After going through the same old stuff with the madame, Jimmy, with the
help of Gabrielle, madame’s nineteen-year-old daughter, finally
succeeded in arranging for a dinner of _pomme de terre frites_ and an
omelet.
While they were washing up a little bit, Gabrielle told Jimmy that there
were three Americans sleeping in the house. The girl told him that the
Americans had arrived the night before, tired out and hungry. None of
them had got up yet, she told him.
Jimmy was just taking a man’s share of the potatoes when the door in
front of him opened.
“Jimmy McGee! You old son of a gun! What in hell!”
“George Neil!” shouted Jimmy as he rushed at the new-comer and nearly
bowled him off his feet. “How did you get in here?”
“_Cushayed_ too long and the outfit left me back in some little joint
ten kilos or so from Bar-le-Duc. Joyce and Pop Rigney are still
_cushayin’_. Who’s your friend?” asked Neil, pointing to O. D.
“Oh, hell, I almost forgot. This is O. D. Picked him up yesterday; he’s
goin’ to the outfit as a replacement. Meet my pal, George Neil, O. D.”
“Glad to know you, sergeant,” said O. D., shaking Neil’s outstretched
hand.
“Forget the sergeant stuff, old man. Glad to meet anybody that Jimmy
McGee knows. But what did you say that your name was?”
“It’s William G. Preston, but Jimmy—,” answered O. D.
“I changed it to O. D. Don’t you think that’s better, George. Look at
the way he’s rigged up,” interrupted Jimmy.
“You’re right, Jimmy. Where did you enlist from, O. D.?” asked Neil.
“He was drafted. But that don’t make any difference. Wasn’t his fault he
didn’t volunteer. I got his whole story and it’s straight. He’s one of
us from now on and I’m goin’ to get him in the outfit,” declared Jimmy.
“Good stuff—shake on that, O. D.,” and George Neil shook hands with the
drafted man to show him how he felt.
“_Messieurs, voluez-vous manger?_” (Messieurs, will you eat?)
“Bet your life. _Oui, mademoiselle, toot sweet_,” answered McGee as he
began getting chairs up to the table.
“Let those two mopes _cushay_. We’ll _monjay_ and then call ’em out,”
suggested Neil.
In answer to his suggestion the door of the room that he had been
sleeping in opened and a bald head stuck out.
“Look out, Pop—cover that bald dome up. You’re too old to be goin’
’round uncovered,” warned Jimmy.
“I’ll show you how old I am if I get skinned out of those _poms_ and
_dey zerfs_,” shot back Pop Rigney, as he pulled his bald head behind
the protection of the door. He began talking to Joyce, who was still in
bed, and the men at the table knew that Pop was warning him to dash for
the table unless he wanted to starve.
The meal progressed as all meals do when young American soldiers are
eating in a French home, with much misunderstanding as to the exact
meaning of the things that are said in the French and English languages.
Gabrielle laughed over their funny way of talking her native language
and tried to help matters by using her only stock and store of English,
which was represented by the words “yes” and “finish.”
“I want some water myself,” admitted Jimmy, after finishing his meal,
“but I’m scared to ask for it after last night.”
“I’ll ask her,” volunteered Neil.
“Gabrielle,” he called.
She answered with a big, wonderful smile and came over to him.
“_Donnay mwa_ glass _de low_,” was Neil’s way of telling her his want.
Gabrielle looked helplessly at the empty dishes. A little frown of
perplexity showed on her forehead. Gradually the frown was camouflaged
by a spreading smile of understanding light.
“Oh, finish?” she asked him.
“Great Lord, ’ain’t she got wonderful blue eyes!” ejaculated Neil. “Some
of these peasant girls are sure the darb. Wish I could _parley_ her
talk.”
“I’ll get that water myself,” said Jimmy, rising. He found a glass and
went outside to look for a pump. Gabrielle watched him smilingly,
wishing that she could comprehend the wants of the big, good-natured
American boys with whom she found it so easy to make friends.
“’Ain’t been over long, have you?” asked Neil of O. D. as Jimmy
disappeared through the doorway.
“Just about two months. Spent all my time down at the replacement camps
waiting to be sent to some outfit.”
“Well, you are gettin’ in with a darn good outfit and Jimmy’s a great
guy for a friend. He’ll show you ’round the front.”
“Guess I’ll feel kind of funny going up there with all you fellows that
are used to it,” said O. D.
“Not at all; you’ll never know the difference. Two or three days and
you’ll think you’ve been there all your life. After a month you’ll
hardly ever know you used to live in a house back in the States. Gets in
your blood. Just like the mud up there gets all over you. Make friends
with the cooties. Then you’re all set,” explained Neil.
“Jerk aloose from that table and let two good men _monjay_,” shouted Pop
Rigney and Joyce, pushing their door open and making for what was left
in one of the dishes.
[Illustration: “MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE COOTIES. THEN YOU’RE ALL SET”]
“Meet Jimmy’s friend, O. D. This is Pop Rigney, the oldest man in this
man’s army, and the other fellow is Joyce, our supply sergeant.” The men
shook hands all around and sat down.
“I got that water. Had to walk almost a mile to find it,” said Jimmy,
entering. “Well, Rigney, you old bald-headed monkey, you got up, eh?
Guess Joyce’s mess-hound appetite did it. Well, you can _monjay_ what I
left.”
Rigney and Joyce got enough by accepting odds and ends. When they
finished it was agreed that the party move on and catch the outfit.
“_Combien, Gabrielle?_” asked Jimmy.
“_Dix france, pour tous_,” she answered. (Ten francs for everything.)
“Not bad at all. Gettin’ kinda sick of the highway-robbery stuff. Guess
you’ll have to pay, George; I’m flat,” said Jimmy.
“_Oui_,” answered Neil. He gave Gabrielle three five-franc notes and
told her to keep the change.
_“Monsieur, vous donney trop!_ (you give too much, monsieur) she told
him, insisting that he take what was over and above.
“Forget it,” refusing the returned money.
“_Merci bien, monsieur_,” answered Gabrielle.
_Au revoirs_ were quickly said. The little party of Yanks started off in
the general direction of Verdun over the great white highway that many
Frenchmen call the “Sacred Road.”
“Got any idea where the outfit is, Joyce?” asked O. D., after two
kilometers had been left behind with their hobnail tracks.
“Heard they’re right near Souilly. Believe they’ll hang there a day or
so and then go into the lines. Big stuff on up here. Heard about it?”
“Lot of rumors ’bout a big smash, but nothin’ certain. What dope did you
get?” asked Jimmy.
“Nothin’ but that everybody from the big guys down are looking for a
drive to start and go through to Metz. Dope is we start the push on
early in September, about the tenth or so. ’Ain’t got any too much
time.”
“Guess we’ll be right up in the front end of this thing. Better get us
some new _chevaux_. I’m tired listening to that ‘Cannoneer on the
Wheel,’ stuff,” snorted Rigney.
“If it’ll end this _guerre_ any quicker I’m with ’em to drive all
winter,” declared Jimmy.
O. D. listened to his new friends talk about driving and pushing, and
many other things that happen only at the front, with the feeling that
he was a rank outsider in their company. They spoke so casually of
attacking the Germans and taking Metz that O. D. could not dissuade
himself from believing that at times war must be a sort of picnic. Yet
something told him that while these men spoke as lightly as they did of
fighting they knew the hell of it, too. He wondered again and again if
when it came his time to learn, as they had done before him, he would be
able to accept the fun and hell just as they did. That thought worried
O. D. more than anything else.
“How far is that place where you think the outfit is?” asked old Pop
Rigney. The five kilometers that brought them to another little village
had brought some aches and weariness to his aging limbs.
“Another kilometer or two, I guess,” answered Joyce.
“Better grab a truck. You don’t know where we’re going,” was Rigney’s
suggestion.
“Gosh! There’s a Y. M. C. A. sign. Let’s go over and get some
cigarettes. No tellin’ if we’ll ever see them again. Gettin’ up close
now, you know,” warned Jimmy.
“We’re off,” said Neil.
The quintet made for the Y. M. C. A. hut.
“Any cigarettes?” asked Joyce of the man behind the canteen counter.
“Not to-day. All out of smokings,” was the disappointing answer.
“Any chocolate or cookies?” questioned Jimmy.
“Expect stuff in to-morrow. Hard to get transportation,” curtly.
“Oh, well. We’ll live through it,” said Jimmy.
Once outside Pop Rigney said what he thought.
“What the hell is wrong with them guys? Always the same old stuff—’Out
to-day; come to-morrow. I’m off ’em,” declared Pop.
“Damn if I know. Look at the Château-Thierry times when we never was
able to get the stuff. I’m for the Salvation Army every time,” announced
Jimmy.
“We used to have darn good Y. M. C. A.’s back at the replacement camps.
Always had lots of cigarettes, chocolate, and cakes. Twice a week we had
pictures and shows,” stated O. D.
“Sure, ’way back in the S. O. S.—why wouldn’t they have everything? What
good is that doin’ the guys up at the front where you can’t buy the
stuff. Just like the eats and clothes. Back in the States I guess the
folks think that all the good stuff goes up to the fightin’ men. Like
hell it does,” snapped Jimmy.
A big green truck approached them.
“Hell, there’s the Regimental Supply truck. Let’s climb on,” shouted
Neil as he started running to meet the camion.
“Make it fast, boys,” said Champ, the driver, “I got to get back to camp
and make another trip for supplies before night. We’re movin’ up
to-morrow, you know.”
“Good stuff. Where ’re we goin’? Anybody know?” asked Jimmy.
“Yep; near a place that sounds like Rupt. Something else tacked onto it,
but don’t remember. We’re goin’ to start this drive soon.”
“Gettin’ any fresh beef in for supplies now?” asked Joyce.
“_Beaucoup_ ‘canned willy’; that’s about all,” replied Champ.
“Get ready to _monjay_ that stuff another two months, I guess. Wouldn’t
it give a man a pain!” groaned Neil.
“There’s the gang over yonder along that road. See ’em?” asked Champ,
pointing to a road over to the left.
“_Oui_, pretty good camouflage; but you can tell it,” answered Jimmy.
“I don’t see anything. Where do you mean?” asked O. D.
“All along that road. See the tree branches and stuff that looks like
it’s growin’ out in the road. That’s the guns and stuff. They’re
camouflaged on account of Boche planes. The horses are down in the woods
some place,” explained Jimmy.
“I see now what you mean. Gee! that camouflage is fine stuff; I’d never
know it was anything from here,” admitted O. D.
“You’ll pick camouflage from the real stuff _toot sweet_, O. D.; don’t
worry.”
“Say, we better hit the road here and slip in. Some boob may ask what
we’re doin’ blowin’ in at this time of day,” suggested Joyce.
The crew acted on his advice and approached the camp from the woods.
Just before gaining the fringe of road where pieces, caissons, wagons,
and a lot of equipment were hidden beneath newly cut branches, a bugle
blasted out “Attention!”
“A Boche plane goin’ over. That means take cover, O. D.,” explained
McGee.
A few minutes later the bugle sounded recall and everybody went about
their business with little ado.
Jimmy brought O. D. up to Regimental Headquarters, and by a little
stroke of army diplomacy got Sergeant-Major Creamer to assign him to
Battery C. Later he went to the captain with Jimmy and asked that O. D.
be assigned to the same section as himself.
“Put him in your gun crew, if you want to. You’ve got to be acting
gunner-corporal now. Corporal Schott went to the hospital with fever,”
said the captain.
“_Trey-beans_,” answered Jimmy. “Thanks _beaucoup_.”
“Not at all,” answered the C. O.
“Great guy, our old man,” Jimmy told O. D. when they got out of the
captain’s hearing. “Just like one of the fellows all the time. We call
him Pop Henderson. He knows it, too. I believe you could call him Pop to
his face and he’d take it all right. Course we don’t, you know. He’s too
good. Bunch of officers like him in this outfit. There ’re cranks and
bums in every profession, but our officers are pretty much the darb. Get
that way after bein’ up at the front with you a long time, you see.”
“Seemed mighty nice,” said O. D. “Where are we going to sleep to-night,
Jimmy?”
“Oh, we’ll rig up our shelter-halves and _cushay_ in the woods some
place. Won’t be as good as that Frog bed we hit last night, but _say la
guerre_, you know O. D.”
“I’m willing, Jimmy.”
“This place is as good as any, I guess,” said Jimmy, examining the
ground with his foot. “There’s a few damn loots in the way, but if you
get yourself wrapped around then you’ll _cushay bon_.”
Jimmy didn’t try to put the tent up in regulation way. He got a few
small branches, a stick or two, and with the poles that O. D. had he
made a shelter that would at least keep some wind away or afford
protection against rain.
“I lost all my pins and poles ’round Château-Thierry,” he said in
apology for using his bayonet as a tent-pin.
Jimmy had two blankets and O. D. had three. They spread them all out on
the ground, tucked in the end near the opening of the tent and crawled
between the blankets, leaving two between them and the earth.
“Roll your blouse up and use it for a pillow. Generally I use my
gas-mask, sometimes my tin hat, for a pillow, if it’s cold and I’m
alone. Neil and I used to _cushay_ together, but he can hang with Pop or
Joyce, as he knows how to get along here.”