“You sure had a tough time getting here, Jimmy, compared to me. I came
over on an old ocean liner. We had good clean bunks and three settings
at table. There were regular bill o’ fares and live waiters. Only took
eight days to come over. What was your first impression of France and
where did you land at Brest?” O. D.’s brown eyes didn’t show a bit of
sleepiness and his ears were cocked for every word that Jimmy McGee was
willing to spill.
“Hell, no—not at Brest, that must have been a good town in them days.
There was a rule made at the beginning of the war not to give this
division anything good. We stayed in Brest that night and started for
St. Nazaire _toot sweet_ the next day. God help anybody, even the
M. P.’s who had to fight the _guerre_ in St. Nazaire. That town is the
first place the Lord made and He forgot about it ten minutes after
putting it up. It’s worse than the town old Bill Blodgett comes from.
“Well, we got in the harbor there ’bout two o’clock. It was kinda foggy
and rainin’ off and on. ’Ain’t quit since then. Still they call it
‘Sunny France.’ After a lot of waitin’ around they shoved us in the
canal locks, and I’m a liar if we didn’t go right through the middle of
the town. Some of the houses on both sides of the locks looked like
twins or else as if they had been pushed apart so as the canal could run
through the town.
“Guess the first impression I got was that the Americans was still a new
play toy for the French, ’cause there was a gang of kids and people
runnin’ up and down the docks shoutin’ and wavin’ to us. Then I began to
notice the buildings—whew! They looked old enough to be
great-grandfathers to some of those four-hundred-year-old houses down in
St. Augustine, Florida. Most of ’em had _Café_ or _Van Rouge_ written
all over them. I never saw so many _cafés_ in all my life. Course the
French people looked funny as hell to us. Some were all dolled up in
fine clothes and others looked as if they would catch cold for want of
somethin’ to cover them. There was more soldiers walkin’ up and down on
the piers than we had in the whole American army at that time. I thought
we must be pretty near the front as there was so many. Some of the
Frenchmen wore helmets. That’s about all that most of the Frogs have got
left now. Never saw so many widows in all my days. Most of the women who
was dressed up at all wore black and long veils. They made me think
’bout the war, and I felt kinda good ’cause there wasn’t any woman to
wear black in case I got knocked off at the front.
“Some Americans, who acted as though they had just bought the town and
could end the war with a snap of their fingers, came down to the edge of
the locks and began shootin’ the bull. Most of the Americans wanted to
know how the football games were coming off in the States. We told them
we didn’t know as they hadn’t started good when we left. I had to
explain to one guy that we didn’t come over on an express and that it
took nearly a month to get here. He began tellin’ me where we could get
our money changed and where the best champagne was and how to do things
in general while in France. I asked him if he had been to the front yet
and he said, ‘Oh no, I’m a receivin’-clerk, with the grade of corporal.’
‘The hell you are! I thought you had been up endin’ the war,’ says I.
But he didn’t seem to get my meanin’.
“They kept us on that boat two days. Durin’ that time some little French
kids who could _parley_ a little English rowed out in a tub and sold us
_beaucoup van rouge_ and _cognac_. About half of the ship got zig-zag
_toot sweet_. I thought they’d put us in irons.
“Finally we got marched ashore and through the town to our barracks.
Some barracks for a white man I’ll say. No bunks. No floor. No stoves.
Nothing but a roof and the ground. It comes easy now to _cushay_ on a
bag of ten-penny nails, but in them days sleepin’ on the cold bumpy
ground was just as bad as missin’ your weekly Saturday bath in the
States.
“I’ll never forget my first night in France. I got put in the jug. Those
damn American M. P.’s of course. Ever since then I ain’t had much love
for that branch of the service. Course we don’t see too much of them up
at the front, but they get in a man’s way now and then. Seems as though
you had to have a pass to be on the streets. As usual I never had any
pass, so they grabbed me, Samson, Johnson, and Kicky Hull. When we got
to the brig we found practically the whole outfit lined up there.
“We had a fair time the first few days. But I had a job tryin’ to
_compree_ this foolish-looking French money. Say, O. D., ain’t it the
worst stuff you ever handled? For one good ten-spot, American dough, I’d
give ’em all the _frankers_ they ever printed. _Pas bon_, that stuff.
“I met one fine French family in that town. There was the mother,
father, and girl. Her name was Suzanne, and, honest, boy, she was a
little rose mademoiselle. Pretty and delicate-like, you know, and could
speak English in that _bon_ way that these janes over here _parley_
American after studyin’ it. Lots better than you or me can. Suzanne and
her people were regular folks. Why, they were almost the same as
Americans. Had all kinds of stuff in the house, stoves and pianos, like
us, and did mostly as we do, except I never saw them drinking water.
“Well, Suzanne had a _fiancée_, a young French lieutenant, and she was
always talkin’ about him and how much she loved him. She hated the
Germans worse than rats. All Suzanne wanted to do was end the war, have
her _fiancé_ come home and get married. Her people was pretty wealthy
for French people. Had a big stationery and athletic-goods store. They
sure tried to make life worth while for old Samson and myself. Believe
Sammy was a bit stuck on Suzanne, but he never said nothin’ ’bout it to
me. He could _parley_ a little bit, and it used to get me mad as hell to
go into a store or any place and have him start that French stuff and
talk to the people when I couldn’t get a word of the lingo.
“We must have had a reputation as chambermaids for mules, ’cause they
put the battery to work in another corral, cleaning it up and feedin’
the animals. Sometimes they used to wake us up in the middle of the
night and send us down to ships that had just come in so that we could
lead the mules up to the corral. That was some job. The mules would be
wilder than ever after bein’ penned up on a boat so long, and time
they’d hit the street they usually started tearin’ off. If any of us
happened to have hold of them mules at the time, we mostly went with the
mule.
“After a month of that kind of work we were sent to Camp Coetquidan to
learn how to fight the _guerre_ with real cannon. When we got to camp
the other batteries had already found out how to fire the guns and were
blowin’ away at anything for a target. It didn’t take us long to find
out how those six-inch howitzers worked. The French called ’em _sonn
sankont-sanks_, which means one hundred and fifty-fives.
“I’ll never get in another _guerre_ again as long as I live, but if I do
get mixed up in another I’ll keep clear of France and especially
Coetquidan. Rain—mud—mud—rain. All day and all night at that hole. We
slept in the barracks that Napoleon and his army used to _cushay_ in. No
wonder he always had his hand in his shirt. Guess he was scratchin’. No,
there wasn’t any cooties there. But they had some kind of bed-ticks or
ground rats that used to bite us up pretty bad. Bein’ about the first
fightin’ troops over we couldn’t expect to have gloves, shower-baths,
and warm barracks. The only thing that was issued was _beaucoup_ reserve
officers.
“I got a pass to be away from camp for two days and went down to a place
called Rennes, ’bout thirty-eight kilofloppers from camp. It took six
hours to get there on the little narrow-gauge, and I spent all my time
down there in a big house where I got a _bain_—that’s what the Frogs say
for bath—tryin’ to get clean. Didn’t get another _bain_ until two months
later at the front.
“Saw a lot of Boche prisoners down there. Course we seen quite a few at
St. Nazaire, but didn’t have a chance to say anything to ’em. They must
have knew we was green at this _guerre_ stuff, as they asked us for
cigarettes and chocolate, and we was fools enough to hand ’em some.
Catch me givin’ them dirty sausage-meats cigarettes now. ‘_Caput_’ for
’em all, that’s what the Frogs say.
“After Christmas passed and we got our first real batch of mail—Say,
O. D., I guess you get a bunch of mail from your ma and sis, don’t you?”
asked Jimmy.
“I’ve been getting about four letters a week, but guess I’ll have to
wait until it gets forwarded to me now,” acknowledged O. D.
“_Mon Du!_” was the ejaculation, “four a week. Gosh, you’re lucky. Why,
I’ve only got seventeen since I hit this country. Course there’s nobody
to write me but a few of the boys down at the newspaper office who
couldn’t pass the physicals——”
“Is that a fact, Jimmy?”
“_Oui._ Bet your tin hat.”
“Don’t see how you stand this life without letters.”
“Comes tough at times, ’specially when the other guys gets _beaucoup_
letters. Kinda feel like a nobody. But generally somethin’ turns up—we
start drivin’—or the Boches get some guts and throw a few over. Then
there ain’t much chance to think about such things.” Jimmy spoke as if a
few letters could do a great deal toward winning wars.
“By George, I’m goin’ to get Mary to write to you right—— How do you say
it in French, Jimmy?”
“_Toot sweet_,” prompted the Yank, with new hope in his tones.
“Well, I’ll have Mary write you _toot sweet_, then—that is, if you want
me to.”
“Want you to—— Whew, boy, that’ll save my life. Will you?” he asked,
eagerly.
“Sure,” assured O. D.