Chapter IV
PERSHING
Persons about to be received by the great are invariably amusing; I know, for I have had the "funny feeling" of the man who waits without. A reception-room is a "first-aid station" in practical psychology. The nonchalance, perfectly transparent and that deceives no one, not even the man who feigns it; the effort to convince the other fellow of your own importance or the importance of your mission; the anxiety and nervousness that you hide behind venerable magazines—these are a few of the symptoms of the "about-to-be-ushered-into-the-presence-of."
I had stepped over to the general headquarters from the Y. M. C. A. hut, to ascertain when "The General" would see me, and had been surprised when Colonel Boyd, his secretary, said:
"Can you wait? He will meet you this afternoon."
And so in the plain but ample room separated from General Pershing's private office by a smaller room occupied by his secretary I entertained myself for two hours while the man upon whom the nation has placed so great a responsibility wrestled with his problems. And while I waited, I studied psychology. I began with a more or less complete analysis of my own mental state—but why discuss personal matters when there are other people to talk about?
I was particularly interested in a little group of Frenchmen. One of them was a general, I should judge, although uniforms and gold braid in France often mislead a civilian, and I had been saluting letter-carriers for a week before my attention was called to the mistake. He had with him two aids, one of whom was an interpreter. The French officers sat with their backs toward the entrance of the small room already referred to. Just within the entrance was a table on which were four hand-grenades, unloaded, but with their detonating-caps in place. However, the exact status of the grenades, which I have just revealed, was unknown to me until after it happened.
On one of the periodical excursions of my eyes about the bare walls of the room—a room overlooking a great barrack court, flanked on two sides and closed at one end by long, low gray stone buildings—they stopped with a shock at the grenades on the table. The table was directly in front of me and directly behind the French officers, who sat within ten feet of it. When my eyes were arrested in their aimless wandering, one of those hand-grenades was in the act of falling off that table. I knew nothing about the nature of grenades at the time, only that they were, potentially at least, small but effective engines of destruction. At any rate, there was nothing that I could do but brace myself against what might happen when that grenade met the floor.
What happened was this: the detonating-cap exploded. It was a relatively small noise as this war goes, but within the four walls of a quiet room it gave a pretty good account of itself. It was particularly disquieting to men without warning of it, men for several years accustomed to associate all such disturbances with the business of killing. The French general and his aids rose hurriedly and with ejaculations! Every man in the two rooms decreased the distance between himself and the ceiling. Only General Pershing remained unperturbed; at least, no sound came from within and his door was not opened.
After the field had been cleared and the composure of the innocent bystanders restored, I took up again my task of waiting. Colonel Boyd was courteous and interesting; indeed, the American officer overseas as I saw him was two things—busy, very busy, and always courteous. He has no time to waste, but he is efficient without being a "gump." His efficiency is branded with his Americanism; water-mains, railroads, and warehouses built by Uncle Sam's engineers carry no "made in America" label, but their origin is unmistakable. They look and they act the part! There are French cities now that remind one of a section of Bridgeport, Conn., or of Chicago.
And what romance walks with those who have come so far to make the paths straight for democracy! An Oregon company of engineers, while excavating in a certain city that nearly girdles a beautiful harbor, dug up a cache of Roman coins bearing the head of Marcus Aurelius. The tombs of the past are being opened in more ways than one by these soldiers of the present; the old and the new are joined together, and the West has come to the East.