kilometers to a luncheon worth having. Afterward we were taken to the
Chinese camp. Chinatown, we’ll call it, is where the Chink laborers
are mobilized when they first arrive and kept until their various
specialties are discovered. Then each is assigned to the job he can
do best. I was told I mustn’t mention the number of Chinamen now in
France, but I can say, in their own language, it’s a biggee lottee.
They wear a uniform that consists of blue overalls, a blue coat, and no
shirt whatever, which, I think, is bad advertising for their national
trade. They brought shirts with them, it seems, but are more comfy
without.
The minimum wage is three francs a day. Two-thirds of what they earn
is paid them here, the other third given to their families in China.
The system of hiring is unique. No names are used, probably because
most Chinks have Sam Lee as a monniker, and the paymaster would get all
mixed up with an army of Sam Lees. They are numbered and their finger
prints are taken by an agent in China. He sends these identification
marks to the camp here, and when the Chinks arrive they are checked up
by a finger-print expert from Scotland Yard. This gentleman said there
had been several cases where the Chinaman landing here was a ringer,
some “friend” back home having signed up and then coaxed the ringer to
come in his place, believing, apparently, that the plot would not be
detected and that his profit would be the one-third share of the wage
that is paid in China. The ringer’s family would be done out of its
pittance, but that, of course, would make no difference to the ringer’s
friend. The finger-print system serves not only to prevent the success
of cute little schemes like that, but also to amuse the Chinks, who are
as proud of their prints as if they had designed them.
We went into the general store, which is conducted by a Britisher. The
Chinese had just had a pay-day and were wild to spend. One of them said
he wanted a razor. The proprietor produced one in a case, and the Chink
handed over his money without even looking at the tool. Another wanted
a hat. The prop. gave him a straw with a band that was all colors
of the rainbow. The Chinaman paid for it and took it away without
troubling to see whether it fitted.
A block or so from the store we ran across two Chinks who had been
naughty. Each was in a stock, a pasteboard affair on which was
inscribed, in Chinese, the nature of his offense. One of them had been
guilty of drinking water out of a fire bucket. The other had drunk
something else out of a bottle--drunk too much of it, in fact. They
looked utterly wretched, and our guide told us the punishment was the
most severe that could be given: that a Chinaman’s pride was his most
vulnerable spot.
The gent who had quenched his thirst from the fire bucket was sentenced
to wear his stock a whole day. He of the stew was on the last lap of a
week’s term.
We talked with one of the Lee family through an interpreter. We asked
him if he knew that the United States was in the war against Germany.
He replied, No, but he had heard that France was.
Just before we left the settlement a British plane flew over it. A
Chink who was walking with us evidently mistook it for a Hun machine,
for he looked up and said: “Bloody boche!”
From Chinatown we were driven to the American Visitors’ Château, where
gentlemen and correspondents from the United States are entertained.
It’s a real château, with a moat and everything. The major is our
host. The major has seen most of his service in India and China.
He said he was glad to meet us, which I doubt. The new arrivals, Mr.
Gibbons, the Harvard professor and myself, were shown our rooms and
informed that dinner would occur at eight o’clock. Before dinner
we were plied with cocktails made by our friend, the captain. The
ingredients, I believe, were ether, arsenic and carbolic acid in
quantities not quite sufficient to cause death.
Eleven of us gathered around the festal board. There were the major and
his aids, three British captains, one with a monocle. There was the
Harvard professor, and the head of a certain American philanthropical
organization, and his secretary. And then there were us, me and Mr.
Gibbons and Mr. O’Flaherty and Mr. Somner, upstarts in the so-called
journalistic world.
The dinner was over the eighteen-course course, the majority of the
courses being liquid. I wanted to smoke between the fish and the
sherry, but Mr. O’Flaherty whispered to me that it wasn’t done till
the port had been served.
Mention was made of the Chinese camp, and there ensued a linguistic
battle between the major and the Harvard professor. The latter
explained the theory of the Chinese language. He made it as clear as
mud. In the Chinese language, he said, every letter was a word, and the
basis of every word was a picture. For example, if you wanted to say
“my brother,” you drew a picture of your brother in your mind and then
expressed it in a word, such as woof or whang. If you wanted a cigar,
you thought of smoke and said “puff” or “blow,” but you said it in
Chinese.
Mr. Gibbons broke up the battle of China by asking the major whether I
might not be allowed to accompany him and Mr. O’Flaherty and one of the
captains on their perilous venture to-morrow night. They are going to
spend the night in a Canadian first-line trench.
“I’m sorry,” said the major, “but the arrangement has been made for
only three.”
I choked back tears of disappointment.
The major has wished on me for to-morrow a trip through the reconquered
territory. My companions are to be the captain with the monocle,
the Harvard professor, the philanthropist, and the philanthropist’s
secretary. We are to start off at eight o’clock. Perhaps I can manage
to oversleep.
_Thursday, September 6. With the British._
I did manage it, and the car had left when I got down-stairs. Mr.
Gibbons and Mr. O’Flaherty were still here, and the three of us made
another effort to get me invited to the party to-night. The major
wouldn’t fall for it.
Mr. Gibbons and Mr. O’Flaherty motored to an artillery school, the
understanding being that they were to be met at six this evening by one
of our captains and taken to the trench. I was left here alone with the
major.
We lunched together, and he called my attention to the mural
decorations in the dining-room. It’s a rural mural, and in the
foreground a young lady is milking a cow. She is twice as big as the
cow and is seated in the longitude of the cow’s head. She reaches her
objective with arms that would make Jess Willard jealous. In another
area a lamb is conversing with its father and a couple of squirrels
which are larger than either lamb or parent. In the lower right-hand
corner is an ox with its tongue in a tin can, and the can is labeled Ox
Tongue for fear some one wouldn’t see the point. Other figures in the
pictures are dogs, foxes and chickens of remarkable size and hue.
“We had a French painter here a few days ago,” said the major. “I
purposely seated him where he could look at this picture. He took one
look, then asked me to change his seat.”
The major inquired whether I had noticed the picture of the château
which decorates the doors of our automobiles.
“When you go out to-morrow,” he said, “you’ll observe that none of the
army cars is without its symbol. An artillery car has its picture of a
gun. Then there are different symbols for the different divisions. I
saw one the other day with three interrogation marks painted on it. I
inquired what they meant and was told the car belonged to the Watts
division. Do you see why?”
I admitted that I did.
“Well, I didn’t,” said the major, “not till it was explained. It’s
rather stupid, I think.”
This afternoon an American captain, anonymous of course, called on us.
He is stopping at G. H. Q., which is short for General Headquarters,
his job being to study the British strategic methods. He and the major
discussed the differences between Americans and Englishmen.
“The chief difference is in temperature,” said the captain. “You
fellows are about as warm as a glacier. In America I go up to a man
and say: ‘My name is Captain So-an-So.’ He replies: ‘Mine is Colonel
Such-and-Such.’ Then we shake hands and talk. But if I go to an
Englishman and say: ‘My name is Captain So-and-So,’ he says: ‘Oh!’ So
I’m embarrassed to death and can’t talk.”
“’Strawnary!” said the major.
At tea time a courier brought us the tidings that there’d been an air
raid last Sunday at a certain hospital base.
“The boche always does his dirty work on Sunday,” remarked the American
captain. “It’s queer, too, because that’s the day that’s supposed to
be kept holy, and I don’t see how the Kaiser squares himself with his
friend Gott.”
I laughed, but the major managed to remain calm.
The American captain departed after tea, and the major and I sat
and bored each other till the Harvard professor and his illustrious
companions returned. They told me I missed a very interesting trip.
That’s the kind of trip one usually misses.
At dinner we resumed our enlightening discussion of Chinese, but
it was interrupted when the major was called to the telephone. The
message was from the captain who was supposed to meet Mr. Gibbons and
Mr. O’Flaherty and take them to the trenches to spend the night. The
captain reported that his machine had broken down with magneto trouble
and he’d been unable to keep his appointment. He requested that the
major have Mr. Gibbons and Mr. O’Flaherty located and brought home.
This was done. The disappointed correspondents blew in shortly before
closing time and confided to me their suspicion that the trouble with
the captain’s machine had not been magneto, but (the censor cut out a
good line here).
To-morrow we are to be shown the main British training school and the
hospital bases.
_Friday, September 7. With the British._
We left the château at nine and reached the training camp an hour later.
We saw a squad of ineligibles drilling, boys under military age who
had run away from home to get into the Big Game. Their parents had
informed the authorities of their ineligibility, and the authorities
had refused to enroll them. The boys had refused to go back home, and
the arrangement is that they are to remain here and drill till they are
old enough to fight. Some of them are as much as three years shy of the
limit.
The drill is made as entertaining as possible. The instructor uses
a variation of our “Simon says: ‘Thumbs up’.” “O’Grady” sits in for
Simon. For example, the instructor says: “O’Grady says: ‘Right dress.’
Left dress.” The youth who “left dresses” without O’Grady’s say-so is
sent to the awkward squad in disgrace.
Out of a bunch of approximately two hundred only two went through the
drill perfectly. The other one hundred and ninety-eight underestimated
the importance of O’Grady and sheepishly stepped out of line. The two
perfectos looked as pleased as peacocks.
We saw a bayonet drill with a tutor as vivacious and linguistically
original as a football coach, and were then taken to the bomb-throwing
school. The tutor here was as deserving of sympathy as a Belgian. A
bomb explodes five seconds after you press the button. Many of the
pupils press the button, then get scared, drop the bomb and run. The
instructor has to pick up the bomb and throw it away before it explodes
and messes up his anatomy. And there’s no time to stop and figure in
what direction you’re going to throw.
The Maoris were our next entertainers. The Maoris are colored gemmen
from New Zealand. They were being taught how to capture a trench.
Before they left their own dugout they sang a battle hymn that would
make an American dance and scare a German to death. They went through
their maneuvers with an incredible amount of pep and acted as if
they could hardly wait to get into real action against the boche.
Personally, I would have conscientious objections to fighting a Maori.
Then we were shown a gas-mask dress rehearsal. A British gas mask has
a sweet scent, like a hospital. You can live in one, they say, for
twenty-four hours, no matter what sort of poison the lovely Huns are
spraying at you. We all tried them on and remarked on their efficacy,
though we knew nothing about it.
We had lunch and were told we might make a tour of inspection of the
hospitals in which the wounded lay. I balked at this and, instead,
called on a Neenah, Wisconsin, doctor from whose knee had been
extracted a sizable piece of shrapnel, the gift of last Sunday’s bomb
dropper. This doctor has been over but three weeks, and the ship that
brought him came within a yard of stopping a torpedo. Neither war nor
Wisconsin has any terrors left for him.
To-morrow we are to be taken right up to the front, dressed in helmets,
gas masks, and everything.
_Saturday, September 8. With the British._
Two machine loads, containing us and our helmets, masks, and lunch
baskets, got away to an early start and headed for the Back of the
Front. In one car were the Captain with the Monocle, the Harvard prof.,
and the American philanthropist. The baggage, the philanthropist’s
secretary, and I occupied the other. The secretary talked incessantly
and in reverent tones of his master, whom he called The Doctor. One
would have almost believed he considered me violently opposed to The
Doctor (which I wasn’t, till later in the day) and was trying to win me
over to his side with eulogistic oratory.
The first half of our journey was covered at the usual terrifying rate
of speed. The last half was a snail’s crawl which grew slower and
slower as we neared our objective. Countless troops, afoot and in
motors, hundreds of ammunition and supply trucks, and an incredible
number of businesslike and apparently new guns, these took up a healthy
three-quarters of the road and, despite our importance, didn’t hunch to
let us pass.
When we sounded our horns to warn of our approach, the subalterns,
or whatever you call them, would look round, stand at attention and
salute, first the Captain with the Monocle, and then, when our car
came up, me. Me because I was the only one in the second machine
who wore a British officer’s cap. I returned about three salutes,
blushing painfully, and then threw my cap on the floor of the car
and rode exposed. Saluting is a wear and tear on the right arm, and
being saluted makes you feel slackerish and camouflagy, when you don’t
deserve it.
We attained the foot of the observation hill round noon, left our
machines, and ate our picnic lunch, consisting of one kind of
sandwiches and three kinds of wine. Then we accomplished the long
climb, stopping half-way up to don helmets and masks. Our guide told
us that the boche, when not otherwise pleasantly employed, took a few
shots at where we were standing to test his long-distance aim.
I wore the mask as long as I could, which was about half an hour. It
was unpleasantly reminiscent of an operation I once had, the details
of which I would set down here if I had time. Without it, I found, I
could see things much more plainly. Through strong field glasses the
British trenches were discernible. The German front line was behind a
ridge, two hundred yards away--from the British, not us--and invisible.
No drive was in progress, but there was the steady boom, boom of
heavy guns, the scary siren, with a bang at the end, of grenades, and
an occasional solo in a throaty barytone which our captain told us
belonged to Mr. Trench Mortar.
The firing was all in one direction--toward the northeast. Fritz was
not replying, probably because he had no breath to waste in casual
repartee.
Convinced that our hill was a zone of safety, for this afternoon at
least, I wanted to stay up there and look and listen till it was time
to go home. But our captain had arranged a trip to a sniping school,
and our captain would rather have broken his monocle than have made the
slightest alteration in the program for the day.
To the sniping school we went, and saw the snipers sniping on their
snipes. It was just like the sniping school I had visited at the
American camp, and I got pretty mad at our captain for dragging us away
from a sight far more interesting. But he redeemed himself by having
the major in charge show us real, honest-to-goodness camouflage, staged
by an expert.
We were taken to a point two hundred yards distant from a trench system.
“Standing up in front of one of those trenches,” said the major,
“there’s a sergeant in costume. He’s in plain sight. Now you find him.”
Well, we couldn’t find him, and we gave up.
“Move, Sergeant!” shouted the major.
The sergeant moved and, sure enough, there he was!
“I had him spotted all the time,” said The Doctor.
The major directed the sergeant to change to a costume of a different
hue. When the change had been made we were required to turn our backs
till he had “hidden” himself again. Again he was “in plain sight,” and
again we had to give up. Again he was ordered to move, and we saw him,
this time in colors diametrically opposed to those of his first garb.
“I had him spotted all the time,” said The Doctor.
The sergeant went through his entire repertory of tricks, but the rest
must not be reported.
It occurred to me on the way back to our machines that some football
coach could make a fish out of the defensive team by camouflaging his
back field.
Our captain and the Harvard prof. climbed into the front car, leaving
The Doctor, his secretary, and me to bring up the rear. The sec. sat
with the driver; The Doctor and I in the back seat.
“How long have you been over here?” inquired The Doctor at length.
I told him.
“How many American soldiers are there in France?”
I told him.
After an impressive pause, he said:
“As a matter of fact, there are really--” And he increased my estimate
by four hundred per cent. “Of course,” he continued, “I have the right
figures. They were furnished me by the Defense League before I left
home. They naturally wouldn’t give them to a writer because they don’t
want them published.”
“And naturally,” says I, “whenever they tell a writer anything in
strict confidence, he rushes to the nearest Local and Long Distance
Telephone Booth and gets Wilhelmstrasse on the wire.”
“Oh, no,” said The Doctor. “But a writer might think it was his duty to
send the correct information to his paper.”
“Did you ever hear of the censorship?” I asked him.
“There are ways of eluding it.”
“And do you think all writers are that kind?”
He shrugged a fat shoulder.
“Not all, possibly a very few. But one never can tell the right kind
from the wrong.”
His guard was down, and I took careful aim:
“Do you think the Defense League used good judgment in entrusting that
secret to you, when you spill it to the first irresponsible reporter
you happen to run across?”
If I hadn’t won this argument, I wouldn’t repeat it.
Not until we reached our château did I realize why I had been so catty.
I’d gone without my tea.
_Sunday, September 9. Paris._
Mr. Gibbons and I this morning bade good-by to our genial hosts and
were driven to the station at which we arrived last Wednesday. On the
Paris-bound train I wondered audibly why the servants had given me that
queer look before we left.
“Did you tip them?” asked Mr. Gibbons.
“Certainly!” I snapped.
“I’ll bet I know,” said Mr. Gibbons. “You probably packed your own
suit-case.”
He was right.
VI
HOW I DIDN’T DRIVE MAJOR BLANK’S CAR TO CAMP SUCH-AND-SUCH
_Monday, September 10. Paris._
The American major who owns the car which Mr. Kiley drove down from
Le Havre, whither it had been sent by the man who bought it in London
for the American major--well, anyway, this American major, he’s in the
artillery camp at Such-and-Such, and he wants me to bring it down there
for him. I’ve never handled, or, rather, footled one of the little
birds, but it’s something everybody should learn, like French and
auction and how to swim. Besides, I want to see the artillery camp. So
I’m accepting the commission and intend to get busy to-morrow morning.
_Tuesday, September 11. Paris._
With an American pass and an order for the car, I taxied to the United
States army garage, in the Quai Debilly.
“Avez-vous fixed vous with passes?” inquired a friendly inmate of the
garage.
I showed him my American card.
“That isn’t bien suffisant,” he said. “You’ll have to get a pink one to
go through the French army zone.”
I recalled then our troubles on a previous automobile trip and was glad
he had spoken.
“Where do I go for that?” I inquired.
“Go,” said he, “to the Préfet de Ligne du Communications.” Or something
like that.
“Où is il?”
“I think he’s in the Rue François Premier.”
“And is the car all right?”
“I guess so. Nos haven’t looked at it yet.”
I had let my taxi go, and twenty minutes were spent in getting another.
It was another hour before we located the préfet.
A secretary examined my passport and American pass and took my dossier:
Name, nationality, birthplace, age, ancestry, real purpose in coming
to France. Hair--black; forehead--high; eyes--brown; nose--prominent;
mouth--medium; chin--round; complexion--dark; height--six one and
three-quarters. Sign here.
“Now,” said the sec., “monsieur will avez to come across avec a
photophie.”
“I’m just out,” I said. “I’d no idea I’d be so popular.”
“Nos can issue no passes sans a photophie,” says he, so out I went in
search of a rapid-fire studio.
The driver pulled up in front of a gallery on the Rue de la Paix, where
the artist promised to have six copies of my map printed by midi.
To kill time I rode back to Billy’s rue.
“The car’s on the blink,” said my friend in French. “The connecting rod
is lâche and some bearings are burned out. Besides, vous would be a
rummy to partir on these tires.”
“Comme beaucoup new ones do je need?”
“Just plain quatre,” says he.
“Well,” says I, “put them on and get busy avec the reparations. I want
to start away before dark.”
“Ah, oui,” says he, “but we have no tires and we have no tools to make
the reparations avec.”
“Can’t you get them?”
“Vous devoir get them yourself.”
“Où?”
“At the branch factory of the ----,” and he said the name of the car
right out loud.
“Où est le branch factory?”
“Il est in un suburb--Le Vallois-Perret. The address is 6163 Rue
Corneille.”
“What tools are required?”
“Une roue-tirer et un offset clef à vis.”
Which means a wheel puller and an offset wrench.
“And can je aussi tires get there?”
“Ah, oui.”
It was noon, and my trusting driver and I returned to the studio on the
Rue de la Paix. The pictures weren’t fini. They never are.
“Take me to Maxim’s,” says I, “and we’ll call it a half day.”
After lunch I walked back to the studio. The pictures were not fini,
but would monsieur rester? Monsieur would. Monsieur rested till
fourteen o’clock, got six photophies that had him looking more than
ever like a German spy, and taxied back to the Rue François Premier.
The préfet’s joint was closed.
I asked the driver how far it was out to Le Vallois-Perret.
“Come on,” he said, and I climbed in, but “come on,” in French, means
“I don’t get you,” so I had to repeat the directions four or five times.
“Ah, oui,” he said at last. “Le Vallois-Perret. Quatorze kilomet’s.”
“What is that in American money?”
“Come on,” said the driver.
“Hotel Con-tin-en-tal,” I said.
I’ll tackle ’em afresh to-morrow morning.
_Wednesday, September 12. Paris._
The préfet’s secretary approved my picture and gave me a beautiful
salmon-colored pass. It is good for five days, which is plenty, as I
will come back on the train.
At the city gates, en route to Le Vallois-Perret, my taxi and I were
stopped and our essence measured. If we brought back more than we took
out, we would have to pay taxes on the difference.
Quatorze kilomet’s was a very conservative estimate of the distance,
and it was nearly eleven when we reached Cornelia’s rue and the branch
factory.
An American heard my plea for four new tires, an offset wrench, and a
wheel puller.
“It can’t be done,” he said. “All we do is own this place. But the
French Government has taken it over and runs it.”
“But this is a United States army car,” I said, “and we’re supposed to
be allies of the French.”
“Without special permission,” said he, “you stand as much chance as if
you were the Crown Prince.”
“Where can I get special permission?”
“Your best bet is to see Captain Vandervelde. If anybody can fix it,
he’s the boy. You’ll find him in the Passage de Haynau, Rue Croix
Nivert.”
“What number?”
“There is no number.”
I thanked him, or perhaps I forgot to, and returned to my taxi.
“Passage de Haynau in Rue Croix Nivert,” I said.
“Q’numéro?”
“There ain’t none.”
“Come on,” demanded the driver.
“I told you there was no number. We’ll just have to keep looking till
we find it.”