much. Some of them are sleepy, for the average American boy is not
used to being awakened at two in the morning. They just stand and wait
and watch through five hours of silence as the great ship plunges its
way defiantly through the danger zone, saying in so many words: "We're
ready for you!"

And the silhouette of that great ship, lined with khaki-clad American
boys, waiting, watching, as seen from another transport, where the
watcher who writes this story stands, is a sight never to be equalled
in art or story. To see the huge bulk of a great transport just a
stone's throw away, moving forward, without a sound from its
rail-lined, soldier-packed deck, is one of the striking Silhouettes of
Silence.

Thomas Carlyle once said of man: "Stands he not thereby in the centre
of Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities?" One day I saw the
American army standing "in the centre of immensities, in the conflux of
eternities," at the focus of histories. One day I saw the American
army in France march in answer to General Pershing's offer to the
Allies at the beginning of the big drive, march to its place in history
beside its Allies, the English and the French.

The news came. The first division of American troops was to leave
overnight and march overland into the Marne line. Our Allies needed
us. They had called. We were answering.

As a tribute to the efficiency of the American army, may I say that the
one well-trained, seasoned division of troops that we had in a certain
quiet sector picked up bag and baggage overnight and, like the Arabs,
"silently stole away," and did it so well and so efficiently that not