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diff --git a/old/51495-0.txt b/old/51495-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3a2e53b..0000000 --- a/old/51495-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10510 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Uncensored Letters of a Canteen Girl, by -Katharine Duncan Morse - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Uncensored Letters of a Canteen Girl - -Author: Katharine Duncan Morse - -Release Date: March 19, 2016 [EBook #51495] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCENSORED LETTERS--CANTEEN GIRL *** - - - - -Produced by Roger Frank, Sue Clark and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.bookcove.net. - - - - - - - - - -THE UNCENSORED LETTERS OF A CANTEEN GIRL - -NEW YORK - -HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY - -1920 - - - - -Copyright, 1920 - -By - -HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY - - - - - TO - PAT - GATTS - BRADY - SNOW - NEDDY - BILL - NICK - HARRY - JERRY - and - THE REST - THIS BOOK - is - DEDICATED - - - - -TABLE OF CONTENTS - - I. BOURMONT—COMPANY A - II. GONCOURT—THE DOUGHBOYS - III. RATTENTOUT—THE FRONT - IV. GONDRECOURT—THE ARTILLERY - V. ABAINVILLE—THE ENGINEERS - VI. MAUVAGES—THE ORDNANCE - VII. VERDUN—THE FRENCH - VIII. CONFLANS—PIONEERS, M. P.’s AND OTHERS - - - - -FOREWORD - -To M. D. M. and M. H. M: - -_My dears_, - -These letters were all written for you; scratched down on odds and ends -of writing paper, in a rare spare moment at the canteen; at night, at my -billet, by candle-light; in the mornings, perched in front of Madame’s -fireplace with my toes tucked up on an ornamental _chaufrette_ -foot-warmer. Why were they never sent? Simply because all letters mailed -from France in those days, must of course pass under the eyes of the -Censor. And as the Censor was likely to be a young man who sat opposite -you at the mess-table, it meant that one mustn’t say the things one -could, and one couldn’t say the things one would. So, after my first -fortnight over there I decided to write my letters to you just as I -would at home, putting down everything I saw and thought and did, quite -brazenly and shamelessly, and then keep them,—under lock and key if need -be,—until I could give them to you in person. - -Written with the thought of you in my mind, these letters are first of -all for you, and after that for whoever they may concern, being a true -record of one girl’s experience with the A. E. F. in France during the -Great War. - - - - -CHAPTER I: BOURMONT—COMPANY A - - -Bourmont, France, Nov. 24, 1917. - -My village has red roofs. When I first came to France and saw that the -villages were two kinds; those with red roofs and those with grey, I -prayed _le bon Dieu_ that mine should be a red-roofed one. Heaven was -kind. Every little house in town is covered with rose-colored tiles. We -came here yesterday from Paris. Our orders, which were delivered to us -in great secrecy, read: Report to Mr. T——, Divisional Secretary, -Bourmont, Haute Marne; then followed a schedule of trains. That was all -we knew except that some one told us that at Bourmont it had rained -steadily all fall. - -“It cleared off for several hours once,” concluded our informant. “But -that was in the middle of the night when nobody was awake to see.” - -Bourmont is a city set upon a hill, a hill that rises so sharply, so -suddenly, that no motor vehicle is allowed to take the straight road up -its side, but must follow the roundabout route at the back. Already we -have heard tales about our hill; one of them being of a lad belonging to -a company of engineers stationed here, who in a spendthrift mood, being -disinclined to climb the hill one night after having dined at the café -at its foot, bribed an old Frenchman with a fifty franc note to wheel -him to the summit in a wheelbarrow. The Frenchman, for whose powers one -must have great respect, achieved the feat eventually, the spectators -agreeing the ride a bargain at the price. - -Two-thirds of the way up the hill on the steep street called grandiosely -_Le Faubourg de France_ we have our billet, at the home of Monsieur and -Madame Chaput. These are an adorable old couple; Madame a stately yet -lovably gentle soul, Monsieur le Commandant, a veteran of the -Franco-Prussian War and member of the _Légion d’Honneur_. His wonderful -old uniforms with their scarlet trousers and gold epaulets rub elbows -with my whipcord in the wardrobe. - -Outside, the Maison Chaput resembles all the other houses which, built -one adjoining another, present a solid grey plaster front on each side -of the street. Like all the rest it has two doors, one opening into the -house and one into the stable, and like every other house on the street -the doors bear little boards with the billeting capacity of house and -stable stenciled on them, so many _Hommes_, so many _Off._ (for -_Officiers_). It is told how one lad after walking the length of the -street exclaimed; - -“Gee! Looks as if this were Dippyville. There’s one or two off in every -house!” - -Another boy gazing ruefully at the sign on his billet door, groaned; - -“Twelve homes! Why, there ain’t one there!” - -One stable door nearby wears the legend in large scrawling letters; -“Sherman was right.” At first the owner was furious at this defacement -of his property, but when someone explained the significance of the -words to him, he became mollified and even took a pride in them. - -“Where are you stopping?” asks one boy of another. - -“Me? Oh, at the Hotel de Barn, four manure-heaps straight ahead and two -to the right.” - -The distinguishing feature of the Maison Chaput is the corner-stone. -This shows as a white stone tablet at one side of the door. On it is -carved “Laid by the hand of Emil Chaput, aged one year. Anno. 1842.” It -is the same Emil Chaput who with his tiny baby hand “laid” the -corner-stone who is now our genial host. - -“It is droll,” said Madame; “When strangers come to town they must -always stop and read the corner-stone. They think the tablet is placed -there to mark the birthplace of some famous man.” - -The Gendarme and I,—Madame has christened G—— my companion the Gendarme -on account of her vigorous brisk bearing,—live in the _Salle des -Assiettes_, at least that is what I have named it, for the walls of the -room which evidently in more pretentious days served as a _salle à -manger_, are literally covered with the most beautiful old plates. Not -being a connoisseur I don’t know what their history is nor what might be -their value; I only know that they are altogether lovely. The designs -are delicious; flowers, insects, birds, little houses, Chinamen fishing -in tiny boats, interspersed with spirited representations of the Gallic -cock in rose and scarlet. I exclaimed over them to Madame, whereat -Monsieur, candle in hand, bustled across the room and called on me to -regard one in particular. - -“_Ça coute_,” he averred proudly, “_quarante francs!_” - -Since that moment I have been vaguely uneasy. What if, in a moment of -exasperation, I should throw an ink-bottle at the Gendarme’s head, -and—shatter a plate worth forty francs! - -Our room is the third one back. The front room is kitchen, dining and -living room. The in-between room is quite bare of furniture, lined all -about with panelled cupboards, and quite without light or air except -that which filters in through the opened doors. In one of these -cupboards Monsieur le Commandant spends his nights. When the hour for -retiring comes, he opens a little panelled door and climbs into the hole -in the wall thus revealed, leaving the door a crack open after him. When -we pass through on our way to breakfast we hurry by the cupboard with -averted faces. The family Chaput are not early risers. - -Already Madame has taken us into her warm heart. She will be our mother -while we are in France, she tells us. Everything about us is of -absorbing interest. When the Gendarme exhibited her wardrobe trunk, she -was fairly overcome. - -“_Ah, vive l’Amérique_,” she cried, clapping her old hands, and, “_Vive -l’Amérique!_” again. - -Bourmont, it seems, is army Divisional Headquarters. It is also -headquarters for this division of the Y. There is a hut here, a -warehouse, and headquarters offices, employing a personnel of sixteen or -seventeen. By tomorrow the Gendarme and I will know what our work is to -be. - - -Bourmont, November 28. - -I have a canteen; the Gendarme, who has had some business training, is -to work in the office. My canteen is in Saint Thiebault, the village -next door. In the morning I go down the hill, past the grey houses built -like steps on either side—some with odd pear trees, their branches -trained gridiron-wise flat against the fronts,—over the river Meuse, -here a sleepy little stream, to Saint Thiebault. On the way I pass lads -in olive drab with whom I exchange a smile and a hello, villagers -bare-headed, in sabots, and poilus in what was once horizon blue. In -Paris the uniforms were all so beautiful and bright, but here at -Bourmont one sees the real hue, faded, discolored, muddy, worn. The -soldiers, middle-aged men for the most part, slouch about, occupied with -homely, simple tasks, chopping wood and drawing water. One feels there -is something painfully improper in the fact that they should be in -uniform; they should, each and every one, be propped comfortably in -front of their own hearthsides reading _l’Echo de Paris_, in felt -slippers while their wooden shoes rest on the sill outside. And yet -these very ones, I think as I look at them, may be the defenders of -Verdun, the victors of the Marne, the veterans of a hundred battles! - -The Bourmontese, who are proud and haughty folk, and call themselves a -city though they number only a few hundred souls, look with disdain on -the smaller village of Saint Thiebault, _Saint Thiebault des Crapauds_ -they call it, Saint Thiebault of the Toads. Approaching Saint Thiebault -one sees two unmistakable signs of American occupancy; first, a large -heap of empty tin cans and then the Stars and Stripes fluttering from a -flag pole in the centre of the village. For Saint Thiebault is -Regimental Headquarters and it is the boast of the old Colonel that -wherever the regiment has gone that flag has gone too. Down the main -street of the town I go, past the drinking fountain placarded; “Do not -drink, good only for animals,” but at which, nevertheless, the doughboys -frequently refresh themselves, cheerfully risking death, not to mention -a court-martial, in order to get a drink of unmedicated water; and out -along the Rue Dieu until I turn off the highway just beyond the village -wash-house. The wash-house, known to the French as _la Fontaine_, is a -beautiful little building like a tiny stone chapel, with tall arched -windows filled with iron grills. Through the centre runs a long oblong -pool; at its brim the women kneel to do their scrubbing, handsome -peasant wenches many of them, with fresh, high coloring. Often one sees -a soldier leaning against the grill, engaged in some attempt at -gallantry through the bars. Sometimes one even glimpses a form in olive -drab kneeling by the side of one of the peasant girls, he scrubbing his -socks, and she her stays, while she gives him a lesson in French and in -laundering _à la Française_. When the Americans first came to Saint -Thiebault they had only a small-sized guard-house. Then came one -historic payday when after months of penury the troops were paid. That -night the accommodations at “the brig” proved inadequate and the -wash-house had to be requisitioned for the over-flow. This was well -enough until the lodgers fell to fighting among themselves and so fell -headlong into the pool. Then such a hullabaloo broke loose that the -whole camp turned out to see who had been murdered. - -Back of the wash-house lies a group of long French barracks, and here -lives Company A of the —— Regiment, infantry and “regulars.” Beyond the -mess-hall is the hut, a French _abri_ tent with double walls. Ducking -under the fly, one finds oneself in a long rectangular canvas room, -lighted by a dozen little isinglass windows. The room is filled with -folding wooden chairs and long ink-stained tables over which are -scattered writing materials, games and well-worn magazines. Opposite the -door, at the far end, is the canteen counter, a shelf of books at one -side, a victrola and a bulletin board, to which cartoons and clippings -are tacked, on the other. Back of the counter on the wall, held in place -by safety pins, are the hut’s only decorations, four of the gorgeous -French war posters brought with me from Paris. There are two stoves -resembling umbrella-stands for heating in the main part of the hut and -behind the counter another, about the size and shape of a man’s derby -hat, on which I must make my hot chocolate. For lights at night I am -told that occasionally one can procure a few quarts of kerosene and then -the lamps that stand underneath the counter are brought out and for a -few days we shine; but usually we manage as our ancestors did with -candle-light. Our candlesticks form a quaint collection; some are real -tin _bourgeois_ brought from Paris, some strips of wood, some -chewing-gum boxes, while others are empty bottles, “dead soldiers” as -the boys call them. As for the bottles, I am particular about the sort -that I employ and none of mine are labeled anything but Vittel Water. -Others I observe are not so circumspect,—yesterday I chanced in at a -canteen in a neighboring village kept by a Y man; on a shelf three “dead -soldier” candlesticks stood in a row and their labels read; Champagne, -Cognac, Benedictine! For the rest, the hut is equipped with a wheezy old -piano, a set of parlor billiards, and a man secretary. It is invariably -dense with smoke, part wood and part tobacco, and usually crowded with -boys. - -The first night after the Chief had taken me over to call at my canteen -and I had had one cursory glance at them, I came back feeling that my -hut contained the roughest, toughest set of young ruffians that I had -ever laid eyes on. The second night I came home and fairly cried myself -to sleep over them—they seemed so young, so pitiful and so puzzled -underneath their air of bravery, so far away from anything they really -understood and everybody that was dear to them. It was Cummings in -particular I think who did it for me. He owns to seventeen but I would -put fifteen as an outside estimate. A mere boy who hasn’t got his growth -yet, with soft unformed features and a voice as shrill as a child’s, I -am sure he ran away from home to go to war just as another lad might -have run away to see the circus. Although the regiment is a regular army -organization, a large part of the men were raw recruits only last -summer, a fact which causes the old-timers, whose service dates from -Border days or before, no little regret. - -“This Man’s Army ain’t what it used to be,” they complain; “it’s getting -too mixed.” - -The “veterans” have a stock saying which they employ to put the -youngsters in their places: “Call yourself a soldier do you? Why I’ve -stood parade rest longer than you’ve been in the army!” - -This is sometimes varied, when the speaker happens to be the tough sort, -by; “Huh! I’ve put more time in the guard-house than you have in the -army!” - -Tonight a boy came up to the counter and asked: “Goin’ to serve hot -chocolate tonight?” - -“Sure thing!” - -“Then I guess I won’t go out and get drunk.” - -It’s going to be hot chocolate or die in that hut every night after -this! - - -Bourmont, November 31. - -I don’t like my uniform. I don’t like women in uniform anyway. I suppose -it is because one is so used to the expression of a woman’s personality -in dress that when she dons regulation garb she seems to lose so much. -And then to really carry off a uniform requires a flair, a dash, a -swagger, and such are rarely feminine possessions. The consensus of -opinion seems to bear me out. - -“Of course I think women in uniforms look very snappy,” confided a lad -to me today; “but somehow they don’t look like women to me!” - -“_Pas joli_,” says Monsieur le Commandant severely, referring to my hat. -“_Pas joli!_” But when I put on my old blue civilian coat he fairly goes -into raptures. - -“Be-u-ti-ful!” he ejaculates. “Be-u-ti-ful! _Toilette de ville. Pas -toilette de Y. M. C. A.!_” - -Besides the suit and cape I had made in Paris, they gave me two canteen -aprons, aprons such as French working women wear, voluminous, beplaited, -made in Mother Hubbard style. Now there is one point on which I am -resolved. They can court martial me, they can send me home, or they can -lead me out and shoot me at sunrise, but they cannot make me wear those -aprons! What’s more, the very first minute that I have to myself I’m -going to cut them up and make them into canteen dish-cloths. - - -Bourmont, December 3. - -This French money is the very plague; not because it is French but -because it is so flimsy. It may perhaps measure up to the national -standards, but it fails utterly to meet American requirements; the -difference lying chiefly in the fact that the French don’t shoot craps. -It comes into the canteen in all stages of disintegration. - -“She’s kinder feeble. Will she pass?” inquires a lad anxiously. - -“With care maybe, and the help of a little sticking plaster,” I reply; -and getting out the roll of gummed paper kept handily in the -cash-drawer, I proceed to patch up the tattered bill. - -“Guess this one must have been up to the front; it’s all shot to -pieces,” another lad apologizes; then, at my casual references to -shooting craps, grins guiltily. “But say now, ain’t it the rottenest -money you ever did see?” “The United States ought to teach these -Frenchies how to make paper money,” remarks a third; while still another -adds; “When I’m to home I write to my girl on better paper than that.” - -Sometimes the bills come in as a mere mass of crumpled tatters; then one -must play picture-puzzle piecing it together. Sometimes they are beyond -repair; for at times you will receive two halves of different notes -pasted neatly together, or at other times one with the corner bearing an -essential number lacking. The French banks refuse to pay a cent on their -paper money unless it is just so. - -“I’m sorry, but that bill’s no good,” you will occasionally have to tell -a boy. Usually he will grin cheerfully as he stuffs it back into his -pocket. - -“Oh well, I’ll pass it along in a crap game.” - -Then too, the boys have no respect for foreign money and so handle it -carelessly with an obvious contempt that is irritating to the French. - -“Tain’t real money,” they declare. - -The paper francs and half-francs they call “soap coupons.” - -“Why, you might just as well be spendin’ the label off a stick o’ -chewin’ gum!” they jeer. - -Next to the paper money that comes to pieces in their fingers, the boys -detest the big one and two cent coppers. Known to the navy as -“bunker-plates,” in the army they pass as “clackers.” “You get a -pocket-full o’ them things and you think you’ve got some money, and all -the time it ain’t more than ten cents altogether,” they grumble. - -“I can’t be bothered carryin’ that stuff around,” they declare when I -beg them to pay me in coppers. “I always throw ’em away or give ’em to -the kids.” A prejudice which greatly complicated the matter of making -change until I had an inspiration. Now I give them their small change in -boxes of matches or sticks of chewing gum. - -Then there is the annoyance of the local money. Since the war, the -cities of France have taken to issuing their own paper francs and -half-francs. We accept all this local money in the canteens and send it -to Paris to be redeemed. But the French tradespeople in general refuse -to honor these bills except in the city that issues them or its -immediate vicinity. Many a puzzled doughboy has been driven to indignant -protest or even to “chucking the stuff away” in his exasperated disgust -when told by the shopkeepers that his paper money was _pas bon_. But the -grievance is not quite all on one side: no small amount of worthless -Mexican money, brought over by Border veterans, I am told, was palmed -off on shopkeepers at the port when the Americans first landed! - -In contrast to their disdain for this foreign currency the boys cherish -to a degree that is half funny, half pathetic, any specimens of “real -money” that they are lucky enough to possess. - -“Say, I had an American dollar bill in my hand the other day,—I felt -just as if the old flag was waving over me!” And another lad; “Saw a U. -S. Dollar bill today. Oh boy! but it looked a mile long to me!” - -If anyone displays an American greenback at the counter a little riot is -sure to ensue. All the boys nearby crowd about, feast their eyes on it, -touch it, pat it, kiss it even. - -“Lemme see!” “Ain’t she a beauty?” “That’s the real stuff!” “Say, how -much will you sell her for?” - -Even the half-dollars, quarters and dimes are precious. - -“You don’t get that one,” they say as they pull a handful of change from -their pockets. “That’s my lucky piece. I’m savin’ that there little ol’ -nickel to spend on Broadway.” - -French money, Belgian money, Swiss money, English money, Spanish money, -Italian money, Greek money, Canadian money, Luxembourg money, -Indo-Chinese money, money from Argentine Republic, and yesterday a -German mark even, all come across the counter and go into the till -without comment. But when any American money comes in I always feel -badly over it. For, be it a crisp five dollar bill, an eagle quarter or -only a buffalo nickel I know it signifies just one thing,—bankruptcy. - - -Bourmont, December 7. - -To be a corporal in the Ninth Infantry, it is said, a man must be able -to speak eight languages, one for each soldier in his squad. The same -could be said with almost equal truth of our regiment. I don’t know -whether it is this mixture of many nationalities that gives my family -its flavour; be that as it may, Company A has more color, more -character, more individuality to the square inch than I had dreamed any -such group could possess. And they are so funny, so engaging in their -infinite variety and their child-like naivete! - -First there are Gatts and Maggioni; Gatts, lean, tall, honest-eyed, with -a grin that won’t come off and a quaint streak of humour,—Gatts who -looks pure Yankee, but is, if the truth were told, three-quarters -German,—Gatts who hangs about my counter hour after hour; and by his -side sticks little Maggioni, who told the recruiting officer that he was -seventeen but whose head just tops the canteen shelf, and who looks, -with his pink cheeks and his great dark eyes, like nothing in the world -but an Italian cupid in the sulks. The two have struck up the oddest -comradeship. - -“Me an’ Gatts, we’re goin ’to stick side by side,” explains Maggioni, -“an’ if I see a crowd o’ Germans pilin’ onto him, why I’ll just go right -after ’em, an’ if too many of ’em come for me ter oncet, why Gatts here, -he’ll just lay right into ’em.” - -And Gatts nods, looking down at Maggioni with a parent’s indulgent eye. - -“He thinks he’s a tough guy for sich a little feller,” he comments -reflectively; “but he’s the only one in the regiment that knows it.” - -“You all think I’m mighty little!” snaps the cupid. “When I joined at -Syracuse everybody said to me ‘Baby, where’d you leave your cradle?’ But -lemme tell you, I’ve growed since I’ve been in the army!” - -“Waal I do believe there’s one part of him that’s growed;” Gatts is very -solemn. - -“What’s that?” I ask. - -“His feet.” - -Private Gatts has promised me one of the Kaiser’s ears! - -Then there is Brady, “Devil Brady” the little black Irish coal-miner -from Oklahoma, who spends his days trying to get put in the guard-house, -so he won’t have to drill. - -“I’m plumb disgusted,” he confided to me today. “I never worked so hard -in my life as I did the other night gettin’ drunk, an’ then the guard -was so much drunker than I was, I had to carry him to the guard-house. I -thought sure they’d give me thirty days at least, but they only kept me -twenty-four hours and then out!” - -“Hard luck,” I sympathized. - -“I just knew how it would be,” he mourned. “It was Friday the thirteenth -when I joined the army; there were just thirteen of us fellers, and the -thirteenth was a nigger.” - -He tells me the most wonderful yarns about the miners and their pet -rats, about explosions and disasters and rescue parties. Last night he -told me the story of one mine-horror that will stick in my memory. - -“And we shoveled the last three men and a mule into one bag,” he -finished. - -Now and then I catch a glimpse of Jenicho the Russian giant, but he is -very shy. A huge lumbering fellow, sluggish, and seemingly stupid, with -little pig eyes that are quite lost to sight when he smiles, Jenicho is -the butt of the Company. When he joined the regiment last summer, they -tell me, he knew no word of English. The first phrase that he acquired -was; “You no bodder me.” For the boys can’t resist the temptation to -plague Jenicho, and though his strength is such that if he once should -get his hands on his tormentors he could break them into bits, he is so -slow withal that they always can elude him. Not long ago Jenicho was -walking post one night when the Officer of the Day hailed him and -announced himself. To which Jenicho lustily responded; “Me no give damn. -Me walk post, gun loaded, bay’net fixed. You no bodder me. Me shoot!” -And the Officer of the Day discreetly walked on. - -Then there is little Philip R. who plays our decrepit old piano quite -brilliantly by ear, and who is, he tells me, half Greek and half -Egyptian. Philip R. is the pet of a French family in one of the -neighboring villages. He stopped at a house to ask for a drink of water -when out walking one day. Madame asked him in, pressed him to stay to -supper. The family made much of him, and all because forsooth he was the -first “American” they had ever seen. Since then he has been a constant -welcome visitor. - -There is St. Mary too. If you can conceive of a cherub eating watermelon -you have a perfect picture of St. Mary. St. Mary converses entirely in -words of one syllable and very few at that. He makes smiles serve for -speech. St. Mary loses everything he owns; not long ago he lost his -overcoat, now he has lost his bayonet. Yet St. Mary is the best natured -boy in the company; he needs to be. When St. Mary helps me stir the -chocolate it seems as if half the company lined up on the other side of -the counter to shout; “St. Mary! Take your dirty hands out er that there -chocolate!” and St. Mary never says a word but grins until his eyes are -nothing but little slits and ducks his head until only the curls on top -are visible. - -“St. Mary, he’s kind o’ simple,” explains Private Gatts. “But there -ain’t anybody in camp that’s got a better heart.” - -And there is Bruno, Angelo Bruno, a little grinning goblin of a man, but -strong, they say, as a gorilla. Bruno gives the non-coms no end of -trouble; he’s a “tough nut to manage.” Whenever he is told to do -anything that does not suit his tastes, he merely shrugs his shoulders, -“No capish,” and that’s the end of it. The other day while on guard he -was interrogated by the Officer of the Day. - -“What’s your name?” - -“Bruno.” - -“What are your general orders?” - -“Angelo.” - -The Officer gasped, thought he would try again. “What are your special -orders?” - -Bruno saw a light. “They’re ina my pock!” - -When I first came to Saint Thiebault I was puzzled by the silver -half-francs in my cash drawer which were bent in the middle, some of -them so far as almost to form a right-angle. Then the boys explained. -Bruno was once a strong man in a circus sideshow. He did things with his -teeth. The crooked half-francs were the results of his exhibiting his -prowess to the boys. So now when damaged half-francs appear I know that -our little Angelo has been trying his teeth again. At present our social -intercourse with Bruno is limited. He is serving thirty days in the -guard-house. But every day or two he slips into the hut to do his -shopping, the kind-hearted guard standing at the door, as he does so, a -sheepish look on his face. If there is one military duty which the -doughboy hates above all others, it is this job of “chasing prisoners,” -and when you meet a file of guard-house habitués escorted by a rifle in -the rear, it is invariably the guard, and not the prisoners, who looks -the culprit! The interest of Bruno’s visits lies largely in seeing what -is his latest acquisition in the way of jewelry. For Bruno has a pretty -taste for finery and enlivens the dull evenings of his captivity by -winning away the ornaments of his fellow prisoners. Already he has come -into the canteen decked out with seven large rings and a fat watch and -chain. Today he appeared with his latest prize, a pair of gold-rimmed -eye glasses. They are hideously unbecoming, they pinch his nose so that -it hurts, moreover he can’t more than half see out of them, and yet it -is quite evident those eyeglasses are the pride of his heart. - -Last week our Secretary conceived a big idea. He would educate A -Company. He would teach them to read, write and speak English. He -started a class. On the first night there was a large crowd, eager and -interested; the second night there were six, the pupils when sought out -complaining they were “tired” or “busy;” the third night there was Saint -Mary who made one; the fourth night the class died an easy death. I am -afraid Company A is going to continue uneducated. As Brady said: - -“There were just two things I learned in school; one was to throw a spit -ball, the other was to bend a pin convenient for somebody to sit on.” -And it looks as if it would have to go at that. - -“Why, those birds don’t even understand their own names,” complain the -officers; “except on payday, and then they’ll answer no matter _how_ you -pronounce them.” - - -Bourmont, December 9. - -There is something queer about me. I don’t mind the mud, I don’t mind -the rain, I don’t mind the hill, I don’t even mind the mess. Of course I -admit that the food isn’t quite what one is used to, and the -surroundings are a trifle unsavoury, but it is, after all, so much -better than the state of semi-starvation that I was led to half -anticipate, that I for one am quite content. - -Our mess is held at the house of an old couple who live a little way -above our billet on the hill. The house was differentiated from the -others in the row by a spindling and discouraged tree which stood in a -green tub outside; as this was the only tree in front of a house on the -whole street it has always been easy to pick out our otherwise -undistinguished entrance. Last night however, the weather waxing colder, -the tree moved indoors. This morning the whole Y. personnel wandered -distractedly up and down the hill trying to identify the mess-house -door, until some kindly villagers, sensing the situation, came out on -their front steps and pointed us to the place. - -The house, like most of the village dwellings, consists, downstairs, of -just two rooms. In the front room the family cooks, eats and spends its -days. In the back room the family sleeps, and here we have our mess. The -drawback of this arrangement is that one has to pass through the kitchen -in order to reach the dining-room and this is likely to spoil one’s -pleasure in the meal that follows. As for me, I go on the principle that -what one doesn’t know won’t take one’s appetite away, and so hurry -through the kitchen with one eye shut and the other fixed on the door -ahead of me. - -Said my right-hand neighbor to my left-hand neighbor at supper the other -day, as he offered him the _pièce de résistance_ of the meal: - -“You aren’t taking rice tonight?” - -“Thanks no. Saw the old lady picking ’em out this noon.” - -“That’s nothing. I saw the old man picking ’em out of the beans -yesterday.” - -But why should people come to war if they are going to be so squeamish? - -A few days ago one rash soul among us conceived a hankering for salad. -She went to Madame and, being ignorant of the French word, demanded -simply. - -“_Avez-vous_ lettice?” - -Madame shook her head uncomprehending, but finally as the words were -repeated a light dawned. - -“_Ah oui, oui, oui!_” - -She turned and hurried upstairs, descending triumphantly a moment later -with a large bundle of old letters! In just what form she expected us to -have them served I have not yet been able to ascertain. - -The mess-room is so crowded that to reach a seat often requires -considerable manœuvering. In one corner stands an ancient dressmaker’s -dummy—by popular vote awarded as sweetheart to the most bashful man at -table; in the corner opposite is the bed of Madame and Monsieur. The men -who get up for early breakfast, swallow their bread and jam and coffee -with Monsieur watching from his couch of ease. Today Madame was -indisposed and when we came to supper we found that she had retired -already. All through the meal she lay there, under the red feather-bed, -looking like a dingy, weazened old corpse, staring at the ceiling, her -mouth wide open. - -For the last few days we have had a visiting clergyman with us. To all -appearances a meek and long-suffering little man, he has been giving -special revivalistic discourses at the huts and eating at our mess. This -morning he was asked to say grace. In the middle of a long and earnest -exhortation I was startled to hear these words: “Oh Lord, Thou knowest -we are apt to grow lean and to starve in Thy service!” I fairly had to -stuff one of the one franc canteen handkerchiefs, which serve as napkins -at the mess, into my mouth to keep from laughing. - - -Bourmont, December 12. - -In Paris a man who lectured to us said: “Get the fellows who have -influence with you, and you can swing the crowd.” Sometimes I think that -if Pat were our enemy instead of our friend we might almost as well shut -up the hut. For Pat the sharp-shooter, Pat the dare-devil, Pat, who in -company phrase “has Harry Lauder and George Cohen stopped in a hundred -places,” Pat the happy-go-lucky adventurer is one of the leading spirits -in Company A. He has served, it seems, already in the war with the -Canadian army. - -“But how did you get out of it?” I asked. - -Whereupon Pat regaled me with a wonderful rigmarole involving an -extraordinary case—his own—of shell-shock out of which I could make -neither head nor tail. Later, from one of the Secretaries who had been -at Saint Thiebault before I came, I learned the truth. When America had -declared war, Pat had deserted from the Canadian in order to enlist in -the American army. Pat had showed him a letter from one of his old-time -friends; it ended: - -“Of course I wouldn’t think of splitting on an old pal like you, Pat, -but I do need twenty dollars like hell.” - -“What did you do?” asked the Secretary. - -“Sure an’ I sent him the money,” grinned Pat. - -Shortly after I first became acquainted with him, Pat, who is naturally -gallant, with a tongue inclined to blarney, extracted a promise from me. -Some day, after the war, if we should happen to meet, say, strolling -down Fifth Avenue, Pat “dressed in a nice blue serge suit” is going to -“take me away from the other feller” and take me out to dinner. It was -after solemly pledging my word to this agreement that I learned that Pat -had formerly been a saloon keeper and had had an extensive police-court -record. Immediately I began to hope that Pat would forget that post-war -party, but not he. Instead, he is constantly reminding me of it, always -before an audience, dwelling on it and elaborating it, until now I find -it has grown from a mere dinner, to dinner, the theatre and a dance! - -Lithe, wiry, lean-faced with close-cropped hair, pale blue gimlet eyes -and an almost unvarying expression of intense seriousness on his face, -Pat, when present, is the life of the hut. Forever at his clowning, you -would never dream from his demeanour that Pat’s domestic affairs are in -a state little short of catastrophic. His wife, according to her -photograph a handsome, sullen, passionate type, half Mexican, ran away -about a year ago, taking with her all his money that happened to be -handy, together with his new automobile. Encountering some of Pat’s -friends, she had explained her apparently care-free single state by -telling them that Pat was dead. Now she has discovered that Pat is in -France, she is all for reconciliation. She has written him a letter in -which she addresses him as her dear husband about six times to each -sheet, informing him that she needs money, and inquiring of him what he -wished her to do with his clothes. - -“What did you answer?” I asked, for Pat, who must always share his -correspondence, had shown me the letter. - -“I told her,” grinned Pat, “she cu’d keep the clothes and maybe she’d -find another man to fit ’em.” - -But there is another and more serious side to the matter. It seems that -the lady in the case has written to the Captain of A Company, requesting -him to forward a large proportion of Pat’s pay to his deserving and -indigent wife. Whether or not this will be done is still uncertain. Pat -refuses to discuss the possibilities, but from the glint in his eyes I -have a premonition that if next pay day Pat finds any considerable -deduction made from his pay, that that night one wild Irishman will run -amuck in Saint Thiebault. - -Occasionally in the midst of Pat’s racy discourses I overhear things not -meant for my ears, such as his remarking how in Rochester once he “went -on a seven day’s pickle in company with a female dreadnut.” But usually -he is very careful to only “pull gentle stuff” in my hearing. The other -day he delivered himself of a wonderful dissertation on the -deceitfulness of pious people, ending with this gem; - -“So whenever I see one of these guys comin’ towards me with a gold crown -on his bean, looking’ as if he couldn’t sin if he had to, why I nip -tight on to my pocketbook and I cross to the other side of the street!” - -Today Pat came into the canteen with a newspaper clipping and a letter -to show me. The letter was from the Chief of Police of K——, one of the -many cities in which Pat has resided during his short but crowded life, -the clipping from the K—— Daily Sheet. The clipping was comprised of a -letter which Pat had written to the Chief of Police giving in humorous -phrase his version of life in France and an accompanying paragraph -stating that though the writer had given the police force no little -anxiety during his residence in K——, still he had been in spite of all, -a good-hearted and likable rascal, and now that he had gone to war for -his country, bygones should be bygones and K—— must be proud of him. The -letter from the Chief was in much the same vein. - -“Yes,” ruminated Pat; “I kept the old feller pretty busy, though me an’ -him were friends just the same. But it sure would get the old man’s -goat, just after he’d had me up and fined me, to come home and see me -settin’ at his dinner-table alongside of his pretty daughter.” - - -Bourmont, December 14. - -Because it took too much time right in the most important part of the -day to climb Bourmont Hill for mess at night, I have arranged to take my -suppers with two little old ladies here in Saint Thiebault. The suppers -are to consist of a bowl of cocoa and a slice of bread with jam. The -little ladies supply the bread and milk for the cocoa and I supply the -rest, paying them one franc a day. - -At half-past five I put on my things, light my little candle-lantern and -set forth. The boys, coming in after mess, will be crowding the hut; a -chorus of anxious voices queries. - -“You’re comin’ back sure, ain’t you?” - -And, “What time is that hot chocolate goin’ to be ready?” - -I pick my way down the slippery duck-boards to the highway. Trudging -along the muddy road, friendly voices hail me from the dark. I am known -by the little light I carry. At number two Rue Dieu I rap and enter, -trying desperately to leave some of the mud from my boots on the -door-step, for in this land of wooden shoes scrapers are as unknown as -they are unnecessary. Once inside I have to fairly strain my eyes in -order to be able to see anything, for all the light in the room is -supplied by the embers on the hearth and one tiny gasolene lamp with a -flame not much bigger than the point of a lead pencil. Kerosene is -unobtainable for civilian use; the price of candles is prohibitive. - -“_C’est la guerre. Cest la misère_,” say the little old ladies. “One -must sit in the dark—“_Cest triste comme ça._” - -My candle doubles the illumination, yet in spite of that, so strong is -the instinct for economy, they will not rest easy until they have blown -it out. - -The little old ladies are cousins. The elder of the two, “Madame,” is -lame and has snow-white hair. She sits by the fire always in the -self-same spot. The younger, “Mademoiselle,” is a tiny dwarfish creature -with a back that is not quite straight. Over her dark dress she wears a -jaunty little scarlet apron sewn with black polka dots. I am grateful -for that apron; it makes the one bit of color in the sombre room. - -I sit in front of the fire at the round table and sip my chocolate. The -table has an oil-cloth cover on which is printed a map of France, so as -I eat my supper I can take a lesson in geography. It is a pre-war -tablecloth I fancy; over at one edge shows a slice of Germany. The -little old ladies point to that side of the table with scorn, “_Les -sales Bodies sont là!_” they explain. - -I wonder that it doesn’t give them heart-burn to look down and see the -captive and devastated districts of France lying beneath their tea cups. -Think of setting your salt-cellar on the city of Lille or your mustard -pot on the sacred citadel of Verdun! - -As I sup I endeavour to converse politely, but as my French is little -more than camouflage, this is a dubious proceeding. Whenever I prove -particularly stupid, out of the corner of my eye I catch Madame shaking -her old head at Mademoiselle despairingly. - -“_Elle ne comprend pas!_” she murmurs sotto voce, pityingly; “_elle ne -comprend pas!_” - -At odd times they turn an honest penny by doing a little sewing for the -villagers. But life is very difficult these days: the prices of -everything have gone so high. Why, wooden shoes that cost five francs -before the war now fetch fifteen! - -Tonight I noticed an item in a Parisian Journal lying by my plate. It -was to the effect that at the Madeleine that day Mlle. X had married -Lieut. Z., a veteran of the war who had lost both arms and both legs. I -showed it to the little ladies. - -“_Ah oui!_” sighed Mademoiselle with a shiver. “_Elle a beaucoup de -courage, celle-là!_” - -And Madame shook her white head and echoed. “_Oui, elle a beaucoup de -courage!_” - -Upstairs an American officer is billeted. I fancy his presence supplies -a certain dash of romance to the little old ladies’ lives. The Americans -are nice, they say, and make little noise in the village; when the -Russians were here it was different. - -“It will be lonely when the Americans are gone,” sighs Mademoiselle. -“The houses will seem empty.” - - -Bourmont, December 18. - -Yesterday I explored the top of Bourmont Hill. It is here that the -Quality Folk live, and here are some stately old houses with beautiful -carved doorways and even an occasional gargoyle. Here too the general -commanding the Division lives, and I have often observed with glee -corpulent colonels and rotund majors puffing and blowing and growing red -in the face as they climbed the hill to Headquarters. At the top of the -hill there are two churches. Some two weeks ago, it is whispered, a spy -was caught signaling from the tower of Notre Dame. His signals, it is -said, were flashed to another spy stationed on the hills to the east, -who in turn sent the messages on to the lines. The Curé of Notre Dame is -being held under suspicion of complicity. - -From Notre Dame an avenue bordered by magnificent old trees sweeps -around to the Calvary, a tall wooden cross surmounting a curious -structure of rough stone, ringed about with shallow steps—the Mecca of -many pilgrimages. Beyond the Calvary one comes to the Mystery of -Bourmont. A faded sign declares _Défense d’éntrée_, but one looks the -other way and slips by. For once past the gate you are in an atmosphere -of enchantment. No one seems to know just what it is, nor how it came -about; I can get no intelligent explanation from Madame or Monsieur. To -me it seems like the forgotten playground of an old mad king in some -fantastic legend. For here among the trees are stone stairs, walls and -terraces, and, cut in the curiously cleft rocks, are niches and -tunnelled passage-ways, all mantled over now with green moss and ivy, -the whole making one think of a dream garden out of Mæterlinck. - -Coming down Bourmont Hill afterwards I was startled by the beating of a -drum; looking back I saw a woman, bare-headed, her blue apron fluttering -in the wind, descending the street after me; from her shoulders was -slung the drum which she was beating with a martial vim. It was the -town-crier, _le tambour_ as the French put it. Arrived at an appropriate -spot, she stopped, pulled out a paper, cried “_Avis!_” and began to read -in a rapid high official monotone. The wash-house was to be closed -between two and four o’clock the following afternoon on account of the -new water system the Americans were installing. Certain requisitions of -grain were to be levied.... The villagers were notified to call at the -Mayory for their bread cards, without which, after such a date, no bread -could be obtained.... One or two women came to the doors of the houses -and listened. She took no notice of them. The reading over, she rolled -the paper up with a quick decisive gesture, and resumed her march, the -sharp rub-a-dub-dub of her drum pursuing me all the way to Saint -Thiebault. - -Of late the air has become fairly vibrant with disquieting rumours: one -does not know what to believe, what to reject. - -The Germans are massing for a gigantic drive on Nancy. In three weeks, -some say, the offensive is to begin; three days, say others. Nancy is to -be another Verdun. If they break through they will pass this way. The -American troops are being withdrawn from this neighborhood: any day the -order may come for us to leave. At Paris the political situation is -dark. Some people even fear a popular uprising against the government. I -hinted at this to Monsieur, he shook his old head hopelessly. But yes, -things were in a bad way. Now if France only had _Veelson_ at her head! -France and _Veelson_! His gesture indicated the grandeur of such a -contingency. As it was, France lacked a leader. And underneath all this -runs another rumour, still darker, still more disquieting. The French, -the gallant French, they say, are “laying down.” They are ready to make -peace at any price. They are played out, sick to death of it all! - -“Forty-two months in the trenches!” cried a sergeant _en-permission_ -last night; “It is enough! I am through. Let the Americans do it!” - -And this feeling, they tell us, is wide-spread. The people see our -soldiers day after day, in the training camps, inactive. “What are they -here for?” they are asking. “Why don’t they fight? Are they going to -wait until it is all over?” - -Will our soldiers, half-trained as they are, and a mere handful, be -forced, to satisfy them, into the trenches? - -In the canteen I look into the boys’ faces and smile, but my heart turns -sick within me. - - -Bourmont, December 20. - -Such a strange, incredible thing has happened,—a thing that has upset -all my preconceived ideas of human nature. It began with Malotzzi. -Malotzzi as his name betrays is a “wop;” he is also the smallest fellow -in the company which contains many small men. Nor is he only small, but -with his thin olive-tinted face and his slender body, he looks so -delicate, so ethereal that you feel a breath of wind might fairly blow -him away. To the company he is “a good kid, quiet, never makes any -trouble.” To me he has always seemed an elfin, changeling creature, a -strayed pixie, whose impishness has turned to gentleness. Child of the -tenements that he is, he is possessed of the most exquisite -old-fashioned courtesy that I have ever yet encountered; and he has the -starriest eyes of any mortal born. - -Not long ago he came to the counter to show me a post-card from his -sweetheart. It had an ugly picture of a red brick city block upon it, -and the message scrawled in an unformed hand beneath contained little -except the simple declaration that when he came home she would go with -him to the photographer’s over the candy store at the corner and they -would have their pictures taken together. Yet no flaming and lyric -love-letter could have rendered him more naively proud. Malotzzi with a -sweetheart! It was absurd, he was nothing but a child! I can well -believe that Malotzzi wouldn’t make a very “snappy” soldier. - -This afternoon when the company was out for drill, a certain Second -Lieutenant discovered that Malotzzi hadn’t got his pack rolled up right. -This was not the first time he had offended in this manner. The -Lieutenant had warned him. He was angry. He took Malotzzi over to the -bath-house, stripped off his blouse, tied his hands so he couldn’t -struggle, and beat him with a gunstrap until he fainted. - -The story flashed around the camp. When I came back from supper I found -the boys at white-heat with indignation. They fairly seethed with anger. -I think if the Lieutenant had happened in, they might have killed him. -Presently a little crowd carried Malotzzi in. They rolled back his -sleeves and showed me the great purple welts upon his arms. His back was -all like that, they said. He had to be held up in order to keep his -feet. - -“You had better take him to the hospital,” I told them. - -They carried him out again. He is at the hospital now, where he is -likely to stay for some time. His lungs are delicate and the beating -caused congestion. The medical officer made a report and the Lieutenant -has been placed under arrest. - -I have never met the Lieutenant to know him, but curiously, the -Secretary, who messes with the officers, asserts that of all the men -there this Lieutenant has always appeared as the most clean-spoken, the -most cultured, the most gentlemanly. And the boys have always considered -him a very decent sort. The whole thing is absolutely and blankly -incomprehensible to me. There is one explanation the boys offer; which -is that the Lieutenant, having a yellow streak, has lost his nerve at -the prospect of going to the front, and has done this as a desperate -expedient, in the hope of being dishonorably discharged. The only other -possible explanation which I can come upon is that the Lieutenant has a -German name. - - -Bourmont, December 23. - -The burning question that is on every lip: Will the Christmas turkeys -come? - -We had been promised turkey. What’s more I had been promised some of -that turkey too, at Company A’s mess table. Now uncertainty holds us in -torment. Every sort of a rumor is rife. Some darkly insinuate that -neighboring organizations have sidetracked those turkeys. Others declare -that the turkeys, having been smuggled in by night, are now actually in -camp among us. - -“Huh!” snorts my friend the Tall Kentuckian. “Funny turkeys they have in -this army! I done heard those turkeys had four legs and a pair of -horns!” - -Of course Christmas won’t be Christmas without the turkeys, but anyway -we have done our best to bring Christmas into the hut. The question of -Christmas trees was taken up in the Bourmont office some days ago. An -application was made to the Mayor; the Mayor referred the matter to the -representative of the Bureau of Forestry. The Bureau of Forestry proved -to be a good scout. He ruminated a while, “Mademoiselle,” said he, “this -matter is so tied up with red tape, that if one were to unwind it all, -it would be New Year’s before you got your tree. My advice is that you -select your tree, wait until after dark, then go out, cut it down close -to the ground, and cover the place carefully with snow.” - -Tonight when the subject of Christmas trees came up in the canteen I -repeated this anecdote to the boys. It was then growing dusky. Several -boys immediately disappeared. In an hour they were back again, dragging -not one, but two beautiful hemlocks. We set up the more perfect one, and -cut the other up for trimmings. With flags, paper festoons, Japanese -lanterns, tinsel which the French call “angel’s hair,” and tree -ornaments the hut was transformed in a twinkling as if by magic. Now it -is no longer a muddy-floored tent, but a green bower threaded with -myriad bits of bright color, and I have really never seen anything of -the sort that was any prettier. - -Yesterday several cases of free tobacco from the Sun Tobacco Fund -arrived in camp. The boys in the orderly room opened the cases last -night and hunted through and through them, trying to find packages which -bore the names of unmarried lady donors. Unfortunately the Misses who -contributed were few and far between, but hope dies hard. - -“Say, mightn’t Asa be a girl?” the lads are asking me eagerly today. - -“Lucien ain’t a man’s name, is it?” - -Enclosed in each package is a postal-card on which one may, if so -inclined, return thanks to the giver. The boys who are taking the -trouble to write are doing it frankly with the hope that this may -encourage the recipient to repetition. How to tactfully suggest this -without seeming greedy is a problem whose delicacy proves difficult. - -“You tell me how to say it,” they tease. - -“Say, won’t you write it for me, please ma’am?” - -I saw one postal-card accomplished after an evening of concentrated -effort; “Your precious and admired gift,” it began. - -Already Santa Claus in the person of Mr. Gatts has presented me with a -beautiful white silk apron embroidered with large bunches of life-like -violets. - - -Bourmont, Christmas Day. - -_Joyeux Noël!_ - -As I came in last night there was a great log burning on the hearth. - -“_C’est la bouche de Noël_,” said Madame and explained how it would burn -all night, then Christmas morning she would take the little end that was -left and put it away in the loft until the next Christmas: it would -protect the house from lightning; it was a very ancient custom. - -Back in the _Salle des Assiettes_ I found our table spread as for a -little fête with a wonderful cake and a bottle tied up with a bouquet of -chrysanthemums and long ribbon streamers of red white and blue. I was so -innocent that I supposed at first that the chrysanthemums were in the -bottle, an improvised vase, but Madame quickly enlightened me: “_C’est -le vin blanc_,” she explained to my embarrassment. - -The Gendarme and I took counsel together as to how we could best express -our feelings on this occasion toward the Family Chaput, the household -having been increased over night by the arrival of the married daughter -and her small boy and girl. After various projects had been considered -and abandoned, we finally took the little stand from our room, dressed -it with evergreen and tinsel, then heaped it with nuts, candies, -chocolate bars, and little jars of jam all from the canteen, together -with a few small toys, and carried it in and placed it in front of the -hearth. The family appeared delighted. We observed, however, that after -the first toot, baby Max’s whistle was swiftly and silently confiscated. -Later when _La Petite_, the little maid-of-all-work who takes care of -our rooms, came in, we had a few trinkets dug from the depths of our -trunks to bestow on her. Later still I carried chocolates and -_confiture_ to my little old ladies of the Rue Dieu. - -This Christmas day I fancy will be long remembered by the inhabitants of -this part of France; for in every one of the villages about, our -soldiers have given the French children a Christmas tree. I went to see -the tree at Saint Thiebault. The ancient church, its chill interior -ablaze with light, was crowded with villagers all dressed in their fête -day best. The old people were just as excited and eager as the children; -not one had ever seen a Christmas tree before. They stood on the pews in -order to get a better view. The tree which was very large and beautiful -stood just outside the altar rail. It bore a gift for every child in -Saint Thiebault. While the tree was slowly being unburdened of its load, -the band-master’s choir, high up in the choir-loft, sang an -accompaniment. Some of the selections were of a sacred character, others -frankly secular, such as Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes; but as one of -the choristers remarked; - -“As long as we sing them slow and solemn the Frenchies won’t know the -difference.” - -After the Christmas tree I went around to the little local hospital to -take some gifts to the patients. There were half a dozen of them lying -on cots in the bare barracks room, a dreary set in a drearier setting. -In one corner lay a boy who muttered incoherently. He had just been -brought in, they told me, and was very ill: the doctors were puzzled to -know what was the matter with him. I left some little gifts for him when -he should be better. - -It was half-past four when I reached the hut. Suddenly it popped into my -head that we ought to have a Santa Claus. At half-past six Santa walked -in through the door. It was Pat in a big red nose, a red peaked cap, -much white cotton-batting beard and whiskers, rubber boots, the Chief’s -fur coat, covered over for the night with turkey-red bunting, and a fat -pack slung over one shoulder. I had just dressed him in the mess hall, -and for an impromptu Santa Claus, I flatter myself he was quite -effective. The boys whooped. When they discovered who it was behind that -nose, they yelped like terriers. - -“Ain’t he the beauty! Oh you whiskers! Say Pat, kiss me quick!” - -We got Santa safely behind the counter and then opened the pack. It was -full of foolish little things; tricks, puzzles, games, mottoes, -whistles, tin trumpets, paper “hummers”. The boys went wild. It was the -musical instruments that made the hit. For two hours that hut shrieked -pandemonium. Every last man in the company tootled and squawked as if -his life depended on it, and every last one of them was tootling a -different tune. - -“_C’est des grands gosses!_” Truly, as Madame Chaput says, they’re -nothing after all but so many big little boys. - -After the stuff was distributed the Secretary and I invited the boys to -partake of hot chocolate and sandwiches. But to our disappointment they -only took a languid interest in the treat. Instead of the five and six -cups apiece which many often swallow, not one of them consumed more than -a cup and three-quarters. Too late we realized; they had already gorged -themselves on the contents of their Christmas boxes from home. - -Reports coming in from the village stated that one American Christmas -custom had made a strong appeal to the feminine portion at least of the -population. Quantities of mistletoe grow hereabouts. The French, -although averring that it brings good-luck, consider it a pest and let -it go at that. It took the American doughboys to enlighten the -_Mademoiselles_ as to its Anglo-Saxon significance. It would be curious, -I have been thinking, if the adoption of this ancient privilege should -prove one of the lasting evidences of the American troops in France! - -As I left the canteen I learned that the boy who had been so sick at the -hospital was dead. - - -Bourmont, December 26. - -Last night was a wild night in the barracks. This morning the hut was -full of echoes of it. Company A indeed wore a jaded look. They had had -very little sleep it was explained. And it was all on account of the -Christmas hummers. - -“I ain’t got nothin’ against you people, but I shore don’t think you -gave A Company a square deal,” remarked my friend the Tall Kentuckian as -he lit his cigarette at the counter. - -“Why, didn’t you like the present that Santa Claus brought you?” I -teased. - -“Huh! I would shore have singed the ol’ gentleman’s whiskers for him -last night if I could have caught him!” He went on to explain; “We’d -just get settled down good to sleep when some guy or other would start -up a-squawkin’ on one of them things. An’ Sergeant ——, well he’d had -just enough to make him fightin’ mad, an’ he shore would rare around -that there barracks tryin’ to find them fellers. Why, half the corporals -in the outfit was marchin’ up and down the place most all the night -long, shyin’ hob-nailed shoes in what they guessed was the direction of -them noises.” - -I began to discern what a night of terror it had been. - -“Yes suh!” declared the Kentuckian. “There was one feller with a hummer -we couldn’t get. He kept blowin’ Tipperary. He must have blowed it for -two hours steady, on an’ off. I guess he had every last hob-nailed shoe -in the hull barracks throwed at him.” - -Nor is this all. It seems I have committed a ghastly _faux pas_. I have -gotten the Y. in dreadfully dutch with the officers. It is all along of -the Christmas calendars. The Christmas calendars arrived at the canteen -just the day before Christmas. They were designed to be sold to the boys -for five cents apiece in order that they might have something to send to -the folks at home as a Christmas greeting. But since they reached us so -very late the Secretary and I decided we didn’t have the face to put -them on sale. - -“Let’s give them away,” I suggested, and on his agreeing, laid them in -heaps on the counter and invited the boys to help themselves. The boys -weren’t bashful. They helped themselves with enthusiasm and zeal. They -came back for more and more. For the rest of the day no one did a thing -at the hut but sit at the tables and address envelopes. One boy, I -learned later, sent off as many as thirty-five. I was awfully pleased to -have the boys appreciate the calendars so. And I never once for a moment -thought of the censors; but presently I heard from them. The company -censors, two of the younger lieutenants, had been looking forward, it -seems, to some leisurely care-free hours at Christmas. When the stacks -of calendars started coming in they saw their holiday vanish into thin -air, nay more, they saw themselves sitting up nights for weeks to come -censoring those precious calendars. And they were swearing, raving mad. -They were going to run the Y. out of the town! They were going to shut -down the hut! Finally they compromised the matter with their consciences -by censoring half and chucking the other half into the stove. But even -then they couldn’t stop fussing and fuming over it. Tonight just to top -the matter off, we received a sharp reprimand from the Business Manager -at Bourmont for being so extravagant as to give the calendars away, -unauthorized. Was there ever such a tragedy of good intentions? - - -Bourmont, December 27. - -Today we buried the lad who died on Christmas night. I had never seen a -military funeral before and I had never dreamed that such a ceremony -could be so thrillingly beautiful. - -The company formed at three o’clock in the road in front of the canteen, -then filed slowly through the streets of the little grey age-old -village. The band marching at the head of the procession played the -_Marche Funèbre_ of Chopin. After the band came the officers of the -company and then the firing squad of eight sharp-shooters, followed by -an ambulance carrying the boy’s coffin covered with a great flag. -Behind, marched the whole of Company A and after them crowded a throng -of villagers. All the men in town, with the innate respect that the -French have for death, stood uncovered as we passed, while many of the -women watched with tears streaming down their faces. - -We passed through the village and down the road to the little -grey-walled cemetery, ringed around with evergreens and now deep in -freshly fallen snow. All about stretched virgin shining snowfields and -over them to the east rose Bourmont like a dream city, etched as -delicately as by a silver-point against the soft dove-colored sky. - -The majestic phrases of the Catholic burial service rang out clearly on -the frosty air: - -Eternal rest grant him, O Lord, - -And let perpetual light shine upon him! - -The coffin with the great flag burning in blue and scarlet was lowered -into the grave. Slowly, with perfect expression, a bugler blew the -poignant, unforgettable notes of Taps. The rifles of the firing squad -cracked sharply; three volleys, it was over. - -“Will they leave him there?” An old Frenchwoman asked one of the boys -afterwards. - -“’Till the war is over, then likely they will send him home.” - -“But why? He won’t be lonely here. There will always be some one to put -flowers on his grave.” - -Tonight I was talking to the Supply Sergeant about the lad. - -“I think he died of a broken heart as much as anything,” he told me. -“They wouldn’t let his mother see him at the dock when we sailed. She -came to say good-bye but it was against the rules. He never could get -over that; he kept brooding all the time and fretting for her. I read -some of her letters to him. They seemed more like a sweetheart’s than a -mother’s.” - -The doctors, however, diagnosed his disease as spinal meningitis. They -have ordered the barracks in which he slept to be quarantined. Already a -half a dozen boys in quarantine have taken to their beds, but this we -hope is largely due to over-stimulated imaginations. Even if the disease -doesn’t spread, however, I am wondering what will become of ninety-seven -lively boys bottled up for two weeks in one barracks. Already various -ones have eluded the guard and come sneaking furtively into the canteen -to buy their cigarettes and chocolates. Whenever one of these -unfortunates is recognized a regular howl goes up all over the hut. - -“Outside! You’re one of the crumby ones!” they jeer, or; “Convict! Get -back to your cell!” - - -Bourmont, December 28. - -The worst of my job is playing dragon to the French children. In view of -the fact that if allowed in the hut at all they swarm in, in such -numbers as to fairly overrun it, and pester the boys with their -insatiable appeals for “goom” and chocolate, it has seemed best to make -a strict rule against their admission. (Besides which I don’t approve of -giving them gum, for in the face of anything one can do or say they will -insist on swallowing it, which is, I’m sure, not at all good for their -tummies!) But in spite of this prohibition the place holds an -irresistible attraction for them. At night one can often see their faces -pressed flat against the isinglass windows as they peer inside; while -chiefly on Saturday and Sunday afternoons they will slip slyly in, and -then if the dragon isn’t on the jump to explain to each and every one in -her very best French, that she is so sorry but it really is forbidden, -why in a twinkling the hut becomes full of them. And they are so -picturesque, so appealing, so full of shy wonder at the gramophone with -the wheel that “marches by itself” that it is very hard to turn them -out. - -Since Christmas I have been kept busy by a tiny tad of a ragamuffin with -a funny round cropped black head and a face as solemnly expressionless -as a little carved Buddha. He slips in among the tables and he is -positively too small to be seen. The Christmas tree with its shining -ornaments is his stealthy objective. In vain I explain matters politely -to him; without a sound, without the hint of a flicker in his little -beady black eyes, he turns and clumps out in his ridiculous _sabots_, -only to presently slip in again. And now it seems he has lain low and -sagaciously observed my habits; for returning to the hut after mess this -noon, I met him trudging along the Rue Dieu, his eyes encountering mine -blandly without embarrassment, his absurd little figure bulging all over -with purloined Christmas tree ornaments. In the hut I found our poor -tree stripped to a height of four feet from the floor of all its finery. - -These last few evenings the hut has been given over to writing Christmas -thank-you letters home. The official writer of love letters for the -company has been working overtime; not that his clients cannot write -themselves, but because they feel he is more able to do justice to the -subject. Every night now I see him sitting out in front of the counter, -his Jewish profile bent low over the table as he covers sheet after -sheet with his fine and fanciful handwriting, while next him perches -anxiously the interested party, watching developments and occasionally -proffering a suggestion. When it is done they must bring it to me for my -approval. - -“That’s a real classy letter, ain’t it?” the lover will query proudly -and I assure him that it is indeed. - -“When she gets that, I bet she’ll come across with that sweater she told -me she was makin’ for me, all right!” - -“Say do you think that ought to be good for a _cartoon_ of cigarettes?” -another one inquires. - -Of course there are many who, no matter what the effort, prefer to write -their own. Sometimes when cleaning up the canteen tables I come upon -specimens of such, first drafts discarded on account of blots. One such -love letter, classic in its brevity, picked up the other day, ran: - - Dear Sweetheart, - - I am writing you a few interesting lines which I hope will be - the same to you wishing you a merry Xmas and a happy New Year - - Your loving friend - - Pvt. —— - -Of late I have been moved to speculate wonderingly on the mental -processes of the American public. I have been going through the stacks -of magazines in the warehouse sent from the States for one cent per to -provide amusement for the doughboys’ leisure moments. Among the rest I -found the Upholsterer’s Monthly, The Hardware Dealer’s Journal, The -Mother’s Magazine, Fancy Work and The Modern Needleworker. I showed some -of these prizes to one of the boys; “Gee, but that’s the kind of snappy -stuff to send a feller over the top!” was his comment. That numbers of -the Undertaker’s Journal have also been discovered among the donations -from home I have heard asserted on excellent authority, but as yet I -have not personally come across any. - -Just as we were closing tonight, Pat came up to the counter, solemnly -leaned across it: - -“Have you seen the new shoes they’re issuin’? he demanded. “They’ve got -pitchers on them so a feller can’t see his own feet!” - - -Bourmont, January 2, 1918. - -Once a week our peripatetic movie-machine makes its appearance among us. -Louis, the sixteen year old French operator, unpacks the big cases, sets -up the apparatus, and, if our luck holds, we have a show. Owing to the -short range of the little machine the screen must be hung in the middle -of the hut. This means that half the audience must view the pictures -from the back, the essential difference being that the lettering is then -reversed; “The Jewish Picture Show,” the boys call this. But then as -half of us can’t read anyway, why should we mind? - -The joy of the show lies in the audience. Just as soon as the lights are -put out the fun begins: “Everbody watch their pocketbooks!” goes up the -shout and from that moment we are never still. - -The curly-headed heroine makes her coquettish entrance. - -“Ooo la la! Oooo la la!” rises the enthusiastic welcome. - -A bottle is displayed; “Cognac!” the yell shakes the roof. - -The neglected wife begins to waver in response to the tempter’s wiles; -“Now don’t forget your general orders, little lady!” admonishes an -earnest voice. - -Lovers indulge in a prolonged embrace; “Aw quit! Quit it! Yer make me -homesick!” goes up the agonized appeal. - -The enraptured lover stands registering ecstasy; “Hit him again, he’s -coming to!” comes the derisive shout. - -And so it goes. The actors aren’t on the screen, they’re in the house, -and truly there isn’t a dull moment on the programme! - -Last night, however, instead of the joyous chorus of running comment a -subdued and decorous silence reigned, broken only by a few half-hearted -sallies. What was the matter? I racked my brain to find the cause. All -the joy had gone from the show. The evening was stale, flat and -unprofitable. When the lights were lit again the mystery was immediately -made plain. At one end of the counter stood an officer. I wonder if he -dreamed what a spoil-sport he had been? - -Once a week also a lady comes from the Bourmont office to give us a -French lesson; not that Company A betrays any burning desire to learn to -_parlez-vous_, but just that it seems obviously the proper thing to do -under the circumstances, so French they must be taught willy-nilly. -There were two lessons to be sure in which they took a degree of -interest; the lesson about buying and counting money, and the lesson -about food and drink. But when they had once learned to ask the price of -things and to understand the answer, and had learned the words for eggs, -bread, butter, beer, ham, beefsteak, chicken and French fried potatoes, -their interest lapsed until it became positive boredom. Of late it has -seemed to me that it was only the boys with French blood that learned -anything and they, of course, knew it all already. - -For entertainment Company A can upon occasion furnish its own show. This -was demonstrated by an impromptu programme staged in the hut the other -night; there’s no use we have discovered in planning things beforehand, -if one does, as sure as fate, all the star performers “catch guard” that -day! Pat by request acted as stage-manager and master of ceremonies. To -stimulate the artists we announced prizes. - -Private Dostal opened the programme; a large red-faced lad with a bland -and simple cast of countenance, he is the comic balladist of the -company. His first contribution was a selection popularly known among us -as _Beside the dyin’ boxcar, the empty hobo lay_, a piece with a vast -number of verses in which the dying hobo repents an ill-spent life, -only, in the last line, to “jump up and hop the train.” For an encore we -had _Papa Eating Noodle Soup_ which could best be described as a -“gleesome, gluesome” recitative, the chorus of each of numerous verses -consisting of a realistic imitation of Papa partaking of the Soup. Mr. -Gatts gave us a jig. Then Bruno who, as the boys say; “Could sing pretty -good, only he don’t sing nothin’ but wop,” favored us with _Oh Maria_, -prefacing his performance with the earnest admonition, “No laffin! -nobody!” and after that with an Italian folk dance in which he looked -more like a grotesque little punchinello than ever. Our light-weight -boxing champion then gave us _Love’s Old Sweet Song_ and the -heavy-weight champion popularly known as _Magulligan_, together with Mr. -Bruno rendered _Bye low my Baby_, antiphonal fashion. The last number -was furnished by a poilu who had wandered in, in company with one of the -boys. He sang a long dramatic ballad, entitled _The Last Cuirassier_, -depicting some incident in the Franco-Prussian War. Just what the boys -made of it I don’t know, but to me it was intensely thrilling, not on -account of the words for I couldn’t catch them, but on account of the -fervor, the imaginative sympathy, the martial spirit which that old -fellow in his faded trench coat threw into his tones. - -When the show was over Pat stood up on the counter and announced that as -long as all the performances had been of such superlative merit, it was -impossible for the judges to decide between them. So we handed out a -couple of packages of “smoking” to each one of the artists, and -everybody was satisfied. - -Once too we had a party, an athletic stunt party. There were -potato-races and sack-races, string-eating contests, three-legged and -obstacle-races; but the sensational, the crowning event was, of course, -the pie-race. The pies which were of French manufacture had only been -arranged after difficulties: consulting the _boulangère_ at Bourmont I -had discovered that the calendar now only allows two pie-days per week, -Sunday and Wednesday; since the party was to be Friday, pie was -unlawful, unless—and here the law, like all good laws allowed a -loop-hole—unless the pie be made with commissary flour! The pie-race was -the “dark horse” on the programme. Fearing that if the boys learned -beforehand of the prospective pie not only would we be mobbed by -would-be contestants but also that their interest in the rest of the -programme would suffer, we had kept the pie-race a profound secret. -Smuggled in when the hut was empty those pies had reposed serenely under -the counter all afternoon and contrary to my fears not a boy had sniffed -them! When the proper moment came the pies were placed on a board in the -middle of the floor, the contestants, of whom Pat was one, knelt with -their hands tied behind them. At the word _go!_ they fell to. The hut -howled. Then it was discovered that Corporal G. laboured under a cruel -handicap; _his_ pie was a cherry pie and every cherry had a stone in it. -Half-way through his pie, Pat, jerking one hand loose, seized a large -piece, plastered it on the head of his opponent opposite; the race ended -in a riot. Strangely enough, when peace was restored not a trace of pie -could be found anywhere,—nowhere, that is, except in the back hair of -the contestants. - - -Bourmont, January 6. - -Now I know how the prince in the fairy tale felt when he was bidden to -climb the mountain of glass. For Bourmont Hill is sheeted with ice, and -it is fairly as much as one’s life is worth to attempt to go up or down. -Every morning I stand and look at that dizzying slide aghast, and wonder -if I may possibly reach the foot alive; then assistance comes, sometimes -in the shape of a French lad in _sabots_, sometimes as a stalwart -doughboy with a sharp-pointed staff, and together the two of us go -slipping, slithering down the hill-side. In the middle of the road -yelling doughboys, seated on cakes of ice, whiz by at a mad rate of -speed; long before they reach the bottom of the slope, the ice-cake -splinters into bits, but the doughboy shoots on downward, sprawling, -spinning like a top, while you hold your breath and gape to see that his -neck isn’t broken. For the French people all this supplies the sensation -of a life-time; they crowd their front doors and their front yards -laughing, shrieking warning or encouragement, as they watch the progress -of the mad Americans up and down the hill. - -“If one could only have a movie of Bourmont Hill on a day like this!” -sighs the Gendarme. - -The other day I encountered a sergeant of engineers on the hill-side. - -“You ought to have a sled, Little Girl,” he told me. - -“Well why don’t the engineers make me one?” I unthinkingly retorted. - -“Sure and they will!” he answered. - -Since then I have gone in terror. If the sergeant should have that sled -made for me, as he likely will, why I shall have to use it. And as for -starting down Bourmont Hill on a sled, I would just as soon attempt -Niagara in a barrel. - -Ever since Christmas it has been cold, bitter cold. At the canteen I -wash my chocolate cups with the dishpan on the stove in order to keep -the water fluid; hanging the dish-cloth up to dry at the corner of the -counter, in a few minutes I find it stiff with ice. At night the -ink-bottles freeze and then burst, spreading black ruin all around them. -What to do with the still unfrozen ones is a vexing problem; I might I -suppose take them home each night with me and sleep with them underneath -my pillow. In the little umbrella-stand stoves the green wood, which -comes in so freshly cut, that the logs have ivy still unwithered twined -around them, simply will not burn, and the stoves will smoke, _mon -Dieu_, how they will smoke! Every time the wind blows, the stove-pipes, -secured shakily by the canvas walls, become disjointed, parting company -with the stoves, and then the clouds pour forth as if we housed a -captive Etna. - -In the barracks the boys tell me their shoes freeze to the floor over -night. They have taken to sleeping two in one bunk for the sake of -warmth. Blanket-stealing has been elevated to the rank of a deadly -crime. Even the problem of keeping warm by day is an acute one. The boys -who have money to burn are spending it to purchase extravagantly priced -fur-lined gloves. The boys who can’t afford them, wait until they see -somebody lay a pair down. - -The taking of baths has become an act of heroism. - -“Took a bath today,” growls a lad. “Think I ought to get a service -stripe for that.” - -While another boy grins; “Gee but I’m feelin’ rich! Took a bath today -and found two pair o’socks and three shirts I didn’t know I had!” - -“Now ain’t you sorry you cut off the bottom of your coat!” a long-coated -doughboy taunts an abbreviated one. “I told you not to. First, you’re -out of luck at Reveille ’cause the Top Kick can see you ain’t got no -leggin’s on. An’ now before you know it, you’ll be havin’ chilblains in -your knees.” - -“You should worry,” growls back the short-coated one. “I couldn’t stand -that thing flappin’ ’round my feet no longer. An’ most of the other guys -done it too.” - -Which is true. Before this cold spell set in, half the boys in the -company had taken a slice off the bottom of their overcoats, a procedure -which leads to an odd effect _en masse_ as each has chosen his own -length which means everything from knees to ankles, and drives the -exasparated Loots to demanding; “D’you want to know what you look like? -Well, you look like _hell_!” - -In the village streets snow-ball fights are in order. As soon as the -boys start an offensive, all the inhabitants of the _Faubourg de France_ -run out and put up their shutters. Better to sit in the dark while the -battle rages than to risk a pane of precious window-glass! Yesterday out -at Iloud the boys caught the Y Secretary, a meek and mild little man, in -the road and started to give him a thorough pelting. He ran for the hut, -they chased him, he gained his refuge, locked the door after him; they -proceeded to heap about half a ton of snow against it, making it -immovable. The unhappy man had to remove a window frame and crawl out -through the opening, then spend the rest of the afternoon digging out -his hut door. - -Here at our billet our little pea-green porcelain stove with the -lavender thistles growing over it has proved to be more ornamental then -useful. Since the Gendarme is one of your naturally efficient souls, I -feel that such practical details as building fires belong to her. If she -wishes to coax and cozen the wretched thing for an hour on end, well and -good. As for me I prefer to go and hug the cook stove in Madame’s -parlor. French fires don’t burn the way American fires do, I tell -Madame. But to her the matter is quite simple. The stove, she says, -doesn’t understand English. - -Today I met the sergeant of engineers. Some imp impelled me to question -jovially; - -“Where’s that sled you promised me?” - -“It’s almost done.” My knees went weak beneath me. - -Tonight I confided my apprehensions to the Gendarme. She looked at me -with an unpitying eye. - -“The more goose you, for encouraging him,” was her cold comfort. “What -are you going to do about it?” - -“I’m going to pray for a thaw,” I told her. - - -Bourmont, January 8. - -Life at the Maison Chaput doesn’t flow quite so peacefully these days as -it did before Christmas. The disturbing factor is four-year old Max, -left by his mother to visit his grandparents. Max is a spoiled child -according to the Chaput point of view. He is expected to walk a chalk -line with his little red felt toes, and failing this, he is spanked -early and often. It is unlucky for him that the fagots by the hearth -afford a continual supply of handy switches. - -“The little Jesus will never bring you anything again at Christmas,” -warns Grandmamma; “never again! And neither will the _Père Nicolas_!” -Then she appeals to me; “All the little children in America are always -well-behaved, are they not?” - -“But yes, certainly!” I reply, avoiding Max’s eye. - -Coming home in the evening I often stop on my way back to the chilly -_Salle des Assiettes_, in response to an urgent invitation, to warm -myself at the fireplace. Old Monsieur will be sitting on one side of the -hearth and I on the other, while Baby Max toasts his toes in their -scarlet slippers on a stool between us. Sometimes they will sing for me. -Monsieur had a fine voice when he was young and even now he sings with a -delightful air, a sort of indescribable old gallantry that is a joy to -me. When he and Max sing together the effect is irresistible. - -“Now we will sing _Le Drapeau de la France_,” cries Monsieur. “We must -stand for this!” And Monsieur in his gay red neck cloth and little Max -in his blue checked pinafore stand up before the fire and sing with -their hearts in the words “_Saluons le drapeau de la France._” When they -come to that line, Monsieur le Commandant veteran of 1870 and baby Max -salute together. - -Then, “_Vive la France!_” I cry, and “_Vive la France!_” they echo. - -When new troops pass through town Max must always run to the door to cry -“_Bonjour les Américans!_” a salutation which is often followed I fear -by a request for cigarettes, for Max, baby that he is, enjoys a smoke, -much to his grandparents’ amusement. - -Among the china-ware at the Maison Chaput there is a funny little jug -which the Gendarme and I use for fetching hot water. It is made in the -shape of a fat frog with a blue waistcoat and a pipe in one of his -webbed feet. I had thought it was the famous frog who would a-wooing go, -but Monsieur has his own explanation. It is the original St. Thiebault -toad he declares, to tease me. Every time I come to draw a little hot -water from the stove he must crack the self-same joke. - -“_C’est le crapaud de Saint Thiebault_,” he cries and baby Max pipes up; -“_Il a soif!_” - -Yesterday as I was passing through the front room on my way to the -canteen Monsieur stopped me to draw me into conversation. There were -several neighbors present. They gathered in a ring around me. I could -see they had some weighty question to put to me. After a moment’s -hesitation it came out: - -“_Pourquoi_,” they demanded, “_pourquoi_, does the American soldier blow -his nose with his fingers?” - -I stared, taken aback. In order to make their meaning quite clear they -illustrated with expressive gestures. - -“Why,” I stammered, “does the poilu never do such a thing?” - -“But never!” they declared in chorus. “The poilu always uses his -handkerchief!” And again they illustrated in pantomime. - -I labored to explain; the French climate had given the boys colds, and -the question of laundry and clean handkerchiefs presented -difficulties.... - -“But,” declared old Monsieur sagely, “in America I have heard it is the -custom. There all the _haut monde_, it is said, lawyers, doctors, -ministers, statesmen, blow their noses in that manner!” - -This was too much. I hurried from the room. - -This morning Monsieur accused me of being a coquette. Hotly I denied the -charge. But why then, he rejoined triumphantly, had I asked for a -looking-glass in my bed-room? - - -Bourmont, January 9. - -Company A is going to China! Somebody heard somebody say that somebody -told him that the Chaplain had said so. The boys are all excitement over -the idea. - -“Won’t that be jolly! You’ll all be coming home with little shiny -pigtails hanging down your backs!” I tease them. - -“Yes sir! an’ we’ll learn to eat our chow with chopsticks!” I have -solemnly promised the boys that if Company A goes to China I will go -too. What’s more I will learn to make Chop Suey for them. I have always -wanted to visit China. - -Thus does the army rumor make sport of us. Reports of this sort -incessantly spring up among us, flourish for a day, to be forgotten on -the morrow. It is just a sign I suppose of the restlessness that is rife -among the boys, the nostalgia, the rebellion at the grinding monotony of -their lives. Half the men in the company, it seems, have gone to their -officers begging to be transferred into one of the two divisions that -have already been in the lines. - -“I’m sick o’ this kind o’ life; what I came over here for was to fight,” -they growl. - -In the canteen they look at the French National Loan poster which has -the Statue of Liberty on it, and speculate as to their chances of ever -seeing her again. - -“Oh boy! but I bet there’ll be some noise on board ship when we catch -sight o’ that ol’ gal again!” - -“They wouldn’t be breakin’ my heart if they gave out orders tonight to -start for home termorrer.” The chorus groans assent. “No sir!” speaks up -Private Gatts, “I don’t want to go home until I’ve killed some of them -Germans.” - -“Aw, come off,” rises the incredulous jeer; “you know, if they’d let -you, you’d start out to walk to Saint Nazaire tonight if you had to -carry your full pack an’ your rife an’ your extra shoes.” - -To beguile the tedium they indulge in what appears to be, next to -crap-shooting, the most popular indoor sport of the A. E. F.—mustache -raising. I don’t believe there’s a man in the company outside of -Cummings and Maggioni who hasn’t tried his luck at it. Sometimes it -seems as though an epidemic of young mustaches will break out overnight -as it were. The second lieutenants jeer and witticize in vain. There is -one squad who have solemnly pledged themselves to remain mustachioed -until they “can the Kaiser;” but for the most part, the little -“Charlies” are fleeting affairs that come and go according to their -owner’s whim. This makes it quite confusing for me, because no sooner -have I got to know a lad with a mustache by sight, than he shaves it off -and alters his appearance so that I have to learn him all over again. -But even the excitement of raising a mustache and having your picture -taken and sending it back home to your best girl and then waiting to -hear what she will say about it, affords only a brief diversion. And -when that is done, we are face to face again with the stark sheer -stupidity of drilling and hiking, hiking and drilling, day after day, -week in and week out, in the slush, the mud, and the rain. - -“Another day, another dollar,” remarks my friend Mr. Brady with -philosophic resignation as he comes in from walking post at night, -“Betsy the Toad-sticker,” as he familiarly terms his rifle, over his -shoulder. - -“I sure was strong on the patriotic stuff when I enlisted,” mourns a lad -cast in a less stoic mould, “but since I got over here I’ll tell the -world my patriotism is all shot to pieces.” - -“Who called this here land _Sunny France_, I’d like to know?” is the -indignant question which someone is bound to propose at least once a -day. - -“I’ve only seen the sun twice since I’ve been here,” complained one lad, -“and then it was kind of mildewed.” - -“It stopped raining for three hours the other day,” remarked another, -“an’ I wrote home to my folks an’ told ’em what a long dry spell we’d -been having.” - -Altogether we are inclined to take a very pessimistic view at present of -our surroundings. - -“This land is a thousand years behind the times,” is the reiterated -comment, and who can blame them, having seen nothing of France but these -tiny primitive mud-and-muck villages? “It ain’t worth fightin’ for. Why -if I owned this country I’d give it to the Germans and apologize to -’em.” - -“It ain’t the country, it’s the people in it,” asserted another lad -darkly. - -While the Tall Kentuckian declared, “When I came to France, the height -of my ambition was to kill a German. Now the height of my ambition is to -kill a Frenchman.” - -What can one say to them? I try fatuously to comfort by reminding them -of the good time coming when we all get home again. I paint rosy -pictures of a grand parade of the division up Fifth Avenue, but they are -sceptical. - -“Huh! That won’t be for us! All the fuss will be for the National Guard -and the draft guys. The reg’lars don’t never get no credit.” - -Then someone will start to hum the song which goes; - - “O why didn’t I wait to be drafted? - Why didn’t I wait to be cheered?” - -“Well I’ll tell the world that you deserve the credit!” - -Anyway Company A has settled one point: if they ever march up Fifth -Avenue I am to march with them. - - -Bourmont, January 11. - -The “convicts” are out of quarantine, and none the worse it seems for -the experience. Yet my family is still depleted. Forty boys from the -company have been sent out on a wood-chopping detail. Detachments from -each of the four companies in rotation are being sent out into the -forest to cut fuel for the use of the First Battalion and now it is our -turn. - -The boys, we learn, are billeted in a twelfth century fortress in a tiny -village at the forest’s edge. From time to time some of them hike the -four miles in to Saint Thiebault after the day’s work is done, in order -to get a cup of hot chocolate and to tease a candle out of me. For the -chateau boasts none of the modern luxuries of heat and light. - -“What do you do in the evenings?” I asked Mr. Gatts. - -“Sit in the _café_. It’s the only place there is to go.” - -“I’m sorry.” - -“Well you needn’t worry about the boys drinkin’. They ain’t none of them -got no money. All they can do is to sit and watch the Frenchies.” - -Indeed such a long time has passed since our last payday that the whole -company is feeling the pinch of poverty. Canteen sales have narrowed -down to the three essentials; chocolate, cigarettes and chewing gum. I -am running accounts on my personal responsibility, giving them “jawbone” -as the boys say, a proceeding at which our Secretary looks with a -disapproving eye. To be sure the air is full of rumours of impending -payday but meanwhile there is no disguising the fact that the great -majority is “dead broke.” - -Says Sergeant X to Sergeant Z, a boy with a curious cast of countenance; -“Say, Bill, do you remember the time I paid ten cents to see you in a -cage at Barnum’s? Well I want that dime back now.” - -Another lad in answer to the appeal of “got a cent?” replies with -feeling; “One cent? Why man, if I had a cent I’d go to Paris!” - -They have court-martialed the lieutenant who beat Malotzzi. His -punishment is to be transferred to another regiment. - - -Bourmont, January 14. - -Madame is sick and I am worried. It isn’t so much that she is -dangerously ill as that she is dangerously old. She lies in the big blue -room upstairs, looking like a patient aged Madonna, without a fire, and -with no one to look after her. Monsieur it seems has made up his mind to -her demise and piously resigned himself. I called in an army doctor. - -“She’s pretty low,” he said, “but it isn’t medicine she needs so much as -nursing.” - -I informed Monsieur. He must get a woman to come in and take care of -her. But there was no such woman. He must try to find one. But no, it -was impossible! “Well at least, you can make a fire in her room,” I told -him. As for _La Petite_, she has proved herself a broken reed. Lacking -Madame’s rigid eyes upon her, she has become lazy and negligent. -Moreover she is indubitably in love with some doughty doughboy, the -proof being that she spends the time when she should be gathering the -harvest of dust from the _Salle des Assiettes_ in copying English -phrases from our books on to the Gendarme’s pink blotting-paper. -Yesterday we found “Welcome Americans” scrawled all over it. Meanwhile -Monsieur seems to consider himself as qualifying for a martyr’s crown -because he gets his own meals and washes his own dishes. “_Mais, -regardez Mademoiselle!_” he calls to me as I pass through the -living-room, and flourishes the dish-cloth at me with a tragic air. So -between excursions to the canteen I am trying to play nurse to Madame, -and a pretty poor one I make, I fear. Worse still, I must act as -interpreter for the Doctor, whose French is absolutely nil, at every -visit and since my scanty stock of French phrases hardly includes a -sick-room vocabulary I am often absolutely at a loss. But we muddle -through somehow and the Doctor gets his reward when we stop to speak to -Monsieur in the front-room afterwards, for then Monsieur must bring out -a bottle of champagne and together they sit in front of the fire and -toast each other. - -Yesterday the Doctor prescribed fresh eggs. I told Monsieur. But there -were none in Bourmont he declared. - -“Very well,” I said, “then I’ll get them.” - -I started out to search. I knew of course that eggs in France these days -were difficult. In some places the Americans have been forbidden, on -account of the scarcity, to buy either eggs or chickens; a ruling which -officers have been known to evade by the simple expedient of renting -laying hens. But no such prohibition exists at present in Saint -Thiebault. Just the other day a lad told me he had consumed twelve fried -eggs at one sitting. - -“Yes and Corporal G. ate more than I did.” - -“How many did he eat?” - -“Oh, just thirteen.” - -“No wonder,” I observed, “that the French talk about _la famine_!” I -started a house-to-house canvas of Saint Thiebault only to be met by a -shake of the head and “_Pas des oeufs_” everywhere I went. Finally back -at the canteen I put the question in despair to the boys. “Have you been -to the tobacco shop?” they inquired. So to the tobacco shop I hurried -and sure enough there they were, all one wanted at the rate of seven -francs a dozen. - -Last night Madame had an egg-nogg and this morning an omelette. Now the -Doctor says that she is better. - - -Bourmont, January 17. - -If my fairy god-mother should lend me her magic wand, the very first -thing I would wish for would be a dinner, a real dinner just like Mother -used to cook, for Company A. It would start with turkey and cranberry -sauce and end with several kinds of pie, ice-cream and chocolate layer -cake. There would be no soup on the menu. Such a meal I am sure would do -more to raise the morale of Company A than the news of a smashing allied -victory. It is the everlasting sameness, the perpetual reiteration of a -certain few articles of food, I suppose, that makes the boys’ “chow” so -depressing. - -“I’ve eaten so much bacon since I’ve been in the army,” remarked one boy -mournfully,” that I’m ashamed to look a pig in the face.” - -There is one question which the whole A. E. F. would like to have -answered. They’ve “got the bacon,” but what became of the ham? - -Far more hated than the bacon, however, is the “slum,” a word which Pat -informs me is derived from the “slumgullion” of the hobo. It is this -“slum” that gives the doughboy his horror of anything like soup. - -“When I get back to New York,” said a lad to me the other day, “I’m -going to go into a real swell hotel and order a big dish o’ slum. Then -I’m going to order a regular dinner, beefsteak and oysters and all the -fixings, and then I’m going to sit and laugh at the slum.” - -Pat came in with a whoop after dinner yesterday. “We had a change -today,” he sang out, “they put a pickle in the beans!” This noon he -bounced in again. “We had a change today,” he shouted, “they cut the -beans lengthwise instead of cuttin’ them acrosst.” - -I made a fatal error. “Don’t you like beans?” I asked. “Why I’m very -fond of them. I wish they’d give them to us at our mess once in a -while.” - -Pat looked at me with his sharp eyes narrowing. “D’you mean it?” - -“Why of course I do!” - -He turned and walked out of the hut. Two minutes later he returned with -a hunk of bread and a mess-kit brimfull of beans; he laid them on the -counter in front of me. I gasped but did my best to rise to the -occasion. I was delighted to see those beans, I assured him. I had just -been starting out to go to mess; a little bird had told me they were to -have roast pork, French fries, and peach pie for dinner, but now I would -stay at the hut and eat beans instead. Then I tasted the beans. They -were as hard as bullets, they stuck in my throat; I had never known -anything could be quite so awful. But Pat’s eyes were upon me. There was -nothing for it but to swallow those beans. So swallow them I did, every -last one, and there were positively at least a thousand. Then I washed -the mess-kit and returned it to friend Pat with effusive thanks. At -least, I complimented myself, I had been game. Tonight, just as I was -starting out for my supper of toast and chocolate with the little old -ladies of the Rue Dieu, Pat suddenly appeared on the other side of the -counter. - -“We had ’em again tonight,” he announced joyfully, “and I thought since -you were so fond of ’em,”—he pushed another mess-kit full of beans -across the counter. I glared at him. I had vainly been trying to recover -from the dinner beans all afternoon. - -“Take those things away,” I snapped, “I don’t want to lay eyes on -another bean as long as ever I live!” Pat had called my bluff. - -For the last week Company A has had guests in the mess-hall. Several -French soldiers have been sent here to instruct the boys in some special -drill; it was arranged that they eat and sleep with the Americans. -Dreary as the boys find their chow, it proved a treat to the poilus who -evidently spread the news of their good fortune among their friends in -the vicinity, for day by day the number of Frenchmen messing with -Company A was mysteriously increased. - -“Yes sir!” the indignant Mess Sergeant declared to me. “They started in -with five and now they’ve grown to be fifteen. I can’t tell one from -t’other because all these frogs look alike to me, and they know as how I -can’t sling their lingo. That’s a nice thing for them to be putting over -on me!” - -But yesterday he got his chance to get even. He caught one of the -Frenchmen putting a piece of bread in his pocket. It is of course a -military offense to carry food out of the mess-hall. - -“I just sailed right into that guy”—the Mess Sergeant is a large and -husky specimen—“and I sure did wipe up the floor some with him. And -since then the whole gang of ’em has been scared stiff. Those frogs just -watch me all the time. There ain’t a minute when I’m in the mess-hall -that one of ’em takes his eyes off me.” - -The other day, they tell me, one of the boys in the company, possessed -of a practical turn, employed his newly-issued “tin derby” as a kettle -in which to boil some eggs. The delicacy proved dear. Betrayed by the -blackened helmet, he was tried and fined twenty dollars. - - -Bourmont, January 20. - -I’m off for Paris! My eyes have been in a horrid state for the last -week. I have had all the doctors in the neighborhood treating them and -they only get worse and worse. The Chief is going up to Paris tomorrow -and has decided that the best thing to do is to take me along to see a -specialist. - -Madame is so much better that I don’t feel uneasy at leaving her. But I -hate to desert the boys, especially as the hut is in such a state. -Yesterday we had a storm and the wind almost wrecked our tent. There was -one moment while I was out at dinner, when such a gust hit it, that, as -the boys said, “She sure seemed a goner.” At that moment there was a -stampede for the door, the boys shooting out of the tent “just like -seeds from an orange when you squeeze it.” But thanks to the Secretary -and a crowd of boys who got out and hung for dear life on to the guy -ropes, the tent came through damaged but still standing. When I returned -after mess I found our hut with two great gaping rents torn in the outer -walls and the inner lining all ripped loose and hanging down from the -ceiling, so that one felt exactly as if one were inside a punctured -zeppelin. - -Reports coming in this morning from other points on the division state -that two tents actually did collapse during the tempest, and that one -man, caught beneath the wreckage, had his collarbone broken. So we can -count ourselves lucky. - -Tonight I said _au ’voir_ to Company A, telling them that if payday -should occur during my absence, I hoped they all would be very, very -good. Some of the boys lugubriously predicted that I would never return, -while others darkly insinuated that they suspected I was “goin’ to Paris -to git married.” To show them what my intentions honestly were, I -inquired if there were any errands I could do for them in the city. -Corporal G. looked at me, stammered, hesitated. There was something he -would like, only he didn’t want to bother me. What was it? He paused, -grew red, then blurted it out. - -“If it ain’t too much trouble, could you send me a picture post-card -while you’re away? I ain’t never had a post-card from Paris.” - - -Hôpital Claude-Bernard, Porte D’Aubervilliers - -Paris, January 25. - -This is a hideous hospital. They wake you up in the middle of the night -to wrap you in a mustard poultice. They wake you up in the wee sma’ -hours and order you to brush your teeth. And nobody in the whole -establishment from head-doctor to scrub-lady knows a word of English; -except the night-nurse and she knows “mumpsss!” like that she says it, -“MUMPSSSSS!” Not that I have them; I have the measles. I don’t know -where I got them. They were, so far as I am aware, almost the only known -malady which we didn’t have at Bourmont. Probably some lad who was -passing through the town and stopped in at the canteen gave them to me. -It was undoubtedly the measles that were affecting my eyes; sometimes it -seems they act that way. - -They sent me to this hospital because it was the only hospital in Paris -admitting women that had room for me: known officially as the city -hospital for contagious diseases, among Americans it passes as “the -pest-house.” - -They think I’m a weird one here, because I want my window open. -Twenty-nine times a day at least an _infirmière_ will come hurrying in -and bang it shut and twenty-nine times a day I crawl out of bed and open -it again. - -The nursing here is all done by _infirmières_, or untrained women under -the direction of two real nurses, one in charge of this wing during the -day, the other during the night. Some of these _infirmières_ go about in -curl papers, others wear sabots. They mean well enough, but they are -overworked, and frankly peasant types, with little education and almost -no notion of cleanliness or of much else that is supposed to pertain to -nursing. Last night a fat old soul without many teeth came waddling into -my room to have a look at that interesting curiosity, _la pauvre petite -Dame Américaine_. When she saw my open window she was so overcome with -astonishment that she hurried out and fetched a companion to regard the -phenomenon. The two of them stood and stared at it and discussed the -matter between themselves for quite a while, then the fat one turned to -me and remarked with a toothless but engaging smile; it was very warm in -America where I lived, was it not? When I replied that, instead, it was -much colder in winter there than here in Paris, they looked aghast and -flatly incredulous. Their only explanation of the matter had been, it -seemed, that I was accustomed to living in the tropics and just didn’t -have sense enough to suit my habits to the atmosphere. - -Just outside the hospital there is a munitions factory. At night the -light over the front door shines into my room and day and night the -machinery keeps up an incessant thudding hum that says as plain as words -over and over and over: _Kill the Boches. Kill the Boches. Kill the -Boches._ Once in a long while the machines stop for a few moments in -order, I suppose, to catch their breath and then I grow dreadfully -worried, for I know that if someone doesn’t keep on killing the Boches -every second, they will be breaking through the lines and pouring in -over France in great drowning grey waves. - -January 27. I haven’t got the measles after all; I have the German -measles, only they don’t call it that in French I am glad to say. At -first I was so very red and speckled that they thought I had the -_rougeole_, but now they have decided it is only the _rubeole_ after -all. A concourse of doctors considered me yesterday morning and -pronounced the verdict. “But then,” I demanded, “if it’s only the -_rubeole_ can’t I be leaving _tout de suite_?” For the French do not -consider quarantine necessary for the rubeole. “Eight days,” they -answered, and when I expostulated they turned on their collective heels -and marched callously out the door, each one holding up eight fingers -apiece as a parting rejoinder. - -Last night I resisted a great temptation. This place is full of doors -with little glass panes in them. As I lay awake in bed in the middle of -the night, a wild desire grew on me to seize my big green bottle of -mineral water by the neck and see how many panes of glass I could -account for before they nabbed me. I had a perfect vision of myself, -flying down the hall in my little flour-sack chemise of a night-gown, -long legs stretching out beneath, going zip, bang, right and left into -those window panes. I have seldom wanted to do anything quite so badly. -And then just to top off with I was going to wring the interne’s neck. -He is a little shrimp of a man—that interne, with no chin and a sort of -scrawny picked-chicken neck, a neck that gets on one’s nerves. - -When they sent me to this hospital I comforted myself with the thought -that I would at least learn a little French while staying here, but the -only thing I have learned so far is that _gargariser_ means gargle and -any goose might have guessed that. - - * * * * * - -January 28. The Chief has sent me a rose-pink cyclamen. It is a lovely -thing and very elaborately done up with pink crêpe paper and a large bow -of shell-pink ribbon. Now I am no longer an object of any interest. -Every last doctor, nurse, interne and _infirmière_ who comes into my -room to take a look at _la petite Mees_, immediately turns his or her -back on me and admires the cyclamen instead. I gather such objects are -rare in French hospitals, for they examine and discuss it at the -greatest length, always winding up with the remark that it must have -“cost very dear.” - -Not having anything else to do I lie with my eyes shut and think. And of -course I have been thinking chiefly about Company A. I have thought -among other things of a play, or rather a dramatic charade in three -acts, which we might give in the hut. It is to be entitled _Slum_. In -the first act,—_Bill_— three doughboys hit on a plan to encompass the -Kaiser’s death and so become rich by gaining the proffered reward:—they -will send him a dish of slum! The second act,—_et_—shows a room in the -Potsdam palace with Kaiser Bill and His Side Whiskers, the Lord High -Chancellor, discussing the food situation. The slum appears; the Kaiser -partakes of it and falls writhing to the floor. The last act shows a -typical barn-loft billet, with rats squeaking, chickens clucking et -cetera, where the Soldiers Three of the first act have their lodging. -They receive the tidings of the Kaiser’s death; wild rejoicings ensue, -as in fancy they spend their fortunes; only to be cut short by the -discovery that the cook who made the slum has already claimed the -reward. I think we can stage it successfully, though the costumes for -the Kaiser and His Side Whiskers present some difficulties. One thing -only troubles me; will it hurt the Mess Sergeant’s feelings? - - * * * * * - -January 30. They have relented. They have shortened my stay. I am to be -let out tomorrow, but I must _reposer_ a few days before going back to -work. Bother! I haven’t heard anything from Bourmont for ten days and I -am full of uneasy apprehensions. Since I have been in the hospital the -cyclamen has been the only word I have had from the outside world. I -have been cut off as completely as if I were in a tomb. Ah well, some -day I’ll get back to the hut again I suppose, and when I do, if those -boys aren’t almost half as glad to see me as I am to see them, why I’ll -know that some other canteen lady has been surreptitiously stealing -their affections, and I shall put poison in her soup. - - -Hôpital Claude-Bernard - -Paris, January 31. - -I have been in a big air raid; this is just how it all happened: - -It was a white night in the hospital for me. I had lain for hours, it -seemed, in the little blue room watching through the glass panes of my -door the coiffed head of a young _infirmière_ bent over her embroidery. -She sat outside my door because there was a light in the hall just -there. Suddenly my drowsy ears were pierced by a long weird hoot. In an -instant the girl had leaped to her feet and switched off the light, then -she turned and ran down the hall. A moment later and the building was in -darkness. I jumped from my bed and ran to the window. The light in front -of the munitions factory was out, there seemed an uncanny silence, the -machinery had been stopped. I hurried to the door. The corridor was full -of hastening forms, _infirmières_, their loose white robes showing dimly -in the grey light. - -“_Qu’est ce qui arrive?_” I demanded. - -“_Les Boches!_” - -The night nurse was peering from my window. - -“It’s the first warning,” she whispered. “See! the lights of Paris still -shine.” - -But even as we looked, the light across the sky that was Paris -flickered, dimmed, flashed out. At the same moment two great golden -stars rose over the munitions factory. - -“_Les avions!_” cried the night nurse. - -And all the time the sirens kept up their ghostly wailing, like nothing -one could imagine except a vast host of lost souls. Then the guns began. -A moment later a crashing thud told that a bomb had fallen in our -neighborhood. The night nurse drew me hurriedly into the hall. - -“Lie down against the wall,—close—like this,” she ordered. - -Up and down the corridor every space by the wall was occupied by the -huddled form of an _infirmière_ buried beneath a mattress. The night -nurse, who had a whole heap of mattresses to herself, pushed one across -to me. I lay on the top, finding it more comfortable that way. - -The bombs were falling nearer. A child in one of the wards woke up and -began to wail fretfully. No one heeded her. There was a flash and then a -tearing thud that shook the hospital. I had one ghastly moment, a thrill -of panic terror at our utter helplessness as we lay there awaiting what -seemed the inevitable coming of destruction. The moment passed. I got up -and slipped down the side corridor to the glass door. The sky was full -of moving lights; some burned with a steady brilliancy, some flickered -and went out like fireflies, a few flashed red. There was no telling -which was friend or foe. They seemed to be proceeding in all directions -without plan or purpose. The air pulsated with the humming drone of -their motors. They were like a swarm of angry hornets I thought. Across -the road, standing on the top of a high wall, in sharp silhouette -against the sky, three poilus stood to watch. Every now and then an -_infirmière_, curiosity outweighing caution, would leave her -hiding-place and creep to the door beside me only to burrow like a bug, -a moment later, underneath her mattress once more. - -“_Mees! N’avez-vous pas peur?_” - -“_Mais non!_” - -“_Ah, vous êtes un soldat!_” - -I went back to my room and climbed out on the window-sill. At first I -thought the lights of Paris had been turned on again, but this time they -were color of rose. As I looked the pink flush deepened, grew ruddy, -flamed across the sky. I called the night nurse. - -“_C’est une incendie_,” she wailed staccato. “_Quel malheur!_” - -So Paris was on fire. - -As we watched two big puffs of white smoke rose over the munitions -factory, spread into a cloud, drifted slowly toward us. The night nurse -sniffed, then shut the window hurriedly. - -“_La gaz_,” she whispered. I questioned it but left the window shut. - -An aeroplane swung low over the munitions factory, so near that it -looked like a great lazy fish with the rose light from below shining on -its belly. Was it friend or enemy? - -The bombs were dropping close again. One could see the flashes and feel -the jar of the explosions which made the windows rattle. - -“_Oh les sales Boches!_” - -“_Oh la la!_” - -The agonized wails sounded half stifled from beneath the mattresses. - -“_Taisez! Écoutez!_” It was the night nurse’s voice. - -The front door slammed. A fat _infirmière_ in a badly shattered state of -nerves stumbled down the hall weeping out unintelligible woes. At my -mattress she came to a standstill, then ducked and tried to crawl -beneath it; failing, she sat down on top of me. I ventured a polite -protest,—in vain. The night nurse heard me. She emerged from beneath her -heap. Followed a scene dramatic, unforgettable. Mattresses scattered to -each side of her, heedless of the falling bombs, with Gallic passion she -proceeded to point out to the sobbing _infirmière_ the shortcomings of -her behaviour. But the fat lady proved unrepentant, her terror at the -bombs superseding even her awe of the night nurse. She sat tight, -holding her ground. She even ventured to answer back. The scene grew -more intense. After I had heard the night nurse discharge the -_infirmière_ some six times over, feeling a trifle out of place, I -managed to crawl from beneath and made my way back to the window. No -more bombs were falling but the guns still barked. As I watched, a -burning plane looking like a great tinsel ball seared its way through -the sky, falling just to the right of Paris. - -“Pray God it is a Boche!” I thought. - -A round-eyed _infirmière_ peered in at the door, staring curiously at -me. - -“_Mees! Vous allez retourner en Amerique?_” - -“_Mais oui! A près la guerre!_” - -The red glare over Paris was fading out. The machines in the munitions -factory began to throb once more. In the grey light at the window I -looked at my watch. It was fifteen minutes past one. I turned to crawl -into bed feeling cold and very sleepy. Some one touched my sleeve; it -was the night nurse. She was staring out the window with eyes that saw -nothing. - -“And how many little children will be dead in the morning do you think?” -she asked. - - -Bourmont, February 5. - -The blow that I somehow dimly apprehended while I was in the hospital -has fallen. Last night late I arrived from Paris. The first thing I -learned was, that with the addition of some new workers a general -shuffle of the women at Headquarters was to take place. This morning the -Chief called us together and gave us our new assignments. The Gendarme -and I are to leave Bourmont. Since I have been away regimental -Headquarters have been moved from Saint Thiebault to Goncourt, a town -about two miles to the south, and the whole regiment with the exception -of the First Battalion concentrated there. The Y. at Goncourt has had a -hard time of it. Originally it occupied a barracks; then the regimental -machine-gun company moved in and the Y. must move out. So the Y. settled -itself in an old stone mill by the Meuse, only to have the military -authorities decide that they needed that mill for a guard-house. So once -more the Y. moved, this time to a little old house in the centre of the -village; and here according to last reports it still is, for the simple -reason that nobody else has any use for the little old house. Meanwhile, -however, they are putting up a Big Hut which is to be ready in from one -to three weeks, all according to who is making the estimate. It is to -Goncourt that the Gendarme and I have been assigned. According to the -Chief this is a “promotion.” - -“It’s the largest, the most important place on the division now,” he -declared; “I’m sending you there because you made good at Saint -Thiebault.” - -But this little piece of taffy doesn’t seem to help matters a bit. The -only way to look at it is that it’s a case of the greatest good for the -greatest number, and of course numerically Goncourt is about ten times -as important as Saint Thiebault. And anyway it wouldn’t do the least -good to kick against the pricks because when all is said and done one is -under orders like a soldier. After all it isn’t as if I were going to -Greenland or to Timbuctoo. And yet at even only two miles distance, so -tied to the work one must be, one might almost as well be in a different -planet. - -As for Saint Thiebault, they are going to have to do with just a man -secretary there. The place is too small, the Chief says, to be allowed -more than one worker. - -We won’t be moving for several days yet. I’m not going to say a word -about it to Company A until the very last moment. I hate partings. - - - - -CHAPTER II: GONCOURT—THE DOUGHBOYS - - -Goncourt, February 11. - -The little old house which now harbors the Y. formerly served, it seems, -as guard-house. To some it must have a strangely familiar air. -Downstairs there are two small rooms; the front one stone-paved, with a -dark carved cupboard in one corner which formerly enclosed the family -bed, and a huge fireplace; the back one with a dirt floor over which -uncertain boards have shakily been laid. The front room we use for the -canteen, the back, with four rough tables, serves as a make-shift -writing room. The walls are dim with smoke and grime, the windows in -both rooms lack half their panes, yet the odd little place has an -atmosphere, a charm all its own. Upstairs soldiers are billeted. When -the din of business dies down in the canteen, one can hear the crisp -rattle of dice as the boys shoot craps on the floor overhead. - -In accordance with military regulations here we cannot open the canteen -until four in the afternoon. But a large part of the morning is easily -spent in cleaning out the hut and arranging the stock for the afternoon -and evening onslaught. At Saint Thiebault the detail that “policed up” -the camp in the morning swept out our tent for us, but here one wields -one’s own broom and shovel,—for first of all one must shovel out the mud -that’s on the floor! Cleaning the canteen, however, I find, though a -dirty, is quite a remunerative job, for in the heaps of litter on the -floor money lurks. According to the ethics of the game if money is found -back of the counter it belongs in the till, but if in front it goes to -the finder. Sometimes the find is five centimes, sometimes fifty and -once it was five francs! The litter—chocolate wrappers, orange peels and -cigarette boxes—is all swept into the fireplace and then touched off -with a match; a regular bonfire ensues. This morning we had left the -front door open; immediately the fire was started a throng of villagers -crowded around to look in. They were scandalized at the conflagration. -The house was old, they cried; we would set the chimney on fire, we -would burn up the building, we would burn down the whole town! One -ancient and portly dame in a frenzy of protest dashed into the room and -fairly danced about the hearth, shaking her apron at the flames and -calling for ashes to cover them. But before she could get her ashes the -fire died down and the excitement with it. - -The Gendarme and I are billeted in a tiny house just at the village -edge. Our low second story looks down upon the street, so narrow that it -seems one could almost reach out and touch hands with the houses -opposite. But what a street it is! Underneath our low window the whole -world goes by; American officers on horseback, French officers in -limousines, American mule teams, French wood teams with three white -horses harnessed one in front of the other, and always the troops; going -by at dawn in the semi-darkness, their rhythmic incessant tramp weaving -itself into one’s waking dreams, passing by at noon, swinging back down -the hill as it grows dusk, singing snatches of song as they tramp. As I -lie a-bed in the morning before getting up to peer out the window into -the yellow misty atmosphere I can always calculate the exact state of -the weather by the amount of squelch which those marching boots make in -the muddy road. - -Company H is billeted on this same street with us. The first morning -after we arrived the Gendarme and I were startled out of sleep by First -Call blown directly underneath our window. Hardly had the last note -sounded when a shout fit to wake the dead went up. - -“Get to hell up, all of you! Rise and shine!” - -Followed a tremendous banging and kicking at all the stable doors along -the street accompanied by a torrent of vivid and spicy admonitions. The -Gendarme and I gasped and chuckled. This was rich. Were we always to be -awakened in so picturesque a fashion? But the next morning we listened -in vain. First Call was blown at the far end of the street and followed -by a solemn silence; and so it has been ever since. Now that American -ladies are known to be living on the street Company H must get up -decorously. - - -Goncourt, February 12. - -The fireplace is easily the feature of our funny little hut. Around this -at night the lads crowd perched on packing-boxes to smoke, chew gum and -gossip. As the first mad rush of business at the canteen dies down a -little I edge up towards the fireplace in order to get a wee share in -the conversation. - -They have caught a spy! One of the cooks in F Company. He was a deserter -from the German Army some one said. They caught him putting dope in the -slum. The doctors were analyzing it now. It’s a wonder the whole company -wasn’t poisoned. Yes, and they found plans of the camp in his pocket -too. He hasn’t eaten a thing since they arrested him. All he does is -just to walk up and down the guard-house. Seems as if he were kind of -crazy. - -And so they gossip. A sad-eyed bugler remarks to me that he’d be a rich -man if he only had all the hob-nailed shoes that had been thrown at him. -Another boy wonders what he’d do if he had “both arms shot off and then -the gas alarm sounded.” And always they must be rowing about their -respective states. - -“Neebraska! Where’s Neebraska? Is that in the United States or Canada?” - -“Noo Hampshire! Huh! There ain’t nothin’ but mountains there. Why my old -man told me that when they let the cows out to grass there they had to -put stilts on one side of ’em so they won’t fall off’n the pasture.” - -Then they turn on me. - -“Boston! When you get ten miles from Boston you can smell the beans -bakin’.” - -“But I don’t come from Boston,” I protest. - -“Well there ain’t nothin’ much in Massachusetts outsider Boston. Why the -state of Noo Hampshire is goin’ to rent the rest o’ Massachusetts for a -duck-yard.” - -And so it goes. - -“Gee! but it’s good to get into one shop where you don’t have to talk -frog talk!” exclaimed one lad tonight. - -“I’ve just heard the greatest compliment for you,” another lad declares -solemnly, “the greatest compliment that could possibly be paid any -woman.” - -“Why, what was it?” - -“I just heard a feller say; ‘My! don’t she look different from the -French girls!’” - -A flushed-faced lad leans over my end of the counter; - -“You know to talk to an American girl like this again, it’s like, it’s -like—” - -Again and again he tries only to become helplessly inarticulate. Then -pulling a large bunch of letters “from lady friends” from his pocket, -nothing will do but he must tell me about each one. Finally in a fit of -prodigal generosity he bestows a handful on me, “Because I’m an American -and you’re one too.” As he makes the presentation something falls to the -floor with a little click. We search among the litter on the floor, the -lad on all fours; finally the lost is found,—a broken bit of comb about -two inches and a quarter long. This is a happy chance, he explains, for -he is company barber and with the company comb gone E Company would be -out of luck. - -Always our presence here is something that seems so strange to them as -to be almost incredible. - -“Will you please tell me,” asked a serious-looking lad tonight, “what -consideration could possibly induce two American girls to come to a -place like this?” - -Continually I am encountering boys who are sure that they’ve “seen me -somewhere.” - -“Say, didn’t you use to live in Milwaukee?” - -“Haven’t I seen you in Seattle? Well, if it warn’t you, it was somebody -that looked just like you!” - -I suppose it is simply because I look American that I look familiar to -them. But the facts in the case seem to be that I have been observed by -some member of the A. E. F. in practically every one of the large cities -of the U. S. A. One boy nearly started a fight in camp the other night -by declaring that in spite of the evidence of my nose he knew I was of -Hebraic origin. He had seen me, he solemnly insisted, “goin’ with a Jew -feller in Philadelphia.” - -Undoubtedly it is because they have so little to think about in these -drab days that they are so pathetically curious. Every little thing you -say or do is repeated, discussed all over camp. Sometimes curiosity gets -hold of one of the bolder spirits to such an extent that he ventures the -question; - -“How much do you get paid for smiling at the soldiers?” - -And when they learn that you are a volunteer and are paying for the -privilege of being there, their amazement is so blank as to be -positively ludicrous. - - -Goncourt, February 13. - -One of the nicest things about Goncourt is our mess. This we have at the -House Across the Street, which is next to the House of the Madonna. We -mess _en famille_ with the family Peirut, the Gendarme, Mr. K. and I, -and we eat the family fare which consists chiefly of soup, boiled meat -and carrots, supplemented by various additions such as sugar, cocoa, jam -and canned corn from the commissary. I can never quite decide which is -quainter, the family or the setting. - -In America we have the phrase _living-room_, in France they have it. In -this one high-ceilinged room the daily life of the family is complete. -Here is the kitchen stove and the dinner table, here are the beds of -Madame and Monsieur, Madame’s in one corner hung with dim flowered -chintz, Monsieur’s in another brave with a beautiful old red India -shawl. Here is the broad stone sink under the window, with the drain -running out into the street, where the family makes its morning toilet. -Here are the great dark armoires which hold clothing, china-ware and -stores of all sorts. Here is the littered desk where the family -correspondence is carried on; and here is the larder, a huge slab of -pork and a ham hanging from the beams over one’s head, while on a stick -in front of the fireplace a row of little fishes hang by their tails in -dumb expectation of a Friday. And here too is the family shrine, a -little wooden Madonna in red and blue, found as Madame tells us in the -ancient city of La Mothe, which, destroyed in 1645, now exists as a -wonderful ruin crowning a hill some two miles to the west. - -If the stove-wood is found lacking at meal-time, Monsieur rises from his -chair and saws an armful beside the dinner-table. If Madame decides -while we are eating our soup that a piece of ham will improve the menu -she stands upon her chair and cuts a slice in the air over our heads. On -wash days one picks one’s way to the table past the pails which hold the -family linen in soak, and later eats one’s soupe _à pain_ under a brave -array of drying garments slung from wall to wall. - -The family, which consists of Monsieur, Madame and Mademoielle, the two -sons being in service, are the most hospitable souls alive. Continually -they urge, “_Mangez, mangez!_” and then, “_Vous êtes timide!_” Their -feelings are dreadfully hurt if each one of us refuses to eat enough for -two. They seem somehow to have acquired the idea that Americans need a -vast deal of sweetening, so they offer you sugar, commissary sugar, with -everything, and they are gently but definitely disappointed when you -decline to heap it on your mashed potato. - -Mile. Jeane, clear-skinned, bright-eyed, capable, energetic yet -possessed of a warm charm withal, is forewoman of the little glove -factory in town. - -“Are there many employees?” I asked. - -“But no. Eight only. Since the Americans came to town all the women have -deserted the factory in order to wash the Americans’ clothes.” - -Monsieur, it appears, is a wood-cutter by profession. He comes home from -a hard day’s chopping looking like a genus of the woods himself with his -worn brown velour suit, his wrinkled brown skin and his ragged brown -beard which resembles exactly those bundles of fine twigs which the -French burn in their fireplaces. When Monsieur was ten years old the -Germans occupied the town and sixteen of them slept in this very room. -They were perfect pigs, he says, and ate everything they could lay their -hands on; “But,” he adds, “they didn’t like our bread!” - -Sunday mornings all the men in town, including the Man With One Leg, and -all the dogs start off together, the men armed with guns and each -carrying a musette bag or knapsack. Papa puts on his shooting coat with -the fancy buttons each depicting a different bird or beast of the chase, -takes down his old shot-gun from the wall, and joins them. At dusk they -come back again, empty-handed, but seemingly well content. Their modus -operandi, I gather, is to proceed to a comfortable spot in the woods, -then all sit down, drink vin rouge and wait for the game. Indeed one -doughboy declares, that passing by one of those open alleys which -intersect the forests here, he once saw an old Frenchman standing with -his gun in a drizzling rain, patiently waiting for a shot while by his -side stood another “old frog” holding an umbrella over him. - - -Goncourt, February 14. - -The woman who lives in the House of the Madonna is an unconscionable old -scalawag. Not that you would ever suspect it to look at her, for with -her round rosy face, her smooth parted hair and her comfortably rotund -figure she resembles nothing so much as somebody’s genial and respected -grandmother. Yet the facts in the case remain. She sells doped wine to -the soldiers at ruinous prices and she sells at forbidden hours. -Moreover we have reason to suspect that at odd times she carries on an -utterly illicit commerce. According to our hostess, when the time from -the last pay day grows too long, certain soldiers are not above -smuggling in their extra shoes and shirts to her, and she pays them back -in drinks. - -This morning while I was at breakfast she came bouncing in and proceeded -to fill the house with lamentations. Last night a tipsy soldier had -stolen the key to her front door! Then she delved into history for my -benefit, recounting how, some weeks before, two soldiers, having sent -her out of the room on an errand, had proceeded to rob her till, the sum -amounting to almost three hundred francs! - -“_Oh! Ils sont des monstres, des cochons!_” she wailed. - -Whereat I, with some asperity, remarked that if the French people -wouldn’t sell drink to the Americans, the soldiers wouldn’t become -_zig-zag_ and do such things. Immediately she became conciliatory. Of -course, everyone knew that there were good people and bad people in -every nation, but certainly! Then she changed the subject abruptly, -demanding; why, why in the name of common sense did I do anything so -contrary to all the dictates of reason as to sleep with my window open? - -Last night, as Mr. K. and I were coming home from the canteen, the door -of the cafe opposite was suddenly opened and a man’s figure appeared, -half pushed, half thrown outside. The door slammed shut,—it was long -after closing hour for the cafe,—the figure fell like a log to the -ground. We watched a minute to see the fellow pick himself up, but he -lay motionless. It was a freezing night. Mr. K. went over to -investigate. The man was in a drunken stupor. - -“You go along,” he called to me, “I’ve got to get this fellow home.” - -I left reluctantly. Subsequently Mr. K. told me the night’s history. -After considerable coaxing, he had finally succeeded in extracting the -information that the boy belonged to F Company. So to F Company -barracks, a good half-mile north of the canteen, they had proceeded, Mr. -K. half dragging, half carrying the fellow who was head and shoulders -taller than he, and broad to boot. - -When they had nearly reached their journey’s end, Mr. K. by this time -fairly in a state of collapse, his burden suddenly baulked. The barracks -evidently didn’t look like home to him. Mr. K. began to have a sickening -sense of something gone wrong. At last the wretch drowsily recalled the -fact that he didn’t belong to F Company at all, but to I Company far on -the other side of town. So around they turned and back through town they -crawled until finally they arrived at I Company’s abiding-place; and -this time the derelict was satisfied. - -Indeed a walk home from the canteen at night with Mr. K. at any time is -likely to prove an adventure. For should we meet a boy who has had more -than is “good for him” and is in an irritable mood, we must stop and -talk with him, in order, as Mr. K’s theory puts it, to divert his mind. -“Get them thinking about something else,” is his slogan. The other night -we stood out in the sleety drizzle until my feet fairly froze solid into -the freezing mud, carrying on polite conversations with two boys who had -just been put out of the House of the Madonna and were in a state of -mind to wreck the town. One of them Mr. K. got started on the subject of -taking French lessons. He was ambitious to study French he explained and -would Mr. K. kindly arrange for a teacher and a course of lessons? I -listened with one ear; here was the first man I had found in France who -expressed an earnest desire to learn French and he was tipsy! The other -one, evidently ashamed, explained to me at length how he hadn’t wanted -to get drunk, the trouble was that he was just naturally “dishgushted -with this country, just dishgushted.” And that it seems to me is the -whole thing in two words. The boys are “just dishgushted.” Considering -it all, who can blame them? - - -Goncourt, February 15. - -The M. P.s who live in the second story of the Guard-House are my good -friends. They help sweep out the hut often in the mornings and when they -make taffy in their mess kits they bring me some. These M. P.s are in -reality cavalrymen detached from their regiment for the time being in -order to do police duty. As far as I can see, there seems to be no -special hard feeling between them and the doughboys. - -One slim young M. P. in particular is a crony of mine. He keeps me -informed as to the gossip of the town. He tells me how the French women -who run cafes, our neighbor of the House of the Madonna among them, seek -to curry favor with the law in Goncourt, by bringing him out coffee and -sandwiches as he walks his beat in the middle of the night; and how, the -other night after closing hour, he put his head inside the door of one -of these cafes to be greeted by a frantic shriek of “_Feenish! -Feenish!_” from the hostess, only to find, when he insisted on entering, -a crowd of doughboys making merry in the back-room; how he took their -names and then was inspired to look at their “dog tags” in confirmation -and found that not one of the names agreed! He tells me about the cross -old Frenchman whose beehives have been stealthily, inexplicably, -disappearing one by one, in spite of the fact that the Frenchman had -tied his unfortunate and much suffering dog underneath the hives to -guard them; until now the old gentleman had taken to sitting up nights -with a shot-gun in order to watch the remaining ones. “He’s a kind o’ -snoopy old man and nobody likes him. I reckon the boys are taking his -beehives just to spite him.” He tells me about the old lady who wants to -marry him to her daughter; but chiefly he tells me,—under the strictest -oath of secrecy,— the latest development in the case of the old woman -whom he suspects of being a spy. I advise him to hand the matter over to -the Intelligence Officer, but no, he must have the honor of catching her -red-handed himself. It’s quite like reading a detective story in -installments. - -The other night while I was talking to one of the M. P.s in the canteen, -we heard a shot up the street. The next moment another M. P. appeared at -the door. After the exchange of a few whispered words, the two of them -ran out of the hut, and as they went, I saw them both draw their -revolvers. Fifteen minutes later the doughboys coming into the canteen -brought a ghastly tale. There had been a fight between the M. P.s and -the soldiers. The M. P.s had shot and killed two. “Yes, so-help-me-God, -it’s the truth!” The narrator had himself seen the two slain doughboys -lying in the street; one had been shot through the head, the other -through the heart. So the story went around. We went to bed that night -with a dull sense of horror hanging over us. - -The next morning I confronted my friend the M. P. with the story. Then I -learned the true version. He had been on his beat not far from the -church, when down a dark alley he had heard sounds of a tremendous -fracas. In spite of the fact that he didn’t have his stick with him he -had plunged down the alley to come upon “a bunch of wops beating each -other over the head with beer bottles.” When they caught sight of the M. -P. they had quickly abandoned their family disagreement in order to turn -upon the intruder. He had shot his revolver into the air and this had -been enough to frighten them into taking to their heels. The two fellows -who had been seen lying on the ground were the casualties resulting from -the bottle-fight: they had been stunned and gashed so badly as to bleed -a good deal, but were later patched up with complete success at the -hospital. - -Indeed life at Goncourt is seldom unrelieved by incident. Last night I -was sitting by our open window reading—the Gendarme was out—after my -return from the hut, when I heard an angry voice snarl something abusive -directly beneath me; a moment later a fusillade began. I jumped for the -candle, blew it out, then stood close against the wall. After a minute -the shots ceased; immediately excited people began to pour into the -street. I heard the M. P.s pounding on the door of the House Across the -Way, demanding information; I leaned from the window and told them what -I knew. All the French people in the neighborhood stood out in the -street and chattered excitedly for hours afterward it seemed. This -morning Madame told us what had happened. In the house next door lives a -tall and handsome girl. A sergeant suitor of hers, crazy with jealousy -and cognac, had shot wildly at a rival entering her door, emptying his -automatic, fortunately without effect. - - -Goncourt, February 16. - -Twice a week each one of us goes to pay a visit at the local hospital. -This is a depressing place—two large dingy rooms in what was once, to -judge from the inscription over the door, some sort of ecclesiastical -school. We take the boys magazines and newspapers, oranges and jam. This -week I had a new idea. I would read aloud to them. In the Bourmont -warehouse I came across a volume of W. W. Jacobs’ short stories. Here -was just the thing, I thought, such simple slap-stick humour must appeal -to the most unsophisticated understanding. - -I hurried to the hospital with my prize. The orderlies, not expecting a -lady visitor, were in the midst of a Black Jack game. Red and flustered, -one lad tried to hide the little heaps of money on the floor by standing -on them; I pretended not to see. Yes, they thought it would be all right -if I should read to the patients. They went ahead to the ward to -announce me. All the cots were full, making sixteen invalids in all. I -selected a story—an old favorite, I was sure it would prove -irresistible—and started to read. The story tells of an eccentric -skipper with a fad for doctoring. One by one, his crew, realizing his -weakness, develop mysterious maladies. They are excused from duty, put -to bed, petted and cossetted. Finally the mate becomes desperate. He -guarantees that he will cure them all; the skipper is sceptical but -allows him a free hand. The mate sets to work to compound some -“medicine,” a wonderful and fearful brew made of ink, vinegar, kerosene -and bilge-water. After a few doses, presto! the crew is hale and hearty -once again. - -I read with all the animation I could muster, and to me the story had -never appeared funnier, but try my hardest, I couldn’t seem to “get it -over.” Not a chuckle, not a grin lightened my solemn audience. They were -utterly, blankly, unresponsive. I began to wonder if it were possible -that not one of them could understand English. At last I ended. As I -closed the book a whoop of delight went up from the orderlies; - -“That’s you all over, Johnny!” - -“Gee, that guy must have wrote that story about you, Slim.” - -“Say, Miss, can’t you let us have the recipe for that medicine? We need -it in our business.” - -The invalids grinned sulkily. In one awful moment I realized what I had -done. - -“Of course,” I stammered, “this wasn’t meant to have any personal -application!” But the mischief was already done. There was nothing to do -but to retire with dignity. - -However, I couldn’t bear to give up my scheme entirely. Today I went -again; this time having carefully selected my story. To my astonishment -the ward proved empty, all except for three boys who were crouching on -the floor shooting craps; I drew back. - -“Perhaps they would rather not be disturbed.” - -“They ought to be in bed anyway,” growled the orderly, and chased the -patients back to their cots. - -I read to them; there was no way out of it. They listened politely to -the end, but all the while I felt they were longing to resume their -interrupted game. Tonight I expressed my surprise over the deserted ward -to Captain X. He roared at my innocence. - -“You didn’t expect to find any fellows in hospital _today_ did you? Why, -this is Saturday, and there isn’t any drill tomorrow!” - - -Goncourt, February 18. - -Every day we must go to see how the new hut is progressing. This -involves wading through a wilderness of mud. I had thought that Bourmont -had taught me everything that one could learn about French mud this side -of the trenches, but Goncourt has shown me that it has possibilities -hitherto undreamed. - -The new hut is on the far edge of the town, on the east bank of the -Meuse. Near it are grouped the barracks of the Milk Battalion, so called -not because, as I first supposed, it is composed of heavy drinkers, but -because it is comprised of Companies I, K, L, and M. These barracks, -which were bequeathed to us by the French, are, the boys tell me, -infested with vermin. In the mess-hall of Company M we hold our weekly -movie-shows and our occasional concerts. - -The hut, which is very large, and shipped here in sections, goes up -slowly. Army details are proverbial in their ability to consume time. -Then we are constantly being held back by shortage of materials; lumber -and nails and such things being desperately hard to obtain in France at -present. Not long ago the divisional Construction Man, who is a young -fellow with poor eyes and considerable initiative, was driven to the -desperate resort of appropriating French Army lumber. For a while all -went well, then the thefts grew too bold, and the Construction Man was -summoned before the French colonel in command. As the colonel knew -English, and so could not be put off by any “no compris” bluff, the -Construction Man had a pretty bad quarter hour of it, but in the end was -let off with a warning. - -The window frames of the hut are to be filled in with _vitex_, a curious -glass substitute, which looks like a thin celluloid glaze over very fine -meshed wire. It is only slightly transparent, rather fragile and very -costly but it does admit the light, in this respect being far better -than the oiled cloth in use in most barracks. When the _vitex_ is cut to -fit the frames, many odd scraps are left over and these I have been -distributing among the boys so they can substitute them for the old -newspapers or sacking now in vogue for billet windows. - -If they only could hurry up that hut! - -“You wait and see,” say the boys; “just as soon as that hut is finished -we’ll be moving. That’s always the way with this regiment. Sure as you -live, when that hut’s done, we’ll be off for the front.” - -And it begins to look as if this might come true. - -“Do you really think so?” I asked Mr K. today. - -“There’s no telling,” he replied. “Perhaps. But anyway the boys will -know we did our best.” - -Meanwhile the state of the men is worse than ever. An order has been -issued in Goncourt that no soldier may enter a civilian house without a -special permit. The reason given is that certain of the townspeople have -been illegally selling the men strong drink. The soldiers, however, -declare bitterly that the real reason is that the officers wish to have -a clear field with the village damsels. - - -Goncourt, February 21. - -We have had our first taste of the trenches; these are not real trenches -to be sure but simply practice trenches which lie on the hilly uplands -west of Goncourt. For two days we have been in a tumult with a dress -rehearsal of manœuvers at the front. The whole brigade in battle array -has passed under our window. Colonels and soup-kitchens, mules and -majors, supply trains, ambulances, machine-guns, everything. Yesterday -as Company F was starting on its hike to the trenches, word came that -the mules who pulled their field-kitchen were indisposed. Company F had -no mind to eat corn-willy and hard bread for dinner. They seized the -soup wagon and pulled it by hand, all the way up the hills. Meeting -their major on the way, they shouted in unison; “The mules went on sick -report and got marked quarters. We went on sick report and they marked -us duty.” But they got their dinner hot. - -Tonight I heard the sad tale of Mr. B. the new secretary at Saint -Thiebault. Company A had marched off to spend the day in the trenches. -Mr. B. had an inspiration; he filled a large suit-case full of chocolate -and cigarettes: hailed a passing ambulance and set out to carry first -aid to Company A in its ordeal in the trenches. Unluckily neither Mr. B. -nor the driver knew just where the field of operations lay. Two miles -north of Goncourt Mr. B. got out and started to “cut across lots.” It -was raining; he waded through swamps, he scratched through thickets, he -wallowed in ploughed fields, with that suit case which must have weighed -a good eighty pounds growing heavier at every step. There being no sun -to guide him, he got lost and wandered about in circles. Finally, after -several hours, he arrived in a state of collapse at the field of -manœuveurs. Then instead of A Company he encountered another company, a -perfectly strange company; they demanded chocolate and he didn’t have -the heart to deny them. After the last cake of chocolate and the last -package of cigarettes had disappeared an officer came up, an officer -from still another company, and proceeded to tell Mr. B. in very plain -language what he thought of him for leaving his men out. And when that -officer had done with Mr. B. an officer from the company which had been -fed came up in an awful temper and “bawled out” Mr. B. because forsooth -his men had made such a mess, throwing away the chocolate wrappers that -when the others left, his company would have to stay behind to “police -up” the trenches! - -Poor Mr. B! My heart goes out to him. - -This evening as we were about to close the canteen, my friend, the -mule-skinner from Texas appeared in the hut. He had a sort of a -weak-in-the-knees expression on his face. - -“What’s the matter?” - -“Met the Old Man,” he answered ruefully,—the “Old Man” is the general in -command of the division—“Gee! but he sure did give me some bawlin’ out!” - -“But why?” - -He explained that his sergeant had misunderstood orders and told him to -go out in his usual rig. The general, encountering the mule-skinner -without his proper war-paint, had expressed his mind to him on the -matter. - -“Jumpin’ Jupiter! but the langwidge that that old bird used! I sure will -hand it to him! Why, my ears ain’t done burnin’ yet!” And he shook his -head like a man half dazed. - -“What did he say?” - -The mule-skinner grew red as a beet, stared at me horrified. - -“I couldn’t repeat it, ma’am! I couldn’t repeat nary word of it!” - -That a general should so scandalize a mule-skinner, and a Texas -mule-skinner at that, by his address, was so intriguing to my fancy that -I laughed all the way home. - -We have a new colonel; he has declared that the regiment is not fit for -the front, and so has laid out a two weeks’ programme of gruelling hikes -and intensive training, in order at the eleventh hour to try to jack us -up to standard. - -The Gendarme leaves tomorrow to go _en permission_. - - -Goncourt, February 25. - -If I were God I would lay a blight on every grape-vine in France; then I -would sink every still, wine press, distillery and brewery to the bottom -of the sea. - -We have had payday. It happened Friday. The total results didn’t make -themselves evident immediately; it was instead a cumulative effect, a -crescendo, beginning Friday and reaching its climax yesterday. On these -three days, out of the twenty-five hundred men stationed here, -twenty-four hundred and ninety-three, I could take my oath, have come -into the canteen and leaned over the counter, drunk;—that is to say, -visibly and undeniably under the influence of liquor. When a lad, as -some half dozen did,—those composing the regular attendance in the group -about the fire,—came into the canteen entirely and unmistakably sober, -one welcomed him as a drowning man does a spar. For a moment one had -come in touch with something stable in a reeling world. - -Out of a company of two hundred and fifty last night ninety were capable -of standing Retreat. - -I have learned to gauge the stages. When a man looks you squarely in the -eye and declares vociferously, “Never took a drink in all my life!” he -is very drunk indeed. And there is always someone nearby to wink and -comment; “He must have joined the gang that pours it down with a -funnel.” - -Saturday night a very red-faced lad came up to the counter and insisted -on conversing; from each pocket in his raincoat protruded a long-necked -bottle. I stood it for a few minutes, then: - -“Please,” I said, “won’t you take those bottles out of here? I just hate -to see them.” - -“Bottles!” he expostulated. “What do you mean, _bottles_!” - -“I mean just those.” I pointed. - -“Why I ain’t got a bottle on me!” he burst out indignantly, fairly -glaring at me. Seeing it was hopeless, I edged away toward the other end -of the counter, leaving him standing there, a perfect picture of -outraged and insulted virtue, with those bottles bristling all over him. - -The whole town is pervaded by a warm glow of geniality. Boys that used -to nod shyly in answer to your “Good morning” now lean from their loft -windows as you pass to call a greeting. Last night, my friend the M. P. -tells me, he heard a racket in one of the sheepfolds up on our street. -Going to investigate he met a “bunch o’ drunken wops” coming out of the -door, every man of them carrying a struggling sheep under each arm. He -shouted at them; they dropped the sheep and fled. - -The French find it all vastly amusing. “_Beaucoup zig zag_,” they cry. -It means, I suppose, riches for them. - -And yet in all this orgy I have not yet encountered a single word of -disrespect, nor heard one objectionable expression uttered. Last night I -caught an angry splutter from the crowd in front of the counter. One -boy, evidently a shade less tipsy, had admonished another boy apparently -a shade more so, to be careful of his language out of respect for me. -“Whu’d ’you think? D’you think I ain’t got sense enough to know how to -talk when there’s an American lady present?” For a moment it looked as -if there might be a fight. - -Meanwhile the guard-house, the real guard-house, is so crowded that they -have had to put duck-boards across the rafters for the prisoners to -sleep on. - -From a nearby town where part of another regiment is stationed come even -more startling stories. Certain officers there went so wild that they -started to blow up the town with hand grenades. And one of them coming -into the Y. held up the secretary at the point of his pistol until he -sold him—instead of the ordinary allowance of one or two -packages—several cartons of his favorite brand of cigarettes. - -The new colonel is said to be horrified. But what could he expect? Take -an odd lot of twenty-five hundred boys, remove them from every decent -restraining influence, hike them all day through the interminable mud -and rain until they drop by the roadside, bring them back at night to -dark, cold, damp, filthy, vermin-ridden lofts and stables, add the nerve -strain of the imminent prospect of their first time at the front, close -every door to them except the door of the café, give them money;—what -could anyone expect? - - -Goncourt, February 27. - -My friend Pat is in the hospital; not the local hospital, but Base 18 -situated at Bazoilles, some six miles to the north of Goncourt. This -afternoon, having our time free between one and four, Mr. K. and I -decided to go to call on him. - -“Are we going to walk?” I asked. - -“Oh we’ll get a lift; one always does.” - -But the lift didn’t heave in sight until we were half way there; then it -was an ambulance that slowed down in answer to our signals. - -“Give us a ride?” - -“Sure, if you aren’t afraid of the mumps.” - -I was, dreadfully afraid. But Mr. K. wasn’t, he had already had them, on -both sides. I hesitated, then decided to take a chance. We rode into -Bazoilles in an ambulance full of mumps. - -As for Pat, we hadn’t an idea in what sort of shape we might find him. -Once, Mr. K. told me, he had come upon Pat in one of his visits to the -Saint Thiebault infirmary. Pat was lying on a cot with his eyes closed -and a sanctified look of patient suffering upon his face. - -“Why what’s wrong with you, Pat?” - -“Ssh!” Pat squinted about to see that neither doctor nor orderly was -within ear-shot, then an Irish grin spread over his impudent features. -“Nothin’ at all,” he whispered joyously, “just nothin’ at all!” - -But this time we found Pat’s ailment real enough. He was in the “bone -ward” with a badly broken wrist. - -“How did it happen?” we inquired. - -“Sure an’ it happened this way,” and he told us both the official and -the confidential versions. Confidentially, Pat’s wrist had been broken -by a blow from an M. P.’s billy in an after-payday argument at Saint -Thiebault. Officially it had been broken two days later in the barracks -by an accidental knock from a gun-barrel. _Pat had hiked and drilled -with a broken wrist for two solid days in order to be able to claim that -he had been disabled in the line of duty!_ After the second day, -convinced that the encounter with the M. P. was sufficiently a matter of -past history to be discredited, Pat had reported at Sick Call with his -trumped-up tale and had as usual gotten by. Now as he lay on his cot he -was occupying himself by conjuring up visions of the party to which he -and his buddy were going to treat that M. P. just as soon as he (Pat) -should get his hospital discharge. - -As we talked I noticed a lad who was walking about the ward with his -right hand done up in bloody bandages. He looked self-conscious and -embarrassed as if he half hoped, half feared to be recognized. I caught -Pat’s eye, his voice dropped to a whisper. - -“That’s Philip R. Don’t you remember him?” - -Of course! I smiled at Philip, but he turned away and wouldn’t come to -speak to me. Mr. K. went over to him; they talked for a long while in -undertones. Later I heard the whole pitiful story. He had been drinking, -the terror that was haunting him had suddenly gripped. He had taken his -rifle and shot himself through his right hand, mutilating it, in order -that he might not be sent to the front. Placed under arrest on -suspicion, his nerve had utterly given way. He had made a full -confession. It was likely to go hard with him. - -While Mr. K. was listening to Philip, Pat was telling me about the -regiment of southern negro engineers who had come to Bazoilles to help -build the new hospital. Every time there was an air-raid alarm, Pat -declared, they knelt down and prayed by companies. - -I emptied out my _musette_ bag onto Pat’s cot. Pat looked at the -oranges, dates, chocolates and cigarettes that we had brought, then took -a squint along the hungry-looking ward. - -“Well, I guess I’ll get a taste,” he said. - -He was “in soft” he told us. The nurses let him help serve the meals. He -had free run of the kitchen and all the milk that he wanted to drink. -Yet he was already chafing at the restraint and in his wicked head he -was scheming schemes. Some day in the not-too-distant future he was -going to give the hospital guards the slip, make a night of it, and -paint “Bazooie” red. - -Tonight word reached us that a Y. M. C. A. woman worker has been killed -in Paris in an air-raid. She was sick and they had sent her to the -Hôpital Claude-Bernard. This time the bombs found it. - - -Goncourt, March 2. - -The new hut is opened. Finished or unfinished, we made up our minds that -we would open that hut Saturday night, and open it we did. The last two -days have been fairly frantic. Yesterday we washed up; today we dried -out and decorated. The cleaning was the worst of it. The hut, as I have -hinted, is a sort of island in a sea of mud. Consequently as the -building went up, the floor, walls, counter, ceiling, everything was -splotched, streaked and plastered with dirt. Thursday night as I looked -around the hut my heart sank. The place was a sight. - -“You can’t do anything about it,” they told me. - -“But something has got to be done!” - -Friday morning arrived a detail of eight prisoners from the guard-house. -They had come to scrub. The guard in charge took his stand, leaning -against one of the pillars, his loaded rifle in his hands; to see that -no one escaped was his only responsibility, the rest was up to me. My -detail proved a sullen, stubborn lot, slouching, cursing under their -breath, all their self-respect turned to a smouldering rebellion; after -the first few minutes I saw just how much work left to themselves they -would be likely to accomplish. So I told them in a matter-of-fact way -just how things stood: that we had promised to open the hut the next -day, that it was, as they could see, in a frightful mess, that I -realized they were up against a stiff job, but I did _so_ hope that we -could put it through. Then I got a pail and a scrubbing-brush and went -out and scrubbed side by side with them. It is of course strictly -against the rules to talk to prisoners, but all the while I worked I -“jollied” my “jail-birds” for all my wits were worth. I admired -ecstatically the spots which they had scrubbed, I moaned in despair over -the unscrubbed places. Inside of an hour the prisoners were all grinning -cheerfully as they worked like beavers. When the guard was looking the -other way I sneaked them cigarettes. By night the hut was very damp and -somewhat streaky, but it would pass, at least by candle-light. I didn’t -care though my arms were so lame I could hardly lift them, and my hands -in ruins. - -“I congratulate you,” said the new Secretary, “I never thought it could -be done.” - -“If only nobody looks at the ceiling!” - -For the ceiling was beyond our reach, and back and forth over every one -of its boards had tramped the hob-nailed boots of the A. E. F. and every -step had left its muddy print. As I looked I thought; if we only had the -signatures to put beside each footprint, what a fascinating autograph -collection it would make! - -Today we spent in a mad tear, making the hut beautiful and moving our -effects over from the “Guard-House.” The moving was accomplished by the -aid of the Wall-Eyed Boy and his donkey. These are two of Goncourt’s -leading citizens, the donkey, an ancient moth-eaten beast, being -particularly intimately known to a certain group of doughboys who would -joyfully murder him. His stable is directly beneath the loft in which -they are billeted and every morning, prompt as an alarm clock, at 4 A. -M. that donkey brays, and brays until the soundest sleeper is awakened. -The Wall-Eyed Boy’s name is Martin, and as a donkey in France is -slangily called _un Martin_, as we call a mule “Maud,” the two go under -the title of _Les Deux Martins_. When _les Deux Martins_ and I went -trudging along the muddy streets of Goncourt, side by side, with the -little tippy cart loaded with canteen truck bumping along behind, the M. -P.s thought it a rare joke. “I wish Sister Susy could see you now,” -called one. - -The last few hours were spent frantically decorating. Our color scheme -is red and blue. This came about through accident rather than intention. -We had a bolt of turkey-red cotton bunting for curtains, only to -discover that this did not darken the lighted windows sufficiently to -comply with the now strictly enforced aeroplane regulations. So I asked -a secretary starting for Paris to bring me a bolt of black cambric in -order to make a set of inner supplementary curtains. The secretary -returning, brought bright blue; black, on account of the demand for -mourning, had proved too expensive. At first I was non-plussed, but then -discovered that the bright red and blue made rather a jolly combination. -So each one of our many windows is now giddy with red and blue draperies -and the seat that runs all around our writing room is brave with blue -and red cushions (stuffed, if the truth must be told, with shavings!) -Between each two windows is tacked one of my stunning big French war -posters, the long counter is covered with red-checked oil-cloth, a -bouquet of flags flies from the proscenium arch over the stage which, -for the occasion, is banked beautifully with evergreens. Altogether we -present rather the appearance of a perpetual Fourth of July celebration, -but then who cares? If one can’t be aesthetic one can at least be gay, -and it’s anything to take one’s mind off the mud! - -The Gendarme came back from her leave tonight just in time for the Grand -Opening. This took place at seven o’clock. The hall was packed to the -last inch. As one boy said; “There’s plenty of room for me, but there -ain’t none for the buttons on my coat.” There was a reason for this. The -new colonel was to make a speech and he had advised all the officers and -non-coms, in the whole regiment to be present. I caught a glimpse of -Company A wedged in among the suffocating mass. Everything, I -understand, went off very nicely; there was much music by the band and -somebody sang Danny Deever very thrillingly, but I was too busy in the -kitchen to pay much attention. The new Secretary had wanted me to sit on -the platform, but after a three days’ debate, he had finally agreed to -let me off, and luckily, for the minute the last note of the S. S. B. -had sounded we were ready to start handing out the hot chocolate and -cookies over the counter to the mob. When everyone else had been fed the -colonel himself appeared back of the counter, to graciously accept a cup -of chocolate, and make himself generally charming. - -When the last guest had gone and we were getting ready to shut up the -hut for the night, the Chief who had come over from Bourmont for the -occasion drew me aside, looking solemn. - -“I have a question to put to you.” - -“What is it?” - -“The division leaves for the front within a short while. Do you wish to -go with them?” - -“Of course!” said I. - - -Goncourt, March 8. - -This week has gone by in a whirl. Because it was our first and -presumably our last week in the big hut we wanted to make it just as -nice as was humanly possible. And this hasn’t been an easy task because -with the regiment putting on the last touches before they go to the -front, there hasn’t been a bit of spare man-power available to help us; -and the mere problem of keeping that huge place anything like clean has -almost swamped us. After mess at night, to be sure, we have no lack of -assistance. The boys swarm into the little kitchen in droves, eager to -help stir the chocolate, or cut the bread for the sandwiches. If only -ten out of every dozen would be content to stay the other side of the -counter, it would simplify matters, but much as they may be underfoot -one hasn’t the heart to turn them out. Those who can’t get into the -kitchen hang about the doors, looking in, teasing for a “hand-out” of -bread and jam. “I’m just so hungry,” sighed a lad plaintively today, -looking at me out of the corner of his eyes, “I could eat the jamb off -the door!” - -We have a Frenchwoman to help us in the kitchen. She is a treasure, shy -and bright-eyed as a brown bird, and so tiny that we have to set a -packing-box by the stove for her to stand on when she stirs the -chocolate. She is deaf and speaks _patois_, so between her strange -French and mine still stranger we have droll times making each other -understand. Yet, none the less, she and the boys manage to keep up a -running fire of badinage and when they become too rowdy, the tiny thing -turns ridiculously bellicose and threatens to whip them all with her -chocolate paddle. At night we all go home together and one tall lad must -always come along in order to help Madame over the road of a thousand -mud holes that leads from the hut to the highway, lest she be drowned in -transit. She carries a funny little gasolene lamp that gives about as -much light as an ambitious fire-fly and all the way to the main road one -can hear her moaning; “_Mon Dieu, quel chemin! Mon Dieu, quel chemin!_” - -This has been our week’s programme: - - Sunday. Hot chocolate and cookies - Religious Service with special music - Song Service. More chocolate - - Monday. French Classes - Hot chocolate and jam sandwiches - - Tuesday. Boxing and Wrestling Matches - Hot chocolate and sardine sandwiches - - Wednesday. Band Concert - Hot chocolate and jam sandwiches - - Thursday. Movies - Hot chocolate and cookies - - Friday. Sing Fest with Solos - Hot chocolate and jam sandwiches - - Saturday. Stunt Programme - Canned fruit and cookies - -The hut has been filled every night, hundreds and hundreds of soldiers, -the auditorium packed and the writing-room holding at least a hundred -more, while the chocolate line, coiling and curling about like a monster -snake, has for hours seemed absolutely endless. We have worked out a -system for the chocolate serving—the Gendarme is cashier, taking the -money and making change, fifty centimes or nine cents for a cup of -chocolate and a sandwich, or six spice cookies, or four fig ones. One -boy ladles out the chocolate. I push the cups over the counter, another -boy hands out the cookies, a third gathers up the dirty cups and carries -them to the kitchen, where three or four others are busy washing and -wiping them, while Heaven only knows how many more are around the stove, -helping Madame stir the next kettleful, opening milk cans, or dipping -water into a third container. Thus we keep the line merrily wagging -along. - -Last night, quite unknown to the men, Pershing himself came to town, -whirled in after dark in his big limousine and whirled away again as -suddenly and secretly as he had arrived. He came to give the officers -final instructions as to their conduct at the front. - -The first faint wistful scents of Spring are in the air. This morning -Madame brought to our room a tiny bouquet of snow-drops. And one hears -from Saint Thiebault a rumour of early violets. - - -Goncourt, March 10. - -This morning shortly after I reached the hut, one of the men from the -Bourmont office came in with a note for me, it read: - - My dear Miss —— - - I am glad to be able to tell you more or less confidentially - that you will probably go to the front very shortly. You had - better have everything ready so you could leave on short notice - any time after tomorrow noon. - - Very sincerely yours, —— - -Enclosed in the envelope was a little slip headed _Suggestions for Men -going to the Front_. It began “Go light, take no trunk,” and ended “We -provide helmets, gas masks, etc.” The note was dated yesterday. - -I left the canteen and hurried back here to my billet to pack, while the -Gendarme, who does not wish to go with the division but prefers to stay -back and be reassigned, remained at the hut. What with sorting and -mending things, the packing took all afternoon. What to leave behind in -storage and what to take is no end of a question. Unfortunately the -_Suggestions_ were compiled with a view strictly to masculine -necessities. - -It has been a grey dismal afternoon. A melancholy donkey in somebody’s -back-yard has kept up an incessant braying. “He does not please himself -at Goncourt,” explained Madame. “He is a Saint Thiebault donkey.” -Meanwhile half the regiment, it seems, has strayed by under my open -window. I never knew before how consistently and persistently profane -the A. E. F. could be when left to its own devices. The amazing part of -it is;—since this seems to be their natural style of expression, how do -they manage to slough it all and talk with such perfect prunes and -prisms propriety in the canteens? - -At supper time we were surprised by a Concert Party which had arrived -today unexpectedly in this area. We were particularly glad to have them -as the nervous tension among the boys is marked enough to make us -welcome anything to divert their attention. We could have the regular -Sunday evening service first, we decided, and then the concert to finish -off with. The Concert Party came to supper at our mess. There was an -ornamental Russian violinist, male, an American accompanist, also male, -and a little French actress-singer. The minute we laid eyes on her we -knew that the concert would be a success. She was all frills and -frippery; lace, pink-rose buds and pale blue silk, with yellow curls and -great blue eyes peering from beneath a quaint little rose-wreathed poke -bonnet; an amazing vision of femininity to appear suddenly in the mud -and dingy squalor of Goncourt! - -The family Peirut was in a great state of mind over such distinguished -visitors. They brought out food enough to feed the company a week, and -kept hovering about the table, urging the dishes on our guests and -emitting little wails of dismay when any one of the artists refused to -eat enough for all three. - -I stayed at our billet to finish up my packing, and went over to the hut -late in the evening. The concert was half finished. As we anticipated, -the little singer had made a hit. She gave some French songs, -accompanying them with clever pantomine. Then she sang _Huckleberry -Finn_ and _Oh Johnny!_ As the phrase has it, she “got them going.” She -proved a past-mistress in the art of using her eyes. They winked at her -and she winked back. Every last man in the first six rows was flirting -with her, and every one was convinced that he was making a hit all his -own. Several, it was confided to me afterwards, developed matrimonial -aspirations on the spot. Then a tragic thing occurred. For the closing -number they must give the Star Spangled Banner. Everybody rose, and -everybody in duty bound removed their hats. The little singer took one -wild survey of the audience, gasped, choked, then retreated -precipitately in order to conceal her giggles. A week ago an order was -published that the regiment should have their hair shaved off before -going to the front;—every head in the whole auditorium, thus suddenly -laid bare, was bald as an egg! - -From latest advices it appears that the troops will start entraining the -middle of the week. We are going on ahead in order to be there to serve -them hot chocolate when they detrain after the journey. Every one has a -different idea where that will be, but the best guess seems to be the -Lunéville sector. What sort of conditions we will find at the front I -haven’t the least idea. I missed the special conference held at Bourmont -the other day, in which instructions and information to the personnel -bound for the front were given. The driver who was to call for us, -failed to do so; I set out to walk, only to find on arriving at Bourmont -that the conference had been cut short, and was already over. Nobody has -told me a word except to tease me by telling me that I will have to have -my hair cut off in order to wear a gas-mask. Mr. K. amuses himself by -predicting cellars and cooties. The Peiruts shake their heads and talk -about my _courage_, but I can see that they mean folly. As for the -Gendarme’s friends, Lieutenant Z. warns: “Take my advice, stay out of -it. It’s a man’s game out there.” While Captain X. splutters; “Sending -you to the front without any gas-drill, it’s nothing short of -cold-blooded murder.” Thus do our friends encourage us. - - - - -CHAPTER III: RATTENTOUT—THE FRONT - - -Bar-le-Duc, March 12. - -It’s not to be the Lunéville sector after all, it’s to be the sector -just south of Verdun! - -We arrived here at Bar-le-Duc last night after a six-hour trip by motor -car. Mr. K. came by motor-cycle; most of the other men travelled by -truck, sitting perched on top of a load of luggage, canvas cots, and -chocolate boilers. The truck broke down somewhere _en route_ and never -reached Bar-le-Duc until this morning, when it rolled in carrying a -rather weary-looking lot of passengers. - -Tomorrow we go on to our station behind the lines. Today we have spent -shopping for supplies. We have bought writing paper; materials to make -hot chocolate, paying two francs and a half apiece or almost fifty cents -for a small-sized can of condensed milk; and dozens of gross of little -jars of confiture. Ever since I was a child _Bar-le-Duc_ has meant just -the one thing to me,—those little glasses of delectable currant preserve -which bear its label. We went around to the wholesale houses which -handle the famous _Confitures Fins de Bar-le-Duc_. The sight of all -those gleaming rows of glass jars filled with deep crimson or -amber-colored currants was one that I shan’t easily forget. - -Bar-le-Duc is a city which shows the wounds of war. Time and again, -unfortified, defenceless as she is, she has known _the terror that -flieth by night_. Last summer several blocks in the very heart of the -city were completely demolished by bombs and the wilderness of ruins -lies there untouched. All over the city great black signs are painted on -the houses; _Cave, Cave voutée_,—vaulted cellar,—_Place Pour 40 -Personnes_. At the end of the afternoon we climbed, Mr. K and I, to the -top of the ancient clock-tower which stands on the edge of the -fortress-citadel of the Dukes of Bar, overlooking the city. Just above -the clock we came upon a tiny platform transformed for the time being -into light-housekeeping apartments for two poilus who night and day keep -watch there for enemy aircraft. As we stood on the little balcony -outside and looked down on the house-tops of the city spread beneath us, -with the little children playing in the streets, a telephone bell in the -tower tingled. A moment later one of the poilus announced; “A squadrille -of Gothas has just crossed the lines, headed for Paris.” - -Alas, poor Paris! Yet the news brought a feeling of relief with it. The -little children of Bar-le-Duc are safe for the night, it seems. The -avions are out after bigger game. - - -Rattentout, March 14. - -Out from Bar-le-Duc one swings into a separate world, the -World-Behind-the-Lines. Here one is at the back door of the war, as it -were. Passing through the half-abandoned villages one sees war in its -_déshabille_; you get no sense of the thrill of it, nor even of its -horrors; only the weary disgust, the stultifying stupidity, the -unutterable ennui. - -Here everything that moves or lives, it seems, is blue; faded blue, -dingy blue, purplish or greenish blue perhaps, but blue nevertheless. -Everywhere the color insists. It streaks along the roads in long, broken -lines, the meagre trodden villages are blotched and patched with it. -Indeed the whole horizon, at this season of the year, might be expressed -in just two tones; the almost uniform grey-yellow tint that washes over -the fields, the rolling hills, the dusty roads, the squalid villages, -and the ever-insistent poilu-blue. - -You pass by tilled fields labeled _Culture Militaire_; great grey-green -aerodromes with flocks of little planes resting in rows beside them, in -their gay paint resembling nothing in the world so much as dicky birds -fresh from the toy shop; and always dotted here and there over the open -fields, the little lonely graves, sometimes hedged in by fences made of -sticks and always marked by a grey wooden cross on which hangs, in -painted tin, the tricolor. Farther on you come to the world where men -live underground, burrowing in the earth like hunted animals. Scattered -along the roadside, or in rows under the shelter of a hill-slope, -everywhere you look, are dugouts, some with the entrances covered with -pine-boughs, others thatched with sticks, still others hidden beneath -earth-colored camouflages. - -We arrived here last night about dusk. The poilus as we passed stared at -us as if we were so many lunatics. Rattentout is on the right bank of -the Meuse, about six miles from the trenches. This means for one thing -that you must carry a gas-mask with you wherever you go. One even sees -the little children, what few of them are left, trudging about with -small-sized masks slung over their shoulders. The Y. here is short of -masks and as yet M.—the only canteen worker besides myself to come with -the advance guard—and I have none. This morning when the Chief went out -he hung his mask on a peg in the hall. “If anything happens,” he said to -M. and me, “you two can settle it between you, which shall have it.” - -Our home here is in a lordly mansion, evidently the Big House of the -village. French officers were living here before we came. The regiment -to which they belonged moving out just as we arrived, they graciously -made over the house to us. The officers had started a vegetable garden -in the back-yard and this they relinquished with deep regret, one young -lieutenant fairly having tears in his eyes as he took a last survey of -his rows of tiny lettuce and young cabbages. - -Today is to be given over to house-cleaning, and getting settled. -Tomorrow the troops are due to begin detraining at the two points -Landrecourt and Dugny and we are to be there to serve them hot -chocolate. - -Last night we took our supper at the dingy little house next door, a -surprisingly delicious meal, bread and butter, omelette, salad and -cocoa. The house next door is one of the half-dozen or so in town still -inhabited by civilians. The family consists of grandmother, mother and -little girl of five; the husband is in the trenches. The child Pauline -is half sick with a feverish cold. They could get no medicine, the -mother fretted; we promised some from Bar-le-Duc. The house itself is -painfully unkempt and dirty, yet Pauline is always fresh in a spotless -white pinafore, her glossy hair immaculately brushed. This morning we -went to the house next door again for bread and coffee. - -“Did you sleep last night?” asked Madame. - -“But yes,—and you?” - -She shook her head. “I was afraid of the Boche aeroplanes. I could hear -them overhead.” - -“But I should think you would be used to them by now.” - -“Ah! But that makes no difference!” - -What consideration keeps her here, clinging to the very door-step of the -war, as it were, hounded as she is, by terrors? Just the one reason, I -suppose,—that she has nowhere else to go. - - -Rattentout, March 15. - -_Lafayette, nous voilà!_ The first battalions of the division have -arrived. - -The car called for us early this morning to take us to Dugny-Est where -half the men are to detrain. We followed along the east bank of the -Meuse running parallel to the _Canal de L’Est_. The canal was a dismal -sight, filled with an endless line of empty abandoned barges, many of -them settling slowly down as if water-logged, a few, already sunk, -leaving nothing but a bit of prow protruding above the water’s surface. -We ran along the bank for about three miles, then swung across the Meuse -to Dugny. Dugny-Est is a half mile north of Dugny proper,—the terminus -of a strip of railway taken over and run by American engineers. Viewed -from the detraining tracks the landscape was bleak enough; the morasses -of the Meuse, strung with barbed-wire beyond, an austere -deserted-looking church in the foreground, and, dreariest of all, right -under the boys’ feet as they detrained, almost, a large military -grave-yard. - -Arriving at the little stone station-house made over to us for the -occasion, we found the chocolate already made. Four of the Y. men had -spent the night there and by dint of stoking the fires all night long, -as they declared, they had gotten the five huge containers hot. The -equipment assembled in haste at Bar-le-Duc was evidently proving none -too satisfactory. - -I had just time to suspend a small American flag from the front of the -station-house before the first train puffed up the track. Nothing I -think has ever looked quite so good to me as that old American -locomotive. It was the first one I had seen in France. I wanted to throw -my arms around it and hug it. As one of the boys said afterwards: “Why, -you’d be happy just to lie down on the track and let the darned thing -run over you.” - -I stood under the flag and waved frantically, first to the American -train crew and then, oh joy! to my Company A! There they all were, -crowded in the open doors of their box cars, “Side-door Pullmans” as -they call them, Magulligan the prize fighter, comically conspicuous with -his head done up in a sort of night-cap made from a large white -handkerchief. The train pulled by, slowed down, came to a standstill up -the track. We hustled the chocolate cans out by the roadside. Company A, -the first off the train, came marching down the road; each man held out -his mess-cup and got a dipperful of cocoa. - -“Where are we?” they demanded. - -“Four miles south of Verdun. How do you like the scenery?” - -“All right except the grave-yard. That’s too handy.” - -“Say,” spoke up one of the boys, “I heard the mud out here in the -trenches was pretty deep.” - -“Is that so?” - -“Yes they said a feller went in over his ankles there the other day.” - -“I wouldn’t call that very deep!” I bit. - -“Mm, but he went in head-first!” - -I asked one of the corporals how things were going. - -“We were feelin’ kind o’ lost,” he confessed. “Then we looked out and -saw the old flag and you. After that it seemed just like home somehow.” - -They marched off down the road looking very business-like and military. -Next came the other companies belonging to the first battalion, and the -regimental machine-gun company. These were not permitted to stop by the -station-house on account of the danger of being observed by enemy -aircraft, but were halted at a distance down the road. We picked up the -chocolate cans and chased after them. - -When every man in the First Battalion had had a drink, we hurried back -to the stone-house to get ready for the next trainload. As I stirred the -chocolate on one of the little stoves set up outside, several of the -train crew came to talk to me. I was the first “real honest-to-God -American girl” they had seen in months they told me; and they were just -as excited over me as I had been over their engine. - -If the history of America in the Great War should ever be written down -in detail, surely one chapter should be given over to a Little Iliad of -the “Six Bit Railway” that runs from Sommeil to Dugny-Est, five -kilometers south of Verdun; how, as I had it from the lips of one of -those engineers, the English took it over from the French and tried to -run it and failed, how the Canadians took it after them and failed too, -how then the —— Engineers fell heir to it. How they lived with the -French, eating French rations which were gall and wormwood to them. How -they struggled with an alien tongue and finally reduced it to a weird -unholy gibberish which was yet somehow intelligible both to the French -and to themselves. How they came through shell-fire and gas and bombing -raids, seemingly bearing charmed lives. And how they worked forty-eight -hours at a stretch whenever the big drives and shifts were on. - -Tonight one of the secretaries told us that, as he was standing by the -roadside watching while we ladled out the chocolate, one of the boys -said to him: - -“I’m thinking of a toast.” - -“And what might that be?” - -“God bless American women,” the boy answered him. - - -Rattentout, March 16. - -When we reached the station-house this morning we found everyone agog -over the night’s events. The detraining had gone on all night; at first -without incident. All precautions had been taken, no one was allowed to -so much as light a match. About midnight one of the marine soup-kitchens -had been unloaded and rolled down the road puffing sparks and scattering -coals. Some enterprising mess sergeant had evidently planned that his -men should have a hot meal. The French spectators in consternation had -followed the soup-kitchen down the road, extinguishing the trailing -embers, but the mischief was already done. There were German planes -scouting overhead, they noted, evidently, the sparks, and signaled the -range to the German gunners. Fifteen minutes later a six inch shell -exploded a few hundred yards from the little stone-house, then another -and another. One shell had fallen in the very center of the grass-plot -where Company D had lined up to eat their luncheon of cold corn-willy -sandwiches and hot chocolate. The gas-alarm had been sounded. A mule -team had become frantic and bolted, encountering the marine band’s big -base drum, had made toothpicks of it. Meanwhile confusion, it seemed, -had reigned in the little stone-house. One secretary, seizing an article -of underwear and putting it on his head in mistake for a helmet, had -dashed madly up and down the road as the shells fell, and ended by -bursting, in his _déshabille_, into the private dugout of a French -colonel. - -No Americans were hurt, but one poilu had been injured and another -killed. - -“They have our range now,” said everybody. “And look at those Boche -balloons, will you?” - -We looked to the northeast; three German observation balloons were -hanging just above the hills. - -We stirred the chocolate and served it to whatever boys happened to be -about, boys on detail, drivers of mule-teams. One can, having been kept -warm all night, had turned. Some bright soul suggested that it was the -concussion of the shelling that had soured the milk, just as -thunderstorms sometimes do. Two poilus leaned in at the window. - -“What are you doing?” they asked curiously. We explained; they shook -their heads. “You spoil your soldiers.” Then, “Was anyone killed last -night?” - -“Yes, one Frenchman.” - -“Oh that’s nothing!” (_Ça ne fait rien._) They strolled away. - -The friendly interpreter came in and told us that they were about to -hold the poilu’s funeral. - -A troop-train pulled in. It was loaded with soldiers from my own -regiment, the Second Battalion. The chocolate was ready, smelt -delicious. - -“You can’t serve it,” they told us. “On account of last night’s -shelling, the troops won’t be allowed to stop until they’re well beyond -the town.” - -“Isn’t there _some_ way we can manage?” we teased. - -“No, they’ve got our range.” - -“Well at least we can say hello to them!” - -We went down to the tracks where the men were spilling out of the box -cars. They were gathering up their equipment and forming in companies in -double time. One red-in-the-face sergeant was furiously demanding who in -blazes had stolen his revolver on him; it was evident that he found the -presence of ladies sadly hampering to his flow of language. Three -companies marched off. The last to go was H Company, the company that -had been billeted on the same street with us at Goncourt. We waved and -they smiled back at us. They marched down the road, disappeared over the -brow of the hill. - -We stood chatting with two boys who were on a billeting detail. - -There was a dull heavy detonation beyond the hills. A moment later a -strange whistling screech shrilled over our heads. I stared into the -air, trying to see—I knew of course it was a shell, but I had never -thought one would travel so slowly or be quite so noisy about it. The -whistling shriek passed over us, changed to a dropping whine. Down the -street there was a thunderous explosion followed instantly by a -shattering crash. Timbers, tiles, stones, a mass of debris splashed for -a moment up against the sky. The shell had fallen at the cross-roads. I -stared at M. I was cold all over. - -“It must have got them,” I heard myself whispering. “My God! it must -have got them!” - -We stared down the road. Everywhere figures in poilu blue and some in -khaki, were running like rabbits towards the dugouts. It seemed to me -the uncertainty was more than I could bear. - -“I’m going to go and see.” - -“I’ll go with you,” said M. - -We stopped at the station-house and put on our helmets; then we started -down the road. Just beyond the station-house we passed a little cortege -of poilus carrying the body of their comrade on a stretcher-bier. They -were on their way to the church. When the first shell came over I had -seen the funeral procession waver, hesitate, seem uncertain for a few -moments whether to proceed or to seek shelter, now, their indecision -conquered, they were continuing their march with what seemed an added -dignity. A limousine drew up behind us, stopped. In the back seat sat an -American major. - -“Give you a lift?” - -We climbed in. Half way down the hill another shell shrieked over our -heads, burst in front of us. We reached the cross-roads. - -“Let us out, please.” - -The major stared, then stopped the car. We scrambled out. The car -whirled off. Two houses lay, crushed heaps of stone. In the road were -three dead horses and an automobile with a crumpled radiator. That was -all. Another shell struck, sending us cowering against the nearest -house-wall. As far as we could see the place was utterly deserted. There -was nothing to do but go back. Half-way up the hill we met a poilu, he -was carrying an O. D. blouse. He asked us where the wounded American -was; he had been carried into some house nearby; this was his coat. We -could of course tell him nothing. The wind which had been strong all -morning, was filling the air with blinding clouds of yellow dust. The -shells were coming over at regular intervals, so many minutes between -them; they were all falling, it seemed, in the vicinity of the -cross-roads. A little further up the hill and we began to meet mule -teams from the supply train driving down. The mule-skinners on their -high seats looked calm enough, but a number of the mules were becoming -quite unmanageable. I recognized the slim lad of seventeen with whom I -had driven into Bourmont from Goncourt once after a load of canteen -supplies. As each team passed, we waved our hands and wished them luck; -but all the time I kept repeating to myself: - -“They’re going right down into it. God help them! Why does it have to -be?” - -A French officer encountered us, asked us politely if we wouldn’t like -to step down into a dugout. I was amused at his manner which was as -casual as if he were offering us an umbrella in a shower. There were -some excellent dugouts up on the hill-side he assured us. “But I don’t -want to go into a dugout!” “_Mademoiselle a beaucoup d’esprit_,” he -observed, “_mais ce n’est pas prudent_.” Obediently we climbed the hill, -to come upon a little group of Americans gathered about the entrance to -a dugout, watching the shells as they came over. Taking a peep into the -dugout I found it had already been patronized by several poilus. We sat -on the ground and watched the shelling. On the other side of the town we -could see Company H flung out in skirmish line, marching over the open -fields. - -Presently a boy in olive drab came panting and laughing up the hill. The -group welcomed him with a shout. He was one of the billeting detail. -They had been staying in a house at the cross-roads. When the others had -gone out this morning he had been left to clean up and get dinner. He -had washed all the dishes, he told us, and had just gone out and bought -a basketful of eggs to make an omelette for dinner, when crash! the -first shell had fallen demolishing the house next to theirs. He had -stepped out to look at the ruins and returned, when bang! went the house -on the other side of him! He began to think it might be time for him to -move, when, oh boy! zowie! a shell had wrecked the upper story of the -billet over him. Then he had left. But he was feeling very badly about -those eggs. Corporal G. also of the billeting detail looked at him with -widened eyes. “And I was half a mind to stay upstairs in bed and not get -up this morning!” he remarked. The boys found solace for the loss of the -omelette in the thought that all the effects of the very unpopular -captain billeted next door must surely have been annihilated. - -After an hour or so the shelling stopped. One by one blue forms emerged -from the dugouts. The Chief had ordered the flivver to report at eleven. -It was noon and it hadn’t appeared. - -“We must walk to Rattentout,” said the Chief. “No use our staying here.” - -It was hot and dusty and my helmet weighed like a mountain on my head, -but at last we made it. Some two miles or so from Dugny we passed two -marines sitting in discouraged postures by the roadside. - -“What’s the matter?” - -“He’s had a fit,” growled one of the warriors, jerking his thumb in the -direction of his comrade’s back. - -“He has ’em. They never ought ter let him come.” - -There was nothing we could offer them but sympathy. - - -Rattentout, March 17. - -Here I am sitting on a bench in the little garden back of our billet, -soaked in spring sunshine. Over my head the lilacs are leafing out -against a sky of Italian blue, at my feet are golden crocuses and the -first pale primroses. But the sky, as one gazes at it, has an odd trick -of breaking out in little puffy dots of white like nothing so much as -kernels of corn in a corn-popper. These are of course the bursting -shells fired by French anti-aircraft batteries at the enemy aviators -overhead; sometimes you can see the plane itself, skimming like a gnat -among the smoke puffs. “They don’t seem to get ’em often,” as a boy -remarked to me. “But golly they do make ’em move!” - -Ever since the Americans began to arrive the German planes have been -constantly overhead. They are taking photographs; they say. Where, oh -where are our American aviators? - -In my ears as I sit here is a curious sound, a sound like the pounding -of tremendous breakers on a stormy shore: it is the guns of Verdun, Les -Eparges and St. Mihiel. At rhythmic intervals this sound is punctuated -by heavy crashing thuds nearer at hand. They are shelling Dugny again. -All the civilians fled yesterday. A driver, coming in last night, told -us how they went, empty-handed, creeping along the edges of the roads -under the cover of trees or brush, fearing to step out in the open lest -they be spied and bombed by the German aeroplanes overhead. The church -where they held the poilu’s funeral has already been struck by a shell -and the steeple demolished. - -In front of the house the street is quiet. All through the day the town -seems a sleepy deserted place, but at night it is a different matter; -then the real business of the day begins. Carts and camions may straggle -past at odd intervals during the daylight hours, but with darkness, the -traffic starts to pour by in a perfectly unbroken stream. One lies awake -and listens, it seems for hours, to the absolutely incessant rattle of -carts, trucks, caissons and gun carriages passing along the road, until -it seems as if the whole French Army must be on the move. - -Little Pauline is better today. She has just come running into the -garden through the back gate, in company with a big curly dog. -Rattentout they tell us is the “Dog Town” for this sector; every dog -picked up near the front, lost mascots, faithful beasts looking for -their masters, strays of every sort, are sent back here for keeping. - -Presently I must go in and help M. get the supper. Our food, over and -beyond what we brought from Bar-le-Duc in tins and sacks, is furnished -us by the French Army. Every morning a dapper little corporal calls to -take our orders. When the official interpreter is out it falls to me to -do the parleying. The corporal is patient and very military and oh so -polite! He brings us fresh butter, fresh eggs, even so much as a quart -of fresh milk, and the most delicious fresh French bread I have ever -tasted. The first day he came he was dreadfully distressed; he had no -fresh meat to offer us. This morning he shone with smiles. There was -plenty of fresh beef now, plenty! We ordered some and ate it stewed for -dinner. It was dark and tough and stringy. I could dare swear that I saw -that “beef” freshly slaughtered yesterday at Dugny cross-roads. - -A French _liaison_ officer called here this afternoon. He told me that -it was quite true that a certain regiment of French infantry had gone -into battle, each man carrying with him the wooden cross which was to -mark his grave if he fell. To earn _le croix de bois_ is the current -slang phrase among the French to designate dying a soldier’s death. - -Yesterday noon a detachment of marines arrived in Rattentout. During the -day they must keep under cover, but last night after sundown they came -out and played baseball in the street. When I looked out my window and -saw those lads in olive drab nonchalantly throwing and catching a -baseball under my window, I felt as if something safe and sane had -somehow appeared in the midst of a strange nightmare world. - - -Rattentout, March 18. - -I have said; “Good-bye, Good luck!” to my boys. - -Today we received word that the first battalion of my regiment was to -take its place in the trenches by Les Eparges at twelve o’clock tonight, -leaving Genicourt where they have been billeted, at eight. I breathed a -piteous appeal to the Chief. At five o’clock the car called for us. - -Earlier in the afternoon there had been an air battle over Genicourt. I -heard the soft _whut_, _whut_ of the anti-aircraft guns, and later the -staccato rattle of machine-guns in the air. Looking out I could see the -planes, one German and two French darting among the shrapnel puffs, the -German escaping, sad to say, unharmed. Now a French observation balloon -was floating over Genicourt, a curious-looking thing shaped like a huge -ram’s head, and a dull green in color. As we neared the town they -started to haul the balloon in: it came down with astonishing rapidity. - -We rolled into Genicourt, a sodden desolate village clinging under the -lea of a low hill, just now alive with suppressed vitality. The boys had -been ordered to keep their billets until the last moment, as any unusual -number of men about might be observed by an enemy aeroplane. -Nevertheless there were plenty of stragglers in the streets, while out -of the windows were leaning several hundred more, craning their necks in -order to get a glimpse of the descending balloon. - -We went to the _Foyer du Soldat_, a bright clean barracks, the walls -covered with posters in vivid hues. It was full of our boys. They -laughed, joked, played checkers and pounded the piano, some were dancing -together. Yet through all the gaiety one had a sense of tension, of -nervous strain. Some of the boys asked us to sing, one lad evidently in -a more solemn mood repeatedly requested “My Country ’Tis of Thee.” We -sang the “Long, Long Trail” and “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” Then we -went out in the street again. The French, we gathered, were quite -astonished at the high spirits of the Americans. “Ah, but it’s their -first time,” they said. “After four years it will be different.” - -In the public square they had been holding some sort of ceremony, an -interchange of formal greetings between the French and American -officers. A French military band had just finished its programme. As we -passed they played the Marseillaise and the Star Spangled Banner; we all -stood at attention. - -We came to the street where Company A was billeted. The boys leaned out -of the windows and waved and called to me. Everywhere it was the same -question: - -“What shall I bring you from the trenches?” - -“Do you want a live Boche for a souvenir? I’ll get you one!” They -thought my gas-mask was a lovely joke. “What’s that strap across your -shoulder for?” they teased. - -“That? Oh that’s my new Sam Browne belt!” - -“Say! Bet you don’t know how to put it on!” Then they would yell “Gas!” -just to frighten me. - -In the street a little crowd of boys were tossing coppers. Everybody was -anxious to get rid of his “clackers,” in order not to have to carry all -that useless weight into the trenches with him. They invited me to join. -I tried one penny while the boys all cheered, only to miss by a good -yard. Lieut. B. came by: “Will you take tea with me in my dugout?” he -asked. - -The order was given for the companies to form. The streets filled up; -dusk was gathering. The Chief said that it was time to go. We found the -car in the public square. Slowly we moved out of town. I shall never -forget those long brown files drawn up against the dim grey houses. Five -hours hence and those very boys would be in the front line trenches, -face to face with the enemy. We passed Company A. I called out to them -to be sure not to stick their heads up over the top, and not to dare to -take off their gas-masks before they were ordered to. Never before did I -realize how much those boys meant to me. Each face I saw flashed some -vivid unforgettable association to my mind. “When you come back,” I -called, “I’ll be waiting for you with the hot chocolate ready.” They -smiled and waved Good-bye to me. Some of them held up their fingers to -show how many Germans they were going to account for. A turn in the road -shut it all from sight. On the way back to Rattentout we passed the -Third Battalion, who were marching in on their very heels to take over -their billets. - -It’s eleven o’clock now. They must be almost in. They are marching, I -know, in darkness and silence; not a cigarette is to be lighted, not a -word spoken above a whisper. One hour more and the relief will be -completed. - - -Rattentout, March 19. - -I am to be sent to Paris for reassignment. I have, it seems, been guilty -of conduct unbecoming a lady under shell-fire. This sentence has been -hanging over me ever since that day at Dugny. I knew of course that I -was in disgrace but never dreamed that it would come to this. - -It seems, what no one had troubled to hint to me, that we have been -allowed to go farther front than any women of any of the Allied Nations -in France have been permitted to go to work before. Moreover that the -French, whose guests we are in this sector, were very much opposed to -the presence of women here, and only finally, after much persuasion, -allowed us to come here on trial. Now the Chief says that he is afraid -that my indiscreet action at Dugny in going down to the cross-roads -instead of into a dugout may have shocked the French. In order to -forestall any possible protest by our Allies I am to be made an example -of the discipline of the organization. - - -Etretat, Normandy. March 28. - -I have been here a week on leave. Tomorrow I start back for Paris once -more. Where I am to go after that is uncertain. - -It seems strange to be in France and not be wading through seas of mud, -but to have firm turf and dry roads beneath one’s feet. The hamlets -here, while picturesque, are quite spruce and tidy, amazingly different -from the quaint but indescribably dirty little mudpie muck-heap villages -to which I have been used. - -This pretty little coast town, once a fishing village, then a summer -resort, is now chiefly a hospital. All the large hotels have been taken -over for wards and nurses’ quarters, the big casino filled with row on -row of iron cots. It is an American hospital with American doctors, -nurses and orderlies, but attached to the B. E. F. and filled of course -with British patients. As in all the English hospitals, as soon as a -patient is able to get out of bed he is dressed in a “suit of blues;” -trousers and jumper blouse of bright blue cotton, white shirt, scarlet -tie and handkerchief to match, making him look exactly like a grown-up -Greenaway boy. The men hate them, they tell me, but I for one am -grateful to the designer as the bright blue and scarlet makes wonderful -splotches of color in the landscape. - -There may be a more disgusted set of boys in France than these here in -the hospital corps at Base No. 2, but if so I have yet to meet them. One -of the first units to come across, landing in May of 1917, every man -enlisted, so they tell me, because he thought it was the quickest means -of getting to the front in field hospital service and most of them -enlisted to do some form of specialized work; but, medical students, -college professors, and motor experts, they each and all were given the -job of hospital orderly which means scrubbing floors, washing windows, -shovelling coal, doing the hard and dirty work of a hospital, and, most -galling I fancy of all,—taking orders from girls with whom you are not -allowed to associate or even speak except in the line of business. The -X-ray expert has been delegated to the job of keeping the hospital pigs. -I saw him in a pair of grimy overalls trundling a well-worn wheelbarrow -down the street. The man who speaks eight languages, and enlisted as -interpreter, spends his days checking up clothes in the laundry. And -here as hospital orderlies in spite of their frantic efforts to get -transferred, it seems likely that they will stay. - -But these are dark days for us all just now, with the news that comes in -every day of the German drive. “What do the officers in the hospital -think? What do they say about it?” I tease the nurses. - -“They think that we will hold them,” they reply, but none too hopefully. - -At the hotel where I am staying there is a French officer _en -permission_, with his wife and apparently unlimited offspring. With them -is an English governess. She is a little nervous thing all a-twitter -these days with excitement and apprehension. Will the Germans get -through to Paris? Monsieur’s aged mother is there. He is thinking of -going back to get her, together with a few essential household -treasures. She herself had fled with the family from Paris in 1914. It -was a dreadful experience; fourteen people crowded in a coach for six, -and nothing to eat. Oh dear! wasn’t it all just too terrible! - -There is also an old French lady here who frankly fled from Paris to -escape the air-raids; now someone has taken all the joy out of life for -her by suggesting that Etretat might be shelled from the sea by a German -submarine. - -The Tommies in the hospitals, they say, flatly refuse to believe that -Paris is being shelled. It isn’t possible, they declare, for a gun to -shoot as far as that, and to them that is the end of it. But tonight a -little crowd of the hospital boys who had gone on pass to Paris came -back as eye-witnesses. One of the first shells had fallen very close to -them, killing a number of people who were sitting drinking in a sidewalk -café. The boys had gone up to the Church of Sacré Cœur on Montmartre and -from the tower there had watched the shelling of the city. It had been a -beautiful clear day: they could see where each shell struck. One of the -boys brought back with him for a souvenir a piece of a French -lieutenant’s skull, picked up, after the shell had wrecked the café, -from the sidewalk. - -Tonight there was a concert at the Y hut here. The hall was crowded; the -concert party, a group of pretty girls, had just completed, to much -applause, the first number, when a horn sounded in the distance. -Everybody started up. The Y man stepped forward and announced the -programme over. In a few minutes the hut was deserted. “The convoy is -in,” they said, which meant that a train load of wounded had arrived at -the station. - - -Paris, Easter Sunday. - -On the way here from Etretat I saw a sight which brought the war closer -to me somehow than anything before; at the junction station connecting -the line to Le Havre with the line to Amiens, a string of box cars full -of women, little children and decrepit old men, packed in like cattle, -fleeing before the German drive, many of them empty-handed, others with -a few pathetic futile treasures, a hen or two, a copper cooking-pot, -snatched up evidently in a moment of half-witless panic haste. - -Nor is Paris itself without its refugees. The German advance, the -air-raids, the shelling, culminating in the Good Friday horror, have -combined to render the city half deserted. - -“Paris? We call Paris ‘the front’ now-a-days,” one Frenchman on the -journey had remarked to me. - -Yesterday I went shopping. Everywhere it was the same reply. Nothing -could be made to order for an indefinite period, the workrooms were all -deserted, the workers fled. As for those who remain, they seem to take -life calmly enough; what else can they do? When, as yesterday, every -sixteen minutes a tremendous jarring crash tells you that a shell has -fallen somewhere in the city,—and the concussion is so great that it -always sounds as if it had fallen in the next block!—you see people turn -their heads as they walk, staring in the direction of the explosion; -others come out on the balconies to see what they can see and that is -all. - -Of course the danger of all this lies in its effect on the civilian -morale. In connection with this I learned an interesting thing today. -While the hospitals outside are overcrowded, the hospitals in Paris with -their splendid equipment and staffs are left half empty, because they -dare not show the people of Paris too many wounded. And when convoys are -brought into the city, they are often detained outside, sometimes for -hours, in order that the wounded may be transferred to the hospitals at -night. - -Yesterday at Brentano’s I got talking with a boy who belonged to the -American Ambulance Section which is attached to the French. He told me -an incident which struck my fancy: - -One night, at the front, after a hard day’s work, he had just dropped -off to sleep when he was awakened. There was a _blessé_ to be taken back -to the hospital, he was in bad shape, they had placed him in an -ambulance. The boy rolled out of his blankets, started up the car. It -was a bitter night. Once he was on his way everything went wrong; the -water had frozen in the radiator, he had to get out and crawl along the -ditches on his hands and knees, trying, in the dark to find a pool that -was still unfrozen. And all the while he was tortured by the thought -that the life of the wounded man in the car depended probably on his -speed in reaching the hospital, and this urged him to an agony of haste. -Finally, as the dawn was breaking, he reached his goal. They came to -carry the blesse in. The wounded man was dead; he had been dead, it was -evident, some while before the boy started. At the front, he explained, -they hate to take the time and trouble to bury bodies. So whenever it is -possible they work this method of passing on the task to someone else. -You have to be constantly on the look-out for such tricks. This time -they had fooled him. - -Last night there was an air-raid. It was a mild affair. I was awakened -by the sirens. They make what is to me quite the most fascinatingly -horrible sound I have ever heard. That long agonized wail, now sinking -to a shuddering whimper, now rising to a banshee screech, flashes -vividly to my mind’s eye a myriad little demons sitting on the roofs of -Paris, cowering, shivering, crying out their abject terror. I went to -the window and looked out, but although my room is on the top floor of -the hotel, I could see nothing and so went back to bed again. The -anti-aircraft guns put up a tremendous barrage; they have them mounted -on trucks now so they can quickly be shifted from point to point about -the city. I am sure there was a whole battery just in front of the -hotel. Today the papers inform us that the Gothas were driven back after -reaching the suburbs. - -This morning I went to service at Notre Dame, entering through piles of -sand bags heaped so as to hide the carvings about the doorways. In that -vast cathedral only a few were present, a fair share of the congregation -being comprised of Americans. - -Tonight an ambulance driver attached to one of the Paris hospitals came -to the hotel for dinner. He spread a startling tale. Every ambulance in -the city has been ordered to be in readiness; for tomorrow, it has been -learned, twenty-seven long-range guns are to be turned at once on Paris! - - -Aix-les-Bains, April 6. - -When they said “Leave Area” to me my heart sank. The Lady in the Office -explained to me how very important she considered the work, and the -assignment, she added, need not be permanent. “Very well” I said, “I’m -willing to go there temporarily.” - -I left Paris Tuesday, taking the night train. Getting off was something -of an ordeal. The lighting at the stations, as on the streets, has been -reduced almost to the vanishing point. The great Gare de Lyon was filled -with a mass of distraught humanity over whom the few violet-blue bulbs -cast a ghostly glimmer. There were no porters to take one’s luggage; a -number of women had possessed themselves of the baggage trucks and were -pushing them, heaped high with bags and household stuff, recklessly -through the crowds. I could find no officials anywhere about. All the -French orderliness and red tape seemed to have been swept clean away and -the result was chaos. Somehow, I don’t know quite how, I found my train -and reached my seat. - -Three very fat old gentlemen and one old lady occupied the compartment -with me. The fat gentlemen had one little spoiled dog between them which -they kept passing from one to the other, in order that each in turn -might kiss him. The old lady had a bird in a cage; presently she opened -her hand-bag and brought out her supper, a loaf of bread, unwrapped, -together with a good-sized turtle. For a moment; such were her raptures -over her pet, I thought that she was going to kiss the turtle. The first -minute that one of my companions entered the compartment, each informed -all the rest that he or she was _not_ running away from the air-raids or -the long range guns. “I? I am not afraid of the Kaiser’s Gothas! I laugh -at them!” A few minutes later however they began: Ah, what a fearful -night, last night had been! Five hours in the _Caves_! No sleep at all! -One might as well be a mole and take up one’s dwelling underground. What -a life! Oh it was terrible, terrible! Then one old gentleman turned -proudly to the little fat canine. “But of a verity, my little Toto is -possessed of a sagacity extraordinary. The moment that he hears the -sirens, he will run down into the cellar, and nothing can induce him to -come up again until the ‘all clear’ has sounded!” - -We pulled into Aix soon after dawn as the rising sun was touching the -tops of the mountains and the morning mists were hovering over the lake. -Whatever the work may prove to be like here, the place is surpassingly -lovely. It is too early for the summer resort pleasure seekers. The -French don’t care for it here until it grows really hot, they tell us. -But to me the season is at its most appealing moment. One glimpses pink -peach blossoms against the blue lake over which stand purple mountains -with snow still lying on their summits. Several of the large hotels and -casinos have been requisitioned for French convalescent hospitals, but -the largest of all has been taken over by the Y. From this canteen -excursions are constantly setting out, motor-boats on the lake, motor -cars to Chambery, the cog-wheel railway up Mt. Revard, picnics, hikes -and fishing parties, yet many of the boys seem to find it pleasantest to -do nothing,—just to sit around in lazy comfort all day long, watching -the others playing billiards, listening to the orchestra in the -afternoon Beneath the gold mosaic casino dome, sitting luxuriously in a -box at the vaudeville in the evening, gaining a maximum of pleasure with -a minimum of exertion. Many of the boys came here with their heads full -of pessimistic expectations. - -“They told us it would be Reveille and Retreat and one day’s K. P. for -each of us,” confided one lad to me. - -Some brought their mess-kits and some even their blankets. When they -find themselves guests in hotels that are among the finest in Europe, -lodged in comfortable rooms, eating real food off tables furnished with -china-ware and linen, at first they are fairly dazed. - -“I’m feared somebody’ll pinch me an’ I’ll wake up,” declared one lad -today. - -More than one has told me, that the first night he got here, he could -not go to sleep in bed at all and only finally achieved slumber by -rolling himself in blankets on the floor. - -There are no troops from the line here at present; only boys from -forestry regiments, motor mechanics and a few lads from medical -detachments. They are holding up the leaves of all combatant troops on -account of the drive. It may be that presently they will hold up all -leaves altogether. Then we will have to shut up shop here temporarily. - -It is the pleasant custom here for the Y ladies to go down to the train -every night to see the boys off. - -“It’s a shame you can’t stay longer,” we say to them. - -“I’ll say it is!” - -“I’m awfully sorry you have to go.” - -“You ain’t half so sorry as I am, Lady.” - -“Maybe some day you’ll be coming back again.” - -“I’ll tell the world one thing; I’m going to be good as gold when I get -back to camp, so they’ll let me.” - -One of the Y women tonight repeated what one boy on leaving had confided -to her: - -“If I said to you that this had been my happiest week since I joined the -army it wouldn’t mean much,” he told her, “but that’s not what I’m going -to say. What I’m going to say is that this has been the happiest week of -all my life.” - -So far I have found just one man who wasn’t enjoying himself here. He -had been stationed for six months at Paris. Aix, he declared, “Weren’t -no town at all, nothin’ but a one-horse place.” He evidently had no soul -for the beauties of nature. - - -Paris, April 22. - -They held the leaves up. The boys kept leaving; fewer and fewer came, -then finally none. Last week they disbanded the force of workers at Aix; -a few stayed to look after things until such time as the crowds should -start to pour in again; the rest were sent back to Paris to be -reassigned. - -If I thought the trip down was a chore, it wasn’t a patch on the trip -back. We waited half the night for the train at the Aix railway station. -When it finally pulled in, I found my seat was in a compartment which -was full, and had evidently been so for hours, of French people. Now -life in France tends to cure you of belief in several popular -superstitions; one is the idea that it is dangerous to have wet feet, -and another that there is anything in the germ theory; but there is one -notion to which I still cling, an obstinate belief in the desirability -of fresh air. I put my head in the compartment, then withdrew, shutting -the door. For the twelve hours it took to reach Paris I stood up outside -in the corridor. - -Arrived in Paris, they assigned me temporarily to the Avenue Montaigne -Club House. This is a beautiful building, the home of one of Napoleon’s -generals; but the best thing about it is the tea-room restaurant, for -here they serve apple-pie, chocolate cake and ice-cream. Since the -latest food restrictions were issued, forbidding the French to make -desserts employing milk, cream, sugar, eggs or flour, such dainties have -been unobtainable anywhere else in Paris; but the Americans drawing -supplies from their own commissary, are of course untouched by such -regulations. Indeed the saddest sign in France these days I often think -is that over the deserted shops which reads _Patisserie_. To be sure -some of these stores still make a show at doing business, filling their -windows with raisins, dried prunes and other prosaic edibles, together -with heaps of pseudo-chocolates wrapped gayly in tin-foil, but which -when purchased proved to be nothing but what one boy termed “the same -old camouflage,”—an unappetizing paste of dried fruits and ground nuts. -Yesterday a curly-headed lad, who looked about sixteen, came into the -canteen carrying a big bunch of pink carnations. These were for the -waitresses, he said, because they were the first American ladies that he -had seen in France. We each pinned a spray to the front of our pink -aprons, and then, since he pretended famine, let him have -“seconds”,—quite against the rules—on everything, with all the ice-cream -and cake that he could swallow. - -Yesterday I saw Mr. T. who was with us for a while at Goncourt. He told -me that French troops _en repos_ were occupying that area at present. -They had asked for the use of our hut and of course it had been granted -them. A Y man, happening by the other day, had stopped in. They had -converted our beautiful hut into a regular French _Cantine_ with three -men to hand the bottles over the counter “and a smell enough to knock -you down.” Who shall say that this is the least of life’s little -ironies? - -This morning I met N. who had reached Rattentout the day I left. She -tells me that all the villages occupied by our troops in the sector -have, one by one, been shelled. Rattentout was shelled and two -Frenchwomen killed. Because of the constant shelling all the Y women -workers had been withdrawn from the canteens and sent back to safety at -Souilly where they have nothing to do but sit and possess their souls in -patience. - -Tonight they gave me my new assignment. It is at Gondrecourt. I leave -tomorrow. I am glad, so glad over the prospect of being back on a real -job once more! Here at the Avenue Montaigne as in the gilded casino at -Aix I have been desperately homesick, to be back in a real hut again! - - - - -CHAPTER IV: GONDRECOURT—THE ARTILLERY - - -Gondrecourt, April 28. - -Gondrecourt is quite a place. It boasts a brewery, a hotel, a mediœval -tower and a number of little stores. Each one of these stores contains -at least one pretty girl on its selling force and the ratio between the -sales of goods and the charms of the ladies is, I fancy, quite exact. -From the military point of view Gondrecourt is important as being the -site of the First Army Corps Training Schools. But to me the really -distinguishing feature of Gondrecourt is the fact that it boasts a -bath-tub. If anybody had said bath-tub to me the day before I arrived -here, I would have said with the doughboy that,—short of Paris—“there -ain’t no such animal.” But now I have beheld it with my own eyes, a -white-enamelled bath-tub, a Y. M. C. A. bath-tub, in the basement at -Headquarters. The tub is supposed to be a strictly family affair,—on the -door are posted hours for the Lady Secretaries and hours for the Men -Secretaries,—but in spite of the plain English before their eyes, it -seems that army officers occasionally slip in and steal a bath off us, -yes, even impinging on the sacred bath hours of the ladies! - -My first day here they sent me to “The Café.” This was once a very wild -place indeed. When the Y. first came to Gondrecourt it tried to buy the -proprietor out, but the proprietor refused; he was doing too profitable -a business. Then one night Providence sent some Boche planes wandering -in this direction. There was a panic among the populace; the proprietor, -with visions of his place wrecked by a bomb, sold out in a hurry and -left town. Since then the Cafe has led a reformed and decorous existence -but the old name still clings. My second day I spent at the “Double -Hut,” the big hut built up on the hill close by the Infantry School. The -third day I was introduced to my own canteen. - -According to directions, I climbed the hill by my billet, went past the -athletic field, past the warehouse and out along the edge of the rolling -open upland. About half a mile out of town I came to a group of seven -French barracks, covered with black tar paper, built at the edge of the -railway cut. This was the Artillery School. I crossed the field, entered -the nearest barracks which bore a Y. sign at one end, and found myself -in a Greenwich Village Tea House. I stood and stared. Some modern-school -interior decorator had been at work. The place was a riot of red, -yellow, salmon-color and black, worked out from a nasturtium motif. In -the wall panels were paintings, some conventionalized fruits and -flowers, evidently done by the decorator; others, landscapes, Japanese -scenes and some rather awful Indians just as evidently executed by the -boys. The whole effect to be sure was a bit sketchy and in spots frankly -unfinished, and yet to one used to such simplicity in the huts as I, the -_ensemble_ was startling. Back of the black and orange partition which -screens the canteen and the kitchen from the hut proper, I found the -staff, secretary and canteen worker. The lady whom I am to replace, it -appears, belongs in reality to the Motor Transport Section. She turned -canteen worker to help out in a pinch, and now is anxious to return -again. - -When dinnertime came the Motor Transport girl told me that we had been -invited to dine at the camp. We went over to the mess-hall. “Let’s help -feed the chow-line for a lark!” said the M. T. girl. So we stood behind -the serving-bench and ladled out big spoonfuls of mashed potato and -gravy. This amused the boys immensely; and as they passed they would -sing out: - -“When did they put _you_ on K. P?” - -“What have _you_ done to deserve this?” - -The kitchen was white-washed and specklessly clean, the earth floor was -covered with cinders. These cinders which are in use for floors and -walks in all the camps about, come, I am told, from a great heap down by -the river which marks the site of one of Napoleon’s cannon foundries. - -“Why are the boxers in a company always found on the kitchen force?” I -asked one of the cooks. - -“That’s so they can handle the boys when they come back for seconds.” - -As soon as the chow-line had been fed, the M. T. girl and I had ours -with the Top Sergeant. After dinner the Top Sergeant, who had formerly -been mess sergeant, was moved to unburden his soul as to the sorrows of -a mess sergeant. - -“When I was mess sergeant,” he reminisced, “I sure got to know the way -to a man’s heart all right. Why, the days when I gave them a good dinner -there wasn’t a man in camp who wouldn’t positively beam at me; but if -something had gone wrong and the chow wasn’t up to scratch, half the -fellers in the company wouldn’t speak to me the rest of the day.” - -Then he grinned. “I wouldn’t want Mother to know the way I used to get -stuff for the boys last winter.” - -He went on to tell us. French freight trains have no brakemen and the -conductor rides in a caboose directly behind the coal car. Trains -pulling into town from the north hit a grade curve close to the camp, up -which they must pull very slowly. The camp guard kept a lookout; when a -freight train with flat cars was sighted, word was immediately passed to -the mess sergeant who with a number of K. P.s hurried to the tracks and -boarded the slow-moving train; if the cars proved to hold anything of -value for the mess,—be it coal or cabbages,—all the way up the grade the -sergeant and his assistants were busy, hastily throwing or shoveling -what they could over the sides of the cars. At the top of the grade they -would jump off and returning along the tracks, gather up the spoils. - -Tomorrow the Motor Transport girl departs and I “take over” the canteen. - - -Gondrecourt, May 4. - -The Artillery School consists of some few hundred officers and non-coms -enrolled for each four-weeks’ course, in addition to the two batteries -who are here for demonstration work; Battery D from a regiment of “75s” -and Battery A from a regiment of the big “155s.” Selected for this -exhibition work on account of their exceptional ability, they are, I -suppose, the equal of any batteries in the world. When the boys enlisted -these batteries were declared to be about to be “motorized,” but at -present the motor power is being supplied by a particularly unresponsive -set of French cart horses, whose daily care is the greatest trial of the -boys’ lives. Last night we had a movie-show; one reel gave the story of -a discontented boy on the farm—showing him at one moment disgustedly -grooming Dobbin. For a full minute it seemed as if the roof of the hut -was going to be lifted right off. - -The officers’ quarters and the class-rooms lie across the railroad track -from the camp, in the grounds of the Château. Here they have a canteen -of their own, a cool little place in cream color and blue presided over -by a most refreshing and delightful English lady. The Château itself was -partially destroyed by fire a few years ago and though the lower story -is available for offices, the upper story stands roofless, with empty -windows staring against the sky. Every now and then a rumour goes the -rounds:—Pershing is going to move his headquarters to Gondrecourt,—the -Château is to be repaired for his use! The Château and the school -buildings stand on high ground. To the south the ground falls away -suddenly; below is “off limits” and is Fairyland. Here are meadows warm -with the color of spring flowers, here are groves such as one sees in -the pictures of Eighteenth Century shepherds and shepherdesses, and here -is the river flowing so placidly that its waters seem to form still -lagoons, white-flecked with swans and arched with rustic bridges. Here -while the boys are at their mess, I have been stealing to eat my picnic -supper; an orange, a sandwich and a piece of chocolate. The guard -walking post at the foot of the embankment shuts one eye as I go -past,—and usually gets half of my supper! For that matter I gather he is -there largely for the sake of appearance, for there’s not a boy in camp -I’m sure who hasn’t explored those groves, fed the swans, and angled for -fish in the river. And the only reason, I’m certain, that they don’t -surreptitiously go in swimming there is that the water, fed by springs, -is cold as ice! Nor is the touch of romance that should go with such a -setting absent. One of the cooks in the officers’ mess kitchen is deep -in an affair with Lucile, the caretaker’s daughter, a girl like a wild -rose, shy, slender, freshly-tinted. Every other night when he is off -duty he carries her chocolate from the canteen and she “gives him a -French lesson.” - -“Serious?” I asked inquisitively. - -“Fat chance!” he glowered at me frankly. “She tells me that she’s -engaged to twelve fellows now already and that twelve’s enough.” - -The proprietor of the Château, Monsieur S., has the distinction of being -the father of ten girls. I like to fancy that the spirits of the ten -lovely daughters,—for lovely they must be, as no Frenchman, I am sure, -would have the courage to father ten homely ones!—haunt the Château -gardens. - -The boys, however, don’t have to rely on phantoms for thrills of this -sort. Yesterday, they tell me, that during the progress of an exciting -ball-game on the Y. athletic field a beautiful lady dressed _à la -Parisienne_ strolled by. The batter dropped his bat, the pitcher forgot -his ball; the game came to a dead halt until the beautiful lady had -passed out of sight. - - -Gondrecourt, May 13. - -The Secretary is sick. He lies in his little bed-room office and reads -the latest magazines and gossips with his visitors while I attempt to -run the hut single-handed. At times during this last week I have been -strongly tempted to get sick myself. Indeed I think I probably would -have done so if it hadn’t been for Snow. Snow, Snowball or Ivory as he -is variously called, is Battery D’s albino cook. “Say, ain’t I the -whitest-haired beggar you ever did see?” he asked me the other day in a -sort of naive wonder at himself. “Anyway, nobody ever had a -cleaner-looking cook,” remarked the Top Sergeant, ex-Mess Sergeant. Snow -has the sweetest disposition in the world. “If Snow was starving to -death,” declared one of the boys to me today, “and somebody gave him a -sandwich, and he thought you were the least bit hungry, he’d give you -that sandwich.” Ever since the Secretary has been sick, Snow has been -bringing him toast and eggs and things while he has brought me lemon -pies, the most wonderful lemon pies that ever I tasted. Already Snow has -come to be looked upon by the boys as an authority on all things -pertaining to the canteen and has to stand a battery of searching -questions, such as, whether he thinks that my hair is really all my own? - -Just to add to all our other troubles this week we have run amuck of the -Major. This I suspect was all my fault. I was furious because when he -came into the hut he made the boys stand at attention. This was -something I had never seen done before and is, I am sure, contrary to -all the rules. I was so angry that when the Major came up to the counter -I stood and glared at him. - -“You will find the Secretary in his office,” I said and turned and -walked out the back door. It was the Major’s turn to be angry then. He -stalked out behind the counter, looking for trouble, and began to hold -an inspection in the kitchen. The Secretary appeared, the Major let -loose. That kitchen, he declared, was not up to army standards in -cleanliness. This was a matter of utmost importance. Hereafter the -medical officer would inspect the kitchen daily. Then he proceeded to -prescribe a schedule of canteen hours outside of which nothing at all -must be sold. - -Now I admit that kitchen hasn’t been quite all it might be. It is a -small, overcrowded place, built of rough dirty boards and there are no -shelves, nor of course running water, nor conveniences of any kind. -Moreover, the Major, I learn, has the reputation of being a tartar in -this respect; “Major Mess Kit” they call him because of the rigour of -his inspections. - -The next morning the medical officer arrived at the crack of dawn. He -found the chocolate cups from the night before unwashed. He was shocked. -He too read the Secretary a lecture. Then he departed to do the -sensible, the saving thing, which was to recommend to the Major that we -be allowed a detail. So it all worked out for the best in the end. -“Neddy” as we have christened the detail is now a part of the family. A -shy, dreamy lad, he is at hand to help from early morning until closing -time at nine at night, and I actually have to shoo him out to his meals. -The only trouble with Neddy is that he is so good I am sure that he is -going to die young. And besides Neddy I now have a pet bugaboo. This has -proved so useful these last few days that I don’t know how I ever kept a -canteen without one. Now any time that officers come to my kitchen door -to tease for cigarettes out of selling hours I can gleefully tell them: - -“Oh, but I wouldn’t dare! The Major, you know! He’s expressly forbidden -it! If I did and he learned about it, he would surely have me -court-martialed!” - -Of course when the boys come out of hours that is quite a different -matter. - -Then, too, as the Major is detested by the men, this furnishes a common -bond of sympathy. This morning a boy came to my back door to borrow our -axe in order to chop up the Major’s wood. - -“You can have it on one condition,” I told him. - -“What’s that?” - -“That you chop off the Major’s head with it too.” - - -Gondrecourt, May 24. - -I have always cherished a secret longing to have pets in my canteen: I -have heard of huts that kept kittens and canaries, and once I visited in -one where an ant-eater, if not an _habitué_, was at least a frequent and -honoured guest and sat in the ladies’ laps at the movie-shows. At -various times I have considered and regretfully abandoned the project of -rabbits, a puppy, goldfish and a goat. But till recently the nearest I -have come to realizing my dreams was when I found two large snails with -black and yellow shells by the roadside. I carried them into the canteen -and set them on a flowering branch in a vase. For two days the boys took -a casual interest. They nicknamed them Bill and Daisy. - -“The French eat snails you know,” I told them. - -“You don’t say!” - -“Yes and I had some myself the other day.” - -“Aw shucks! You didn’t _really_, did you? Why, before I’d eat them -things! Say, what did they taste like anyway?” - -“They would have tasted pretty good,” I answered, “if only while you -were eating them you could have stopped thinking what they were!” - -One boy staring at my pets asked innocently; - -“Will butterflies come but of those?” - -After the snails our only livestock for a while was the canteen rat, -whom I have never met myself, but of whom I have heard large rumours. -The other day however I received a present of two real pets. One of the -Y. drivers had been out to a wood-cutting camp in the forest. There an -Italian lad had given him two young birds in a beautiful cage he had -made himself with nothing but a pen-knife and a hot wire, and the driver -brought the birds to me. I don’t know what sort they were but they were -tame and most amusing. To feed them was the immediate question. I asked -the boys to dig me some earth worms, but this they seemed to consider -beneath their dignity. Finally Neddy went out with a can, only to return -wormless. He couldn’t find any, he declared. I considered the -advisability of asking the Top Sergeant for a worm-digging detail, but -decided against it. Then I confided my troubles to my friend, the -Warehouse Man. - -“I know,” he said, “I’ll ask Pierre.” - -Now Pierre is a little orphan refugee from the devastated district. He -lives with one of the families on the edge of the town and I am afraid -is none too well treated. When he isn’t herding the cows over the -meadows, he is usually hanging about the warehouse. A handsome, rather -wild looking lad, dressed in a brown cap and an old brown suit, I always -think of him as Peter Pan. The next morning Pierre appeared at my -kitchen door with a can full of long fat wriggly angleworms and had his -pockets filled with chocolate by way of recompense. Later I learned that -the Warehouse Man, not being able to pronounce the French word for -birds, had told Pierre that I wanted the worms for fishing, and Pierre -after taking one look at the bird-cage had gone straight back and told -the Warehouse Man that he was a liar. But cunning as my pets were, I -couldn’t quite reconcile myself to the idea of keeping wild birds in a -cage. This morning I looked at Neddy: - -“Let’s let them out.” - -“Let’s,” he answered. - -Now the only pet I have in prospect is the baby wild boar which a boy -from one of the aviation camps nearby has promised me. - - -Gondrecourt, June 2. - -Night before last, at half-past ten, as I was sitting here in my billet -trying to write a letter, I heard a voice calling me from the street -below. - -“What is it?” - -“It’s Sergeant B——. I’ve brought you a gas-mask.” - -“What!” - -“There’s a bunch of German planes headed in this direction. They’re -afraid of gas bombs. We got the alarm out at the school.” - -I went down to the door. The sergeant gave me two gas-masks. I gave one -to the English lady who has the room across the hall from me. Then I sat -up waiting for the fun to begin. Nothing happened. I went to sleep with -the gas-mask lying on the pillow beside me. - -The next morning the Chief declared that all the Y. personnel here must -go to gas drill and have masks issued to them. Last night they rounded -us up for a lesson. We stood in a big circle at the Gas School over on -the hill while the gas instructors instructed us and the boys looked on -and grinned. Gas drill consists of learning how to put on and take off -your mask in the prescribed and formal manner. It is all done by count. -If you can’t do it in six seconds you are a casualty. As we popped our -masks on and pulled them off again the hair of all the ladies present -proceeded to slowly but relentlessly fall down their backs. The English -Lady stood next to me. “It’s all stuff and nonsense,” I could hear her -muttering; “stuff and nonsense!” - -The noncom instructors walked around and informed each and all of us -that if we didn’t change the style of our coiffures we certainly would -get gassed. - -“And now,” said the instructor cheerfully, “I am going to send you -through the gas-house.” - -I looked desperately for a chance to sneak away, but there wasn’t any; -besides, several boys from my batteries were watching. - -“Oh this is nothing, nothing at all,” declared the instructor. “We’ve -only got the tear gas on tonight. You will go through once with your -masks on, and then a second time without them.” We put our masks on and -marched in a long line into the gas-house. There was a table in the -middle with candles burning on it, which gleamed golden through the -thick yellowish clouds of gas. We marched around the table and out -again. There was nothing to it; the masks were a perfect protection. - -“Now,” said the instructor,” you will go through without your masks. -This is to give you confidence in them.” The idea being that discovering -how very nasty it was without one, you would be taught to appreciate the -blessing of a mask. I had an inspiration. I would shut my eyes and hang -on to the man in front of me! But alas, for my pretty plan, the line was -too long; as I was about to enter: “Break the line here!” shouted the -instructor. I had to lead the second line into the gas house. I made -double-quick time around that table. Just as I was about to dart out the -door an English noncom instructor seized my arm and, halting me, started -to explain something. - -“Yes, yes,” I choked. “It’s all very interesting, but I don’t feel like -stopping now!” I pulled away and made a break out the door. I was -weeping horribly. My eyes felt as if someone had rubbed onion juice on -them. They stung and burned for hours afterward. - -“The next time,” said the instructor genially, “we’ll put you through -the mustard gas.” - -Now in the mustard gas lesson a fellow must walk into the gas-house -without his mask, and put it on after he has entered. If he fails to -hold his breath long enough, or is nervous and clumsy and so doesn’t get -his mask on quickly enough, why it means a trip to the hospital for him. -The mustard gas test is an ordeal which causes the boys considerable -apprehension. - -“Oh thank you! You’re very kind,” I said. - -As we took our departure down the hill I noticed a darky doughboy in a -group who were drilling. He was in an awful fix; every time he tried to -fasten the nose-clip on his nostrils, it would slip right off again! - -When the next lesson is held I have decided to be among the missing. - - -Gondrecourt June 9. - -We have a new detail. His name is Jones. About six weeks ago he was -kicked by a mule and had three of his ribs broken. He was sent to the -hospital at Neufchateau. Learning that there was a chance that his -battery might be sent to the front shortly, he pestered the docters -until they let him go, his besetting fear being that he might become -separated from his outfit. He returned three days ago. The next day he -went out on the range as one of a gun crew. Yesterday he came into the -hut and collapsed. The Secretary put him on his bed where he spent the -rest of the day. Moved by purely altruistic motives, the Secretary then -went to his captain and asked that Jones be assigned to the Y. as a -supplementary detail. Now this is very nice for Jones, but I am not so -sure whether it is nice for the Y. Jones, it seems, goes by the nickname -of “Mildred.” At one period of his past life he was engaged in selling -soap, a fact which inspires the boys to shout at frequent intervals: -“Three cheers for Jones! Soap! Soap! Soap!” He brings echoes of his -commercial training to the canteen counter. No east-side shopkeeper was -ever more anxious to make sales than he. If a boy asks for tooth-paste -when we happen to be out of it, he is sure to answer: - -“No, but we have some very fine shoe polish.” - -Or if somebody wants talcum powder when talcum there is none: - -“I’m sorry we’re out of it today, but can’t I interest you in some -tomato ketchup?” - -Some day I think I shall write on essay on the psychology of suggestion -as demonstrated in canteen sales. Nothing, it seems, ever really wins -the boys’ approval unless it bears the label; “Made in the U. S. -A.”—nothing that is, with the possible exception of eggs. Anything -originating in Europe, from mustard to matches, is looked upon with a -certain amount of suspicion, while goods coming from America are hailed -with an enthusiasm often quite inconsistent with their quality. The -other day we put a case of “Fig Newtons” on sale. The news flashed all -over town. As one of the boys said; “Why it was just as if General -Pershing or somebody’s mother had come to camp.” - -Lately we have had for sale quantities of fat French cookies. Some of -the boys are mean enough to suggest that these were baked before the -war. - -“Those cookies ought to wear service stripes,” one boy declared. - -So “Service Stripe Cookies” they have been ever since. - -“They’re all right for eating,” observed another customer solemnly, “but -the Lord help you if you drop one on your toe!” This morning when I -reached the hut I found Jones languidly washing dishes. - -“Where’s Neddy?” - -“Neddy? Why he’s in the guard-house.” - -For a moment I was goose enough to believe it, then I learned that -Neddy, with a lieutenant and some twenty other boys, had all gone off, -the day being Sunday, on single mounts to Domremy to visit the -birthplace of Jeanne D’Arc. Late in the afternoon the little cavalcade -returned. - -“Neddy,” I teased, “I hear you’ve been in the guard-house.” - -To my astonishment Neddy’s mouth twitched, his eyes filled. “I wish I’d -never gone!” he blurted out. - -“Why, what’s the matter?” - -Then the whole pitiful tale was unfolded. Neddy hadn’t any money, not a -clacker, and being too shy to ask for a loan, he had gone on the trip -with empty pockets. He hadn’t been able to buy himself a bite of dinner. -But that wasn’t what hurt. What hurt was that he couldn’t purchase any -souvenirs for his girl, and there had been so many enticing ones! - -“Gee,” he moaned, “but that’s an awful place for a feller to go who -hasn’t any money.” - -Then, just as the last straw of misery, his horse had been taken sick on -the way home! - -We are going through one of those painful periods of pecuniary depletion -which are periodic in the army, the inevitable prelude to payday. In -Battery A there are two lads whom I have privately dubbed Tweedledum and -Tweedledee. They are both short, roly-poly and always smiling and they -are absolutely inseparable. When either of them buys anything at the -canteen he always buys double; two packets of cigarettes, two “bunches” -of gum, two cups of hot chocolate “one for me and one for my friend” as -the stock phrase goes. This morning I received a shock. Tweedledum asked -for _one_ bar of chocolate and _one_ package of cigarettes. - -“What’s the matter?” I asked, thinking alarmedly of how in the immortal -poem “Tweedledum and Tweedledee agreed to have a battle,”—“You and your -buddy haven’t quarrelled, have you?” - -“No ma’am, oh no indeed ma’am! It’s just that it’s an awful long ways -from payday!” - -Later I saw them carefully dividing the purchases between them. I leaned -over the counter, beckoned to Tweedledee. - -“You boys go around to the back door, but don’t let anybody see you!” - -At the back door I gave them each a slice of Snow’s latest lemon pie. - -Tonight the Major suddenly made his appearance in the kitchen to find -Snow, Neddy and myself all sitting on the floor sorting out rotten -oranges. Snow and Neddy faded away out the back door, but I stood my -ground. For once his Majorship was pleased to be gracious. He -complimented me on the improvement in the appearance of my kitchen. -Indeed we did look pretty fine, Neddy having just covered the shelves -with newspapers whose edges he had cut into beautiful fancy scalloping. - -“What do you do with those over-ripe oranges?” - -“Put them in a box outside the back door.” - -“Well? What then?” - -“The French children do the rest, sir.” - -But the boys are more incensed than ever against the Powers That Be. -They have been writing too many letters of late for the censor’s -comfort. So yesterday at Retreat the order was read out that no boy -might write more than two letters and one postal card per week! - - -Gondrecourt, June 13. - -The School has closed. It is common knowledge that the two batteries -will soon join their respective regiments at the front. Curiously -enough, here with the artillery I have never had that same feeling of -closeness to the war which I had when I was with the doughboys. The -attitude of the men here is so much more detached, impersonal. I fancy -this is because, however dangerous their work may be, they do not look -forward to any actual physical conflict. It is the imaginative image of -“Heinie” with a bayonet thrusting at his breast which makes the front so -vivid in anticipation to the doughboy. - -But now with the news from Château Thierry there is a certain tenseness -everywhere. One feels that the hour is close at hand when every man that -Uncle Sam has in France may be needed. The barking of the guns at -practice has taken on a new significance. Yesterday indeed it just -missed implying tragedy. Shortly after the jarring thunder of the “75s” -had started our dishes in the kitchen to rattling, came a frantic -message by telephone. A party of engineers were surveying for the -narrow-gauge railway just beyond the hill over which the battery was -shooting. One shell had narrowly missed them. - -Today an aviator in a little Spad machine came down at our back door. He -had lost his way, exhausted his gas, and was forced to descend. He had -thought he was over Germany so his relief on finding himself among -friendly faces may be imagined. But aviation doesn’t mean what it used -to any more to us. We have lost our aviator. Shortly after I came to -Gondrecourt we began to have an aerial visitor. Every few days about -sundown he would appear; flashing up over the eastern hill horizon, to -circle the big open drill ground, dipping, soaring, playing all manner -of madcap tricks just for the sheer joy of it, now he would sweep so low -as almost to touch the ridgepole of the hut, then up, up again with a -rush, waving his hand to us below as we waved and shouted with all our -might up at him. The whole camp would turn out to see; it was one of the -events of the day. “It’s Lufberry,” some one told me. Not long ago we -read in the paper that Major Lufberry had been killed. We waited in -suspense. Had it really been he? Would our aviator never come again? -Night after night we watched for him; he never came. - -The fields about, which have been golden with buttercups and primroses, -white with daisies, and purple with flowers whose names I do not know, -are now crimsoning with poppies. “Artillery flowers,” the boys call -them. They pick them and stick them jauntily in their overseas caps, or -in great bunches, bring them to me to brighten the canteen. - -Since the boys are going soon I have been trying desperately to make -them extra special goodies; candy, stuffed dates, frosted cookies, -and—what pleases them as much as anything—hard-boiled eggs. It has been -a revelation to me here in France, the American appetite for eggs. The -boys will walk miles to get them; they will cheerfully pay as high as -two dollars a dozen for them. I buy twelve dozen at a time, carry them -out to the canteen and boil them in the dishpan. Placed on sale they -disappear in the winking of an eye, and then the cry is always, “Ain’t -you got no more?” Sometimes I take Neddy with me on my shopping -expeditions; Neddy carries my market basket, smokes his pipe and looks -as pleased as Punch. Today in our quest we stopped in at a store kept by -two extremely pretty _Mademoiselles_. As we entered we were greeted by -peals of girlish laughter. In a chair in the corner sat a tired M. P. -fast asleep, his mouth wide-open; between his lips one of the pretty -girls had just at that moment popped a round ripe strawberry. - - -Gondrecourt, June 18. - -Besides the American Camp Hospital there is a French Hospital at -Gondrecourt, a place with a hint of old-world flavour to it, the nursing -being done by Sisters of Charity. Here through some freak of chance a -week ago arrived sixteen Tommies from the English front, after having -travelled half over the map of France. They were none too pleased to -find themselves in a French Hospital and several, being walking cases, -straightway deserted and sneaked over to the American Hospital only to -be regretfully returned again. They have a little Algerian in a red fez -with them whom they have nicknamed “Charlie Chaplin.” Although -intercourse between them is restricted entirely to sign language, the -Tommies have adopted Charlie as their mascot and Charlie follows them -about just like a dog. - -My friend the English Lady, having little to do in her canteen since the -School closed, has appointed herself as a sort of foster-mother to the -whole cockney brood. She acts as interpreter and sometimes as -intercessor, for the Tommies are impatient of the hospital discipline -and cause the authorities frequent anxiety, helps the Sisters out in -nursing them and, best of all, makes them tea at four o’clock or -thereabouts, accompanying it with bread and butter sandwiches. Frankly, -the Tommies think that they are little short of starved on the French -Hospital rations, and the tea helps. When they can they sneak over to -the American Hospital and beg a meal there, but such excursions are -frowned upon by those in authority. - -Yesterday the English Lady gave a tea party for the Tommies in her -canteen. She arranged to have a truck go fetch them. To her -astonishment, instead of one, two trucks appeared and instead of just -the Englishmen, the whole hospital that was able to stand on two legs or -one arrived with them; big black Algerians and Moroccans in every shade -of duskiness and poilus by the half score. The hut was crowded, there -weren’t enough chairs to go around. The English Lady sent out a hurry -call to bring up the reserves in refreshments. Neddy and I came over -from our hut with our arms full of cups; more water was put on to boil -for the tea, new packages of biscuits opened. Then while the water -heated the English Lady took all the liveliest ones out for a walk -through the Château grounds, while “Skipper”, her detail, who is a -clever pianist, entertained the rest with music. During the playing one -enormous Algerian, as black as night, stared fascinated at the piano, -then edged slowly nearer and nearer to finally lay one incredulous -finger, with infinite caution on one of the end keys. He had evidently -never seen such a thing before, and more than half suspected it was all -magic. - -Then the water boiled and we made the tea and carried cups and bowls of -it around with canned milk and commissary sugar. The Frenchmen, true to -type, with the scarcity of sugar in mind would only take one lump, until -you invited them to have another, when each, with evident pleasure, took -a second. As we could only muster six teaspoons between our two canteens -to supply the whole company, we had to pass the spoons from guest to -guest allowing each man just long enough for a good stir and then on to -the next. The men with wounded arms got their neighbors to stir for -them. With the tea we served sandwiches; these were a special treat to -the poilus because they were made with American army bread. Now to my -mind our white army bread is very poor and tasteless stuff in comparison -with the grey well-flavored French war-bread, but the French, probably -on account of the novelty, prize highly any scraps of the _pain -Américaine_ that they can obtain. “Why, they eat it just like cake!” one -boy said to me. Besides the sandwiches, there were little cookies and -candies and cigarettes and finally, the gift of an American officer who -happened in, an orange for each man to take home with him. - -When the tea was finished it was time for the guests to go. Crowded into -the trucks they rolled out through the Château gates, the poilus smiling -and waving their good hands, while the Tommies raised a ragged cheer. - -As Neddy and I returned to our canteen we paused at the door of one of -the barracks to listen to the band producing pandemonium within. This -band is the pet project of Battery D, the dearest hope of Corporal R. -who is theatrical producer, impresario, librettist, base soloist, and -band leader for the battery. The instruments were finally assembled some -ten days ago. The one thing required of a member seemed to be that he -had never played that particular sort of an instrument before. For the -last ten days the band has been practicing, mostly in the Y. They have -always played the same tune, yet I have never been able to decide what -that tune was. Now that the battery is going to the front, the -instruments must be put in store and our budding band disbanded almost -before it had begun. The instruments are to be interned at Abainville, -the town next door. When the day comes to relinquish them the band is -going to march all the way from Gondrecourt to Abainville in state, -playing their one tune over and over. - -Tonight Corporal R. sat on a barrel in the kitchen polishing his French -horn with the Secretary’s pink tooth-paste. It made excellent -brass-polish he had discovered. - -“It’s too bad you can’t take that band of yours up front,” remarked -Snow. - -“What for?” - -“’Cause it sure would make the boys feel like fighting.” - - -Gondrecourt June 22. - -The boys have gone! We saw the last battery off on the train tonight. -The guns were loaded on flat cars, horses and men lodged together in the -box cars, the boys sleeping under the horses’ very noses and in danger -of being nipped, it seemed to me, by an ill-tempered beast. The boys who -were to sleep with the guns on the flat cars would be much better off I -thought; they had made themselves cozy little nests of straw underneath -the gun-carriages. Some of the boys in the box cars, I was pained to -observe, had smuggled in bottles with them. - -The English Lady and I had arrived at the station none too soon. We had -no more than walked the length of the train, inspecting each car and -wishing every boy Good-bye and Good-luck when the engine whistled and -was off. We stood on the platform and waved to the boys who leaned from -their cars and waved back until a curve in the track cut off our sight. - -These last few days have been hectic. Wednesday was my birthday. Neddy -found it out and told the boys. They had observed that I didn’t have any -raincoat; indeed rainy nights I was always embarrassed by the offer of -half a dozen different rubber coats and ponchos to go home in; so they -decided,—bless them!—to supply this lack. A crowd of non-coms went -downtown; they took along one boy with them as a cloak model because he -was about my height and “looked like a girl”; and they made him try on -every raincoat in Gondrecourt. Finally they selected one, brought it -back and made a ceremonious presentation. The raincoat is a beauty, and -ever since I have worn it every day, rain or shine, just to show them -how much I thought of it. - -It was hard to part with little Neddy. The Secretary presented him with -a farewell pipe. I clasped around his neck a chain bearing a little -silver cross; it was to keep him safe, body and soul from harm. He was -almost moved to tears. The Secretary and I, he told me, had been “like a -little papa and a daddy to him,” and then, flushing, joined in my -laughter. - -At the last moment one of the D Battery cooks came stealthily to the -back door. - -“Me an the other fellers in the kitchen,” he confided _sotto voce_, “we -wanted to do something to show you folks how much we thought of you. So -we just made up our minds to send yer this.” - -_This_ was a ten pound can of issue bacon. - -The Secretary leaves tomorrow for Paris. He is going in order to buy -himself some new clothes. It seems that all his belongings entrusted to -the local laundresses disappeared one by one until he found himself -reduced to a single set. Last night he washed these out himself and put -them in the oven to dry. When he remembered them this morning it was to -find nothing left but a little cinder heap. - -The camp, for the present at least, is to be abandoned; the hut, for the -army wishes to use the barracks elsewhere, torn down. In a few days the -little Artillery School Canteen will be nothing but a memory. - - - - -CHAPTER V: ABAINVILLE—THE ENGINEERS - - -Abainville July 1. - -“Abainville is going to be bombed off the face of the map.” Every time -anyone has mentioned Abainville in my hearing during the last six weeks -they have wound up with some such prophecy as this. Abainville is an -engineering camp, Abainville is the starting-point for the narrow-gauge -system that is to supply a certain sector of the American front. Already -the great car shops have been built and stand gaunt and staring with -more glass in their glittering sides than I have seen on this side of -the Atlantic. It is these shops in particular that are held to be such -shining marks for enemy aircraft. Anyway we have this comfort that if -the Boche gets us we will all go together, for the town is so tiny that -if a bomb hit it anywhere, it would wreck the major part of the village -and there isn’t a single cellar in the whole vicinity! - -Just at present Abainville is in a state of suspense. There is some -question among those in high places as to whether after all the site, -for such extensive operations as have been planned, is well selected. -Work on the narrow-gauge goes on, but the work on the shops has been -suspended. Everyone is anxiously awaiting the decision. - -The hut, which is on the far edge of the camp, is a huge empty shell, -for work on this too has been stopped pending developments. Up till the -day I arrived the Y. was doing business in a tent near the highway, but -being notified that the engineers were going to run a railway through -that spot the next day, they had moved out and over to the unfinished -hut in a hurry. - -My billet has a fine central location,—at the corner of La Grande Rue -and the national highway that runs through the town. My window overlooks -what approximates the town square, an open dusty space, bounded on the -south by the principal café, on the east by the butcher’s shop, on the -west by manure-heaps and on the north by my billet. In this square, it -appears, all the village pig-killings take place. It is incredible and -painful how many pigs of a marketable maturity a town no larger than -Abainville can produce. Arguing from the frequency of the pig-killings I -am convinced that if a census were taken Abainville would be found to -contain more pigs than people. - -Further down la Grande Rue one comes to the church and the town-hall. -Upstairs in the Mairie my co-worker, Miss S., has her billet. Downstairs -is the village school and the living apartments of the schoolmaster’s -family, refugees from the invaded territory. I peeped in at the empty -schoolroom yesterday: on the wall was a large pictorial chart designed -to impress upon the infant mind the advantages of drinking beer, cider -and wine, rather than the more potent alcohols; a lesson vividly -demonstrated by a series of cuts portraying a pair of guinea pigs. The -guinea pig who indulged in cognac and kindred beverages was depicted in -successive stages of inebriation until at the end he is shown expiring -in all the horrors of delirium, while the prudent guinea pig who took -nothing stronger than _vin_, _biére et cidre_ is pictured first in a -state of mild and genial intoxication, and then the “morning after” with -all the zest of a good digestion and a clear conscience, breakfasting on -a sober cabbage leaf. - -The church next door to the Mairie is remarkable for nothing except the -peculiar sound like a wheezing snore which may be heard every evening -issuing from the belfry. At first this sound was a mystery to us. I -inquired of Madame; she was blank. - -“Perhaps,” I suggested remembering how in medieval lore evil spirits -were reputed to haunt church towers, “perhaps it is the devil in the -belfry.” - -“But no!” cried Madame scandalized. “The devil doesn’t live in -Abainville!” - -“To be sure,” I amended hastily, “the devil is a Boche! He lives at -Berlin.” - -“_Mais, oui, oui, oui!_” - -But now the riddle has been read. The devil in the belfry is in reality -an ancient owl, _une chouette_, who has inhabited the church tower time -out of mind. - -There is a Salvation Army hut here, the first one I have seen. It is -down by the main road; the canteen occupies one end of a barracks, which -is used as a store-house, then there is an ell containing the kitchen. -The staff comprises one man and two women; they are pleasant people, -“real home folks.” Two or three times a week, for supplies are hard to -obtain, they make pie or cake or doughnuts. On these nights, passing the -hut on our way back from mess, one sees a long line stretching down the -road, waiting patiently for the chance to get a piece of pie “like -Mother used to make.” Our relationships are cordial. We help each other -out in the matter of change. They come to our hut for sweet chocolate -and movies; we go to them, when our consciences will permit, for -doughnuts. I only wish that one of their huts could be in every camp in -France. - - -Abainville, July 8. - -By courtesy of a group of officers we are messing at a house with a -particularly noisome front-door gutter and the Most Beautiful Girl in -France to wait on us. La Belle Marguerite, as I always think of her, is -tall and stately with a lovely gracious bearing and a sensitive, -responsive face; what’s more, she only paints a little. She affects to -speak no English but I suspect she understands a good deal. At meal -times when we are present the officers never look twice at her, but any -evening that one happens past the house one can see two cigarette ends -gleaming from the darkness just inside the mess-room window: the -officers are making up for lost time. Yesterday La Belle looked so pale -and _distraite_ at dinnertime that I was quite distressed, fancying -heart-break. “Mademoiselle Marguerite is sad,” I told Madame my hostess. -Madame immediately went forth on a Visit of investigation. “Mademoiselle -has the tooth-ache!” she announced on her return. Today at dinner, -having finished our salade, we waited in vain for dessert. La Belle -Marguerite, usually so prompt and so efficient, simply did not appear. -After waiting until I grew tired I gave it up and left. Passing by the -kitchen door I glanced inside. In front of the hearth stood Marguerite -and a handsome Russian officer, and oh! the coquetry of her eyes, the -seduction of her smiling, scarlet lips! It was evident that the mess in -the next room was wiped as clean from her mind as if it never had been! -Whether my messmates ever got their dessert or not I haven’t heard. - -Besides La Belle Marguerite, the one unique feature of our mess is a -certain set of plates. These are French picture plates with jokes on -them. The jokes are all of a gustatory nature and pertain to things -which most people would prefer not to think about while they are eating. -One rather striking design represents the proprietor of a Swiss resort -hotel delicately sniffing a platter of fish as he says to the waitress: - -“These trout are passe. Keep them for the customers who have colds in -their heads.” - -On another an irate diner is exclaiming over an item on his bill: - -“Three francs for a chicken! What’s that?” - -“Why that was the little chicken that Monsieur found in his egg!” - -There is always an anxious moment of suspense whenever a guest comes to -dinner, a moment in which one peeps furtively out of the corners of -one’s eyes to see whether the newcomer has noticed the picture on his -plate, and if so, whether he has got the point. Sometimes the guest will -ask to have the text translated for him and then there is an awkward -pause. - -The question of what to serve at the canteen is a vexed one these days -as it is quite too hot for chocolate. By scouring the country we managed -to procure several cases of lemons, and then found our work for the day -laid out,—just squeezing them. A few days ago, however, a shipment of -bottled fruit juices arrived at the warehouse; by mixing this syrup with -water and a small amount of lemon a delicious drink can be obtained. The -boys have dubbed it a dozen different names, “_Camouflage vin rouge_” -being one of them, but “_pink lemonade_” is the title it commonly passes -under. Already it has become famous and every drunk in camp if -questioned as to how he came to be in that condition will unblushingly -assert that it was through drinking “that Y. M. C. A. pink lemonade.” - -If we could only get ice! Yesterday I investigated the possibilities, to -find that if one were very ill and in desperate need of it, could -produce a certificate to that effect signed by half a dozen doctors, -approved by the Sanitary Inspector, passed upon by the local Board of -Health and sealed by the Mayor with the sanction of the Town Council, -one could, by means of this document, procure at the brewery at -Gondrecourt a piece of ice about as large as a small-sized egg. Somehow -it doesn’t seem quite worth the trouble. - -Lacking ice, we do our best with freshly-drawn water which comes -pleasantly cool from the deep wells drilled by American engineers to -supply the camp,—when it does come. But often just when the thirsty ones -are crowding thickest you make a frantic dash to the faucet only to find -that the supply has been cut off: there is not enough water in the -wells, it seems, to supply all the engines and pink lemonade besides for -the whole camp. Then there is nothing to do but to take a pail and set -out. After climbing over a couple of freight trains and ploughing -through a dozen cinder heaps one comes at last to the pump-house, where -one may, by assuming an ingratiating manner, beg a pailful,—strictly -against the regulations,—from the man at the pump. And then, after all, -what use is a mere pailful of lemonade in a thirsty camp? - - -Abainville, July 10. - -We have stopped fighting the war and have gone into the movie business. -For two days all work has been suspended while the camp has posed before -the camera. They are making a big propaganda film for use in the States, -entitled “America’s Answer to the Hun” and Abainville and the -Abainville-Sorcy narrow-gauge is to be part of that answer. “Camouflage -pictures” sneer the boys, and camouflage pictures I blush to say they -frankly are. For on the screen the peaceful valley through which the -narrow-gauge is being built is to masquerade as a field of battle. -Camouflaged engineers, armed and equipped as infantry will march -valiantly across the landscape, while other engineers in helmets, with -their gas-masks at the alert, are plying their picks and shovels amid -the smoke of camouflage shrapnel; the climax being attained when the -helmeted engineers effect a lightning repair feat by bridging over a -carefully dug camouflage shell-hole. - -Yesterday I saw a photograph cut from the Sunday Supplement of one of -America’s best known and most respected newspapers. Underneath the -picture ran the text, “American boys playing baseball on a field in -France where shells fall daily.” To my certain knowledge the only shells -that have ever fallen on that field or within many miles of it are -peanut shells. For the field in the picture is most plainly and -indisputably the Y. athletic field at Gondrecourt. Will I ever, I -wonder, recover my pre-war faith in newspapers and photographs and -movies and such things? - -But now we have done our turn before the camera, it’s back to work again -and very hard work at that, for the officers are determined to set a -record for all the world in laying track. Already the little railway has -shot ahead at an amazing rate; though whether track laid in such a hurry -is really going to make for speed in the long run is a question on which -the trainmen, sipping their pink lemonade at the canteen counter, have -their own opinions. For no train, it seems, can make the run at present -without leaving the track at least once during the journey. -“Sun-trouble” say the officers, which means, being interpreted, that the -heat of the sun’s rays has warped the rails. “Sun trouble nothin,’” -grunt the men. “It’s just not takin’ the time to do the job decent.” -When the “sun trouble” doesn’t serve to throw a train off the track, the -French children see to it that the same effect is produced by the simple -expedient of dropping spikes in between the ends of adjoining rails. - -Yesterday I was talking with an engineer from Tours. He and his fireman -had just brought a Belgian engine up from that city for use in the -Abainville yards. The attitude of the train crew who received it was -plainly “thank-you-for-nothing-sirs!”, Belgian engines being none too -popular with A. E. F. railroad men. The two crews sat in the hut for a -long while holding a symposium over the Belgian engine’s oddities; at -last the home crew departed, looking very glum. In the course of my -subsequent conversation with the visiting engineer I happened to ask: - -“Would you vote for Pershing for president?” - -“No sir!” he answered emphatically. “All the railroad men over here have -got it in for him.” He went on to explain. - -French railroad engineers are allowed a certain amount of coal and oil -with which to make their runs; for anything that they can save out of -this, they are reimbursed. This idea appealed to the American train -crews who were attached to the French. They set to work and saved,—far -more than the French were able to! The French proceeded to depreciate -the quality of coal allowed them, instead of giving them half dust and -half briquets, they gave them three-quarters dust and finally all dust -yet still the Americans were able to beat the French at saving. And each -man in fancy was rolling up a tidy little sum for himself. - -“And then,” continued my informant, “Pershing came out and said that we -weren’t here to make money off the French, but to help them, so we -weren’t to get the money for all the coal and oil we had saved after -all. And that’s why there isn’t a railroad man in France who has any use -for him.” - -How much of politics could be reduced, I wonder, to a mere question of -pocketbook? - -He went on to tell me among other things that although a French -conductor would be furious if you stopped a train in the middle of a run -for any other reason, if you just said; “Come on, ol’ top, and have a -bottle of _vin rouge_ on me,” he was all beaming acquiescence. “Just -imagine,” he concluded disgustedly, “stopping a main-line train in -America so the crew could go into a saloon and get a drink!” - - -Abainville, July 14. - -The Bastille has fallen! We celebrated its fall today with much -enthusiasm. Ostensibly in order to signalize the Franco-American -Alliance, the festivities in reality were planned as propaganda of a -different sort. Surreptitiously but quite definitely the end and aim of -them was to flatter the Major. - -Now the Major in command of the camp at Abainville is what—if he weren’t -a major—one would be tempted to term a “hard-boiled guy.” Being of the -bid school he looks with a jaundiced eye at all welfare organizations, -particularly, I gather, at the feminine element in them. He calls the -college men in the regiment “sissy boys” and believes in treating them -to an extra dose of pick and shovel. What’s more, it is an open secret -that he would like to swap the whole outfit of them for a regiment of -Mexican desperadoes, with whom he has had considerable experience. As -the boys say, he speaks three languages, English, Mexican and Profane, -and of the three he is the most proficient in the last. - -So in view of all this, the Fourteenth of July celebration was gotten up -chiefly in order to give the Major a chance to appear in all his glory -and make a speech, this being, it is claimed, one of the surest ways to -tickle the vanity and so win the heart of a man. - -We decorated the half-finished hut with flags and bunting, screening the -yawning cavern back of the stage with broad strips of red, white and -blue cheesecloth. Then we officially invited the whole town to attend. -The whole town, from grandmother to baby, came dressed in their Sunday -best. The programme started with an informal concert by an impromptu -jazz orchestra varied by some Harry Lauder impersonations delivered by -an unexpected youth who somehow strayed on to the stage. For a few -moments we were painfully uncertain as to whether the effect produced -was due just to Harry Lauder or to _vin rouge_, finally deciding that a -share at least of the credit should be allowed the latter. Fortunately -Harry’s appearance on the stage was short; he left us fondly hoping that -the French hadn’t realized anything was amiss. - -The Major of course opened the formal programme. He read his speech. It -wasn’t a bad speech, representing, as it did, the combined efforts of -one captain, two lieutenants and the clerk in the Headquarters office, -and was sufficiently fiery in its reference to the Germans to be quite -in keeping with the Major’s character. The Major sat down amid -thunderous applause. The Secretary had vainly tried to arrange to have a -little girl present him with a bouquet at the end of his speech: perhaps -it was just as well the way it was,—a bouquet might have proved -embarrassing to the Major. When the applause had died down the Major’s -interpreter stepped out and gave a brief summary of the address in -French for the benefit of the villagers. Then we had the Mayor of -Abainville and after him the Cure, looking very handsome in his -beautiful French officer’s uniform. They both delivered flowery -speeches, enlarging upon the mutual affections of the two nations, which -were translated briefly into English by the interpreter for the benefit -of the Americans. - -After the speeches the school children, who had been fidgeting about -like so many little crickets in their front-row seats, swarmed up on the -stage and, standing in a long line with flag-bearers at each end, sang -the Marseillaise in their funny shrill little voices. Then we all sang -the Star Spangled Banner, and after that there was a movie. As luck -would have it, instead of an adventure of the western plains, fate had -sent us a romance of high finance. We had asked the interpreter to -announce the titles of the pictures in French for the benefit of the -villagers but when he discovered that this meant making clear the -intricacies of the New York Stock Exchange to the mind of the French -peasant, he baulked and bolted. It must have been just about as -intelligible to them as Coptic, yet they sat tight and at least looked -interested. - -Everybody considers the affair a success. The Secretary was in high -spirits over the evening. - -“The Major was pleased, I’m sure,” he declared. “As for the French, it -was an occasion which they will always remember. Why it was just like -transplanting the whole village there. The grandmother and the babies, -the mayor, the priest, the school-teacher and his scholars; every -village institution was represented!” - -“Everything,” I said—I was tired, “but the pig-killings.” - - -Abainville, July 20. - -I have just established what I think must be the smallest “hut” in -France, and such fun as it was doing it! - -There is a detachment of about a hundred engineers stationed, while they -build the narrow-gauge railway, at a little village about ten miles to -the north, called Sauvoy. The other day I went with the Athletic -Director in a side-car to take them some baseball equipment. The boys I -found were billeted in dark dingy lofts and had to eat their meals, rain -or shine, sitting just anywhere in the streets of the village. The -thought came to me; why shouldn’t they too have a Y? I approached the -French Town Major, taking the barber-interpreter with me to lend me both -moral and lingual support. After some uncertainty he admitted that there -was a room which might be made to serve, a room over a stable to be -sure, but a good room for all that; the rent would be thirteen sous a -day,—I snapped it up. - -Yesterday with all my materials assembled I started out for Sauvoy -again. We began work a little before noon, myself and four engineers. -Before the afternoon was over we had changed a filthy loft, its grimy -walls covered with obscene scrawls, into as cunning a little -pocket-edition Y. as one could find I think in France. Sweeping the dust -and cobwebs from the rafters, we calcimined the ceiling and walls a -pretty creamy yellow; filled in the missing panes with vitex; hung -curtains of beautiful blue and green chintz at the windows; laid runners -of the same across the tables lent with the benches by the _Major du -Cantonment_; decorated the walls, half-dry as they were, with stunning -French posters; built shelves in the alcove corner where the built-in -bed had been, filled them with books, games and writing materials; hung -two big green Japanese lanterns from the beam in the center; and last of -all put bowls of the loveliest flowers, larkspurs and snapdragons, -begged by the boys from the village gardens, on the shelves and tables, -together with heaps of fresh magazines and the company victrola. In the -midst of all the scurry and hurry a red-faced frowsy Frenchwoman marched -in upon us. She stalked across the room and tried the door which led -into the hay-loft: we had nailed it fast. We must open that door -immediately, she declared, otherwise she could not get the hay to feed -the horse downstairs. I saw my pretty room used as a passage-way by a -beery old termagant and my heart sank. After some discussion, however, -our visitor proposed an alternative. If we would supply her with a -ladder, she could climb up into the loft from below. But how, I asked -helplessly, was I to get a ladder? One of the boys winked at me and -disappeared; ten minutes later he was back dragging a ladder after him. -Our French friend was satisfied. - -“But how did you get it?” I asked wonderingly. - -He looked at me reprovingly. “In this Man’s Army,” he remarked, “you -should learn not to ask such questions.” - -When the last touch had been bestowed there was still an hour before the -truck which was to take me home was slated for departure. Someone -suggested a visit to the Château. So the Top Sergeant, the -barber-interpreter, the Town Major and I all set out together. - -The Château at Sauvoy is a fifteenth century Château, cut out of an old -picture-book, surrounded by a high wall and just about big enough for -two. One enters, oddly enough, through the kitchen which is enormous and -like a Dutch _genre_ painter’s “Interior,” with a cobble-stone floor, an -eight-foot fireplace, dried herbs and vegetables hanging from the -rafters and everywhere on the long shelves, the soft gleam of pewter and -the mellow tones of old china-ware. From the kitchen one steps into a -tiny dining-room paneled in dark carved wood with a bird-cage, empty -now, built into the wall. Beyond this is the _salon_ with a wonderful -old tapestry stretched across one of its walls and some exquisite Louis -Quinze chairs in which kings and queens might have sat. - -But the best thing about the Château is the Chatelain, an old French -gentleman, eighty-nine years of age, the last of his family, who lives -all alone, except for one antique serving-woman, in this beautiful dim -old mansion, wears _sabots_, keeps bees for a living, and every day of -his life cuts from the _journal_ the little daily English lesson, pastes -it in a tiny note-book, and then his poor old eyes an inch from the -paper, cons the words over and over, reading them aloud with _such_ a -pronunciation! - -“In three months,” he told us proudly, “I am going to be an American.” - -He related to us how in 1870 the town was invaded by the Germans and he -taken prisoner. But the Germans were gentlemen then and treated him -humanely; he couldn’t understand what had changed them to such savage -beasts. He took us out and showed us his precious bees. We went through -the garden, a charming place with little box hedges and rose bushes and -currant bushes and gooseberries all growing together in the true French -style. Beyond we came to an open oblong of greensward edged by trees -with fifty hives ranged around it, the hives,—of all quaint -conceits—being made like little Chinese houses, each one different from -the rest, each painted red and blue, a bit shabby and worn by time, but -still gay and jaunty nevertheless. Monsieur guaranteed us that the bees -wouldn’t sting, they weren’t bad bees he said, so we consented to be led -about to each hive in turn and peered in through the little glass -windows at the bees making honey. Sad to say, this is a bad year for -sweets and instead of hundreds of pounds of honey, there will be -scarcely one to sell. - -We went back through the garden and here Monsieur must gather a bouquet -for me. Around and about the garden he hurried, going to every bush in -turn, putting his poor dim eyes down into the very leaves of each, -searching for just what he wanted; and finally it was done, pink and -white roses, red geraniums, camomile and white pinks, made up in a -little stiff bunch and tied with a bit of scarlet string. Then he must -present it with a deep bow and a gallant speech “from an old Frenchman -to _une jolie Américaine_”, while all the rest, including the ancient -maid-servant who had just returned from the fields with an apron full of -clover for the rabbits, stood about and applauded and cried “Vive la -France!” and then “Vive l’ Amérique!” in a quite truly stage manner. - -We left the little Y. in charge of a boy from the Medical Corps. He has -little to do except dispense pills to the French people, so he was -willing to look after it. - -This morning word came in from Sauvoy that the Germans bombed it last -night. Luckily the bombs, evidently aimed at the railroad, fell just -outside the village and did no harm; but poor old Monsieur must have -gotten a bad fright. - - -Abainville, August 1. - -Abainville’s future is at last assured. Work upon the hut has been -resumed. The buzz of barracks-building fills all the place, the railroad -yards gradually but relentlessly encroach; little by little they are -ruining the most beautiful poppy field in all the world. - -Meanwhile our family too has grown. A few days ago three new companies -of engineers arrived in town. These are draft troops from Texas and -Oklahoma, in camp for only a few weeks in the States, shipped here -directly from the base port, and so green to France that they don’t even -know what _oui oui_ means. On the trip here one of these boys, they -tell, after gazing out the door of his “side-door pullman” in silence -half the morning, remarked disgustedly; - -“This is a hell of a country!” - -“What’s the matter?” - -“Why all the stations have got the same name!” - -“The hell they have! What’s the name?” - -“_Sortie!_” - -The Major in command of the new arrivals proves to be an old and none -too amicable acquaintance of our Major’s, their mutual esteem having -been obscured by a law-suit some time in the past which resulted in our -Major’s being forced to part with a considerable sum of money. To make -himself more welcome the new Major has introduced innovations. Up till -now, in accordance with our Major’s theories, we have been a strictly -business community, our energies concentrated chiefly upon what the boys -call P. and S.—pick and shovel. But now with the coming of the new -detachment we have blossomed out with all sorts of military frills. -Armed sentinels marching their beats in a military manner fairly -encumber the camp. One is halted and challenged a half-dozen times on -one’s way home from the canteen at ten o’clock in the evening. I am -startled out of my dreams in the middle of the night by shouts of, -“Corporal of the Guard, Post Number Four!” under my very window. And the -best part of it is that these “Long Boys,” never having had so much as -the A-B-C of military training, make the drollest imitations of real -soldiers that ever were. The atmosphere at Headquarters has of late, I -gather, been slightly tinged with electricity. But the boys belonging to -the older organizations in camp have been enjoying themselves to an -unholy degree “stuffing” the new arrivals with ghastly tales of -air-raids, gas bombs, and Serial machine-gun barrages. - -As in all huts, we have a big map of France tacked to the wall where the -boys can have easy access to it. After one of these maps has been up a -short while, it is always a simple matter when glancing at it, to locate -one’s self—one has only to look for a dirty spot; a little later, -countless more grimy fingers having in the meantime been applied, one -looks for the hole. Yesterday one of our new friends came to me and -asked: - -“Please, Ma’am, could you tell me where that there place, ‘No Man’s -Land’ that they talk about in the papers is? I’ve been a-lookin’ an’ -a-lookin’ an’ I can’t find it on the map nowhere.” - -Along with the new engineers Nanny arrived in town. Nanny is an Alabama -goat, smuggled on board the transport wrapped up in one of the boys’ -overcoats. Her fleece is pure white and she is fat as a little -butter-ball. Already she is one of our most distinguished citizens. -Possessed of an adventurous spirit, she makes herself free of every -house in town, being particularly fond of climbing stairs and appearing -at unsuspected moments in odd corners of one’s billet. Madame explains -the attraction here: “She smells an American, you see!” which is a -quaint thought. Nanny is the pet detestation of the Adjutant, for she -has a _penchant_ for straying into his office and nibbling at every -paper within reach. Already several valuable documents have disappeared -down her greedy little throat. Last night, in revenge, one of the boys -in the Adjutant’s office, armed with a pot of bright red paint, painted -Nanny in “dazzle” designs. Today she is a sight. - -This morning I was puzzled to observe that a considerable number of the -newcomers were wearing pink tickets in their hats. - -“What’s that?” I asked. - -“Them? Them’s meal tickets!” They explained; the report had gone around -that the chow of one of the companies was of superior quality; -immediately the chow line of that same company had assumed an inordinate -length. The mess sergeant, unable, since the company was so new, to -distinguish his own men from the self-invited guests, had found it -necessary to attach tags to the company. - -With the coming of the new engineers, the sale of one article in stock -has swelled to unprecedented quantities. One member of the force is -fairly kept busy from morning until night cutting off chunks of chewing -tobacco. Texas and Oklahoma, it seems, have unlimited capacities for -this commodity. Now with all due respect to the honourable American -tribe of chewers, this indulgence raises a very delicate question for -the canteen lady in whose charge rests the appearance of the hut. The -scrap-boxes are already in a bad way, I frankly advocate spittoons, but -our detail, who is a very superior lad, known among his cronies as “The -Infant” because of his pink cheeks and innocently solemn air, flatly -refuses. There are some things, he declares, to which he will not stoop, -and he grows very stiff and red in the face if I hint at it. - -“I have discussed the matter,” he told me yesterday, “with several very -eminent chewers, and they all agree that there isn’t the slightest -necessity for their behaviour!” - -There may not be any necessity,—how am I to judge? But there is a very -actual and urgent state of affairs. And what is one to do about it? - - -Abainville, August 13. - -The hut is finished. Now if at any time Marshal Foch or General Pershing -or President Poincaré should happen this way, we could say: Come in, -gentlemen, and behold us; don’t we look nice? - -The main part of the hut, the big auditorium, is done in creamy yellow -and brown with rafters of bright blue, the windows hung with curtains of -sumptuous orange chintz. The writing-room is blue and yellow too, with -green and yellow curtains on which, in a bower of branches, black-birds -perch; runners of the same material lie across the writing tables, the -practical advantage of this pattern being that whenever anyone spills a -bottle of ink on a runner, it merely gives the effect of one more -black-bird. In each window of the writing-room is a little pot with a -scarlet geranium, while the walls of both writing-room and auditorium -are bright with beautiful French posters. - -But the best of all the hut, to my mind at least, is the Tea -Room,—so-called until we think of something better to name it,—for the -Tea Room was my own particular pet scheme. According to the plans, the -ell behind the canteen counter was cut up into half a dozen little -rooms. By eliminating part of the central hall, the “mess-room” and the -“ladies’ room” and moving the office out to an unused corner by the -movie machine booth, we got space for a fair-sized room connected by a -serving-window with the kitchen. Our matched lumber having run short we -used rough lumber and covered it with burlap; each strip was a different -weave and texture, to be sure, but all the same it was burlap! The -woodwork and little tables we painted a bright green, hung vivid green -curtains at the windows, then, taking the covers of chewing tobacco -boxes, stained these green too, pasted in the centre of each a bright -little water-color reproduction cut from an English art magazine, tacked -them up on the walls, and _voilà!_ as pretty a little room as could be -found short of Paris! - -In the Tea Room we serve pink lemonade, hot chocolate, jam sandwiches, -cookies and canned fruit. The boys are living on a diet of what they -call “goat’s meat” at present;—whenever it is time for a chow line to -form you can hear a chorus of bleats and baas half across the camp,—and -so sick of this have they become that many will sup off chocolate and -sandwiches in the Tea Room by preference. Yesterday I took a chance and -tried making a ten gallon boiler full of raspberry tapioca pudding, -using the bottled fruit juice. At first the boys were inclined to be -cautious. - -“What do you call that?” - -“How would raspberry slum do?” - -“Well, I’ll try anything once!” - -But after the first taste it went all too fast. - -“Say, are there any seconds on this?” - -“Lady,” said one lad solemnly to me, “with pudding like that I could -stay four years more in the army.” - -One of the divisions from the lines arrived in this area, a few days -ago, for a short period of rest. A number of the men are encamped up on -the hill near the old Artillery School and they come straying down to -our hut. Poor lads, it is pitiful to see how wonderful it seems to them -to be in a place that is clean and pretty. - -“This looks like a bit of heaven to me,” declared one boy. - -Another, sitting in the Tea Room stirring his chocolate, commented, -“Gee, this is a swell place in here. You ought ter get some fancy name -for it.” - -“What would you suggest?” - -“Well I should think,” he looked around, “you might call it Canary -Cottage.” - -Yet occasionally I wonder if it really all pays, as when I pick out the -cigar butts which, in spite of the trash boxes beneath the tables, the -boys will persist in sticking in the vases of flowers and planting in -the geranium pots, or when, as last night, I catch a fellow using one of -the beautiful chintz runners from the tables with which to wipe the mud -off his boots. - - -Abainville, August 21. - - Talk kills men. - Don’t talk. The walls have ears. - Keep mum, let the guns talk for you. - -Thus are we placarded. Every hut, every café, every garage, every place -of any sort where the A. E. F. may meet together and indulge in -conversation, now bears a board with some such legend printed on it and -after each terse warning is the terser admonition; Read G. O. 39. A -campaign of silence is on foot. These catchy phrases, American -variations on the classic French line: _Taisez vous, méfiez vous, les -oreilles ennemies vous ecoutent!_—Be still, beware, the ears of the -enemy are listening!—are to be perpetual reminders to us that we are all -too prone to gossip indiscreetly. - -As to just what one may say and mustn’t say, I for one confess, not -having read G. O. 39, that I am in a quandary. I find myself hesitating -before mentioning the fact that we had baked beans for dinner. As for -talking about the weather, why that leads naturally to the subject of -moonlight nights, and moonlight nights, as every one knows, now imply -not romance but air-raids and air-raids are of course a tabooed topic. -Indeed I am beginning to have a sneaking conviction that perhaps it -would be better to discard speech entirely and take to conversing in -dumb show. - -Sometimes some small thing that comes to one’s attention will -crystallize a difference between two races so sharply as to be -startling. This was impressed on me the other day by two posters. Both -the French and American authorities have recently issued warnings to -their soldiers concerning the practice of riding on the tops of railroad -cars, since this habit has led to a number of casualties. The French -poster reads something like this: - -Whereas it has been brought to the attention of the Commissioner of -Railroads, that various accidents have occurred resulting from the -practice indulged in by soldiers of obtruding a portion or the whole of -their bodies beyond the limits of the car; it is urgently requested that -the soldiers in transit upon the railroad should henceforth restrict -themselves to the interior of the cars. - -The American sign runs thus: - -“If you want to see the next block, keep yours inside! Your head may be -hard but it’s not as hard as concrete!” Pithily it states the number of -casualties resulting from this trick, explains that the French bridges -and tunnels only allow six inches clearance above the top of the cars, -and ends; - -“Your life may not be worth anything to you, but it may cost your -country $10,000.” - -But the triumph of American sign art, a specimen of which hangs in the -Adjutant’s office, is the gas-defense poster. It starts off with the Gas -School slogan: - -“There are two classes of men in a gas attack, the quick and the dead,” -proceeds to poetry: - - “The hard-boiled guy said gas was bunk, - It couldn’t hurt you, only stunk.... - The hard-boiled guy went up the line, - Fritz spilled the mustard good and fine; - And now some people wonder why - It’s flowers for the hard-boiled guy,” - -and ends with the admonition that seems a little ironical to one who -must struggle to make green wood burn in a broken-down French range; -“Cook with it, don’t croak with it.” - -Today we put up a sign fill of our own over the counter. For some -reason, transportation probably, there has been a most distressing lack -of supplies in this area recently. Not only are we suffering, but the -Salvation Army and even the sales commissaries have all been stricken -with the same famine. Indeed I was told of one commissary which bore the -warning; “We have salt, mustard and baking powder. That’s all.” Tired of -replying several hundred times a day; “I’m awfully sorry but we haven’t -any so-and-so,” I made a sign which was a list of all the “haven’t gots” -and tacked it up over the counter. Thinking to be funny I included -strawberry ice-cream among the rest, to be promptly punished by an -innocent-eyed youth who inquired hopefully; “What kind of ice-cream -_have_ you got?” - -Another boy read through the list once, twice, then looked up at the -Infant disgustedly. - -“Why don’t you put ‘Hell!’ at the bottom of it?” he queried. - -“’Pears to me it would be easier to make a list of the things you _have_ -got,” suggested another. - -A little while longer and if no help comes, we shall be doing this. I -can see that sign in my mind’s eye now. It will read something like -this: - - We have - chewing tobacco - indelible pencils - and - shaving brushes - - -Abainville, September 2. - -Once a month, according to schedule, the whole personnel of the division -is summoned to Y. Headquarters at Gondrecourt for a conference. Formerly -these conferences were largely religious in significance, consisting of -much righteousness with a slight leaven of business. Each one in turn -was looked forward to as a pious but unprofitable duty and evaded when -possible,—which wasn’t often. Now with a change in the directorship the -conferences have taken on an almost entirely practical tone. -Incidentally they have gained amazingly in popularity. For now one can -attend a conference with confidence that during its progress one will -surely glean more than one quaint bit of human comedy. - -Today it was the Aviation Camp Secretary who supplied most of the spice. -This is an odd but very earnest little man whom I shall always remember -as I saw him at the Gondrecourt railway station last May, starting for -Paris dressed up in a “tin hat” and a gas mask. Whether this was in -order to bluff Paris into thinking that he had come straight from the -front, or whether this was to protect himself against the assaults of -Big Bertha while in the city, I could not determine, but never since -have I been able to take the gentleman quite seriously. - -The Aviation Secretary created the first sensation by rising suddenly to -his feet and reading a motion to the effect that the Gondrecourt -Division of the Y. M. C. A. should go on record as registering a protest -against “the wicked state of the Paris streets,” citing Mr. Edward Bok -and his action in the case of the streets of Liverpool. For a moment no -one said a word, then a secretary arose and requested that the motion be -amended to read more clearly, as in its present form it might be taken -to refer to the condition of the paving, or the criminal recklessness of -the taxi drivers. The Warehouse Man then solemnly proposed that in view -of Mr. Bok a ruling should be passed that while in Paris all secretaries -should be required to travel by the subway or in a cab. I wanted to ask -if it wouldn’t do just as well if special prayers should be offered for -each secretary on his departure for the wicked city, but refrained. - -No sooner had the excitement over the Paris streets subsided, than the -Aviation Secretary was on his feet again with a second resolution. This -was in effect a petition to the Paris office that they send us -proportionately less tobacco and more sweets for sale in the canteens. -This precipitated a fiery argument, the smokers lined up against the -non-smokers. Listening to the non-smokers you became convinced that the -manhood of America was on its way to ruin through excessive cigarettes; -listening to the smokers you became equally certain that the war would -be won by tobacco smoke. The situation became so tense one could almost -see the sparks in the air. In the end the smokers had it. - -The next thrill was caused by one of the women workers who in the course -of a speech took occasion to deprecate the housekeeping abilities of the -men secretaries. On Fourth of July, she declared, when the chocolate -cups from all over the area had been sent into Gondrecourt for the -celebration there, some of them had been discovered to be in a shocking -state. These had later been traced to a hut where there was no woman -worker. Instantly the Aviation Secretary was up again. This charge was a -personal matter, he declared, as the cups in question had been his. -However he denied the implication. The cups had been perfectly clean -when they left the hut, they must have become soiled en route. And so -the conference comedy is played out. - -At the town of X. there is a secretary who declares he is devoting his -life to the service of the Lord. Some years ago he found himself -becoming deaf. So he told the Lord that if He would restore his hearing -he would spend the rest of his days in performing good works. He was -cured. Last week he created a corner on eggs in this vicinity by buying -one hundred and twenty-five dozen at five francs per. Now he is -reselling them for six. Wanting eggs badly to make custard for some sick -boys here, and not being able to obtain them any other way, I walked -over to X. and bought two dozen. When I got home I counted them, there -were just twenty-three. Surely the Lord got the worst of that bargain! - - -Abainville, September 9. - -Something is going to happen. - -We have been used to seeing the French Army go by; interminable lines of -camions, so many feet apart, rolling through the town for hours on end. -Sometimes we have seen a section pass through on its way to the front, -only to return again some ten days later. Once seen, a French camion -train is never forgotten, for each automobile section bears painted on -its sides the distinctive insignia of the unit. These are sometimes -droll, sometimes sentimental, but always cleverly designed and usually -striking,—a poilu drinking _pinard_ from his canteen, a pelican, a polar -bear, a dancing monkey, a soldier embracing a peasant girl, a grinning -Algerian’s head in ear rings and a red fez, a gendarme holding up a -threatening club. - -But now by day, by night, it is the Americans who are passing through, -their faces set toward the front, on troop-trains, in camions, on foot. -Coming home from the canteen in the evening one hears the heavy rattle -that means artillery on the move, and standing by the roadside peering -through the darkness one can just discern horses and caissons, -slat-wagons, supply-wagons and, looming ominously in the dim light, the -formidable bulk of the great guns. - -Night before last I was awakened by the sound of troops passing, a -regiment of infantry on the march. I lay and listened; the tramp, tramp, -tramp of the rhythmic feet was unvarying, incessant, then came a break. -The order had been given to halt for a rest. The boys were evidently -sitting down by the edge of the road. But though they rested they were -by no means still. - -“_Oh Mademoiselle!_” they entreated the dark and unresponsive houses, -“_Oh, Mademoiselle! Deux vin rouge toot sweet s’il vous plaît, -Mademoiselle!_” - -They swore genially. They sang snatches of _Hail, hail the gang’s all -here_ and _Tipperary_. One boy had a mouth organ which he played with -vim. Someone introduced a barnyard motif and they were off, crowing and -cackling, mooing and bleating, imitating every animal known to domestic -life. They sounded like schoolboys off for a holiday and my God! they -were soldiers on the march to the front, their faces set to the battle! - -Tonight as we came home from the hut, we were startled by a strange -sight. The sky was clear, except for one dark mass shaped like a cloud -of smoke which hung above the horizon to the north. As we looked, -suddenly the under side of the cloud turned an angry crimson, then in a -moment grew dark again. A minute later the red glow showed again only to -fade but and be repeated. We knew that the angry light must be the glare -reflected from the flashes of the guns which were belching red death -across the lines. All at once the battle-field seemed very near. - - -Abainville, September 14. - -We have taken the Saint Mihiel salient! The news came in yesterday over -the wires. At first we couldn’t believe it. We have heard so many -wonderful but alas! too hopeful things over those wires! But now the -newspapers have proved it, with their maps showing the salient cut off -as clean as by a knife. And if we wanted concrete proof, why we have -that too. They have sent for a detail of engineers from Abainville to -build hurry-up prison pens. They simply haven’t any place to put the -thousands of captive Germans. The detail set out in high spirits looking -forward to doing a brisk business in souvenirs; already reports have -come in to the effect that buttons and shoulder-straps may be had in -exchange for a cigarette, and a ring for a sack of five-cent “smoking.” - -The inhabitants of Saint Mihiel, they say, were terror-stricken at the -sight of the Americans. When our troops first entered the town they -believed the city had been retaken. The Americans, they thought, were -Austrians. No one in Saint Mihiel had ever seen an American; they hadn’t -even known America was in the war! - -But even in Saint Mihiel I don’t believe that there was any greater joy -than the joy that was here in our own kitchen. Madame who helps us with -the dishes at the hut is the daughter of the refugee schoolmaster, a -shy, sensitive, appealing little woman, girl-like in spite of her -half-grown daughter. When we told her that the salient had been taken -she went white and trembled. And what of Vieville? she begged; Vieville, -her own little village? We got the map and showed it to her. Sure -enough, there was Vieville and the new line stretching the other side of -it! It was true past doubting. Madame shivered. “I don’t know whether to -laugh or to cry,” she told us and there were sobs in her voice while she -smiled at us. She tried to go on with scrubbing the floor, but she -couldn’t. Would we mind if she ran home for a minute? She must tell the -news to Papa and Maman. But certainly, stay as long as you like! we told -her. In an hour she was back again, to go about her work in a dazed -uncertain fashion, smiling tremulously while the tears stood in her -eyes. We must get someone to take her place at the canteen, she told -us,—they would be going back to Vieville right away. It was plain to see -that she would have liked to start that very moment. We said nothing. Of -course it was impossible. Vieville though liberated was close to the -lines. When I looked at Madame so happy, so confidently eager to return -to her home, I sickened to think of the ruin that probably awaited her. -How do they have the courage to face it, these French people? I thought -of the words of the old schoolmaster: “We are living under tension now, -it is the strain that keeps us up. When the war is over there will be a -terrible reaction.” They have been brave, so brave, these peasant -villagers, but how will they bear the future? Where will they be swept -when they are caught in the fearful ebb of that reaction? - -Already odd-looking little German narrow-gauge engines and freight cars -have begun to appear in the yards, part of the Saint Mihiel booty. It -does the eyes good to look at them. - -One doesn’t want to hope too greatly, but is it possible that this may -be the beginning of the end? - - -Abainville, September 18. - -Last night they bombed Gondrecourt. We were startled out of our sleep by -the explosions. Lying in bed I could hear the angry growling gr-gr-gr -which distinguishes the German plane, as it flew over Abainville headed -back towards the lines. Would it drop another bomb? It seemed to take an -interminable time to pass over us. Finally the growling hum grew faint, -died away. Then the real excitement of the night began. Swarming into -the streets, men, women and children, they proceeded to turn the -occasion into a social event. Standing in the square in the moonlight, -all talking at once and all talking at the top of their voices, they -discussed, narrated, compared, commented, sympathized, while high above -all the din I could hear Madame’s voice in semi-hysterical outbursts of -emotion. How they could find so much to say about it I can’t imagine. If -Hindenburg’s whole army had suddenly appeared in Gondrecourt they -couldn’t have been more excited. I went to sleep and left them still -busy analyzing, as I took it, their psychological reactions. - -This morning we learned that the bombs, falling at the edge of the town, -had injured nothing except a few trees. - -“What would you do if they should start to bomb Abainville?” I asked -Madame when she brought me my morning toast and chocolate. - -“I? I would go to the church.” - -“What you, the infidel! You who never go to mass!” - -“I know.” Madame smiled a little sheepishly. “And yet all the same, one -would feel safer there.” - -At the canteen a lieutenant who was just finishing his course at -Gondrecourt came in. - -“Nobody can imagine who should have wanted to bomb the school,” he -declared, “unless it was some former pupil.” - -“Why I was told that the Gondrecourt School was the ranking school of -France!” I exclaimed. - -“Made a mistake in the last syllable,” he responded sourly, “it should -have been spelled e-s-t.” - -But if the inhabitants of Abainville have experienced no losses through -air-raids yet, they have nevertheless, suffered a minor casualty. -Victor, the town simpleton, the genial, harmless Victor, was knocked -down by a passing automobile yesterday and became separated from his -left ear in the ensuing confusion. Poor wretch! I saw him this morning -hobbling down the street with a cane, his head swathed in bandages, but -the same old cheerful smile on his half-wit face, as he cocked one eye -warily on the look-out for approaching autos. Meanwhile a heated -controversy is being waged between the medical officers of Abainville as -to whether or not that ear might after all have been saved. - - -Saint Malo, Brittany, September 23. - -Today I took tea with a Baroness, not only I, but about eighty odd -members of the A. E. F. here _en permission_ like myself. Our hostess -was an American lady, the widow of a French Baron; the tea a weekly -party held at her Château out in the country, to which all boys on leave -in this Brittany area are invited. - -We took the funny little narrow-gauge train from Saint Malo, a “mixed” -train and so crowded by the tea party that the boys must ride in the -baggage car and on the flat freight cars, and started our journey out to -Châteauneuf. The feature of the train trip was the blackberries. Here in -Brittany these grow all along the roadsides, the bushes topping the -narrow earth-covered walls like dykes that serve for fences. Strangely -enough in this land of thrift, the blackberries go untouched, untasted. -A Frenchman who lectured to us last spring declared that as a child he -was warned not to eat them: they would give him lice, he was told. This, -he explained, was the method which French parents took to dissuade their -children from eating berries which, growing along the roadsides, would -be full of dust—a quaint scruple to find among people ordinarily so -superior to sanitary considerations! But the Americans had no such -superstitions; at every cross-roads stop we made, the boys swarmed off -the cars and fell upon the wayside bushes. I tasted some that one of the -boys brought back for me. Compared to our blackberries at home they were -flat and flavorless, but anyway they were fruit and they were free and -that was all the A. E. F. demanded. - -Arrived at Châteauneuf, we must first file through the reception room -where each and all of us shook hands with the Baroness, a gracious, -stately old lady dressed in black, and then out upon the lawn beyond the -long ivy-covered, many-gabled house, to sit upon the grass and drink our -tea. But tea was a misnomer unless it might have been the sort which the -English call “high tea,” it was a supper; salad, sandwiches, buttermilk -and fruit punch served on real china plates and in dainty goblets. Many -a covetous eye I saw fixed on the silver forks with the coronets -engraved on them, while the whispered word “souvenir” caught my ear, but -to the boys’ credit I am glad to say that, as far as I know, they one -and all resisted this temptation. - -After supper the boys sang and then we were invited to go through the -house and wander about the grounds and garden. Coming back to the house -after having made the rounds, the boy who was with me suddenly stopped -stock-still. - -“Well I’ll be darned!” - -Before us wound a tiny stream and perched on its bank an old, old -peasant woman was busy scrubbing what was evidently the Château wash. -The boy turned and looked at me despairingly, “And for all that’s such a -fine house,” he groaned, “I suppose there ain’t so much as a speck of -plumbing in the whole blamed building!” - -On the lawn we found games were in progress. All the youngsters from the -neighborhood had assembled to watch the Americans at the tea party. At -first they had hung shyly on the outskirts, but now a lad from the air -service had started them to romping. Taking hold of hands a long line of -these little gamin would pursue a soldier victim, encircle him, bring -him to earth, then pile on him, holding him a helpless prisoner until he -bought his liberty with a ransom of cigarettes, gum or coppers. It was a -wonderful game for the children but I could not help but watch with -apprehension, every time there was a pig-pile, to see where all those -wooden shoes would land. - -Coming home, we walked to the little fishing village next door and took -the train there. As this visit to the village is also a weekly affair, -all the inhabitants were on their door-steps to greet us, the women with -their red cheeks, dressed invariably in black dresses and little stiffly -starched net caps. We went into the church with its array of votive -offerings in the shape of tiny models of fishing boats and then, on our -way to the station, stopped to view, over the hedge, the picture-book -garden of one old fisherman in which the trees and shrubs were all -clipped and trained into the quaintest shapes—peacocks and animals and -little ships. As the crowd moved on I lingered. An old man leaning on a -cane, who had been watching from the roadside, stepped forward and spoke -to me. He was the owner of the garden. He wanted to express to me his -gratitude to America, America who had saved France! “_Ah! Vive -l’Amérique!_” The old fellow’s tribute, unsolicited and unpremeditated -evidently, touched me deeply. - - -Abainville, October 4. - -While I was away it seems several things occurred. For one, we lost -Nanny. Whether some enterprising mess sergeant thought the day’s menu -would be improved by the addition of kid pie, whether some French family -lured her away to be interned in their back yard, or whether, as one -might more darkly suspect, the Adjutant had something to do with the -matter; nobody knows. The bare fact confronts us: Nanny has disappeared. - -We have also lost one of our most picturesque customers. This was a -handsome young Greek with a beautiful curled mustache, named Niccolo. He -used to hold up the chocolate line, while, his eyes fairly shooting -fire, he rolled up his sleeves and showed me the scars of the bayonet -wounds which he received fighting the Turks. “The German, he just the -same the Turk! I tella the Captain he letta me go front, killa ten, -twenty, hundred Germans!” Why such a bloodthirsty soul as his should be -cribbed, cabined and confined in an engineer regiment, he never -explained. Just before I went away on leave a detail of prisoners from -the guard-house arrived at the hut one morning to scrub the floor. To my -regret I noticed Noccolo was among them. Niccolo, however, did not seem -to mind, he was quite happily occupied with telling the others how the -work should be done. - -“That feller’s nuts,” complained a fellow-prisoner to me, “he spends all -his time when he’s in the brig, tryin’ to read the Bible to us.” - -While I was away they sent him to the Gondrecourt hospital on suspicion -of insanity. The other night he escaped and made his way back to -Abainville clad in his hospital pajamas, only to be caught and taken -back again. Poor Niccolo with his beautiful mustache and his fiery -spirit! I am sorry he never had the chance to get those Germans. - -Worst of all, the Y. is in disgrace with the officers. It came about -through the matter of seats at the movies. The officers wanted to come -to the shows and they also wanted seats reserved for them; naturally -they wanted the best seats. Now this is always a vexed and delicate -problem in a hut, for if the officers ask for reserved seats one can’t -very well refuse them, and yet to grant them is to raise resentment -among the men. When I left the matter was hanging at loose ends. Shortly -afterwards our Secretary, who is more distinguished for sentimentality -than tact, had an inspiration; he would put it up to the men. -Undoubtedly when the case was laid before them, their nobler natures -would be touched and they would discern that it was their patriotic duty -to voluntarily relinquish the best seats in the house to their military -superiors. So one night just as the show was due to start the Secretary -walked out onto the stage and made his little speech, ending with the -appeal: - -“And now boys, where shall we put the officers?” - -A perfect roar answered him. “Put ’em on the roof! Put ’em on the roof!” - -It was frightfully embarrassing. The officers were furious. They -withdrew and called a mass-meeting to consider the matter. What the -exact statute that covered the case was I don’t know. I suppose the -crime was one of a sort of military _lèse Majesté_. Anyway the Secretary -had indisputably laid himself liable to a court-martial. In the end, -however, the officers decided that as long as the case was one of -stupidity rather than malice, they would let the Secretary go with a -warning. - -And now they have stationed spotters among us! The hut, it seems, has -proved to possess an all too potent charm for boys who should by rights -be engaged at “pick and shovel” and other uninviting but necessary -occupations. In view of this the authorities have taken drastic action; -passes must now be issued to the boys to allow them to enter the hut -during work hours, and alas for the unhappy lad who ventures in without -a permit, the lynx-like eye of the amateur detective detail is sure to -light upon him! - - -Abainville, October 11. - -Nanny has returned! She was found tethered in a back-yard in a nearby -village. Since the French household which claimed her as their lawful -property refused to relinquish her peacefully, she was taken by storm. -There was a scrimmage, the neighbors rallied to their friends’ -assistance. But the two lads who had been the discoverers managed to -break away bearing the struggling Nanny with them and, followed by the -whole village shouting “Stop thief!” gained their truck and rolled -triumphantly away. No longer, however, does Nanny wander at large, -innocently trimming the villagers’ cabbage rows, or slipping slyly into -the Adjutant’s office to sample his latest orders. Nanny is under guard. -The engineers are taking no chances. - -Yesterday we acquired a kitten,—a wild-eyed yellow scrap brought in last -night by a lad as an offering. The boys immediately christened her “The -O. D. Cat.” Every time I give her a caress some one of the boys leaning -over the counter is sure to remark: “Gee, wish I was a cat!” - -“But what shall I feed her?” I questioned, thinking of the difficulty of -fresh milk. - -“Corn willy and cognac! What else would you give an O. D. cat?” they -chorused. - -“And where shall she spend the night?” - -“I’ll keep her for you ma’am,” volunteered a brawny Texan. “She’ll sleep -right in the bunk longside o’ me.” - -This morning the canteen was full of tales of the night. “Yes sir! he -tied her up to a post with a rope as big around as your arm! An’ the -pore cat nearly hanged herself. She hollered all night long!” - -This the Texan emphatically denied; he had a tale all of his own to tell -however. - -“There was a mouse last night in the barracks. It was the littlest mouse -you ever seen, but it chased that cat all around them barracks. Yes -ma’am, it sure did run that cat ragged!” - -“Did you give her any breakfast?” I asked, disdaining any comment on his -story. - -“Sure ma’am! I gave her a saucerful of cognac.” - -“You never did!” - -“Yes, an’ it did that cat good, it did. Soon’s she’d lapped up that -saucer; ‘Bring on your mouse!’ she says.” He shook his head -reflectively. “My, but that cat sure was feelin’ its strength this -mornin’!” - -“Waste cognac on a cat! That’s a likely story for that guy to be -telling!” was the single comment of the bystanders. - -Right here I wish to record a formal apology to the Secretary at X who -sold me the six-franc eggs a month ago. Today I was talking to the Top -Sergeant whom I encountered on my way home and who carried my basket for -me. From something he let fall I now more than suspect it was he who -accounted for that twenty-fourth egg! - - -Abainville, October 16. - -His real name, of course, is Horace but since Madame refers to him as -’Oreece, as ’Oreece he must go,—’Oreece is our new detail. He is -cautious, conscientious and slow. If ’Oreece ever showed signs of having -spunk enough to do something that was really bad, I would feel that -there was hope for him. Madame, who adores the Infant, is very cold to -’Oreece. The other day she requested him to save her all the cigar stubs -he found while sweeping. She wanted them for an old derelict of a -Frenchman who is a sort of scavenger around camp. Poor old papa could -smoke the butts nicely in his pipe she declared. But ’Oreece was so -disobliging as to turn his nose up at their proposal. Anyway ’Oreece -cuts the bread for the jam-sandwiches very, very nicely. - -Three nights ago we had an air-raid alarm. The evening’s programme was -over but the hut was still full of boys. Suddenly without any warning, -all the lights went out. We looked out the door, the camp was in total -darkness. In the machine-gun pit nearby we could hear quick excited -orders interspersed with curses,—the gunners were getting ready to stand -off the aeroplanes. The boys left the hut. We waited for a while and -then, getting tired of the dark, went home. The planes didn’t show up; I -went to bed feeling that it had been a case of Hamlet without Hamlet. - -Last night we were in the middle of a movie show when a shattering -explosion sounded outside. Back in the kitchen where I was serving hot -chocolate to the Tea Room line, everyone started and stared. Was it a -raid? Surely that was a bomb! There was another explosion. Then the -lights went out. So it was the real thing! I seized the Cash-box and -stood pat. Another crash; instantly outside there was a stampede. In the -dark it was impossible to see just what was happening, but from the -sounds it appeared that about seven hundred pairs of hob-nailed shoes -were doing double-quick time out the doors. In less time than one could -believe the auditorium was empty. I heard Madame’s voice behind me in -staccato exclamations. Somebody scratched a match and lit a candle, a -little group of boys were still standing at the window waiting for their -chocolate, their faces looked a bit white I thought. Then the Infant put -his head out the kitchen door: - -“Why, the lights in camp are all on!” he exclaimed. - -A boy came up to the window. “They’re practising at the school,” he told -us. “I heard the other day that they were going to pull some stunts in -the trenches tonight.” - -“So that was it!” - -The lights flashed on. - -“But why did they go out?” I asked confused. Nobody could explain it. - -At that moment ’Oreece drifted into the kitchen, he wore a very pale and -apologetic grin. - -“’Oreece!” I gasped, “Did you—” - -“I turned the lights off,” he admitted. “I knew where the switch was. I -thought it was a raid.” - -I glared disgusted: “And a nice night’s work you’ve done!” - -My friend the Texan strolled up to the deserted counter. - -“I met ’em all coming down the road,” he remarked. “Gee, but it was like -the retreat of a whole division!” - -Today the boys have been asking to tease me: “Where were _you_ in the -Great Air-Raid?” - -“I? Oh, I was under the kitchen-table,” I reply. - - -Abainville, October 23. - -The Chief has just brought me great news. I am to have a hut all of my -own. I am to be head cook, bottle-washer, and grand high secretary all -in one. And I am to go out into the wilds of France and start a new hut -alone. - -It seems there is an ordnance depot at a village called Mauvages about -six miles north of here. The camp itself is small, some two hundred men, -but the town has a large billeting capacity and additional bodies of -troops will be stationed there from time to time. The C. O. of the -Ammunition Reclamation Camp,—that is its official title,—has requested -that a hut be established there. With the personnel in its present state -no man secretary, says the Chief, can be spared, but if I care to -undertake the job on my own I am welcome to it. And if after two months -or so of solitary confinement “out in the sticks,” as the boys say, I -get to hankering too badly for the flesh-pots of civilization, why they -will arrange to have me relieved. Need I say that I snapped up the offer -on the spot? I had asked to be transferred from Abainville some while -ago, as the conditions here have been none too congenial, but to have a -hut all of my own is beyond any luck that I had dared dream. - -I would like to sling my old kit bag over my shoulder, tuck a chocolate -container under one arm and a case of cigarettes under the other, and -catch the first truck that passes bound northward for Mauvages. But it -seems they won’t let me go until a New Lady comes here to take my place. -They have telegraphed to the office at Nancy. If the New Lady doesn’t -come quick, I have a good mind to go A. W. O. L. and start my canteen -willy-nilly. - -Meanwhile I am planning plans. Because of the grey chill days of winter -I am going to paint my hut inside the brightest sunshiny yellow I can -find, hang it with orange curtains, and then in honor of the ordnance, -christen it the Pumpkin Shell! - - - - -CHAPTER VI: MAUVAGES—THE ORDNANCE - - -Abainville, October 26. - -I have been to Mauvages; a reconnoitering expedition. As regards the -town the most striking feature about it is the Egyptian Fountain. A -somewhat startling structure to come upon in a little French mudpie -village, it stands in the centre of the town and consists of the façade -of a temple in front of which towers an ancient God of the Nile—or so I -take him—in dull green bronze, pouring from pitchers held in either hand -clear streams of water into a broad semi-circular basin. Behind the -columns is another pool, this one for the village washerwomen: a -cleverly conceived arrangement, for every passing stranger must stop to -stare at the fountain and this in turn affords the washerwomen the -opportunity to stare at him. - -Around two sides of the town curves the canal along whose placid surface -the slow barges occasionally pass. They tell me that some very beautiful -women go by on these canal boats, but I suspect that the reason that -they seem so beautiful is just that they do go by—the lure of the -unobtainable. At the south end of the town the canal disappears into a -hill-side, four miles to the southwest it appears again; a rather -remarkable, and in view of the fact that in the most piping times of -peace the traffic on the canal never exceeded four barges each way a -day, inexplicably extravagant feat of engineering. Every now and then a -little crowd of ordnance boys will take a notion to walk through the -tunnel which has a path cut at one side, an excursion which must be -unspeakably dreary as the whole length is quite unlighted and the air -damp and close beyond anything. More than once on these excursions a boy -has fallen into the canal and had to be fished out again. - -My hut-to-be is on the further edge of town in the centre of a beautiful -open green field like a lawn. Just behind it is a large ruined stone -house which the boys use as a background against which to take pictures -“at the front” and on one side is a lovely tall wayside cross and a tiny -chapel, the smallest I have ever seen, almost hidden in a little grove -of bushes. The hut is a French recreation barracks; long, low, covered -with black tar paper, the windows filled with grimy cloth, it is -comprised of four walls, a roof, a tiny stage and a mud floor,—a good -mud floor, the best mud floor, I am assured, in this part of France. - -As for my billet, I am to lodge, it seems, with Monsieur le Curé. He was -out when I called but the Major du Cantonment and Madame the Caretaker -settled things between them. What Monsieur le Curé will say when he come -home and discovers that _une demoiselle Américaine_ is to live _chez -lui_, I don’t know, but as Monsieur le Major himself suggested it, it -must be in accordance with the clerical proprieties. - -The Curé’s mansion is a rather stately, gloomy square house set back -from the street with a rose-garden edging the path in front. My room has -a Juliet balcony with a view of the Egyptian Fountain, the ancient -church and a scrap of rolling hills beyond. Breakfasts I have arranged -to take with Madame the Caretaker who lives several doors down the -street, dinners and suppers I am to eat by courtesy of the C. O. at the -camp. - -When I returned tonight I told my landlady of my plans. Her eyes fairly -danced with mischievous glee. - -“Oh la la! You and the Curé!” she cried. “_Le diable avec le bon Dieu!_ -It will be necessary for you to become a good Catholic, say your -prayers, and go to mass every morning. Who knows? Perhaps you may end by -becoming a _religieuse_.” - - -Mauvages, November 2. - -We are building. This proves to be a painful process, consisting largely -of discovering what you can’t have and what you will have to do without. -For instance, it appears that there is not enough lumber to be had in -France to furnish me a complete floor, and I had set my heart on having -a nice, whole, _sweepable_ floor! French barracks, one should note in -passing, are constructed of sections; the upper part of the walls -containing the window sections being vertical, the lower sloping outward -at an angle of about thirty-five degrees. By a process of begging, -borrowing and salvaging—nobody says _steal_ any more these days,—I have -visions of getting the floor in the centre all filled in, but for the -edges, under the sloping sides, I am afraid there is no hope. But I’m -not going to mind, I tell the boys; I shall start a series of war -gardens in the little mud-plots, cabbages in number one, brussels -sprouts in number two, and violets just for my own satisfaction in -three. And the boys can take turns hoeing them. - -For the rest, we have cut a door in the side for general entrance, the -original one being reserved for cooks, colonels and K. P.s, and across -the front end opposite the stage we have constructed our store-room, -kitchen and canteen. A lattice is all that separates the kitchen from -the counter; this is so, in order to facilitate social intercourse -between the cook and the customers, and also to enable the secretary, no -matter if she is engaged in stirring the chocolate or washing the -dishes, to keep a weather eye on what is going on outside. But the -triumph of my hut-plan is the window-seat. Half-way down the hut we have -a stove, a stove which looks as big as an engine-boiler, a stove which -makes the eyes of all beholders fairly pop with admiration. “That’s a -real stove,” say the boys. “That ain’t no frog stove I’ll tell the -world!” And back of the stove we have a seat three sections long against -the wall. Wonderful to say that seat is comfortable and what’s more it -has sofa-cushions. “What are those pillers for?” demanded one boy -suspiciously. “Are they for the officers to sit on?” - -“D’you know what this is?” asked a boy today as he luxuriously stretched -his length on the window-seat. “This is the Lounge Lizard’s Roost.” So -the Lounge Lizard’s Roost it is. - -The yellow curtains are already up in place. They give a rather stunning -effect against the black tar paper when the æroplane camouflage curtains -are let down. In each space between the windows we have tacked one of -that gorgeous series of French railway posters, so my hut is brave with -color, tawny orange, sharp blues, and shadowy purples. - -Meanwhile the whole French populace has called, singly or in crowds, in -order to see just what is going on. As for the children, I am sure they -must have declared a school holiday in honor of us. The whole concern is -evidently a bit puzzling to the French mind; but they have solved the -riddle by terming the hut a “_coopératif_,” and so I let it rest. - -But you will be wondering how _le diable_ is contriving to live with _le -bon Dieu_. - -Monsieur le Curé is quite old. There is something stern and something -tragic in his face, with all his urbane graciousness. He is a refugee -from the devastated area and like myself a lodger in the house, whose -owners have fled this zone of armies. Monsieur le Curé was a captive for -six months with the Germans and the desolate confinement wrought a -little on his mind; “At times he is absent,” says Madame the Caretaker. -This morning I stopped and chatted with him at his door downstairs, he -called me in to show me “a souvenir of his captivity,” a little -dirty-white tin basin out of which as prisoner he ate. “I learned to -smoke then,” he told me. “There was nothing to do the whole day long but -sit and smoke and wait for the clock to strike.” Tonight I am going to -take him a little gift of American tobacco. - -I am planning a house-warming with which to formally open the hut. - - -Mauvages, November 6. - -We didn’t have that house-warming. Even as we were finishing the hut all -hands came down with the flu. Curiously enough it hit the camp all in a -heap after dinner. Thirty per cent of the boys, the two officers, the -building detail and myself were all laid low between one and six -o’clock. Fortunately it was the lightest sort of an epidemic, a mere -_soupçon_ as it were, in every case. I merely retired to my bed for a -day and a half and refused to eat. On the third day, which was -yesterday, I crawled back to the canteen. It was a case of pipe all -hands on deck and stand to the counter. Two companies of engineers had -arrived in the night. They were back from an advanced station just -behind the lines and they were starved for chocolate and cigarettes. Two -months ago they left Abainville, green troops, just over, now they are -seasoned veterans, in proof of which they carry souvenirs salvaged from -German dugouts. I heard all about these souvenirs, as I was taking -breakfast, from the lips of an excited Neighbor Woman. From the list of -unwarlike trophies which she rattled off I gleaned umbrellas and a -wall-clock; but the best was reserved for me when I reached the canteen. -One of the boys had met one of these same engineers toiling up the hill -from the railroad with a large upholstered armchair on his back. - -“You can’t imagine,” he complacently replied to his gaping questioners, -“how nice it is, at the end of a hard day’s work, to be able to sit down -and smoke one’s pipe in real comfort.” - -Up and down the street are heaps of pale-green cabbages. The field -kitchens by the fountain are busy cooking them. The town is fairly -steeped in the odor of boiling cabbages. These are the famous German -cabbages captured in the Saint Mihiel drive, and for the past two -months, the engineers, they tell me, have had them boiled for dinner, -for supper and for breakfast, until it seems that they hate the Germans -for those cabbages as much as they hate them for the rape of Belgium and -the sinking of the Lusitania. - -At the corner by the fountain this noon a lady stopped to speak to me. -She was tall and white-haired and bore herself with gracious dignity. -She had heard, she told me, that these men had just returned from -Hattonchatel. She was very anxious to learn something of the fate of a -nearby town, Haumont by the lakes, where her aged sister had lived. -Since the German invasion four years ago she had heard absolutely no -word of her. Was the town in such a state that it was possible her -sister might still be there, or had the inhabitants been herded off to -Germany? I questioned several boys, finally I found a lad who spoke -French. Yes he knew the town to which she referred. He had often -observed it from the height of a nearby hill,—it had been daily under -shell-fire. Very sadly, but with her gracious sweetness undisturbed, the -lady turned away. - - -Mauvages, November 9. - -Life is just one breathless bustle now-a-days. Hardly had we got our -minds adjusted to the engineers when a whole battalion of -machine-gunners marched into town. From the moment they arrived it has -been one interminable line from morning until night, demanding the Three -C.s,—chocolate, cookies, and cigarettes. Luckily my closet was well -stocked and so has stood the strain. - -And speaking of closets, I have acquired a skeleton in mine. It came -about through a sick soldier, an accommodating captain and an egg-nogg. -The sick boy I discovered in Madame the Caretaker’s stable while -breakfasting this morning. He was very miserable, Madame told me, and -had been quite unable to eat a thing for days. I stopped in at the -stable and verified her words. The boy looked wretched. - -“Come to the canteen at ten o’clock and I’ll have something for you to -eat,” I told him. Then I begged a cup of fresh milk from Madame. - -The Captain I discovered in front of my canteen counter, and knowing him -to be a southerner and a gentleman, I summoned my courage and whispered -a petition for a few drops of something, from the flask he carried in -his pocket, to put in the egg-nogg for the sick boy. The Captain, who -was corpulent and dignified, in some embarrassment replied that he was -unfortunately without anything at present, but that the lack would be -immediately supplied. He disappeared, returning to produce before my -startled eyes, from beneath his coat, a life-sized bottle labeled -cognac. Then he invited himself into the kitchen to help make the -egg-nogg. He proved expert. I quaked fearing the customers would sniff -the cognac through the lattice-work. The sick boy came, turned out to be -one of the Captain’s own men. The Captain cocked an unsympathetic eye. - -“What’s the matter with you, Smith?” he questioned, “been drunk again?” - -“Captain,” I scolded horrified, “I won’t have any rough talk like that -in my kitchen!” - -Smith indignantly denied the charge. He drank his egg-nogg and left -looking three shades happier. - -“Captain,” said I, “did you ever make an egg-nogg for one of your men -before?” - -“Never,” replied the Captain with decision. He drained his own bowl and -took his departure. “I will leave the bottle behind,” he told me. - -“But I don’t want it!” - -“You might need it again,” he declared. And nothing could induce him to -change his mind. - -That bottle weighs on my conscience like a crime. I have hidden the -guilty thing in a corner of the store-room shelf behind some perfectly -innocent-looking bundles of stationery and a pile of safety razor -blades. But out of sight it continues to haunt my mind. I feel as if I -were giving sanctuary to the devil. And, worst of all, I have a vision -of coming into the hut some day to find that the bottle has been -discovered and the whole Y. M. C. A. is on a jag. - - -Mauvages, November 11. - -It isn’t true. It isn’t real. It can’t be that the war is really ended. - -This morning I awoke to the sound of the most tremendous barrage I have -ever heard. At this distance however it was almost more like a sensation -than a sound, a sort of incessant thrilling, throbbing vibration. - -The question was on everybody’s lips: “Do you suppose they really _will_ -sign the armistice?” “It don’t sound much like peace this morning!” -would come the dubious reply. We have heard rumours just since -yesterday, but in rumours we have so long ceased to put any faith! As -the morning wore on our skepticism grew. The almost unbroken -reverberation frayed the nerves. As eleven o’clock drew near the tension -became torture. Would the guns cease? Could they? It seemed as if they -must go on forever. The clock in the old grey church tower began to -strike the hour. I flung open the kitchen door. We all stood breathless, -frozen, listening. Ding-dong, ding-dong; through the notes of the bell -we could still hear the throbbing of the great guns. Eleven times the -slow bell chimed, there was a heavy boom, one more, and then absolute -silence. We stared at each other blankly incredulous. “They’ve signed,” -said a boy. - -I walked down the little lane that leads to the ammunition dump and -picked a bunch of orange-scarlet berries. I wanted to be alone, to -listen. It was a day all pearl and lavender, a violet mist hung over the -brown hill-sides. No one passed on the road, there was not a sound of -any sort that reached me, the world seemed to be asleep. The stillness -was terrifying. I waited, tense, not able to believe, expecting every -moment to have the silence broken by the resumption of the cannonade. -Then as the minutes passed and still my strained ears could not catch so -much as a whisper, I turned back and entered the little roadside Chapel -in the Bush. There in its dim blue and silver solitude I knelt down -before the little statue of Jeanne d’Arc and prayed. - -At noon someone started the old church bell to ringing, it jangled -frantically for hours. - -I think we are all a little dazed. I for one have a curious feeling as -if I had come up suddenly against a blank wall. - - -Mauvages, November 12. - -Last night we celebrated. The whole ordnance camp got out and set off -flares and signal rockets from the dump, while two of the boys put over -a barrage with the machine-gun on the hill. And there was much -champagne. This morning the street is hung with flags,—I never knew -before how thrilling the tricolor could be until I saw it like this, -against the stone-grey of the old houses. - -A company of French cavalry is just passing through town. They are very -beautiful to look at, with their bright blue uniforms, their bright bay -horses, and the long slim lances which they carry in one hand, each with -a tiny pennant at the end. As each one comes into view down the street I -think; “Thank God, for one more Frenchman left alive.” - -The boys have already begun to argue about the date on which they will -reach home. But though the fighting may be over, there are long months -still ahead of us here I am sure. And now with the strain and the -excitement gone, France is bound to look greyer and muddier and more -whats-the-use to the boys than ever before. May Heaven help us all! - - -Mauvages, November 17. - -I want to make you acquainted with Bill and Nick, my two invaluable -assistants. Bill is my official detail formally assigned. Nick is a -volunteer, his services a free-will offering proferred at such times as -he is not required in his regular capacity as guardian of the -bath-house. - -Bill is a lame tame giant six feet two and up. He slipped a cog in his -knee one time while shuffling shells last summer and never got quite -straightened out again. Bill is my salvation. He redeems what would -otherwise be a desperate situation. For Bill has a Business Brain. If it -weren’t for that, I believe I should be driven to the mad-house trying -to balance the francs and centimes at the end of each week. Besides -having a head for figures, Bill is an all round handy man with a turn -for inventions. When I come back to the hut after a morning expedition -to Gondrecourt in quest of suppplies, I may or I may not find last -night’s dishes washed but I am pretty sure to find some wonderful new -contrivance added to my hut equipment. Bill has made me a stove-pipe out -of a German powder can. Bill has installed an automatic closing -attachment for the main door, which consists of a rope, a pulley, a -stove grate and an excruciating squeak; the chief advantage of this -invention being the squeak which always betrays the sneak who tries to -escape undetected in the middle of a prayer. Sometimes I think it hurts -Bill’s pride to have to take orders from a lady, especially one with -such an unmathematical brain as I. Occasionally he lapses into a -you’re-only-a-little-girl-after-all sort of attitude and then I have to -put on all my dignity and read the riot act to him. But when I hand in -my weekly cash sheets at Headquarters and the cashier there tells me -that my accounts are the best in the whole area, why Bill could have the -whole hut and everything in it. - -As for Nick, if Bill is right hand man, why Nick makes a quite -indispensable left, and this in spite of the fact that the poor fellow -is almost blind. He got a crack in the back of his head from the corner -of a case of “75s,” while unloading ammunition some two months ago, -which affected the optic nerve. And though the doctor promises a partial -restoration of his sight, at present he must grope about in dark glasses -and semi-darkness. Nick has a history. An orphan, educated for the -priesthood, he ran away at the age of sixteen and started on the career -of a cowboy. After having broken every bone in his body in the course of -his broncho-busting he rose to the heights of his profession and joined -Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Here he met his wife, a lasso and pistol -expert. While riding an “outlaw” in Madison Square Garden, he was thrown -and had one of his legs badly smashed, which forced him to retire from -public life. After this he spent a couple of years as a bar-tender in -New York. In his spare moments, aided by his ecclesiastical Latin, he -learned practical chemistry from an old German druggist who kept shop -next door. Now in his civilian capacity Nick is consulting chemist for a -Brooklyn laundry concern, while his wife conducts successfully a French -millinery store in Flatbush. So much for romance! - -Nick is, I am quite sure, the politest Irishman in France. Moreover he -is the darling of the feminine portion of the town. Partly by reason of -his blindness, which appeals to the quick sympathies of the Frenchwomen, -and partly because of his unvarying courtesy, his kindliness and his -quaint humour, he is the most sought-after man in Mauvages. He knows, I -should judge, some six words of French, but with these he manages to -“get by.” And he is forever being invited out to supper. - -Every morning between sweeping up and washing the dishes and waiting on -the counter we hold a coffee party in the kitchen; Bill and Nick and -myself and whoever else happens to be around. The party consists of -coffee with plenty of sugar and canned milk,—always a treat in the army -as in the messes you must drink it plain;—and K. P. cookies. Now K. P. -cookies, you must understand, are cookies from the end of the package -that the mouse didn’t eat. As there is considerable activity on the part -of the mice these days there are any number of K. P. cookies. And yet I -have done my best. Pricked on by conscience I said to Nick day before -yesterday, “Nick do you suppose you could get me a trap?” - -“Certainly Ma’am, I’ll buy one at the store.” - -“But wait a minute, do you know the word for mouse-trap?” - -“Don’t worry. That’s not in the least necessary.” And he set out for the -_General Store Articles Militaire_ down the street. - -But for once his sign language failed him. He was offered everything in -the store from a screw-driver to an egg-beater and only achieved the -trap finally by stumbling over one on the floor. It was a French trap to -be baited with flour and sewed up with thread; I looked at it -skeptically, but the next morning we had caught a mouse. However today -it was K. P. cookies as usual. - -“Bill,” I said, “you’ll have to borrow Iodine.” Iodine is the Medical -Sergeant’s cat. - -“Aw shucks,” says Bill, “Iodine is a frog cat. She wouldn’t look at a -mouse unless you served it to her on a platter dressed with garlic.” - -Bill says no home is complete without a dog. I quite agree with him. -Only, I say, we must catch him young so we can bring him up in the way -he should go. These French dogs for the most part seem to have neither -manners nor morals. So Bill is keeping an eye out for a likely puppy. - -“But,” he said, “when we close up here, the only way we’ll be able to -settle it between us will be to make him into sausages.” - -If we ever do get a dog I think I shall call him “Tin Hat” just because -every other dog in the A. E. F. is named “Cognac.” - - -Mauvages, November 20. - -Our relations to the French populace are enough to try a diplomat. -Hardly a day passes in the hut but what some delicate social or ethical -problem arises. - -First, there is Louis, a most disreputable old scamp if there ever was -one. He keeps the café across the street and so is my deadly rival. The -other day the old rascal appeared at my counter grinning from ear to -ear, and demanded “_bonbons pour le rheum_,” producing, in witness of -his urgent need, a feeble and patently artificial cough. When I answered -that unfortunately we had none, he instantly substituted chocolate in -his request. Unable to resist the rapscallion’s grin I gave him a -handful, whereat in beaming gratitude he immediately invited me over to -the café to have a glass of wine at his expense. And when I hastily -informed him that I didn’t care for wine he genially amended the -invitation so that it stood, “glass of beer.” And now I am told by the -boys that he has announced that I, forsooth, am his “fiancée!” - -But chiefly there is Rebecca. We call her Rebecca because when Bill goes -to the well to get a pail of water he usually happens to meet her there. -Rebecca is thin and dark and lively. Her English vocabulary includes -such phrases as “beeg steef” and “Mek eet snappee!” She is, as the boys -put it, “full of pep.” Rebecca has a little black and villainous-looking -husband who occasionally appears in town from the trenches, but for the -most part she is free to follow where her fancy leads. If it should ever -lead her to confession I am afraid she would make the old Curé’s -eyebrows curl. - -Bill’s acquaintance with Rebecca is entirely on business lines he wants -me to understand. She does his laundry for him. “It’s all very well,” I -say, “to take her your washing, but why must you take her chocolates?” -He knows I disapprove. When he lingers too long on the water detail I -eye him severely on his return. - -“Bill, have you been hobnobbing with Rebecca?” - -Bill grins admission. - -Rebecca lives in a white little one story door-and-window house just -around the corner on the Rue d’Eglise which I must pass going to my -canteen. And Rebecca keeps tab on the precise hour and minute at which I -return to my billet under Bill’s escort every night. Going home one -stormy night I took Bill’s arm. The next day Bill informed me that -Rebecca had advised him that such conduct, according to French notions, -was not quite _comme il faut_. - -Bill, I find, is able to make an astonishing amount of conversation with -his “nigger French” that takes absolutely no account of moods, tenses, -conjugations, declinations or any of the other stuff in grammar books. -And I am afraid he understands a great deal that it would be just as -well he didn’t. - -“How did you learn it all?” I asked him. - -He looked at me side-wise. “Rebecca gave me lessons,” he answered -grinning. - -Last night, as we passed Rebecca’s house, I noticed that her door was -the least bit ajar. - -As Bill left me at my gate I admonished him; “Now don’t you stop to say -good-night to Rebecca.” - -“Gosh, no!” said Bill, “if I did I’m afraid I might have to hurry or I’d -be late for breakfast.” - -Whenever I meet Rebecca on the street she always bows to me most -urbanely. - -Nor is Rebecca all my concern in relation to Big Bill. There is also the -pretty girl who lives down the street who undoubtedly would not be -averse to accompanying him to America. Bill stops at her house every -night in order to get a quart of fresh milk for the C. O.’s breakfast. I -bid him be wary of these Franco-American alliances, citing horrible -examples I have known, such as the machine-gunner, for instance, who, in -order to be in harmony with his future family-in-law, felt it incumbent -on him to appear at his wedding wearing a pair of wooden shoes; and of -the doughboy who married a widow with two children, and, since he knew -no French and she no English, persuaded his company commander to detail -an interpreter to live in the house with them for the first three days -after their marriage. - -Not many days ago a girl came to my kitchen door in company with a -soldier. She had a United States paymaster’s cheque which she wished to -have cashed. Afterwards I questioned Bill. It seems a lieutenant had -married and afterwards divorced her. She was still drawing his -allotment. She looked so thoroughly the peasant, bare-headed, in a shawl -and shoddy skirt, with nothing to particularly distinguish her pretty -but inexpressive face, that I voiced my wonder to the boys. - -“Oh but you ought to see her when she gets dressed up!” they said. - -“Fine feathers don’t make fine birds,” I remind severely. “Bill, be -warned!” - -“Yes, but there’s Gaby,” Bill suggests. “What about her?” Now Gaby is -the little chauffeuse who has been driver for a French general three -years and who turns up periodically in town. She is quaint as a wood-cut -and solemn as an owl, with her shock of bobbed hair and her great -staring child-like eyes. She sits at the mess table and never says a -word but draws your glance irresistibly. Always she wears an odd little -straight-cut dress hanging just below her knees and a _croix de guerre_ -pinned to her breast. Gaby killed a man with her car not long since and -was held a prisoner at Ligny-en-Barrois for ten days in consequence. -Gaby and one of the sergeants at the A. R. are undergoing all the woe -and wonder of love’s young dream. - -“Oh well,” I say, “Gaby is different.” - -This afternoon Rebecca appeared at the canteen and asked for Bill. She -was so elegantly attired that at first I didn’t know her. After a parley -at the door, Bill, with an odd expression on his face, takes his -second-best raincoat from the peg and hands it to her. I looked my -inquiries. An old doughboy sweetheart of the lady’s, it appears, had -returned on leave and they were going travelling together. - -“Going off on a honey-moon with another feller, in my raincoat! Gosh, -it’s a cruel war!” grinned Bill. - - -Mauvages, November 24. - -Now that the time is drawing on toward Christmas the boys,—bless -them!—are all wanting to send some remembrance to mothers, sisters, -wives and sweethearts at home. But what to send has been the desperate -question. One sort of goods and one only is offered for such purposes by -the French stores in this locality, a line of flimsy silk stuff, -handkerchiefs, scarfs and little aprons, machine-embroidered with gay -flowers and each bearing the legend “Souvenir de France.” They are -fragile slazy things, absurdly high-priced, inappropriate and often -hideous. But to the boys they are altogether beautiful. After many -requests and inquiries I gave in. I went to Gondrecourt and purchased -what I could find that was the least tawdry, the least exorbitant. I -brought them to the canteen; they proved so popular that three days -afterward I had to make another trip to town to buy some more. Now we -carry a regular stock of fancy silk handkerchiefs and aprons in addition -to the chewing tobacco and cigarettes. But here one is faced with a -delicate problem. Each handkerchief is embroidered with some such -specific legend as _To my Sweetheart_, _To My Dear Wife_, _To my Darling -Daughter_,—I refused to consider the bit of lacy frippery marked _To my -Dear Son!_—and this complicates matters immensely I find. Somehow we -always manage to have a supply of Sweethearts on hand when a man is in -quest of a Dear Wife and vice versa. In vain I artfully suggest that it -would be a pretty compliment to call one’s wife “Dear Sweetheart,” to -their minds there seems to be something essentially compromising in such -a notion. Occasionally the reverse will work however, and a boy, -grinning and abashed, will select a handkerchief marked “Dear Wife” to -send to his sweetheart. Sometimes during these sales one’s faith in the -single heartedness of Young America receives a shock, as when an -innocent-looking lad will blandly select half a dozen “Dear Sweethearts” -and put each in a separate envelope to send to a different girl! - -Speaking of souvenirs, there is a boy who acts as fireman on the dinky -little engine that pulls the work-train on the narrow-gauge between -Mauvages and Sauvoy. He belongs to a regiment of engineers who served -with the British in Flanders for some eight months. While there he dug -up enough dead Germans,—“You could always tell where they were buried -because the grass grew so much greener there,” he explained,—and picked -enough gold fillings out of their teeth, to make a whole match box full. -He was going to take it home and have a dentist put the gold in his -teeth “for a souvenir,” but unluckily in the spring drive he lost all -his possessions and the match box with them. Now this, as Kipling would -say, is a true story. - - -Mauvages, November 30. - -Let me recount to you the gentle tale of the German prisoners and the -Thanksgiving movies, an incident which I consider a sort of sermon in a -nutshell and a Warning to the Nations. - -Unluckily there is in this division a secretary who is a sentimentalist. -He has an idea that an important part of his object in France is “to -enliven the long evenings of the French villagers,” and particularly -does he consider it his Christian duty to do something to demonstrate -how much we love the poor German prisoners, those gentlemen who wear the -big P. G. for _Prisonnier de Guerre_ on their backs and “ought,” as the -boys say, “to have an I in the middle.” There are several hundred of -them in a camp at Gondrecourt and they are, it is said, just as well -housed and fed as our boys, and not made to work nearly as hard. - -Now, as there was no other sort of entertainment available, I had set my -heart on having movies in my hut on Thanksgiving. I had presented my -request at the Headquarters office and understood the matter settled. -But the Sentimental Secretary it seems had made up his mind that the -poor dear German prisoners must have a treat and, other schemes falling -through, he also put in a request for the movies. There was only one -portable machine in working order. Through some misunderstanding or -something in the office, the P. G.s got the movies. To enlarge upon my -sentiments when the news was broken to me Thursday morning or to record -the opinions expressed by the boys in regard to the matter, is not to -the purpose of this tale. - -Failing our show, all that I could manage in the way of celebration was -a little box of nuts and raisins tied up with a bit of red, white and -blue ribbon for every man in camp. The mess sergeant, however, outdid -himself. Our Thanksgiving dinner was nothing less than a feast. For days -the A. R. jitney had been scouring the country for poultry. At last the -sergeant had succeeded in getting enough for all. He did this by -assembling specimens of the whole feathered tribe; turkey, duck, chicken -and goose. And I had a slice of each. But for all that I didn’t enjoy -that dinner worth six-pence. Those movies were on my mind. I tried to -think of the touching gratitude of the German prisoners. Perhaps after -all if one should pursue them with delicate attentions it might lead -them to see the error of their ways. Perhaps giving them a movie show -would inculcate, by example, a beautiful lesson of Christian charity and -forgiveness. Who could tell what uplifting moral influence Charlie -Chaplin or Mutt and Jeff might exert? - -Last night was our regular movie-night. In the midst of preparing for -the show, Georges, the French operator, who was getting the machine -ready, Georges the little dandy, always nonchalant and blasé, came -charging back to the counter, his eyes as big as arc-lights. He thrust -his hands, which were full of cartridges, beneath my nose, fairly -dancing on tip-toe in his excitement. He had found them in the carbide; -when the carbide had gotten hot, “_Poof!_” he dramatized the wrecking of -the hut with explosive gestures. “_C’est les Boches!_ _Les cochons!_” -Never again would he take his machine there, never, never! - -As the machine had been left at the German Prison Camp after the -Thanksgiving show and then brought directly from there to Mauvages there -seems little room for doubt that the prisoners had placed the shells -there. Of course, if there were any poetic justice in things, the -Sentimental Secretary himself would have been blown up by the Germans’ -cartridges, but unfortunately in real life things don’t happen that way. - - -Mauvages, December 3. - -The French Army is in possession of Mauvages. A regiment of artillery -moved in on us yesterday afternoon. There seemed a never-ending line of -them as they crawled into town, the horses just barely able to drag the -heavy pieces. There must have been a shocking shortage of fodder in the -French Army; the poor beasts look wretched beyond words. The big guns -are lined up all along the street. They look like great spotted lizards -in their green and brown and yellow coats of camouflage. Each piece has -a girl’s name carved on the muzzle. The one in front of my canteen is -Marthe, further up the street stand Lucile and Marie. We watched them as -they brought the guns into place, unhitched the teams and made their -preparations to settle down and stay. Once settled, our perplexities -began. Immediately they started to trickle into the canteen in search of -cigarettes. To the first comers in a weak moment I slipped a few -packages. That was enough. Thereafter it was just like flies to the -molasses jar, and then of course I had to harden my heart and say no. -But they wouldn’t take no for an answer. They begged, pleaded and -cajoled. I posted a polite sign at the end of the counter explaining how -the canteen supplies had been brought into France without payment of any -duty, under the strict agreement with the French Government that they -would be sold only to Americans. But they refused to read the sign. One -handsome brigadier stopped me on the street in order to present his -petition. And at the canteen a little poilu with a round cherubic face, -after being refused some nine or ten times over at the counter, followed -me out into the kitchen to urge his piteous plea. It was dreadful, it -was harrowing. I have never felt quite so mean about anything in all my -life. - -In the evening we had billed a stereoptican lecture on London. Forseeing -that the poilus would form a large proportion of the audience, I tried -to get an interpreter to explain the pictures in French to them but at -the last minute the interpreter failed me. Notwithstanding, the -Frenchmen remained courteously quiet while the lecture lasted. But once -it was finished the atmosphere of the hut underwent a change. The -blue-coated figures who were swarming into the canteen now had evidently -spent the earlier part of the evening in the cafés. I went out into the -centre of the hut to see what was going on; all about me stretched a -swarm of poilus in a genial mood. The door squeaked open, a little -soldier came skipping into the hut. To my horror I saw he carried in one -hand a tall tumbler and in the other a large bottle of Benedictine. The -victrola was jigging out a rag on the counter. Posing for a minute in an -attitude reminiscent of the great Isadora, the little poilu proceeded to -dance in time to the music, pirouetting on one toe as he waved the -bottle and the tumbler above his head with Bacchanalian gestures. Then -suddenly he sat down at one of the tables and started to pour himself a -glass. I swooped down upon him. It was _défendu_ I explained, strictly -and absolutely _défendu_ to drink in this hut. He stared incredulous. I -reiterated with emphasis. Finally he nodded sulkily and, slipping the -bottle underneath his arm, turned away. Two minutes later I caught him -offering a red-nosed friend a drink square in front of my counter. I -flew to the attack again. I told him it was against the rules to so much -as _bring_ wine into the hut. He held his ground defiantly. I wanted to -take the little wretch by his coat collar and march him out the door; I -felt I could have done it. Instead I plead, expostulated and commanded. -A score of grinning poilus crowded about us: it was evidently as good as -a show to them. I entreated the little poilu please, _please_ to carry -the bottle out of the hut! “_Dehors!_ _Dehors!_ Outside!” they chorused -gleefully. I exhausted my vocabulary, apparently without effect. The -little poilu wasn’t used to taking orders from a girl, especially one -who spoke French so badly, but finally I won. “_Bon!_” he snapped -explosively, turned on his heel and marched out. I fled precipitately to -the kitchen and stayed there until closing time. I didn’t feel equal to -coping with any more tipsy poilus. - -It’s curious how the whole character of a dwelling-place can change. -When the priest and the cat and I are keeping house together, the old -mansion is the dimmest, most decorous place imaginable. At night I let -myself in the dark front door, locking it carefully behind me,—Monsieur -scolded me for leaving it unlocked once; I had left him, he said, at the -mercy of the passersby!—then grope my way down the cold unlighted hall -and up the steep stairs to my chilly room and to bed by one flickering -candle’s light. The place is as silent and lifeless as a tomb. Then new -troops come into town and suddenly everything is changed. The lower -floor is taken over for an officers’ mess and often too, for -Headquarters. Savory odors of cooking, warm smells mount up the dim -stairway, candles gutter in niches in the passage-ways, smart-looking -officers in khaki or horizon-blue as the case may be, meet and salute -one in the hall. The tramp of booted feet, the ring of spurs, the clink -of glasses, laughter, song, the piano played tumultuously sometimes late -into the night,—everything from Madelon to Mozart—and most startling, -and incredible of all, the jangle of a telephone bell, installed for the -occasion; for a few days we live in a strange bustling vivid world, then -on they move and we are left again to our silence and solitude. - -Tonight as I was washing up for supper I was startled by a rap on my -door. There stood Monsieur le Curé and a French officer. I had a bad -moment wondering what the cause of such a visitation might be. Was he -going to turn me out of my billet perhaps? Or was he going to complain -about the treatment his men had received in the Y.? Monsieur le Curé was -ambling through a long and elaborate peroration. At first I could make -no sense out of it, then suddenly I caught on. Monsieur le Capitaine was -a stamp collector. He wanted to know if I perhaps had some stamps _des -États-Unis_ which I could spare him! - -Reports have come in tonight of friction between the French and American -soldiers in town, resulting in a number of scrimmages. The whole trouble -springs, I gather, from the eternal feminine and the native jealousy of -the male; the Fair Sex of Mauvages having made quite evident to the -poilus their decided preference for the doughboys. - - -Mauvages, December 6. - -The theatrical season at Mauvages has been inaugurated. The carpenters -were busy in the hut all day yesterday, hammering and sawing, making us -a roll curtain out of roofing paper, manufacturing foot-lights from -commissary candles and tin reflectors cut from the lining of tobacco -cases. When the stage was done it was very gay. We had a red curtain -across the back, bright yellow wings, red and yellow draperies around -the proscenium arch, festoons of little flags strung across the top, and -a large American flag draped centre back. It wasn’t what we wanted, it -was just what, by hook or crook we could get, and the effect really -wasn’t half as bad as it sounds. - -The programme might be classed in two parts, rehearsed and impromptu. -For a starter we dropped a tear over Baby’s Prayer, that bit of -ninety-nine one-hundredths pure sentimentality, without which no -programme in the A. E. F. is complete these days; after which we were -adjured to “Pray for sunshine, But always be prepared for rain,”—a quite -superfluous admonition in this part of France at this season of the -year! - - “Put all your pennies on the shelf, - The almighty dollar will take care of itself.” - -“Humph!” grunted the boy next me, “I’ll bet it was a Jew wrote that.” - -Following the songs we heard Barney, the Poet Laureate of the Camp, -celebrate the deeds of the ordnance detachment in verse. At least we -supposed that was what it was, for Barney has a brogue all his own and -if you get one word in ten you’re lucky. As the C. O. says, it is much -easier to “_compree_” a Frenchman than it is to understand Barney. - -After Barney we had a sermon, a burlesque darky sermon preached by a -black-face comedian. As luck would have it, two real darkies from a -labor camp up the line slipped in at the back of the hut just as the -preacher began. They took it all in deadly earnest, and warmed, I -suspect, by a glass at the corner café, they presently began to respond -to the preacher’s exhortations with genuine religious fervor. - -“Dat’s so! You tell ’em bruder! Hallelujah! Bless de Lord!” - -The audience up front, hearing a commotion and unluckily not catching -the comedy, hissed indignantly and the darkies, abashed, slunk out. - -Of course at the last moment some of our headliners failed to come -across. The mumps claimed our dramatic reader and our buck-and-wing -dancer sent word, just as the curtain was going up, that in all the -camp, no shoes outside of hob-nails, large enough for him could be -found. But we made up for these defections by our impromptu acts. The -most surprising of these was the Little Fat Poilu. He popped up suddenly -from Heaven knows where, a round rosy dumpling of a man with a shiny -nose and a fat black beard, and offered his services. On his first -appearance he played the violin with vim and spirit. Then in answer to -the applause he dropped his violin, seized the tall hat from the head of -the darky preacher, clapped it on his own, and bounced back onto the -stage. The transformation was amazing. In an instant, instead of a poilu -he had become a jolly little bourgeois shopkeeper out for a stroll on -the boulevard. He proceeded to sing a comic song, a song with an -interminable number of verses, unquestionably very funny and in all -probability quite scandalous. The French portion of the audience was -charmed, they joined vociferously in the jiggy choruses, and when he had -done they insisted on another and another. For a while it looked as if -France was going to run away with the programme, but finally the little -poilu came to the end of his repertoire,—or of his breath maybe, and -America once more took the stage. - -Today we are living in an atmosphere of theatrical enterprise. Already -there are three or four “bigger and better” rival shows in process of -incubation. What’s more, Barney is writing a play. He sits at one of the -canteen tables surrounded by a group of admiring would-be actors and -each sheet, as he finishes it, is gravely handed around the crowd. So -far it seems to contain just three characters; Rose the beautiful -stenographer, the villain landlord and the office boy. I am waiting in -suspense to see whether Barney’s masterpiece is going to turn out a -melodrama, a problem play or a dramatic treatise on the social and -political wrongs of Ireland. - -The French troops are moving tomorrow. Tonight the Little Fat Poilu came -to bid us good-bye. When no one was looking I filled his pockets up with -cigarettes. - - -Mauvages, December 9. - -A very regrettable incident occurred last night. The day being Sunday we -were due for a religious service at seven-fifteen. At seven-ten the -Reverend Gentleman, who was to instruct my flock in the way wherein they -should go, arrived in company with the Business Manager from -Gondrecourt. Now it happened that the Reverend Gentleman on this -occasion was none other than my friend the Sentimental Secretary. He -surveyed the congregation; there were nine boys in the hut. He sat down -and waited for the audience to arrive. But the audience didn’t. Instead -one wretch surreptitiously sneaked out the door. At last I felt it -necessary to come forward with apologies and explanations; my flock at -present was small to start with, the sheep had all gone to Domremy on an -excursion, the goats were deep in an after-payday poker game. - -“Do you wish me to hold the meeting?” the R. G. questioned grimly. - -“If you will.” - -The Reverend Gentleman, a bit tight about the lips, laid on. It was a -cold night; we gathered by the fire. I tried to make myself look as -large as possible, but stretch the congregation as you might, we only -reached two-thirds of the way around the stove. - -“Well,” said the Business Manager when it was all over with, “how soon -will you be ready to close out this hut?” - -I reminded him that after all it would have only taken ten righteous to -save Sodom, so might not eight save Mauvages? - -Of course just as soon as the Reverend Gentleman and the Business -Manager had shaken our dust off their feet and disappeared, a whole -crowd of boys came streaming into the hut. I accused them of having -waited just around the corner until they had seen the Religious Service -depart. As for Big Bill I consider him nothing short of a slacker, he -sat in the kitchen all evening and wrote a letter to his girl. I tell -him that as hut detail it is obviously his duty to attend all services -but he explains that “it makes him homesick.” - -In a town on the road between Mauvages and Gondrecourt there is a labor -camp of Chinese coolies. These are the laziest folk in Europe I am sure. -They are supposed to be working on the road, which needs it badly -enough, resembling, as one boy declared, “the top of a stove when all -the lids are taken off.” All day long they squat by the roadside, or -stand idle watching the traffic go by. “They’d rather be caught dead -than caught working,” as one boy said. The story goes that if one of -them dies the French Government must pay the Chinese Government thirty -francs. They come dear at that. Moreover, they are unconscionable -thieves. Up on the hill back of the town where they are billeted there -is an American aviation field. The camp was abandoned after the -armistice, but twelve boys from the air service were detailed to stay -and guard the property. These boys find that the chief end of their life -is to chase the Chinks out of the stores; they are quite persistent and -perfectly unabashed. More than that, if the Chinks catch one of the -guards by himself, they are likely to attack in force armed with sticks -and as our boys are not allowed to carry weapons, such an attack is no -laughing matter. The trouble began, the boys tell me, in the days when -the camp was populated; two mechanics had once thought it a good joke to -give one of the Chinks a bath by ducking him in the horse-trough. - -One of these heathen, I am told, came to church here at Mauvages -yesterday and almost broke up the meeting. It pleased him to sing all -the way through the service, a wierd sing-song chant all his own, and as -if that were not bad enough, in the middle of a prayer he had turned -square about and started to play with the rosary of the scandalized -Madame behind him! The most pious-minded could scarcely keep their -thoughts on the priest’s dissertation. There was “_beaucoup -distraction_” as one Mademoiselle phrased it. - -This morning I went down to Gondrecourt. - -“Well, and how are your eight men?” asked the Business Manager. - -“One of them has gone to the hospital with the mumps,” I answered. “So -now I have seven.” - - -Mauvages, December 12. - -I have been A. W. O. L. I have been on a joy ride. For the first time -since I came to France I have taken a real day off. I got a chance to go -up to the old battle front on a “speeder.” I didn’t mention the matter -to the office, but I took the chance. I knew I could safely trust the -hut to the management of Bill and Nick for one day. - -We started out shortly after six A. M., on the narrow-gauge bound for -Mont Sec. There were five of us on the speeder which is, you must know, -a little flat car something like a hand-car, only that instead of being -propelled by hand power, it is run by a gasolene motor. Speeders are the -jolliest possible way of travelling and they can go like the wind: they -possess just two disadvantages, their propensity for having engine -trouble, and the ease with which they jump the track at the slightest -provocation. It is told how in Abainville the other day a speeder jumped -the rails, the engineer, after turning a half a dozen somersaults, -picked himself up, squared off, demanded; “Who in hell put the pebble on -the track?” - -From Mauvages we followed the A. and S. to Sorcy. There we switched onto -the line which the boys at Abainville used to declare “ran through the -trenches.” They would tell me wonderful tales of the trips they had -taken on this line; the smoke-stack of the engine protruded over the -top, they explained, and “Gosh, you could hear the bullets just -splatterin’ against it!” - -A short ways out from Sorcy we passed the last inhabited village. Ahead -of us we could see the barren sinister outline of Mont Sec, that little -Gibraltar of the land which the Germans had captured and fortified early -in the war, which the French had endeavored to retake in 1915 with the -most fearful losses, but which had remained impregnable, commanding, -looking down in contempt on our men in their muddy lowland trenches of -the Toul Sector, until, on September twelfth, the American Army had -taken it along with the rest of the Saint Mihiel salient. - -As we neared Mont Sec we began to pass devastated villages, some of them -mere formless ruins, others from a distance holding the shape and -outline of habitable dwelling-places but on approach revealing -themselves as mere groups of riddled house-shells. Across the open -places stretched interminable grey swathes of rusting tangled wire, -“barbed-wire enough to fence Texas,” as one boy put it. On sidings we -passed long lines of cars full of salvage, all the junk of war tossed -carelessly together. Along the tracks were scattered empty shells and -here and there piles of unexploded ammunition. In a shell-hole by the -roadside, half filled with water, lay a hob-nailed shoe,—prosaic but -pitiful witness of some tragedy. It was the loneliest land, the most -forsaken I have ever seen. Far and wide as one looked over the empty -plain there was no living, moving creature anywhere. - -At the foot of Mont Sec we stopped. There in the woods were the remains -of a German camp; it had been a jolly little place fixed up like a beer -garden underneath the trees, with fancy “rustic” work and chairs and -tables. We left the speeder there, and tramping across the fields, -climbed Mont Sec. Near the top we found the entrances to the dugouts. -The hill was tunneled through from side to side, all the corridors and -rooms walled, roofed and floored with the heaviest oak lumber. -Everywhere through the passage-ways ran a perfect network of electric -wires. Long stairs led to the different levels. No furnishings were left -except the bunks and some rough tables. We ate our luncheon of bread, -jam and corn willy in what had evidently been the officers’ quarters; -the room was nicely finished with cement, there was a fancy moulded -pattern in bas relief over the doorway, a pipe-hole showed where a stove -had been. - -After lunch we inspected the concrete machine-gun pill-boxes which -dotted the hill-top. Then we went down the steep eastern slope to the -village of Mont Sec. About the town, to judge from the ploughed and -pitted vineyards, the fighting must have been the fiercest. The village -was a village of the dead. We went inside the church; part of the tower, -some of the walls, a little of the roof was left, beyond that nothing. -Near the door a French officer had scrawled “_Maudite soit le boche qui -détruit les églises_,”—cursed be the Hun who destroys the churches. In -this church, Madame the Caretaker tells me, the Germans commanded all -the male inhabitants of Mont Sec to assemble. Here they were kept -prisoners for three days and nights. On the fourth day they were marched -off at the bayonet’s point into Germany, and no one has ever heard a -word from them since. - -Just outside the village in the little cemetery, ploughed with -shell-holes, we found French, American and German graves. The German -inscriptions all commemorated “heroes dead for the Fatherland;” one of -them vowed, with the help of God, vengeance on the enemy. - -We went back to the speeder. As it was early in the afternoon we decided -to go on. Rounding Mont Sec, we passed into German occupied territory. -We saw the famous cabbage patches which fed our soldiers after the Saint -Mihiel drive, and, on a hillock beside the road, one memorable scarecrow -dressed from head to foot as a German soldier, “feldgrau” uniform, -cartridge belt, helmet and all. At Hattonchatel we looked down on the -German barracks from the hill-side but didn’t have time to stop. It was -growing late, so we must turn about-face. Once headed for home our -troubles began. The rain which had been teasing us all day as a faint -drizzle, settled down to business. A few hundred yards down the -hill-side the speeder jumped the track. Fortunately we weren’t running -fast and the speeder jumped on the right side, if it had jumped on the -left we might have gone over the edge of the mountainous hill-side. As -it was no real harm resulted beyond a violent bumping and shaking up; I -jumped and got a lame wrist. “The chances are, that whatever happens, -she won’t turn over,” the boys told me, “so hang on after this.” So I -hung tight. The engine, which had worked like a charm all the way up, -began to sulk and balk by fits. Presently it grew dark. We had one -lantern, we lighted it and the boy who sat at the front end held it so -the light would fall on the rails. Every now and then the wind would -blow it out. At each station along the track we would stop and ask the -engineer operators whether the block ahead was clear. When we came to -the last station before the long forest stretches about Mont Sec the -operator who came out to speak to us was quite angry; there were three -trains, he said, somewhere on the track ahead; we were doing a very -dangerous thing, running after dark. We went on, straining our eyes as -we entered the woods in order to discern the dark mass on the track -ahead which would mean a train, for the trains, in memory of war days, I -suppose, carry absolutely no lights. A week ago a speeder ran head-on -into a train at night just above Sauvoy; of its three passengers, two -were killed, the other fearfully injured. We held ourselves tense, ready -the moment we had made out a train, and the speeder slowed down, to -jump, and, lifting the car, push it to one side off the tracks until the -train had passed. Once we were lucky enough to make a siding just at the -critical moment. Sometimes we ran at the edge of high embankments, -sometimes we would cross, on a trestle, a wide marshy stream; then the -thought would come to me, _What if the speeder should jump here?_ And -she did jump twice more on the way back, but luckily both times in -well-selected places. The worst feature of these acrobatics was that the -jar had an unhealthy effect upon the engine and after each occasion the -mechanics in the crowd had to delve and tinker before the speeder could -be coaxed to speed again. Also it was wet. The rain soaked through my -raincoat, through my sweater, into my leather jacket; my skirt was a -dripping rag, the water oozed from my gloves, raindrops dripped from my -nose, my “waterproof” shoes were like sponges. You felt, as one of the -boys put it, exactly like a figure in a fountain. - -Between Mont Sec and Sorcy we got a tow. In the dark we came upon the -rear end of a salvage train, tied ourselves up to it, and bumped merrily -along behind until the train turned off on a branch line and we had to -cut loose and make our own way with the increasingly contrary engine. -Fortunately, from that point most of the way was down hill; on the -up-grades we got off and walked; the last part of the way the boys -simply had to push the car. We reached home at half-past ten, tired, -soaked to the skin, but happy. - - -Mauvages, December 16. - -After this, Mauvages is going to be on the map! Mauvages is to be -headquarters for the —— Artillery Brigade, with seventeen hundred men in -town and thousands more in the villages about. Wonderful to say, this is -the very brigade to which my two batteries from the Artillery School -belong and though neither of these will be here in town, still they will -be near enough so I can get a glimpse of my old boys, I am sure. - -Already we have an ammunition train and a crowd of “casuals” waiting -here for their outfits. The hut, which has of late been rather empty -mornings, is now filled all day. These casuals are for the most part -replacements, shipped here directly from the ports, after a ten days’ -residence in France. They have nothing to do at present but sit in the -hut and think how miserable they are. It is funny to hear them talk. -Their opinion of Mauvages is inexpressible in polite terms. They are -quite convinced that they have come to the Very Last Hole on Earth. In -vain I assure them that Mauvages is quite a fine town, as French towns -go, in vain I draw their attention to its beauties and advantages. They -are absolutely certain that nothing could be worse! - -Meanwhile I have been busy making frantic trips into Gondrecourt to -demand, in view of the coming crowds, a new hut, an electric lighting -system, an addition to the old hut, anything or everything, except a man -secretary! But Gondrecourt takes the situation very calmly. - -Just to pass the time away, one of the new arrivals went fishing in the -canal yesterday. He bestowed his catch on me; it measured about six -inches by one and a quarter. As it was still wriggling faintly I put the -poor thing in the water-pail, only to find later that Big Bill in -disgust had thrown water and fish out into the back yard. Whereupon I -raised such an outcry that Bill must go out in the dark and feel through -the wet grass for that fish until he found it. I carried it down to -camp, inviting the K. P.s to prepare it for the C. O.’s dinner. At -dinner it appeared elegantly garnished with parsley in the center of a -huge platter. Just to pay me back they made me eat it, while the rest -dined on steak. - -“How do you suppose he caught it?” asked the C. O. I said nothing. -Fishing with hand-grenades is strictly against the law. - - -Mauvages, December 18. - -Mauvages is in disgrace. Mauvages is the black sheep in the Y. fold. -Mauvages is in wrong all the way around. And it’s all because of one Old -Gentleman and his ill-timed opinions. - -The Old Gentleman came out to talk to us yesterday evening. We weren’t -expecting him. We were expecting a lecture on the Man Without a -Country,—whoever that may be, Jack Johnson or the Kaiser! as the boys -say,—by the Educational Department. But then we have almost given up -expecting to get what we expect. This is only the third time we have -been fooled on the Man Without a Country who appears to be our Old Man -of the Sea. - -The Old Gentleman was brought out in state in the best Y. car by the Big -Chief, the Entertainment Department and a driver. The Entertainment -Department immediately ensconced himself by the cook-stove with a Sunday -Picture Supplement; the driver retired to a secluded corner to play a -game of checkers with one of the boys; while the Big Chief took his -stand out front. I for once back-slid scandalously, and, instead of -occupying a front seat with a deeply interested expression spread upon -my countenance, sat in the kitchen and ate jam and waffles, the waffles -which were heart-shaped and crisp and heavenly, having been brought by -Nick from his latest supper party. - -The Old Gentleman stood out by the stove, the stage proving too chilly. -There was a crowd in the hut. He put his foot in it at the start. He -announced himself as an intimate friend of ex-President Roosevelt. The -boys, sniffing politics, grew suspicious, even hostile. He began on the -scandal of America’s unpreparedness, from that passed by degrees to the -view that Germany was not yet defeated and as a climax called upon the -boys to rise and put themselves on record as being willing to stay in -France until Kingdom come, if necessary, in order to do the job up -brown. The boys did not rise. Instead they heckled the Old Gentleman -until he grew as red as a turkey-cock and so indignant as to fairly wax -speechless. One of the ammunition train boys, a husky lad who, they tell -me, is an old guard house standby, led the opposition. Out in the -kitchen you could have heard a pin drop. The Entertainment Department -and I sat and stared at each other. - -The whole trouble as I saw it, was that the Old Gentleman had slipped up -on his dates. He was giving them a Before-November-Eleventh speech when -it was after the eleventh. It was as if he had quite failed to -comprehend that at eleven o’clock on that date the whole psychological -outlook of the American doughboy underwent an instantaneous change. His -entire mental horizon became forthwith concentrated to one burning -point,—the desire which he expresses simply but adequately in the words; -“I want to go home!” And not ex-President Roosevelt, nor President -Wilson, nor General Pershing, nor anybody else could make him interested -in anything that was not remotely, at least, related to that issue. - -At last the agony was over. The Old Gentleman came back to the kitchen -mopping his brow. When he had finished expressing his opinion of -Mauvages, the driver went out to crank the car. The car was gone. Of -course then, everyone remembered having heard a car drive off in the -middle of the lecture,—every one that is, but I, I had been too -interested in the waffles,—but of course no one had really thought that -it could be, etc. A search party was recruited which scoured highway and -byway. The M. P.s at Gondrecourt were notified by ’phone. Meanwhile it -was ten o’clock, a bleak night and four indignant gentlemen were -stranded six miles from home. An ambassador was elected to go and lay -the case before the A. R. C. O. The C. O. on his way to bed, instructed -the emissary where billets for the night might possibly be had. But the -Old Gentleman, upon receiving the information, flatly and finally -refused to stay in any billet in town; he would sleep in his own bed or -no other. After a nervous interval the ambassador again approached the -C. O., this time suggesting the loan of his car and chauffeur. The C. -O., aroused a second time from bed, acceeded shortly, the ambassador -returned to despatch the unfortunate Bill to camp to break the news to -the chauffeur. The chauffeur, who was in the midst of an after-hours -poker game, when he recovered from his astonishment, replied -(expurgated) that he’d come when he got good and ready, and settled back -to his game. - -In the meantime my four guests by the kitchen-stove discussed in part -the peculiarities of the Japanese language, but chiefly the shortcomings -of Mauvages. The Chief, however, showed himself a gentleman. He washed -the dishes up! And considering that he was a man and a minister and that -the light was dim and the water cold, he washed them pretty well. - -At a quarter to eleven the A. R. chauffeur having presumably forced all -the others into bankruptcy, or gone bankrupt himself, drove up to the -door and I said farewell to my friends. - -This morning a rescue expedition was sent out from Gondrecourt. It -finally discovered the lost car, none the worse for its joy-ride, in a -ditch half-way to Sauvoy. Information has reached me on the side that it -was a little group of “hard-boiled guys” from the ammunition train who -stole the auto. They were displeased with the Old Gentleman’s opinions, -and they made up their minds that he should walk home. - -So this is how matters stand: I and my hut are in discredit at -Headquarters, because my boys stole their car. The Old Gentleman has -openly declared that Mauvages is the most unpatriotic spot in France. -The A. R. C. O. is disgusted because he was routed twice out of bed in -one night. The chauffeur is so incensed at me and mine at having to -drive into town at eleven P. M. that he persistently forgets to stop for -my daily papers. And the boys are all sore and touchy on account of the -opinions expressed by the Old Gentleman in and after his lecture. Such -is the happy lot of a hut secretary. - - -Mauvages, December 23. - -The Big Push is here. Our lawn has turned into a gun park with limbers -and caissons elbowing each other under our very eaves. All day the -little hut is crowded to its capacity and at night it becomes so full -that I am literally afraid it will burst out at the seams. Colonels and -captains are forever bobbing up like so many Jack-in-the-Boxes in my -kitchen which I was used to consider as a refuge and a sanctum. They -have the best intentions in the world; they offer me advice on every -subject under the sun from the building of new shelves in the canteen to -the frequency with which I should require Big Bill to shave. And quite -unsolicited they have given me a detail,—a detail of such proportions -that I am swamped. I don’t know how many there are. They never stand -still long enough for me to count them. Sometimes there appear to be ten -and sometimes twenty. Like the Old Woman who lived in the shoe, I have -so many details I don’t know what to do. They are the nicest boys that -ever were, if only they didn’t take up quite so much room! Now when I am -minded to sit down for a moment to think, my only course is to go into -the store-room and sit on a packing-box, and the store-room is very -cold. And the worst of it is that they all, from colonel to K. P., have -the beautiful idea in their heads that I am not to do any work, but just -to be a sort of parlor ornament, and a sweet influence; that I will, in -short, like the old man who was afraid of the cow, “sit on the stile and -continue to smile,” while the army runs my hut. Which is not at all my -notion of things. - -In the meantime we have been busy making such preparations for Christmas -as we could. Chiefly we have decorated the hut. I begged two boxes full -of lanterns, flags, tinsel and festoons, from the office, then I merely -mentioned the fact that I wanted a tree and lots of branches to trim -with and the boys did the rest. I don’t know where those greens came -from, I don’t want to know. But there is one spectre that keeps haunting -me; the apparition of an indignant Frenchman at my canteen door, with a -bill half a metre long for damages. - -This new outfit has brought a heathen custom to town with them. The band -plays for Reveille! We had been so peaceful, so unmilitary here in town -with not so much as a bugle note to make a ripple in our slumbers! But -now at some unimagined hour before daylight a brazen clangour bursts -suddenly forth. Down the street and past under my window in the dark -they go, making the grand tour of the three streets in town, thumping -and tooting as if their lives depended on it. I never knew a band could -make such an amazing racket, nor could sound quite so joyously impudent. -A bucketful of cold water couldn’t dispel sleep any more effectively. I -feel like jumping out of bed. But I don’t, for it is pitch dark and cold -and very damp. There is a fireplace to be sure in my room but after one -or two fruitless attempts at making it produce a little heat I abandoned -the idea and decided to spend all my time between my bed and the -canteen. But when I desire to view my countenance in the mirror, I have -to take a towel and wipe off the moisture that collects on it to trickle -down in little streams. - -I have received my first Christmas present. Bill and Nick—the -dears!—have presented me a beautiful silk umbrella. I think they did it -largely for the honor of the family. As long as my old faithful only had -its handle gone, they could overlook it, but when the ribs took to -parting company with the covering, they evidently thought that something -should be done about it. Nick went to Gondrecourt to buy it; coming -back, he managed to fall off the truck, was picked up and given first -aid by a kindly Frenchwoman, and reached home in slightly damaged shape -but with the precious umbrella safe. I have been suggesting to Bill that -he set a two franc piece in the handle and then I will have his and -Nick’s initials carved on it, but he doesn’t wax enthusiastic. - - -Mauvages, December 25. - -We sat up half the night packing Christmas boxes,—seventeen hundred of -them, one for every man in Mauvages. Two packages of cigarettes, a -cigar, two bars of chocolate and a can of “smoking” went into each -little cardboard box labelled in red “A Merry Xmas from the folks at -home through the Y;” that is, theoretically they went in, practically it -was discovered that no human ingenuity could so arrange the pesky things -as to make them fit the box. So finally we decided to treat the -“smoking” as a separate affair. I wanted badly to have Santa Claus hand -the boxes to the boys underneath the Christmas tree, but the boys -finally convinced me that the difficulties, including the danger of -“repeaters” ad lib, were too great, so we fitted the boxes into -packing-cases and shipped a case to each company and let each of the top -sergeants play that he was Santa Claus. - -It was half past twelve by the time I passed the church on my way back -to the billet. They were celebrating midnight mass. The light of the -altar-candles illumined the old windows with a soft radiance. They were -Y. M. C. A. candles. Monsieur le Curé had begged them from me in the -afternoon; he could get no others, he said, and was in great distress. - -_Chez nous_ there was much activity. I stopped inside the door to chat -with the cooks. They were up plucking the Colonel’s goose and expected -to make a night of it. - -Sounds of gaiety were ringing from the dining-room. A young lieutenant, -slightly touseled, thrust his head out of the door. I wished him a Merry -Christmas; in return he asked me in to partake of an anchovy sandwich. I -took one look inside the door at the array of empty bottles, declined -with thanks, and climbed the stairs to bed. For a long while afterwards -someone downstairs kept mewing like a cat. It might have been the -slightly touseled lieutenant. - -Today it has been raw and damp and chill and grey and drizzly. I had a -notion that I might ask the French kiddies in this afternoon to see the -tree and receive some little gifts of cookies and chocolate but when I -reached the hut this morning and saw how packed it was I quickly gave up -the project. Not for all the children in ten villages would I turn the -boys out into the rain. - -Tonight there is to be some sort of show, arranged by the entertainment -officer. - -Just before dinner time the Second Lieutenant from the A. R. came in, -looking full of mysterious importance. “The C. O. leaves this noon,” he -said. “He’s ordered to report at Souilly by twelve tonight. I’ll tell -you all about it later.” Later I learned. Inspectors had been visiting -the dump. They had found it in a very dangerous state indeed. The wet -weather has affected the explosives so that should the sun come out for -a day or two the chemical change ensuing would in all probability cause -an explosion which would set off the whole dump with its millions of -dollars worth of high explosives. In which case little Mauvages would of -course go higher than Halifax. The C. O. has been removed and the Second -Lieutenant left in charge. The work of destroying the dangerous -explosives is to be pursued at top speed. In the meanwhile we will pray -for continued rain. - -I received two gifts today that touched me deeply. One was a pretty pink -embroidered scarf from the boys at the aviation field. The lad who -brought it to me had walked twelve miles, into Gondrecourt and back -again in the sleety rain, to buy it! The other was a package labeled; -“Wishing you a Mary Xmas from the Operators at A. S. No. 9, and may the -next one be in the States.” Inside were two boxes of chocolates, their -Christmas candy issue! - -As for me, I am ashamed—I have been so busy and so bothered that I just -couldn’t seem to manage a gift for anyone, not for Bill nor Nick nor -even Monsieur le Curé. - - -Mauvages, December 28. - -Neddy has come back! His battery has just arrived at Rosières and last -night he got off and walked over here to see me. - -We sat and talked by the kitchen-stove and I found him just the same -shy, slow-spoken dreamy lad. The long months at the front have seemingly -instilled nothing bitter in him, nor left any scars on his spirit, no -matter if he is wearing a wonderful belt quite covered with German -buttons all “cut off of dead ones.” He dug out of his pockets for me two -odd little picture frames made cleverly out of rings from German fuses, -with pieces of celluloid cut from the eye-holes of German gas-masks for -glass, and held together with surgeon’s plaster. Then of course there -were the latest pictures of his girl to show me. - -He told me about the battery. On the whole their casualties have been -light. Jones was gassed, and is in hospital somewhere; it seems just -like Jones, somehow, to get gassed! The boys, he told me, had been -fairly homesick for the little old Artillery School Hut,—most of all, he -said, they had missed my hot chocolate. - -Then just to make the occasion perfect, who should walk in but Snow! -Snow’s battery is at Delouze, two towns away; but Snow has been on leave -down on the Riviera, having the time of his young life. - -“I never could see what there was in this country worth fighting for,” -he told me, “until I went down there. But now I know.” - -He had just returned from his furlough this very afternoon. He hadn’t a -thing to eat all day, being of course, “dead broke.” I got the best -impromptu supper I could and we all three sat in the kitchen and ate it. -The menu was: crackers and canned milk; sardines and crackers; -cracker-pudding and cocoa; crackers and jam. The boys gossiped and -swapped yarns like two old veterans. Neddy related how the gunners at -the front when loading would pat and even kiss a shell as they adjured -it not to be a dud! Snow told me how ——, the talented, the brilliant, -had gone to pieces at the front and had been sent back to the S. O. S. -This must have been hard on Snow for the two were close friends. “I said -to him one day,” recounted Snow, “——, you must have done something -awfully wicked in your life to make you so afraid to die.” Undoubtedly -the poor fellow’s failure was due, not so much to lack of courage, as to -over-sensitiveness and too much imagination. The pity of it is that this -will surely prove a bad blow to his self-respect. - -When it was time for Neddy to go I saw there was something he wanted to -say to me. At last it came out. Around his neck, it seems, he is still -wearing the chain with the little cross which I gave him when he went to -the front. And he has the unshakable notion in his quaint head that it -was the cross which kept him safe! - - -Mauvages, December 29. - -Tonight we gave a party: hot chocolate and cookies for the whole camp. -Every Sunday before the Big Push came I had been serving hot chocolate -free but I had been staggered by the thought of trying to make chocolate -for seventeen hundred men on my little stove that is just big enough to -sit on, over a fire which has to be coaxed with German powder sticks and -candle ends before it will burn, and serving it in our sixty odd cocoa -bowls. This morning, however, I had an inspiration. I consulted the -detail, they approved. Accordingly we sent requests to three of the -battery mess-kitchens, asking that they should each furnish us, at -five-thirty, the largest container they possessed full of hot water. -Then we asked the mess sergeants to announce the party at supper and -tell the boys to bring their mess-cups. The sentry at the street corner -was also instructed to let no one pass without his mess-cup. Then we -started in, heating all the water we could manage, making chocolate -paste, opening whole cases full of canned milk. - -At six o’clock the fun, per schedule, began. The boys lined up from the -counter to the stage. But instead of a single line, it soon became -evident we had two, one coming and one going, which together formed an -endless chain like a giant wheel which kept slowly but surely revolving. -After the second or third time around a boy would begin to acquire a -slightly sheepish look and endeavor to avoid my eye, but when they found -that all they got was a grin and “I’m glad you like it!” they grinned -back unashamed. - -“I can’t stop,” joyfully explained one lad to me, “I’m in the line and I -can’t get out; I just gotter keep on coming round.” - -“Oh boy! but that’s the best thing I’ve had in France!” declared -another. - -While a third announced; “Gee, but I’m full all the way up! If I drink -another drop I sure will bust”—a confession which may have contained -more fact than fancy, for some of the boys did drink so much that they -got sick right then and there. It was an orgy. And when the last of the -four huge containers had been drained to a drop, why everyone, I -believe, for once had had enough. - -“You’ve got all the business in town right here tonight,” one of the -boys informed me. “I just took a look in at the cafés. Every one of them -is empty.” - -Personally I feel that the party was a Great Success. We shall have to -have one just like it every Sunday. - - -Mauvages, January 1, 1919. - -_Mes meilleurs voeux de Bonne Année!_ or, as the boys say; “Bun Annie!” -We welcomed the new Year in _con molto giubilo_. Downstairs at my billet -there was music until late and after that sounds as of a repetition of -the Christmas party. At twelve o’clock by the old church bell, the band, -which I had imagined long since safe and sound in bed, burst forth into -music and straggled down the street playing “_There’ll be a hot time in -the old town tonight_,” and all the rest of the most rakish airs in its -repertoire. I stepped out on my Juliet balcony. The boys were setting -off pyrotechnics of all sorts “salvaged” from the dump; flares, colored -lights, and rockets. The street burned out of the darkness in -rose-colored mist against which showed black silhouettes of soldiers who -waved their arms and shouted and sang; while from the edge of the -village sounded a sharp tattoo of rifle shots. Just as the light was -beginning to fade out I heard an emphatic bang of the front door below -me and looking down saw two figures; a little brisk bustling one and a -tall, lean one go hurrying down the path and out the gate. It was our -Colonel and an attendant officer. Retribution, I knew, was bearing down -upon the revellers. Sure enough, this morning I learned that the -Colonel, sallying forth, had struck right and left, leaving a trail of -arrests all over town. - -But even with the Colonel’s sortie, quiet did not descend on Mauvages -for some time. The party below-stairs was not confined to the mess-hall -this time but was also being celebrated in the kitchen. At about one -o’clock a K. P. stumbled up the stairs and knocked on the door of the -Curé’s chamber just across from me. He had some champagne for the Curé, -he explained in thick and execrable French. The Curé must drink it in -honor of the New Year. It was good champagne. I could hear the Curé -replying from his bed in rapid deprecating sentences, but the K. P. held -to his point; he had set his heart on the old man’s joining the -celebration. “_Champagne bun_,” he kept repeating, “_Vous camarade. Bun -annie._” For a long time they carried on the argument, but finally, as -the priest implacably refused to open his door, the genial K. P. gave up -in disgust, confiding to his friends as he reached the floor that the -Curé was, after all, nothing but a dried up old fish. - -This morning I went down to Headquarters to turn in my accounts. Alas, -for the vanity of human intentions! At Christmas I had sent little boxes -of fudge to several of the men at the office, hoping thereby to curry -favour for my canteen and counteract any bad impressions which our -delinquencies in the matter of attending Sunday Services and -appropriating other people’s autos might have caused. Now I find I have -made more enemies among the ones that I left out, than I made friends of -the ones I favoured. - -In spite of this sad condition of affairs I managed to tease one driver -into agreeing to take me to Vaucouleurs. At Vaucouleurs I had been told -that there was a commissary where one could purchase candles, and the -boys are desperately anxious for candles. At first I did not quite -understand so burning a desire as they exhibited, but now I am wise. -They want them—poor wretches!—so they can “read their shirts,” before -they go to bed! I stayed down in Gondrecourt, missing dinner, and then -set out for Vaucouleurs with my heart full of hope and my pockets -crammed with currency. It was a long, cold trip in the driving, drizzly -rain. Arrived at Vaucouleurs we found that, being the first of the -month, the commissary was closed for inventory. - - -Mauvages, January 3. - -Everybody has a little pet trouble of his own these days. The A. R. has -its share and more of them. Lieutenant C. recounted some of his tonight. -He had been carrying the dangerous explosives over beyond the woods to -the west of the town where they were being blown off. Then the French -Town Major had called. - -It wouldn’t do, he said, to blow off the ammunition there any more; -there were sick people in the town and the explosions fairly made them -jump right up out of their beds. And really one couldn’t blame them. So -then the Lieutenant had switched to the north, over beyond the -narrow-gauge, only to be promptly visited by a furious delegation of -engineers. Whether it was because proper precautions hadn’t been taken -or what I don’t know, whatever the case, in the course of the explosions -a large rock had made a gaping hole in the roof of A. S. No. 9 and -narrowly missed one of my good friends the operators. The complaint of -the engineers was shortly followed by an indignant ultimatum from the -Captain at Abainville who is in charge of the railway. Unless the -explosions were forthwith stopped, he threatened, no more trains would -be run on the road. On top of all this the Colonel of artillery must -call the Lieutenant to account. The boys whom he arrested New Year’s -night had been shooting off their rifles. The shells must have come from -the dump. Since it was Lieutenant C.’s dump, it was his business to keep -his shells in their proper places. Therefore Lieutenant C. was -responsible for the shooting. - -I don’t know just how the matter has been arranged with the Captain at -Abainville, but the explosions beyond the tracks have been going on all -day. Latest reports testify that that roof of A. S. No. 9 is riddled -like a sieve with stone-holes and that the cook, who never was known to -be a religious man, spends all his time beneath the table praying. - -Two of the ordnance boys have been badly burned while setting off the -explosions, and the whole detachment is sore and disheartened because -they are being worked so hard in the mud and rain and their Sunday -holiday denied them. Special details from the artillery are being sent -to work at the dump every day in order to hasten the work of -destruction, but these boys, too, are sullen and rebellious. They have -been used to handling shells at the front, they say, and they consider -it an indignity to have to handle them here in the dump as if they, -forsooth, belonged to the ordnance! And so the work goes none too -quickly. Everyone has been instructed to keep a particular lookout for -German delay fuses, those deadly little infernal machines, which can be -set, according to the strength of the acid which eats through the -spring, to explode any time between a week and six months. They are -disguised cleverly to look exactly like ordinary percussion fuses, the -only betraying mark being a tiny six pointed star on the nose. Several -have already been found planted in dumps which contained captured German -ammunition, and the tale runs through camp that some have been -discovered here, although this I rather suspect is just another army -rumor. - -Tonight one of the ordnance boys hobbled into the hut, his left foot -swathed in bandages; a shell had fallen on a toe and crushed it. I -attempted to sympathize. - -“Don’t waste any of your sympathy on me,” he retorted, “I’m the luckiest -feller you know. There ain’t a man in camp who don’t envy me.” - -As for me, I am having a few pet troubles too. One of these is concerned -with the army dentist at Gondrecourt. And this is all in consequence of -the kind operators at A. S. No. 9 and their Christmas chocolates, for -among those chocolates was a caramel and,—well that candy was made in -Switzerland and so was probably pro-German anyway. - -Yesterday I had to witness the harrowing spectacle of a stalwart -doughboy being separated from a tooth. When the ghastly business was -over he shook himself. - -“I’ve been over the top,” he declared, “and got filled up with -machine-gun bullets,”—he was wearing two wound stripes,—“but I’ll tell -the world them bullets weren’t nothin’ to that tooth!” - -But the chief of my troubles is the hut lighting problem. So far, I have -not been able to get any response to my petition for an electric -lighting system. Our fine carbide lamps are a frank fizzle, our candles -are all gone, we have nothing but a few lanterns and small oil lamps. -Every day someone breaks my heart by breaking another lamp chimney, and -new ones, alas! are not to be had for love or money in this part of -France. Moreover the boys have developed a most inconvenient habit of -walking off with the lamps. At first I said in exasperation; “Well, let -them take them! As soon as the oil burns out they’ll find the lamps -aren’t any use to them.” But I didn’t reckon on their Yankee ingenuity. -They are smart enough, it seems, to bring back the empty ones, and -exchange them for filled ones, every evening! - - -Mauvages, January 5. - -Mauvages is in a state of mind for mutiny, and it’s all over a little -piece of cloth about two inches square. The case is this; the —— -Artillery Brigade, having served six months continuously at the front, -having participated in all the big offensives, and having won an -enviable reputation, was attached, on coming to this area, for the sake -of military convenience, to the —— Division already stationed here, a -draft organization which had never been to the front at all. The -artillery were far from pleased over the arrangement, but they managed -to swallow their pride and put a good face on the matter. A few days -ago, however, the order came out that they were to abandon the insignia -of their old division and appear—every last man of them,—with the -insignia of the new division on his arm. The men were furious. The -batteries stationed at Rosières made a bonfire and burned the detestable -insignia publicly, for which they got two weeks restriction to camp and -a new set of little red patches. One boy sewed his “clover-leaf,” as -they call them, to the seat of his breeches. Raincoats have become all -the wear, even in the best of weather, for under these the hated symbol -is hidden. Indeed the feeling was so intense that in some places both -officers and men tore off their service-stripes before putting on the -new insignia. - -I alone in the town am wearing the insignia of the old division and this -is a wonderful and weird affair cut out of turkey red bunting and pinned -to my sweater sleeve in a moment of reminiscent loyalty by my indignant -detail. But the band keeps on lustily proclaiming the brigade’s undying -allegiance, for every morning for Reveille, as it makes the grand tour -of the town it brays forth defiantly the war march of the old division. - -“We haven’t got orders to stop _that!_” says the leader. - -Since the spirit of rebellion is abroad I have been managing a little -mutiny of my own. It came about in the matter of Sunday movies. Up till -the present we had been accustomed to having a service every Sunday -night, but since the artillery moved in we have been furnished with a -full-fledged morning service by the regimental chaplain, in view of -which I had set my heart on having movies in the evening rather than a -second service. I based my position on the grounds that, since to my -notion at least, the main end of the work over here is simply to keep -the boys away from the things that would hurt them, on Sunday night, the -most dangerous night of all the week, this could best be done by drawing -them to the hut with a movie show; always provided that their “religious -needs” had been supplied earlier in the day. - -The movie machine was at the hut, I had found an operator in one of the -batteries, a little Jewish boy who bragged of long experience in the -states; all I wanted was a film. I went with my request to the office. -My logic it seemed to me was unassailable. But the office couldn’t see -it that way. After much debate we agreed to disagree in theory. In -practice I carried off my film. But I did it with a sinking of the -heart. My relations with the office have always been quite cordial, this -was the first incident to cast a gloom over them. Anyway, I thought, -we’re going to have those movies! I advertised the show extensively. - -Sunday night came. The hut was thronged. I was feeling rather -particularly pleased with things. We had ministered to the boys’ souls -in the morning, fortified the inner man with free hot chocolate at six -o’clock, now we were going to finish out the day by satisfying their -romantic cravings with a film drama of love and adventure. - -But oh! for the pride that goes before the stumbling-block! When it came -to the test it seemed that the little operator, for all his bragging, -couldn’t make the movie machine go. Perhaps it was because the lad -didn’t understand the foreign make, perhaps it was because the machine -needed to be talked to in French, or perhaps it was just because the -project had been unblessed from the beginning; I don’t know. We had half -the camp ganged around the machine, offering to take a hand. Everybody -was criticizing and advising, which, I suppose, added the last touch to -the little operator’s confusion. After waiting an interminable time in -the dark we witnessed a few feeble flickers on the screen and then -darkness once more. The audience dribbled disgustedly away. They -probably made up for their disappointment in the cafés. - -This morning the driver stopped at the hut to take the machine away. -“Have a good show, last night?” he asked. - -“Umm hm,” said I, grinning cheerfully. - -I am praying that the truth about that show never reaches the office! - - -Mauvages, January 10. - -Tonight I leave Mauvages. Two weeks more and I shall be “homeward -bound.” I am so tired that it has seemed to me for some time that the -only thing I can do is to go home. There isn’t any room in France these -days for anyone who isn’t perfectly strong, perfectly rested. A week ago -I went to Nancy and persuaded the lady in charge of the women workers of -this division, after some argument, to let me go. I have already -overstayed my contract by eight months. Now they have telegraphed from -Paris that they have a sailing for me. The man secretary is here to take -over this hut. - -Because I hate leave-takings I tried to keep the fact that I was going -dark until the very last minute but at the end word got around. The boys -came flocking into my kitchen with messages and missives for the states. -Boys whom I had never to my knowledge seen before pledged me to call up -their wives on the long distance telephone as soon as I should land. One -boy gave me two German fuses weighing a number of pounds apiece to carry -home. If I would take one for him, I might keep the other one, he said. - -“Say hello to the Statue of Liberty for me!” - -“Give my regards to Broadway.” - -“Say Lady, can’t you take me in your trunk?” they chorused. - -As for Nick, he has instructed me to go to Brooklyn, pick out the best -hat in his wife’s millinery store, “And tell the missus it’s on me.” - -I have taken my last agonized inventory, turned in my last -accounts,—balanced by Big Bill. This afternoon I went to take my last -look at the little hut. It is all torn to pieces, they have begun to -build that addition which I started begging for a month ago; I slipped -one of my canteen tea-cups into my bag just for old times sake. - -Neddy came in to say Good-bye. At the last moment he shyly placed a -little box in my hand. In it was a pretty gilt Lorraine cross. He had -walked all the way into Gondrecourt to get it. He would have bought me a -chain too, he explained with a flush, only he was “pecuniarily -embarrassed.” Dear little Neddy! If he only knew how much better I liked -it without the chain. - -My luggage is all packed and Bill has strapped it up for me. I have said -adieu to the Curé and the Colonel. Madame the Caretaker has kissed me on -both cheeks and dropped a tear over me. Now I am waiting for the A. R. -jitney to come and take me to the station. - -A horrid thought has just occurred to me. The captain’s cognac must be -still in the corner of the store-room shelf. What _will_ the secretary -think? - - - - -CHAPTER VII: VERDUN—THE FRENCH - - -Paris, January 12. - -It is fortunate that the world looks tolerantly on a certain instability -in the feminine mind. When I left Mauvages there was just one thought in -my head,—to go straight home. I have been twenty-four hours in Paris; -already my resolution is wavering. It’s all on account of what they said -to me at the Headquarters office. - -Paris is truly a different city from the one I last saw in September on -my way back from Saint Malo; the streets thronged with people, and -brightly lighted at night, the shop windows gay and inviting, freed from -their patterned lattices of paper strips which formerly protected the -glass from the concussions caused by shells and bombs. In the Place de -la Concorde the statue representing the City of Strasbourg, divested of -the mourning wreaths which it has worn ever since 1870, now smiles -triumphantly above a mass of flags and flowers; and, most thrilling of -all, the crouched grey guns of Germany, like so many dumb impotent -monsters, throng the Place de la Concorde, stretch in a double line -along the Champs Elysées all the way to the Arc de Triomphe. - -Everywhere the shop windows display a picture; a woman’s form, heroic, -bearing a great sword, with wide spread wings which are at the same time -wings and American flags; before her the bent and cowering form of the -Emperor; while beyond, a sea of khaki, illimitable hosts of warriors -melting away in waves against the horizon; and underneath the words: - -“But what tremendous fleet could have brought hither such an army?” - -“The _Lusitania_.” - -The Patisserie shops are full of enticing little cakes once more; but, -sad to say, the quality one finds has depreciated while the prices have -gone sky-rocketing. I thought I would economise this noon and, instead -of eating a five franc luncheon at the hotel, substitute a cup of cocoa -and some little cakes at a tea-shop. When I came to pay my bill it was -seven francs fifty! While I was partaking of my frugal repast a French -Red Cross nurse came into the shop leading two blind poilus. She bought -them each some cakes as if they had been two little boys and they stood -there eating them. The poilu nearest me, a tall fine-looking fellow, -tasted his, “_Ah!_” he exclaimed, “_c’est une vrai Madeleine!_” He lied. -It was no more like a pre-war Madeleine than chalk is like cheese, but -if it had been made of India-rubber I suppose he would have said the -same thing, and said it with just the same grave and gracious courtesy. - -Now that the war is over, one feels sorrier than ever for the French -officers who haven’t medals. - -“The Frenchies are issuing the _croix de guerre_ with their rations -now,” the boys used to say. And indeed when one sees a French officer -without some sort of decoration one feels instinctively that something -must be the matter with him. - -To go or not to go? I am thinking of a compromise. I will postpone my -sailing, take the furlough that is due to me. At the end of two weeks I -can calmly make up my mind. - - -Cauterets, January 20. - -“There’s only one poor feature about this place;” declared a boy today, -“they won’t let you stay long enough.” - -This is a representative but not a universal sentiment. Some of the boys -don’t like the snow, for Cauterets being high in the Pyrenees, is deep -in snow at present. A few complain that they don’t get enough to eat. It -is the breakfasts chiefly that fail to satisfy. The French having been -used, time out of mind, to a _petit déjeuner_ of rolls and coffee, -utterly fail to comprehend the American need for heartier sustenance. -When the contracts with the hotels were made it was carefully stipulated -that eggs, meat or fish should be served at breakfast in addition to the -continental menu, but the quantities were not stated and to a hearty -doughboy on a cold morning _one_ egg is a mere tantalization, if not an -insult. Every morning you may see them flocking in swarms to the Y. in -order to round out their unsatisfactory breakfasts with hot chocolate -and bread and jam. Yesterday I overheard some indignant splutterings -from a little crowd at one of the canteen tables. - -“What’s the matter, boys?” - -“They gave us fish this morning for breakfast!” - -“They did?” - -“Yep! One sardine to each man!” - -Yet in spite of a few such inharmonious notes, Cauterets, like Saint -Malo and Aix-les-Bains, is instinct with the spirit of the American -soldier on leave. And the American soldier on leave is the Playboy of -the Western World. When the last doughboy has walked up the gang-plank -of the last west-bound transport, I think the railway officials, -gate-keepers, station agents, and train conductors all over France will -settle back in their chairs and draw a deep breath of relief. - -The French poilu and the English Tommy have both questioned often and -bitterly why it was that while they must ride third class, the American -soldier habitually traveled second and first; the answer being that you -simply can’t keep the doughboys out! It is the idea of the social -distinction implied by the _classes_ I fancy that makes half the -trouble. However that may be, it is absolutely against the rules of the -game for any doughboy to ride third class if there are any second class -coaches, and equally disgraceful to ride second class if there is a -first. I myself have seen an American buck private with third class -transportation in his pocket stretching his legs in a luxurious first -class compartment seat, while a French general stood up outside in the -corridor! At another time I took a journey in a first class compartment -built for six, in which three English officers, an English titled Lady, -her companion, two muddy doughboys and myself were all crowded. This was -an anxious trip for me, for not only was I worried lest an indignant -conductor should eject the doughboys, but I was also guiltily conscious -of having paid only a second class fare myself! - -One joyous company of eight lads on leave whom I encountered on the way -down here counted in their number one sergeant with a well-worn second -class pass. Things arranged themselves very simply. In the line-up at -the gate or in the car, the sergeant, heading the file, presented his -pass first, then, as it was handed back to him, slipped it behind his -back to the next man and so on down the line. Once in a second class -compartment it was usually an easy matter to transfer to first. This -same crowd related to me how, when locked out of an empty first class -compartment by an irate conductor they merely waited until the next -stop, then getting out climbed through the window on the off side of the -train into the forbidden seats. - -“Golly, but that old frog got a shock when he looked in through the -glass door and saw us sitting there!” - -They were overcome with chagrin because at the last change one member of -the party allowed himself to be bullied by a hard-boiled M. P. into -leaving the first class car. - -“He’s broken our record,” they mourned; “he’s disgraced the family!” And -half their pleasure in the remainder of the trip was spoiled it was -evident. - -Irrepressible, curious of all things, awed by nothing, the doughboy -cares not a snap of his fingers for the whole of French Officialdom. An -officer told me how, when standing on a station platform the other day, -an irate and husky doughboy sailed by him, headed for the baggage-room -in search of somebody’s luggage. - -“If you hear a noise, Major,” he remarked in transit, “you’ll know that -I’m stepping on a frog.” - -The French railway system affords him a never-failing topic for -amusement. And truly it has its quaint points. On the trip down we -passed over one line where the heating system for the cars consisted -entirely of long flat metal cans filled with hot water which were shoved -in under our feet, so that, no matter how chilly the rest of us might -be, our toes at least could travel in comfort; while on the walls of -each coach, we observed with glee, was an official notice requesting the -passengers to refrain from throwing objects such as _empty bottles_ out -the windows as numerous casualties among the employees had resulted from -this practice! - -The doughboy passes everywhere by virtue of the magic words, “_no -compree_.” Traveling he develops a stupidity that is absolute and -unshakable. - -“I never understand anything they say,” chuckled one youngster joyously, -“until they begin to talk about something to eat”. - -Wonderful tales are told of escapades and adventures; such as the story -of the boy who started out to spend his leave at Aix-les-Bains and -traveled half over Italy before he came back, all on the the strength of -the pass-word “onion-stew” and an unidentified document that happened to -have a red seal attached. Common rumour has it that the official report -records sixty thousand A. W. O. L.s at the present date in the A. E. F. -in France. I don’t know whether this is correct, but I rather hope it -is. Now that the war is won I am glad that in spite of Provost Marshals -and M. P.s some of the boys at least are on the way to discovering that -there is something more to France than just “mud and kilometers.” - - -Paris, February 7. - -I’m going to stay. If I went home now I would feel like a quitter all -the rest of my life. I don’t know where I’m going. They asked me if I -would like to go to Germany but I said no, I didn’t want to look at -Germans. I shall have to stay here in Paris for a week or so anyway in -order to get that wretched business of a broken tooth, which the -Christmas caramel at Mauvages began, straightened out. In the meantime, -I am doing what I can in a perfectly amateur and impromptu way to help -young America see Paris. - -Paris is the lodestar of France for the A. E. F. From every part of the -country it draws them like a magnet. When on leave, no matter from what -portion of France they may have come or what corner they may be bound -for, they always contrive to get there by way of Paris. If the R. T. O. -instructs them to change to another line before they reach the city, -they arrive there just the same, to explain blandly to the M. P. that -they went to sleep on the train: “and when I woke up, why here I was in -Paris!” What dodges the doughboys haven’t worked in order to circumvent -the M. P.s and get into Paris without official permission, or once in -Paris to stay longer than the short time allotted them, would be beyond -human imagination. There is one story current, for whose truth though, I -cannot vouch, of an American private who passed a week in the forbidden -city in the uniform of his cousin, a lieutenant in the French Army. At -the time of the signing of the armistice, for several days the M. P.s’ -vigilance was relaxed and boys from all over France swarmed to the city -to participate in the festivities, but since then the penalties for the -unlucky ones who are caught have grown more and more severe. - -Yesterday by request I took two boys to the Louvre. We wandered through -the galleries of Greek and Roman sculptures. One boy, looking at the -yellowed and discolored surfaces, declared himself bitterly -disappointed. He had heard that the statues were all real marble here, -but it was perfectly plain that they were nothing but plaster -imitations! The other boy asked naïvely if the mutilated statues were -“meant to represent people who had had their heads chopped off.” After -about half an hour they consulted their watches, announced that we had -just time to get to a movie show, and wouldn’t I go with them? - -But if the finer points of Greek art are lost on many, there are plenty -of other things which they do appreciate. - -“Can you climb to the top of the Eiffel tower?” - -“Where is the church that the shell struck on Good Friday?” - -“What would you advise me to buy to send home to Mother?” - -“How often does the Ferris Wheel go?” - -“Is there any place in Paris where one can get ice-cream soda?” - -These are some of the questions that they ask you. Some go to the Opera, -sitting invariably in the best seats to the amazement of the French -people. Yesterday I stopped at the box-office to buy some tickets. A boy -standing just inside the door spoke to me. - -“I beg your pardon, were you going to buy a seat for this afternoon?” - -“No,” I said; “for Saturday.” - -“I have an extra ticket. I’d be glad to have you use it.” - -He went on to tell me that he was taking the six o’clock train, that he -had bought tickets for himself and a friend for the matinee as a last -pleasure, but that his friend had failed him. I hesitated, uncertain. -“What’s the opera?” I asked, just because it was something to say. - -“It’s La Bohème,” he said. I fell. - -“I’m mighty glad,” he told me, “I was just about to go out and pick up a -chicken on the street, when you came in.” - -The opera was a dream of loveliness. I felt as if I must have done -something very good indeed in some previous existence to be thus -rewarded. - -Today I encountered two boys who told me how they had “done” Paris. - -“We stopped at a store and bought a bunch of post cards, all the famous -buildings and everything. Then we got a taxi. After that all we’d do was -to show the chauffeur a post card and he’d drive us to it,—then we’d -show him another one, and so we kept a-goin’ until we’d seen most all of -Paris. But gee! That taxi bill was a fright!” - -This afternoon, coming down the “Boulevard de Wop,” as the boys call the -Boulevard des Italiens, I paused beside a fiacre, attached to a -particularly wretched looking old nag, which was drawn up by the -sidewalk. Into it were piling merrily some eight or nine doughboys, the -cabman fairly dancing on his seat as he uttered frantic but perfectly -unheeded expostulations. Finally as the cabby appeared to be developing -apoplexy, I spoke up. - -“Boys, you know that _really_ that broken-down old beast never _could_ -pull all of you!” - -Whereupon half of them immediately piled out again. One of the remaining -ones leaned out of the fiacre. - -“Say Lady, can you talk French?” he demanded earnestly. - -“Why a little.” - -“Well tell that old guy for me, will you,” he indicated the still -disgruntled _cocher_ who, like the rest of his tribe, was crowned with -an ornamental “stove-pipe,” “that I want him to lend me his hat.” - -Tonight I met a girl I know who is in the Hut Equipment Department. She -has just returned from an extended tour of inspection. I told her I -didn’t know where my next assignment was to be. - -“Why don’t you go to Verdun?” she asked. “The conditions about there are -worse than any other place in France. Men are commiting suicide there -every day.” - -So I wrote a note to the Office asking that I be sent to Verdun. - - -Bar-le-Duc, February 16. - -Somewhere here in Bar-le-Duc there is an extraordinary thing. It is the -Mausoleum of René of Chalons, prince of Orange, and designed in -accordance with his wishes. Against an ermine mantle, under a rich -armorial crest, stands a skeleton or rather the rotting carcass of a -man, half bone and half disintegrating tissue, holding aloft in one -ghastly hand, his heart, an offering, so the story goes, to his lady -wife. - -Every time I am in Bar-le-Duc, even if it is only an hour between -trains, I go hunting for that skeleton; but the nearest I have come so -far, is to find it on a picture post card. Once I thought I had surely -run it to earth when I came upon a strange old church built so as to -bridge a narrow moat-like canal, and so low that it seemed as if the -water must ooze up through the stone slabs of the floor, but no. - -I am here at Bar-le-Duc for a few days because it seems that after all -it isn’t quite certain whether I had better go to Verdun or to Souilly. -While my fate is being decided, I am acting as a sort of errand-girl, -special messenger and Jack-of-all-jobs here at Headquarters. - -This morning I went out in a flivver to do an errand. The driver told me -how, a few days ago, he had carried a young French girl all over the -country-side looking for her aviator-lover’s grave. Finally with the -help of a French officer they had found it. The girl had placed a wreath -on the grave, said a little prayer and turned away. He showed me the -place, three grey wooden crosses, one with a china wreath on it, marking -the field where a large aviation camp had once been and now quite the -loneliest and most deserted spot in the world. - -Coming back, I was sent to the Provost Marshal’s office to telephone. -While I waited for my connection two M. P.s brought in a prisoner. He -belonged to the —— Division which reached France in September. Two days -after he landed he went A. W. O. L. and had been missing ever since. By -some unknown means he had managed to acquire a typewriter and all -winter, it appeared, he had been living in the woods supporting himself -by typing faked travel orders and selling them to the soldiers. He was a -heavy-set fellow, sullen and taciturn under their questioning. They went -through his pockets and turned out the collection on the table; chewing -gum, tobacco, a shaving-set, old newspapers, screws and nails, buttons -and string and matches and pins, pencils, and post cards, a knife and -three toothbrushes. - -Bar-le-Duc I understand does a thriving business in A. W. O. L.s. One of -the M. P.s told me of a lad who, when asked for his papers, took to his -heels and was promptly pursued. - -“I chased him all over town, and finally I ran him into the canal,” he -narrated joyfully. “He stood out there with the water up to his waist -while I stood on the bank and shied stones at him. And he had on a serge -uniform too.” - -“How did it end?” I asked. - -“Oh I let him go; I figured if he wanted to get away that bad he had a -right to.” - -Up this same canal a few weeks ago came a flotilla of French submarines -bound for the Rhine, the sailors startling the inhabitants by their -sudden appearance in the streets in their naval uniforms and their -casual references to their ships close at hand. Somebody was unkind -enough to declare that the subs had started their journey from the coast -on Armistice Day, but I am sure this must be a libel. - -This afternoon I asked if I might work in the canteen. This is in a -French house, a few doors beyond the beautiful Officers’ Club, the home -of one of the wealthy manufacturers of the _Confiture de Bar-le-Duc_, -lent by him, rent-free for the use of the Americans during the war. In -the course of the afternoon I became the possessor of a puppy-dog -presented me by a motor-truck driver, who, following some careless -remark of mine about wishing I had a puppy, dropped the scared little -black thing in my arms and fled. As soon as I could collect my senses I -flew around the counter and out the door after him, calling on him to -take his dog back. But when I reached the street, motor-truck and driver -both had vanished. I would have loved to keep the little beggar, but -here I am, a transient traveller bound for nobody knows where; what -could I do? I explained my dilemma to the grinning crowd in the canteen. -One of the boys spoke up. - -“I’ll take him and give him to my French girl,” he said. I relinquished -the little fellow regretfully. I hope Mademoiselle makes him a good -foster-mother. - -A little while later I noticed a boy at the counter who wore three -service stripes and two wound stripes. “What’s your division?” I asked. -He told me. He belonged to my old regiment! He had been in the Milk -Battalion at Goncourt, and he remembered me. He was a Class B man now -and in the post office at Bar-le-Duc. - -“What of the rest?” I asked. - -“They’re mostly dead,” he answered, and he told me how, after one -charge, out of the whole Company M six men and the captain had come -back. - -I broke down and cried; I couldn’t help it. The boy, embarrassed, drew -away. He is the only man I have seen out of my regiment since last -March, and all he could say was, “They’re mostly dead!” Dead at -Château-Thierry, dead on the Marne, dead by Soissons, dead in honor, -dead with glory. America, will you ever forget? - - -Bar-le-Duc, February 18. - -Everyone here is incensed this morning over the action of the French -troops in the matter of the theatre. It seems that the Americans had -arranged a schedule of movies and shows to be given at the local theatre -a month in advance. A soldier show was billed for tonight, the company -had reached town, the audience was beginning to gather from the nearby -villages, when the French troops who began to arrive in town yesterday -announced that they had their own exclusive and immediate uses for the -building. All efforts to arbitrate the matter have so far failed. And -now word comes that a French lieutenant in order to be ready to repel -any possible move on the part of the Americans to take possession of the -theatre for the night has had his bed made up in one of the boxes! - -It is the greatest of pities that there should be this wretched element -of friction between the two allies. If every American could have been -miraculously whisked out of France the day after the armistice was -signed the doughboy would likely have been to this day a bit of a -popular French idol. It is this hanging about with no ostensible end in -view that frays nerves on both sides and leads to a mutual stepping on -each other’s toes. No two nationalities I am convinced could be thrown -into such an intimate and trying relationship and produce perfect -harmony. There must inevitably be a clash of temperaments. The case in -this instance, as I see it, is complicated to an extraordinary degree, -with human foibles and failings a-plenty on both sides. - -We Americans have undoubtedly been guilty of bad manners. Quite openly -and persistently the doughboy has called the Frenchman “frog” to his -face and this the French have by no means enjoyed. The odd part of the -thing is that the doughboy can give no explanation of the nickname. - -“But why do you call them frogs?” I ask the boys. Usually they look -quite blank. - -“It’s ’cause they sound like frogs when they talk,” explained one lad. - -“’Cause they jump around like frogs when they get excited,” offered -another. - -Not one of them suspects that this nickname is a curious survival of the -old term of contempt “Frog-eaters” applied to the French by the English -in the days when they were enemies instead of allies! - -Undoubtedly too the feminine factor, leading as it has to jealousy, has -played its share in arousing antagonism. - -“The chief victories of the Americans in France,” declared a French -officer bitterly the other day, “are his conquests over the feminine -heart!” - -Indeed from the start it has been an open secret that the -“Mademoiselles” have taken a prodigious fancy to the American soldier. -This is partly because he possesses the charm of novelty, partly because -he has money and can procure chocolate and cigarettes and partly just -because he is himself. - -“There are three thousand men in this town and three girls,” ran a -postal addressed by a joyous youngster on leave to his lieutenant; “I’m -going with one of them and Abe has the other two.” - -And who can blame the poilu for a certain amount of resentment, when, -coming back from the trenches he has discovered that a dashing American -stationed at an engineering camp in his home town has supplanted him in -the affections of his sweetheart? - -On the American side there is of course the old grievance of the -overcharging. - -“D’you know why you don’t see any Jews in France?” asked a lad of me the -other day, “It’s because they couldn’t make a living.” - -In part, this sense of grievance, as I see it, is justifiable. An -officer told me not long ago that he had recently been left behind when -his outfit moved out from a village, as “Mop Up Officer” to settle the -claims of the townspeople for damage done by the soldiers during their -stay,—a pane of glass, a truss of straw, the tine of a pitchfork. -Hearing a commotion in the town square he looked out; the town crier was -announcing to the populace that now the Americans had gone the price of -wine would be cut from five francs a bottle to two. But in part this -sense of grievance is unjustifiable, for the American has in no small -measure brought this state of affairs upon himself. From the start the -doughboy’s disgust with the flimsy paper bills and the puzzling tricky -scheme of the francs, sous and centimes engendered a carelessness toward -French money which the tradespeople took as a delightful indication of -unlimited wealth. “But everyone is rich in America!” I have heard them -declare with childish conviction. So prices began to rise and presently, -with the prices, the doughboy’s resentment, and then the poilu’s; for -the rise automatically put all luxuries out of the French soldier’s -reach and this of course he in turn blamed bitterly on the “rich” -American. Indeed the sending of a large body of men paid at the rate of -a dollar a day into a country where the native troops were paid at the -rate of five cents a day was a social-economic error which somehow, say -by some system of reserve pay such as the Australians have, should have -been avoided. - -Then too, the American won’t haggle. The Frenchman, as a rule, won’t buy -unless he can. Prices are fixed with the expectation of a compromise -after bargaining. Not easily shall I forget a dramatic scene witnessed -at the “Rag Fair” at the Porte Maillot in Paris between a prosperous -householder and a “rag” seller over a second-hand padlock. The seller -remained firm in demanding six cents for the padlock. The householder -was equally determined not to pay more than five. Finally the -householder with great dignity withdrew, only to be called back by a -despairing yelp from the seller. He had capitulated. To the American -such a performance seems both tedious and undignified; he either takes -the article at the first price asked or leaves it. - -Nor can it be denied that the doughboy tends to be a bit of a prodigal. -Chief of his spendthrift weaknesses are two; he will pay almost any -price for sweets, sink almost any sum in a present for his girl. Then -too the universal custom of gambling in the army, leading to swollen -fortunes for the favoured ones, has helped to establish standards of -extravagance. An officer in charge of a company belonging to a negro -labor regiment told me of seeing two of his boys in a café sit down to a -twenty-five franc bottle of champagne and then, the taste for some -reason not quite suiting their fancies, walk out leaving the bottle -practically untouched behind! - -In the light of such incidents as this, who can blame the French people -for regarding the American as a sort of gift from God beneficently -allowed them at the time of their greatest national impoverishment, for -the replenishing of their depleted pocketbooks? - - -Verdun, February 20. - -The little narrow-gauge train pulled us in here from Bar-le-Duc at ten -o’clock last night, a thirty mile run and six hours to make it! When I -asked for a first class fare at the station I noticed an odd expression -on the ticket-seller’s face. “They’re all the same,” he said; “all -second class.” Arrived at the train I understood. The coaches were -filthy and furnished with straight-backed wooden benches; a heap of -rubbish surrounded the rickety stove in the centre. Shortly after we -crawled out of Bar-le-Duc it began to rain. Half the windows were -innocent of glass. The rain beat in through the empty sashes. Presently -it grew dark. Several of the passengers, American, reached in their -pockets and brought out a few grimy candle-ends. We made little -grease-spots on the benches and stuck the candles there, but the gusts -of wind from the empty windows kept blowing them out, so half the time -we jogged along in darkness. - -Among the passengers was a little old Frenchman with one arm. He was -returning to his native village in the devastated area the other side of -Verdun, after an absence of four years. With him was his young son, an -immature lad of seventeen. - -“_J’ai tine passion_,” declared the old man with startling fervour; -“_j’ai une passion véritable de revoir le village de ma naissance!_” - -In all probability he was returning to nothing but a crumbled heap of -stones. - -“You are very brave,” I told him. - -Ah but it was for them, the old, to set an example for the young! It was -they who should lead the way! It was they who should rebuild France! His -frail old body fairly shook with the strength of his emotion. What a -strange, thrilling, tragic pilgrimage! - -Verdun resembled nothing but a ruin mercifully wrapped in darkness as we -passed through the gate and made our way up the hill. We had found, -luckily, a guide who had a lantern; nowhere else in all the city was so -much as a gleam of light to be seen. In places, as we passed, the shells -of houses still stood, staring down with empty eyes at us, in other -places there were nothing but rubble mounds with here and there a narrow -jagged bit of wall or a naked chimney standing out like a lonely -monolith. - -Headquarters offices are at the Château on the summit of the hill close -to the Cathedral, one of the few buildings left undamaged in this part -of town, a rambling, ungainly, rather gloomy structure. The second story -consists almost entirely of a series of great empty barren loft-like -store-rooms. In one of these, known as the Ladies, Cold Storage, I have -my habitation. Supposed to be a sort of one-night-stand dormitory for -female tourists,—nurses chiefly,—who are touring the battle-fields, the -Ladies, Cold Storage is a large dusty garret with grimy rough-plastered -walls, without a window or as much as a crack to let in any light or air -except for a few small slits in the roof where the rain leaks in. A -stove, a long row of cots and a tin basin on a shelf surmounted by a -broken piece of looking-glass are its only furnishings. However, the L. -C. S. boasts one luxury, it is equipped with electric lights. This -helps—when the current is turned on!—when it isn’t, we light a candle -stub and stick it in an old milk can. The electricity is generated -underground in the Citadel. When the Americans first came to Verdun some -enterprising electricians tapped the wires and had forty lights working -before the French knew anything about it. Upon discovery the French cut -off the Americans, only to find shortly afterwards that another -connection had been made. This absurd performance was repeated no less -than seven times. After the seventh time the French gave up. - -We were fairly frightened out of bed this morning by a most horrible -hubbub,—a Klaxon gas-alarm which is used to call the guests to -breakfast. Having heard it I am quite convinced that if Gabriel wishes -to do the job efficiently on the last day, he will scrap his trumpet and -take a Klaxon. - -After breakfast we newcomers hurried out to get a glimpse of the town. -There were plenty of others likewise occupied as Verdun is a veritable -magnet for A. E. F. tourists. The Cathedral is closed to visitors but we -happened upon two French officers who kindly took us through. The roof -is badly damaged and the stained glass of the windows shattered to bits, -but beyond that the Cathedral is comparatively unharmed. I was much -embarrassed when the officers informed me that the _sacrés pierres_, the -sacred stones from the altar, had been stolen and presumably sent as -souvenirs to America. At first I pretended not to understand, but they -took such pains to explain, finally taking me to the altar and showing -me where the little marble slabs had been dug out, that I finally had to -admit I understood. The two nurses who were with us were anxious to -climb the clock-tower, but this, we found, was strictly _défendu_. All -through the war, we learned afterwards, the clock in the tower had been -kept going by the faithful verger who refused to leave his post, and -what’s more, it had kept time. But a short while ago the clock had -started “skipping.” A party of American boys had just visited the tower. -Upon investigation it proved that one of the wheels was missing! -Sometimes I think the French are very patient with us. - -Everywhere we went we came upon German prisoners engaged in the most -leisurely fashion in cleaning up. There are several thousands of them -here and more to come. Verdun is to rise from her ruins and live once -more. Yet she can never be in any sense the stately city that once she -was; for while the business and poorer portions of the city below the -hill are not irreparably damaged, the finer part with its stately -mansions and exquisite specimens of mediæval architecture is wrecked -beyond repair. The most serious obstacle in the way of making at least -some small portions of the city habitable at present lies in the great -difficulty of obtaining window-glass. - -From the Cathedral we went to the Canteen-in-the-Convent. How the nuns -would stare, I thought, if they could see their virgin precincts in -possession of a mob of boys in khaki, white and black, interspersed with -the blue-coated poilus! Across the back of the building runs a wide -terrace, once worn by pious feet of patient sisters engaged in holy -meditations. Here among the lounging boys stand life-sized carved and -colored images of saints and angels. Their size of course prevents them -from traveling to America as souvenirs, but even so they must stand -witness to the irreverence of young America, for the Angel Gabriel is -hideous in a German gas-mask! - -After dinner we went on a trip through the Citadel, that vast -underground soldier-city with its miles of corridors and rooms enough to -harbor a whole army, a little world deep underneath the earth. We saw -the bakery which bakes bread not only for the whole garrison but for all -the troops in the vicinity; the Foyer, a writing and recreation hall, -named in honor of President Wilson; the movie theatre; and the hospital -with its wards and operating room,—what a nightmare horror I thought to -be sick in those damp and dimly-lighted subterranean caverns! But we -were not allowed to see more than the outer door of the chapel which -they say is sumptuous, since it is enriched by all the costly -furnishings and precious images moved there for safety’s sake from the -Cathedral. Nor were we shown the underground café where, I have been -told, an unusually good brand of beer is sold. - -From the Citadel, rumour has it, tunnels lead out to the circle of forts -that form the defences of Verdun, but if you ask a Frenchman if this is -so, he only looks wise and keeps mum. - - -Verdun, February 25. - -I don’t believe there is another canteen quite like my canteen in the -whole of France. It is a canteen for French civilians. The one-time -inhabitants of Verdun and the devastated area beyond are allowed by the -government, it seems, just twenty-four hours in which to visit their -former homes, after which they must return as there is no food for them -here and very little shelter. In return for many favours the French -authorities asked the Y. to co-operate with them in running a sort of -rest-room for these refugees; they supplying a detail, and we supplying -the materials to make hot chocolate which is given away, and a secretary -to take charge. The canteen is in the Collège Buvignier at the foot of -the hill. There is a _dortoir_ in the building also, in charge of the -man who was once manager of the principal hotel in the city; two long -halls full of cots with straw mattresses where the refugees may pass the -night. My assignment to this canteen is only to be temporary. - -The room where my canteen is must have once been quite beautiful, -high-ceilinged with wainscot panelling below and embossed leather -covering the walls above. Even now in its state of dingy disrepair, with -half the panes in the tall arched windows replaced by dirty cloth, it -keeps something of its old dignity and charm. Beyond the main room is -another smaller one, connected by two doors, in which the detail lives -and in which we make our chocolate. - -When I took over the canteen from the man who had been in charge of it, -it was absolutely bare except for four tables and some backless wooden -benches. My first act on assuming charge was to clean house, my second -was to persuade the detail to make the very watery chocolate richer. -After that we proceeded to refurnish and adorn. We ran a frieze of -war-pictures in color, taken from a child’s pictorial _Histoire de la -Guerre_ around the top of the wainscoting, hung French and American -flags from the chandeliers, teased the French authorities into bringing -us some nice upholstered armchairs for the old ladies to sit in, and, -finally, put a little pot of primroses or snow-drops, dug with a broken -tile from a ruined garden, in the centre of each table. Then a kind -secretary bound for Bar-le-Duc was persuaded to go shopping for us and -brought back an array of French magazines, hand-picked, and an -assortment of toys to amuse the kiddies who must often wait here with -their families between trains, though so far, it must be confessed, it -is chiefly the detail who have been amused by them. And now I am -wondering what there is to do next. - -Besides the hot chocolate, we carry on a trade in bread, a huge sackfull -of which is brought us fresh every day from the underground bakery on -the back of a little round-faced poilu; and we do a brisk business in -checking parcels, without checks. Yesterday a rabbit was left all day in -our care. I was sorry for the poor beast cooped up in the little box and -wanted to give it a drink of water, but the poilus insisted that this -would be fatal. Whether this might possibly be a zoölogical fact, or is -just part of the national prejudice against water, I can’t determine. - -At first, remembering my difficulties with the French Army at Mauvages, -I was a little apprehensive as to how my two poilus, Emil and Guillaume -and I might get along. But though I am sure they think me the oddest -creature in the world, and my presence here unconventional beyond words, -yet their behaviour could not possibly be more courteous, considerate -and deferential. They won’t even allow me to wash the chocolate cups. - -“Mademoiselle will soil her hands!” - -And they are forever telling me that I am working too hard. “But -Mademoiselle will be fatigued!” Which is so absurd as to fairly -exasperate me. - -Besides Emil and Guillaume we have four soldier friends-of-the-family, -as it were, who also frequent the back room. The canteen is supposed to -be a strictly civilian affair, but we make an exception in favour of the -four _camarades_, and they repay us by helping chop the stove-wood which -is stacked in a great pile outside the door and is nothing more or less -than the stakes to which were once fastened barbed-wire entanglements. -Each stake still bears two little rings of wire around it and every few -days one has to clear out the accumulation of barbed-wire entanglements -from the chocolate-stove. _Les défences de Verdun_ the poilus call the -wood-pile. The poilus are all artillerymen from a regiment of “75s.” -Guillaume has brought down three Boche planes, he tells me, and Emil -five. One of the poilus is a handsome brigadier, or corporal, who wears -wooden shoes. I said something about _sabots_ the other day. But don’t -they wear _sabots_ in America? The poilus were astonished to learn that -wooden shoes were unknown among us! There is also a sergeant who is the -aristocrat of our little circle, a dreamy looking lad, a student of -architecture at the Beaux Arts. Yesterday he shyly proffered me an -envelope; in it was a pretty pen-and-ink sketch of two little girls, one -in the costume of Alsace, the other of Lorraine, proffering bouquets, -and underneath was written, “Souvenir of a Frenchman who thanks America -for having given the victory more quickly.” Our poilu friends are -constantly straying into the back room in order to read the newspapers -here and to get a cup of hot chocolate. Every now and then they all get -together and hold a _vin rouge_ tea party. On these occasions it is -evidently a mystery to them why, though I join them in eating bread and -cheese, I always refuse the _vin rouge_! - -The politeness of the poilus is equalled by that of the clientele. They -are extraordinarily grateful for what little we do for them. Today an -old lady, in spite of anything I could say, insisted on tipping me with -a two franc piece! I spent it buying chocolates and cigarettes for the -poilus at the Canteen-in-the-Convent. Every class of society flows into -my little canteen from gently bred ladies under the escort of immaculate -officers to old men who resemble nothing but the forlornest vagabonds. -The cheerfulness and courage of the refugees in general is astonishing. -One would think that a room full of people engaged in such a mournful -mission would be a gloomy place, but on the contrary, although -occasionally you see a woman quietly sobbing, at most times we fairly -buzz with pleasant sociability. The women come in with faces bright with -excitement. “Oh the poor Cathedral!” they cry. - -“Did you find anything of your home?” I ask. For a moment the tears swim -in their brave eyes. “_Rien_” they answer shaking their heads. -“Nothing!” - -Today an old man in a long white apron smock was the centre of attention -here. He was busy searching the ruins of his house for buried treasure. -Every little while he would come back to the canteen with the fruits of -his pathetic salvaging,—a few silver spoons, some paint brushes, a bolt -of black velvet ribbon,—place them in a basket and then return to look -for more. Two German prisoners were digging for him. Finally he came -back with six unbroken champagne glasses and a face scored with tragedy. -He had been hoping against hope to recover the treasures in his wine -cellar but he was too late, not a bottle was there left! - - -Verdun, February 28. - -This morning I went out on a truck to Fort Douaumont. This is the fort -which was captured by the Germans, held by them for five months, and -then retaken by the French and marks the enemy’s nearest approach to the -city. Oddly enough the French were the gainers through this occupation -to the extent of a splendid electric lighting system introduced by the -Germans into the fort! - -A modern fort does not resemble in the least the idea that one has of a -“fort.” Viewed from outside it is nothing more or less than a hole in -the ground. Once inside we had the sense of being in a monster ant-hill -as we followed our guide through a network of tunnelled corridors. We -saw the room of the Commandant with its wonderful relief maps both -French and German of the Verdun hills, we saw the war-museum, the Foyer, -the store-rooms and engine-rooms, the magazine rooms where the big -shells were stacked like cord wood, and we climbed up into the turrets -of the disappearing guns. In this strange fort which has been both -friend and enemy we looked through one empty doorway into a pit of ruins -open to the sky, under the wreckage sixteen Germans lay, they said; it -was here that a French shell had broken through. We passed by another -door which bore a sign on it announcing that this was the tomb of five -French mitrailleurs who had been killed by a German shell in the room -within; instead of burying the bodies they had simply sealed up the door -and left them. Then we ducked through a little low door and climbed up -over the hillock which forms the roof of the fort as it were. All about -us stretched the abomination of desolation of the battle-fields, wracked -tortured earth, seared and scarred into a yellow-grey desert waste. Here -and there lay bones, human bones, sometimes scattered loose, sometimes -gathered in a little heap with a rusty helmet and a broken rifle lying -close beside them. Only a few hundred feet from the road, the man who -guided the party told us, he came yesterday upon two unburied bodies. - -To the northeast we could just discern a large wooden cross. A French -officer who was stationed at the fort pointed it out to us. Here, he -said, lay buried no less than twelve hundred French soldiers. They had -been given a line of trench to hold, the officers were taken from them, -they were to expect no reinforcements or relief. They were left there -knowing it was only a question of days or hours. When the French finally -reached the line again every man was dead. So they left them where they -lay and filled the trench in over them, but each man’s rifle they took -and planted upright in the earth beside him. There is a heroic theme for -a poet! - -When I reached the canteen again I found a ragged disconsolate old soul -occupying one of the benches. On seeing me he began a sad recital of -sore feet, ending with the petition that I procure him a pair of rubber -boots and emphasizing the point by taking off his shoes then and there -and exhibiting his troubles,—which weren’t pretty,—to me. I was -perplexed, not knowing what to do, when the friendly M. P. on the beat -happened in; so I put the case up to him. He told me that there was a -salvage dump at the station. We set out together and succeeded in -finding an enormous pair of rubber overshoes, and, what’s more, in -getting away with them. The old man was pleased as Punch, put them on -and hobbled off in them. Tonight someone told me a melancholy tale. An -M. P. stationed upon the hill had spied an old Frenchman going by in a -pair of American overshoes and had straightway held him up and ordered -him to relinquish what was Government property. And the old man perforce -had to sit down in the street and take off his shoes. - -Speaking of boots reminds me of the tale told me by a doughboy the other -day; a tale of a pair of tan shoes, handsome, shiny, new tan shoes which -was sold to every man in turn in his whole company only to be finally -purchased as a bargain at thirty-five francs by an unsuspecting -Frenchman. They were beautiful shoes, the boy assured me, the only -trouble was that they both happened to be for the left foot. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII: CONFLANS—PIONEERS, M.P.’s AND OTHERS - - -Jarny, March 2. - -I am living in a hospital. Being in the occupied territory, the hospital -has been for the last four years, of course, a German hospital. Over the -doorways are painted such pious mottoes as “_Gruss Gott!_” and the -theatre, for there is an amusement hall in the building, is adorned with -a back-drop on which a Siegfried-esque hero overlooks an ideal German -landscape wherein a picture-book castle perches on the top of an -impossible mountain. At the other end of the hall is painted an enormous -iron cross. The masterpiece of the collection, though, is on the wall of -the basketball court and is, naturally, a portrait of His Late Imperial -Majesty, although one indentifies him rather by inference than -recognition, for the countenance having recently served for a pistol -target is battered almost out of human semblance. The main part of the -hospital is occupied by the Y.; in the wings some two hundred ordnance -boys are quartered; we ladies find comfortable lodging in the operating -room. There are five of us here at present, two American girls, besides -myself, and two Englishwomen. These latter are ladies of high degree, I -gather, being related to bishops and other such personages. They go -under the unvarying title of the “British Army, First and Second -Battalions.” According to report they were sent over here from England -to do propaganda work, that is, to create a pleasant impression on young -America and thus help to forge another link between the two nations -etc., but this they indignantly deny. However that may be, the boys -derive a rather wicked joy from teasing and arguing with the good -ladies, and particularly from filling them full of amazing tales about -“The States.” Even the Secretary can’t resist the temptation to “rag” -them, and though they are usually very patient under his plaguing, today -at dinner we received a shock. In response to one of his more daring -sallies, the Bishop’s sister, fixing the Secretary with an icy eye, -lifted one patrician hand to her august nose, and thumbed it! Which only -goes to show that even an English Lady of Quality has human moments. And -if we on our side must laugh a bit at them, it is plain to see that -they, in their turn, find us infinitely amusing. In fact I half suspect, -since they spend hours every day covering sheets of paper with close, -fine handwriting, that the good ladies are engaged upon writing a book -concerning the peculiarities of their American cousins when seen at -close range. And in view of all the wonderful material the boys have -furnished them, that book should make rich reading. - -There are three Y.s here in a little triangle each a mile apart, all -under the same management; Jamy, Conflans and Labry. Within this -triangle, besides the ordnance detachment, there is a regiment of -engineers, two companies of pioneer infantry, a telegraph battalion and -a detachment of negro labor troops. - -When the Americans came here last November, the town, they tell us, was -an indescribable mess, the roads choked with abandoned military material -and litter of all sorts. To the Americans as usual fell the pleasant -task of cleaning up. Sometimes I think that if France doesn’t come out -of this war as clean as the classic Spotless Town it will only be -because the Americans weren’t here long enough. And yet, funnily enough, -France being cleaned up by America has often provided a spectacle -analogous to a little boy having his face washed against his will. At -Bourmont, when the Americans sought to make the town sanitary by a -liberal use of disinfectants, a frantic protest went up from the -inhabitants: their wells, they claimed, had all been ruined! At -Gondrecourt the Mayor presented a formal complaint; the Americans were -wearing away the streets, he said, by too much cleaning! And on the -other hand this sort of work proves none too pleasant a pill for -American pride to swallow. Today a young New York Jew came into the -canteen. He was a handsome fellow and in civilian life evidently -something of a dandy. He belonged to the pioneers and he had been -engaged all day, I gathered, in following about at the tail of a dump -cart, picking up tin cans and rubbish. - -“My God!” he suddenly burst out. “If my wife could see me now! My God! -if she could see me!” - -One day last fall going down a street I passed a boy who was engaged in -a particularly dirty sort of cleaning. He looked up, caught my eye, -stood grinning sheepishly at me a moment. Then he drawled, half -humourously, half-bitterly: - -“And my mother thinks I’m in the trenches!” - - -Conflans, March 10. - -After so many weeks of wandering, I have settled down to a job again. -The last six “huts” in which I have been were in a barracks, a casino, a -private house, a convent, a college and a hospital. This “hut” is in a -hotel. The hotel is situated directly back of the Conflans-Jamy railroad -station. Before the war the hotel was a prosperous and pleasant place, -judging from the photograph which Madame showed us; its windows filled -with real lace curtains all matching! as she pointed out; the broad -terrace in front on sunny days filled with little tables and crowded -with well-dressed people. Now, after four years of German occupation, it -is a melancholy spectacle; ragged, dingy, half the panes gone from the -windows, its front painted over with staring German signs. There are two -entrances, one into the hall leading to the rooms given over to the Y. -the other into what we call the “Annex,” a little café kept by Madame -and Monsieur, the proprietors of the place. Next to our red triangle -sign stares a board announcing brazenly in red and yellow _Vin et -Bière_; but the irony of the juxtaposition is quite lost on the French; -indeed yesterday Madame asked me if I couldn’t get her the loan of a -truck to go to Nancy for a load of beer! - -Madame and Monsieur have been here all through the German occupation. -The Germans weren’t bad, Madame told me, if one were very meek and never -said a word, but did just exactly as they said,—she had had some -difficulty to be sure, reducing her more temperish spouse to the proper -attitude of meek submission!—but they had made a clean sweep of -everything of value; all her linen that she had carefully hidden, her -copper utensils, everything. - -The Y. consists of a canteen room, a reading and writing room, -store-room, kitchen and office. When I first saw the place it was as -uninviting as anything could well be; dark, dirty, ill-smelling, the -walls covered with soiled ragged paper. But now it is very nice; the -dirty cloth in the window frames has been replaced by vitex, the windows -hung with pretty curtains, new electric lights have been added, and best -of all, the walls entirely covered with German camouflage cloth and -decorated with bright posters. This camouflage cloth is a Godsend; woven -of finely twisted strands of paper, it comes in three colors, a soft -brown, a yellowish green and a dark blue, resembling, when on the walls, -a loosely woven burlap. It was used by the Germans to conceal and -disguise military objects and was left here in large quantities when -they evacuated. The Americans hereabouts use it for every imaginable -purpose; for covering unsightly walls, for curtains, for officers’ mess -table-cloths. Then there are the ammunition bags made of paper cloth -which the boys use for laundry bags. “When in doubt, camouflage,” is the -motto. I chose brown for my canteen and now it is on the walls I feel -that no millionaire could ask for anything prettier. Only I wonder; will -they ask me to join the paper-hangers’ union when I get home? - -Besides running the dry canteen, we serve hot chocolate free every night -for all comers here, filling up their canteens so the boys can take it -away with them, and run a free lodging-house. Every day we have boys -coming into the canteen asking for a bed. So after nine-fifteen we stack -all the chairs and tables at one end of the writing-room, and bring out -canvas-cots and blankets from the store-room for our lodgers. There is -only one unfortunate feature of this scheme; the lodgers become so -attached to their blankets that they are all too apt to carry them away -with them the next morning! - -A man secretary and I are to run the hut together; a minister in the -states, here he answers to the unvarying title of “Chief.” The “Chief” I -find at present chiefly remarkable for his trousers. These are garments -with a past apparently and a present of such a sort that in the company -of ladies he is only rendered at ease by assuming a sitting posture. If -compelled to rise he backs out of your presence as if you were royalty -or goes with the gesture of the little boy who has been chastised. -Outside the house, no matter how fine the day may be, he goes discreetly -clad in a raincoat. - -“I must,” declares the Chief at least six times a day, “go to Toul and -get a new uniform.” - -“Amen,” say I under my breath. - -Besides the outfits stationed in town there are some twenty more in the -neighborhood which draw their rations here at the railhead and then -there are the leave trains on their way to or from Germany, whose -passing, like a visitation of locusts, leaves the canteen stripped and -bare. The negro labor troops in the vicinity supply quite a new element. -Sometimes this takes the form of a bit of humour. Last night I had drawn -several cups of cocoa ahead of the demand when a darky lad came shyly up -to the counter and pointed to one. - -“Please ma’am,” he asked, “am dat cup occupied?” - -There is one fat and genial little darky who is a constant customer, -always he comes in munching a sandwich or an orange or some other edible -bought from a street-vendor. - -“Eating again, Jo?” asked the Chief today. - -“Why Boss,” expostulated Jo, “I only eats one meal a day! But dat,” he -grinned, “am all de time!” - -“Shines” the boys invariably call them. - -Tonight we were amused to see a negro corporal, who, not content with -the chevrons on his sleeve, had sewed an additional pair on his overseas -cap! - - -Conflans, March 14. - -My family at the hut consists of the Chief, Harry, Jerry and Slim. Harry -and Jerry are as nice lads as one could find anywhere, but Slim is the -bird that hatched out of the cuckoo’s egg. Lean, uncouth, according to -his own claim, “the tallest man that Uncle Sam’s got in his army,” with -an inordinately long neck and an Adam’s apple so prominent as to give -him the appearance of an ostrich in the act of swallowing a perpetual -orange, “Slim Old Horse” as the boys call him, seems to me at times more -like an animated caricature of the middle west “Long Boy” than a being -of flesh and blood and bone. How he ever became attached to the Y. is a -point on which nobody seems certain, but here he is and here he sticks -in spite of every effort to dislodge him. I fancy his “Top Kick” was -only too glad to get rid of him and when he discovered Slim’s -inclination toward the Y. simply let him go and washed his hands of him. -Slim’s health is uncertain. Most of the time he only feels well enough -to sit in the office and eat or “chaw.” - -“I started in ter chaw terbaccer,”—he talks with a nasal twang which is -impossible to reproduce,—“when I was a kid four years old; when my daddy -an’ my mammy found it out, they sure did start ter raise hell with me, -but I says to ’em; ‘All right, have it your way, but then it will be -whisky and rum fer mine, when I’m twenty-one!’ So my mammy says ‘Let ’im -chaw.’ An’ I’ve chawed ever sence.” - -“I’ve only got one lung,” he remarked the other day, “and that’s a -little one.” - -“Slim,” I urged, “I’m worried about you. You oughtn’t to be here. You -ought to be in the hospital where you could be properly cared for. Go to -your medical officer and tell him from me that he must send you to the -hospital.” - -Slim reluctantly departed. I dared to hope we had seen the last of him. -But before the afternoon was over he was back on his old perch. He had -brought some little pills back with him. Just wait, I thought, until I -meet that medical officer! - -Slim seldom feels attracted to the meals at the mess-hall. So he sits in -the office and lives chiefly upon cheese, Y. M. C. A. cheese purchased -to make sandwiches for the canteen at a cost of a dollar and a quarter a -pound. Sometimes he fries himself eggs, taking whatever mess-kit, -Harry’s or Jerry’s or mine, happens to be handy and never, in spite of -anything I can say, will he wash it up after him! Sometimes Harry and -Jerry and I decide that instead of going to mess we would like to have a -supper-party at the canteen ourselves, and then the question is, how to -get rid of Slim? - -“Slim, it’s getting near chow-time,” we say, “I’ll bet they’re going to -have mashed potatoes and brown gravy tonight. Isn’t that ‘Soupy’ I hear -going now?” - -But Slim refuses to budge any more than a bump on a log, so we usually -have to end by inviting him. But if I find Slim a burden, how must the -Chief feel toward him? For Slim has appropriated the extra cot in the -office, which also serves as the Chief’s bed-room, and so has fairly -camped down on him. And the Chief is a gentleman of nerves and delicate -perceptions. - -“He gets up in the middle of the night,” confided the Chief to me today -in an almost awe-struck voice, “and he goes for the water-bucket and -drinks a half a pail without stopping. He makes a noise just like a -horse swallowing it.” - -I have given up trying to do anything with Slim. Nothing that I can say -seems to make the least impression on him. Slim is a married man, yet -yesterday I caught him embracing Louise, Madame’s cross-eyed maid of all -work, in the passage-way. I undertook to reprove him. - -“Why that ain’t nawthin!” he turned a blameless and unabashed eye upon -me. “That’s jest a man’s nature.” - -This is the first time that I have eaten regularly from a mess-kit and I -am learning things. I have learned that the aluminum mess-cup draws the -heat from the hot coffee so that it is impossible to drink out of one -until the liquid has become half-way cold, and that it is most -unappetizing to have to wash one’s mess-kit afterwards in a pail of -greasy soap suds in which a hundred odd other mess-kits have already -been bathed. I used to tease the boys with their mess-cups in the -chocolate line by telling them that I could tell just how recently they -had had inspection by the shine on their mess-cups, but now whenever I -look at the state of my own cup I think I won’t have the face to ever -tease them that way again! I have also learned that cold “gold fish” or -“sewer carp,” as the boys call their canned salmon, is just as bad as -they say it is, and that slum made of hunks of bacon, potatoes, onions -and unlimited water is no easy thing to swallow. But this sounds -ungrateful and I don’t mean to be, for the cooks are nice as can be and -never say a word no matter how late I may be. While as for the boys, -they put on all their company manners for me. - -Here at the hut we are busy building an addition in order to enlarge our -restaurant business. This is in the shape of a room on the terrace. The -Germans had kindly built a roof over one end, a detail from the ordnance -detachment at Jarny is enclosing the sides; we are to have three real -glass windows looking out onto the street and a door connecting the -terrace-room with the present canteen. This afternoon the detail ran out -of lumber; the Chief managed to get the loan of a truck to fetch some -more. He asked Slim to go with the truck. The afternoon wore away, -neither Slim nor the truck appeared, the detail, disgusted, sat and -twiddled their thumbs. Nobody could understand what had happened as the -lumber yard was just around the corner! Jerry went out to search. There -was no trace of Slim or the truck to be found. About five o’clock he -turned up. He had gone to Mars-la-Tour he told us coolly. We had been -talking of going to the commissary at Mars-la-Tour for canteen supplies, -and that great goose had gotten into his head that the _lumber_ was to -be obtained there! At least that is his explanation. But Harry and Jerry -insinuate darker things: - -“We didn’t know you had a girl in Mars-la-Tour before,” they tease. “Oh -Slim, you old devil, you!” - -I wonder now, just what _was_ he up to in Mars-la-Tour all afternoon? - - -Conflans, March 19. - -Why is it that all the world loves a rascal? What is the secret of the -fascination that outlaw and free-booter have exercised from Robin Hood -down to Captain Kidd? Is it because each one of us, in our secret -hearts, would like to go and do likewise, if we only dared? Of all the -minor piracies committed by the A. E. F. in France, none, I think, are -so picturesque as those of the — Engineers. - -The — Engineers are a railroad regiment. My first acquaintance with them -was last summer. A company of these engineers was located at a station -on the Paris line just north of us. It was a point at which supplies for -the American front were transferred from the standard gauge to the -American narrow gauge; in order to effect these transfers the — -Engineers had a switch of their own. Now freight trains in France are -quite unguarded and so at the mercy of marauders. Indeed the losses in -transit have been so serious that since the armistice it has been the -custom to have cars containing American goods “convoyed” to their -destination by soldier guards. Last summer of course the men could not -be spared for convoy duty. So it was the easiest thing in the world for -the — Engineers to “cut out” a Y. or a Red Cross car, side-track it, and -lighten the load at their leisure. - -“I went through their company store-house while I was there,” a Q. M. -sergeant told me, “and it was as well stocked with delicacies as the -store-rooms of a big hotel back in the States.” - -No wonder there was such a dearth of supplies at Abainville last summer! - -But it was after the — Engineers moved into the occupied area here -following the armistice that they performed their most notorious -exploits. Assigned to run a stretch of railway in cooperation with the -French, a certain amount of friction was inevitable from the start, the -red tape in the French railway system exasperating the Americans as much -as our more direct methods scandalized the French. Finally the French -protests at the Americans’ disregard for the formalities of railroading -moved the engineer officers to stricter discipline. “I’ll _hang_ the -next man of you who runs a train out of the yards without a pilot!” -declared one captain. After that things went more smoothly,—on the -surface. Then came the Dance. - -Now unfortunately for the — Engineers there is an extra large M. P. -force here at Conflans under a Major whose greatest delight in life is -the detection and punishment of both major and minor infractions of the -law. - -The Dance was quite an affair over which the — Engineers had spread -themselves and to which the French fair sex was generally invited. When -the party was about to begin, however, it became evident that the -feminine partners afforded locally were all too few. Some bold soul had -a bright idea; a train-crew forthwith hurried down to the yards, -commandeered an engine and a couple of cars, and, in spite of the -horrified protests of the French railroad men, ran it to a nearby town. -Here they filled up the train with girls from the village and were about -to start back again when a detachment of M. P.s, rushed up in autos from -Conflans, broke in upon the scene. A sanguine scrimmage ensued, -resulting in a victory for law and order. - -In the meanwhile, back at the dance hall the engineers were waiting in -impatient expectation for partners. Among the invited guests were two -friendly M. P.s, old soldiers, with genial dispositions and several -wound stripes to their credit. When word reached the party that the M. -P.s had prevented the arrival of the “Mademoiselles” the engineers were -furious. “Kill the M. P.s!” went up the cry. Catching sight of the -red-arm bands on their two innocent guests the crowd started for them -with the evident intention of making a beginning then and there. Heaven -only knows what would have happened if the two M. P.s, by affecting an -exit at the double-quick, hadn’t immediately made their escape, unharmed -but badly scared. - -The most notable exploit of the — Engineers occurred not long -afterwards. It is referred to as the Affair of the Serge Uniforms. One -fine day, not very long ago, it was noised abroad that a car full of -tailored serge uniforms, consigned to and paid for by officers of the -Army of Occupation in Luxembourg, was standing down in the yards. The -idea of going home in an officer’s serge uniform from which, of course, -the braid on the cuffs had been discreetly ripped, made a strong appeal -to the boys’ imaginations. When the time came for that car to be sent to -Luxembourg it was found to be quite empty. But for once the Engineers -had gone too far. The M. P. Major took the war-path. Word flew around -the camp that a strict search was being conducted. The possessors of the -incriminating uniforms must get rid of them and get rid of them quick. -Some hid them in out-of-the-way places, between the floors and ceilings -in the half-ruined houses; others frantically ripped the uniforms to -pieces and burned them in the barracks stoves. The camp, they tell me, -was full of the stench of scorching woolen. Still others got rid of them -by planting them among the possessions of their innocent neighbors. One -company postal clerk, a most upright and blameless lad, to his horror -discovered one of the fatal uniforms stuffed in a mail-bag lying at his -feet. Before the search party had made its rounds most of those serge -uniforms had been safely disposed of; a few, a very few were found. - -But now, having been baulked in his attempt to bring the culprits to -justice, it is common rumour, that the M. P. Major is lying low, waiting -to “fix” the — Engineers. - - -Conflans, March 23. - -The — Engineers have left. They are on their way to Le Mans, presumably -the first stage of their journey home. Their departure was not unmarked -by incident. At the last moment, when they had all entrained and were -ready to pull out of the station, the M. P. Major sallied forth, -court-martials in his eye, to search the trains for contraband. But he -had reckoned without the Colonel of the engineers who flatly refused to -allow any such procedure. Being outranked by the Colonel, the M. P. -Major was seemingly helpless. Then, however, the Colonel made a bad -mistake. There were two train loads. The Colonel left with the first. -The second, being left without any protector of sufficiently high rank, -fell an easy prey to the Major. He searched to his heart’s content, -discovering several articles of unlawful loot and, one unfortunate clad -in one of the notorious serge uniforms! The train was held in the yards -while the M. P. Major indulged in an orgy of court-martials. - -On the morning of the departure the captain of the motor unit where we -had messed stopped in to speak to me. He came by request of the boys to -bring an apology for any careless language which might have been uttered -unwittingly in my hearing! Then the captain of another unit called to -tell us, sub rosa, that, forced by shortage of transportation, he was -leaving behind an over supply of rations which would be ours for the -fetching. We fetched accordingly and found that we had fallen heir to -dozens of loaves of bread, sugar, coffee, canned meat, canned tomatoes, -hard bread, soap and unlimited beans. What to do with these -surreptitious stores is now the embarrassing question. One simply can’t -offer the boys hard bread, tomatoes plain or scalloped, in the canteen, -no matter if one should dress them with all the sauces of Epicurus and -serve them on gold-plate. Yet they mustn’t be wasted. What’s more, the -fact that they are in our possession must be kept absolutely dark, lest -we get the kind captain into trouble. I feel something like the man who -was presented with a million dollar check and then found he couldn’t -cash it. - -With the — Engineers went Harry, Jerry, and Slim. I couldn’t believe -until the last moment that Slim was actually going. His departure almost -compensated for the loss of Harry and Jerry. But though gone, he is not -forgotten. This morning a lad came into the canteen. He would like his -watch please, he said. I looked blankly at him. He explained; several -days ago, just as he was leaving on a long truck-trip, he had broken the -strap of his wrist watch. Happening to be in front of the Y. just then, -he had brought it in and left it for safe-keeping “with the Y. man in -the office.” The Chief knew nothing of it. - -“What did the Y. man look like?” I questioned. - -He described him. It was Slim. We have searched every nook and cranny of -that office, hoping to come upon the missing watch, in vain. - -“I’ll come in again,” said the boy. “Perhaps by that time you will have -found it.” - -But personally I am sure that that watch is now on its way to Le Mans, -en route for the States. Was there ever anything more wretchedly -embarrassing? - - -Conflans, March 27. - -This is a curious world. Six “Relief Trains” pass through here every day -bound east, loaded with food for Germany. Meanwhile in the little -half-ruined hamlets within a stone’s throw of the tracks the French -villagers, for whom no provision has been made, are famine-stricken. - -Lieutenant A. came in from the little town of Pierrefond which lies -between Conflans and Verdun yesterday. - -“They have nothing to eat there,” he told me, “but the weeds they dig up -in the fields for _salade_ and the frogs they catch in the marshes. When -the days are cold the frogs bury themselves so deep in the mud that they -can’t be caught. There is one old gentleman who told me today that he -had existed for weeks entirely on a diet of turnips. They come to me and -beg pitifully for a bite of something from the mess-kitchen, but I don’t -dare let them have it, as that would be, of course, strictly against -regulations.” - -I thought of those bushels of beans in the store-house. It was taking a -chance of course, because after all it was government property and -nothing else, but I told the Lieutenant that if he was willing to run -the risk, I was; then I put it up to the Chief. - -This morning the Lieutenant came in with a flivver. We drove over to the -store-house and loaded it up with army beans, issue coffee, sugar, rice, -onions, potatoes and soap. Then we filled a special sack with canned -soup, “gold fish,” corn meal, canned tomatoes and corn syrup for the old -gentleman who had lived on turnips. I felt he had a special claim on our -sympathy. - -We reached Pierrefond after a long drive in a stinging rain. It was a -quaint pathetic village with a pretty little church whose tower had been -sliced off as neatly as by a knife. Was it a German or a French shell -which had done it, I wondered. We drew up in front of the Mayor’s house. -He came out to greet us, showed me a list of the seventy-three -inhabitants of the town; men, women and infants in arms. All the -supplies were to be duly weighed and measured and distributed, so much -per capita. While they were unloading the flivver we stopped in at -Madame C.’s for coffee and compliments, and to dry out by her hospitable -fire. Everyone made pretty speeches, of course, and Madame bestowed on -me a delectable bouquet of wall-flowers and daffodils. Poor things! It’s -little enough one can do for them. This will keep the wolf from the door -for a short while perhaps, but after that, what then? - -Pierrefond, like Conflans, was occupied by the Germans for four years. -Now there is a young half-German population growing up, even as many as -three to one family. The villagers accept the situation with tolerant -humour; “Souvenirs Boches,” they call the children. - -As for the rest of the rations, I made jam sandwiches with the bread and -bestowed them together with hot chocolate on a hungry leave train. What -to do with the “Charlie Horse,” as the boys call the canned roast beef, -was a puzzle. Finally I made a paste of it mixed with bread crumbs, -tomato soup, a few weenies and some ham scraps, pickles, parsley, onion -and an egg,—we had six assistants in the kitchen and each added an -ingredient,—put it between slices of bread and christened the result -“Liberty Sandwiches. Guaranteed to contain neither Gold Fish nor Corn -Willy.” The boys ate and wondered and came back for more. - - -Conflans, March 30. - -In our back yard a detail of German prisoners is busy cleaning up; -already they have made quite a transformation. Madame must have a -garden. I wonder, as I watch them, what their state of mind may be; -their phlegmatic faces give no hint. Did some of these very ones, -perhaps, make merry in this self same café, only six months ago, when -they were conquerors? - -Madame tells me how, when the German officers were living here at the -hotel, they ate off priceless old French plates, which, apparently quite -ignorant of their value, they had carried off as loot. Madame, coveting -these treasures, tried to arrange an exchange with the mess orderly, -offering a number of modern dishes in return for one antique; but the -mess orderly, fearing that some officer might notice the substitution, -hesitated and before they could come to an agreement the precious -plates, with the rough handling accorded them, had all been broken to -bits. - -Some of the boys seem to think that the French don’t give their -prisoners enough to eat. The Germans, they say, when they get the -chance, will wait outside the mess-hall door and seize eagerly the -leavings in the mess-kits that the boys are about to throw away. - -“Maybe it’s just because they’re greedy,” I say. “Surely they look fat -enough!” And then a picture comes back to my mind, the picture of a Red -Cross train seen while waiting at Pagny on my way to Paris last January, -a train full of French prisoners who were being brought back from -Germany, so weak from starvation that they lay on stretchers or sat -pressing against the windows faces as wan and white as spectres. - -The German prisoners, according to the boys’ repeated stories, are by no -means a humble or repentant lot. They’re not beaten for good, the -prisoners invariably declare. Just as soon as the Americans have gone -and things have calmed down a bit, they are coming back to France again, -they say, and this time they will settle matters with the French for -good and all! - -Last night a train load of German prisoners in box cars pulled into -town. When the doors of the cars were opened it was found that one of -the prisoners had died on the way. The dead man was wrapped in a blanket -and left lying on the freight station platform. A “shine” from the labor -battalion happened along in the dark, tripped and fell flat over the -body. He came into the canteen in a state of nerves, quite prepared, -evidently, to see a ghost in every corner. - - -Conflans, April 2. - -The latest member of our household is something quite new in the way of -details. He is a Salvation Army man and a very nice fellow indeed. A -year or so ago he was beating a big drum in front of Gimbel’s Store; -then he was drafted to come to France with the pioneers; now he has -applied for a discharge in order to join his organization over here; and -while waiting for his release he is proving himself an invaluable aid in -the canteen. Now more than ever, since The Salvation Army, as everybody -calls him, has joined our force, I have been longing to realize a dream -which I have cherished ever since I came to France,—to make doughnuts -for the A. E. F. I have the recipe, I can get the materials, the stove -is the sticking-point. At present our cooking equipment consists of a -hot water boiler and a wretched German range which is really fit for -nothing but the scrap-heap. As the boys say, I have lost more religion -than I ever thought I had over that stove! So while we hope and hunt for -a doughnut-stove we are specializing in sandwiches and puddings. The -puddings are my special pride as I worked out the ideas for them myself -and, as far as I know, they are served in no other canteen. There are -four of them; Coffee Jelly, Raspberry Jelly (made with the -“pink-lemonade” fruit juice) Chocolate Bread Pudding, and Blackberry -Bread Pudding. The bread-puddings are baked for us, by kindness of the -cooks, at a nearby mess-kitchen. The only trouble with the puddings is, -that there never is enough! But lest anyone should think that I take -this as a compliment to my culinary skill, I must explain that the boys -would eat anything you offered them, I believe, just as long as it was -sweet and was a change. And then there is perhaps a quaint psychological -factor too. - -“A man don’t like to eat food that’s cooked by a man,” a lad confided to -me the other day. “Anything that’s cooked by a woman tastes better.” - -So if a boy does leave any scraps of pudding on his plate it bothers me -unreasonably. - -“Somebody didn’t like his pudding,” I remark mournfully to the S. A. as -I pick up the dishes. This amuses him. Last night as we were clearing up -before we closed he marched up to the counter, deposited a tiny wad -found on one of the tables in front of me. - -“Somebody,” he declared in a tragic tone, “didn’t like his chewing-gum!” - -Nor can I boast, as a cook, of a record of unvarying success. On more -than one occasion I must admit to having scorched the cocoa, and once, -not many days ago—to my shame be it said!—I ruined a ten gallon can by -putting in salt instead of sugar! - -Here at Conflans we have an unusual amount of competition in the light -lunch line. The other day a French fried potato booth, like a hot-dog -booth at a country fair at home, established itself on the terrace just -outside our door. Now a hungry doughboy can take the edge off his -appetite with a paper full of hot French fries in return for a franc at -any hour of the day. - -Also in the street below the terrace are many little stands where -oranges and sandwiches made of rolls and slices of sausage are on sale. -The rivalry between these stands, it appears, is acute. Yesterday, -hearing a hubbub, I looked out to see a comic battle in progress, the -proprietors of two neighboring stands, a fat frowsy old woman and a -little ragged man like a weasel, pelting each other for all they were -worth with rotten oranges while half the A. E. F., it seemed, stood -around and cheered. Nor did matters settle down to calm until a gendarme -and intervention appeared on the scene. - -This morning I stopped in at the little French store around the corner -to buy half a dozen eggs to make a custard sauce for my chocolate bread -pudding. When the man gave me my change I noticed he had overcharged me -by twenty-five centimes. - -“Why’s that?” I asked. - -“That,” returned the shopkeeper, “is because you picked them out by -hand.” - -Some canteen ladies can cook and wait on the counter and open milk-cans -and wash the chocolate cups and yet keep spotlessly and specklessly -clean. But I have come to the conclusion that as long as I live in -Conflans, with its air full of smoke and soot from the train yards, and -its water so hard that it curdles the soap,—and sometimes the milk in -the cocoa too, that I will have to content myself with being godly and -leave the cleanliness till a happier day. We have been having a regular -plague of inspectors and investigators of late. Last night just as I had -my final bout with the last chocolate container, a major and a -lieutenant colonel wandered in, evidently in search of scandal. The -lieutenant colonel fixed a piercing eye on me. - -“So you are the only ‘white woman’ in this part of the world at -present?” - -“Well,” I said looking at my fingers smudged with cocoa, “tonight I -should say that I was a pale chocolate-colored woman.” - -“I noticed that your face was dirty,” coolly returned the gentleman. I -hurriedly excused myself in order to consult a looking-glass. Sure -enough, there on my nose was a large smudge of soot! I must have got it -the last time I stoked the chocolate-stove. - - -Conflans, April 7. - -The M. P.s live in the hotel next door. Naturally we see a good deal of -them. I try to treat them extra nicely because I feel sorry for them. -They can’t help being M. P.s any more than they can help being -unpopular. And though many of them go about with a chip on their -shoulders and an attitude of I-don’t-give-a-tinker’s-damn, still to know -that you are anathema to the major portion of the A. E. F., to be -publicly referred to as Misery Providers, Mademoiselle Promenades, and -Military Pests, besides being made the subject of songs such as; _Mother -take down your service flag, Your son is only an M. P._, must be galling -to the most insensitive. - -Just as soon as the armistice was signed the doughboys started in to -pester the M. P.s with the classic taunt: - -“Who won the war?—The M. P.s!” - -For a long while the M. P.s could think of no more crushing rejoinder -than the time-honored; - -“Aw, go to hell!” - -But lately some bright soul has hit upon a bit of repartee that goes far -to salve the M. P.s’ self-respect. Now if a soldier is so rash as to -jeer; “Who won the war? The M. P.s!” the response comes instantly: - -“Yep! They chased the doughboys up front!” - -There are two M. P.s from the detachment next door who have lately -joined themselves to our family. Like Slim, they came unsolicited, and -like Slim, they stick. They are known respectively as the Littlest M. P. -and the Fattest M. P. - -The Littlest M. P. is a pest. I feel sorry for him because he is so -young and has no mother; otherwise there would be no tolerating him. He -hangs about the canteen from morning until late at night under pretence -of assisting us, and eats and eats and eats and eats. The other day I -heard him proudly averring that he hadn’t taken a meal in the mess-hall -for two weeks, and I believed him. Yet when you ask him to do any -particular piece of work, like filling up the wood box or fetching a -pail of water, in return for his board, he always has some perfectly -good reason for not doing it. Besides which, he has no morals. The other -day he confided to me triumphantly that the reason that they didn’t put -him on guard work was that they knew he would take money to let men into -cafés at prohibited hours. He went on to tell me about the town of S. - -“That was a good place, you could get twenty-five francs for lettin’ a -feller into a café out of hours there.” - -I have tried to find out what he does in return for Uncle Sam’s dollar a -day and have discovered that his job is sweeping out the halls in the M. -P. Hotel. - -“But I skip about twenty feet at each end every time, so it don’t take -me more’n ten minutes.” - -Yesterday morning he came in with an air of righteousness rewarded. - -“I told ’em I’d got to have help on that job,” he announced, “so they -put another feller on too.” - -This morning I got so exasperated with him that I told him in -unmistakable terms that we could dispense with his company. He -disappeared, and I congratulated myself that we were rid of him. But at -supper-time he bobbed serenely up again. - -“Some fellers would have got sore if you’d spoke like that to them,” he -told me with a magnanimous air, “but I just took it as a joke.” - -Now what is one to do with anybody like that? - -The Fattest M. P. is the most unleavened lump of good-nature I have ever -known. He is, I understand, a notorious poker-player and his breath, to -my embarrassment, betrays the fact that he has a weakness for Conflans -beer. Besides which, he really takes up quite too much room behind the -counter. Yet in spite of all this, he is such a simple soul and is so -anxious to help that one hasn’t the heart to send him away. - -Yesterday I thought I was going to be arrested by an M. P. I had gone -over to Verdun in an army flivver to get some stock. Turning the corner -into Conflans on our way home we were halted by the upraised billy of -the M. P. on duty. - -“Sorry, Buddy!” he called to the driver, “but you can’t do that!” - -Then, approaching, he got a closer view, turned red as fire and -stammered; - -“Beg your pardon, Miss. Made a mistake. That’s all right, driver, you -can go on.” - -Later he sent apologies to me at the canteen. It is, of course, against -regulations to allow civilian women to use army transportation. The M. -P., catching sight of a skirt, had taken me for a Mademoiselle on a -joy-ride. - - -Conflans, April 7. - -We must start an Orphans’ Annex here, the boys tell me. Three nights ago -as it was drawing on toward closing time the Chief called me into the -office. By the table stood two young boys, about fourteen and sixteen I -judged them; each carried on his shoulder a little sack which evidently -contained all his worldly possessions. They were German boys from Metz; -they had just come in on the train. Why had they come? we asked them. -They had come to join the American army. But they were too young! He was -eighteen, declared the elder. He dug into his pockets and produced -documents. I looked at two of the papers, they appeared to be the birth -certificates of his father and mother. Had his parents given their -consent? He nodded. “And you really are eighteen?”, “_Ja! Ja wohl!_” It -was hard to believe,—he was so small. We stared at them a bit -helplessly. Then, finding our German not quite adequate to the occasion, -we called an interpreter. But to all the interpreter’s questioning the -boy returned the same unvarying answer. He had come to join the American -army! As for the younger one, he merely stood and smiled and looked as -guileless as a young angel. Whatever the elder one’s intention might be, -I was sure I could divine the younger’s. _He_, I am certain, had set his -heart on being an American “mascot.” And he, for all his innocent and -engaging air, had most patently run away from home! - -We told the boys that we would put them up for the night. I busied -myself in getting them some supper and then—another waif appeared! A -little French lad of thirteen, with a peg-leg and a crutch, he came -shyly hobbling into the office, and the face he lifted to us was one of -the sweetest, the most sensitive and appealing that I have ever seen. -Silently he tendered us a letter. It had been written by an American -lieutenant; the bearer, it stated, was an orphan of the war; he had been -shot by German machine-gunners near Verdun; his right leg had been -amputated at the thigh. I looked at the crippled child in apprehension. -How would he take the presence of the Germans? But my question was -already answered. The little German lad and the French _mutilé_ had -drawn close together, seemingly drawn instantly to each other by a bond -of childish understanding. Although neither could speak the other’s -speech they appeared to be communicating in some shy wordless way. -Later, as we were getting the cots ready for the lodgers, passing the -empty canteen room, I glanced inside. Somebody had started the victrola -on the counter to playing a waltz, and to its music the German boys were -dancing while the little French lad gaily kept time with his crutch! - -We fed the three of them and put them up for the night. The next morning -the French lad took his leave. Later he came back to see us dressed in a -little American uniform; he had been adopted by one of the companies -here. The German lads stayed with us, or rather, they slept and ate with -the M. P.s next door and spent the rest of the day with us in the -canteen. They loved to help about the counter; they were quick and deft -and willing. The only trouble with the arrangement was that I fairly -went distracted trying to talk three languages at once! - -Two days afterwards, the M. P.s having taken the matter in hand, the -German boys were sent back to Metz. But the French lad comes in often to -visit us. We see him playing ball with the soldiers in the street in -front of the hotel. This morning the S. A. and I stood watching him. - -“I wouldn’t mind it so much somehow,” the S. A. remarked, “if he didn’t -have that wrap-legging wound so tight around that pitiful little -peg-stick!” - -The tenderness toward little children which the war has shown forth so -vividly has been a revelation of an inherent sweetness in the boys’ -natures; this fondness for children other than their own, being, I -believe a distinctive characteristic of our American men. Any number of -companies have mascots, little French boys, orphans usually, whom they -dress in miniature uniforms, take about from place to place with them, -and, of course, spoil quite shamelessly. And in every unit that -possesses a mascot you find boys whose dearest wish is to adopt the -little fellow as his own and take him back home; but this the French law -forbids. - -“That’s the best part of France, the little kids,” remarked a boy to me -as we passed a group of little tots by the roadside. - -Unfortunately though, this petting has another side. Spoiled by the -soft-hearted soldiers, the French gamins have developed into a brood of -brazen little beggars. They have come to regard all Americans, it seems, -as perambulating slot machines for “goom” and chocolate with whom, -however, the purchasing penny is quite superfluous. I shall never forget -being held up, as I was walking with a doughboy through the streets of -Lourdes, by a tiny lad who demanded pathetically; - -“_Une cigarette pour moi, et une pour Papa, et une pour Maman qui est -malade!_” - -Nor the fifteen year old conductor on a suburban tram line near Paris, -who took up our tickets with a forbidding scowl, and then, his rounds -made, hurried back down the car to confront us with the wistful childish -plea: “’Ave you goom?” - -For some while there has been a red-headed urchin of perhaps thirteen -years hanging about the hut. As he was dressed in an O. D. blouse, -breeches and leggings, I concluded that he was somebody’s mascot. He -kept coming into the canteen to buy gum and cigarettes; presently I -discovered he was purchaser for a little gang of ragamuffins who would -wait for him just outside the door. I asked the boys in the canteen if -they knew anything about the red-head, but no one seemed to know who he -was or to what outfit he belonged. The boy himself seemed stupid and -sullen when I questioned him. Finally I told him that I could sell him -nothing more. Tonight my friend the M. P. Sergeant asked casually; - -“Do you remember that red-headed kid that used to hang around? Well -we’ve got him and eight others.” - -“Why, what for?” - -“They’re Propaganda Kids. They came over here from Germany; they’ve been -stealing American uniforms and smuggling them to the German prisoners so -they could escape in them.” - - -Conflans, April 15. - -Of all the roads over which I have ever passed, the road from Conflans -to Verdun will remain, I think, most sharply etched upon my memory. - -Leaving Conflans, as one passes through the occupied territory, the -predominant impression made upon one’s mind is of signs. German military -signs. These are everywhere, painted in great staring letters on the -sides of buildings, covering bill-boards set at the road’s edge, or hung -suspended from the branches of trees over the truck drivers’ heads. Here -in this German sector behind the lines every movement was timed, ordered -and regulated. No one could possibly go astray, no one could lose a -moment in hesitation as to where he should go, in what manner and at -what rate. Half-way between Conflans and the lines you come upon two -great bill-boards at the highway’s edge, one duplicating the other, in -order that, marching past, what might have been missed on the first -board, could be supplied by the second. They are headed “Under Enemy -Observation!” and give in strict detail the order of procedure from that -point forward, both by day and night, just what strength the marching -groups should be and how many metres should intervene between them. The -German thoroughness, the German system! Everything has been thought of, -everything provided for, everything possible done to reduce the -individual to an automaton, a mere senseless cog in a vast machine. And -yet among all these signs there is one that lacks, a sign that is -notable by its absence; it is the sign that should read _Nach Verdun_. - -Once across the lines on the French side you are struck by the startling -difference; here the only signs that one sees are two, poignant in their -simplicity and directness. They are _Poste de Secours_ and _Blessés à -Pied_. - -Every time I approach Verdun by this road I thrill when I think of the -enormous energy that poured along it, directed, it must have seemed, -irresistibly, over-poweringly against the city in the hills; a thrill -only surpassed by the emotion that one must feel when he traverses the -_Sacra Via_ on the other side of Verdun, the “Holy Way” over which men -and munitions flowed incessantly to the defense of the beleaguered city. - -Everywhere one sees the ineffaceable scars of struggle, the aftermath of -destruction. The stately trees bordering the roadside, the trees that -Napoleon ordered planted along the highways of France, are barked with -great ugly gashes where mines had been placed, the exploding of which -would have felled the great trees across the road, blocking the -pursuer’s way. Others bear platforms high up in the branches where -machine-guns were placed. Rotting camouflages of every sort, paper -strips woven like lattice, curtains of branches woven through wire which -once screened the road for miles from the enemy’s observation, now lie -disintegrating in the ditches. Shell holes pit the fields, concrete -“pill-boxes” lurk in unsuspected places, every mound is shelter for a -dugout, walls are riddled with ragged holes cut for machine-guns. -Further on, one comes to the trenches zigzagging in what seems erratic -and aimless patterns and the interminable barbed-wire entanglements, -like the devil’s brier patches. - -Half across the open plain that lies before the hills of Verdun you come -upon a German tank defence, a long line of heavy concrete pillars with -enormous cables, once highly electrified, looped between. A little -farther and the road crosses an impromptu bridge thrown hastily over the -great gaping crater torn by an exploding mine. And always here and there -over the plain, little heaps of glimmering whitish stones which mark the -places where once were villages. Starting to ascend the hills, one looks -down upon a ghost city, a city where many of the walls still stand, -making you think of nothing but a huddled host of tombstones, a city -chalk-white, naked, as if the flesh were all picked away from its dead -bones; the most haunted, the most wraith-like, the most desolate of any. - -Climbing the hills, sweeping around one slow curve after another, one -beholds suddenly before him, a lesser hill ringed by higher ones, -Verdun, scarred, wounded, but victorious, like the Winged Victory of -Samothrace, mutilated yet triumphant! - -When I first made the trip from Verdun to Conflans there were still good -pickings for the souvenir-hunter by the way; shell-cases, helmets, gas -masks lying along the roadside; but lately it has looked as if these -trophies had been thoroughly gleaned. Nor does one wonder where they -have gone when one sees the flivvers piled high with homeward bound -souvenirs pulling in at the post office around the corner. But will they -reach home, is the question? Ominous rumours are abroad that salvage -plants have been established at the base ports for the particular -purpose of confiscating shell-cases on their way to America, and thereby -saving the Allies a fortune in brass. Some of the boys are inclined to -try to carry their trophies with them rather than entrust them to Uncle -Sam’s mail service, but this entails some trouble to prevent their -seizure during inspections. Nowadays, passing by, one can tell when an -inspection is in progress within, by all the junk which is hanging out -of the barracks windows! Homeward-bound troops have already discovered a -use for gas masks not mentioned in the Drill Manual: the cases provide -an excellent receptacle in which surreptitiously one may carry -photographs and post-cards! When I first came to Conflans, camouflaged -German helmets were a prize so rare as to be much sought after by the -souvenir enthusiast; but now camouflaged helmets may be had for the -asking; an enterprising bugler possessed of a knack with a paint-brush -has gone into the business of camouflaging them while you wait. - -Yesterday, after having returned from Verdun, I noticed a post-card in a -Jarny shop. It showed a black cat and a white cat silhouetted against -the moon, perched on the skeleton beams of a half-demolished house, -peering disconsolately about them. Underneath the sentence ran; _Où -est-il le toit de nos amours?_ Where is the roof of our love? Could any -nation but the French thus make light of such tragedy? - - -Paris, April 21. - -I am on my way home at last. I am waiting here for my sailing. This time -I am really going all the way through. Now that I am on the brink of the -_retour au civil_, as the French say, it seems very odd. For eighteen -months I haven’t worn white gloves, or silk stockings, or a veil, no, -nor even powdered my nose. And the worst of it is, these things don’t -seem to matter any more. Even a uniform, and a homely uniform at that, -has tremendous advantages as part of a working scheme of life. As one -girl remarked; - -“You don’t have to spend any time thinking: Shall I put on the pink or -the blue tonight? The only question is, Do I or do I not need a clean -collar?” - -Somehow I feel a little unfitted to go back to a civilian existence once -more. The same feeling one finds expressed continually among the boys. - -“When I get back home, if I see a line anywhere I’ll go and stand in it -just from force of habit,” remarked one boy, grinning ruefully. - -But most often this feeling takes the form of a pathetic and wistful -fear. - -“I’m afraid I’ll shock Mother when I get home.” - -“They won’t know what to make of us, back home, the way we’ll behave.” - -“I reckon I’ve forgotten how to act civilized.” - -And over and again they confess to a shame-faced apprehension lest they -should unguardedly relapse into the language of the army and so frighten -their women folk! - -A famous French surgeon confided to my friend, the English Lady: - -“In that first year of the war when we were allowed no _permissions_ we -became like savages. The first time that I returned home I was afraid. I -was afraid all the while, afraid before my wife, before my -children,—afraid that I would act the beast.” - -If by coming to France, we women who have had this privilege have -discovered the American doughboy, the American doughboy, by coming to -France, has discovered America. I don’t know who first said; “After I -get back, if the Statue of Liberty ever wants to see my face again, -she’ll have to turn around,” but whoever did, uttered a sentiment which -has been echoed and re-echoed all over France. The doughboy has been to -Paris, “the City of Light,” he has amused himself in the playgrounds of -princes along the Riviera, he has visited the châteaux and palaces of -kings and queens. And though he admits it is all mighty fine, in the -face of everything he holds staunchly to his declaration of loyalty; -“I’ll tell the world the little old U. S. A. is good enough for me!” - -At times perhaps his patriotic enthusiasm has outweighed his manners. -Again and again a French villager, evidently echoing some doughboy’s -dissertation, has asked me a little wistfully; - -“America _bon_, goode! France _pas bon_, no goode! _Hein?_” - -“Anyway the war has done one good thing,” I used to say to the lads in -the canteens, “it has taught you to appreciate your homes.” - -“I used to want to get away from home,” confided one boy to me, “but -when I get back there again I’m just going to tie myself so tight to -Mother’s apron-strings that she’ll never get the knot undone.” - -“Say, when I get back,” declared another lad as he helped me wipe the -dishes, “my mother’s going to find I’m just the best little K. P. she -ever knew.” - -“When I get home, I’m going to lock myself in the house and then I’m -going to lose the key and stay right there for a month,” announced -another. - -“Who’s in your house?” - -“Just Mother. She’s good enough for me.” - -Sometimes I have thought that three things have stood as concrete -symbols of all that was desirable to the American boy through his ordeal -over here: a dollar-bill, the Statue of Liberty, his mother’s face. And -only a shade less touching than the doughboy’s realization of all that -is implied by “Mother;” is his attitude of chivalrous idealism toward -the American girl. Once I ventured to say something in praise of the -women of France. - -“But they’re not as fine as our girls!” came the instant jealous -rejoinder. - -“No _Mademoiselles françaises_ for me, thank you. I’ve got a little girl -of my own back home!” - -“Our American girls, they’re as different from these French girls,” -declared a tall Virginian, “as day is from night!” - -“I’ve laid off of lovin’ while I’ve been over here,” confided one little -engineer, “but, oh boy! my girl’s goin’ to get an awful huggin’ when I -get home!” - -The most pitiful and hopeless cases that I have seen over here were boys -who had taken to drink because their girls at home had proved -inconstant. “That man never touched a drop,” confided the buddy of one -of these to me, “until he got that letter from his girl telling him that -she was married to a slacker.” - -Not that the doughboy’s conduct has always been above reproach. “Single -men in barracks,” as Kipling once remarked, “don’t grow into plaster -saints;” and he has been sorely tempted. But in his heart he has kept an -ideal. It has stood between him and utter darkness. In this ideal he has -put all his faith. If he loses it, he loses everything. 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