How different the appearance of the canteen of our own Red Cross. It had a far less advantageous location; well outside the station train shed and only to be found by one who was definitely directed to it. Two buildings had been erected and another adapted for the canteen. They were plain enough outside, but inside they were typically American—which meant that light and color and warmth had been combined effectively to produce the effect of a home that might have been in Maine, or Ohio, or Colorado, or California, or any other nice corner of the old U. S. A. There was homelike atmosphere, too, in the long, low buildings enhanced by the unforgetable aroma of coffee being made—being made American style, if you please. That building boasted a long counter, and upon the counter miniature mountains of ham sandwiches and big brown doughnuts—sandwiches and doughnuts which actually had been fabricated from white flour—and ham sandwiches with a genuine flavor to them. And all in great quantity—2,000 meals in a single day was no unusual order—and for a price that was nominal, to put it lightly.
In another building there were more of the lights and the warm yellows and greens of good taste in decoration; a big piano with a doughboy at it some twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four—whole companies of divans and regiments of easy-chairs: American newspapers, many weekly publications, a lot of magazines, and books in profusion. The room was completely filled, but somehow one did not gain the sensation of its being crowded. The feeling that one carried from the place was that a bit of the U. S. A. had been set right down there at the corner of the great and busy chief railway terminal of the French city of Bordeaux. Only one forgot Bordeaux.
What was done at Bordeaux—and also at St. Nazaire and Nantes and Brest and Tours and Toul and many, many other points—by our Red Cross in the provision of canteen facilities was repeated in Paris, only on a far larger scale than at any other point. The A. R. C. L. O. C. canteens in Paris—there seems to be no holding in check that army passion for initialization—soon after the signing of the armistice had reached fourteen in number, of which about half were located in or close to the great railroad passenger terminals of the city. The others were hotels, large or small, devoted in particular to the housing of the doughboy and his officers on the occasions of their leaves to the capital—for no other point in France, not even the attractions of Biarritz or the sunny Riviera, can ever quite fill the place in the heart of the man in khaki that Paris, with all her refinements and her infinite variety of amusements, long since attained. These last canteens we shall consider in greater detail when we come to find our doughboy on leave. For the present we are seeing him still bound for the front, the war still in action, the great adventure still ahead.
A single glance at the records of the organization of the Army and Navy Department under which the canteen work along the lines of communication is grouped at the Paris headquarters of the American Red Cross, shows that it was not until February, 1918, that the inrush of the American Army in France had assumed proportions ample enough to demand a segregation of canteen accommodations for it from those offered to the poilus. As I have said, the canteens for the poilus were in the general nature of training or experimental stations for our really big canteen job over there, and as such more than justified the trouble or the cost; which does not take into the reckoning the valuable service which they rendered the blue-clad soldiers of our great and loyal friend—the French Republic.
Take Châlons, for instance: Châlons set an American Red Cross standard for canteens, particularly for such canteens as would have to take care of the physical needs and comforts of soldiers, perhaps in great numbers. This early Red Cross station was set in a large barracks some fifty yards distant from the chief railroad terminal of that busy town. And, as it often happened that the leave permits of the poilus did not permit them to go into the town, a fenced passage, with a sentinel, was builded from the train platforms to the canteen entrance. At that entrance, a coat room where the soldier could check his bulky kit was established.
On going into the restaurant of the canteen one quickly discovered that what might otherwise have been a dull and dreary barracks' interior had been transformed by French artists—the French have a marvelous knack for doing this very sort of thing—into a light, cheerful, and amusing room. The effect on the poilus who visited it for the first time was instantaneous; they had not been used to that sort of thing.
At one end of the gay and happy room was the counter from which the meals were served by the American women working in the canteen. The soldier went first to the cashier and from her bought either a ticket for a complete meal, or for any special dish that might appeal to his fancy or to his jaded appetite. He then went to the counter, was handed his food on a tray, and took it to one of the clean, white-tiled tables that lined the room. Groups of friends might gather at a table. But no one was long alone, unless he chose to be. Friendships are made quickly in the spirit of such a place, and the chatter and laughter that pervaded it reflected the gayety of its decorations.
After eating, if it was still summer, the poilu might stroll in the garden where there were seats, a pergola, even a Punch and Judy Theater—for your Frenchman, be he Parisian or peasant, dearly loves his guignol—or he might find his way to the recreation room, where there were writing materials, games, magazines, lounging chairs, a piano and a victrola. Here men might group around the piano and sing to their hearts' content. And here the popularity of Madelon was quite unquestioned.
And after all of this was done, he might retire to the dormitories with absolute assurance that he would be called in full time for his train—whether that train left at one o'clock in the morning or at four. And if he so chose, in the morning might refresh himself in the fully equipped washrooms, shower baths, or the barber shop, have his coffee and eggs, his fruit and his beloved confiture and go aboard the train in the full spirit of a man at complete peace with the world.