WORLD'S END

So, by the summer of 1918, they had managed to acquire a pretty-complete dislike of the jimber-jawed Missouri general. When Baker, Secretary of War, had visited England, Lloyd George had tactfully suggested that President Wilson should be requested to remove Pershing; to which the secretary had replied coldly that the American government was not in need of having anyone decide who should command American troops. Clemenceau had written a long letter to Foch, insisting that he should appeal to President Wilson to remove Pershing, on the ground that he had proved himself incompetent to handle armies in battle. Alston said he had seen a copy of that letter, though he wasn't at liberty to tell who had shown it to him. What more likely than that the generalissimo of all the Allied forces had said to himself: "Well, if this stubborn fellow is determined to have his own way, we'll give him something to do that will keep him busy."

After listening to such conversation, Lanny and his friend strolled down the Champs-Йlysйes, between the mile-long rows of captured cannon, and for the first time and the last the lieutenant was moved to "open up" to his friend. "My God, Lanny!" he exclaimed. "Imagine fifty thousand lives being wiped out because two generals were jealous of each other!"

"History is full of things like that," remarked the youth. "Ten thousand men march out and die because the king's mistress has been snubbed by an ambassador."

The ex-tutor went on to pour out the dreadful story of the Meuse-Argonne, a mass of hills and rocks covered with forest and brush. "Of course that's all gone now," said Jerry, "because we blasted every green thing from a couple of hundred square miles; we even blew off the tops of some of the hills. The Germans had been working for four years making it a tangle of wire, with machine guns hidden every few yards, and dugouts and concrete shelters. We were told to go and take such and such places, no matter what the cost, and we took them - wave after wave of men, falling in rows. I saw a man's head blown off within three feet of me, and I wiped his brains out of my eyes. We had whole regiments that just ceased to exist."

"I heard about it," said Lanny.

"You might, because you met insiders; but the folks at home haven't the remotest idea, and won't ever be told. Military men say that troops can stand twenty percent losses; more than that, they go to pieces. But we had many an outfit with only twenty percent survivors and they went on fighting. There was nothing else you could do, because you were in there and the only way out was forward. The hell of it was that the roads ran crossways to our line of advance, so there was never any way to get in supplies except on men's backs. You took a position, and flopped down into a shell hole, and there you lay day and night, with shells crashing around you and bullets whining just over your head. The rain drenched you and near froze at night, and you had no food, and no water but the rain you caught in your tin hat; all around were men groaning and screaming, and nothing to do but lie there and die. That's modern war, by God, and if they give me any more of it, I'm going to turn Bolo."

"Be careful how you say it, Jerry," warned his friend. "There really are Bolos, you know, and they're working in our army."

"Well, tell those old fellows at the Crillon to hurry up and settle it and send us home, or my outfit will turn Bolo without anybody having to do any work at all."

VII

Next morning Lanny had his light French breakfast and went to Alston's, office. He was standing by the latter's desk, going over their schedule for the day, when in came Professor Davisson; the big, stout man was hurrying, greatly excited. "Clemenceau's been shot!"

"What?" exclaimed Alston, starting up.

"Anarchist got him as he was on his way here to see House."

"Is he dead?"

"Badly hurt, they say."

Others of the staff came in; the building was like an ants' nest when something upsets it. Everybody's plans were bowled over; for what was the use of holding conferences and making reports, when the whole thing would have to be done over? If the Tiger died, Poincarй would take his place; and the professors who had been scolding Clemenceau now had a sickening realization that he was a man of genius and a statesman compared with his probable successor, a dull pasty-faced lawyer who came from Lorraine, and therefore had drunk in hatred of Germany with his mother's milk. If Poincarй got the reins of power in his hands there would be no more talk of compromises, but a straight-out campaign to cripple Germany forever.