Chapter I: Try to Get to the American Camp--But Meet Disaster (1)

_Wednesday, August 22. Paris._

The gentlemen authorized to issue visitors’ passes to the American camp and the various fronts don’t seem to realize that a person may be in a hurry. They fail to appreciate the facts that hanging round Paris is financial ruin and that the world series, which one positively must attend, is drawing nearer every hour.

Permission to go to the British front was requested over a week ago. No reply. Daily calls at our own press bureau produce nothing but promises of a trip somewhere, some time. Monsieur Boss of the French Maison de la Presse says I may be taken through the devastated territory--in a week or so.

Meanwhile the Battle of Paris goes on, with Death always staring one in the face--Death from taxis, from starvation, from water thirst, from hand-to-hand encounters with the language.

Death from a taxi is the most likely form and the most distressing, for under the Parisian law the person run down and killed is the one at fault and the corpus delicti is liable to life imprisonment or worse. A pedestrian has no more rights here than the Kaiser, and it’s almost impossible to cross the street unless you’ve gone through a course of intensive training in Detroit.

There would be little danger if all the crossings were on the upgrade, for the French cars--those which aren’t in the military service--have a desperate time climbing. They have to shift speeds even to run up on the sidewalk, which is one of their favorite sports. But the Loop District of Paris is topographically on the level, and taxis can tear along like an eastbound Russian.

On occasions when you are run into and knocked down a gendarme appears on the scene with pencil and note-book. He takes the name and address of the driver and escorts you to jail. If you die there, the driver is sent a medal for marksmanship.

Taxi fares are cheaper, probably, than anywhere else in the world. They amount to practically nothing if you have an accident--that is, a trip without a collision with something or somebody. But even if you enjoy an average tour and hit a building or another vehicle or a dog or a person, they soak you only about half as much as they would in New York or Chicago, where there are far fewer thrills per drive.

The tariff from the hotel where I put up (I haven’t found out how much) to American General Headquarters, where I go every morning to be refused a pass to the camps, is one franc cinquante if you miss all targets. This forenoon it was two francs cinquante because we knocked the rear wheel off a young boy’s bicycle.

The boy, after a hearty bawling out by the driver and two gendarmes, was carted to a police station. They’ll hardly keep him in jail, though. Matteawan is the proper place for a boy who attempts bicycling on the streets of Paris.

A pedestrian has no more rights here than the Kaiser, and it’s
almost impossible to cross the street unless you’ve gone
through a course of intensive training in Detroit
]

_Thursday, August 23. Paris._

One of several differences between an American and a Frenchman is that an American tries to understand a Frenchman’s English and a Frenchman tries not to understand an American’s French.

To-day I wanted to go from somewhere to the Hotel Continental.

“Hotel Con-tin-ent-al,” I said to the driver.

He shook his head. I repeated. He shook his head again. This went on till I had pronounced the name five times and he had shaken his head that often. I said it the sixth time just as I had said it the other five.

“Oh-h-h!” shouted the driver, his face lighting up. “Hotel Con-tin-ent-al!”

And there wasn’t a particle of difference between his version and mine.

There was excitement in our village last night. At twenty-three-thirty o’clock, as we Parisians say, began a chorus of screaming sirens, the warning signal of an air raid. Those of us living in up-stairs rooms experienced a sudden craving for a home Somewhere in the Basement, and in gratifying it didn’t stop to use the elevator. The majority taking part in the Great Descent wore pajamas or their female relatives, sometimes called chemises de nuit. A few, of which I was one, were still attired for the day, and we went outdoors and looked up.

A regular flock of planes was, you might say, planely visible, but there was no fight in the air and no dropping of bombs on our fair city. The birdmen soared round a while in a perfectly friendly manner and then retired to their nests. The sirens were stilled and we all went up-stairs, the majority, mentioned above, grateful for the war-time lack of lights.

It seems that a Frenchman, returning from his day’s toil, forgot to flash his password, which is a red tail-light, or something. And the patrol took him for a boche and gave chase. Fortunately for himself, he glimpsed his pursuers in time and turned on the required signal.

To-day there has been a big demand for first-floor rooms.

_Friday, August 24. Paris._

An American major--it is interdict by the censor to mention the names of any officers save General Sibert and General Pershing--asked a friend in London to buy him an automobile and ship it here for his use. The Londoner was able, after much difficulty, to purchase one of those things that grow so rapidly in Detroit. He packed it up and mailed it to Le Havre. From there it had to be driven to Paris.

The major had never learned to drive this particular brand. In fact, his proportions are such that not even a shoehorn could coax him into the helmsman’s seat. He asked me to go up and get it for him. I declined on grounds of neutrality. That was a week ago.

Well, yesterday one Mr. Kiley, who has been over here some time in the ambulance service, came back to town with the car and four flat tires, which, evidently, were far past the draft age when the sale was made in London. Mr. Kiley helped himself to a stimulant and then told me about his trip.

He reached Le Havre last Saturday afternoon. He had in his pockets no papers except an order for the car. He had been in Le Havre about two minutes when a gentleman attacked him from behind with a tap on the shoulder. The gentleman pulled back his coat lapel and flashed a star bearing the insignia of the British Intelligence Department. He was curious as to Mr. Kiley’s name and business. Mr. Kiley told him. Then he wanted to see Mr. Kiley’s papers. Mr. Kiley showed him the order for the car.

“I’m afraid that won’t do,” said the officer. “I’d advise you to leave town.”

“Give me just an hour,” pleaded Mr. Kiley, “just time enough to get the car and get out.”

“All right,” said the officer, “and be sure it’s only an hour.”

Mr. Kiley hastened to where the car was reposing, displayed the order, and started joyously to wind her up. He cranked and he cranked and he cranked. Nothing doing. He gave her a push downhill and tried to throw her into speed. Nothing doing. It occurred to him that something must be the matter. A thorough examination resulted in a correct diagnosis. There was no gas.

Next to getting a drink of ice-water in Paris, the hardest job for a stranger is buying gasoline in any French town. Mr. Kiley was turned down five times before eighteen o’clock, when all the garages closed for the day.

He registered at a hotel and went into the café for dinner. He was just picking up the carte du jour when his friend, the officer, horned in.

“Mr. Kiley,” says this guy, “you have been in town more than an hour.”

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Kiley. “But I’ve had trouble. I found my car, but I can’t run it because there’s no essence.”

“I think you’d better leave town,” said the officer.

“If you don’t mind,” said Mr. Kiley, “I’ll leave early in the morning.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you left right now,” said he.

There followed a long discussion and a cross-examination even crosser than mine in Bordeaux. Mr. Kiley revealed his whole family history and won the right to stay overnight, provided he remained indoors and departed from town first thing in the morning.

But France is like America in that Saturday is usually succeeded by Sunday, and when Mr. Kiley arose from his hotel bed and resumed his search for gas he found every garage in town shut up tight. As I remember the United States, garages do not keep holy the Sabbath Day nor any other day. Over here, however, everything closes on Sunday except churches, theaters and saloons.

Mr. Kiley took in the situation and returned to his room to hide. Shortly before midi there was a knock at his door and a new officer appeared.

“You seem to like our town, Mr. Kiley,” said he.

“I’ll leave it as soon as I can get away,” said Mr. Kiley.

“No doubt,” replied the officer. “But I believe you will be here a long while.”

Mr. Kiley tried to look calm.

“Bone,” he said in perfectly good French.

“For the present,” said the officer, “you must not leave the hotel. Later on we’ll talk things over.”

In the café on Sunday night Mr. Kiley met an American and told him his troubles. The American had a car of his own in Le Havre and plenty of gasoline. He would be glad to give Mr. Kiley enough to start him on his way.

“But I can’t go,” said Mr. Kiley, “till I’ve fixed it with the police. I’ll have to look for them.”

He didn’t have far to look. No. 2 was in the lobby.

“Yes,” said No. 2, “you can leave town if you leave quick. There must be no more foolishness. The only thing that saves you from arrest is your uniform.”

Mr. Kiley left town and left quick, and, aside from his four blow-outs, had an uneventful trip to Paris.

But what if I had taken that assignment--I with no uniform except one willed me by the Chicago Cubs? O Boy!

_Saturday, August 25. Paris._

On advice of counsel I went to Colonel Anonymous of the American General Staff and besought him to fix it so that I might get to one of our camps without further stalling. Colonel Anonymous said it was all right with him and telephoned to Major Noname, who seemed to have authority in affaires journalistic.

Major Noname, fortunately, is a baseball fan. I told him what I did know, and lots that I didn’t know about our national pastime, and the reward was an American press pass to the infantry camp, S. in F.

I am going in a horseless carriage with Joe and Howard, fellow conspirators in the so-called journalistic game, and the start is to be made early Monday morning. Joe is going to drive his own car, and I hope he knows how.

_Dimanche, 26 Août. Paris._

Yesterday was Saturday, and everybody had had a hot bath and felt like doing something. Three of us decided to take in the highly recommended show at Les Ambassadeurs.

A member of the Theatrical Geographic Society met us in the foyer and showed us a map of the playhouse. From it we were supposed to pick our seats. We chose three that, on paper, were in the sixth row in the center aisle. Our usher, female, led us to three which were in the tenth row, off to one side. Our usher stuck round as if she expected something. I was the party with the seat checks, and she got nothing. I was ignorant of the rules of the game. But not for long. Pretty soon in came three of the World’s Greatest Fighters, alias Canadian soldiers, and sat down behind us. Their usher was more persistent than mine.

“What do you want?” demanded one who seemed to be the financial leader. “I already gave you a franc.”

“Un franc pour trois?” said the lady in horror.

“Yes, and that’s enough,” said the Canuck. “Aller!” he added in perfect Canadian.

“Je ne comprend pas,” said the lady.

“Go to the devil then!” said the Canadian in perfect Portuguese.

The lady went somewhere, but whether to the proper destination I do not know.

“I wonder how much they charge to get out,” wondered the Canadian.

Along about the middle of the show our own usher popped up before me and held out her right hand, at the same time exhibiting both teeth in an ingratiating smile. I shook the proffered hand. She withdrew her teeth.

“Non, non, non, non,” she said.

I asked her what she voulez-voued. She was coy.

“Do you want a tip?” I inquired in plain Michigan.

Both teeth reappeared. A dental curiosity drove me to hand her three francs. I had not underestimated.

In the second act a very nice-looking lady sang _A Broken Doll_ in plain Thirty-ninth Street. The stage chorus tried to help her out on the second refrain, but, with all due modesty, I must say that it was the Canadians and I who earned the vociferous encore.

_Lundi, 27 Août. Paris._

The first batch of laundry was back when I returned from the theater Saturday night. Collars were done up in a neat package, tied with baby-blue ribbon. They looked just as when I had sent them out except that there was a high, shiny polish over the soiled spots. As for handkerchiefs, let us follow the British communiqué style:

“Eleven of our handkerchiefs went over the Blanchisserie lines. Two came back. Nine are missing.”

Some practical joker suggested that I go out yesterday afternoon and watch a baseball game between a Canadian team and a club from the American Red Cross. St. Cloud was the battle ground. You pronounce St. Cloud exactly as it is not spelled.

A taxi man took us out there by way of Kansas City and El Paso, and during the forty minutes’ trip he was in high speed at least one minute. We bumped into a ceremony of awards. French soldiers to the number of two hundred were being given the Croix de Guerre.

The ceremony over, we crossed the race track and got on to the baseball field. There was an hour of badly needed practise, and then the two belligerents went at each other in a so-called ball game. It was stopped at the end of the eighth inning on account of rain, eight innings too late.

The rain, I am told, was long overdue, and we may expect gobs of it between now and then.

I am writing this early Monday morning, and early Monday morning is when we were supposed to start for the American camp. But there seems to be a difference of opinion over the meaning of the French adverb “early.”

_Tuesday, August 28. Somewhere in France._

“Early” proved to be half past ten yesterday morning. Joe drove us to the city limits, and there we had to pause. According to this year’s rules, ye automobilist pauses at the limits, has his gasoline measured, and then goes on. Returning to town, he has to pay a tax on the added amount of gasoline he brings, or something like that.

We were allowed to go out of town, and some thirty yards beyond the limits we found a garage. There we filled up with essence. Howard did the cranking, which is a necessity with all French cars, and away we went.

It was raining and it was cold. Joe and Howard were in the front seat, Joe driving and Howard studying the road map. I was in the back seat, catching cold.

“We’ll go right ahead,” said Joe, “to Such and Such a Place, and there we’ll stop and have lunch.”

Well, we stopped in Such and Such a Place, but it was not from a desire of lunch. It was because we were compelled to stop.

“Let’s see your papers,” said the stopper in French.

The stoppees, in English, displayed their passes to the American camp. The stopper didn’t know whether they were good or not. He asked us to wait a moment and disappeared out of the rain. We waited several moments. Finally there appeared another stopper, who read carefully our passes and told us they were no good and that we would have to loom up at the City Hall.

We went there, with Joe and Howard in the front seat and an officer and I in the back, me still catching cold, especially in the feet.

In the City Hall were French officers attired in all colors of the French army, which made the colors of the rainbow look like Simon Pure White. Our crime, it seems, was in not having an automobile pass on a red card. Or maybe it was blue. One of the thirty gentlemen in charge said we would have to wait till he telephoned back to Paris. Knowing the French telephone system, we inquired whether we might go across the street and eat. We were told we might.

We went across the street and ate, and it was a good meal, with meat, on a day which was meatless in Paris. A subaltern interrupted the orgy and said we were wanted back in the City Hall. Back there the startling information was that no telephonic satisfaction had been obtained. We asked whether we might go back to the café. There was no objection. We played pitch. French soldiers by scores came up and looked on. Joe thought, sub rosa, that it would be a grand idea to startle ’em. So we played pitch for one hundred francs a hand, it being tacitly understood that the money didn’t go. But we certainly had them excited.

Between pitch games in which thousands of francs were apparently lost and won, we visited, on summons, the City Hall five or six times. Every time there was the same heavy barrage of français.

Entered, finally, an English-speaking gent who said we might leave the city provided we went straight back to Paris.

“We’d much prefer,” said Joe, “to go on to where we were going.”

“You have the choice,” was the reply, “of returning to Paris or remaining here, in jail.”

Paris sounded the more attractive. They gave us back our car and away we went. It was after twenty o’clock, and it was pitch dark, and it was cold, and it was raining. And the man who had made the machine had forgotten to equip it with headlights.

A little before midnight, on the downhill main street of a village, we saw ahead of us a wagon. It was two feet ahead of us. There being nothing else to do we banged into it. Then we stopped. The driver of the wagon sat suddenly down in the middle of the street and apologized. We all got out to see whether any damage had been done to the car. The only wounds discernible in the darkness were a smashed radiator and a bent axle.

“It’s lucky this happened in a town,” said I. “We can probably find a hotel.”

“We’re not going to look for one,” said Joe. “We’re going to drive to Paris.”

We got back in and, to our amazement, the darn thing started. There was plenty of headlight now, for the whole hood was ablaze. All lit up like a church, we went on our mad career until our conveyance dropped dead, overcome by the heat. This was four miles from a town that will be famous in the histories of this war.

“I guess we’re through,” said Joe. “One of us will have to stay with the car and see that nothing is stolen. The other two can go back to town and find a bed.”

By a vote of two to one, Howard was elected to stay with the car. He was the youngest.

Joe and I hiked our four miles in silence. The town was as brilliantly lighted as a cemetery and apparently void of inmates. We groped for an hour in a vain search for a hostelry. At length we gave up and resolved to sleep on the huge cathedral’s front porch. We were ascending the steps when a door opened and a human being stood before us.

“Arrested again,” thought I.

But the human being turned out to be not a copper, but a priest.

“Bon soir, monsieur,” said Joe. “Voulez-vous show us où we can find a hotel?”

He led us across the street to a place we had doped out as the high school. He rapped on the door with his foot. In a few moments an aged lady, dressed for the night, appeared. There was a rapid exchange of français, after which we thanked the priest and were taken through a courtyard and up-stairs to our room. We said a prayer for Howard and went to sleep, and I had a nightmare. I dreamed of a porterhouse steak.

This morning we decided it wouldn’t be clubby to have breakfast before we had rescued Howard and the car. We went to a garage which was equipped with a beautiful lady, but no automobiles nor tow-ropes. We found a livery stable that had every thing but a horse. We commandeered a young man’s delivery cart from in front of a grocery store and drove out to the scene of our car’s demise. Howard and the corpse were still there. Howard thought it would be a good idea to go to the nearest farm-house and rent a horse and a rope from the proprietor. The proprietor was very ignorant. He couldn’t understand our French. But in his employ was a German prisoner who could talk his own language and ours and the funny one that is prevalent round here. He explained our wants to the farmer and there ensued a few moments of haggling over price. We finally rented two horses and a rope for fifty francs and dragged the car back to town. From the looks of it, in daylight, I would say the economical course would have been to leave it out there in the road and keep the fifty francs.

The garage man says, in English, that he can make the necessary “reparations” in three weeks. So far as I’m concerned, he can devote three years to the job. Hereafter I’ll do my cross-country flitting about on a train.

It’s on one now, Paris bound, that I’m writing. There is nothing to do but write, for Howard is getting the sleep he missed last night and Joe is too angry to talk. He has spoken one sentence since we got up this morning.

“This is a queer war,” he said.

IV

FINALLY I GET TO THE AMERICAN CAMP; WHAT I FIND THERE

_Thursday, August 30. At an American Camp._

Me and a regular American correspondent, Mr. Bazin, who has been here since before the war, but is still good-natured, took the train from Paris this morning and reached our destination shortly after lunch time. This is one of a string of villages in which the main body of the Expeditionary Forces are billeted.

We were met at the train by one of the correspondents’ cars, a regular he-man of a car from home, with eight cylinders and everything. Each correspondent rents a seat in one of the machines at a cost of sixty dollars a week. For this trifling sum he may be driven anywhere he wants to go along the line.

The correspondents have a tough life. They are quartered in a good--judged by French standards--hotel, and are not what you could call overworked. There is nothing to write about, and if you wrote about it you probably couldn’t get it through.

Mr. Corey, one of these slaves, invited me to accompany him to an infantry billet, some eighteen miles distant. We sailed along over the perfect roads at an average speed of about sixty, slowing up in the villages to dodge a harmless course among the cows, chickens and children, all of whom use the middle of Main Street for their playground.

We passed an occasional soldier, but it was a nice clear day, and the large majority were out in the fields and hills rehearsing. Our boys, I’m told, are getting quite a workout. Usually they leave their billets at seven in the morning, walk from six to twelve miles to a drill ground, and work till half past four in the afternoon. Then they take the long hike “home” and wonder how soon supper will be ready. Frequently, however, there is practise in night trench warfare, and then the grind continues till ten or eleven o’clock. The work is hard, but so, by this time, are the boys.

The captain on whom we called said he was glad to meet me, which is the first time that has happened in France. We asked him whether there was any news. He said yes, that the Salvation Army had established headquarters in the camp.

“I’m glad,” he remarked, “that they’ve decided to go in on our side. It may influence the Kaiser’s friend Gott.”

The chief need of the soldiers, he went on, was amusement. The Salvation Army’s and Y. M. C. A.’s efforts were appreciated, but continual rations of soup and meat palled at times, and a little salad and dessert, in the form of Charlie Chaplin or the Follies, would make life more bearable.

“Some American theatrical producer,” said the captain, “could win our undying gratitude by shipping over a stock company with a small repertory of shows, with music, and _girls_. I believe he’d find it profitable too. When the boys get paid they don’t know what to do with their money. There’s nothing to spend it on in these parts.”

The captain invited us to dinner, but we had a previous date with members of the Censorship Bureau. These entertained us with stories which I voluntarily delete. From their hotel we returned to our own, held a brief song service in the correspondents’ mess, and called it a day.

_Friday, August 31. At an American Camp._

“Would you like to meet General Sibert?” asked Mr. Corey.

General Sibert’s name is one of the two that may be mentioned.

I said I would, and we left after breakfast for the next village, where headquarters is situate. In the outer office were some clerks and a colonel. The latter could never be accused of excessive cordiality.

“The general is busy,” he said.

“How long will he be busy?” inquired Mr. Corey.

“I have no idea,” said the colonel.

Mr. Corey and I felt we would be warmer outdoors, so we climbed back in our car and asked our sergeant-driver to take us to the nearest training grounds. Here an infantry regiment was going through simple drill, and calisthentics which were far from simple.

The nearest captain approached, smiled pleasantly and asked what he could do for us. We introduced ourselves.

“Correspondents, eh?” he said.

“Well, then, you can do something for us--make the newspapers and magazines quit calling us Sammies. We’ve never done anything to deserve a name like that.”

“What’s the matter with it?” we inquired.

“Everything!” said the captain. “It doesn’t fit, it sounds childish, and we just naturally hate it.”

We asked him whether there was an acceptable substitute.

“I don’t know of any,” he said. “In due time we’ll wish one on ourselves that will have pep and sound real. Meanwhile call us Julias, Howards--anything you like, except Sammies.”

We promised to do our best for him, and he was grateful enough to invite us to his mess for lunch.

This young man--he looks about twenty-nine--hasn’t been to his home, somewhere out West, since he left West Point, six years ago. He hasn’t seen a show in six years. Mexico and the Philippines have kept him busy. His promotion from lieutenant to captain is very recent, and he still wears only one stripe. “I suppose I’ll be a major before I get the other,” he said. “A man can hardly keep up with his rank these days.”

He called our attention to the physical condition of his men.

“You’ve got to be in the pink to go through those exercises without yelling for help,” he said. “These fellas couldn’t have done it a month ago. Now they seldom get tired, though the hours are pretty stiff. To-day is a cinch. It’s pay-day, and there’s a muster soon after lunch. So most of us will get a half holiday and nobody’ll object.”

The captain blew his whistle to indicate that the game was over. His boys quit happily, and we left him after agreeing to show up at his billet in time for lunch.

“We have a fairly good cook,” he promised. “But what is much more important, we have a beautiful young lady to wait on us.”

Our next stop was at a trench school. Americans, under French tutelage, had constructed a perfect--so we were told--system of ditches and entanglements, and had shown aptitude in learning the offensive and defensive points of this pleasant method of warfare. They were now engaged in bomb-throwing drill. Some of them had tried the baseball throw, but had found the grenades too heavy. Several crooked-arm throws would do things to a person’s elbow. But, according to the officers, the youngsters had done very well with the bowling motion and had surprised the French with their accuracy.

This officer, another captain, spoke in complimentary terms of the French assistance.

“They’ve been more than diligent with us,” said he. “They’ve never shown impatience when we failed to grab their point, but have gone over it and over it till we’ve learned it to suit them. The difference in languages makes it hard sometimes to get what they’re after, but they eventually manage to make themselves understood. The only fault I have to find with them,” he confided, “is that they don’t give us credit for knowing anything at all. They tell us this thing’s a rifle, and the thing on the end of it is a bayonet, and so forth. And one of them showed me a barbed-wire entanglement one day, and told me what it was for. I’d always been under the mistaken impression that it was used for bed-clothes.”

We had to turn down this captain’s luncheon invitation, but we stopped at his house for light refreshment. His lieutenant, a young University of Michigan boy, had come over on the first transport, and related interesting details of that historic trip.

We went on to the other captain’s, and lunched with him and his major and colonel. The beautiful young lady proved every bit as pretty as a pair of army shoes. But the food was good and the captain’s French better. He kept hurling it at the beautiful young lady, who received it with derisive laughter. His accent, it appeared, was imposseeb.

“I like to make her laugh,” he told me. “It takes me back home among the coyotes.”

On the street of the village I held converse with a private, aged about twenty-three. I said I supposed he was glad it was pay-day.

“What’s the difference!” he said. “I got more money now than Rockefella. I ain’t spent more’n a buck since we been over, and then it was just to be spendin’ it, not because they was anything to buy. I seen a fella the other day light a cigarette with one o’ these here dirty twenty-franc notes. He was sick o’ carrying it round. And they was another fella went up to one o’ these here village belles and slipped her a hundred francs. He never seen her before, and he won’t never see her again. He just says ‘Souvenir’ and let it go at that.”

“Did she take it?”

“Oh, I guess not! She’s to gay Paree by this time already.”

“She won’t burn up that town with a hundred francs.”

“No, but all these girls don’t think o’ nothin’ but gettin’ there. From what I seen of it, I’d just as soon be in Akron.”

“Oh, I’d hardly say that!”

“Talk about spendin’ money! They was a poor fella here last week that got rid of a lot of it. He bought himself a bottle o’ champagne wine. I don’t think he’d tasted it before, but it’s cheap over here. So he got a hold o’ this bottle and poured it into him like it was excelsior water, and it acted on him like it was laughin’ gas. He went up alongside the officers’ billet and sang ’em a vocal solo. The captain heard him--you could of heard him in San Francisco--and the captain come out and invited him in. And when he got him in there he says: ‘So-and-So, how much did this little bun cost you?’ So the fella told him a buck and a half. So the captain says: ‘You’ve underestimated the amount by about seventy bucks. You’ll get your next pay the last day of October.’”

I asked my new friend how he liked his billet.

“Great!” he said. “I and a couple other fellas has a room next to a pig on one side and a flock o’ chickens on the other. We never get lonesome, and it makes it nice and handy when we want some ham and eggs. I know one fella that rooms next to a settlement o’ rats. Night times he sets his flashlight so’s it throws a narrow path o’ light acrost the floor, then he puts a little piece o’ meat in the path and stands over it with a bayonet. When Mr. Rat gets there the fella comes down whang with the bayonet and fastens him to the floor. It’s good target practise, and he’d ought to be sure fire by the time it’s Huns instead o’ rats.”

“Maybe,” said I, “the Huns would know better than to come out in the light.”

“They’d go anywheres for a piece o’ meat,” said the private.

He had to depart and report for muster. We took another road home, a road frequented by sheep and railroad crossings, both of which slow you up considerably.

In France the gates--strong iron ones--at grade crossings are kept closed except when some one wants to cross the tracks. The some one makes known his desire by tooting his horn or shouting, and the gatekeeper--usually an old lady with the pipe-smoking habit--comes out of her shack and opens the gates, expending anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour on the task. The salary attached to the position is the same as that of a French private: ten centimes a day, which is two cents in regular money. I presume the gatekeepers have a hot time in the old town on pay night.

As for the sheep, when you come up behind them you might as well resign yourself to staying behind them till they reach the village for which they are headed. They won’t get out of the way of their own accord, and neither the dog nor the aged shepherd will make any effort to sidetrack them.

Having led them into the village, the shepherd proceeds to deliver them to their respective owners. He stops in front of a house, plays a certain tune on his horn, and the sheep or sheeps belonging to that house step out of ranks and sheepishly retire for the night, or perhaps sit up a while in the parlor and talk war with the family.

There must be a lot of intermarrying among the sheeps of one village. A great many of those in the flock we saw looked enough alike to be cousins or something.

Somebody suggested a poker game for this evening’s entertainment, but I got all I wanted of that great sport coming across the bounding blue.

It has rained only an hour in two days, and the boys say we’ll get it good to-morrow.

_Saturday, September 1. In an American Camp._

As exclusively predicted by everybody, it was pouring when we arose this morning, but rain doesn’t keep you indoors in France. If it did, you would live indoors.

We splashed the thirty miles to the other end of the camp and inflicted ourselves on a major of marines. He seemed deliberately unfriendly at first, but it was only his manner. After five minutes of awkward monosyllabic dialogue he gave us the usual refreshments and took us out to see the town, the name of which should be Mud if it isn’t.

“This is a grand climate,” he said. “They must have had conscription to get people to live here.”

He took us to the camp kitchen, of which he was evidently and justly proud. It was a model of convenience and cleanliness. He spoke to the cook.

“Are you very busy?” he asked.

“No, sir,” was the reply.

“Then I’d shave if I were you,” said the major.

“Daily shaving,” he told us when we got outside, “ought to be compulsory in our army as it is in the British. When a man hasn’t shaved he isn’t at his best, physically, morally, or mentally. When he has he’s got more confidence in himself; his morale is better. Shaving has a psychological effect, and I try to impress my men with the importance of it. They say it’s a difficult operation here, but I guess if the Tommies can do it in the trenches, we can in these billets.”

We remarked on the increasing popularity of mustaches among the men.

“I don’t object to them,” said the major. “Neither do I see any sense to them. To my mind they’re in a class with monocles or an appendix. But so long as the men keep their cheeks and chins smooth, they’re at liberty to wear as much of a misplaced eyebrow as they can coax out.”

The major showed us his hospital and his dentist shop and marched us up a steep hill, where, in the rain, we saw a great many interesting things and promised not to write about them.

After lunch we decided it would be patriotic to go home and remove our wet clothes. In my case, this meant spending the rest of the day in my room, and that’s where I am.

_Sunday, September 2. Paris._

The driver assigned to take me to the train, which left from the next village this morning, lost his way, and we reached the station just as the engine was sounding the Galli-Curci note that means All Aboard. There was no time to buy a ticket, and you can’t pay a cash fare on a train in France. But the conductor, or whatever you call him here, said I could get a ticket at the destination, Paris; in fact, I must get a ticket or spend the rest of my unnatural life wandering about the station.

I found a seat in a compartment in which were a young American officer, beginning his forty-eight hours’ leave, and a young French lady who looked as if she had been in Paris before. The young officer and I broke into conversation at once. The young lady didn’t join in till we had gone nearly twenty kilomet’s.

Captain Jones, which isn’t his name, called attention to the signs on the window warning MM. Les Voyageurs to keep their anatomies indoors. The signs were in three languages. “Ne pas Pencher au Dehors,” said the French. The English was “Danger to Lean Outside.” And the Wop: “Non Sporgere”--very brief. It was evident that a fourth variation of the warning had been torn off, and it didn’t require a William Burns to figure out in what language it had been written.

“If there were a boche on this train,” said Captain Jones, “he could lean his head off without hurting any one’s feelings.”

“Languages are funny,” continued the captain sagely. “The French usually need more words than we do to express the same thought. I believe that explains why they talk so fast--they’ve got so much more to say.”

I inquired whether he knew French.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I’ve been over here so long that I can even tell the money apart.”

The dining-car conductor came in to ask whether we wanted the first or second “série” luncheon. You must reserve your seat at table on trains here or you can’t eat. We decided on the second, and so did our charming compartment mate. Captain Jones, supposing she could not understand English, said: “Shall you take her to lunch or shall I?”

I was about to be magnanimous when she remarked, with a scornful glance at the captain: “I shall myself take me to lunch if monsieur has no objection.”

The cap was temporarily groggy, but showed wonderful recuperative powers and in five minutes convinced her that he would toss himself into the Seine if she refused to eat with us. She accepted, after some stalling that convinced me she had been cordially inclined all the while.

General polite conversation ensued, and soon came the inevitable French question: How many American soldiers were there in France? I have heard it asked a million times, and I have heard a million different answers. The captain gave the truthful reply: “I don’t know.”

“This war,” he said, “should be called the War of Rumors. The war will be over by Christmas. The war won’t be over for ten years. The boche is starving. The Allies are getting fat. The boche has plenty to eat. The Allies are dying of hunger. Our last transport fleet sank five subs. Our last transport fleet was sunk by a whole flotilla of subs. Montenegro’s going to make a separate peace with Bosnia. There is talk of peace negotiations between Hungary and Indiana. Ireland, Brazil and Oklahoma are going to challenge the world. They’re going to move the entire war to the Balkans and charge admission. The Kaiser’s dying of whooping cough. You can learn anything you want to or don’t want to know. Why”--this to me--“don’t you fellas print the truth?”

“And where,” I asked him, “would you advise us to go and get it?”

“The same place I got it,” said the captain.

“And what is it?”

“I don’t know.”

We adjourned to the diner. A sign there said: “Non Fumeurs.” The captain pointed to it.

“That’s brief enough,” he said. “That’s once when the French is concise. But you ought to see the Chinese for that. I was in a town near the British front recently where some Chinese laborers are encamped. In the station waiting-room, it says: ‘No Smoking’ in French, English, Russian and Italian. The Russian is something like ‘Do notski smokevitch,’ and the Italian is ‘Non Smokore’. Recently they have added a Chinese version, and it’s longer than the Bible. A moderate smoker could disobey the rules forty times before he got through the first chapter and found out what they were driving at.”

Be that as it may, I have observed that everybody in France smokes whenever and wherever he or she desires, regardless of signs. We did now, and so did our guest, while waiting for the first course, which was black bread baked in a brickyard.

“I would love to go to America,” said mademoiselle.

“You wouldn’t care for it,” replied the captain promptly. “It’s too wild.”

“How is it wild?”

“Every way: manners, habits, morals. The majority of the people, of course, are Indians, and you just can’t make them behave.”

She asked whether either of us had ever been in New York. The captain said he’d passed through there once on the way to Coney Island. She wanted to know if New York was bigger than Paris. “It’s bigger than France,” said Captain Jones.

Monsieur was trying to make a game of her.

“Well, anyway,” said the captain, “you could lose France in Texas.”

What was Texas?

“Texas,” said the captain, “is the place they send soldiers when they’ve been bad. It’s way out west, near Chicago.”

The lady had heard of Chicago.

“This gentleman works there,” said the captain. “He’s part Indian, but he was educated at Carlisle and is somewhat civilized. He gets wild only on occasions.”

The lady regarded me rather scaredly.

“He lives on the plains outside the city,” continued the captain, “and rides to his work and back on a zebra. Practically all the suburban savages have zebras, and the Chicago traffic police have a fierce time handling them during their owners’ working hours. They run wild around the streets and in the department stores, and snap at women, especially brunettes.”

We had attained the potato course. The French positively will not serve potatoes as other than a separate course. I was about to help myself to a generous portion when the captain cried: “Here! Better leave those things alone. You know what they do to you.”

I told him I didn’t believe two or three would hurt, and proceeded to take three.

“When a half Indian eats potatoes,” said the captain, “he usually forgets himself and runs amuck.”

Our guest probably didn’t know what a muck was, but it had an unpleasant sound, and the look she gave me was neither friendly nor trusting.

“The greatest difference between France and America,” continued Captain Jones, “is in the people. In America a man ordinarily takes the initiative in striking up an acquaintance with a woman. He has to speak to her before she’ll speak to him. This would never do in France, where the men are too shy. Then there’s a difference in the way men treat their wives and horses. Americans use whips instead of clubs. And Americans have funny ideas about their homes. Private bedrooms and playrooms are provided for their pets--zebras, lizards and wild cats--and the little fellows are given to understand that they must remain in them and not run all over the house, like one of your cows.”

He paused to ask me how the potatoes were acting. I said it was too soon to tell, but I felt a little dizzy in the head. He suggested it were better to go back to our compartment, where there were less things to throw in the event of my reaching the throwing stage.

“On the other hand,” I said, “if I am deprived of knives, forks and plates, I will pick on human beings, and I usually aim out the windows.”

But he said he was sick of the atmosphere in the diner. We asked for l’addition and argued over who should pay it. I won, and when he had been given his change we returned to our own car, where mademoiselle demonstrated her fear of my expected outbreak by going to sleep.

We turned our attention to the scenery, the most striking feature of which was the abundance of boche prisoners at work in the fields.

“Lucky stiffs!” said the captain. “The war is over for them if they can just manage not to escape, and I guess there’s no difficulty about that. Better food than the soldiers, a soft job, and a bed to sleep in. And wages besides. Every private in the Fritz army would surrender if the officers hadn’t given them a lot of bunk about the way German prisoners are treated. They make them believe we cut off their feet and ears and give them one peanut and a glass of water every two weeks.”

Paris hove into view, and we quarreled about the girl. The fair thing, we decided, would be to turn over her and her baggage to a porter and wish her many happy returns of the day. We were spared this painful duty, however, for when she awoke she treated both of us as strangers. And the gentleman who attended to her baggage was not a porter, but a French aviator, waiting on the station platform for that very purpose.

“She’ll tell him,” guessed the captain, “that an American soldier and half Indian tried to flirt with her on the train, but she froze them out.”

Captain Jones stuck with me till my exit ticket was procured, a chore that ate up over an hour. Then we climbed into a dreadnought and came to this hotel, where I sat right down and versified as follows:

TO AN AMERICAN SOLDIER

_If you don’t like the nickname Sammy,
If it’s not all a nickname should be,
You can pick out Pat or Mike,
Whatever name you like--
It won’t make no difference to me.
Want a Thomas or Harry or Dick name?
Dost prefer to be called Joe or Lou?
You’ve a right to your choice of a nickname;
Oh, Mr. Yank, it’s up to you._

V

MY ADVENTURES AT THE BRITISH FRONT

_Monday, September 3. Paris._

In this morning’s mail was a letter from Somewhere in London, replying favorably to my request to go to the British front. I was directed to take the letter to the assistant provost marshal, who would slip me a pass and inform me as to the details of the trip.

At the A. P. M.’s I was given the pass and with it “an undertaking to be signed by all intending visitors to the front.” There are ten rules in the undertaking, and some of them are going to be hard to obey. For example:

“I understand that it is impossible to arrange for me to see relatives serving with the fighting forces.”

“I will not visit the enemy front during the present war.”

But No. 6 is the tough one:

“In no circumstances will I deliver a political or electioneering speech to troops.”

I must pray for strength to resist natural impulses along this line.

Wednesday morning, said the A. P. M., would be our starting time. And he told us when and where to take the train--“us” because I am to be accompanied by a regular correspondent, one who carries a cane and everything.

Mr. Gibbons, the regular correspondent, informs me I must wear a uniform, and to-morrow morning I am to try on his extra one, which he has kindly offered.

Another chore scheduled for to-morrow is the squaring of myself with the boss of the French Maison de la Presse, who invited me to visit the devastated territory Thursday and Friday. The invitation was accepted, but the British and French dates conflict, and I would rather see one real, live front than any number of broken-down barns and boched trees.

_Tuesday, September 4. Paris._

I reported, after the French idea of breakfast, at the Maison de la Presse. This is situate on the fourth floor of a building equipped with an elevator that proves the fallacy of the proverb “What goes up must come down.” You can dimly see it at the top of the shaft, and no amount of button pushing or rope pulling budges it.

During the long climb I rehearsed the speech of apology and condolence framed last night, and wondered whether monsieur would be game and try to smile or break down completely or fly into a rage. He was game, and he not only tried to smile, but succeeded. And his smile was in perfect simulation of relief. These French are wonderful actors.

I returned thence to Mr. Gibbons’ room for my fitting. His extra uniform consisted of a British officer’s coat and riding breeches, puttees and shoes. Cap and khaki shirt I had to go out and purchase. The store I first selected was a gyp joint and wanted twenty-seven francs for a cap. I went to another store and got exactly the same thing for twenty-six. A careful shopper can save a lot of money in Paris.

Provided with cap and shirt, the latter costing a franc less than the former, I went to a secluded spot and tried on the outfit, Mr. Gibbons assisting. We managed the puttees in thirty-five minutes. It is said that a man working alone can don them in an hour, provided he is experienced.

“You look,” Mr. Gibbons remarked when I was fully dressed, “as if you had been poured into it.”

But I felt as if I hadn’t said “when” quite soon enough. Mr. Gibbons and I differ in two important particulars--knee joints--and though I tried to seem perfectly comfortable, my knees were fairly groaning to be free of the breeches and out in the open fields.

“Wear it the rest of the day and get used to it,” advised Mr. Gibbons.

“No,” I said. “I don’t want to rumple it all up. I want to keep it neat for to-morrow.” And against his protest I tore myself out and resumed my humble Chicago garb.

It’s no wonder regular correspondents and British officers are obliged to wear canes. The wonder is that they don’t use crutches.

We leave at nine to-morrow morning. This means that myself and puttees will have to get up at four.

_Wednesday, September 5. With the British._

The major has a very good sense of the fitness of things. The room where I’m writing, by candlelight, is the best guest room in our château and was once occupied by the queen.