This was said with such an evident desire to justify her good opinion of me as a rational being in spite of apparent foolishness, that I said: “That is precisely the reason”; and we turned with zest to the unfailing topic of the Parisiennes with their jewels and paint and high heels. Not having her courage, I did not venture to ask the sthreeler if she did not really envy them.
They are going in strong for education in the A. E. F. and we have lost temporarily the services of many of our best officers. Lieutenant Colonel Reed has gone off to school and also the three Majors and half the Captains. I hope they are getting something out of their schooling for nobody here is learning anything except how to lead the life of a tramp. The men have no place to drill or to shoot or to manœuvre. I hear we are moving soon to fresh fields further south—Heaven grant it, for we waste time here.
GRAND
December 23rd, 1917
I think it was Horace who said something to the effect that far-faring men change the skies above them but not the hearts within them. That occurs to me when I see our lads along the streets of this ancient Roman town. It is old, old, old. You have to go down steps to get to the floor of the 700-year-old Gothic nave of the church because the detritus of years has gradually raised the level of the square; and the tower of the church, a huge square donjon with walls seven feet thick slitted for defensive bowmen, is twice as old as the nave. And it has the ruins of an amphitheatre and a well preserved mosaic pavement that date back to the third century, when the Caesars had a big camp here to keep the Gauls in order. I shan’t say that the men are not interested in these antiquities. They are an intelligent lot, and unsated by sight-seeing, and they give more attention to what they see than most tourists would. When I worked the history of the place into my Sunday sermon I could see that everybody was wide awake to what I had to say.
But in their hearts they are still in good little old New York. The quips and slang of New York play houses are heard on the streets where Caesar’s legionaries chaffed each other in Low Latin. Under the fifteen centuries old tower Phil Brady maintains the worth of Flushing because Major Lawrence hails from there. Paul Haerting and Dryer exchange repartee outside the shrine of St. Libaire, Virgin and Martyr, after their soldiers orisons at his tomb. Charles Dietrich and Jim Gormley interrupt my broodings over the past in the ruins of the amphitheater to ask me news about our parish in the Bronx.
The 2nd and 3rd Battalions are not in such an antique setting, but in two villages along the bare hillsides to the south of us. It is a good walk to get to them; but I have my reward. When I get to the 2nd Battalion, if the men are busy, I drop in on Phil Gargan for a cup of coffee. I am always reminded of my visits to Ireland by the hospitality I encounter—so warm and generous and bustling and overwhelming. I get my coffee, too much of it, and too sweet, and hot beyond human endurance, and food enough offered with it to feed a platoon. And I am warm with a glow that no steaming drink could ever produce of itself. It is the same wherever I go. For instance if my steps lead me to the 3rd Battalion Pat Boland spices his coffee with native wit; or if my taste inclines me to tea I look up Pat Rogan who could dig up a cup of tea in the middle of a polar expedition.
While I am on the question of eating—always an interesting topic to a soldier—let me say a word for French inns. I came to Grand with Regimental Sergeant Major Steinert, ahead of the Regiment in charge of a billetting detail, and thus made the acquaintance of the establishment of Madame Gerard at the Sign of the Golden Boar. I have seen a M. Gerard but, as in all well regulated families, he is a person with no claim to figure in a story. I am in love for the first time, and with Madame Gerard. Capable and human and merry, used to men and their queer irrational unfeminine ways, and quite able to handle them, hundreds at a time. A joke, a reprimand, and ever and always the final argument of a good meal—easy as easy. She reigns in her big kitchen, with its fireplace where the wood is carefully managed but still gives heat enough to put life and savor into the hanging pots and the sizzling turnspits. Odors of Araby the blest! And she serves her meals with the air of a beneficent old Grande Dame of the age when hospitality was a test of greatness. Private or General—it makes no difference to her. The same food and the same price and the same frank motherly humor—and they all respond with feelings that are common to all. I sit before the kitchen fire while she is at work, and talk about the war and religion and our poor soldiers so far from their mothers, and the cost of food and the fun you can get out of life, and when I get back to my cold room I go to bed thinking of how much I have learned, and that I can see at last how France has been able to stand this war for three and a half years.
The Colonel’s mess is at the Curé’s house. It too is a pleasant place to be, for the Colonel lays aside his official air of severity when he comes to the table, and is his genial, lovable self. The Curé dines with us—a stalwart mountaineer who keeps a young boar in his back yard as a family pet. One would have thought him afraid of nothing. But courage comes by habit; and I found that the Curé had his weak side. His years had not accustomed him to the freaks of a drunken man—a testimonial to his parishioners. We had a cook, an old Irishman, who could give a new flavor to nectar on Olympus; that is, if he didn’t drink too much of it first. But he would, trust Paddy for that, even if threatened with Vulcan’s fate of being pitched out headfirst for his offense.
One day Tom Heaney and Billy Hearn came running for me. Paddy on the rampage! The aged bonne in hysterics. The Curé at his wits’ end. Come! I went. I found Paddy red-eyed and excited, and things in a mess. I curtly ordered him into a chair, and sent for Doc. Houghton, our mess officer, to do justice. Meanwhile I studied a map on the wall, with my back turned to the offender, and the following one-sided dialogue ensued—like a telephone scene at a play.