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.