But the stream of khaki continued to pour out of the ship's side. Company after company of our men, loaded down with packs and full field equipment, lined up on the dock and marched past the group of German prisoners.
"We're passing in review for you, Fritzie," one irrepressible from our ranks shouted, as the marching line passed within touching distance of the prisoner group. The Germans responded only with quizzical little smiles and silence.
Escorted by our own military bands, the regiments marched through the main street of the village. The bands played "Dixie"—a new air to France. The regiments as a whole did not present the snappy, marching appearance that they might have presented. There was a good reason for this. Sixty per cent. of them were recruits. It had been wisely decided to replace many of the old regular army men in the ranks with newly enlisted men, so that these old veterans could remain in America and train the new drafts.
However, that which impressed the French people was the individual appearance of these samples of American manhood. Our men were tall and broad and brawny. They were young and vigorous. Their eyes were keen and snappy. Their complexions ranged in shade from the swarthy sun-tanned cheeks of border veterans to the clear pink skins of city youngsters. But most noticeable of all to the French people were the even white rows of teeth which our men displayed when they smiled. Good dentistry and clean mouths are essentially American.
The villagers of St. Nazaire, old men and women, girls and school children, lined the curbs as our men marched through the town. The line of march was over a broad esplanade that circled the sandy beach of the bay, and then wound upward into the higher ground back of the town. The road here was bordered on either side with ancient stone walls covered with vines and over the tops of the walls there extended fruit-laden branches to tempt our men with their ripe, red lusciousness. As they marched through the heat and dust of that June day, many succumbed to the temptations and paid for their appetites with inordinately violent colics that night.
A camp site had been partially prepared for their reception. It was located close to a French barracks. The French soldiers and gangs of German prisoners, who had been engaged in this work, had no knowledge of the fact that they were building the first American cantonment in France. They thought they were constructing simply an extension of the French encampment.
That first contingent, composed of United States Infantrymen and Marines, made its first camp in France with the smallest amount of confusion, considering the fact that almost three-quarters of them hadn't been in uniform a month. It was but several hours after arriving at the camp that the smoke was rising from the busy camp stoves and the aroma of American coffee, baked beans and broiled steaks was in the air.
On the afternoon of that first day some of the men were given permission to visit the town. They began to take their first lessons in French as they went from café to café in futile efforts to connect up with such unknown commodities as cherry pie or ham and egg sandwiches. Upon meeting one another in the streets, our men would invariably ask: "Have you come across any of these FROGS that talk American?"
There was nothing disrespectful about the terms Frogs or Froggies as applied to their French comrades in arms. American officers hastened to explain to French officers that the one piece of information concerning France most popularly known in America was that it was the place where people first learned to eat frog legs and snails.
The Frenchmen, on the other hand, were somewhat inclined to believe that these first Americans didn't live up to the European expectations of Americans. Those European expectations had been founded almost entirely upon the translations of dime novels and moving picture thrillers of the Wild West and comedy variety.