XXVIII
Paris
January 30, 1918
Yesterday on my return to Paris I found all your letters awaiting me—a real big pile which took me over an hour to read. The latest was written on New Year's Day in the throes of coal shortage and intense cold. Really it seems absurd that you should be starved for warmth in America. Last week I was within eighteen kilometres of the Front line staying in a hotel as luxurious as the Astor, with plenty of heat and a hot bath at midnight in a private bathroom. All the appointments and comforts were perfect; booming through the night came the perpetual muttering of the guns. There were troops of all kinds marching up for an attack; the villages were packed, but there was no disorganization.
Well, I've had a great trip this last time. I went to see refugee work—and saw it. There were barracks full of babies—the youngest only six days' old. There were very many children who have been re-captured from the Huns.
To-morrow I start off for the borders of Switzerland to see the repatriated French civilians arrive. Then I go with the head of the Red Cross for a tour to see the reconstruction work in the devastated districts. When that is finished, I return to London to put my book together. I hope to get back to my battery about the end of March.
What a time I have had. A year ago it would have seemed impossible. I've motored, gone by speeders and trains to all kinds of quiet and ancient places which it would never have entered my head to visit in peace times. The American soldier is everywhere, striking a strange note of modernity and contrast. He sits on fences through the country-side, swinging his legs and smoking Bull Durham, when he isn't charging a swinging sack with a bayonet. He is the particular pal of all the French children.
I'm now due for a day of interviews and shall have to ring off. I rose at seven this morning so as to write this letter. At the moment I'm sitting in a deep arm-chair, with an electric lamp at my elbow. It's an awful war! In less than two months I'll be sitting in clothes that I haven't taken off for a fortnight—the mud will be my couch and the flash of the guns my reading lamp. It's funny, but up there in the discomfort I shall be ten times more happy.