns in the next two days.
Rosenlaube, still alive, was brought in just before daybreak by a
volunteer rescue-party under the guidance of Phipps-Herrick. All
three were cited in the despatches. Phipps-Herrick in due time
received the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry on the field.
But Mitchell had the surplus satisfaction of the hearing ear.
"Look here, old man," Rosenlaube said to him as they lay side by
side in the hospital, "'member our talk in the dugout just before
our big night? Well, I allow there was something in what you
said. There are times when it is a good thing to know a bit of
that barbarous German language. And you never can tell when one of
those times may hit you."
-THE END-
Henry Van Dyke's short story: The Hearing Ear
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