“One of the fellows, a conscript, that came to fill a vacant place in our lines, he was only over in France two weeks, and it was his first time in a trench. He landed there at six o’clock in the evening, and just like I’m telling you, at a quarter past six a shell up and exploded and buried him right where he stood. Yes, ma’am, you certainly do see some very peculiar things in this war.”
From another, “We took the whole lot of ’em prisoners, and passed ’em back to the rear, but out of the fifteen we took, eight died of sudden heart-disease before they got back to the prisoners’ camp.” (I tried not to believe this, but the fact that it was told with a laugh and received with a laugh reminded me gruesomely that we are the nation that permits lynching of helpless men by the mob.)
From another, “Some of the fellows say they think about the Lusitania when they go after the Boche. I don’t have to come down as far as that. Belgium’s plenty good enough a whetstone for my bayonet.” (This reminded me with a thrill that we are the nation that has always ultimately risen in defense of the defenseless.)
From another, “One of our own darkies went up to one of these here Senegalese and began talking United States to him. Of course the other darkey talked back in French, and ours said, ‘Why, you pore thing! You be’n over heah so long you dun forgot yo’ motheh-tongue!’”
From another, “Oh, I can’t stand the French! They make me tired! And their jabber! I seen some of ’em talk it so fast they couldn’t even understand each other! Honest, I did.”
From another, “There’s something that sort of takes me about the life over here. I’m not going to be in any hurry to go back to the States and hustle my head off, after the war’s over.”
From another, “Not for mine. Me for Chicago the day after the Boches are licked.”
They were swept away by a counter-current somewhere in the khaki ebb and flow about us, and I found myself with a start next to a poilu, yes a real poilu with a faded horizon-blue uniform and a domed, battered, blue French casque, such a poilu as had filled the town when I had lived there.
“Well,” I said to him, “things have changed here. The town’s khaki now.” He looked at me out of bright brown eyes, smiled, and entered into conversation. We talked, of course, of the American soldier, one of whom came up and stood at my elbow. When I stopped to speak to him, “Gee!” he said, “I wish I could rip it off like that. I can say ‘combien’ and ‘trop cher,’ but there I stick. Say, what does the Frenchman say about us? Now, since that little Belleau-wood business I guess they see we know a thing or two ourselves about how to run a war! They’re all right, of course; mighty fine soldiers, but Lord! you’d know by the way any one of them does business, as if he’s all day for it, that they couldn’t run a war fast, the way it ought to be run, the way we’re going to run it, now we’re here.”
I did not think it necessary to translate all of this to the bright-eyed little Frenchman on my other side, who began to talk as the American stopped. “You asked my opinion of the American troops, Madame. I will give it to you frankly. The first who came over, your regular army, the mercenaries, made a very bad impression indeed. All who have come since have made the best possible impression. They are really astonishingly courageous, and there could be no better, or more cordial comrades in the world. But oh! Madame, as far as they really know how to make modern war, they are children, just children! They make the mistakes we made four years ago. They have so much to learn of the technique of war, and they will lose so many men in learning it! It is sad to think of!”