France, la belle France! How often have we dreamed of you in better days! Bright, vivacious France, whose wit and laughter sparkled like champagne, whose joy was ever rampant! How soon your smiles and tears were to intermingle with our own!
But the soldiers on board had not yet learned to speak in French, and they responded in our own dull tongue: "Good-day, little girls. Hello, little boys," and they dropped silver coins and pennies on the quay.
The French children had already learned a word or two of English, and they had also discovered that the Tommy understood two very useful French words. Not to be outdone in courtesy, they flung them up to us in piping chorus: "Good-night, cigarette, souvenir!"
How many thousand times we have since heard this same greeting! It has become the children's formula, and as a gracious concession to our ignorance of French has met its just reward—in pennies.
Dusk fell before we had completed the unloading of our equipment and had it all stowed away in the hangar. Then we formed up and, with a French boy-scout as guide, started our march toward camp.
The senior major, on his splendid black horse, led the van; the men, contrary to military custom, carrying a Union Jack, followed, and Captain Reggy and I, mounted, brought up the rear.
The first half-mile of our march was uneventful, as there were few people in the streets of the basse ville; but as we passed farther up into the city the sidewalks became crowded with spectators. At first the French mistook us for English soldiers on the march, the sight of whom, while an almost hourly occurrence, was still a matter of keen interest. But as the crowd, becoming larger and larger, and pushing one another off the sidewalks into the road, caught a glimpse of our shoulder badges marked "Canada," the word was passed from mouth to mouth with lightning-like rapidity, and the excitement became intense.
They broke forth into the wildest cheering and shouted again and again, "Les Canadiens! Vive le Canada!" until the clamour was deafening. Men, women and children surrounded us in thousands, laughing, singing and talking, shaking the soldiers by the hand, embracing and even kissing them in the excess of their welcome.
That the boys weren't always kissed on account of their irresistible beauty may be gathered from this little conversation which took place en passant:
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed one of the girls to her nearest neighbour, "why did you kiss that ugly face?"