By the spring of 1917, a whipped Woodrow Wilson, reelected as a liberal idealist with a clear vision for the future of the country, had watched his own rigid policies lead the country into archconservatism. He was finally forced to admit the inevitable: They were on the verge of war. After a passionate speech in which he urged the Congress to declare war on Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Turks of the Ottoman Empire to save the world "for Democracy," he returned to his office in the White House with the cheers of the senators and representatives still clamoring in his ears.

His secretary was shocked by his appearance. He looked worn out, defeated, old and sick.

"Are you all right?" she asked with alarm.

He shook his head sadly and dropped heavily into his chair.

"My message today was a message of death for our young men, " he said. "How strange it seems to applaud that. " Then lowering his head to his desk, he wept.

His message started a wave of patriotism in the country. Hamburgers became Salisbury steaks; sauerkraut was "liberty cabbage." Germans quietly slipped to the courthouse and changed their names. Conscientious objectors were beaten up and thrown in jail. Either you were for the war or you were a traitor, and thousands of young Americans were inspired to take up the fight. Keegan was one of them. Only eighteen, he joined the Marines and six months later he was in the first Marine battalion to land in France.

Jocko Nayles, a tough street fighter from Brooklyn, only three years Keegan's senior, took Keegan in tow on the boat ride to France.

"How old're ye?" he asked.

"Eighteen, " Keegan answered, trying to sound tough.

"Eighteen, then! Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Well, ye just stick with me, kid, I'll get you through this. "

Together they had marched down muddy French roads toward the Marne River where they were baptized in fire, where Keegan had seen his first German and killed his first man. The meaning of these skirmishes was lost in the terror of hand-to-hand combat, of sky bombs showering shards of metal down on him from overhead, of the flashes of shells that temporarily blinded him, and of the mines underfoot. In horror, he saw his buddies struck down in rows like grass before a scythe and finally felt the burning punch in his shoulder, felt his knees give out, and he fell, not knowing how badly he was hit or whether he would live or die.

To Keegan, the war was five hundred yards long and a hundred yards wide and scattered with helmets and weapons and body parts. He could not relate to anything beyond his field of vision. Whether they were winning or losing, why they were there, were questions that did not even occur to him.

When the battle was over, Jocko had come back and found him huddled in a shell hole, a dirty handkerchief stuffed in the bullet hole in his shoulder, had picked him up and carried him back to the field hospital, had nursed over him for days until his fever broke and infection passed.

A month later he was back with his unit, wallowing through the mire on the outskirts of a French town called Chteau-Thierry, headed for the Marne River only seventy miles from Paris.

To Keegan, the length of the French and German border was one great muddy battlefield, its trees reduced to stumps, its fields coursed with twisted barbed wire and miles of trenches, its villages reduced to rubble. For mile after mile, the disgusting perfume of death hung in the air like a fog. Mud-caked and broken, soldiers, driven to the edge of insanity, hunched in their trenches, cursed the rain and the shells which intermittently poured down on them, dreamt of home, faced chattering machine guns, aerial bombs, mines and an equally insane army of Germans in a crazy leapfrog of battles in which thousands sometimes died in a single day. All to gain a few miles of decimated earth.

"This is where we stop 'em, lads, " a youthful lieutenant told them as they trudged toward the enemy. "Else they'll be in Paris before Christmas. "

From Chteau-Thierry they headed north toward a game preserve called Belleau Wood, singing songs as they marched. One platoon singing one song, the second answering with another.

K-K-K-Katie, K-K-K-Katie,

You're the only g-g-g-girl that I adore,

When the m-m-m-moon shines, over the c-c-c-cowshed,

I'll be w-w-w-waiting at the k-k-k-kitchen door.

Answered by: You may forget the gas and shells, parley-voo,

You may forget the gas and shells, parley-voo,

You may forget the gas and shells,

But you'll never forget the mademoiselles,

Hinky-dinky parley-voo.

They were singing as they approached the park. The Germans fired the first shot.

This time, Keegan went down with a shell fragment in the leg. He dragged himself to a battered wall where he found three Marines clustered around a machine gun, dead long enough that bugs had begun to feast on them. Then there was a lull in the battle and he leaned his cheek against the wall, biting his lip to keep back the pain. An uneasy silence fell on the glen where he lay.

He was surprised by the first of the Germans. They were on horseback, like a ghost posse, suddenly materializing in the swirling smoke of battle. The hooves of their horses were wrapped in gunny cloth and their halters and cinches were greased to cut down the noise. They moved slowly and silently over the battered ground, their guns at the ready. Keegan started firing and he kept firing, his teeth rattling as the heavy machine gun kicked and thundered under hand, firing until the barrel of the gun was glowing red, warped from the heat, and the ammo belts were scattered empty around him.

When he stopped, the world stopped. There was not a sound. Not a bird singing, nor the wind sighing, nor even the cries of the wounded. There was silence. Before him was a grotesque frieze, as though the horses with their legs stretched up in the air and the men sprawled like sacks around them were posing for a photograph. Only then did the ghastly pain from the hole in his leg fire his brain and he screamed and passed out.

In the hospital he found Jocko Nayles, his face half covered in a bloody bandage, his bloody eye socket swollen with pus, lying in his mud-caked uniform raving with fever. This time it was Keegan who urged his friend away from death.

The French gave him the Croix de Guerre and the Americans a Silver Star and his second Purple Heart. He had been in Europe only four months.

It was at the coffee bar in the hospital that Keegan first met Bert Rudman, a cocky young man starched and clean in a field coat and campaign hat, scratching out a story with a stub of pencil on a grungy sheaf of folded paper.

"Hi, " Rudman had greeted him holding out his hand, "I'm Bert Rudman, Herald Tribune out of Paris. "

"Keegan, " was all the youngster had mumbled back.

"Were you at Belleau Wood?"

"I think so. "

"How bad is it?" Rudman asked, nodding toward his leg.

"Bad enough to get me home. " He paused for a moment and then asked, "Did we win?"

Rudman had stared at him for a moment, the significance of his question slowly sinking in. Then he smiled. "You sure did, kiddo. Kicked the Kaiser's ass right back where it came from and then some. "

"That's good, " Keegan said "Hell yes, it's good. Know what they're callin' you Marines? Devil Hounds. Is that a Croix de Guerre on your shirt?"

"Yeah. Some frog general gave it to me. "

"What'd you do?"

"Damned if I know. "

"Well, you must've done something, trooper, that's hot stuff in the French Army. Say, could I impose on you? I'm writing this piece on the battle, you know, kind of the big picture of what happened. Can I read it to you, you bein' there and all?"

Keegan nodded. "Sure. "

Rudman had sat there, reading from his tattered papers, stopping occasionally to scratch out a correction or take a sip of coffee as Keegan listened in awe, not because the words were that stunning, although it was clear that Rudman knew how to write, but because for the first time he understood the panorama of the battle he had been part of: the decisions made by the officers, the attacks and counterattacks, the strategy and terrible price that had been paid to drive the Germans back across the Marne and break their march toward Paris.

He was struck by the realization that what had been a traumatic and monumental moment in his life had been an infinitesimal part of the battle, by the insignificance of his part in the brutal encounter. And as Rudman read on, the story gathered a kind of chilling energy unto itself and Keegan began to feel its power.

"Belleau Wood is silent now, " Rudman said, wrapping up the lengthy tome. "What was once a beautiful picnic spot has been reduced to tree stubs, great gaping holes in the ground, and mud. It is as if the earth itself at Chteau-Thierry has been mortally wounded and lies bleeding at the feet of the victors.

"Perhaps this is the beginning of the end for the Germans who sought this war and have paid so dearly for it. For while our victories are clear, the cause of this war is still clouded and obscure. Perhaps we will learn that from the peace, for until we understand why this war happened we can never be sure it will not happen again. "

He looked over at Keegan, who sat speechless "Well, what you think?"

"Why, it's great. Just great, " Keegan said softly and took a deep, slow breath. "They really call us Devil Hounds?"

"You bet. You boys fought like hell out there. And you really think it's good, the story I mean?"

Keegan nodded emphatically.

"Okay. O-kay! Say, what'd you say your name was again?"

"Francis Keegan. "

Rudman scribbled a phone number and tore it off the bottom of one of the sheets of paper.

"Look here, Francis, here's my number. You get back to Paris, call me. We'll have dinner together, on the Trib."

"Can I bring my buddy? He lost an eye in the fight. "

"An eyel Goddamn those Krauts! Why, sure enough, bring him along, we'll make a night of it. And say, thanks for listening, okay?"

"Sure. Thanks for letting me hear it. "

"No kidding," Keegan finally said. "A cow barn, eh. No plaque or anything to commemorate the occasion?"

"Nothing but a salt lick."

"I'm insulted," Keegan said. "Are you insulted?"

"Cut to the quick."

"So they've got you covering politics now, huh?"

Rudman nodded. "Hear about Hitler's speech in Munich?"

"He makes a speech every time his auto stalls."

"Not like this one. Talk about choreography! They were climbing the walls before he was through. You could hear the mob heiling Hitler in Brooklyn. It was scary. I still get goose pimples thinking about it. He's got something, this guy. He's dangerous, Francis. Did you read my piece on Munich?"

"I read it," Keegan said.

"And . . . ?"

"A little hysterical."

"Hysterical! Have you seen him? Heard him speak?"

"Sure. That line about Hitler being a demonic vision of God was lovely. Keep writing stuff like that you'll lose your visa-or end up with a bullet in the back."

"Now who's being hysterical? They're not going to fool around with the Herald Trib. "

"Look around you. You think these crazies give two hoots in hell about your credentials? Poor old Sid Lewis got his brains beat out down in Rome for using the wrong adjectives about Mussolini."

"That's not what happened at all," Rudman said. "Sid was queer. He got in a lover's quarrel with some fascist he picked up in a bar and got his head bashed in."

"Count on you to know all the dirt. You ought to start your own little monthly newsletter. All the news that's unfit to print."

"That's very funny, Keegan. And what have you been up to?"

"I'm the embassy badminton champion. Me and Cissy Devane."

"My God, that's really impressive," Rudman said sarcastically.

Keegan waved his arm toward the crowded club.