Christmas day of the year of our Lord, 1916, dawned on a world which
seemed to have forgotten the Man of Peace. In Asia Minor the Allies
celebrated it by the capture of a strong Turkish position at Maghdadah.
The Germans spent it concentrating at Dead Man's Hill; the British were
ejected from enemy positions near Arras. There was no Christmas truce.
The death-grip had come.
Germany, conscious of her superiority in men, and her hypocritical peace
offers unanimously rejected, was preparing to free herself from the last
restraint of civilization and to begin unrestricted submarine warfare.
On Christmas morning Clayton received a letter from Chris. Evidently it
had come by hand, for it was mailed in America.
"Dear Clay: I am not at all sure that you will care to hear from me. In
fact, I have tried two or three times to write to you, and have given
it up. But I am lonelier than Billy-be-damned, and if it were not for
Audrey's letters I wouldn't care which shell got me and my little cart.
"I don't know whether you know why I got out, or not. Perhaps you don't.
I'd been a fool and a scoundrel, and I've had time, between fusses, to
know just how rotten I've been. But I'm not going to whine to you. What
I am trying to get over is that I'm through with the old stuff for good.
"God only knows why I am writing to you, anyhow--unless it is because
I've always thought you were pretty near right. And I'd like to feel
that now and then you are seeing Audrey, and bucking her up a bit. I
think she's rather down.
"Do you know, Clay, I think this is a darned critical time. The press,
hasn't got it yet, but both the British and the French are hard up
against it. They'll fight until there is no one left to fight, but
these damned Germans seem to have no breaking-point. They haven't any
temperament, I daresay, or maybe it is soul they lack. But they'll fight
to the last man also, and the plain truth is that there are too many of
them.
"It looks mighty bad, unless we come in. And I don't mind saying that
there are a good many eyes over here straining across the old Atlantic.
Are we doing anything, I wonder? Getting ready? The officers here say we
can't expand an army to get enough men without a draft law. Can you see
the administration endangering the next election with a draft law? Not
on your life.
"I'm on the wagon, Clay. Honestly, it's funny. I don't mind telling you
I'm darned miserable sometimes. But then I get busy, and I'm so blooming
glad in a rush to get water that doesn't smell to heaven that I don't
want anything else.