class="reference internal" href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@46323@[email protected]#after-winter-spring">After Winter, Spring

I

THE SWAN AT YPRES

For three years the storm center of the British battle front has been at Ypres. Every day and night it has been the standing target of thousands of guns. Yet, amid all the havoc and thunder of the artillery, the graceful white form of a swan had been seen gliding over the water of the moat. It never lacked food, and was always welcome to a share of Tommy's rations. In the Battle of Messines--I had the story first-hand from a lieutenant of artillery whose battery was hidden close by, and who was an eye-witness of the incident--a shell burst near the swan, and it was mortally wounded. For three long years it had spread its white wings as gallantly as the white sails of Drake's flagship when he sailed out of Plymouth Sound to pluck the beard of the Spaniard. But now its adventurous voyaging was over. Another beautiful and innocent thing had been destroyed by the war and had passed beyond recall. There was no dying swan-song heard on the waters, but all who saw its passing felt that the war had taken on a deeper shade of tragedy.

Many a "white man" had been slain near the spot but somehow the swan seemed a mystical being, and invulnerable. It was a relic of the days of peace, and a sign of the survival of purity and grace amid the horrors and cruelties of war. It spoke of the sacred things that yet remain--the beautiful things of the soul upon which war can lay no defiling finger. Now it had gone from the water and Ypres seems more charred than ever, and the war more terrible. The death of the swan revealed against its white wings the peculiar inhumanity of the present war. It is a war in which the enemy spares nothing and no one. He is more blind and merciless than the Angel of Death which swept over Egypt, for the angel had regard to the blood which the Israelites had sprinkled over the lintels of their doors and he passed by in mercy. To the German Eagle every living creature is legitimate prey. No blood upon the lintel can save the inmate; not even the cross of blood on the hospital tent or ship. Wounded or whole, combatant or non-combatant, its beak and talons tear the tender flesh of all and its lust is not sated.

In Belgium and Serbia it is believed that more women and children perished than men. Things too hideous for words were done publicly in the market-squares. Neither age nor sex escaped fire and sword. The innocent babe was left to suck the breast of its dead mother or was dandled on the point of the bayonet. What resistance can the Belgian swan make to the German eagle? It needs must lie torn and bleeding beneath its talons. The German Emperor has waded deeper in blood than Macbeth, and has slain the innocent in their sleep. Even the sea is full of the women, children, and non-combatant men he has drowned. His crown is cemented together with innocent blood and its jewels are the eyes of murdered men and women. The wretched man has made rivers of blood to flow yet not a drop in them is from his own veins or the veins of his many sons. Napoleon risked his life with his men in every battle but this man never once. While sending millions to their death he yet consents to live, and protects his life with the anxious care a miser bestows on his gold. Alone among large families in Germany his household is without a casualty. Though a nation be white and innocent as the Belgian swan it will not escape his sword, and he will swoop upon it the more readily because it is unarmed. The swan cannot live where the eagle flies, and one or the other must die.

But the stricken swan of Ypres is not merely the symbol of Belgium and her fate. There are other innocents who have perished or been sorely wounded. The whole creation is groaning and travailing in pain. The neutral nations are suffering with the belligerent, and the lower creatures are suffering with mankind.

Next to seeing wounded men on the roads at the front, I think the saddest sight is that of dying horses and mules. Last winter they had to stand, with little cover, exposed to the bitter blasts. It was impossible to keep them clean or dry, for the roads were churned into liquid mud and both mules and drivers were plastered with it from head to foot. To make things worse there was a shortage of fodder; and horses waste away rapidly under ill-feeding. Before the fine weather had given them a chance to recover weight and strength, the Battle of Arras began, and every living beast of burden, as well as every motor-engine, was strained to its utmost. The mule is magnificent for war, and our battles have been won as much by mules as men. Haig could rely on one as much as on the other. The mule will eat anything, endure anything, and, when understood and humored by its driver, will do anything. It works until it falls dead by the roadside. In the spring, hundreds died in harness. In fact, few die except in harness. They die facing the foe, dragging rations along shell-swept roads to the men in the trenches.

On two miles of road I have counted a dozen dead mules; and burial parties are sent out to put them out of sight. One night, alone, I got three dying mules shot. The road was crowded with traffic, yet it was difficult to find either an officer with a revolver or a transport-driver with a rifle. I had to approach scores before I could find a man who had the means to put a mule out of its misery; and we were within two miles of our Front. So rigid is our line of defense that those behind it do not trouble to take arms. Even when I found a rifleman he hesitated to shoot a mule. There is a rule that no horse or mule must be shot without proper authority, and when you consider the enormous cost of one the necessity for the rule is obvious. I had therefore to assure a rifleman that I would take full responsibility for his action. He then loaded up, put the nozzle against the mule's forehead and pulled the trigger. A tremor passed through the poor thing's body and its troubles were over. It had come all the way from South America to wear itself out carrying food to fighting men, and it died by the road when its last ounce of strength was spent.

The mule knows neither love nor offspring. Apart from a few gambols in the field, or while tethered to the horse-lines, it knows nothing but work. It is the supreme type of the drudge. It is one of the greatest factors in the war, and yet it receives scarcely any recognition and more of whipping than of praise. Only too often I have seen their poor shell-mangled bodies lying by the roadside waiting till the battle allowed time for their burial. Yet what could be more innocent of any responsibility for the war? They are as innocent as the swan on the moat at Ypres.

Yet the greatest suffering among innocents is not found at the Front at all. It is found at home. At the Front there is suffering of body and mind, but at home there is the suffering of the heart. Every soldier knows that his mother and wife suffer more than he does, and he pities them from his soul. War is a cross on which Woman is crucified. The soldier dies of his wounds in the morning of life, but his wife lingers on in pain through the long garish day until the evening shadows fall. There is no laughter at home such as you hear at the Front, or even in the hospitals. One finds a gayety among the regiments in France such as is unknown among the people left at home. It is the sunshine of the street as compared with the light in a shaded room. There is