OUR WAR CORRESPONDENT AT THE FRONT

Frederick James Gregg

I. It was our duty and so we gave Thomas Babington Harrison, better known to his friends as Tommy, a dinner at the club before he sailed for the "front" in Europe. In similar amiable fashion we had started that most spectacular of war-correspondents, on other occasions for Cuba, the Boer war and the war between Russia and Japan. So we stood on our chairs and made the ceiling of the big private dining-room shake as we wished God speed to our friend. Even Smith, the professional cynic, had nothing more cheerless to say than to warn Harrison to look out for airships.

Tommy and I left the club together at about two o'clock in the morning. As we reached Broadway I pointed out an electric sign of a great newspaper. It was of the "Do You Know" variety, with his name in huge letters.

"That is fame, old boy," said I.

He shook his head dubiously.

"The outlook is a serious one," said he gravely-

"For Germany or for the Allies?" I asked.

"Oh, hang Germany and the Allies," he exclaimed. "I mean that it is a serious one for me. Suppose they tie up my despatches. Why, I got a decoration from the Mikado to console me for what his censor did to me in Manchuria. Drop in in the morning."

He hopped into a taxicab and was off like a shot.

II. Tommy's man Sato opened the door for me when I called next day. The sitting room was littered with Tommy's trappings of war—a khaki suit, with the ribbons of medals stitched to the coat; a big revolver in a belt case; a camera; field glasses; a saddle and saddle bags, and so on. Everything was in perfect order, thanks to the care of the inscrutable Japanese.

The master of the household dashed out of the dining-room to greet me, with a fork in one hand, and a letter in the other.

"I've got to leave all these behind me," he growled, pointing to the letter and to the gear.

"Why?" I asked.

"My friend at the State Department at Washington, the seventh Assistant Secretary, says that if I take any equipment with me I shall be regarded by the first commanding officers—French, English, Russian, German, or what not—that I may run into, as an expedition, rather than as a war correspondent and that my government won't be responsible if I am taken out and shot."

He looked around to see if Sato was in sight.

"Confound the Japanese. They introduced all this nonsense about war correspondents," said Tommy.

Sato appealed, sallow and smiling, at the door.

"How many for luncheon?" he asked.

III.A month or so later I saw Tommy in a tobacco shop in London. He was in the most civilian of clothes. There was nothing about him to suggest the hardened and experienced campaigner.

"What are you doing here?" he shouted.

"Business," said I. "Had to run over for the chief! And you?"

"Arrested ten times as a spy in France and Belgium, and then put out of the country. No explanations listened to. Passports no good!"

"Going back?" I suggested.

He ignored my query, and went on.

"Saw Kitchener yesterday. He remembered me in South Africa; said he liked one of my books. Tried to read the riot act to him. He's a stone wall. Told me my services were needed. 'Where,' I asked. 'Here in London,' he said. ' Go ahead and deal with the psychology of the war.' Then he looked out of the window and said, very softly. ' We'll attend to the news, Mr. Harrison, while you attend to the psychology.' "

"Well?" said I to Tommy. "What have you been doing?"

"Oh, I have been writing articles. Six of them. Here are the titles: 'How the war has hurt the theaters,' 'War's effect on French and German opera,' 'Likely result of the struggle on the universities,' 'The Militants as hospital nurses,' 'The war and the new dances,' 'The psychology of the bulletin board crowd.' Just imagine me at this sort of thing! Me! Oh, and, by the way, Sato has gone home to Japan," he said.

"Yes," I broke in. "I met him on Fifth Avenue before I left."

"Did he say what he was going to do?"

"Yes, he is to serve on the board of newspaper control at Tokio."

Tommy frowned and remarked grimly— "Oh, I always knew he was some sort of power in disguise. A General, I suppose, or something of that sort."

IV.I hear that, following the custom of their Japanese allies, the British War Office has recommended Thomas Babington Harrison, for the medal of the Victorian order, because of his services in promoting true neutrality among the noncombatant nations.