Shell-Shocked--and After

I

HEADQUARTERS,―DIVISION,

―, FRANCE,

November 1, 1918.
COLONEL ― ― General Staff, —
You will proceed to Ceuilly Woods at once, ascertain the conditions existing upon that front, and report the result of your observations by the quickest available means. By command of
MAJOR GENERAL―, Colonel, General Staff,
Chief of Staff.

I received the above order within half an hour after reporting for duty as liaison officer for the ―th Division, A.E.F. Brief, to the point, apparently simple of execution, it was the cause of months of the most perfect and unmitigated hell to me.

My automobile, a beautiful Cadillac limousine, was waiting on the street, below the general’s office. I climbed aboard, directing my chauffeur to drive toward the front — we were then about ten miles behind the infantry lines. On the way, I stopped to pick up two Salvation Army girls, walking laboriously through the mud to their advanced station. About three miles back of the lines, we came to the field artillery, and were met in the road by a sentinel, who told me that that was the limit for automobiles. I sent the car back to Division Headquarters, grabbed a side-car, and went on. It was an active sector, and things became interesting very soon. We went on, however, until we reached a camouflaged road. I got out, told the driver to wait for me at a town I showed him on my map, and went on afoot, gathering up a lieutenant liaison officer familiar with that section of the front.

We walked along the road a bit, leaving it at an opening in the camouflage, through which ran an abandoned Boche narrow-gauge railroad. We followed this railroad, picking our way carefully, while listening intently to the occasional Boche shells that came over, in order to drop on our bellies in case our ears told us the shells were close. At intervals we were jolted by our own artillery fire, as the seventy-fives searched for some irritating battery of the enemy.

Soon we reached the reserves of our infantry. I stopped at the P.C. of a regiment, asked the colonel about conditions, and went on, still up the abandoned Boche railroad. We were in the woods, and the railroad was the easiest road to travel. Shells came thicker, and now and than we would drop as fast as our legs would wilt, wait an instant for the crash, get up and go on. Soon the shelling became heavier, and one time I dropped and heard a man laugh at me. I got up and looked back at him. He was without a helmet, a dirty, nonchalant boy, not as bluffed as I had been by the shelling.

I looked to the front again, and just as I did so, I heard the most terrifying thing I had ever heard in my life — the loud, malicious scream of a big shell. I believe that there can be nothing more utterly terrifying than that sound. It is wicked, awful; it makes one feel cold and sick when it is loud. These shells carry with them a warning of death in an awful form, from which there is no escape unless God is good to you and you are quick enough to get close to the ground before the spray of splintered steel flies in all directions. This shell was louder than any I had ever heard — it seemed to be right in front of my face; it called its message with a fluttering, whimpering scream that froze me, nauseated me, weakened my legs, made me breathe a most devout, heartfelt prayer: ‘O my God, don’t let that hit me!’

I dropped. I crumpled up. I simply collapsed on the ground. But I did not get there fast enough. As I was falling, the whole world blew up. It is indescribable, that, crash of sound, so loud one cannot hear it. It stuns, it seems to hit you all over at once — things seem to stop going altogether. Perhaps I was knocked out; I don’t know. I remember getting to my feet, my head throbbing, my ears banging, my legs wobbling a bit as I tried to get my balance and stay up. I put my hand to my head in a dazed way, to wipe away from my mind the fogginess that seemed to surround it.

Another crash came and knocked me down. Again I got up. The blue layers of smoke were lying all about me, layer on layer, quiet and still, with the trees showing in between. I turned around, and still I saw those horizontal layers of blue smoke. I could n’t think, or move away from where I stood.

Then, as if it had just happened, I heard a man screaming. He was holding his body with both hands, kneeling on the ground, and screaming in agony. Another and another were lying quietly on the track. Then my eyes rested on what was left of the boy who had laughed at me, the blood pumping out of his body like red water from an overturned bucket. Then I realized that the shelling was still going on — heavy, continuous crashes, following closely one after another, many at a time, a perfect din of sound. I fell to the ground, and rolled over and over, off the track into the woods on the side, into a shell-hole, and lay there. My head hurt, my face hurt, my ears and eyes — I hurt all over. I put my hand to my face where it seemed to burn, and found it was covered with blood. I thought how messy it would make my trench-coat, and wondered whether a dry cleaner could get blood out of a fur collar. I lay there in that hole until the barrage lifted a bit — it was a six-inch barrage: the Boche was covering our approaches, which he knew all too well, since we had just pushed him out of that same area the day before. He knew that track very well, and exactly where it was.

I went on to the front, slowly feeling my way, until I got to the lines. There were no trenches, our men were lying on their bellies in the grass, hugging the ground until they went forward a few yards more, only to hug the ground again. At a field-telephone, a bit later, I telephoned back what information I had, and started to return. It took me all the rest of the day to get back to a dressing-station, where I was sewed up. That night I investigated the rest of that, immediate sector, found my sidecar, and went back to the division, hugging the right of the road, with no lights of any kind, meeting ammunitiontrains lumbering up on the other side, big spectres in the night, noisily making their way to the lines with their load of the iron ration. At times a shell would whinney and flutter — and crash to our right or left. It was a wild ride. Early in the morning we reached headquarters, and I breakfasted with the general and his staff. Jokes were cracked at my hurt face, and I was congratulated on having won a wound-stripe.

II

The Armistice came along in a few days, and I was assigned to command a field-artillery regiment that was to march into Germany. I was glad, as I wanted to make that historic trip. But I wished to high heaven that my head would quit aching. We got ready for the march in, gathering horses here and there, resting our men, sprucing up all we could under the circumstances, hating the quiet and inactivity of it all, wishing we could go home for a week or so, talking about the past already. And still I wished to high heaven that my head would stop its ache, its throb, its feeling as if it were in a vise.

Then our orders came, and in we went. Through miles of horribly devastated France, past miles on miles of barbed-wire entanglements, over roads full of shell-holes, past utterly ruined towns. And then into beautiful Luxemburg, with fields of grain, wonderful forests; through quaint towns, and then to Luxemburg City, where, as I rode at the head of my regiment, the children ran along and threw flowers under my horse’s feet — flags waving from the windows, people cheering, until my heart came into my throat and tears to my eyes, and I realized that never in my life again would I feel as I did then. And always my head ached and throbbed, always I wished to high heaven it would some time stop.

The regimental surgeon began to dope me. Every night he would stick something into me, or give me something to drink, feel my pulse, chat a while. Next morning he would stop in and ask how I slept, and sometimes how I ate. I did n’t sleep, I could n’t eat. And always the ache. And then that dream! It would wake me up in a sweat. Every now and then I would hear that fluttering, whimpering squeal, — and then I would see myself lying on the ground with my face gone — and the blood pumping itself out of the pieces of the boy who had laughed at me. I would wake up and not sleep any more. Then breakfast and no appetite — and always that damnable ache, and throb, and the vise would squeeze my head.

Food became more scarce, transportation was not adequate, the Boche was moving fast, and we must keep up to him. My horses had been gassed from grazing in gassed areas back of the front; they had not had sufficient nourishment, and were weak. My men were very weary. One time we were told that the next day’s march was forty-two miles. It almost broke my heart to make the regiment turn out at 4 A.M., and march those forty-two long miles. Horses died, men were evacuated to the hospitals, and between nine and ten that night we staggered into our billets, almost all in. And the hill we climbed that day — what a pull for those horses! I love horses, and as I rode up that hill, I thought of how little these drafted men knew of driving a six-line team up a hill with a jack-knife turn at the top. So I stopped, spread the regiment out so that there was road-room between the carriages, and personally drove every gun-carriage around that turn. There were only three men in the regiment who knew how to keep six horses in draft around a turn like that. The two majors knew, one a West Pointer, the other an old-type field-artillery first sergeant. I was the other one. It took six hours to get the two miles of regiment over the top of that hill. They got there, though.

Across the river into Germany! How I do remember that day. From the laughter, the waving flags, the happy children strewing flowers in Luxemburg, into Germany — silent, sullen Germany. The women turned their backs, the children clung to their mothers’ skirts, and stared, or scampered into the house, looking backward as they ran. How quiet it all was! How sullenly antagonistic! My men joked and kidded each other about the way the girls turned their backs, and comments were made on how that would all change when the Q.M. furnished us with new uniforms. It did change, too, almost overnight, as if it had been ordered from the German Great Headquarters. Then we were treated well, almost as guests. The sullenness vanished, to be replaced by a welcoming hand and offers of food and shelter if we did not have enough. My orderly came to me and said, ‘Colonel, we ’ve been fighting the wrong people!’ It shocked me for a moment and made me think, and has made me think a good deal since — that remark. I began to learn how many of my men spoke German, how many had been born in Germany, or were of German parentage.

I was made military governor of an area, was treated well by my host, the mayor of the town where I made my headquarters. I remember how delicious his Frau’s outing-flannel sheets felt to me at night, after the variety I had been accustomed to at the front. But I could not sleep well at all, nor could I eat well. The doctor began to talk of my taking a rest, a few days in the hospital, and so forth, to ease up a bit. And there was more dope in my arm, or something to drink. But the throb in my head kept on — and so did the dream. For about three months that continued; my nerves were getting bad, I was becoming more and more irritable. I was ill, but did not quite know it. I was sent to the hospital, was transferred to another, fainted once, was put to bed. And then things began to fade away at times. They were kind to me there, very kind. I shall always remember the kindness of those nurses and doctors.

The next thing I remember I was at Saint-Nazaire, waiting in the hospital for a transport to take me home, with a lot of wounded and sick men. They told me afterward that I acted all right; but the five weeks intervening between the hospital in Germany and SaintNazaire are a blank — I simply remember nothing at all.

The trip across was fine — did me lots of good. I was looking forward with a great deal of happiness to meeting some dear friends on this side, and subconsciously waiting for the kind welcome they would give me, and the rest and peace that I would have. A wireless came to me from a girl who had written to me a good deal. If only my head would have let up a bit, — and the nausea have stopped, — I could have been quite happy.

III

We were met in New York by a reception committee, and handed newspapers. Officers came to me, saying that the men were angry at something and wanted my opinion. I happened to be the senior officer on board and, although on sick-report, was, nevertheless, asked about this thing that bothered the men. After hearing it out, I put it up to the men themselves, and they voted to a man that they did not want to be received by a committee headed by a New York newspaper man whom they considered worse than a Boche. The Boche at least, would fight — this man stayed home and did all he could to mess up our work apparently. So I told the committee that the men wanted no reception from them, and they departed. How odd it seemed to me that we should be met by a pro-German at such a time! As I look back, I remember this as the first of the disappointments which my country had in store for its men from overseas.

I was feeling a bit rocky, and dodged the good people who met us. The surgeon, who had been sleeping in the same room with me on the way across, took me to a receiving hospital in New York City. A friend of mine, an officer who had been shell-shocked, was missing, and I asked for him. The surgeon said that he had jumped overboard. Then it dawned upon me why the doctor had slept in my room.

I want to give all credit to the wonderful staff of the hospital. The nurses and doctors were all one could want. They were kindness itself, thoughtful, and most considerate. At times in the months to follow there were other bright lights of happiness that shine forth as I look back; but, in the main, the year that followed was dominated by misery, physical pain, and mental anguish. If I knew that I was doomed to go through that period again, I would not face it.

For some reason I shrank from meeting my friends — and the girl. But after a bit I was allowed to go out, and I called on her. She was apparently glad to see me, and for a while I enjoyed her company; but some intuition made me feel uncomfortable — why, I could not tell. Gradually this began to become clearer to me, however, as I came to realize how far apart we were, how different her sheltered life had been on this side, and how utterly impossible it was for her to appreciate how I felt. I closed up like an oyster, finding it out of the question to tell what wanted to be told. I tried to a few times, only to catch the look of conscious interest — and again shut up.

This was my second disappointment. It surprised me — it hurt me. The longer I remained in this country, the more it hurt, until, finally, I became callous to the fact; for I realized, much against my will, that my friends, my country, spoke a different language! That thought rang through my brain in the long months that followed! Back in my own country, back among my friends, among scenes that I loved, that meant everything to me, and yet not back at all. I know that I am but repeating a thing that has been told many times, but the big fact remains, that the quick abandonment of interest in our overseas men by Americans in general is an indictment against us as a nation, not soon to be forgotten by the men in uniform from the other side. This fact burns in the minds of the thousands of men who at this very moment are living their broken lives in almshouses, jails, insane asylums, and hospitals, or wandering, hopeless, about the streets. I wanted relaxation, rest, anything to take my mind away from myself. I wanted to see musical comedies, read light books; I wanted to laugh and play. These were difficult things to obtain, however. My best friends wanted to see heavier plays — they wanted to see Nazimova writhe and squirm about the stage; they wanted to hear Heifetz play exquisite music, over which they raved. Exquisite music, yes, but not the sort to feed to a man who was in dire need of something vastly different.

I had friends who were intellectual, who were interested in things of real worth; but they could not discuss them in the human terms that interested me.

In New York drawing-rooms I met musicians of international repute, men of letters, of travel, who were interesting to most people and would have been to me, normally; but I was only bored. Back my mind wandered to France; and now and then that old dream came back, and I saw the red blood streaming from the ripped, torn body of the boy who had laughed at me. I became more nervous as sleep kept away, and food lost its interest.

A party of us drove up the Hudson and spent a few hours at my old Alma Mater, to me the most, beautiful spot in America, from which have come so many of our most famous men: the school, founded by George Washington, which gave us Grant, Lee, Sheridan, Sherman, Taylor, Pershing, and many others of international fame in civil as well as military life. There is something about that school that holds its graduates with a loyalty that exceeds anything I have seen.

It was good to be back, but those with whom I was did not understand. They had no realization of the value of such a school to the nation. Somebody remarked that West Point was a place where men were taught to kill Germans who had done us no harm. That grated on me, and I replied that, if I knew anyone who was pro-German at the time, I would most certainly report him to the authorities.

‘Would you report me?’ asked an American woman in the party.

‘I most certainly would,’ I answered.

‘Well,’ she replied, ‘you know my friend Fritz―is a German, and I have a great deal of sympathy for Germany.’

My comments were a bit sharp, I am afraid, and were apparently distasteful to another member of the party, who said that I was a coward if I were willing to report to the Secret Service such a friend as the other woman was to me. Things grew disagreeable, but we drove back to New York in peace, though I was worried and tired out. I retired that night exhausted in mind and body, and could not sleep, though the doctor gave me an opiate. That element of proGermanism at that time was extremely distasteful to me —I had seen too much, had felt too much, to be kindly disposed. Besides, it was a distinct shock to learn that my own friends felt so friendly toward those people with respect to whom I felt quite the opposite, because of things I had seen and been through myself. I learned later that that feeling was very prevalent among people calling themselves good Americans.

After a bit I was assigned to duty with the General Staff in Washington. My duties began at once — getting ready for another war. Another war! I used to sit at my desk in the War Department, thinking it over. Another war — God, what a thought! How under high heaven it could be that we should prepare for another war was beyond my powers of comprehension. I could not keep my mind on my work, I thought of other things, fumbled with my papers, dreamed and took walks during office-hours, trying to get my mind clear and get away from that damnable ache in my head. I would go to sleep at my desk, making up for the night before. To the Department I was practically useless.

Occasionally I went to New York, but had best have stayed away. I met an editor of a newspaper which had as its object the uplift of people; but I never got to know exactly what he wanted — he seemed a bit vague himself on that score. I listened to many conversations on the subject of the improvement of the condition of this and that. Then came Germany and the indemnity, and how awful it all was to make poor Germany pay. I went to hear a preacher of the gospel, and was disgusted with his ideas. I heard him address a meeting in Madison Square, attended by hundreds of men and women. As I looked around, I saw not one face that I took to be American; and as this American preacher remarked that the Bolsheviki must succeed, he was cheered to the echo, hats were thrown in the air — the crowd went mad. I told my companions that I would not stay in such a place in an American uniform — and left. They came, too, not because they did not sympathize with the speaker, but because they would not stay alone, without the protecting influence of that same uniform.

The drive home started in silence, but became a nightmare memory to me. Two women, one an American, one a foreigner of aristocratic birth, began to talk — and such talk! Again were my eyes opened very wide, and I was stunned and shocked by the opinions expressed. I was told that America should never have entered the war at all; that we should have accepted things peacefully; that, even if the Germans came over here, they would make themselves so hated that they would soon depart whence they came! I was informed that I should be ashamed of myself for ever going to the front; that my decorations were a disgrace to wear, as being tokens given to me for killing Germans! It was a disgrace to be a soldier at all, killing helpless women and children! I was a liar when I said that American troops were not accustomed to doing such things. And this too from well-bred women — intellectuals, so-called.

This was the beginning of the end of my association with these people, of whom I had been very fond before I sailed overseas. I reported them to the Secret Service in Washington, and believe that their pernicious activities ceased. The foreigner had taken refuge on our shores from the violence and anarchy which reigned in her own country; had for three years accepted all that we had to give — our safety, hospitality, music and art, the associations which meant most to her. And yet, in conversation with me one evening, holding her aristocratic arms aloft, she loudly proclaimed that REVOLUTION was what was needed to cure my country’s ills! Some things are beyond comprehension, beyond the power of human understanding.

IV

Back in Washington, we still worked on war, preparing for the next one. I did my best, but one day things broke. I was sitting at my desk, and suddenly realized that there was something radically wrong. I got to my feet, laughing and feeling silly. I saw little white circles chasing each other in front of my eyes. They came slowly into view from nowhere and tumbled from left to right, scurrying along one after another; and as I looked after them, they hurried on, always from left to right. I turned my head — and still they rolled over and over, those soft, round things that came out of nothing and fled away just as I turned my head to see where they were hurrying. I grew tense, and laughed. Then I began to play with them as they rolled along from left to right, always just a little ahead of me. I grabbed at them — and laughed and giggled in my play. I turned my head, but they rolled on, always just a bit ahead. I turned around myself, grabbing at those damnably elusive things that seemed to mock me in this game. And as I jumped for them, I laughed and chuckled delightedly.

In the middle of it all I stopped — there came a noise outside that brought me up sharp. I stopped and listened — everything was very still for an instant. Then a car-bell rang on the street below; then came steps in the hall outside, and the subdued voices of officers in the next room in a conference. I felt a chill of fear grip me. I locked myself in, sat down, and held on to my desk as things got gray and the ache in my head gave way to a hum, a low chanting hum, like the one that comes when one is just going under an anæsthetic. It required all my will-power to keep conscious then. Many times afterward I used my will to keep control of myself; but I remember that as the first time, and it left me tired physically, hot all over, and shaking with an intangible fear of a thing not understood.

Then a thought came to me, slowly, in a vague sort of way — I was losing my mind! Dear God, I was losing my mind! I grabbed my head in my hands, closed my eyes to keep away those fooling, fluffy, flying things that came out of nowhere and tumbled off into nowhere again. Things became quiet, I got control, picked up my cap, unlocked the door, and started to leave the office. My secretary met me at the door and laughingly asked me why I had locked her out — that she had been knocking. I said I would not be back that afternoon.

I went as straight as I could go to the attending surgeon, an old friend. In the seclusion of his office I told him my story, and went all to pieces and sobbed like a woman. Pretty soon we were in my car, and he was driving me to the Walter Reed Hospital, talking to me quietly on the way. Then followed those interminable examinations, day after day, — blood-tests, eye-tests, eartests, balance-tests, every test apparently that could be devised. I was thankful for my shoulder-straps, which gave me a room to myself.

There came interviews with a famous nerve specialist, a man whose grasp of human nature was wonderful; but he did not know the answer. He advised one thing and then another; he was kindness itself, and his understanding was remarkable. A man nationally famous, he had given up his practice to help the army in ils time of need — but he had not been ‘over there,’ and he did not know. It was this man, whose opinion I valued so highly, whose keen perception was always a source of wonder to me, whose training was all along the line that would lead to a real understanding of my case, who first showed me how utterly alone I was to be in the year that followed.

I had been more or less alone before, because everyone seemed to be so incapable of seeing things as I saw them, but my previous feeling was but little, compared to what followed. I wish that I could properly describe that feeling of utter loneliness in the world. I wish I could in some way convey to those who had their men on the other side how perfectly damnable that solitude is to some of those men. I wish more still that I could in some way get it into the minds of all Americans who have not been through it, how dreadfully alone a shell-shocked man can be, even though surrounded by those who love him most.

After some weeks I was given more liberty and would drive out to see friends — but with what result? Always I met with the same thing, that lack of interest, — either assumed or real, I do not know, — and would go back to the hospital and lie on my bed and lose all control of myself, and cry like a baby. Sleep did not come when I seemed most to need it, and food was positively repulsive a great deal of the time.

There is no use in going into the details of what followed in the hospital, except that one day three doctors came in to see me. They seemed to have something on their minds, but took some time to get it off. Finally, with the greatest consideration, calmly and with expressions of regret, I was informed that it was their opinion that I had best get my affairs in shape as I would probably not live for more than a month, or at best would be permanently insane.

Angry? When I had heard them out, I was more than that. I seemed to have an insane desire to hurt those men. I called them all the names I could think of; damned them with as much abuse as I could command. I wanted to break the furniture, to smash anything that came near me. They must have thought me crazy; perhaps I was, but it was the craziness of a wild rage at anybody who was such a fool as to think I was ready to die. Die? Why, I would not have died to please those doctors — and I did n’t.

The thought has come to me since, that perhaps those specialists told me that with a purpose. I don’t know — I have never asked; but it has occurred to me that perhaps they told me that to bring out all the fight, there was in me. If that was their object, I will grant them a hundred per cent of success. That interview was the turning-point in my illness. From that minute I was obsessed with the idea that I would not die — I was damned if I would die! The whole object of my life was to show those men what fools they were to think that I was going to die. I remember how I screamed at them in that room, and how they stood there listening to me, watching me, and saying nothing. I screamed and cursed those men until I cried, and slung myself down on my bed, and wore myself out trying to control the hysterical sobs that seemed to shake me all to pieces.

I locked my nurse out, but she got in and was good to me and gave me an opiate. She was a sweet girl, the daughter of a great man, giving her time and earnest effort to doing good. I knew her brother, who, himself a shell-shock case, had killed himself after returning from overseas.

V

At my own request I was soon allowed to leave the hospital on a long sick leave, to do whatever I wished. Apparently the doctors had done all they could — it was up to me.

I was mad all through, fighting mad. I was simply possessed with the idea that I would not die, that I would show those doctors what fools they were. In the year that followed, I exhausted everything I could think of that would help me to get well, to get back to where I had been two years before. My constant thought was that I was going to win in some way. It would be tedious to tell it, except in the most general way, but I want to remind anyone who may read this that that period of continual, continuous scrap lasted for a year, and in that time there was but one person who spoke my language. With this one exception, I was as alone as if I had been in a deserted world.

I went to one friend after another, searching for help, suggestions that would assist me; but it was like searching for the pot of gold at the rainbow’s end — it simply was not there. There were those who were sympathetic in thought and in deed, but apparently they did not know how to do anything practical.

The one person who knew was the military attaché at the French Embassy, a young captain of the French Army. We were chatting in his apartments one day, talking over the past, when it dawned upon us both that we had been through the same terrible thing. It was like finding some precious possession, long mourned as lost, for us to find each other. We clung to each other like blind men left alone. He spoke English — I spoke French — we both spoke the language of the Front, and we both spoke the language that needs no words, which exists between two men who have experienced shellfire and suffered the misery of exhausted, shattered nerves known to the world as shell-shock. In the Somme offensive with the battery, he had been filling a sand-bag, when a shell of large calibre struck within a few feet of him. He had been peppered with splinters, but not badly hurt. He had been caught running back and forth behind the front, muttering to himself, and had been for months in hospital until his mind began to clear. Being of a prominent family in France, he had been sent to the United States to get him away from the war, and was going through the same thing I was, fighting it out alone. What long talks we had! We drove about in the country, lay on the grass in the woods, and talked and talked, searching together for the spark in the empty dark that would be a hint of the life to come.

I went to an old friend, a teacher who kept a school for the daughters of rich parents. She was a graduate of Vassar, and I thought she could help me. And the disappointment that followed! I thought that she was human, but she was n’t. She had developed into the same sort that I have found elsewhere since then — the type of neurotic weaklings who hide away from reality and live in a comfortable fog of voluntary ignorance. While the war was in progress, she had refused to read about it, on the ground that it was all too horrible. She had purchased Liberty Bonds, in order to be able to tell her clientèle how patriotic she was. She had ‘closed her door on the war,’ as she dramatically told me.

‘Close your door on the war?’ I said; ‘how can you close your door on the biggest event since the coming of Christ?’

She was shocked, horrified at my blasphemy. She folded her hands, closed her eyes, and said that I must seek solitude, weeks of solitude — and read Pilgrim’s Progress!

It is so useless to go through the list of people to whom I went looking for help. To their credit be it said that many of them wanted to do something; but they never did it, because they could not, since they did not have the understanding to do it. So I left them, one after another, and went my way — alone, always alone.

My head continued to ache and throb, I continued to be nauseated, I still could not sleep. An insane desire to kill myself, as four other friends had done, took possession of me. I would toy with my automatic, and think how best to do it. I would lock myself in my room when attacks came that I had to fight, attacks that made me tense all over, that made me want to scream, break the furniture, pull my clothes to pieces. I would lean against the wall, tears running down my face, and scratch at the plaster, and sob and gag, and end by throwing myself on my bed, utterly exhausted by the effort to regain control. I would lock my windows before retiring for the night, lock my door and throw the key through the transom, to prevent my doing some insane thing before morning. I would go to sleep late, and wake at about half-past three in the morning, and stare at the dark, trying to think out the meaning of this thing.

I read New Thought, studied Christian Science, read the Bible, became a regular attendant at church. I got a copy of that great piece of logical thought, Burke’s ‘Conciliation with the American Colonies,’ and read it carefully, searching it for his great ideas on how to cure an ill by removing the cause. What was the cause of this thing? That was what I searched for in my own case. The thing to do was to remove the cause — but what was the cause?

My mother came and stayed with me. Never in my life before had I known what a mother could be. I believe that very few men really appreciate their mothers. I know I never appreciated mine until then. I have never seen such utter unselfishness, such obliviousness to her own desires, her own interests, as in my mother’s loving thought, her anxiety to help her son.

But it was too much — I could not stand her anxiety. I could not have her coming to my room in the middle of the night, and sitting with me hour after hour, listening to my raving. So I got a nurse and traveled for months on end. I took a ship and sailed off on a cruise through the Southern Seas. I stopped at an island in the south, took a house near the sea, and spent a month or more there. It was wonderful in that quiet and peace. I lay in a hammock, looking out over the beautiful blue Caribbean, listening to the pounding of the waves on the rocks, with the limpid azure of the sky, and its fleecy, scattered clouds overhead.

I breathed in the balm of t he fronded palms in the hush of the moonlit nights, until a wonderful thing came to me. The shadows broke, the night of that hideous fight was gone, and the first faint dawn of another day of my life came to me, in the knowledge that I was winning. Then the light, came truly bursting in upon my consciousness. I was winning! I was getting well again! I was sleeping better — I could eat — the pains in my head were lessening — my periods of depression were coming at lengthening intervals. I was getting well!

The knowledge that I was coming back came to me suddenly, all at once, and gave me a strength that I thought I could never have again. But once it came, the months that were to come were easy indeed, compared with the ones that had gone before. It was still a struggle, it still required all my willpower to keep going; but I knew that I could win. Before that time I had been trying to find out if that were a possible thing.

Nearly two years after I received the order that sent me into the shelled area of the Front, I left the army and returned to civil life. I got a job that took me again away from my country for several months. I was not yet really well, but this change helped a great deal, and rapidly I returned to normal again. Periods of ache and pain became very short, and few and far between. I believe the last one has come and gone. It was several months ago that I was writing on a typewriter, smoking my pipe. The pipe suddenly rattled in my teeth, my fingers became tense, my muscles tightened. I grabbed my pipe out of my mouth, stood up, forced my fingers out straight against my desk, took my hat, and walked and walked out into the country for a few miles, fighting for myself again. Finally I lighted my pipe again, and smoked. There was no more rattle then, my fingers were again all right. Once more I had won. That was the last time. Since then I have never had an indication that I had a nerve in my body anywhere. That was the last dying gasp of the thing that had held me in its grip for so long.

My work brought me back to the United States. I began to read the papers Articles caught my eye — exsoldiers not cared for, ex-soldiers out of work, in insane asylums, in jails, walking the streets. I looked into the matter and found that there were thousands upon thousands of these men in straitened circumstances, in poverty. There were more thousands, who needed hospital attention, who were not getting it. There was trouble in Washington over the means to care for these men. Governmental bureaus overlapped, passed the buck to each other — and still nothing seemed to be accomplished. What was the matter with my country? Was it really ungrateful? Was it true that the public had tired of this responsibility? Statements were made to me that magazines would no longer accept war-stories, and that publishers would no longer print anything pertaining to the war, or the men who had fought in it. I found that these statements could be easily disproved, but, nevertheless, it was disheartening, when I kept learning for myself how these men were suffering.

I was walking down Broadway, and my walking-stick accidentally struck against a man. I apologized perfunctorily, but upon looking at him, I saw a poorly dressed man who looked familiar. Then he spoke. ‘Colonel,’ he said, ‘can you do me a favor?'

I was astonished — did not know him. But he knew me — he had been in my regiment, overseas. He wanted money — two hundred dollars to start a cigar-stand. We went to the bank and he left me happy. Some day I shall hear from that man, who drove a lead pair on the march into silent, sullen Germany. He will win some day. All he needed was a little help, practical help to start again; not emotional sentimentality, but help — practical, substantial help.

How many others there are just like him, who need just a little help. Are we going to give it? I believe we shall, if we but realize the truth; if we will but see, and not ‘close our door on the war.'

There has come a thought to me that I wish the American people would ponder over when they grow tired of the war, which they felt so very, very little. When they damn the men who bother them for jobs, who pester them for help, they should search their own hearts first.

Shall we help back those thousands of humble men who trod the rocky pathway of the Front in France? Shall we give them the little boost that they need, to come back? And what of those other men who have suffered, whose minds are gone? Shall we be but ghosts for those unburied dead — who did not die?