Two belonged to a lawyerish person in civilian clothes, with a bored
expression, plus a moustache of dreamy proportions with which the owner
constantly imitated a gentleman ringing for a drink. Two appertained to
a splendid old dotard (a face all ski-jumps and toboggan slides), on
whose protruding chest the rosette of the Legion pompously squatted.
Numbers five and six had reference to Monsieur, who had seated himself
before I had time to focus my slightly bewildered eyes.
Monsieur spoke sanitary English, as I have said.
“What is your name?”—“Edward E. Cummings.”
—“Your second name?”—“E-s-t-l-i-n,” I spelled it for him.—“How do you
say that?”—I didn’t understand.—“How do you say your name?”—“Oh,” I
said; and pronounced it. He explained in French to the moustache that
my first name was Edouard, my second “A-s-tay-l-ee-n,” and my third
“Kay-umm-ee-n-gay-s”—and the moustache wrote it all down. Monsieur then
turned to me once more:
“You are Irish?”—“No,” I said, “American.”—“You are Irish by
family?”—“No, Scotch.”—“You are sure that there was never an Irishman
in your parents?”—“So far as I know,” I said, “there never was an
Irishman there.”—“Perhaps a hundred years back?” he insisted.—“Not a
chance,” I said decisively. But Monsieur was not to be denied: “Your
name it is Irish?”—“Cummings is a very old Scotch name,” I told him
fluently, “it used to be Comyn. A Scotchman named The Red Comyn was
killed by Robert Bruce in a church. He was my ancestor and a very
well-known man.”—“But your second name, where have you got that?”—“From
an Englishman, a friend of my father.” This statement seemed to produce
a very favorable impression in the case of the rosette, who murmured:
“_Un ami de son père, un Anglais, bon!_” several times. Monsieur, quite
evidently disappointed, told the moustache in French to write down that
I denied my Irish parentage; which the moustache did.
“What does your father in America?”—“He is a minister of the gospel,” I
answered. “Which church?”—“Unitarian.” This puzzled him. After a moment
he had an inspiration: “That is the same as a Free Thinker?”—I
explained in French that it wasn’t and that _mon père_ was a holy man.
At last Monsieur told the moustache to write: Protestant; and the
moustache obediently did so.
From this point on our conversation was carried on in French, somewhat
to the chagrin of Monsieur, but to the joy of the rosette and with the
approval of the moustache. In answer to questions, I informed them that
I was a student for five years at Harvard (expressing great surprise
that they had never heard of Harvard), that I had come to New York and
studied painting, that I had enlisted in New York as _conducteur
volontaire_, embarking for France shortly after, about the middle of
April.
Monsieur asked: “You met B—— on the _paquebot_?” I said I did.
Monsieur glanced significantly around. The rosette nodded a number of
times. The moustache rang.
I understood that these kind people were planning to make me out the
innocent victim of a wily villain, and could not forbear a smile.
_C’est rigolo_, I said to myself; they’ll have a great time doing it.
“You and your friend were together in Paris?” I said “yes.” “How long?”
“A month, while we were waiting for our uniforms.”
A significant look by Monsieur, which is echoed by his _confrères_.
Leaning forward Monsieur asked coldly and carefully: “What did you do
in Paris?” to which I responded briefly and warmly: “We had a good
time.”
This reply pleased the rosette hugely. He wagged his head till I
thought it would have tumbled off. Even the mustache seemed amused.
Monsieur le Ministre de la Sureté de Noyon bit his lip. “Never mind
writing that down,” he directed the lawyer. Then, returning to the
charge:
“You had a great deal of trouble with Lieutenant A.?”
I laughed outright at this complimentary nomenclature. “Yes, we
certainly did.”
He asked: “Why?”—so I sketched “Lieutenant” A. in vivid terms, making
use of certain choice expressions with which one of the “dirty
Frenchmen” attached to the section, a Parisien, master of argot, had
furnished me. My phraseology surprised my examiners, one of whom (I
think the moustache) observed sarcastically that I had made good use of
my time in Paris.
Monsieur le Ministre asked: Was it true (a) that B. and I were always
together and (b) preferred the company of the attached Frenchmen to
that of our fellow-Americans?—to which I answered in the affirmative.
Why? he wanted to know. So I explained that we felt that the more
French we knew and the better we knew the French the better for us;
expatiating a bit on the necessity for a complete mutual understanding
of the Latin and Anglo-Saxon races if victory was to be won.
Again the rosette nodded with approbation.
Monsieur le Ministre may have felt that he was losing his case, for he
played his trump card immediately: “You are aware that your friend has
written to friends in America and to his family very bad letters.” “I
am not,” I said.
In a flash I understood the motivation of Monsieur’s visit to
_Vingt-et-Un_: the French censor had intercepted some of B.’s letters,
and had notified Mr. A. and Mr. A.’s translator, both of whom had
thankfully testified to the bad character of B. and (wishing very
naturally to get rid of both of us at once) had further averred that we
were always together and that consequently I might properly be regarded
as a suspicious character. Whereupon they had received instructions to
hold us at the section until Noyon could arrive and take charge—hence
our failure to obtain our long-overdue permission.
“Your friend,” said Monsieur in English, “is here a short while ago. I
ask him if he is up in the aeroplane flying over Germans will he drop
the bombs on Germans and he say no, he will not drop any bombs on
Germans.”
By this falsehood (such it happened to be) I confess that I was
nonplussed. In the first place, I was at the time innocent of
third-degree methods. Secondly, I remembered that, a week or so since,
B., myself and another American in the section had written a
letter—which, on the advice of the _sous-lieutenant_ who accompanied
_Vingt-et-Un_ as translator, we had addressed to the Under-Secretary of
State in French Aviation—asking that inasmuch as the American
Government was about to take over the Red Cross (which meant that all
the Sanitary Sections would be affiliated with the American, and no
longer with the French, Army) we three at any rate might be allowed to
continue our association with the French by enlisting in l’Esquadrille
Lafayette. One of the “dirty Frenchmen” had written the letter for us
in the finest language imaginable, from data supplied by ourselves.
“You write a letter, your friend and you, for French aviation?”
Here I corrected him: there were three of us; and why didn’t he have
the third culprit arrested, might I ask? But he ignored this little
digression, and wanted to know: Why not American aviation?—to which I
answered: “Ah, but as my friend has so often said to me, the French are
after all the finest people in the world.”
This double-blow stopped Noyon dead, but only for a second.
“Did your friend write this letter?”—“No,” I answered truthfully.—“Who
did write it?”—“One of the Frenchmen attached to the section.”—“What is
his name?”—“I’m sure I don’t know,” I answered; mentally swearing that,
whatever might happen to me the scribe should not suffer. “At my urgent
request,” I added.
Relapsing into French, Monsieur asked me if I would have any hesitation
in dropping bombs on Germans? I said no, I wouldn’t. And why did I
suppose I was fitted to become aviator? Because, I told him, I weighed
135 pounds and could drive any kind of auto or motorcycle. (I hoped he
would make me prove this assertion, in which case I promised myself
that I wouldn’t stop till I got to Munich; but no.)
“Do you mean to say that my friend was not only trying to avoid serving
in the American Army but was contemplating treason as well?” I asked.
“Well, that would be it, would it not?” he answered coolly. Then,
leaning forward once more, he fired at me: “Why did you write to an
official so high?”
At this I laughed outright. “Because the excellent _sous-lieutenant_
who translated when Mr. Lieutenant A. couldn’t understand advised us to
do so.”
Following up this _sortie_, I addressed the mustache: “Write this down
in the testimony—that I, here present, refuse utterly to believe that
my friend is not as sincere a lover of France and the French people as
any man living!—Tell him to write it,” I commanded Noyon stonily. But
Noyon shook his head, saying: “We have the very best reason for
supposing your friend to be no friend of France.” I answered: “That is
not my affair. I want my opinion of my friend written in; do you see?”
“That’s reasonable,” the rosette murmured; and the moustache wrote it
down.
“Why do you think we volunteered?” I asked sarcastically, when the
testimony was complete.
Monsieur le Ministre was evidently rather uncomfortable. He writhed a
little in his chair, and tweaked his chin three or four times. The
rosette and the moustache were exchanging animated phrases. At last
Noyon, motioning for silence and speaking in an almost desperate tone,
demanded:
“_Est-ce-que vous détestez les boches?_”
I had won my own case. The question was purely perfunctory. To walk out
of the room a free man I had merely to say yes. My examiners were sure
of my answer. The rosette was leaning forward and smiling
encouragingly. The moustache was making little _ouis_ in the air with
his pen. And Noyon had given up all hope of making me out a criminal. I
might be rash, but I was innocent; the dupe of a superior and malign
intelligence. I would probably be admonished to choose my friends more
carefully next time and that would be all….
Deliberately, I framed the answer:
“_Non. J’aime beaucoup les français._”
Agile as a weasel, Monsieur le Ministre was on top of me: “It is
impossible to love Frenchmen and not to hate Germans.”
I did not mind his triumph in the least. The discomfiture of the
rosette merely amused me. The surprise of the moustache I found very
pleasant.
Poor rosette! He kept murmuring desperately: “Fond of his friend, quite
right. Mistaken of course, too bad, meant well.”
With a supremely disagreeable expression on his immaculate face the
victorious minister of security pressed his victim with regained
assurance: “But you are doubtless aware of the atrocities committed by
the boches?”
“I have read about them,” I replied very cheerfully.
“You do not believe?”
“_Ça se peut._”
“And if they are so, which of course they are” (tone of profound
conviction) “you do not detest the Germans?”
“Oh, in that case, of course anyone must detest them,” I averred with
perfect politeness.
And my case was lost, forever lost. I breathed freely once more. All my
nervousness was gone. The attempt of the three gentlemen sitting before
me to endow my friend and myself with different fates had irrevocably
failed.
At the conclusion of a short conference I was told by Monsieur:
“I am sorry for you, but due to your friend you will be detained a
little while.”