Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional
notes will be found near the end of this ebook.
MY FOUR WEEKS IN FRANCE
[Illustration: A password was what he wanted, and Mr. Poincaré had
forgotten to give me the correct one]
MY FOUR WEEKS
IN FRANCE
_By_
RING W. LARDNER
AUTHOR OF
Gullible’s Travels, Etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
WALLACE MORGAN
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1918
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I DODGING SUBMARINES TO COVER THE BIGGEST GAME OF ALL 9
II I GET TO PARIS AND ENCOUNTER SOME STRANGE SIGHTS 30
III I TRY TO GET TO THE AMERICAN CAMP--BUT MEET DISASTER 54
IV FINALLY I GET TO THE AMERICAN CAMP; WHAT I FIND THERE 76
V MY ADVENTURES AT THE BRITISH FRONT 100
VI HOW I DIDN’T DRIVE MAJOR BLANK’S CAR TO CAMP SUCH-AND-SUCH 128
VII I START HOME, WITH A STOP-OVER AT LONDON 146
VIII BACK IN OLD “O SAY”; I START ANSWERING QUESTIONS 171
MY FOUR WEEKS IN FRANCE
I
DODGING SUBMARINES TO COVER THE BIGGEST GAME OF ALL
_Wednesday, July 18. A Lake Michigan Port._
I kept an appointment to-day with a gentleman from Somewhere in
Connecticut.
“How,” said he, “would you like to go to France?”
I told him I’d like it very much, but that I was thirty-two years old,
with a dependable wife and three unreliable children.
“Those small details,” he said, “exempt you from military duty. But we
want you as a war correspondent.”
I told him I knew nothing about war. He said it had frequently been
proved that that had nothing to do with it. So we hemmed and we hawed,
pro and con, till my conscientious objections were all overruled.
“In conclusion,” said he, “we’d prefer to have you go on a troopship.
That can be arranged through the War Department. There’ll be no trouble
about it.”
_Monday, July 30. A Potomac Port._
To-day I took the matter up with the War Department, through Mr. Creel.
“Mr. Creel,” I said, “can I go on a troopship?”
“No,” said Mr. Creel.
There was no trouble about it.
_Wednesday, August 1. An Atlantic Port._
The young man in the French Consulate has taken a great fancy to me.
He will not visé my passport till I bring him two more autographed
pictures of myself.
George W. Gloom of the steamship company said there would be a ship
sailing Saturday.
“Are we convoyed through the danger zone?” I inquired.
“We don’t guarantee it,” said he. “There has never been an accident on
this line,” he added.
“What I was thinking about,” said I, “wouldn’t be classed as an
accident.” Further questioning developed the comforting fact that the
ship I am taking has never been sunk.
I told him I wanted a cabin to myself, as I expected to work.
“You will be in with two others,” he said.
“I would pay a little more to be alone,” said I.
This evidently was not worth answering, so I asked him how long the
trip would take.
“I know nothing about it,” said he.
“I believe that,” said I when I was well out of his ear-shot.
_Wednesday, August 8. At Sea._
We left port at ten last night, a mere three and a half days behind
schedule. The ship and I should be very congenial, as we are about the
same age.
My roommates are a young man from Harvard and a young man from Yale,
but so far I have managed to keep the conversation neutral. We suspect
that they made ours a first-class cabin by substituting the word 1ère
for 2ème on the sign, and I am very certain that my berth was designed
for Rabbit Maranville.
Our passenger list includes a general, a congressman, a lady novelist
and her artist husband, French; a songbird, also French; two or three
majors, a Thaw, and numerous gentlemen of the consular service. The
large majority on board are young men going into American Ambulance and
Y. M. C. A. work.
After breakfast this morning there was life-boat drill, directed by
our purser, who is permanently made up as Svengali. He sent us down to
our cabins to get our life-belts and then assigned us to our boats.
Mine, No. 12, is as far from my cabin as they could put it without
cutting it loose from the ship, and if I happen to be on deck when that
old torpedo strikes, believe me, I’m not going to do a Marathon for a
life-belt. Shoes off, and a running hop, step and jump looks like the
best system. Moreover, I’m going to disobey another of the rules,
which is that each passenger must remain calm.
Next we had to fill out a form for the enlightenment of Svengali as
to our destination, business, home address, foreign address, literary
tastes, etc. One item was “the names of relatives or friends you lofh.”
This was unanswered, as nobody aboard seemed to know the meaning of the
verb.
In the fumoir this afternoon a young American wanted a match. He
consulted his dictionary and dug out “allumette.” But he thought the
t’s were silent and asked Auguste for “allumay.” Auguste disappeared
and returned in five minutes with a large glass of lemonade. The cost
of that little French lesson was two francs.
I am elected to eat at the “second table.” Our bunch has luncheon
at twelve-thirty and dinner at seven. The first table crowd’s hours
are eleven and five-thirty. Breakfast is a free-for-all and we sit
where we choose. My trough mates at the meals are two Americans, a
Brazilian, and four Frenchmen. Ours is a stag table, which unfortunate
circumstance is due to the paucity of women, or, as they are sometimes
called, members of the fair sex. The Brazilian speaks nine or ten
languages, but seems to prefer French. The two Americans are always
engaged in sotto voce dialogue, and the four Frenchmen race with the
Brazilian for the conversational speed championship of the high seas.
This leaves me free to devote all my time to the proper mastication of
food.
_Thursday, August 9. Completely at Sea._
A gentleman on board is supplied with one of these newfangled one
hundred dollar safety suits. The wearer is supposed to be able to float
indefinitely. It is also a sort of thermos bottle, keeping one warm in
cold water and cool in hot. I do not envy the gent. I have no ambition
to float indefinitely. And if I didn’t happen to have it on when the
crash came, I doubt whether I could spare the time to change. And
besides, if I ever do feel that I can afford one hundred dollars for a
suit, I won’t want to wear it for the edification of mere fish.
When Svengali isn’t busy pursing, he is usually engaged in chess
matches with another of the officers. The rest of the idle portion of
the crew stand round the table and look on. Sometimes they look on
for an hour without seeing a move made, but they never seem to lose
interest. Every little movement brings forth a veritable torrent of
français from the spectators. I can understand the fascination of
chess from the player’s end, but could get few thrills from watching,
especially when there was standing room only.
Far more fascinating to look at is the game two of my French trough
mates play at breakfast. The rules are simple. You take a muffin about
the size of a golf ball. You drop it into your cup of chocolate. Then
you fish for it, sometimes with a spoon, but more often with your
fingers. The object is to convey it to your mouth without discoloring
your necktie. Success comes three times in five.
The players are about evenly matched. One of them I suspect, is not in
the game for sport’s sake, but has a worthier object. Nature supplied
him with a light gray mustache, and a chocolate brown would blend
better with his complexion. If the muffins hold out, his color scheme
will be perfect before we reach port.
The discovery has been made that there’s a man on board who plays the
cornet, so if we are subbed it will not be an unmitigated evil.
_Friday, August 10._
Every morning one sees on the deck people one never saw before, and as
we have not stopped at any stations since we started, the inference is
that certain parties have not found the trip a continuous joy ride.
A news bulletin, published every morning, sometimes in English and
sometimes in French, keeps us right up to date on thrilling events,
thrillingly spelled. I have copied a sample:
_It is now the tim for the final invaseon of the west by the
eastren american league teams and before this clash is over it will
be definitively known wether the two sox teams are to fight it
out in a nip and tuk finish or wether the Chicago sox will have a
comfortable margen to insure a world series betwean the two largest
American citys Chicago and New York._
The French news deals exclusively with the developments in the world
series Over There, which is, perhaps, almost as important.
A new acquaintance made to-day was that of the Gentleman from
Louisiana. He introduced himself to scold me and another guy for not
taking sufficient exercise. We told him we found little pleasure in
promenading the deck.
“That’s unnecessary,” he said. “Get yourselves a pair of three-pound
dumb-bells and use them a certain length of time every day.”
So we are constantly on the lookout for a dumb-bell shop, but there
seems to be a regrettable lack of such establishments in mid-ocean.
The Gentleman from Louisiana says he is going to join the Foreign
Legion if they’ll take him. He is only seventy years old.
“But age makes no difference to a man like I,” says he. “I exercise and
keep hard. All my friends are hard and tough. Why, one of my friends,
an undertaker, always carries a razor in his boot.”
Presumably this bird never allows psychological depression in his
business.
The Gentleman from Louisiana continues:
“I’ve got a reputation for hardness, but I’m only hard when I know I’m
right. I used such hard language once that they injected me from a
committee. I was state senator then. But in all the time I held office
I never talked more than two minutes.”
We expressed polite regret that he was not a state senator still. And
we asked him to have a lemonade.
“No, thank you. Even the softest drinks have a peculiar effect on me.
They make my toes stick together.”
We guaranteed to pry those members apart again after he had quenched
his thirst, but he would not take a chance.
On the way cabinward from this fascinating presence, I was invited into
a crap game on the salle à manger floor. The gentleman with the dice
tossed a hundred-franc note into the ring and said: “Shoot it all.” And
the amount was promptly oversubscribed. So I kept on going cabinward.
_Samedi, 11 Août._
The man back there in the steamship office can no more truthfully say:
“There has never been an accident on this line.”
I awoke at three-thirty this morning to find the cabin insufferably hot
and opened the port-hole which is directly above my berth. The majority
of the ocean immediately left its usual haunts and came indoors. Yale
and Harvard were given a shower bath and I had a choice of putting on
the driest things I could find and going on deck or drowning where I
lay. The former seemed the preferable course.
Out there I found several fellow voyagers asleep in their chairs and a
watchman in a red-and-white tam-o’-shanter scanning the bounding main
for old Hans W. Periscope.
I wanted sympathy, but the watchman informed me that he ne comprended
pas anglais, monsieur. So we stood there together and scanned, each in
his own language.
My garçon de cabine promises he will have me thoroughly bailed out by
bedtime to-night.
I sat at a different breakfast table, but there was no want of
entertainment. At my side was a master of both anglais and français,
and opposite him an American young lady who thinks French is simply
just impossible to learn.
“Mademoiselle,” says he, “must find it difficult to get what she likes
to eat.”
“I certainly do,” says she. “I don’t understand a word of what’s on the
menu card.”
“Perhaps I can help mademoiselle,” says he. “Would she like perhaps a
grapefruit?”
She would and she’d also like oatmeal and eggs and coffee. So he
steered her straight through the meal with almost painful politeness,
but in the intervals when he wasn’t using his hands as an aid to
gallant discourse, he was manicuring himself with a fork.
[Illustration: The majority of the ocean immediately left its usual
haunts and came indoors]
This afternoon they drug me into a bridge game. My partner was our
congressman’s secretary. Our opponents were a Standard Oil official and
a vice-consul bound for Italy. My partner’s middle name was Bid and
Mr. Oil’s was Double. And I was too shy to object when they said we’d
play for a cent a point.
At the hour of going to press, Standard Oil had practically all the
money in the world. And my partner has learned that a holding of five
clubs doesn’t demand a bid of the same amount.
_Sunday, August 12._
The boat seems to be well supplied with the necessities of life, such
as cocktails and cards and chips, but it is next to impossible to
obtain luxuries like matches, ice-water and soap.
Yale and Harvard both knew enough to bring their own soap, but my
previous ocean experiences were mostly with the Old Fall River Line, on
which there wasn’t time to wash. Neither Yale nor Harvard ever takes
a hint. And “Apportez-moi du savon, s’il vous plaît,” to the cabin
steward is just as ineffectual.
All good people attended service this morning, and some bad ones played
poker this afternoon.
In a burst of generosity I invited a second-class French young lady of
five summers to have some candy. She accepted, and her acceptance led
to the discovery that the ship’s barber is also its candy salesman.
This barber understands not a syllable of English, which fact has
added much to young America’s enjoyment. The boys, in the midst of a
hair cut, say to him politely: “You realize that you’re a damn rotten
barber?” And he answers smilingly: “Oui, oui, monsieur.” Yesterday,
I am told, a young shavee remarked: “You make me sick.” The barber
replied as usual, and the customer was sick all last night.
To-morrow afternoon there is to be a “concert” and I’m to speak a
piece, O Diary!
_Monday, August 13._
The concert was “au profit du Secours National de France. Œuvre fondée
pour répartir les Secours aux Victimes de la Guerre.”
Ten minutes before starting time they informed me that I was to talk on
“The American National Game,” and I don’t even know how the White Sox
came out a week ago to-morrow.
The afternoon’s entertainment opened with a few well-chosen remarks by
our congressman. The general, designated on the program as “chairman,”
though his real job was toastmaster, talked a while about this, that
and the other thing, and then introduced the cornet player, using
his real name. This gentleman and I blew at the same time, so I have
no idea what he played. I got back in time for some pretty good
harmonizing by three young Americans and a boy from Cincinnati. Then
there was a Humorous Recitation (the program said so) by a gent with
a funny name, and some really delightful French folk songs by the
lady novelist. After which came a Humorous Speech (the program forgot
to say so) by myself, necessarily brief, as I gave it in French. The
French songbird followed with one of those things that jump back and
forth between Pike’s Peak and the Grand Cañon, and a brave boy played
a ukelele, and the quartette repeated. In conclusion, we all rose and
attempted _La Marseillaise_.
Some of the programs had been illustrated by the lady novelist’s
artist husband, and these were auctioned off after the show. I made
my financial contribution indirectly, through better card players than
myself. My bridge partner, I noticed, had recovered from his attack of
the Bids.
_Tuesday, August 14._
The concert, by the way, was given in the salon de conversation, which,
I think, should be reserved for the Gentleman from Louisiana. He has
now told me two hundred times that he won his election to the State
Senate by giving one dollar and a half to “a nigger.”
One of our young field-service men spoiled the forenoon poker game
with a lecture on how to catch sharks. His remarkable idea is to put
beefsteak on a stout copper wire and troll with it. He has evidently
been very intimate with this family of fish, and he says they are
simply crazy about beefsteak. Personally, I have no desire to catch
sharks. There are plenty aboard. But I do wish he had not got to the
most interesting part of his theory at the moment the dealer slipped me
four sixes before the draw. Everybody was too busy listening to stay.
We have discovered that the man behind the gun in the fumoir bears a
striking resemblance to Von Hindenburg, but no one has been found who
will tell him so.
There was a track meet this afternoon, and the author of this diary
was appointed referee. But the first event, a wheelbarrow race, was so
exciting that he feared for his weak heart and resigned in favor of our
general. There didn’t seem to be much else to the meet but ju-jutsu,
the sport in which skill is supposed to triumph over brawn. I noticed
that a two-hundred-and-thirty-pound man was the winner.
We are in that old zone, and the second table’s dinner hour has been
advanced to half past six so that there need be no lights in the
dining-room. Also, we are ordered not to smoke, not even to light a
match, on deck after dark. The fumoir will be running for the last
time, but the port-holes in it will all be sealed, meaning that after
thirty-five smokers have done their best for a few hours the atmosphere
will be intolerable. We can stay on deck smokeless, or we can try to
exist in the airless fumoir, or we can go to bed in the dark and wish
we were sleepy. And the worst is yet to come.
_Wednesday, August 15._
The rules for to-night and to-morrow night provide for the closing of
our old friend, the fumoir, at seven o’clock, and that witching hour
is on you long before you expect it, for they jump the clock fifteen
minutes ahead every time it’s noon or midnight. The ship will not be
lit up. The passengers may, if they do their shopping early.
There was another life-boat “drill” this afternoon. Every one was
required to stand in front of his canoe and await the arrival of
Svengali. When that gent appeared, he called the roll. As soon as you
said “Here” or “Present,” your part of the “drill” was over. When the
time comes I must do my drifting under an alias, as Svengali insists on
designating me as Monsieur Gardnierre. But No. 12 is at least honored
with two second-class ladies. Many a poor devil on the ship is assigned
to a life-boat that is strictly stag.
The Gentleman from Louisiana to-day sprang this one:
“You know when I part my hair in the middle I look just like a girl.
Well, sir, during the Mardi Gras, two years ago, I put on a page’s
costume and parted my hair in the middle. And you know girls under a
certain age must go home at nine o’clock in the evening. Well, sir,
a policeman accosted me and told me I had to go home. I gave him the
bawling out of his life. And maybe you think he wasn’t surprised!”
Maybe I do think so.
The Gentleman strayed to the subject of Patti and wound up with a vocal
imitation of that lady. He stopped suddenly when his voice parted in
the middle.
We have seen no periscopes, but when I opened my suit-case this morning
I met face to face one of those birds that are house pets with inmates
of seven-room flats at twenty-five dollars per month. I missed fire
with a clothes brush, and before I could aim again he had submerged
under a vest. Looks as if the little fellow were destined to go with me
to Paris, but when I get him there I’ll get him good.
_Thursday, August 16._
Great excitement last night when a small unlighted boat was sighted
half a mile or so off our port. Our gunners, who are said to receive a
bonus for every effective shot, had the range all figured out when the
pesky thing gave us a signal of friendship. It may have been part of
the entertainment.
To-day we persuaded the Gentleman from Louisiana to part his hair in
the middle. The New Orleans policeman is not guilty.
It develops that while first- and second-class passengers were unable
to read or smoke after dark, the third-class fumoir is running wide
open and the Greeks have their cigarettes, libations and card games,
while the idle rich bore one another to death with conversation.
Un Américain aboard is now boasting of the world’s championship as a
load carrier. It was too much trouble for him to pay Auguste for each
beverage as it was served, so he ran a two days’ charge account. His
bill was one hundred and seventy-eight francs, or thirty-five dollars
and sixty cents.
“Who got all the drinks?” he asked Auguste.
“You, monsieur,” that gent replied.
“And what do you charge for a highball?”
“One franc, monsieur,” said Auguste.
Which means, if Auguste is to be believed, that one hundred and
seventy-eight highballs went down one throat in two days. And the owner
of the throat is still alive and well. Also, he says he will hereafter
pay as you enter.
As an appetizer for dinner to-night the captain told everybody to
remain on deck, fully dressed and armed with a life-belt, this evening,
until he gave permission to retire.
We’re all on deck, and in another minute it will be too dark to write.
To-morrow night, Boche willing, we will be out of the jurisdiction of
this Imp of Darkness.
II
I GET TO PARIS AND ENCOUNTER SOME STRANGE SIGHTS
_Friday, August 17. A French Port._
In obedience to the captain’s orders we remained on deck last night,
fully dressed, till our ship was past the danger zone and in harbor.
There was a rule against smoking or lighting matches, but none against
conversation.
The Gentleman from Louisiana and a young American Field Service
candidate had the floor. The former’s best was a report of what he saw
once while riding along beside the Columbia River. An enormous salmon
jumped out of the water and raced six miles with the train before being
worn out. Whether the piscatorial athlete flew or rode a motorcycle, we
were unable to learn.
The Gentleman from Louisiana yielded to his younger and stronger
countryman. Some one had spoken of the lack of convoy. “Don’t you think
we haven’t a convoy,” the kid remarked.
I scanned the sea in all directions and saw nothing but the dark
waters. “Where is it?” I inquired.
“There’s one on each side of us,” said Young America. “They’re about
twenty miles from the ship.”
“I should think,” said somebody, “that a very slender submarine might
slip in between our side kicks and us and do its regular job.”
“No chance,” the youth replied. “The convoy boats are used as decoys.
The sub would see them first and spend all its ammunition.”
A little later he confided in me that the new American war-ships were
two hundred and forty-five thousand horsepower. I had no idea there
were that many horses left to measure by.
We spotted a shooting star. “That was a big one,” I said.
“Big! Do you know the actual size of those things? I got it straight
from a professor of astronomy. Listen. They’re as small as a grain of
sand.”
“Why do they look so big?”
“Because they’re so far away and they travel so fast.”
Round ten o’clock, beckoning lights ashore told us we were close to
safety. But the French gunners remained at their posts two hours
longer. The captain’s shouted order, relieving them from duty, was
music to our ears.
After midnight, however, we turned a complete circle, and at once the
deck was alive with rumors. We had been hit, we were going to be hit,
we were afraid we would be hit, and so on. The fact was that our pilot
from ashore was behind time and we circled round rather than stand
still and be an easy target while awaiting him. We were in harbor
and anchored at three. Many of us stayed up to see the sun rise over
France. It was worth the sleep it cost.
They told us we would not dock until six to-night. Before retiring to
my cabin for a nap, I heard we had run over a submarine and also that
we had not. The latter story lacked heart interest, but had the merit,
probably, of truth. Submarines have little regard for traffic laws, but
are careful not to stall their engines in the middle of a boulevard.
I was peacefully asleep when the French officers came aboard to give us
and our passports the Double O. They had to send to my cabin for me. I
was ordered to appear at once in the salon de conversation. A barber
hater addressed me through his beard and his interpreter: “What is
Monsieur Laudanum’s business in France?”
I told him I was a correspondent.
“For who?”
“Mark Sullivan.”
“Have you credentials from him?”
“No, sir.”
“Your passport says you are going to Belgium. Do you know there are no
trains to Belgium?”
“I know nothing about it.”
“Well, there are no trains. How will you go there?”
“I’ll try to get a taxi,” I said.
“Are you going from here to Paris?”
“Yes.”
“And where are you going from Paris?”
“I don’t know.”
“Please explain that answer.”
“I will go wherever the authorities permit me to go.”
“That is not a satisfactory answer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What is your real business in France?”
“To write.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to keep your passport. You will appear to-morrow
morning at nine o’clock at this address.”
And they handed me a scary-looking card.
On the deck I met our congressman and told him my troubles.
“I know these fellows very well,” he said. “If you like, I can fix it
for you.”
“No,” I replied proudly. “I’d rather do my own fixing.”
At the dock I got into a taxi and asked to be taken to the ---- Hotel.
Not to my dying day will I forget that first ride in a French taxi.
Part of the time we were on the right side of the street, part of the
time on the left, and never once were we traveling under a hundred and
fifty miles an hour. We turned twenty corners and always on one ear. We
grazed dozens of frightened pedestrians, many of them men crippled in
the war, or by taxis, and women too old to dodge quickly. We aimed at a
score of rickety horse-drawn vehicles, but our control was bad and we
bumped only one. In front of the hostelry we stopped with a jerk.
“Comme beaucoup?” I asked the assassin.
“Un franc cinquante,” he said.
Only thirty cents, and I thought I knew why. When they get through a
trip without killing any one, they feel they have not done themselves
justice nor given you a square deal.
I found myself a seat at a sidewalk table and ordered sustenance. The
vial they brought it in was labeled “Bière Ritten,” but I suspect the
adjective was misspelled.
Till darkness fell I watched the passing show--street-cars with lady
motormen and conductors; hundreds of old carts driven by old women,
each cart acting as a traveling roof for an old dog; wounded soldiers
walking or hobbling along, some of them accompanied by sad-faced girls;
an appalling number of women in black; a lesser number of gayly garbed
and extremely cordial ones, and whole flocks of mad taxis, seeking whom
they might devour.
By using great caution at the street crossings, I succeeded in reaching
the telegraph office where I wrote a message informing Paris friends
of my arrival. I presented it to the lady in the cage, who handed it
back with the advice that it must be rewritten in French. I turned away
discouraged and was starting out again into the gloom when I beheld
at a desk the songbird of the ship. Would she be kind enough to do my
translating? She would.
The clerk approved the new document, and asked for my passport. I told
her it had been taken away. She was deeply grieved, then, but without
it monsieur could send no message. Bonne nuit!
Back at the hotel I encountered the Yankee vice-consul, a gentleman
from Bedford, Indiana. I told him my sad plight, and he said if matters
got too serious his office would undertake to help.
With his assurances to comfort me, I have retired to my room to
write, to my room as big as Texas and furnished with all the modern
inconveniences.
_Saturday, August 18. Paris._
It is Saturday night and they have hot water, but before I take
advantage of it I must recount the thrilling experiences of the day.
After a sidewalk breakfast of “oofs” and so-called café in Bordeaux, I
went to keep my engagement at court. It was apparent that I was not the
only suspect. The walk outside and the room within were crowded with
shipmates, most of them from the second cabin, all looking scared to
death.
I stood in line till I realized that I must make it snappy if I wanted
to catch the eleven-five for Paris; then I butted my way into the
august presence of Him of the Beard.
He recognized me at once and told me with his hands to go up-stairs.
In a room above I found the English-speaking cross-examiner, with the
accent on the cross.
He waved me to a chair and began his offensive.
“Monsieur Laudanum,” he said, “when I asked you yesterday how you
expected to get to Belgium, you said something about a taxi. That
answer was not satisfactory. You have not explained anything to us. I
do not believe we can allow you to leave Bordeaux.”
“All right, sir.” I arose.
“Sit down!” he barked. “Now tell me if you have any explanations to
make.”
“Nothing beyond what I said yesterday. I have come here to write. I
want to go to Paris, and when I arrive there I will find out where else
I will be permitted to go.”
“It seems very strange to me that you have no papers.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you any?”
I searched my pockets and produced a used-up check book on a Chicago
bank. The ogre read every little stub and I felt flattered by his
absorbed interest. When he had spent some five minutes on the last
one, which recorded a certain painful transaction between me and a
man-eating garage, he returned my book and said: “You don’t satisfy me
at all. You will have to stay here.”
“Suppose,” said I, “that the American consul vouches for me.”
“That will make no difference. You do not seem to realize that we are
at war.”
“Not with America.”
“I don’t know your nationality.”
“I thought,” said I, “that my passport hinted at it.”
“You will have to stay in Bordeaux,” was his pertinent reply.
“Thank you, sir,” I said, and arose again.
“Sit down,” said he, “and wait a minute.”
He was out of the room five years.
“If he ever does come back,” I thought, “it will be in the company of
five or six large gendarmes.”
But when he came back he came alone.
“Here,” he said abruptly, “is your passport. You will be permitted to
go to Paris. We will keep track of you there.” And he bowed me out of
the joint.
The crowd down-stairs seemed as great as ever, and as scared. I picked
my way through it with my head held high, a free man.
I decided on a fiacre for my trip from hotel to station. It would
be safer, I thought. But I learned, on our interminable way, that
defensive fighting in the streets of Bordeaux is far more terrifying,
far more dangerous than the aggressive taxi kind. We were run into
twice and just missed more times than I could count, and besides my
conveyance was always on the verge of a nervous breakdown. ’Spite all
the talk of periscopes and subs, the journey across the ocean was
parlor croquet compared to my fiacre ride in Bordeaux.
While awaiting my turn at the ticket window I observed at the gate a
French soldier wearing a large businesslike bayonet. “Probably to punch
tickets with,” I thought, but was mistaken. Another gentleman attended
to that duty, and the soldier did not give me so much as the honor of a
glance.
Outside on the platform were a few of the Red Cross and Y. M. C. A.
men of our ship, and I learned from them that one of their number had
suffered a sadder fate than I. He had tried to get by on a Holland
passport, viséed at the French consulate in New York, and been quietly
but firmly persuaded to take the next boat back home.
I shared a compartment on the train with a native of the Bronx,
and a French lady who just couldn’t make her eyes behave, and two
bored-looking French gentlemen of past middle age, not to mention in
detail much more baggage than there was room for. The lady and the
two gentlemen wore gloves, which made the Bronxite and me feel very
bourgeois.
Our train crew, with the possible exception of the engineer and fireman
whom I didn’t see, was female, and, thinking I might some time require
the services of the porter, I looked in my dictionary for the feminine
of George.
To try my knowledge of française, I had purchased at the station a
copy of _Le Cri de Paris_. I found that I could read it very easily by
consulting the dictionary every time I came to a word.
But the scenery and the people were more interesting than _Le Cri_, the
former especially. Perfect automobile roads, lined with trees; fields,
and truck gardens in which aged men and women, young girls and little
boys were at work; green hills and valleys; winding rivers and brooks,
and an occasional château or a town of fascinating architecture--these
helped to make us forget the heat and dust of the trip and the
ear-splitting shrieks of our engines. No wonder the boche coveted his
neighbor’s house.
We stopped for some time at one particularly beautiful town and went
out for air. I wondered audibly concerning the name of the place. An
American companion looked at the signs round the station.
“It’s Sortie,” he said.
But it wasn’t. It was Angoulême, and I wouldn’t mind moving thither. My
American friend was probably from Exit, Michigan.
The discovery was made and reported that one might go into the
dining-car and smoke as much as one liked without asking permission
from the maiden with the dreamy eyes. This car was filled with French
soldiers and officers going back to the front after their holiday.
There seemed to be as many different uniforms as there were men, and
the scenery indoors was almost as brilliant as that outside.
It was about eight-thirty in the evening when we reached Paris. The
sophisticated soldiers engaged their “redcaps” before they left the
train, calling to them through the open windows. The demand was much
greater than the supply, and I was among the unfortunates who had to
carry their own baggage. I staggered to a street where a whole flotilla
of taxis was anchored, but when I asked for one the person in charge
said “No, no, no, no, no,” meaning “No,” and pointed around the corner.
I followed his directions and landed on a boulevard along which there
was a steady procession of machines, but it was fully twenty minutes
before one came that was going slow enough to stop.
Our city is not all lit up like a church these nights, and it was
impossible to see much of what we passed on the way to the hotel.
At the desk an English clerk, dressed for a noon wedding, gave me a
blank to fill out. All the blank wanted to know was my past family
history. It is to be sent, said the clerk, to the prefect of police. I
had no idea he was interested in me.
_Sunday, August 19. Paris._
When I get back to Chicago I shall insist that my favorite restaurant
place tables out on the walk. It is more hygienic and much more
interesting.
But Chicago, I’m afraid, can’t provide half as much sidewalk
entertainment as Paris. As I remember the metropolis of Illinois,
there is a sad lack there of demonstrative affection on the streets.
In fact, I fear that a lady and gentleman who kissed each other
repeatedly at the corner of Madison and Dearborn would be given a free
ride to Central Station and a few days in which to cool off. Such an
osculatory duel on Paris’s Grand Boulevard--also known by a dozen other
names--goes practically unnoticed except by us Illinois hicks.
[Illustration: Only a few were thoughtless enough not to stop and kiss
a few times in full view of our table]
An American officer and I--at the former’s expense--lunched sur curb
to-day. The food was nothing to boast about, but we got an eyeful
of scenery. Soldiers--French, British and American--strolled by
constantly, accompanied by more or less beautiful brunettes, and only a
few were thoughtless enough not to stop and kiss a few times in full
view of our table. We also observed the inmates of passing taxis. No
matter how wide the back seat, the lady occupant invariably sat on her
escort’s lap. A five-passenger car in America is a ten-passenger car in
Paris, provided the chauffeur has a girl of his own.
When the American officer was tired of buying, I left him and sought
out the _Chicago Tribune_ office, conveniently located above Maxim’s.
The editor was there, but he was also broke, so I went back to the Ritz
and got ready for bed.
The express office will be open to-morrow and I will be a rich man.
_Lundi, 20 Août. Paris._
Went down to the express office and cashed a large part of my order.
Friends were with me, and they immediately relieved me of most of the
burden. I was hungry for lunch, having had no breakfast. Meat was what
I wanted, and meat was what I couldn’t get. Which led me to inquire
into the Rules de la vie of Paris.
1. Monday and Tuesday are meatless days.
2. All except Saturday and Sunday are heatless days. Hot baths are
impossible on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
3. Strong liquor is procurable between noon and two P. M. and
seven-thirty and nine-thirty at night. At other times ye toper must be
content with light wines.
4. All public places except the theaters must close and douse lights at
nine-thirty in the evening.
5. There is no speed limit for taxis or privately owned cars. A
pedestrian run over and killed is liable to imprisonment. The driver is
not only innocent, but free to hurl as many French curses as he likes
at his victims. If the pedestrian is not killed, he must explain why
not to the judge.
6. It is not only permissible but compulsory to speak to any girl who
speaks to you, and a girl who won’t speak to you should be reported to
the police.
7. No watch or clock is wrong. Whatever time you have is right and you
may act accordingly.
8. Matches never ignite. A smoker must purchase a cigar or cigarette
lighter and keep it filled with essence, the française term for gas.
Sometimes the lighters work.
9. American cigarettes are not procurable. Bum ones may be bought at
any tabac store or café for only five times what they are worth.
10. Water must never be used as a thirst quencher, and seldom for any
other purpose. It’s worse than bourgeois; it’s unheard-of.
The lack of water, hot or cold, drove me to a barber shop this morning.
The barber first made me put on a shroud, and I was afraid he was
either going to cut me to pieces or talk me to death. But his operation
was absolutely painless and his incessant conversation harmless,
because I couldn’t understand a word of it.
From the barber shop I went to the information department of American
Army Headquarters. That’s where you get permits to visit our camps. But
of course, if you’ve run over here from America, you have lots of spare
time on your hands, so they’re doing you a favor if they hold you up a
few days. What is a week or so when a man’s here for a whole month?
They have queer ideas at the Maison de la Presse, which is the French
equivalent for our publicity bureau. They receive you cordially there
and treat you just as if you were not dregs.
I jumped thither after a futile visit to our own headquarters. I said I
would like to go to the French front.
“Certainly,” replied the man in charge. “Whenever is convenient for
you, we’ll see that you get a trip.”
So I told him when it would be convenient and he’s going to see me
through. I hear that the British are similarly peculiar. They are
polite even to newspaper men and magazine writers. They might even
speak to a cartoonist.
Returning to our side of the Seine, I bumped into some Australians,
here on leave. One had been in Germany before the war and could speak
and understand the “schoenste language.”
“They use me as an interpreter,” he said. “When they bring in a bloody
boche prisoner, I talk to him. First we give him a real meal, maybe
bacon and eggs and coffee, something he hasn’t seen for months. Then
I ask him where he came from and how he got here. Most of them are
glad to tell me the truth. Those that do, I mark them down as ‘Very
intelligent.’ Those that volunteer information I record as ‘Extremely
intelligent.’ Those that say ‘Nicht verstehe’ go down in the record as
‘Not intelligent.’ But the majority are so bloody well glad to be out
of the war that they talk freely.
“I asked one Heinie if he was going to try to escape. ‘Not me,’ he
said, ‘I’m tickled to be here.’ They’re all fed up on the war. You’d be
too with three years of it.”
This young man admitted that he was one of the best football players
in Australia. “Maybe I’ve forgotten how now,” he said. “I’ve been over
here three years. Just think of it--I traveled twelve thousand miles,
or maybe it’s kilos, to mix up in this.”
Baseball, he told me, had taken a strong hold on Australia.
“I don’t hit well,” he said, “but I can catch what you call flies! I
can catch the widest flies that are knocked.”
Which gift would probably be useless in America, where most of the
flies knocked are bloody narrow.
Before I left him I learned also that Les Darcy was all right at heart,
but that the professional “sports” spoiled him, and that he could have
“knocked Jack Johnson, Stanley Ketchel, Billy Papke or Jess Willard
clean out of the ring.”
He is going back to the trenches to-night, and I hope there are plenty
of extremely intelligent Heinies there to keep him busy interpreting
till his next leave. Interpreting, I should think, would be much
pleasanter than going over the top.
_Tuesday, August 21._
This time it was an American of the French Ambulance Service.
“Say, listen,” he said. “I can give you some mighty good stories. Real
stuff, do you get me? Listen: One night there was a boche wounded out
there and I brought him in. He had one leg all shot to pieces and we
had to operate. I was going to give him the ether when he turned over
and looked me in the face. ‘Why, Dan,’ he said, ‘aren’t you going to
speak to me?’ It was a chap I’d gone to school with in America. I could
give you lots of stuff like that; do you get me? I used to be in New
York, and Rube Goldberg used to call me up out of bed at six in the
morning. ‘Dan,’ he’d say to me, ‘I’m up against it for an idea. Will
you give me an idea?’ Do you get me? And there’s a dramatic critic in
New York--I won’t tell you his name--but he used to tag around me after
a first night and ask me what I thought of the show. Do you get me? I
can give you a lot of good stuff.”
I told him I was afraid that if he gave it to me all at once I wouldn’t
remember any of it. So he is coming to my hotel every day during his
leave, to give me a little at a time--if he can find me.
Last night a good-hearted American officer took me to dinner at La Tour
d’Argent, which is said to be the oldest restaurant in Paris and which,
they say, is the place the Kaiser was going to have his banquet on a
certain night three years ago if Gott hadn’t gone back on him at the
last moment.
We ordered duck, the restaurant’s specialty. They cook it in your
presence, slice off whatever is sliceable, and then put the bird in a
press and give you the result as gravy. After the meal they hand you a
post card on which is inscribed _le numéro de votre canard_. I looked
up “canard” in my dictionary and found that it meant a drake, or false
news, or a worthless newspaper. I have heard lots of false news, but I
know no one took the trouble to count the items. Also I know that my
newspaper is neither worthless nor numbered. So canard in this case
must mean drake. The number of mine was 41654. If he had happened to
disagree with me, I could have taken his number and traced him to the
source. It’s a very good idea and might be used in America on eggs or
drinks.
I made another trip to the office which is supposed to be in charge of
American correspondents and accommodations for them. I will go there
again to-morrow and again the next day. I will bother them to death.
Meantime I have applied to a person in London for permission to go to
the British front, and have been assured a visit to the French lines
late next week. I have wonderful vision and can see things twelve miles
away.
P. S. It was revealed to me to-night that my detention and trial in
Bordeaux was a frame-up conceived by loving friends aboard ship and
carried out by that English-speaking cross-examiner, who, believe me,
is a convincing actor.
Thanks, gents. It was good for about two thousand words.
III
I TRY TO GET TO THE AMERICAN CAMP--BUT MEET DISASTER
_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.
[Illustration:
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.