THE A. E. F.
The dawn was gray and so was the ship, but the eye picked her out of the
mist because of two broad yellow stripes which ran the whole length of
the upper decks. As the ship warped into the pier the stripes of yellow
became so many layers of men in khaki, each motionless and each gazing
toward the land.
"Say," cried a voice across the diminishing strip of water, "what place
is this anyhow?" The reply came back from newspapermen whose only
companions on the pier were two French soldiers and a little group of
German prisoners.
"Well," said the voice from the ship, "this ought to be better than the
Texas border."
The American regulars had come to France.
The two French soldiers looked at the men on the transport and cheered,
flinging their caps in the air. The Germans just looked. They were
engaged in moving rails and after lifting one they would pause and gaze
into space for many minutes until the guards told them to get to work
again. But now the guards were so interested that the Germans prolonged
the rest interval and stared at the ship. News that ships were in was
carried through the town and people came running to the pier. There were
women and children and old men and a few soldiers.
Nobody had known the Americans were coming. Even the mayor was surprised
and had to run home to get his red sash and his high hat. Children on
the way to school did not go further than the quay, for back of the
ship, creeping into the slip, were other ships with troops and torpedo
boat destroyers and a cruiser.
Just before the gangplank was lowered the band on the first transport
played "The Star Spangled Banner." The men on the ship stood at
attention. The crowds on shore only watched. They did not know our
national anthem yet. Next the band played "The Marseillaise," and the
hats of the crowd came off. As the last note died away one of the
Americans relaxed from attention and leaned over the rail toward a small
group of newspapermen from America.
"Do they allow enlisted men to drink in the saloons in this town?" he
asked.
Somebody else wanted to know, "Is there any place in town where a fellow
can get a piece of pie?" A sailor was anxious to rent a bicycle or a
horse and "ride somewhere." Later the universal question became, "Don't
any of these people speak American?"
The men were hustled off the ship and marched into the long street which
runs parallel with the docks. They passed within a few feet of the
Germans. There was less than the length of a bayonet between them but
the doughboys did credit to their brief training. They kept their eyes
straight ahead.
"How do they look?" one of the newspapermen asked a German sergeant in
the group of prisoners.
"Oh, they look all right," he said professionally, "but you can't tell
yet. I'd want to see them in action first."
"They don't lift their knees high enough," he added and grinned at his
little joke.
A French soldier came up then and expostulated. He said that we must not
talk to the Germans and set his prisoners back to their task of lifting
rails. There were guards at both ends of the street, but scores of
children slipped by them and began to talk to the soldiers. There were
hardly half a dozen men in the first regiment who understood French.
Veterans of the Mexican border tried a little bad Spanish and when that
didn't work they fell back to signs. The French made an effort to meet
the visitors half way. I saw a boy extend his reader to a soldier and
explain that a fearfully homely picture which looked like a caterpillar
was a "chenille." The boy added that the chenille was so ugly that it
was without doubt German and no good. Children also pointed out familiar
objects in the book such as "Chats" and "Chiens," but as one soldier
said: "I don't care about those things, sonny: haven't you got a roast
chicken or an apple pie in that book?"
Some officers had tried to teach their men a little French on the trip
across, but not much seemed to stick. The men were not over curious as
to this strange language. One old sergeant went to his lieutenant and
said: "You know, sir, I've served in China and the Philippines and Cuba.
I've been up against this foreign language proposition before and I know
just what I need. If you'll write down a few words for me and tell me
how they're pronounced I won't have to bother you any more. I want 'Give
me a plate of ham and eggs. How much? What's your name?' and 'Do you
love me, kid?'"
The vocabulary of the officers did not seem very much more extensive
than that of the men. While the troops were disembarking officers were
striving to get supplies started for the camp several miles outside the
city. All the American motor trucks had been shipped on the slowest
steamer of the convoy but the French came to our aid. "I have just one
order," said the French officer, who met the first unit of the American
Expeditionary Army, "there is no American and no French now. There is
only ours."
Although the officer was kind enough to make ownership of all available
motor trucks common, he could not do as much for the language of the
poilus who drove them. I found the American motor truck chief hopelessly
entangled.
"Have you enough gasoline to go to the camp and back?" he inquired of
the driver of the first camion to be loaded. The Frenchman shrugged his
shoulders to indicate that he did not comprehend. The officer smiled
tolerantly and spoke with gentle firmness as if to a wayward child.
"Have you enough gasoline?" he said. Again the Frenchman's shoulders
went up. "Have you enough gasoline?" repeated the officer, only this
time he spoke loudly and fiercely as if talking to his wife. Even yet
the Frenchman did not understand. Inspiration came to the American
officer. Suddenly he gesticulated with both hands and began to imitate
George Beban as the French waiter in one of the old Weber and Fields
shows. "'Ave you enough of ze gaz-o-leene?" he piped mincingly. Then an
interpreter came.
After several companies had disembarked the march to camp began, up the
main street and along the fine shore road which skirts the bay. The band
struck up "Stars and Stripes Forever" and away they went. They did not
march well, these half green companies who had rolled about the seas so
long, but they held the eyes of all and the hearts of some. They
glorified even cheap tunes such as "If You Don't Like Your Uncle Sammy
Go Back to Your Home Across the Sea," and Sousa seemed a very master of
fire when the men paraded to his marches. These American units did not
give the impression of compactness which one gets from Frenchmen on the
march. The longer stride gives the doughboy an uneven gait. He looks
like a man walking across a plowed field and yet you cannot miss a sense
of power. You feel that he will get there even if his goal is the red
sun itself at the back of the hills.
There was no long drawn cheer from the people who lined the streets to
see the Americans pass. Even crowds in Paris do not cheer like that.
Instead individuals called out phrases of greeting and there was much
handclapping. Although mixed in point of service the men ran to type as
far as build went. They amazed the French by their height, although some
of the organizations which followed the first division are better
physically. Of course these American troops are actually taller than the
French and in addition they are thin enough to accentuate their height.
It was easy to pick out the youngsters, most of whom found their packs a
little heavy. They would stand up straighter though when an old sergeant
moved alongside and growled a word or two. It was easy to see that these
sergeants were of the old army. They were all lank men, boiled red from
within and without. They had put deserts and jungles under foot and no
distance would seem impossible for them along the good roads of France.
As ship after ship came in more troops marched to camp. The streets were
filled with the clatter of the big boots of doughboys throughout the
morning and well into the afternoon. There were American army mules,
too, and although the natives had seen the animal before in French
service, he attracted no end of attention. In his own particular army
the mule seems more picturesque. He has never learned French. It seems
to break his spirit, but he pranced and kicked and played the very devil
under the stimulus of the loud endearments of the American mule drivers.
The French were also interested in a company of American negroes
specially recruited for stevedore service. The negroes had been
outfitted with old cavalry overcoats of a period shortly after the Civil
War. They were blue coats with gold buttons and the lining was a
tasteful but hardly somber shade of crimson. Nor were the negroes
without picturesque qualities even when they had shed their coats and
gone to work. Their working shirts of white were inked all over with
pious sentences calculated to last through the submarine zone, but piety
was mixed. One big negro, for instance, had written upon his shirt:
"The Lord is my shepherd," but underneath he had drawn a large starfish
for luck. A few daring ones had ornamented themselves with skulls and
crossbones. To the negroes fell the bitterest disappointment of the
American landing in France. Two Savannah stevedores caught sight of a
black soldier in the French uniform and rushed up to exchange greetings.
The Senegalese shrugged his shoulders and turned away from the flood of
English.
"That," said one of the American darkies, "is the most ignorantest and
stuck up nigger I ever did see." They were not yet ready to believe that
the negro race had let itself in for the amazing complications of a
foreign language.
Later in the day the town was full of the eddies which occur when two
languages meet head on, for almost all the soldiers and sailors received
leave to come to town. They wanted beer and champagne and cognac,
chocolate, cake, crackers, pears, apples, cherries, picture postcards,
sardines, rings, cigarettes, and books of French and English phrases.
The phrase books were usually an afterthought, so commerce was
conducted with difficulty. A few of the shopkeepers equipped themselves
with dictionaries and painstakingly worked out the proper reply for each
customer. Signs were much more effective and when it came to purchase,
the sailor or soldier simply held out a handful of American money and
the storekeeper took a little. To the credit of the shopkeepers of the
nameless port, let it be said that they seemed in every case to take no
more than an approximation of the right amount. Fortunately the late
unpleasantness at Babel was not absolutely thoroughgoing and there are
words in French which offer no great difficulty to the American. The
entente cordiale is furthered by words such as "chocolat," "sandwich,"
"biere" and "bifstek." The difficulties of "vin" are not insurmountable
either.
"A funny people," was the comment of one doughboy, "when I ask for
'sardines' I get 'em all right, but when I say 'cheese' or 'canned
peaches' I don't get anything."
Another complained, "I don't understand these people at all. They spell
some of their words all right, but they haven't got the sense to say 'em
that way." He could see no reason why "vin" should sound like "van."
Another objection of the invading army was that the townsfolk demanded
whole sentences of French. Mixtures seemed incomprehensible to them and
the officer who kept crying out, "Madame, where are my oeufs?" got no
satisfaction whatever.
Late in the afternoon phrase books began to appear, but they did not
help a great deal because by the time the right phrase had been found
some fellow who used only sign language had slipped in ahead of the
student. Then, too, some of the books seemed hardly adapted for present
conditions. One officer was distinctly annoyed because the first
sentence he found in a chapter headed war terms was, "Where is the grand
stand?" But the book which seemed to fall furthest short of promise was
a pamphlet entitled, "Just the French You Want to Know."
"Look at this," said an indignant owner. "Le travail assure la santé et
la bien-être, il élève et fortifie l'âme, il adoucit les souffrances,
chasse l'ennui, et plaisir sans pareil, il est encore le sel des autres
plaisirs. Go on with it. Look at what all that means--'Work assures
health and well being, it elevates and fortifies the soul, drives away
ennui, alleviates suffering, and, a pleasure without an equal, it is
still the salt of all other pleasures'--what do you think of that? Just
the French you want to know! I don't want to address the graduating
class, I want to tell a barber to leave it long on top, but trim it
pretty close around the edges."
The happy purchaser of the book did not throw it away, however, until he
turned to the chapter headed "At the Tailor's" and found that the first
sentence set down in French meant, "The bodice is too tight in front,
and it is uncomfortable under the arms. It is a little too low-necked,
and the sleeves are not wide enough."
Sundown sent most of the soldiers scurrying back to camp, but the port
lacked no life that night, for sailors came ashore in increasing numbers
and American officers were everywhere. The two hotels--the Grand and
the Grand Hotel des Messageries, known to the army as the Grand and
Miserable Hotel--were thronged. Generals and Admirals rushed about to
conferences and in the middle of all the confusion a young second
lieutenant sat at the piano in the parlor of the Grand and played
Schumann's "Warum" over and over again as if his heart would break for
homesickness. The sailors and a few soldiers who seemed to have business
in the town had no trouble in making themselves at home.
"Mademoiselle, donnez moi un baiser, s'il vous plait," said one of the
apt pupils to the pretty barmaid at the Café du Centre.
But she said: "Mais non."
Crowds began to collect just off the main street. I hurried over to one
group of sailors, convinced that something important was going on, since
French soldiers and civilians stood about six deep. History was being
made indeed. For the first time "craps" was being played on French
soil.